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Buried Garbage - Dark Cat


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chrisb
Subscriber



Joined: 07 May 2006
Posts: 617
Location: USA
PostPosted: Thu Oct 01, 2009 1:51 am Reply with quote
Visitor Q is one of the worse movies until the end where it somehow all comes together into a pretty good film. I think Takashi-Miike is beyond overrated on my part.

This article is not for viewing while eating, those images may be lame but they're still pretty gross haha.
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Splitter



Joined: 19 May 2003
Posts: 1276
Location: Knockin' on Heaven's Door
PostPosted: Thu Oct 01, 2009 1:55 am Reply with quote
V-Cinema, is it? Would "Tokyo Gore Police" be a part of this genre? I've been looking for more of it. It's so ridiculously gory and disgusting that its often hilarious and parodical.

I've actually heard good things about Attack Girls Swim Team vs. The Undead. Something about rulers, so I've heard.
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jsevakis
Former ANN Editor in Chief


Joined: 28 Jul 2003
Posts: 1684
Location: Los Angeles, CA
PostPosted: Thu Oct 01, 2009 2:05 am Reply with quote
Like OAVs and anime movies, the line is a little blurry. It's hard to say what's been released theatrically (and briefly) and what hasn't, particularly in today's digital world. I haven't seen Tokyo Gore Police, but from what I've been told it sounds like the sort of V-Cinema that's so crazy it's fun.

If only most V-Cinema was like that...

Miike is very hit-and-miss, it's true, and even his hits are waaaaay not for everyone. I dare anyone to make it through Andromedia.
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g*ni



Joined: 25 Nov 2007
Posts: 30
PostPosted: Thu Oct 01, 2009 2:44 am Reply with quote
Justin, I imagine these Buried Garbage segments must be cathartic. So much so, I feel like jumping on the bandwagon to expound the occasional horrors of J cinema that make their way across the pacific. After "reading" through the review I could almost feel excruciating yet requisite motions of explaning the film's plot. I almost cringed when I saw the section where you explain that we can still purchase these dirty little gems. What I did enjoy was the examination of V-cinema.

And what I would like to nominate for consideration is the recent Blood: The Last Vampire live action. After dragging a few friends to see this, I felt like I should be the one who need to refund them the $12 for admission.

I would hardly classify it as V-cinema... but what would we film viewers like to nominate as a proper category for these sub B-movie eyesores?

BTW: I liked Tokyo Gore Police. And like Justin alluded to... it was so bad, that it's good.
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Greboruri



Joined: 09 Jul 2003
Posts: 374
Location: QBN, NSW, Australia
PostPosted: Thu Oct 01, 2009 3:20 am Reply with quote
Favourite V-Cinema stuff; "Lady Battle Cop" (1991) which was a rather unintentionally hilarious rip off of "Robocop". Female tennis champ transformed into cyborg by her boyfriend (I think, been a while since I’ve seen it) after some sort of explosion. Has to fight off a pack of half gaijin, half Japanese crims in military garb who terrorise people in their Toyota Hiace. ADV released this on tape subtitled many moons ago.

Also "Battle Girl (aka The Living Dead in Tokyo Bay)" (1992). Was meant to be released by Synapse three years ago but never came out as far as I'm aware. Appalling zombie movie with little to no gore. Meteor slams into Tokyo, zombies appear, and it's downhill from there. Features female wrestler Cutey Suzuki as the lead. Hilarious sequence as a dog gets fried by an electric fence (SFX is a very stiff smoking blackened stuffed dog or model falling over). Directed by the infamous Gaira (Kazuo Komizu) who did the "Guts of a Virgin" series.
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Case



Joined: 09 Apr 2002
Posts: 1016
PostPosted: Thu Oct 01, 2009 5:36 am Reply with quote
Splitter wrote:
V-Cinema, is it? Would "Tokyo Gore Police" be a part of this genre? I've been looking for more of it. It's so ridiculously gory and disgusting that its often hilarious and parodical.


I can answer that question actually, on account of having watched the movie myself just last weekend. Very Happy

The answer is: Technically no, because V-Cinema is Japanese, and Tokyo Gore Police is not, at least not entirely. TGP is cast and staffed with people from the Japanese splatter genre, but it's produced by the New York-based company Fever Dreams, which is a business partner/subsidiary of Media Blaster's Tokyo Shock imprint. TGP's end credits are fully bilingual, and list John Sirabella in both English and Japanese as Executive Producer.

(Interestingly enough, TGP is tied to Dark Cat in at least one way: Nikkatsu is the film's Japanese distributor. Media Blasters obviously never lost Nikkatsu's contact info after working with them on Dark Cat and anything else Kitty Media might own from their library.)

More accurately, Tokyo Gore Police and the other films Fever Dreams have/are producing are homages or parodies of V-Cinema and Japanese gore films generally, that John Sirabella and other people at Media Blasters obviously have a fondness for. (And to their credit, despite Justin's skepticism, it's apparently working out well enough for that company if they're willing to take on multiple co-production projects. At least it's a viable root laid down outside the anime sandbox.)

