November 2007

Impact contributor, Ian Powers, turns interviewee to discuss his burgeoning career in the Chinese action entertainment industry. Err, nepotism... us?

A lifelong passion for martial arts and movies has been combined by American martial arts actor Ian Powers, relocating from North America to China has given him the opportunity to carve a name and career for himself on the Jade Screens both big and small as an actor and fighter. Powers has worked alongside such names as Jet Li, Frankie Chan, Richard Ng, Cary Tagawa, Yuen Wah, Ritchie Ren, Michael Madsen, Sik Seal-lung, Michael Madsen and many more... Recently he co-starred in Alfred Cheung’s Contract Lover which was one of this summer’s major successes at the Chinese Box Office and, occasionally, he even finds time to write for Impact. Our Eastern editor Mike Leeder talks to him about martial arts, movie making and more in the first part of a two part interview...

Impact: Where were you born and raised, and how did you first get involved in both the martial and performing arts?
Ian Powers: I was born and raised in America, spending half my time in New York and half in Connecticut, as both of my parents worked for the airlines. I think I grew up like most other kids, although I did travel a lot which...

[To read this article in full you must buy the November 2007 edition of Impact]

Calum Waddell checks out the latest in extreme asian film-making... This month we have two Johnnie To movies and the latest from Old Boy director Park Chan-wook.

Let’s make something clear from the get-go - Johnny To is a fantastic filmmaker and a great storyteller. He works well with the material that he is given (in a career of over 40 movies he has obtained just three screenwriting credits) and 2005’s Election shows a director at the peak of his powers - creating one of the most suspenseful, and compelling, Chinese flicks of the last ten years. However, after watching a double bill of last year’s homeland hits Election 2 and Exiled, both finally making their UK DVD bow after a brief British theatrical run, it is hard to place To in with the hallowed company of his greatest contemporaries (namely John Woo, Tsui Hark, Ringo Lam and Andrew Lau).

Perhaps it is too much To to deal with in one sitting but, watched back-to-back, both features show that the Emperor is without any new clothes. This is not to say that either of these features is disappointing - far from it; in fact Election 2 is a top rate follow-up to a fantastic first film and Exiled, whilst not in the same league, still has plenty to recommend it. Instead, one cannot escape the overwhelming...

[To read this article in full you must buy the November 2007 edition of Impact]

Does the latest action series from our friends at MVM have all the right ingredients to satisfy Impact’s esteemed editor? See if Black Cat proves lucky...

There’s a long tradition of gentleman thieves and erudite anti-heroes. While the hero is bound by rules that can make them boring, it’s often more fun to see those who aren’t afraid of breaking some rules to get the job done, flaws and all. After all, you can’t be redeemed if you don’t have anything to repent!

Such is true of Black Cat, adapted from the bestselling manga by Kentaro Yabuki and directed by Shin Itagaki (of Devil May Cry fame). If you like your mix of action to include bounty hunters, gangsters, assassins and snappy one-liners, then this latest release could be up your dark alley.

Black Cat - Volume 1: The Cat out of the Bag is a DVD release with the first four episodes of the story (there are twenty-four episodes in the series) and is produced by Gonzo Digimation (also responsible for Speed Grapher, Afro Samurai, Samurai 7, Gantz, Burst Angel) and is largely designed to appeal to existing fans of such material.

We first meet Sven Vollfied - a down-on-his-luck Sweeper, a bounty hunter struggling to make ends meet - when he’s observing his next target and trying to find ways to get a meal for...

[To read this article in full you must buy the November 2007 edition of Impact]

John Mosby gets to trot out as many cheesy ‘lamb’ quips as his razor sharp wit can summon as we take a look at the latest comedy horror from the Land of the Long White Cloud.

If it’s not a case of mixing metaphors, it’s hard to pigeon-hole a film like Black Sheep in which those soft, cuddly, wool-providers we know so well decide that enough is enough. (‘In like a lion, out like a lamb’ perhaps seems appropriate?) However, it’s fair to say that whether it truly follows in the early footsteps of pre-Lord of the Rings Peter Jackson (then responsible for movies such as Brain Dead) or more in the vein of low-budget I Bought a Vampire Motorcycle, you can’t fault the film-makers for coming up with an idea that no-one’s tried before. In a nut-shell: on a vast New Zealand sheep farm, a reckless genetic engineering experiment goes horribly wrong, turning sheep into bloodthirsty killers. It’s up to sheep-phobic Henry Oldfield (Nathan Meister) to save not just his family-farm but the lives of those he loves... Hmmm.

