easternkicks.com » Reference

Schoolgirl Milky Crisis

Andrew Heskins — Fri, 03 Apr 2009 09:00:32 +0000

“It was the best of shows. It was the worst of shows. Whenever I had to cover my tracks, I simply called it Schoolgirl Milky Crisis…”

So begins Jonathan Clements personal journey into the world of Anime and Manga, and much more besides!

A fluent student of the Japanese language, Jonathan was thrust into the world of Anime behind the scenes before he’d even completed his course. His regular columns and articles for Manga Max, Newtype USA, and Judge Dredd magazine, amongst many other titles and formats, have opened up the world of Anime from behind-the-scenes. Well, sort of…

His features are entertaining, well written, and manage to be inclusive to those with little knowledge of Manga and Anime, without patronising the rest. From interviews, to profiles, reviews, commentary, lectures, essays and even experiences – it’s all dealt out with a light but well-informed touch.

There’s the time he met Tomo, the Anime voice actress; the slightly bewildering interview with Ghost In The Shell director Mamoru Oshii; and views and information on how Anime is produced and marketed to the world, not to mention plenty of insider gossip, of course!

The only thing is that Schoolgirl Milky Crisis pseudonym – sometimes you’d just wish he’d dish the dirt! Come on, surely now you can tell us exactly which director or anime you were talking about? But no, not one word. Mind you, as someone so heavily involved in the industry, as a translator, critic and (occasional) voice actor, I guess you can’t blame him for that.

For a collection of articles, the book has been well edited and paced – grouping chapters and themes without much repetition in subjects. Snapshots begat longer articles and essays, then are followed by a few bite-sized chunks. Often it’s engaging enough to wish he’d work on something far greater in length, but some of the longer, more serious articles don’t share the charm of his personal experiences. One particularly unimpressive example being the chapter on Chinese animation – it just feels like a regurgitation of the (albeit well-researched) facts, somehow lacking in personality.

On the whole, though, this is a fine, entertaining piece of work.

And don’t forget, there’s still a chance to win one of three copies of this book – click here to enter!

Sex and Zen & A Bullet in the Head

Andrew Heskins — Wed, 01 Dec 2004 18:36:23 +0000

A solid, fun introduction to the mad world of Hong Kong cinema…

There’s an air of ladism about Sex and Zen. A definite readiness to discuss topics such as the size of Amy Yip’s yams. Dig a little deeper, and you often find a far more sensitive side, well aware of cultural background. That there are more than 10 contibuting writers to this publication goes a long way to explaining it’s schizophrenia.

Written in 1996, author/editors Stefan Hammond and Mike Wilkins centre on the ‘golden age’ of Hong Kong cinema, when it really came into it’s own. The decade between 1983 and 1993, when John Woo, Ringo Lam, Tsui Hark and Jackie Chan truly came to prominence. It even has separate chapters devoted to the above stars, and tries very hard to break up movie reviews into chapters by genre – not always the best idea with Hong Kong films. There’s also a chapter devoted to the Shaw Brothers.

By no means a comprehensive guide – the prolific output from Hong Kong, third largest in the world after Hollywood and Bombay, would make that impossible – it gives a sizable, informative lowdown on many of the major films you should know about. Highlighting a few that often slip through the net, such as the brilliant Rouge and rollercoaster ride of The Seventh Curse. It also intercedes an amusing feature on ‘hex errors’, or rather bad, baffling, subtitles. As well as outlining several of the filmmakers and actors along the way. Making this a solid first port of call to anyone looking to explore Asian movies further.

There are weaknesses, for instance some glaring omissions are made. Such as Ching Sui-ting’s Duel To The Death, in many respects just as important to the development of Hong Kong cinema in the early eighties as Tsui Hark’s Zu: Warriors From Magic Mountain. Nor does the book deliberately limit itself to the eighties and nineties. It just happens to have been the majority of what the authors have been exposed to, being far more widely available than earlier examples (such as those by King Hu, who is only mentioned once in discussing the remake of his Dragon Inn). This is a flaw not only here, but with nearly all books dealing with Hong Kong cinema. Few (outside of Hong Kong itself) give any proper overview of cinema before the mid 70s, therefore missing out on much of the influences behind movies. Such as the abundance of wuxia, Crouching Tiger genre films in the 60s.

That aside this is a good starting point for anyone beginning to get interested in Asian movies.

The Hong Kong Filmography

Andrew Heskins — Wed, 01 Dec 2004 13:56:45 +0000

The MUST-HAVE reference guide for the very serious Hong Kong movie fan…

One for the nerds and hardcore fans. John Charles presents a guide to 1,100 films produced by British Hong Kong studios. Imagine a Halliwell or Leonard Maltin movie guide devoted entirely to Hong Kong products.

Now that, despite what the cover may claim, is still not ‘complete’ by any means. (For example, Tower Of Death is not featured.) It is, however, bloody comprehensive and you’d be hard pushed to find a lot of missing films from that time period. Charles writes with a great amount of authority, not restricting him self to a set length for any review but instead giving the appropriate amount to each film, dependent on how much there is to be written. Most films are given a quarter or more of an A4 page, some more than half. The reviews are informative, with a lot of background information on their making, sources for some of their unoriginal music (quite a regular occurrence), cast and crew listing. In fact, everything a real fan needs to know.

Charles is definitely pretty opinionated about his movies (as will anyone be that buys this book). Though one might sometimes disagree, often he give a reliable, balanced review to the films. There’s even a rating out of ten for each film. Notably of the very few films to receive ten out of ten, three of them are my top three Hong Kong movies of all time (See my guide to the Top Ten Hong Kong Movies). Occasionally throwing a wobbly – Ringo Lam, for instance, doesn’t get higher than an 8. Well I said you might disagree, but at least he gives you something to disagree with.

So Charles is pretty canny, by limiting the timeframe on the films reviewed he gets away with the major failing of nearly every book on Hong Kong movies – little to no knowledge of what came before Bruce Lee. However, he also excludes himself from being able to talk about many of the exciting movies since, such as The Stormriders, Beast Cop, The Longest Nite and Time and Tide. (This book was published in 2000.)

Fair enough, it does exactly what it says on the tin. The only real flaw is it’s price tag. At 75 dollars it’s only ever going to appeal to real fans, but it’s worth it!

easternkicks.com » Reference

Schoolgirl Milky Crisis

And don’t forget, there’s still a chance to win one of three copies of this book – click here to enter!

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Sex and Zen & A Bullet in the Head

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