Sensei Sensibility

Welcome to Sensei Sensibility!  You  are the hungry mind yearning to devour bonkers Kaiju cinema;  I  am the (questionably) knowledgeable  Sensei , more than happy to satiate your cinematic appetite. It's Kaiju Time! *Takes off glasses, massages nose bridge and exhales deeply. Eyes closed* Shin. Ultraman. How to review legendary Tokusatsu director Shinji Higuchi' s superhero send-up without sounding like I've spent the last month licking a barrel of hallucinogenic toads? The backstory to the character alone goes all the way back to the 1960s!  Feck it! I can't.  Might as well just go in, all "nasty laser beams" blazing.  So strap yourself in, it's going to get weird . Back in the SSSP... Present day Japan, Kaiju (giant monsters such as Godzilla, Mothra, Gamera, and so on) openly   exist, and randomly pop up around Japan causing all manner of amusing chaos and destruction to varying degrees.  A counter-Kaiju organisation known as the S-...

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. "The dragon lives in the human heart..." Every now and then, a movie comes along that reminds you exactly why you want to spend all your spare time thinking, talking and writing about Asian cinema. Sogo (now Gakuryu ) Ishii's 2000 cult classic Electric Dragon 80.000 V is one such film. Move Over Detective Pikachu... Highly reminiscent  of the works of Shinya Tsukamoto,  Electric Dragon  is an  electrifying , punk renegade sci-fi, that draws on an exquisite B-Movie aesthetic. Shot entirely in black and white and set in a vaguely dystopian future/alternate reality Tokyo, we meet "Dragon Eye" Morrison, the great reptile detective. Trawling the backstreets and side-alleys of the city, Dragon Eye makes his living tirelessly searching for lost or mis...