TOMIE UNLIMITED, a film by Noboru IGUCHI is released in the UK on DVD & Blu-ray on January 23, 2012

Bounty Films Press Release:

TOMIE UNLIMITED, a film by Noboru IGUCHI is released in the UK on DVD and Blu-ray on January 23rd, 2012

“Exist Everywhere, Extend Everywhere”

Director Noboru Iguchi (The Machine Girl, RoboGeisha) is back with his entry in to the ongoing Tomie horror film series based on a popular manga by Junji Ito.

Tsukiko (Moe Arai), who belongs to a photography club at high school, always feels inferior to her elder sister, Tomie (Miu Nakamura). Tomie is breathtakingly beautiful and popular among the male students, including Toshio, whom Tsukiko is secretly in love with.

One day an awful accident kills Tomie right in front of her younger sister. Since then Tsukiko suffers from a nightmare night after night. A year later Tsukiko and her parents are surrounding a birthday cake to celebrate dead Tomie’s 18th birthday. Suddenly they hear an eerie knock at the door. Unbelievably, it is Tomie. She’s back. The father and mother blindly welcome Tomie in tears, but Tsukiko feels instinctive fear. Tomie gradually reveals her true face, but only when she is with Tsukiko. Now Tsukiko’s nightmare becomes reality, and the terrifying days begin... Tomie Unlimited is released in the UK on DVD & Blu-ray on 23rd January 2012 by Bounty Films.

SPECIAL FEATURES:
- Interview with Director Noboru Iguchi
- Trailer

DETAILS:
Label: BOUNTY FILMS DVD
Release Date: 23 January 2012
Certificate: 18
Run Time: 85 min. approx.
Format: Colour
Genre: Horror
Director: Noboru IGUCHI
Year: 2011
Country: Japan
Language: Japanese
Subtitles: English (Optional)

DVD Review: Demeking, The Sea Monster (2009)

DEMEKING, THE SEA MONSTER (2009)

"Terror Lies Beneath"
Cinema Epoch


RATED: G
RUNNING TIME: 99 Min.
DIRECTOR: Kohtaro Terauchi
CAST: Takashi Nadagi (Hachiya), Kohei Kiyasu (Kame)
COUNTRY OF ORIGIN: Japan

SUMMARY: In 1969, a young man named Hachiya finds an anonymous letter in a glass bottle which foretold of the apocalyptic arrival of a cosmic monster known as Demeking. Since then, he has physically prepared himself in a lone struggle for that fateful day when the monster will arrive. (from CinemaEpoch.Com)

FILM: Demeking, The Sea Monster is a live action adaptation of Takashi Imashiro's 1991 cult manga Demekingu which I've not read as I'm not a huge manga fan, to be honest. As the film begins we see an ominous asteroid as it hurls through space, presumably on a collision course with Earth, setting up the expectation that some creature feature disaster further awaits us. The setting of the film is the early 1970's and  we are introduced to Kame (Kohei Kiyasu), an awkward high school student who just doesn't fit in with kids his own age, he's bullied and generally disliked by his peers. He lives in a sleepy port town where he works at his families tofu shop and has little aspirations other than spending his time with a trio of adolescents who look up to him. Together they form an exploration club and go off on fantasy filled expeditions in search of adventure and fun. While on one of these expeditions at the port they come across a "ghost ship" and decide to explore it. Once inside they are interrupted by the owner of the vessel, Hachiya (Takashi Nadagi), a young man who works at a local theme park.  He tells the exploration club of the Demeking - a creature he is destined to defeat before it can destroy Tokyo. When pressed to give more information about this creature he sends the group on a scavenger hunt that will lead then to the truth. It doesn't really, but it allows them to do what they do best - letting their imaginations soar with the possibility of discovery.

I really enjoyed the acting in this film, very subtle, it's not comedic but it has a definite streak of humor throughout. The two main characters give understated performances as Kame (Kiyasu) and Hachiya (Nadagi), two similar but different young men who seem lost in life with no direction, each filling the void with fantasy. There's a quiet desperation and sadness to their lives that the actors capture really well. They lose themselves in their fantasies. Kame avoids the stress of high school by taking on the role of a big brother to the adolescent exploration club. Hachiya is consumed by the notion that he has been tasked to defeat the Demeking which allows him to internally avoid the pressure by his father to do something meaningful with his life.  And what comes of the mythical creature?

