Sensei Sensibility

Welcome to Sensei Sensibility! You are the hungry mind yearning to devour Asian horror themed cinema; I am the (questionably) knowledgeable Sensei , more than happy to satiate your cinematic appetite. Here on Sensei Sensibility we’ve covered plenty of ghosts ‘n’ ghouls (and even a gangster), no wonder we’re feeling peckish for something more… meaty… and delicious… like juicy, juicy braaaaaaains. (Or cabbages!) The Odd Family: Zombie on Sale , or as it’s succinctly known on Shudder: Zombie For Sale is a 2019 Korean zom-com that chomps away at the genre… and spits it back out. Against the backdrop of a thunderously dark and stormy night, a zombie escapes from a  local big pharma complex. Zombie-ism being an unexpected side-effect of a new diabetes drug, this once-test-subject is now making a beeline for the local village.  That would be a sinister enough opening to any horror movie were it not for the fact that our zombie, adorably played by Jung Ga-Ram , is the most inef...

Welcome to Sensei Sensibility! You are the hungry mind, yearning to devour Asian cinema; I am the (questionably) knowledgeable Sensei , more than happy to satiate your cinematic appetite! If you’re looking for a blood-soaked, badass gangster movie - look no further than Kazuya Shiraishi ’s 2018 Yakuza epic The Blood of Wolves ( Korō no Chi). Set in Hiroshima, summer 1988, maverick Detective Shogo Ogami has just teamed up with young rookie Shuichi Hioka on The Case of the Missing Financier from a Yakuza Affiliated Company. Kinda feels like a waste of time either of them hoping to find him alive as the film actually opens with a graphic and brutal depiction of Missing Financier’s sad, stomach churning, and darkly comic demise. However, this one death is just the tipping point for what will be an unforgiving and savage war between the Odani-gumi and Kakomura-gumi yakuza gangs - heads will roll. Literally. The irascible, womanising Ogami is played with genuine wit and charisma by ...

Welcome to Sensei Sensibility! You are the hungry mind, yearning to devour Asian horror themed cinema; I am the (questionably) knowledgeable Sensei , more than happy to satiate your cinematic appetite. Chances are, you’re familiar (at least in passing) with Master of Horror Junji Ito. As a highly-acclaimed, prolific manga-ka, Ito carved his throne of nightmares with grotesque and surreal genre-pushing imagery and storylines.  Often blending horror and sci-fi, the beauty of Ito’s terror is the fact his works depict scenes that are beyond the day-to-day imagination and comprehension of us mere mortals. How then, do you take the monstrous, otherworldly works of Ito off the page and onto the screen? Generally, with great difficulty. Enter Higuchinsky’s Made For T.V. movie Nagai Yume , (2000) better known in the west as The Long Dream. While there are certain Junji Ito stories that lend themselves to cinematic adaptation - Tomie , for example, centring round an attractive “human...

Welcome to Sensei Sensibility! You are the hungry mind, yearning to devour Asian horror themed cinema; I am the (questionably) Sensei , more than happy to satiate your cinematic appetite. I have a question for you. One Missed Call. Originally the novel Chakushin Ari by Yasushi Akimoto, later adapted for film in 2003 by enfant terrible Takashi Miike. (Audition, Ichi the Killer - to name but a few.) IS IT ACTUALLY ANY GOOD? What do you think? Let us discuss further, dear reader… One Missed Call is one of those movies that feels like it should be excellent. It’s a 2004 J-Horror centred around an exceedingly eerie urban legend, filmed by a renowned director -  who at the time was still in his ghoulish prime.  It ticks all the boxes. It should, in theory, be the number one J-Horror of all time. So what went wrong? Let me pause there, and rewind. One Missed Call focuses on the beautiful, young Yumi Nakamura. (Played by none other than Ko Shibasaki who also portrayed the ...

  Welcome to Sensei Sensibility! You are the hungry mind, yearning to devour Asian horror themed media; I am the (questionably) knowledgeable Sensei , more than happy to satiate your televisual appetite. Much like yourself, I’m a fanatical connoisseur of Asian horror. In particular, the Ju-On franchise to me was not just the gateway into horrific Asiatic obsessions, but the whole haunted house and backyard to boot. Despite spawning three noughties American remakes as The Grudge  -  (yes, the Buffy Grudges – which were a decent effort) and one absolutely appalling reimagining in January 2020 (more like a generic Insidious universe spin-off than anything remotely Grudge related)  - as far as western modern mainstream cinema was concerned: Ju-On , was nothing more than a nostalgic relic from the golden era of J-Horror. A relic, and franchise, that stayed by and large in its original era. Those in the know, however, knew that from 1998 right up to 2016, Kaya...