Title: Haywire Director: Steven Soderbergh Cast: Gina Carano, Ewan McGregor, Michael Douglas, Antonio Banderas, Michael Fassbender, Channing Tatum, Michael Angarano, Bill Paxton Steven Soderbergh is an interesting throwback to directors of yore, in that he is far less precious with his career than many of his contemporaries, and seems to regard the medium of film as inherently a place to explore, and play around. This means not only that he’s rather astonishingly prolific, but also engages in willful genre experiments (the “Ocean’s” trilogy, certainly, as well as something like “Solaris,” and even “Contagion”), plus low-fi adventures like “Full Frontal,” “Bubble” and “The Girlfriend Experiment.” Rather than own one genre or mood,…

Title: Shaolin Directors: Benny Chan and Cory Yuen Starring: Andy Lau, Nicholas Tse, Jackie Tse, Wu Jing, Li Bing Bing Another nationalist, feuding-warlord Chinese martial arts import, historic epic “Shaolin” delivers moderately on the expectations its core demographic might likely have, but otherwise does little else to distinguish itself for a broader audience. Ambitiously staged set pieces fall victim to portentous technique, creating an ultimately irreconcilable chasm between how much one wants to like this movie and how much they actually do. A kind of spiritual rebooting of Jet Li’s 1982 classic “The Shaolin Temple,” the film unfolds in the early days of the Chinese republic, as various warlords look to…

“Thor,” an almost $450 million worldwide box office hit earlier this year, introduced audiences to one of the players in Marvel Studios’ grand, forthcoming ”Avengers” saga. And that’s part of the problem, honestly. However admirably ambitious the creation of a unified superhero universe spanning multiple movies, certain entries, like this one, play like little more than origin story pattycake – wan set-up for something of later, actual consequence. On the verge of ascending to the throne of Asgard, headstrong Norse God Thor (Chris Hemsworth) flips out over some nasty ice giant interlopers who are vanquished in fairly short order, and decides to seek revenge, against the counsel of his father Odin (Anthony Hopkins),…

Title: Blades of Blood (AKA: Like the Moon Escaping from the Clouds) Directed by: Joon-Ik Lee Starring: Seong-hyeon Baek, Seung-won Cha and Kim Chang-Wan Running time: 108 minutes, Rated R In 1592, Korea is threatened by Japanese invasion. Mong-hak Lee is a power hungry revolutionist who uses the rebel army to overthrow the government before Japan can take over. A blind swordsman Jung-hak Hwang, the bastard son of a nobleman Gyeong-ja and Lee’s former courtesan Baek-ji are trying to catch up with Mong-hak Lee with reasons of revenge for his wrongdoings, before Lee meets his fate with the impending invasion. I watched this DVD with the English dubbing, which I…

David Carradine is much on my mind recently, having just finished up his rather excellent “Kill Bill Diary” — a thorough, intellectually rangy and assuredly entertaining read of his time spent on Quentin Tarantino’s two-part revenge epic. A workaholic without necessarily the most discerning taste, Carradine’s sudden death at the age of 72 (in June, 2009, he was found nude in the closet of a Thai hotel room, the result of accidental autoerotic asphyxiation) nonetheless put the brakes on what just might have been one of the more interesting sunset career reinventions of modern Hollywood. After all, here was a worldly, well-read guy with a reawakened fire in his belly…

Title: Tekken Directed by: Dwight H. Little Starring: Jon Foo, Kelly Overton, Tamlyn Tomita and Cary-Hiroyuki Tagawa Running time: 91 Minutes, rated R, available on standard DVD Based on world renowned fighting video games by Namco, the year is 2039 and the world has been ravaged by world war. Territories are now run by corporations, the largest of which is Tekken. The only event that keeps public morale going is watching the Iron Fist tournaments. When Jin Kazama’s mother is murdered, Jin volunteers in the tournament and is set to take vengeance upon the Tekken leader Heihachi Mishima whom he knows was involved. He discovers his mother was once a…

Title: True Legend Director: Yuen Woo-Ping Starring: Vincent Zhao, Zhou Xun, Andy On, Jay Chou, Michelle Yeoh, Guo Xiaodong, David Carradine An unusual sort of prequel to the influential 1978 Hong Kong martial arts comedy “Drunken Master”, starring Jackie Chan and Simon Yuen, Chinese import “True Legend”, from respected fight choreographer and filmmaker Yuen Woo-Ping, arrives Stateside following a fairly disappointing theatrical run in Eastern territories, and it’s fairly easy to understand why. A bloated period piece epic that features a generally nice blend of CGI-assisted blood-letting and fantastical, “Matrix”-y punches in which people fly through wooden support beams and stone fixtures (more on this later), the movie never gets…

Title: Legend of the Fist: The Return of Chen Zhen Director: Andrew Lau Starring: Donnie Yen, Shu Qi, Anthony Wong Chau-Sang, Yang Zhou, Bo Huang A heady blend of spy thriller, period piece political drama and martial arts action flick, Chinese import ”Legend of the Fist: The Return of Chen Zhen” reaffirms star Donnie Yen’s quiet, universal charisma, while also tossing more sand on the tired, erroneous notion that more densely plotted films from the Orient can’t emotionally engage Western audiences. The iconic character of Chen Zhen, originally created by writer Ni Kuang for the Bruce Lee vehicle “Fist of Fury”, is a cultural mainstay of both Hong Kong and mainland China – a…

Variety is reporting that Warner Bros. has acquired the rights to “Ninja Scroll”, the Japanese action anime, and are planning a live-action big-screen adaptation. The studio has tapped Alex Tse to write the script. Tse’s previously worked on “Watchmen”, as well as the upcoming adaptation of the Ray Bradbury novel “The Illustrated Man” and “Frankie Machine”, which is based on Don Winslow’s book “The Winter of Frankie Machine”. The movie will be produced by Leonardo DiCaprio’s company Appian Way alongside Mad House, and will be produced by Jennifer Davisson Killoran and Mike Ireland. The original anime, lauded for its depictions of ninja and classic Japanese folklore, was also notable for…