Black Sheep was filmed in and around Wellington, New Zealand, during March and April 2006. Locations on six farms stretching from Wellington’s spectacular south coast to the Wairarapa, were used to create the world of the film. Director Jonathan King (not the disgraced UK pop svengali) makes his movie debut answering a question that has...

[To read this article in full you must buy the November 2007 edition of Impact]

John Woo’s classic Bullet in the Head gets a remake set in ‘20s Shanghai directed by newcomer Alexi Tan. Impact takes a first look...

The film takes place in 1930s Shanghai, a city that could easily be described as a modern day Babylon, a city of crime, of sin, of possible salvation and much more... with an army of warlords, politicians, corrupt businessman, courtesans, gangsters and those seeking to lead a better life. Kang (Liu Ye), Fung (Daniel Wu) and Xiao Hu (Tony Yang) are three childhood friends who have come to Shanghai in search of a better tomorrow.

Their lives take very different paths though; Kang is the most ambitious and craves power at any cost, while Fung is drawn into a violent world where he discovers a heroic side to his character and not only finds himself falling for a beautiful gangsters moll, Lulu (Shu Qi), who dreams of stardom, but also befriends Mark (Chen Chang) a troubled but charismatic enforcer who wants to be righteous but is haunted by his past and his brother’s (Sun Hong-lei) actions. Meanwhile, Xiao Hu, the most innocent and naïve of the three blindly follows his elder brother Kang, and tries to drink away the pain and darkness he encounters.

In such a decadent and dangerous world, life takes a turn for the worse when a...

[To read this article in full you must buy the November 2007 edition of Impact]

He’s been absent from the pages of Impact for a while now, but Bruce is back! Well, actually, it’s his doppelganger from Shaolin Soccer in a new Bruce Lee biographical series endorsed by the Concord Moon estate. We take a look.

As a youth, Bruce Lee had no interest with school; his single obsession was ‘Kung Fu!’ A performer since childhood, Lee appeared in films alongside his actor father and showed the presence and intensity that would later win him international acclaim at a very early age. His intensive martial arts study began under the watchful eye of Wing Tsun Grandmaster Yip Man, and Lee dedicated himself to the martial arts day and night. He quickly made a name for himself with his passion for fighting and his reputation for protecting the weak and was often drawn into conflict with various street gangs in Hong Kong. This eventually led to his family deciding that the best option for him was to leave Hong Kong and head to the land of his birth, America, to further his education and hopefully forget about the fighting that had come to dominate his life.

Upon his arrival in America Lee enrolled at Washington State University and in addition to his studies took the time to open his own martial arts class while he was there. Lee would also meet the woman who would be his companion until his tragic passing, a fellow student Linda...

[To read this article in full you must buy the November 2007 edition of Impact]

The Tarantino and Rodriguez double header, Grindhouse proved neither director was bomb-proof. Tarantino’s segment, Death Proof, gets a UK stand alone release...

Death Proof - as Impact readers will know - was half the double-bill (alongside Robert Rodriguez’ Planet Terror) that was released in the US earlier this year and which was met with a thunderous silence. Tarantino and Rodriguez, two directors for whom the word ‘cult’ seems made, combining their resources was expected to create twice the buzz but something just didn’t work and a hugely disappointing opening weekend was followed by tepid word of mouth and critics wondering what all the fuss had been about.

The idea had been simple - to resurrect the ‘grindhouse’ movies of old, the films which were screened in rundown movie theatres and were the ‘shock and awe’ films of their day before more commercial and family-friendly fare emerged through the multiplexes.

“These are grindhouse movies made by people who love grindhouse movies. If you’re going to have a girl with a machine gun leg (see Planet Terror), it’s going to get used, and it’s going to get used well. That idea will be exhausted by the time the film’s finished,” Tarantino says.

The idea for this project began simply enough, when Rodriguez spotted a double bill poster at Tarantino’s house and commented that...

[To read this article in full you must buy the November 2007 edition of Impact]

Beau Smith gives us his usual 'no-holds-barred' look at the world of comic books.

Heroes don’t cry. There is no crying in being a hero. We see it way too often in comic books, films, TV and other outlets of fiction heroes. You’ll get those that argue with me that having a hero show their ‘softer side’ makes them easier to relate to for the reader. No, that’s just wrong. It makes the reader think there’s nothing to aspire to. It’s a sign of weakness. Trust me, if Doctor Doom, Lex Luthor or even Egg Fu sees you cry then they lick their bad guy chops and go in for the kill...

