Week of 18 April
DVD: Wushu ??? (Stars Sammo Hung, Wei Dong, Wu Dazhou, Lie Xin, Shi Yao, Liang Zhicheng, Zhang Jin, Tei Nan; £15.99; UK Cert 12; Runtime 98 mins) Executive produced by the one and only Jackie Chan, Wushu is a somewhat family-friendly Chinese martial arts movie with an identity crisis. At its core, the film is very much a story about the strength of relationships as we follow a group of friends from childhood to their late teens while they train in the art of wushu under the tutelage of the great Sammo Hung, who is essentially the backbone of the film. It feels a little like Stand by Me in the first act with all the camaraderie as the young girl and boys enjoy their new-found friendships, but quickly turns into a picture more along the lines of The Karate Kid since so much of it is focused on their performances in a tournament. The wushu scenes are nothing short of spectacular and are by far the highlight of the whole film, but outside of the martial arts madness, there really isn't much else thanks to a rather undeveloped sub-plot involving child-nappers. Nevertheless, it's both entertaining and enjoyable in its entirety. Extras: Just the trailer. — Adam Stephen Kelly
DVD: Chain Letter ? (Stars Niki Reed, Michael Bailey Smith, Brad Dourif, Michael J. Pagan, Betsy Russell; £15.99; UK Cert 18; Runtime 83 mins) A horror movie based on email and text message chain letters. It was inevitable, wasn't it? But what a mind-numbingly stupid idea for a slasher flick. Let's take some presumably deformed bloke with bandages on his face and chain tattoos on his arms and have him slaughter a bunch of high school kids who we don't care about, just because they don't forward his chain mail, shall we? Oh, and how about we make the mysterious killer's weapon of choice be chains because we're so big and clever? How about no. For an 80-minute film, Chain Letter drags like an extended edition of Das Boot gone horribly, horribly wrong and makes as much sense as me ending this review with fdhiugfeorgoirog. No extras — Adam Stephen Kelly
DVD: Norwegian Ninja ??? (Stars Mads Ousdal, Jon Oigarden, Trond Viggo-Torgersen, Linn Stokke, Amund Maarud; £12.99; UK Cert 15; Runtime 77 mins) The first feature from author-turned-film-maker Thomas Cappelen Malling, Norwegian Ninja is quite the absurd little movie. Beginning with footage from the real life arrest of diplomat Arne Treholt in the '80s for high treason on behalf of the Soviet Union and Iraq, the film suddenly jumps into a wacky world of fictitiousness where Holt is the master of a secret group of ninjas whose sole objective is to protect the Norwegian way of life in the midst of the Cold War. It's quite the inspired idea and one that blooms into an incredibly creative film. It's as if Quentin Tarantino took his fanboyish love for genre movies and, instead of amping them up to the extreme, tried to break them all down into workable parts for a truly outrageous comedy. Malling appears to have taken a passion for old spy films, pulp fiction and the work of Shaw Brothers Studio to create a documentary-style spoof with a slim running time of what he quite simply enjoys. Complete with hyper-real CG backdrops, a consistent sepia tone, deliberately dire miniatures and lashings of the ridiculous, Norwegian Ninja is as smart and amusing as it is quirky. Extras: A selection of featurettes; blooper real; bonus scenes; a music video; and interviews. — Adam Stephen Kelly
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Week of 11 April
DVD: The Man from Nowhere ???? (Stars Bin Won, Kim Sae-ron, Kim Tae-hoon, Kim Hee-won, Kim Sung-oh, Thanayong Wongtrakul, Kim Hyo-seo, Lee Jong-pil; £12.99; UK Cert 18; Runtime 114 mins) The award-winning The Man from Nowhere – Korea's highest grossing film of 2010 – has arrived in the UK, ready to make the same kind of bullet-ridden and blood-spattered impact on audiences nationwide as it had on me. In the vein of Taken and Luc Besson's Leon, the film is a taut revenge thriller charged through with emotion and plenty of violent action. This story of a reclusive pawnshop owner who goes after the lonely young girl he has befriended after she is kidnapped by mobsters is well-paced and shows off a terrific cast, as well as mesmerising fight scenes. It's not only the best Korean film to come along in quite some time, but it'll quite possibly be the most entertaining movie of its kind that you'll see all year. No extras — Adam Stephen Kelly
DVD: Barbarossa – Siege Lord ?? (Stars Rutger Hauer, Raz Degan, F. Murray Abraham, Christo Jivkov, Antonio Cupo, Cecile Cassel, Kasia Smutniak; £15.99; UK Cert 15; Runtime 123 mins) Set in 12th century Italy, Barbarossa – Siege Lord, also known as Sword of War, is a Romanian/Italian co-production that follows a 900-strong uprising comprised of would-be warriors from a number of cities across the country as they try and defend their land from being taken over by the ferocious might of Barbarossa (Hauer) – the King of Germany – and his forces. The UK DVD features a noticeably trimmed down 123-minute cut from the original 200-minute running time, and yet it's still too long. Substandard dubbing aside (the Italians have always had this issue so I'm happy to let it go), the film does contain a number of truly epic battle scenes, it's just that everything outside of the action is incredibly uninteresting, and the awful script and ropey cast (Hauer and Abraham aren't at their best here, sorry) only serve to maximise its tediousness. But hey, it is nicely photographed. No extras — Adam Stephen Kelly
DVD: The Lost Future ? (Stars Sean Bean, Corey Sevier, Sam Claflin, Annabelle Wallis, Eleanor Tomlinson, Jonathan Pienaar; £12.99; UK Cert 15; Runtime 87 mins) In this post-apocalyptic thriller, a made-for-television film from last year, a small tribe comprised of the thought-to-be last remaining humans on earth are faced with the deadliest of wildlife as they become the prey of feral mutants whose infected bite turns their victims into their own kind. Hunted down and surrounded by these merciless beasts, it is up to a few brave men and women who leave their brethren in search of a lost cure in the form of a mysterious yellow powder. It's far from a mesmerising production as just about everything looks synthetic. The creature effects are uninspired, props look like props, the sets look like sets, and the backgrounds of certain scenes are computer-generated to give a sense of scope to the post-apocalyptia, but it's an effect that just doesn't work. Sean Bean coasts through seemingly without a care in the world and armed with a monotone performance. Save for a promising opening 10 minutes featuring the spear-wielding tribe battling a humongous CG sloth, and one that looks great for a TV movie, The Lost Future is bland, uninteresting and shallow. Extras: A making-of feature (24:12), cast and crew interviews (59:20) and the trailer. — Adam Stephen Kelly
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Week of 4 April
DVD: Edge of the Empire ??? (Stars Arnuz Lapanich, Arnut Rapanit, Lalisa Sontirod, Than Thanakorn, Jiraj Kaljaruek, Claude Athaseri, Nataya Janrung; £19.99; UK Cert 12; Runtime 109 mins) Based on the award-winning 1973 novel by Sanya Pholprasit, this Mongolia-set historical drama details the struggle of an oppressed Tai tribe that lives under the strain of the Han Empire's tyrannical reign, and the fierce battle that they must endure and survive to win back their freedom. Cue epic warfare on the scale of Troy and some astonishingly good visuals. It may not have the most dynamic cast nor script, but what the three years that it took to make the film do provide is an entertaining, fun and action-packed journey. No extras — Adam Stephen Kelly