Justin wrote:
The business is referenced in anime like Perfect Blue (what sort of movie did you think Mima was filming?), but for the most part anime has been kept separte creatively, and thus spared the creative lobotomy. Only a few OAVs, dating from the late 80s and early 90s, bear the marks of the direct-to-video trade. But of the ones I've seen, only one comes close to the experience of watching V-cinema.


Personally, you know what anime give off the strongest resonating vibes with this genre for me? Yasuomi Umetsu's work. Kite Liberator possibly excluded. Actually, they remind me of any given 2:00am Cinemax/HBO minimum-budget porno-action flick, but with a splatter/shock factor only comparable to V-Cinema. And yet, there's just something so captivating about Umetsu's dripping cinema otakuism rendered lovingly in animated form, that I just can't help watching his work over and over again.

Actually, I'm no maven of the genre(s), but I'm not sure Dark Cat would call to mind these types of films for me. I've only seen bits of about two films that have attempted to render living tentacle beasts in live action (one being La Blue Girl liveaction) and it looked so terrible, my impression has always been that it's not an effect you can really do on a shoestring. In my mind, tentacle monsters are inextricably residents of ink and paint mediums.
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Mohawk52



Joined: 16 Oct 2003
Posts: 8202
Location: England, UK
PostPosted: Thu Oct 01, 2009 6:51 am Reply with quote
Indeed this looks like the kind of shyte Manga Ent would release in its early days. Laughing
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prime_pm



Joined: 06 Feb 2004
Posts: 2335
Location: Your Mother's Bedroom
PostPosted: Thu Oct 01, 2009 8:08 am Reply with quote
As someone with ADD, I feel...slightly curious. And hungry.

I wonder if that convenience store's open up yet.

Wait, I only have a dollar.

All parodying aside, this thing does indeed look like crap. Which may actually be reason enough to watch it.

Remember: a good horror movie is an oxymoron.
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Quark



Joined: 07 Mar 2008
Posts: 710
Location: British Columbia, Canada
PostPosted: Thu Oct 01, 2009 8:51 am Reply with quote
Visitor Q was V-cinema? I had no idea. Still enjoyed it though, thought it was hilarious.
The very first Ju-on is also V-cinema, and it's pretty scary, considering that it probably had no budget to speak of. Plus it's got Chiaki Kuriyama in it.
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Ktimene's Lover



Joined: 23 Apr 2005
Posts: 2242
Location: Glendale, AZ (Proudly living in the desert)
PostPosted: Thu Oct 01, 2009 8:58 am Reply with quote
Why would they release under a hentai imprint if it wasn't hentai itself?
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icepick314



Joined: 23 Aug 2004
Posts: 486
Location: Back in the Good Ol' US of A
PostPosted: Thu Oct 01, 2009 9:00 am Reply with quote
Attack Girl Swim Team vs. The Undead is a great get-together with friends and get drunk movie!!

i tend to pick up all the movies released by Sentai Films since they ARE better than actual porn...
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Mohawk52



Joined: 16 Oct 2003
Posts: 8202
Location: England, UK
PostPosted: Thu Oct 01, 2009 9:48 am Reply with quote
Ctimene's Lover wrote:
Why would they release under a hentai imprint if it wasn't hentai itself?
Sucker punch? Besides isn't it on this side of erogro? inverted penetration?
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UtenaAnthy



Joined: 27 Oct 2006
Posts: 694
PostPosted: Thu Oct 01, 2009 10:11 am Reply with quote
Not everything Yasuomi Umetsu's done is all that gory and porny, he did do a segment for Robot Carnival which is quite disturbing but a lot more symbolic and understated in it's visuals than say, Kite (which I have seen one scene from and will never watch in full because that scene was probably the goriest thing I've ever seen in animation... *shudder*).

Anyway, this sounds dreadful, so I won't watch it, I shall stick to seeking out Buried Treasures.
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Dudley



Joined: 07 Jul 2008
Posts: 29
PostPosted: Thu Oct 01, 2009 10:54 am Reply with quote
Hm, I didn't find Dark Cat to be that horrible. It's certainly not *good* but it gave me an entertaining 45-60 minutes. I also liked it's "even pure love can breed dark emotions" twist.
Actually, I think the worst part is that cover picture. Looks like one of those ugly airbrush pics US video companies used in the 80's to disguise that there's a Japanese cartoon inside.
As for it's ADD feeling... yeah, I got that too. But since it's based on a manga I just assumed that it was another one of those cash-in titles strictly aimed at fans of the original work.
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CCSYueh



Joined: 03 Jul 2004
Posts: 2707
Location: San Diego, CA
PostPosted: Thu Oct 01, 2009 11:03 am Reply with quote
I have far worse in my collection. I don't consider Dark Cat to be that bad. It's not great, but compared to other 1-shot dvds, it's not bad. The biggest issue with most of those if the older titles tend to be more Japanese (duh) so the storytelling isn't modified as a lot of newer titles are to western attitudes. (remember the big gripe back then was open/non-endings?)
Isn't the dvd dubbed? Maybe I watched it subbed, but it's been so long since I watched it.
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