If a hero is going to cry then have them do it off panel so we won’t have to see them humiliate themselves. It’s not stifling their true emotions. It’s them being strong enough to buck up and haul them in. People seek out fictional heroes to have someone to aspire to. We gain inner strength by seeing our heroes man up, kick ass and walk away with some dignity. We don’t want to see them blubbering like a little school girl. That’s just wrong.

Superman is probably the biggest crybaby hero of all time. You can find him...

[To read this article in full you must buy the November 2007 edition of Impact]

Revelation release The Conqueror of Shamballa, a brilliantly realised finale to the Full Metal Alchemist series that was an Impact favourite. See the Elrics take on the Nazis!

Full Metal Alchemist was one of my favourite series of recent years and following its finale comes The Conqueror of Shamballa, a feature length movie that ties up the loose ends admirably...

In the series, Ed and Al were searching for a way to reunite Al’s soul with his missing body using the power of alchemy. As is the way of alchemy, a price was paid - Al now has his body, but no memory of the events of the series while Ed has passed through a gateway and currently exists in our world, circa 1920s. His powers as the Full Metal Alchemist are no more but he works, in a more scientific way, with Alphonse - a rocket engineer who is our world’s equivalent of his brother, Al.

Unfortunately, this is Germany during the inter-war period when paying for WW1 has driven the country to bankruptcy and Nazism is on the rise. It is against this background of intolerance that Ed finds himself draw into the machinations of the Thule society, a secret cabal who aim to support Hitler’s rise to power through mystical means. The Thule are convinced that they can open a gateway to the realm of...

[To read this article in full you must buy the November 2007 edition of Impact]

...and here come several of ‘em. John Mosby reports on last month’s invasion by the cast of Heroes as they tour the conventions plugging the DVD release of part one of the series...

Even at a packed event like the London Film and Comic Con at Earl’s Court, there was an audible ripple of excitement when several superheroes walked through the crowd. (Okay, they weren’t quite superheroes, they just play them on television... and they didn’t so much walk through the crowd as sliced through it with the aid of minders) but if there was any doubt about the current pecking order in the fickle world of cult television orders, then the appearance of Hayden Panettiere (the invulnerable Claire Bennett), Adrian Pasdar (savvy politico Nathan Petrelli), Milo Ventimiglia (Peter, younger Petrelli sibling and ‘borrower’ of powers) and Jack Coleman (HRG, the father with divided loyalties and a shady past) certainly established their presence. Hayden beamed, Pasdar and Ventimiglia furrowed their brows, Coleman smiled through an hour of photos and the signings... the fans seemed happy.

A few years ago it was Lost and shows like Battlestar Galactica and 24 that kept the flag flying (and, next year it may well be another title), but there’s little doubt that Heroes is a global phenomena and, as if to underline it the cast were on an equally global tour to highlight... you’ve guessed...

[To read this article in full you must buy the November 2007 edition of Impact]

Impact’s Tokyo correspondent and frequenter of face-book, Andrez Bergen, takes a look at some of the greatest villains in Japanese cinema and anime to date...

CARON DE BEAUMARCHAIS [LE CHEVALIER D’EON]
In the midst of this way cool anime TV series produced by Production I.G, (Ghost in the Shell), based on Tow Ubukata’s fantasy novel, set in pre-Revolutionary France, comes poet Beaumarchais - loosely based on the real-life 18th Century spy, arms-dealer and the writer of the Figaro plays, such as The Barber of Seville.

In the anime, he’s ostensibly a religious nut who dreams of rebellion, has a massive bone to pick with the local aristocracy, and will use anything - including gargoyle-raising magic psalms - to realize these ends. while, somewhat surprisingly, subserviently following another representative of the upper class, the Duc D’Orleans, against the king.

Although not the principle villain in this ensemble piece, Beaumarchais still stands out in the moments he’s on screen, as much for his mad demeanour as for the stunning spells he unleashes.

THE TWO VILLAINS [PAPRIKA]
Based on the 1993 novel by Yasutaka Tsutsui (The Little Girl Who Conquered Time) and directed last year by Satoshi Kon (Perfect Blue), this was the stand-out anime for 2006, as we reported in these pages last December - and, for a myriad of reasons, not the least of which is the...

[To read this article in full you must buy the November 2007 edition of Impact]

Two years later and Impact finally gets to see the finale of the superlative Karas double header. Was it worth the wait? Find out here...

