goro kishitani - Film Combat Syndicate

goro kishitani

HIGH & LOW 2: END OF SKY Review: Sad Goodbyes, Sinister Plot Twists And Blockbuster Action Mark The Beginning Of The End

Following his solo turn at the helm for High & Low: The Movie, the aftermath of Yudai Yamaguchi’s High & Low: The Red Rain now brings our attention to the latest of major final chapters of the High & Low film saga. It’s understandable if you feel like things have hit a fever pitch too, especially if you’ve seen both seasons of the NTV and Hulu dramas that pre-empt the current film saga from LDH Pictures and Shochiku. Still, it bares noting the freshness and practicality with which these films have been treated in bringing this contemporary Japanese gangland action cineverse to life, with none other than some of J-pop’s brightest stars composing most of the roster. In High & Low 2: End Of Sky, things are heating up even more in the district of S.W.O.R.D., with the emergence of outside gangs looking to muscle their way in amid the […]

Arrow Video Channel Review: In Takashi Miike’s GRAVEYARD OF HONOR, Criminals Gonna Criminal

Lee B. Golden III

In reflecting on Takashi Miike’s 2002 rendition of Kinji Fukasaku’s Graveyard Of Honor, news of pending remakes of Mario Van Peebles’ New Jack City and that of Brian De Palma’s Scarface comes to mind. Remakes and reboots of movies are the lifeblood of controversy for some film eager and opinionated film fans, and brouhaha with the latter two were no exception, although it’s worth imagining if those remakes will be anything like how Miike revised such a throwback classic. The reception for the 2002 film, indeed, was quite positive, which is characteristic of an auteur like Mikke, who roared his way through the 1990s and 2000s with hits like Audition, Ichi The Killer, the Dead Or Alive trilogy and the Bodyguard Kiba movies to name a few, among the dozens of films he did by this juncture. Miike’s casting of Goro Kishitani to play Rikuo Ishimatsu (to the late Tetsuya […]