Sensei Sensibility

Welcome to Sensei Sensibility!  You  are the hungry mind yearning to devour quality Asian cinema;  I  am the (questionably) knowledgeable  Sensei , more than happy to satiate your cinematic appetite. The great thing about the  Katsuhito Ishii Collection Box Set  from Third Window Films is that the works selected show the staggering diversity and continued growth of the director they're highlighting. Everything from violent, hyper-surreal, stylized V Cinema pieces to charming, heart warming coming-of-age movies. The genres may change, but Kasuhito Ishii stays very much - wonderfully - the same.  Hello Junichi! (2014): Who doesn't love a Little Rascals-esque coming of age story that shows the beauty of friendship but in a cool, non-saccharine way? The lives of wimpy third grader Junichi Hayashida (Amon Kabe) and his little pals are changed forever when a sassy new student teacher Miss Anna (Mitsushima Hikari) enters their classroom.  The di...

Welcome to Sensei Sensibility!  You  are the hungry mind yearning to devour quality Asian cinema;  I  am the (questionably) knowledgeable  Sensei , more than happy to satiate your cinematic appetite. Oh sweet baby Jesus gently swaddled in a manger with assorted farm animals lowing reverently in his general mystical direction. The  Katsuhito Ishii  from Third Window Films is the bonkers gift that keeps on giving. I'm rarely stuck for words and yet - here we are! I will attempt to review Party 7 , however, in the interests of journalistic integrity I must admit... I hadn't a bloody clue what going most of the time.  So, without further ado: Elvisly coiffed, pink leather jacket wearing Miki (majestically portrayed by Masatoshi Nagase)  is on the run from his Yakuza family with a suitcase full of stolen syndicate moolah.  He decides to lie low at hotel New Mexico where he bizarrely ends up crossing paths with stunning ex-girlfriend the gold...

  Welcome to Sensei Sensibility!  You  are the hungry mind yearning to devour quality Asian cinema;  I  am the (questionably) knowledgeable  Sensei , more than happy to satiate your cinematic appetite. If you like girls, guns, gangsters, and bloody hideous (but weirdly fabulous) outfits - then you are in for a treat . Tonight, my dear readers, we have a double-bill of Katushito Ishii related madness that we know will melt your butter. So dim the lights and grab the popcorn, it's time to raid the Third Window Films  Katsuhito Ishii Collection . SHARK SKIN MAN & PEACH HIP GIRL (1998) Based on Minetaro Mochizuki's manga of the same name, SSM&PHG is a violent flick about on-the-run Yakuza Samehada. (Mischievously played by the absolutely gorgeous Tadanobu Asano .)  Samehada has been a very bold boy indeed and has stolen 100 million yen from his syndicate; an act his Bond-Villain-Esque boss Tanuki (coldly played by Ittoku Kishibe) takes exce...

Welcome to Sensei Sensibility!  You  are the hungry mind yearning to devour quality Asian cinema;  I  am the (questionably) knowledgeable  Sensei , more than happy to satiate your cinematic appetite. "Is this literature, or a prank?" - Masahiro Higashide Gakuryu Ishii 's 2018 movie adaptation of Ko Machida 's novel Punk Samurai Slash Down - how the hell do I review this without sounding like I've been licking hallucinogenic toads?  Let us start at the beginning, dear readers.  Picture it: Rural feudal Japan. A purple haze rolls over the mountains of the Kuroae domain. The camera surfs along with the rock 'n' roll soundtrack. A lone samurai and a ne'er do-well cross (exquisitely framed) paths. The ne'er do-well is obviously a member of the troublesome "Bellyshaker Party" and must be cut down by the lone samurai. And in an explosion of blood worthy of a  Tokyo Gore  flick, we are introduced to the potty-mouthed, "superhuman swordsm...

Welcome to Sensei Sensibility! You are the hungry mind yearning to devour quality Asian cinema; I am the (questionably) knowledgeable Sensei , more than happy to satiate your cinematic appetite. To anyone who's had the grave misfortune of living through the years 2020 to, well,  now , the phrase "New Normal" invokes chilling flashbacks to masks, hand sanitizer, and extremely awkward outdoor day-time coffee dates walking two metres from your crush.  However, thanks to the ever wonderful Dublin International Film Festival , New Normal means a raucously dark Korean thriller from Haunted Asylum 's Jung Bum-shik.  Jung has created a masterful, Hitchcockian anthology where the lives of strangers meet, and part, in ways unexpected - and often deadly.  The film opens with an ominous tone. Violence and misery run rampant in Seoul, fear and paranoia are the order of the day, and the weather adds to the apocalyptic overtones.  It's snowing. In June. For the first ti...

Welcome to Sensei Sensibility!  You  are the hungry mind yearning to devour Asian horror cinema;  I  am the (questionably) knowledgeable  Sensei , more than happy to satiate your cinematic appetite. Rosemary's Baby meets Joko Anwar in Netflix's latest Indonesian release The Womb . ( Inang in Indonesian) Papa Don't Preach, Wulan is in trouble deep!  Poor, young Wulan, sympathetically played by Naysila Mirdad , has found herself landed with an unexpected pregnancy, a job loss and an impending eviction.  The charming young gent who put her in the family way wants nothing to do with Wulan and the baby -  unless it's to pay for an abortion. Financial assistance and compassion are  not to be found in her sleazy manager's office at the local supermarket where she works - unless she's succumbs willingly to his moustachioed, sexual advances. And the animal print shirt wearing landlord of the grotty slums where Wulan lives has had enough of waitin...

Welcome to Sensei Sensibility!  You  are the hungry mind yearning to devour quality Asian cinema;  I  am the (questionably) knowledgeable  Sensei , more than happy to satiate your cinematic appetite. If the plot of Netflix's new K-thriller Unlocked is anything to go by, it looks like I'm not the only one who's been bingeing the hit show You . The gorgeous Lee Na-mi (Chun Woo-hee) is a carefree, and careless, twenty-something student who, like most twenty-something-year-olds, charges through life with her phone firmly glued to her hand, relying on it for every conceivable thing.  After a night of wild partying, the unthinkable happens and Na-mi wakes to find her phone missing! Fear not, gentle Na-mi, for a kindly voiced woman has just rung saying she found your phone on the night-bus, with its screen cracked, and has helpfully left it in for you to be repaired at Woo's Phone Repair.  Crisis averted!  Thoughts and prayers of gratitude for this good...

Welcome to Sensei Sensibility!  You  are the hungry mind yearning to devour quality Asian cinema;  I  am the (questionably) knowledgeable  Sensei , more than happy to satiate your cinematic appetite. "Joy and despair on an endless cycle..." If you like non-linear storytelling, oddly-disjointed but still loosely connected overlapping vignettes, based on a cult manga then Zokki from  Third Window Films  should definitely be next on your watch list!  Based on the manga  "ZOKKI A" and "ZOKKI B" by Hiroyuki Ohashi's and directed by not one, not two, but THREE top-notch Japanese directors - Naoto Takenaka, Takayaki Yamada, and Takumi Saitoh; Zokki is a quirky comedy that draws its laughs from the toilet, and its characters from the heart. Starting off Road Movie style, the film sees thirty-something Fujimura (Matsuda Ryuhei) cycling away from his ramshackle apartment, and travelling "aimlessly" around the picturesque rural roads out of Sakamoto To...