Well, the titular Demeking does finally appear in the final 1/3 of the film, albeit during a fever dream Kame suffers. Dream or not it is a well rendered sequence, Gojira has nothing on this super-beast. As the previously mentioned asteroid slams into the Earth, a gargantuan, stalk-eyed, armored slug emerges and begins laying waste to the cityscape with an irradiated beam it emits from its mouth. It is a thing of beauty as the glowing eyed creature tromps through the village laying eggs and setting buildings on fire. Of note, the creature origins are outer space, not the sea as the title would indicate. I guess Demeking, The Space Monster sounded too much like a schlocky 50's era b-movie.

I really enjoyed Demeking, The Sea Monster and director Kohtaro Terauchi's handling of the material which while not at all what I expected, I did end up enjoying it.  This is much more a tale of two people entering young adulthood while trying to hold onto the delusional fantasies of childhood than a true creature feature though it does meet that criteria as well to some degree.

DVD: The Cinema Epoch DVD of Demeking, The Sea Monster is presented in 1.85:1 anamorphic widescreen with a 5.1 Japanese language surround sound mix with optional English subtitles. It's a good looking film shot on HDCAM and the cinematography wonderfully captures the sleepy atmosphere of this seaside village. On the downside, the only special features are trailers for other Cinema Epoch films and I would have loved a featurette that touched on the source material.
 

VERDICT: Demeking, The Sea Monster seems to be marketed as creature feature and this is really dismissive of the film's true nature as a offbeat character piece about two young men lacking direction in their lives. If you go into this expecting a creature feature/disaster film I think you'll be hugely disappointed, but as a dramatic, nuanced character piece it is a great watch that is punctuated by a brief but fun monster attack on a sleepy port town. The DVD from Cinema Epoch is available today, so check it out. *** (3.5 Out of Five Stars)

- McBASTARD

DVD Review: Psycho Shark (2009)

PSYCHO SHARK (2009)

"Underwater Terror!"

Cinema Epoch

RATED: UR

RUNNING TIME: 70 Min.

DIRECTOR: Hijiro John

CAST: Nonami Takizawa, Airi Nakajima, Mika Inagaki


SUMMARY: Beautiful girls are in danger. At Sunny Beach, a huge shark is waiting for his prey. College students Miki and Mai arrive on a private beach on a tropical island. They can't find the hotel where they booked their reservations, and have gotten hopelessly lost, until a handsome young man shows up, offering to take them to his lodge. But something is not right about the place. The owner's fingernails are tainted with blood and Miki feels something sinister lurking nearby. (from CineEpoch.Com)

FILM: What would you expect from a DVD whose artwork features an impossibly large shark swallowing a woman whole? You might say "There's a Region 1 release of GREAT WHITE (1981)?" which was a film infamously pulled from theatres after Universal Pictures won a lawsuit against it's producers for being too derivative of JAWS. Furthermore, I tell you the original title was JAWS IN JAPAN and that to avoid legal confrontation with Universal Pictures the title was changed shortly before it's release here in the States? Well, I expected some blood-soaked shark carnage exploitation. What we get is a bikini exploitation bonanza with very little shark.

Two very attractive young women named Miki and Mai are vacationing on a gorgeous island when they befriend a handsome young man who turns out to be a serial killer. What ensues is a confusing tale to say the least. Maybe perhaps because I found it difficult to concentrate on the subtitles while these bikini-clad women frolicked on the beach and in the shower I may have missed out on the subtle nuances of the storyline, but I doubt it. In reality this is a serial killer flick and the shark played very little into the storyline. If you make it through to the end of the film you'll be treated to the most heinous looking CGI shark ever created. It's an absurd thing of beauty and you'll be asking yourself  WTF!

DVD: Psycho Shark is presented in 1.78:1 anamorphic widescreen in Japanese with an English subtitle option. Special features include an18 minute Making Of featurette (in Japanese with no English subtitles), a Stills Gallery and several trailers for titles available from Cinema Epoch.

PSYCHO SHARK aka JAWS IN JAPAN (2009) Vs. GREAT WHITE (1981)

VERDICT: Massive disappointment. Don't promise me a bloody shark-sploitation film and hand be a contrived serial killer flick with a hackneyed found footage element, this I cannot abide. PSYCHO SHARK is set to be released on October 12th through Cinema Epoch. Next up from Cinema Epoch is THE DARK LURKING (2009) which I must say I enjoyed quite a bit. *1/2(1.5 Out of Five Stars)

- McBASTARD