VIZ Media to launch RESIDENT EVIL manga series on November 18, 2014

© CAPCOM © 2012 NAOKI SERIZAWA / AKITASHOTEN

VIZ MEDIA UNLEASHES THE TERRIFYING

RESIDENT EVIL MANGA SERIES AND OFFERS

A SPECIAL FREE PREVIEW FOR

HALLOWEEN COMICFEST 2014

Discover The Source Of The Outbreak Of The Deadly

C-Virus In The Gritty Manga Prequel To CAPCOM’s

Popular Resident Evil® 6 Game Property

VIZ Media gives gamers and action fans a special FREE sneak preview of its forthcoming RESIDENT EVIL: THE MARHAWA DESIRE manga (graphic novel) series as part of the company’s participation in 2014 Halloween ComicFest.

The terrifying 5-volume apocalyptic action thriller was created by Naoki Serizawa and serves as a prequel to the storyline of CAPCOM’s bestselling Resident Evil® 6 game property. The manga series is rated ‘M’ for Mature Readers and will launch on November 18th under the VIZ Signature imprint. RESIDENT EVIL: THE MARHAWA DESIRE Vol. 1 will carry a print MSRP of $12.99 U.S. / $14.99 CAN.

Held each year, Halloween ComicFest is celebrated at scores of comic shops and retailers nationwide on the Saturday before Halloween. On this day, participating shops offer fans and visitors a special FREE Halloween ComicFest sampler filled with previews of scores of exciting upcoming titles. For additional information and a list of participating retailers, visit www.halloweencomicfest.com.

The highly virulent C-virus became a global disaster, but where did the outbreak start? In the series’ opening volume, at the prestigious and elite Marhawa Academy in Singapore, a female student suffers a horrifying transformation. Called in to investigate, Professor Doug Wright and his nephew Ricky find themselves caught up in a deadly and growing tragedy. As things get rapidly out of hand, Chris Redfield and his team from the Bioterrorism Security Assessment Alliance arrive on the scene, while behind it all a mysterious figure looms.

“Discover the sinister beginnings of the Resident Evil story in the first-ever manga series based on the smash hit game property,” says Michael Montesa, Editor. “Along with tracing the source of the deadly viral outbreak, the manga series also presents the debut of Piers Nivans, who appears in the Resident Evil 6 video game as Chris Redfield's new partner. Readers will not want to miss a special advance preview of RESDIENT EVIL as part of Halloween ComicFest. Catch the full launch of this spine tingling new series from the VIZ Signature imprint next month!”

Since the landmark release of Resident Evil in 1996, the CAPCOM franchise has firmly established itself as a truly worldwide entertainment brand and mainstay of contemporary culture with a series of live action movies, CG anime, manga, novels and numerous merchandising lines. To date the Resident Evil series of videogames has achieved global sales of over 50 million units, while the live action movies starring Milla Jovovich have grossed in excess of $525 million dollars at the box office.

RESIDENT EVIL artist/author Naoki Serizawa is a multi-talented photographer and cinematographer as well as a manga artist and writer. His other series Saru Lock was developed into a TV drama in Japan in 2009.

For more information on RESIDENT EVIL: THE MARHAWA DESIRE or other manga and/or anime titles published by VIZ Media, visit www.VIZ.com.

INFLATABLE SEX DOLL OF THE WASTELANDS at Japan Society NY

Inflatable Sex Doll of the Wastelands (c) 1967 KOKUEI

 Inflatable Sex Doll of the Wastelands / Koya no Datch Waifu

Directed by Atsushi Yamatoya

Japan, 1967, 85 minutes

When: Saturday, October 18, 2014 at 7:00 PM

Where: Japan Society NY

333 East 47th Street, NYC

(Between 1st and 2nd Avenues)

Map

Tickets

Tonight at 7:00 PM, Atsushi Yamatoya’s Inflatable Sex Doll of the Wastelands will kick off Japan Society NY's new monthly film series, The Dark Side of the Sun: John Zorn on Japanese Cinema. (For Mike Hale's overview article at the New York Times, click here.)  Tonight's screening will be followed by a reception.

