Pardon the title, I didn’t really put much effort into it. I’ve been busy doing nothing recently, so pardon the lack of daily updates. However, I do hope to get at least a few things done before I go back to school and this site runs out of visitors. Anyway, I’d like to go over a few upcoming film releases, whether they be Chinese cinema or Uwe Boll-like attempts at video game live-action.

First off, I have come across a trailer for an upcoming film called Kung Fu Dunk. This strikes me as interesting because it is a film about a martial artist who becomes a Basketball star. For those of you who are buffs in the realm of Chinese cinema, you may be aware of a similar film by Stephen Chow, called Shaolin Soccer, which was quite good.

Kung Fu Dunk, also known as Slam Dunk, is loosely based on the manga by the same name. One possible criticism of it is that it could be an half-assed attempt to cash in on Stephen Chow’s success with a sports/kung fu mix. As for the cast, it appears that Jay Chou is starring, who some may recognize from Curse of the Golden Flower, where he plays the older Prince Jai alongside Yun-Fat Chow and Li Gong. The director, while I’ve never heard of him or any of his films, has a fairly decent filmography, so they may be set there. All in all, it looks like it has potential, but see for yourself, view the trailer below:

Speaking of Stephen Chow, it looks like the master himself is coming out with a new film this coming year entitled CJ7, or Long River 7 for ‘Mericans. Sadly, it appears to lack any sort of kung-fu, and is instead a sci-fi comedy about a poor laborer who has a few interesting experiences after getting his son a new toy.

Lana Lang => Chun Li

Personally, a genre of filmography that has not been explored nearly enough is of fighting game live-action. Sure, there have been plenty of video game films, such as Resident Evil, Doom, and everything that Uwe Boll does, but I’m talking about films of an entirely different calibre. A film like the fighting game classic, Mortal Kombat. The greatest fighting game film ever made, even better than its abomination of a sequel, and the original Street Fighter with Van Damme. It’s also one of the last films I’ve seen Robin Shou in other than Beverly Hills Ninja. It makes me wonder why he doesn’t get any more work.

So far, there are two candidates that could possibly fill this gap: Street Fighter: The Legend of Chun-Li, and Tekken.

Regrettably, both are still early in the production phase, and little is known about either of them. As for Tekken, all that is known is a 2009 release, which will be directed by Dwight H. Little, who’s resume includes among other things, such blockbusters as Halloween 4 and Free Willy 2.

Only a little more is known about the also 2009 release film Street Fighter: The Legend of Chun-Li. With action director and cinematographer Andrzej Bartkowiak at the helm, this film packs a lot of ass-kicking potential. Which it needs, with Chun-Li’s transvestite-like thighs.

Until recently, the real debate was on who was going to be Chun-Li? Well that was recently revealed to be Kristin Kreuk from Smallville. I think the real question is, who should play Cammy? Of course, I’m only assuming that Cammy will even be in the film, but you can bet your bottom doll hair that I will be disappointed if I can’t see some blue British leotard action. I even slaved for like five hours over this picture:

I picked two possible candidates, Christina Ricci and Jessica Simpson. I think that either of them would be an ideal choice. Christina Ricci, though not normally blonde, could fairly easily portray Cammy, as seen from her performance in Black Snake Moan. However, Jessica Simpson would also be a good choice, for obvious reasons (not to mention she said she was going to possibly do a nude scene to “gain respect”). We can only pray that this movie will be R-rated. Also, hearing her attempt at a British accent would be Oscar worthy, in my opinion.

I slaved over /a/ and photoshop to bring you some Christmas cheer.

You’ve seen the show, now here’s the live action movie: Be a Man! Otokojuku The Movie.

The manliest show in the history of animation is now coming out in a live-action version! Hopefully someone subtitles this because this is a movie you will not want to miss as long as blood flows through your veins and testosterone powers your hair follicles.

Sawaki passes on the street what appears to be a cross between the polluted river spirit from Hayao Miyazaki’s Spirited Away and the various perverted ninja from 2 x 2 = Shinobuden (Ninja Nonsense), at least the eyes anyway.

It turns out that the microbe monster was actually not a swamp thing but a close friend of Professor Itsuki, the owner of a liquor store. The two upperclassmen and Haruka are charged with making some purchases from the store, so off they go. For those who are interested in sake and types of sake and flavors of sake and sake brewing, Sawaki is dragged to the store to listen to a discussion about sake between the his friend Kei and the owner.

‘Tis not a very eventful episode otherwise, except that a new character is introduced, a girl named Aoi, who has just returned from a trip with some very potent fermented meat juice or something for Professor Itsuki, and spills it everywhere in the process.

Download Episode 05

I’ve decided to move to jpeg format thumbnails. Who’d know that they would be smaller in size than gifs and better quality?

What anime has evolved into.

Recently there has been an influx of anime to live action films in production. Right now there are two major live action films on the horizon: Dragonball and Speed Racer.

