The first LoveHKFilm.com reader who correctly translates the above text for me wins an as-of-now undetermined prize of some sort. I know that doesn’t sound very promising, but believe me, your assistance will be greatly appreciated. Thanks to any and all participants!

Why hasn’t The Street Fighter (1974) gotten a decent DVD/Blu-Ray release yet? You would have thought that after Sonny Chiba’s appearance in Quentin Tarantino’s Kill Bill that some entrepreneurial DVD company would have gotten the rights and put out a special edition DVD to coincide with that two-part film’s release. But so far, no dice. A quick check of Amazon.com and Yesasia suggests that two of the budget-priced versions I own are out of print, save a pretty good one that’s bundled with The Return of the Street Fighter and listed for the low, low price of $3.95!

As with Swordsman (1990), The Street Fighter was one of the earliest reviews I wrote for this site, and I think the style (or lack thereof) probably shows. What the review lacks in serious critical examination of cinematic technique, it more than makes up for in unbridled enthusiasm and largely tongue-in-cheek attempts at humor. If you’ve never seen The Street Fighter, please do yourself a favor and check it out for yourself. It’s not that hard to get a hold of the flick, and it makes for a fun evening’s viewing with the right crowd. Sometimes, watching “cult classics” that you’ve always heard about, but never watched doesn’t always pan out the way you’d hope, but, for me, The Street Fighter is definitely a rewarding Grindhouse experience — lots of laughs, lots of flinching at violent acts, a rockin’ soundtrack, and plenty of WTF? moments. I’m not even kidding when I say you will see things in The Street Fighter that you’ve NEVER seen in an action movie before.

Check out my old LoveHKFilm.com review here, if you’re interested. Here’s a trailer to whet your appetite:

“With the job out of the picture, I felt a surge of relief. Slowly, but surely I was making things simpler. I’d lost my hometown, lost my teens, lost my wife, in another three months I’d lose my twenties. What’d be left of me when I got to be sixty, I couldn’t imagine. There’s no thinking about these things. There’s no telling even what’s going to happen a month from now” (Murakami 175).

We now come to the third, but not-so-final installment of Haruki Murakami’s “Trilogy of the Rat” — A Wild Sheep Chase. The English title, an invention of translator Alfred Birnbaum, provides a clever hook to an ever-so-engaging novel. Published as Hitsuji o meguru bōken in 1982, Wild Sheep Chase was later translated by the aforementioned Birnbaum in 1989 for the Kodansha English Library. I have that copy, which is split into two volumes; the Vintage paperback; and a first edition hardcover I found for a small sum in a dusty old bookstore in Santa Cruz, CA.*

A Wild Sheep Chase begins with the death of a woman that the protagonist knew back in college. In those days, she had a reputation for being promiscuous, and at one point, she was even casually involved with the narrator. However, upon learning of her death, he cannot recall her name, referring to her only as “the girl who would sleep with anyone.” After the narrator returns home from the funeral, we discover that his home life is in disarray, as he’s in the process of getting a divorce. He tells his old friend, the bartender J, that it’s lucky they didn’t want kids. He says:”I don’t really know if it’s the right thing to do, making new life. Kids grow up, generations take their place. What does it all come to? More hills bulldozed and more oceanfront filled in? Faster cars and more cats run over? Who needs it?” (105). Hope doesn’t exactly spring eternal with this guy.

In no time, he finds himself dating a call girl-turned-model, who is known for her two best assets. No, not those — her ears. They are, in the narrator’s estimation, the most beautiful ears he’s seen in his entire life and they possess near magical properties. Weird, eh? But as mysterious as his new gal pal is, what our hero really longs for is a sense of sustained normalcy. He soon tells his new girlfriend, “Most people, they’re trying to escape from boredom, but I’m trying to get into the thick of boredom” (43). However, like any hardboiled dick, he soon finds himself right in the thick of trouble…with peculiar results.

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Reviewing movies seems pretty easy, doesn’t it? With the advent of the internet and now the rise of blogs galore, everyone — and I mean, everyone — can be a movie critic. But then again, even before all this technology enabled people to have a voice, every single of one of us had the potential to be film critics. I mean, when audiences were leaving screenings of James Whale’s Frankenstein in 1931, I’m sure folks were giving “reviews” to their friends and families that were equivalent to our own contemporary usage of such ever-descriptive critiques as “It sucked!” or “It rocked!” In that respect, reviewing movies is easy — you see a movie, you blurt out your reaction, and you’ve got a review…of sorts. But I think trying to do this job responsibly is actually a pretty hard task if you put any degree of thought into it.