At an isolated spot, a hitman named Sho (Yuichi Minato) meets with Naka (Masayoshi Nogami), a rich real estate agent. Naka had a minor misunderstanding with someone that escalated into the kidnapping of Sae (Noriko Tatsumi), who worked in Naka's office, several months earlier. Sae has been raped by her kidnappers, and Naka shows Sho the film of her being violated that he was sent. Naka hires Sho to get Sae back.

This job reminds Sho of the kidnapping and murder of Rie (Mari Nagisa), his girl, five year earlier by a man named Koh. Sho has dreamed -- or is it hallucinated? -- about shooting Koh every day since then, always at 3:00, the time Rie died.

There's some campy hard-boiled dialogue, such as "Cheap girls are a dime a dozen" and "Get outta Dodge." The compositions within the frame can be rather unusual at times; for example, a face being partially cropped in the upper left corner of the frame. Personally I think these "choices" may have been dictated by the size of the available sets and lenses. In any case, these strange croppings can be  unsettling. The often hand held and shaky camera work also contributes to a sense of unease.

There are a number of sex scenes, with quick flashes of bare female breasts. The film also has a cool jazz score by pianist and composer Yosuke Yamashita that's reminiscent of some contemporary works by John Coltrane and Ornette Coleman.

The film also brings to mind Seijun Suzuki's Branded to Kill , which was released a few months earlier in 1967. This is not surprising in that director Yamatoya was one of the uncredited writers on the script of  Suzuki’s film.

Inflatable Sex Doll of the Wastelands  has been selected as one of "The Best Old Movies on a Big Screen This Week" at The L Magazine.

Note that at IMDb the film is listed as Dutch Wife in the Desert, with Inflatable Sex Doll of the Wastelands as an a.k.a.

AsianCineFest Rating: I'm going to have to go with a 3.5 out of 4 star rating; very highly recommended. For the film itself, I'd probably assign 3 out of 4 stars, solidly recommended. The extra 1/2 star is warranted because there simply aren't going to be many opportunities to see it, which makes tonight's screening a very special event. 

Ann Hui's THE GOLDEN ERA opens tomorrow in the U.S. and Canada

The Golden Era / Huang jin shi dai

Directed by Ann Hui

China/Hong Kong, 2014, 177 minutes

The Golden Era is an epic biography of Xiao Hong, one of China’s most famous essayists and novelists. Helmed by the renowned Hong Kong director Ann Hui, it will open tomorrow, Friday, October 17th in the United States and Canada. (It opened today, September 16th, in Australia and New Zealand.) For cities and theaters, click here.

Mainland Chinese actress Tang Wei (who had the lead role in Ang Lee's Lust Caution and in last year's hit Finding Mr. Right, which was also released by China Lion) stars as female novelist Xiao Hong, whose given name was Zhang Naiying. In a brief opening monologue, Hong tells us that she was born on June 1, 1911 in Manchuria and died on January 22, 1942 in a makeshift hospital in Japanese-occupied Hong Kong.

Details of her short, unconventional and rather unhappy life are frequently recounted by such narratives, sometimes spoken by her, sometimes by the people -- mainly literary figures and others from the world of publishing -- who knew her. Thus the film's dramatic narrative is frequently broken by brief scenes of "talking heads." The author's own writings are also quoted to illustrate what was happening to her during this turbulent period.

Xjao Jun (Feng Shaofeng), left, and Xiao Hong (Tamg Wei)

Feng Shaofeng (Young Detective Dee: Rise of the Sea Dragon ) co-stars as Xiao Jun, the writer with whom Hong had a long and troubled relationship. It was his family name that Hong used in her nom de plume.

Personally, at a nearly three hour running time, I found The Golden Era to be a bit overlong. Compare its length with Center Stage (1991), Stanley Kwan's biographical film about Ruan Ling-yu, the actress (played by Maggie Cheung) who killed herself in 1935 at the age of 24. Both Ruan and Hong were unconventional figures and victims of gossip, but Kwan's multi-award winning film is a conventional 126 minutes long. I never thought I'd say this, but The Golden Era is an Asian film that might actually have benefited from some cuts mandated by Harvey "Scissorhands" Weinstein.