First off, lets talk about Dragonball. As amazing as I’m sure this 100 million dollar film will be, I have a slight inkling that it will be somewhere between a gargantuan and a titanic flop. Why? Because despite what they may think, this film is about 10 years too late. I’d like to say that I see on average fewer shirts with flames, wolves, or flaming wolves on them, which can only mean that those who did watch the show have now grown up into neckbearded college students with interests lying in more “elegant” shows (see image).

Justin Chatwin: Goku

Nonetheless, I could be wrong about this. Perhaps a new generation of Dragonball fanatics have emerged, and somehow this movie will turn a profit. Indeed, let us not forget that this film is based off of Dragonball, not DBZ. Therefore, Goku is a little prepubescent douche accurately portrayed by Justin Chatwin.

I hate to admit but this movie does have potential. Somehow they’ve strong-armed Chow Yun Fat to play Master Roshi, as well as blackmailed Stephen Chow into producing it. Additionally, all of the fight scenes are going to be choreographed by a true chi master. Finally, you can bet your darn tootin’ ass I’ll be at the first showing if they decide to include this Emmy-nominated scene from the original show:

Well, that’s enough on Dragonball for now, you can find out more at their official blog: Dragonball Movie Blog.

The second major live action film coming out next May 9th is Speed Racer.

This will be awesome because of the following:

Wachowski Brothers are directing (Matrix, V for Vendetta)
John Goodman as Pop Racer, Susan Sarandon as Mom Racer
Matthew Fox (from Lost) as Racer X
Christina Ricci (Black Snake Moan, Grindhouse) as Trixie
Silly Monkey (hopefully)

Anyway, all that mixed with awesome racing car action means that this movie will be FUCKIN’ TURBO.

Other live action films in the works:

Battle Angel - A live-action version of Battle Angel Alita directed by James Cameron! Maybe John Connor will survive the fourth Terminator and make it into this one!

Neon Genesis Evangelion - I can only ponder as to how amazing or amazingly bad this may probably not ever be.

I’ve also come across two other films, that though they aren’t live action remakes of anime, they will kick enough ass to make you not really care any more:

The first is called Ninja Cheerleaders, which looks promising, kind of a chimera of several different straight-to-tv movies.

The second is one that I am personally anticipating quite a bunch, The Machine Girl. It looks like Kill Bill but about 30x more awesome and infinity times more drill bra.

Pardon all of the Youtube embeds, I’ve actually installed a plugin that should let me stream my own videos but I decided to try waiting until I’ve tested it out.

By the way, sorry for the huge break in between updates, I’ve been busy recently, but I hope to make up for it over the rest of Christmas break. However, my upload kind of sucks so I may just try to catch up rather than do any major uploads until I get back my university connection! Also, if there is anyone who wants to write for the site, feel free, just contact me.

After challenging Tamaki, Ishibashi and Ishida compare puny biceps in order to prove to each other their strength. Ishibashi has seen something in Tamaki that he realizes as greatness. If only he had that strength back in high school when we was fighting Ishida. Anyway, Ishibashi wants to prove to himself that he is still strong, and that he can beat a puny freshman girl.

Well that idea goes down the shitter as he is bombarded with strike after strike while pressing a heavy attack, which leaves Tamaki unfazed. Tamaki does some never seen before one-handed strikes, throwing Ishibashi off-guard. This causes Ishibashi to actually become serious, and he moves to the ascension stance.

Everyone else assumes that this means the end for Tamaki, as that stance is supposedly extremely strong. However, that stance causes Tamaki to go into a flashback about her mother using the same stance, and Tamaki spaces out. Ishibashi notices this, and then decides to call the match off (poor Ishida and his sushi).

Kirino raises everyone’s spirits with some of her family’s fried katsu, which appears amazingly delicious, even warranting a steaming closeup as seen above.

Download Episode 7

I’m debating on doing something about these screenshots. I convert them to gif for a smaller file size and thus faster load time, however there is a noticeable drop in image quality. It’s either keep them as gif’s, use png’s with higher quality (and twice the file size), or keep lower quality but link to full size pngs. Otherwise, it’s not too hard to find them at any of the 2000 other anime blogs.

Oh by the way, I forgot to mention that Moyashimon 5 and 6 are up, I’ll post the synopsis of them in the next day or so. Check them out on the downloads page.

Make like a ninja and-

The focus is on Tama-chan today. The matches between the two clubs begin, but Ishida has a plan. Since their team has only four players, he has come up with a way to have Tamaki compete twice, both first and last. She would face the first opponent at only 50% of her power level, and then sneak out of the place, and come back later in a disguise, pretending to be their fifth player.

Foolproof guise

Thanks to her saving the falling professor early on with her Kendo skills, she manages to already have a disguise prepared. His glasses. Hey look, a girl with glass-MOE MOE MOE MOE MOE MOE. Couldn’t fail, if you ask me. In the meantime, we get to see several epic battles, including Miya-Miya’s loss, Sayako’s tie, and Kirino’s win.

BUREEIBA!

However, what were mostly interested in is the final battle starring Ta-I mean, BUREIBA! Yes, having trouble coming up with a name for his fifth player Ishida managed to blurt out Bureiba, the name of a Blade Braver, perfect for Tamaki. Needless to say, it was very exciting, and also very short, too short for her opponent’s liking.