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 DVD Cover to Slant, Vol. 1

Kozo published another review of mine the other day, so I thought I’d talk a bit about it here.

While coming home from OU Medical Center awhile back, I stopped in Norman to find a place to eat. Across the street from the Chinese place I’d chosen was Hastings, a video/music/book/video game/comic store that I tend to frequent anytime I come back to Oklahoma. While browsing the “foreign film” shelves of the DVD section, I stumbled upon Slant, Volume 1, a collection of short films that aren’t foreign at all, as they’ve been created by a handful of Asian American filmmakers. It’s striking that an Asian American film collection gets shelved in “foreign film” section, but that’s a discussion for another time.

I had never heard of this anthology before (although I did recognize Kip Fulbeck’s contribution, as he screened Lilo and Me during a visit to UC Santa Cruz awhile back), but being the budding Asian Americanist that I am, I snapped up a copy for the low, low price of $1.00. From the official website, I culled this description:

The Best of Slant Vol 1 features a collection of short films culled from seven years of Aurora Picture Show’s annual Slant: Bold Asian American Images festival. The Slant festival annually showcases the best in emerging Asian American cinema. Since its start in 2000, Slant has screened an eclectic mix of films that explore a wide range of topics and genres such as the smashing of stereotypes, off-beat comedies, family stories, explorations of culture and identity, and universal themes like love, loss, the human condition.

Slant curator Melissa Hung is the founding editor of Hyphen, a magazine about Asian American culture. She is a frequent speaker on the topic of Asian American media and independent media. She lives in Oakland, California and works for the San Francisco WritersCorps, a creative writing program for urban youth.

Films in the Compilation include:

1. How to do the Asian Squat by Daniel Hsia
2. Lilo and Me by Kip Fulbeck
3. Maritess vs the Superfriends by Dino Ignacio
4. A Little Bit Different by Lynn Okimura
5. Profiles in Science by Wes Kim
6. I Pie (A Love Store) by Nobu Adilman
7. How to Make Kimchi According to My Kun-Uma by Samuel Kiehoon Lee
8. Slip of the Tongue by Karen Lum

You can check out my full review for LoveHKFilm.com here. I thought the better contributions made up for those that were simply lacking or just too quirky for their own damn good. For those of you curious about the anthology and perhaps unable to get your hands on it, check out Dino Ignacio and Rex Navarette’s contribution, Maritess vs. The Superfriends, one of the clear-cut gems of this eclectic collection.

On the main site, Kozo has posted my review for The Chaser, a 2008 South Korean film, from first-time director Na Hong-Jin. This award-winning motion picture first came to my attention via Roger Ebert’s three-and-a-half-star review this past January, and after stumbling upon the Malaysian DVD during a summer visit to Hawai‘i, I just had to pick it up a copy and see the movie for myself.

The Chaser was a multiple award-winner at the 45th Daejong Awards, taking home prizes for Best Picture, Best Director, and Best Actor (Kim Yoon-Seok). If you’re a fan of gritty, pulse-pounding thrillers (and not too squeamish about gore), you’ll want to check this one out.

You can read my LoveHKFilm.com review here, and I’ve embedded the UK trailer for the film below. The whole “There’s a U.S. remake coming!” angle in the preview is kinda silly, if not downright annoying, but otherwise, I think it showcases the film’s premise fairly well.

Have you ever bumped into a celebrity in your daily life? For some of you folks, it might be a common occurrence; for others, it’s a rare treat. If we leave aside sports/sci-fi/comic conventions, public appearances, or other venues where I knew a certain famous person would attend, I’ve only seen a handful of “celebrities” in my life. I once saw Louis Koo and Daniel Wu at Changi International Airport in Singapore, although my brain didn’t process what I was seeing until it was much too late. Before that, I saw Diane Keaton shopping on Pacific Avenue in Santa Cruz, CA; Lost’s Naveen Andrews browsing Kahala Mall on Oahu; the B-52’s Fred Shneider holding a man purse in Detroit; and G.W. Bailey (a.k.a. Captain Harris in the Police Academy films) at some random airport when I was a kid. There are no interesting stories attached to any of those sightings. Sorry.

However, besides the botched Koo and Wu encounter, I do have one more “sighting” that actually connects with Hong Kong cinema that I could share with you.

A very long time ago, I visited Hong Kong for the first time. During the requisite sightseeing tour of the island, I saw a great many things. I’ve documented some aspects of my trip before, but never something as pointless as this:

What’s the significance of the above pictured watercraft? According to my tour guide, this boat belongs to none other than…

(drumroll, please)

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