On the other hand, it is highly respected in Hong Kong, which has chosen it as the autonomous region's official selection for consideration by the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences for its Best Foreign Language category.

AsianCIneFest Rating: 3.5 out of 4 stars; highly recommended. Irregardless of its length, this film is well-worth seeing for its detailed depiction of a very talented woman whose free-thinking was most unconventional during the all-too-brief period of her life.

THE LAST SUPPER is available today

Cinedigm

and

Random Media

presents

 The Last Supper / Wang de Shengyan

Directed by Lu Chuan

China, 2012, 116 minutes

Mandarin with English 

The Last Supper is a Chinese historical drama from Lu Chuan, the director of City of Life and Death (2009). It becomes available today, Tuesday, September 14th, on Blu-ray, DVD and Digital HD. This review is based on watching the Blu-ray version.

The film is an historical drama concerned with the founding of the Han Dynasty. It begins in 195 B.C. when Emperor Liu Bang (mainland actor Liu Ye), who founded the dynasty, is 61 years old and rather mentally enfeebled. In a flashback set fourteen years earlier, when Liu was forty-eight, we learn that he and Xin (Taiwan born Chen Chang), who would become a leading general, were just "street rats." At that time, Liu first saw Lord Yu (Daniel Wu), who was then twenty-four and leading the rebellion against the  Ziying, the Qin Emperor. Yu was of noble birth, but "blind to the ambitions of others." The film depicts the rivalries, shifting alliances and betrayals among these three characters.

A sub-theme concerns the jealousy of Liu's wife (actress Qin Lan, the director's wife) toward his concubines, particularly Qi, and their offspring.

Many of the scenes take place in Liu's dark, heavily draped quarters. There he recalls events from the past and is plagued with nightmares.

The film appears to have been made on a rather modest budget. There are references to armies numbering in the hundreds of thousands; however we usually see perhaps a few dozen soldiers at most. There is just one CGI scene depicting a large force, but the computer figures in the background are largely stationary. There is only one actual battle scene and it's rather limited in terms of the number of combatants involved.

There are no extras on the Blu-ray or DVD. The only option is watching the movie with English subtitles on or off.

The Last Supper, which was shown at the 2013 New York Asian Film Festival, may be short on action, but it is replete with intrigue.

AsianCineFest Rating: 2.5 out of 4 stars. Give it 3 stars if you're after the drama, and the lack of action (and extras) doesn't concern you.

Sentai Filmworks has acquired GUGURE! KOKKURI-SAN

A forgotten spirit goes from scare-maker to caretaker to an odd little girl with a serious love of junk food in Sentai Filmworks' latest acquisition, Gugure! Kokkuri-san. This dark comedy series from original creator Midori Endo is directed by Yoshimasa Hiraike (Wagnaria!!, AKB0048) with character designs by Miwa Oshima (Koihime Muso, Baka and Test – Summon the Beasts) and animation production by TMS Entertainment (Yowamushi Pedal, Hamtaro).

Enter Ichimatsu Kohina— an unusual young girl with an even more unusual diet. Living off of nothing but cup ramen, the emotionally-detached Kohina spends her spare time attempting to summon ghosts in her giant home. But when Kohina actually does manage to summon a spirit, she finds herself face-to-face with a handsome young fox ghost named Kokkuri. Although Kohina wants nothing to do with this white-haired weirdo, this determined ghost refuses to take “no” for an answer. And when Kokkuri witnesses Kohina’s deplorable dietary decisions, he has no choice but to go from haunting her to taking care of her!

But where there’s one ghost more are sure to follow, and soon Kohina goes from living alone to living with an assortment of handsome supernatural entities. Underestimating his powers and undermining his authority as her new caretaker, a new life is about to begin for a strange girl and a fox ghost in Gugure! Kokkuri-san.

Gugure! Kokkuri-san will be available soon through select digital outlets with a home video release to follow.