The show leaves us with a very interesting premise for the next episode. The other teacher Ishibashi, has noticed her great skill and challenges her himself to a match.

Download Episode 6

The Fall of Man

Funai is reluctant to accept Kaiji’s gamble of five stars, though his options are limited. Funai has only one card left, but nine stars. However, he if he doesn’t get rid of his card he will lose. So, he calls out to Mr. X, the unknown man with the three scissors, and makes a proposal that he will give Mr. X the stars necessary to survive if he plays.

However, Kaiji reminds Funai of a very important fact. Earlier on in the game, a man was thrown out for trying to flush his cards down the toilet, which is against the rules. Those three cards were most likely the three scissors, which had not been removed from the scoreboard. Thus, there was no Mr. X. Funai must play Kaiji.

However, Funai argues that Kaiji is in the same bind as he, and counters with only a three star offer, and that Kaiji could just buy the final stars necessary to survive. Kaiji refuses, stating that he will take Funai to hell with him if he has to.

This show is full of wusses.

It turns out that not counting Funai’s card, that leaves 66 cards left on the field. For Kaiji to play Funai, that would bring Kaiji’s count down to 65. The major problem with this is that that even after cancelling out their cards, there would be one card remaining. One person from Kaiji’s group is destined to fall (realizing this, Furahata crys like an emo kid).

Funai, realizing that Kaiji has nothing to lose, gives in to the deal. Kaiji then tells Furahata and Andou his plan. He would give Furahata and Ando the five stars, giving Andou a total of five and Furahata a total of four. That leaves Kaiji with one star. Kaiji then gives Furahata a single card: the card with which Furahata will take Kaiji’s final star.

Hey, those aren’t showerheads!

Kaiji is stripped and stuck in the next room with a lot of other pitiful naked failures, and awaits his fate. He is counting on Furahata and Andou to buy back his freedom with their three of their extra stars. However, he gets a bad feeling about it, which turns out to be correct yet again. Furahata sells one of his stars for five million, reasoning that they still have three left to buy Kaiji’s freedom.

I HATE YOU FAT BASTARD ASSHOLE ANDOU.

However, he wasn’t counting on Andou being a greedy dickwad, who decides that he no longer wants to give up his stars or his money, and refuses to help Furahata save Kaiji. I must say if I was there I would be whipping Andou’s ass so hard that he gets a pink sock.

Hopefully Furahata will come up with a way to acquire two extra stars and save Kaiji. This was a really great episode, and twists like this make this a really good anime. I hope Andou burns in hell, and hopefully my wish will be granted in the coming episode. Speaking of coming episode, it’s amazing that they’re able to stretch out four hours of game time this long. It’s kind of like the show 24 but broken up into five minute segments. I will be amazed if they can actually make it to the 26 episodes that the show is supposed to run just in this arc.

Download Episode 8

In order to avoid guaranteed failure Kaiji is forced to join Funai’s group and have his 69 card shuffled and redistributed. This sets Kaiji and his two pals back a few places since now they won’t have an advantage with their cards.

Everyone shuffles the deck, starting and ending with Funai. Then, Funai deals out the cards to each of the players in the amounts that they had put in. This leads to everyone getting their cards and immediately starting to play, except for Kaiji and his team, as Funai gives them a slight handicap with the following gesture.

Once Kaiji’s team has collected all of their cards and recounted, he notices something. They possess all 34 of the remaining papers in the game. Which leaves only rocks and five scissors left out in the open. Kaiji also notices something odd. The players who had only one card are not playing. After a brief struggle between Kaiji and Funai over who gets to play a person with only one card, Funai lets something slip that confirms Kaiji’s suspicions: prey.

Funai had rigged it from the start. Other than the papers which only Kaiji had, there were only scissors and rocks left on the floor. Three of the scissors were possessed by a Mr. X one of the non-playing players in the “graveyard” with all of the others with no cards and less than three stars. Not counting Kaiji’s, that left only three scissors on the floor. The reason why the one-carded players weren’t playing is that they likely only had a scissor, and since they knew that Kaiji had all of the papers (due to Funai’s kind gesture above), they knew they couldn’t win.

Kaiji confronted Funai and essentially destroyed any chances he had with the following revelations:

1) Funai wanted all of the cards to be reshuffled so he could see what everyone had, and what he could work with. This way he would find out his would-be prey.

2) While Funai did let everyone else shuffle the cards, it was irrelevant, as he was the first and last person to shuffle. Additionally, when redistributing the the cards, he did it in a “random” order, which was actually not random at all.

3) Funai marked the scissors with a scratch, so he could give them to the people with one card. He then insured that he recieved rocks, while Kaiji received all of the papers. That way, he could pick off those with only scissors.

Now that Funai was out of the way temporarily, Kaiji had to come up with a way to get stars in the remaining few minutes. He devised a do-or-die way where the other player would pick which card Kaiji would play, in order to make it random. Kaiji would take one of each type, place them on the table and shuffle them.

However, it turns out that the reason for this was not just to get more stars. In fact, Kaiji lost them. However, it was gain leverage against Funai in order to make an even greater wager.

Download Episode 7