For centuries, the Tawara family has defended Japan from within the shadows. After their beloved son is killed in a mission, though, they abandon the shinobi way and fall into dysfunction. But when a new threat emerges in the form of an increasingly popular cult, can the Tawaras overcome their differences and their grief, reclaim their shinobi skills, and defend the country once again? At its best, House of Ninjas is an enjoyable series about a modern family who just happen to be deadly shadow warriors. To its detriment, though, it never quite makes up its mind whether it’s a quirky comedy or a serious drama. That, and it juggles just a few too many storyline ideas within its eight episodes. But the most frustrating thing about House of Ninjas’ first season is that it ends on a cliffhanger with lots of unresolved questions. Since Netflix has a history of canceling promising series after just one season — I see you, Lockwood & Co. — I’m not holding my breath for season two. But if it happens, I’ll definitely be watching.
My Cultural Diet
When two Hong Kong cops (Michelle Yeoh, Michael Wong) and a Japanese detective (Hiroyuki Sanada) kill a couple of terrorists trying to a hijack an airliner, they land in the crosshairs of the terrorists’ comrades — with predictably dire and action-filled results. Given that premise, 1986’s Royal Warriors — the first of the In the Line of Duty films that popularized the “girls with guns” genre in the ’80s and ’90s — is a surprisingly grim movie. I say “surprisingly” because you’d never guess that from the film’s flashy style, ’80s fashion, and jazz-funk soundtrack, as well as Wong’s constant attempts to woo Yeoh even after a terrorist tries to gun them down in the most ’80s nightclub of all time. Royal Warriors is a bit of mess, tone-wise, but the action’s phenomenal. This being a “girls with guns” movie, Yeoh gets top billing, but Sanada — who, for the record, is currently killing it on Shōgun — steals every scene he’s in, playing a haunted family man pushed to the brink of revenge. I’d watch a whole ‘nother movie that was just about his character.
Apple’s Masters of the Air is an ambitious and stirring series about the 100th Bomb Group and the dangerous missions they flew over Germany. Depicting the brutality of World War II in graphic detail, Masters of the Air doesn’t shy away from the costs paid by those men, which only highlights their bravery. In hindsight, though, it might’ve been too ambitious, trying to cram too much story into just nine episodes. Certain elements — e.g., war’s psychological toll, the Tuskegee Airmen, the dangers faced by pilots shot down behind enemy lines and those helping them, the horrors of the Holocaust — get unfortunately shortchanged and end up feeling tangential. Also, the series’ relatively large cast and steady turnover of “main” characters occasionally makes it difficult to know who to follow, or whose story is actually being told. On the one hand, that makes historical sense; the daytime bombing raids were a meat grinder and the series never diminishes the constant loss of life. On the other hand, that storytelling decision sometimes causes the series to meander — which again, makes me wish there’d been a few more episodes to give it more room to breathe. Even so, Masters of the Air remains worth watching, thanks to solid performances from Austin Butler, Callum Turner, Barry Keoghan, and Nate Mann; impressive visuals and production values; and Blake Neely’s score.
Since Amazon Prime is releasing a Road House remake later this month, it seemed like a good idea to rewatch the original 1989 film starring Patrick Swayze in all of his ’80s glory. It’s an enjoyable enough film, an example of prime ’80s cinema that’s all vibe — and feathered hair. It’s also patently ridiculous, be it Swayze’s philosophical, Tai Chi-practicing bouncer (who has a tortured past, of course), the love interest who loves him simply because he’s Patrick Swayze, or the main antagonist, a slimy tycoon played to the hilt by Ben Gazzara whose villainy is so over-the-top that it’s almost laughable. (Y’know, the sort of villain that only exists in ’80s films.) But kudos to Swayze et al. for thoroughly committing themselves to the bit. Road House is at its best when it embraces its “B” movie nature (e.g., when Swayze waxes philosophical while cleaning people’s clocks). As such, it feels wrong when the film’s blues-y soundtrack (via The Jeff Healey Band) is suddenly replaced by a surprisingly conventional-sounding score by Michael Kamen, and during the iconic “I’m gonna kill you the old-fashioned way” scene to boot.
