Some DVDs and CDs I got (part two):-


Three Extremes - A "horror" anthology of three directors from Asian regions - Japan, Hong Kong and Korea. "Box" from Takashi Miike is totally crap, an art-house symbolic and surrealistic piece of nonsense that doesn't go anywhere. Reminds me of a toned-down Santa Sangre actually, which is superior in all aspects. "Dumplings" is alright - not that gruesome as foetus-consuming in China is common knowledge. Works well only because I'm familiar with the faces. "Cut" - my favourite - OTT acting, Argento-ish contraptions and gore! Dying to check out "Oldboy" now, from the same director. Rubbish ending, though.


Lady Snowblood & Lady Snowblood : Love Song of Vengeance - Two female samurai flicks that work much better than the movie Lone Wolf & Cub, as derived from its source material - period manga. Kazuo Koike of Lone Wolf fame wrote this and the director is sympathetic to the source - weird comic-like angles, video game-style violence, poetic in cinematography in parts and structured in chapters (the first one, anyway). Kill Bill may have riped the first movie off but in all aspects, I think Lady Snowblood is a much more superior movie, redolent with atmosphere, poetry and feels better throughout. I personally think Frank Miller's Elektra owes a lot to this as well, and seem to think he didn't endorse a reprint of the Lady Snowblood comic cos it makes him out to be a copycat. I liked its sequel better though, as Kaji Meiko (playing Snowblood) gets to wield a gun and the storyline is a bit denser and the motives of all the lead characters are more ambiguous.

CDs -


Yello - One Second & Flag - Very disappointed with both, as they neither feature the off-kilter jaunty rhythms nor the surrealism of "You've Gotta Say Yes to Another Excess". To top it all off, both also sound hardly as good as 1991's "Baby".

Miles Davis - Essential - Hardly a good retrospect of the great man's work, as there is too much early material here. But then again, two discs will hardly cover his career faithfully.


Elvis Costello - King Of America - My favourite Costello album, besides Spike. My first intro to roots music, redressed in modernity and visceral lyricism. My cassette copy's fucked beyond repair.