Karas: The Revelation is the second part of a two DVD release that began nearly two years ago - regular readers might recall me waxing lyrical about the sublime animation at the time... I’m not sure why there’s been such a long gap between parts one and two, especially considering they go together to make one big movie - I did hear a rumour that Tatsunoko Productions, the company behind the series, had run out of money to complete the project. This is understandable and may account for the differing animation quality in the second part... Nonetheless, The Revelation is out now in the UK, courtesy of Manga Entertainment (as was The Prophecy - part one) and, given the time span between the episodes, they have also released a box-set containing both features. Karas was originally released as an OAV (a short series created specifically for DVD) in six parts... and the release of part two of the compilation apparently coincides with Tatsunoko’s fortieth anniversary.

For those who can’t remember that far back, here’s what happened in part one: Eko, a former Karas who has watched over Tokyo since the Edo period, has become disillusioned with humanity’s increasing disrespect...

[To read this article in full you must buy the November 2007 edition of Impact]

Neil Gaiman is one of Britain’s home-grown comic book writers currently taking Hollywood by storm. Here he talks to our comic obsessed Editor about Stardust and the upcoming Beowulf.

When last we spoke with Neil Gaiman he was involved in the production of Mirrormask, a labyrinth-like tale of fantasy and stop-motion marvels. But he is, of course, a multi-award winning best-selling author and the creator of key comic-book titles and characters and though it can be argued he didn’t invent ‘Death’ he certainly made the cosmic entity all kinds of Winona-Ryder-circa-1980s-cute.

As the year draws towards a darkness more than Christmas, Neil has been involved in two key releases. First is the much-anticipated Stardust, previewed last issue, and based on his original book illustrated by Charles Vess. It’s a fantasy romp in the vein of The Princess Bride and all those swashbuckling films of yore and, ultimately, is one of those feel good movies that is fun enough for adults and clever enough for the kids...

The second is the upcoming Beowulf project, with Ray Winstone (currently shooting Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull) as the hero of the title, Crispin Glover as Grendel the monster he must defeat and the impossibly golden Angelina Jolie as Grendel’s evil mum. Neil adapted the story for the screen alongside Roger (Pulp Fiction) Avery. The key fact...

[To read this article in full you must buy the November 2007 edition of Impact]

Some of Impact’s contributors take on Hollywood’s scariest sfx in a bid to find out what makes the perfect movie monster...

It’s that Hallowe’en time of year and Impact’s manly men can be found hiding under the table and whimpering at the merest mention of nosferatu, lycanthrope and non-corporeal beings (that’s vampires, werewolves and ghosts to you and me). But what movie monsters and DVD demons make for a great action outing and what bump in the night gets the box-office buzzing?

So, what movie and TV action outings first gave us the chills as well as the thrills?

Mike Leeder: I am not sure, there are a few that really hold in my memory. The first time I saw Jaws at a very impressionable age I remember being very scared and yet I couldn’t take my eyes off the screen... and really remember being freaked out by Dr. Who with Jon Pertwee fighting the maggots of the Green Death and then the Spiders of Metabolis, that had me living up to the cliché and watching from behind the sofa

John Bierly: When I was little, one of our local television stations had a Friday night monster movie anthology called Memories of Monsters. They would show classic monster and horror movies and my parents let me stay up and watch them. They...

[To read this article in full you must buy the November 2007 edition of Impact]

Which is pretty much all about the games this month. We check out the best releases for a variety of gaming platforms. Just don’t mention Halo, ‘cos we haven’t!

[To read this article in full you must buy the November 2007 edition of Impact]

It’s the time of year for box sets to pour out of the woodwork in time for Christmas - first up here is the charming space drama, Planetes...

Okay, this is another series I missed first time around, but thanks to the animated goodness that is box-sets, I have finally got to experience it in its entirety courtesy of BEEZ.

Planetes is a 26 part series directed by Goro Taniguchi for Sunrise productions and based on the manga of the same name by Makoto Yukimura (The manga are available as five graphic novels from Tokyopop). The series follows the daily travails of the Debris Section - a ‘lowly’ work team for the Technora Corporation whose responsibility it is to track down and destroy / salvage all the malfunctioning satellites and space junk that pose a threat to the increasing amounts of space traffic in orbit around Earth.

We are introduced to the section through the eyes of Ai Tanabe, an idealistic recruit whose ability to have faith in the power of righteousness in the face of corporate indifference and bullying soon earns her the respect of her fellow Section members, the rest of whom are mostly a bunch of cynical outsiders who know their place in the corporate hierarchy but remain well aware of the real importance of their missions...

Over the 26 episodes it’s easy to become fond...