Another day, another graphic novel from the incomparable duo that is Ed Brubaker and Sean Phillips. Where the Body Was feels a bit like a minor work compared to something like The Fade Out. However, its ’80s-set tale of suburban ennui, bored housewives and illicit affairs, young romance and heartache, and — because this is Ed Brubaker we’re talking about — a shocking murder mystery that undoes everyone’s lives (for better or worse) is not without its affecting moments. Particularly when Brubaker has the characters’ older selves break the fourth wall to reflect on that tumultuous period in their lives.
I’m not gonna lie; I checked out Dracula, Motherf**ker based on the title alone, because how could I not? This spin on the classic Dracula story moves from 19th century Vienna to Los Angeles circa 1974, where a desperate crime scene photographer finds himself trapped between the vampire lord, his ex-wives, and his new wives. Erica Henderson’s artwork is wonderfully lurid and psychedelic as befitting a ’70s vampire story, and Alex de Campi’s storyline piques the imagination and leave you wanting more — in a good way. (I also appreciated de Campi’s afterward, where she delves a bit more into the book’s feminist themes in light of Trump and Weinstein, her perspective on monsters, and the book’s anime influence.)
Unlike many of Ed Brubaker and Sean Phillips’ other titles, Bad Weekend isn’t a noir-ish, hard-boiled tale of the criminal underworld. Rather, it’s a prickly but heartfelt ode to another kind of underworld: the comic book industry. Hal Crane is a comic book legend. He’s also a drunk, a cynic, and something of an asshole, but he kind of has good reason to be given how publishers have treated him over the years. Which means that babysitting him during a comic book convention is going to be a lot harder than it sounds. On the one hand, Bad Weekend confirms all of your fears of how bad the comic industry can be, filled with backstabbing publishers and artists who work their fingers to the bone for pennies. On the other hand, it’s also a tribute to the art itself, and how even a bitter, manipulative jerk like Hal Crane can create something transcendent.
I’ve been trying to determine why I enjoy Lois McMaster Bujold’s fantasy novels so much, and I think it’s their romantic nature. Not that they’re romance novels per se — though they do certainly contain plenty of romance — but rather, Bujold’s prose is so lush and evocative. It unfurls in a poetic manner that I don’t often experience with genre novels. That said, it can also get awfully dense, so much so that the story gets lost in the mix. That’s my experience with The Hallowed Hunt, anyway. Set 250 years before The Curse of Chalion (one of my favorite novels of all time), The Hallowed Hunt begins with a murder investigation that soon evolves into something far stranger involving shamans, animal spirits, theological visions, and the lingering effects of a centuries-old religious war. I very much enjoyed the experience of reading the novel and indulging in Bujold’s writing — she pens some truly striking imagery and imaginative concepts, especially when it comes to spirituality and magical systems — but as for the story itself, I never quite felt the actual drama of the protagonists’ plight.
As with Gabrielle Zevin’s Tomorrow, and Tomorrow, and Tomorrow, I can absolutely understand why people might love this novel. It’s got an intriguing premise (two people try to figure out how to escape a bizarre time loop), a pair of very likable protagonists, a hint of romance (as per the title), and some fun pseudo-science involving quantum physics and temporal paradoxes. I also enjoyed the novel’s overall bright tone, which feels very solarpunk-adjacent à la Becky Chambers’ Monk & Robot novellas. Alas, though I enjoyed A Quantum Love Story, I wish I had loved it more than I did. It felt like two different novels smashed together, especially once the time travel hijinks began in earnest. The actual romance felt very one-sided, which made it hard to fully buy into it. Finally, I understand why Chen glossed over some of time travel’s ethical conundrums, which would’ve bogged down his novel’s breezy story. Even so, the handwaving was occasionally irksome.
Although Jackie Chan pops up throughout the film as a bumbling cop whose zeal for justice (and roller skating) always results in hilarious havoc, Winners & Sinners is primarily a showcase for Sammo Hung (who also directed), Richard Ng, John Shum, and the rest of the Lucky Stars crew. The fellas play a group of former criminals trying to stay on the straight and narrow by starting a cleaning company, only to get mixed up in a gangster’s counterfeiting operation. The film’s broad, juvenile comedy and episodic nature wears a bit thin at times (e.g., the scene where Richard Ng’s character believes he’s invisible, with predictable results), but it’s so good-natured that you can’t really hold a grudge against it. Several scenes elicited hearty chuckles and though it’s primarily a comedy, Winners & Sinners also boasts some pretty impressive — and amusing — action and stunts. Watching a big dude like Sammo Hung throw hands (or his belly, as the case may be) is never not entertaining.
Earlier this month, I read — and thoroughly enjoyed — Atelier Sentô’s Festival of Shadows, which inspired me to track down this earlier work of theirs. Onibi follows a couple of Europeans as they travel to remote corners of Japan in search of yōkai spirits, which they hope to capture with the help of a supposedly magical camera. I didn’t enjoy Onibi as much as Festival of Shadows, but it’s still a delightful work that very much reads like a love letter to Japan and some of its more colorful inhabitants. As such, it made me want to return to Japan and explore some of those same remote corners, as well.
For better or worse, most fantasy is fairly British in nature. (Blame it on Tolkien.) What initially interested me in The Justice of Kings was that its fantasy seemed more Germanic in nature, if only in the names of people and places. But what’s most noteworthy about the novel is that, although it has some of the usual fantasy trappings (e.g., magic), it’s actually a detective story crossed with a healthy dose of legal drama. (Author Richard Swan is a lawyer in real life, which adds to the verisimilitude.) It’s well-written and engaging, particularly since it’s narrated by a young woman who serves as a scribe for an imperial agent tasked with investigating rumored cult activities, which eventually reveal a far bigger conspiracy that threatens the whole empire. The Justice of Kings is the first in a trilogy — does anyone publish one-off genre novels any more? — and though I enjoyed it, I’m not sure I enjoyed it enough to make me rush out and read the remaining books.
Given that it stars a veritable “Who’s Who” of modern action stars — e.g., Tony Jaa, Tiger Chen, Iko Uwais, Scott Adkins, Michael Jai White — it should go without saying that Jesse V. Johnson’s Triple Threat boasts some pretty impressive fights. I pressed “Rewind” on several occasions so that I could watch certain bad-ass moves again, particularly from Chen and Adkins, and I winced more than once at scenes of particularly brutal carnage. As an added bonus, Triple Threat possesses a certain gritty, DIY feel that adds to its intensity. I just wish the storyline had been a wee bit stronger. It’s promising at points, with a pair of mercenaries on the run from some other mercenaries while protecting a Chinese heiress, but got muddled whenever it tried to inject some humor or backstory into the proceedings.
I daresay that the vast majority of those who read The Mysteries, myself included, will do so because it was written by Bill Watterson, of Calvin and Hobbes fame. Indeed, if it were written by anyone else, this slight fantasy fable would probably fly under the radar. That’s not to say that it’s bad, just that it’s a very far cry from Calvin and Hobbes… sort of. If one were inclined, one could draw some parallels with those strips where Calvin and/or Hobbes critiqued modern society’s dismissal of wonder and imagination — themes that are very present in The Mysteries’ seventy pages or so. As for the artwork, which Watterson created in collaboration with caricaturist John Kascht, it’s an interesting and darkly beautiful blend of paintings, models, collage work, and whatnot that has a very tangible and physical quality to it.