[To read this article in full you must buy the November 2007 edition of Impact]

In anticipation of the upcoming Series 6 appearing on BBC1, Impact looks back at the previous series, now available on DVD, and assesses just what Spooks needs to do to keep up with its US rivals.

Spooks is the show that combines the political cynicism of classics shows such as Tinker, Tailor, Solider, Spy with the modern sensibilities of American shows like 24 and when it appeared on BBC TV screens mere months after 9/11, its place in the ratings was assured. The sixth season of the show has just begun on British television with episodes that manage to mix un-diplomatic relations, bio-chemical plagues, illicit love affairs and double-bluffs. All the regular faces are back - though for how long? And there’s a deft mix of both small and large scale agendas set to help and hinder our team.

The fifth season, just hitting the DVD shelves, was something a mixed bag. While there’s still no doubt that it is at the top end of well-thought out action drama, there seemed to have been a decision made to go for ‘bigger’ stories with higher stakes and it doesn‘t always quite pay-off. While this can all be very exciting, Spooks original strength was in highlighting the unseen methods that kept diplomacy and justice ticking over and the price paid by the security services to do so. Season Five had loftier ambitions and starts with nothing...

[To read this article in full you must buy the November 2007 edition of Impact]

Impact’s favourite Brit director abroad, Jesse Johnson, is back with another high action future classic. Eric Roberts as a mild mannered hitman? This I gotta see!

For close to twenty years, Merle Hench (Eric Roberts) has worked within the system as the enforcer of choice for a San Fernando Mob outfit. In spite of his occupation, he’s polite, thoughtful and soft spoken, he’s a walking anachronism, a man who seems out of place and out of time.

Merle Hench, AKA ‘The Butcher,’ has a very long fuse, he’s been used to turning the other cheek... most people, himself included, thought that it was a ridiculous nickname. Now the mob has decided he has become a liability and wants him gone. Merle would have probably been content to have just disappeared, to let time take its course, but they’ve pushed him and something inside of him has snapped.

What none of them knew, is that Merle has a very dark side, a secret past, and they wouldn’t want to know just how he earned the nickname. Underestimating him was to be their last mistake, every dog has his day, and so too will ‘The Butcher’!

Johnson has certainly assembled a solid cast for the production with early word on the film saying that it’s “Eric Roberts as you’ve never seen him before, an awesome and breath taking performance,...

[To read this article in full you must buy the November 2007 edition of Impact]

British martial arts action continues to go from strength to strength - this time around, we take a look at the tournament movie proving an ‘Underground’ success...

Over the last few years the UK indie martial arts/action movie industry has gone from strength to strength, and this month Impact takes a look at one of the most impressive and highly anticipated full blooded martial arts films made in the UK, Underground. The film which has already been picked up for release in a number of countries around the world including North America, features some of the UK’s most highly skilled martial talent both in front and behind the camera. Impact’s own Matthew Dawson brings us the first UK review.

In the suburbs of the UK, an underground martial arts tournament offers a £500,000 prize to the winner. Twelve hand picked fighters from very different backgrounds are invited to compete in the tournament that will push each fighter to their limit and beyond. Each fighter has their own reason for competing; some are in it for the money, some for their families, some just to prove they are the best. But in the end, there can be only one winner!

That’s the plot for Underground, the feature length directorial debut of Award winning filmmaker Chee Keong Cheung who has contributed to numerous productions from around the world including...

[To read this article in full you must buy the November 2007 edition of Impact]

John Bierly checks out the glut of Middle Eastern based war movies currently attempting to assuage Hollywood’s liberal guilt trip about the US’ gung ho presence in Iraq.

War is hell. It also makes headlines. And these days, as the war in Iraq continues with no end in sight, such headlines are appearing not just in newspapers but also on the pages of trade publications all over Hollywood.

War films arrived as soon as the film camera did; the first documented war ‘movie,’ Tearing Down the Spanish Flag, appeared in 1898 during the Spanish-American War. Just 90 seconds long, it dramatised a scene of American troops tearing down a Spanish flag in Havana and replacing it with the Stars and Stripes. But it wasn’t until the success of 1915’s The Birth of a Nation, about the effect of the American Civil War on two families on opposite sides of the conflict, that the burgeoning film industry stopped being afraid of the massive budgets and logistics involved in making war films. Some were produced as propaganda. Others were made simply to entertain.

While films like Wings (1927) and Hell’s Angels (1930) shared the same basic story of two soldiers in love with the same girl (that would later be used yet again in Michael Bay’s Pearl Harbor), other films broke beyond romance and propaganda to show the true horrors...

[To read this article in full you must buy the November 2007 edition of Impact]