On the one hand, Reservation Dogs’ third and final season felt more directionless and less cohesive than its first two, with episodes meandering around the reservation and focusing on a wider array of characters, both in the present and the past. Which sometimes made for a frustrating experience, particularly when compared to the previous seasons’ more defined arcs. On the other hand, I just love spending time with every single one of these characters: the titular foursome, their aunties, uncles, and grandparents, and even the various spirits who interact with them all and offer (occasionally) helpful advice. Furthermore, Reservation Dogs’ focus on the necessity of maintaining and respecting one’s community, exploration of life’s cyclical nature, and depiction of the “thinness” between the physical and spiritual worlds have given me much to think — and laugh — about. A truly special and unique series.
On paper, watching a nameless hitman methodically clean up all of the loose ends after a hit goes sideways sounds like a pretty boring way to spend two hours. And it is… until it’s not. Those expecting the sort of stylized wall-to-wall action that’s usually associated with “hitman” movies will likely be disappointed here. But kudos to director David Fincher and star Michael Fassbender for creating a film that becomes increasingly engrossing as the titular assassin goes about his bloody business with cool detachment, determination, and inspirational aphorisms like “Anticipate, don’t improvise” and “Fight only the battle you’re paid to fight.” (All delivered via internal monologue, natch.) At times, it almost feels like a heist film as you try and figure out how he’s going to overcome each new dilemma. It doesn’t hurt that The Killer has some occasional flashes of dark humor, such as the hitman’s reliance on Amazon and the gig economy to do his job. A lesser director might try and beat audiences over the head with that as social commentary — as in: modern society requires us to live like an amoral, yoga-practicing, Smiths-loving hitman in order to survive — but thankfully, Fincher avoids that pitfall.
Shamelessly aping (npi) Francis Ford Coppola’s Apocalypse Now for a monster movie might be a little on the nose, but in the case of Jordan Vogt-Roberts’ Kong: Skull Island, it turns to be a pretty decent idea. And when you throw in some impressive-looking visuals, lots of intense (read: gory) monster brawls, and best of all, some delightful John C. Reilly kookiness, then you have a movie that’s way more than the sum of its parts. In other words, Kong: Skull Island possesses a sense of fun and zaniness — be it Reilly’s unhinged performance, Samuel L. Jackson’s scenery-chewing, or the elaborate monster designs — that’s sorely lacking from the rest of Legendary Pictures’ MonsterVerse titles.
It threw me for a loop back in 2015 when Hou Hsiao-hsien, who is now retired, announced that he was making a wuxia film, and I doubt I was alone in that. But this is Hou Hsiao-hsien we’re talking about, so The Assassin isn’t exactly Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon, Hero, or House of Flying Daggers — for better or worse. Like those films, The Assassin is absolutely gorgeous, from the rich costumes and production design to the unbelievable Chinese landscapes and scenery. But the storyline — a skilled assassin must prove her loyalty by killing the man to whom she’d one been betrothed — is more of a mixed bag. Hou is extremely fond of “pillow moments” (to use Roger Ebert’s term) and pregnant silences. Which means that The Assassin’s story is often as obtuse as it is engaging, if not more so. Sometimes this stylistic choice works and draws you into the film and the characters’ inner lives and sometimes, it’s just frustrating, particularly when political conspiracies emerge and immediately feel anticlimactic.
The only reason this film works as well as it does is because of Denzel Washington. He brings the requisite amounts of gravitas and screen presence to make you believe in his haunted ex-super-deadly-guy who now seeks redemption by taking out a bunch of Russian gangsters in violent, blood-soaked fashion. Of course, being an Antoine Fuqua film, The Equalizer occasionally dips into hyper-stylized, CGI-enhanced silliness — which is a shame, because I much preferred the slow, seemingly mundane burn of the film’s first act — but even then, it remains eminently watchable because of Denzel. No one else could’ve pulled it off, of that I’m convinced.
Author Sourya may be French-Laotian, but Talli, Daughter of the Moon is heavily influenced by Japanese manga, from the character designs to the tonal shifts. Which isn’t necessarily a bad thing, not in this case. The fantasy tale of a young noblewoman on the run and trying to better understand her mysterious powers — powers that could spell ruin for the entire kingdom — hits plenty of tropes, but Sourya’s storytelling and artwork keeps things fresh and inviting.