7 Dollar Popcorn Presents the 7 Dollar Popcorn FILMuary Spectacular: 28 Days of Movie Mayhem Day 26: Imprint

Cheating for the first time it's 7 Dollar Popcorn Presents the 7 Dollar Popcorn FILMuary Spectacular: 28 Days of Movie Mayhem. Today, like I said, I'm cheating. After 25 consecutive days of movies, we're going to look at an episode of a television show. The show is Showtime's Masters of Horror. The episode is the Takasi Miike episode that went unaired in the US titled Imprint.

A group of guys is on a boat. They're headed for an island of demons and whores. Christopher is looking for a whore he fell in love with many years ago. He wants to take her back to America and marry hear. The whore's name was Komomo. I say "was" because she apparently killed herself. Instead, Christopher meets a whore called The Woman.

"I feel pretty. Oh so pretty"

It's The Woman who explains to Christopher what happened to his love, Komomo. (By the way, isn't it kind of weird to say you fell in love with someone because they reminded you of your sister?) Her brutal torture over a stolen ring. Incense sticks in her armpits and needles in her gums and under her fingernails. But, it's a lie. But, Chris doesn't want the lie. He wants to know "the truth".

Torture is so sexy!



"Growing up my choices were ballerina, acrobat and whore. I decided to go for all three"

The Woman framed and killed Komomo. Chris still isn't convinced that this is the entire story. So, The Woman tells another version. Her parents were beggers, moving from villiage to villiage. Mom was less of a midwife and more of an...abortionist. Dad was a drunk and a wife beater. Upon her birth, The Woman was tossed in the river, where she survived for two days until mom decided to be a mom. As she grew up, she helped her mom with the baby killin...and the pleasing of dad...

After that it gets weird. She has a sister. And by sister I mean she has a hand and face growing out of her head like a demon. You see, mom and dad were siblings. So, inevitably, they were gonna be fucked up. It was the sister that stole the ring. It was The Woman who killed Komomo.

A tale of two sisters

Miike really has an interest in strange characters. Freaks. You look at his history, Ichi the Killer, The Great Yokai War, Izo. He has this love affair with crazy characters and fucked up situations. Imprint is a story of whores, torture, incest, dead babies, demons, murder and personal hells. And, it's not easy to watch.

It's Miike's take on Memoirs of a Geisha. It's everything you expect from Miike. It's pretty to look at, in it's own sort of way. The characters are certainly unique. The actors themselves have some trouble with the English dialogue. There's really not much else to say about it. If you're a fan of Miike, you'll probably dig this. If not, this won't change your mind. I don't know that I can really give an accurate rating to this. It was well done, but I was really kind of grossed out and put off by it. If I had a cable network, I'm not sure that I would have shown it either. So, I'm going to go dead middle on it and give it 5 stolen rings out of ten.

7 Dollar Popcorn Presents The 7 Dollar Popcorn FILMuary Extravaganza: 28 Days of Movie Mayhem Day 7: The Great Yokai War

So, how many days until I finally get around to doing a Japanese movie? It was day seven of 7 Dollar Popcorn Presents The 7 Dollar Popcorn FILMuary Extravaganza: 28 Days of Movie Mayhem Day. The Movie? Takashi Miike's fantasy file The Great Yokai War.

Yokai are spirits in Japanese folklore. Kind of like minor gods, but not gods. They're the spirits of various things and activities. For example, theres the sprite of rubbing your shins. You also have bean washer spirits. Many of them are pretty mundane, others are more like royalty of their areas, like seasons or places. Hell, there's probably some spirit of shoving toy clowns in strangers vaginas. It's that kind of a thing. And the Japanese are kind of weird...

Tadashi is a young boy. His mom and dad got divorced about six months ago and he and his mom moved in with his grandfather. They live in a small rural town now as opposed to Tokyo. At a local festival, Tadashi is chosen as the Kirin Rider. This means...well, I don't know what the fuck it means. That he gets to be kind of special or something. That's what the other kids tell him.

It turns out that Tadashi has to get some sort of sword, but he's a coward, so he can't but then he meets a sprite and is convinced to try to retrieve the sword. First though, he has to pass some tests. Naturally, he does. Not without a fight though. A fight against himself. This kid is a coward. Like big time.

So, he passes and falls into the river where he's saved by the hot chick, Kawahime, the river princess.

Apparently, all roads lead to her crotch. I mean, why else would Miike keep heading there? Seriously, at this point he's the second little kid to try shoving his hand up her crotch. And, while there's not really anything WRONG with that, it's still kinda pointless.

So, this group of yokai and Tadashi head to meet with Tengu to retrieve this sword. Once there, Tadashi is too chicken shit to draw the sword. Then, Tengu gets attacked by Agi.

Agi is a yokai, too, but more evil. She's helping capture the other yokai. In order to power this kind of yokai of destruction and rage. Or something. I don't know.

Not Christopher Walken

It's a lot of goofy looking monsters fighting each other. Let's be honest though...I'm kinda into movies about goofy looking monsters fighting each other.

Many of your favorite fantasy adventure clichés are here. The kid who has to over come his cowardice and such (and goddamn is this kid a little coward. Every time you turn around he's too scared to do what he needs to do. Fucking pussy. Dude, you're what, 12? Grow a pair). And the most unlikely character being the key to saving the day.

Miike's movies can be kind of hit and miss sometimes. I mean, I loved Ichi the Killer, Audition was alright, Izo was what a massive pile of what the Brits mights refer to as shite. So, the fact that Miike managed to put together a mostly coherent story here is kind of impressive. The real question is, is it a children's fantasy? And you know what, I guess it depends on the parent. Hell, I work with a guy who's three year old daughter LOVES Godzilla movies. There are some parts of this movie that may be a bit much for some kids, but older kids would probably dig it. Myself, well, hell, I'm just a big kid who likes dirty words. So, I dug it. It was fun, even if it was like every other movie in the genre with only a slight touch of Miike's weirdness. It's worth checking out, so 7 and a half sprites who rate movies on an arbitrary scale out of 10.

Izo...oh geez

Oh, Izo, I'd been looking forward to seeing you for a couple of months. You were directed by Takashi Miike and you had 'Beat' Takeshi. And then you pulled a sword from your vagina and stabbed me.

Maybe I'd had too much to drink, maybe I'm just not smart enough, maybe it just wasn't very good, but Izo bordered on unwatchable. Not because it was graphic or obscene, just because it made no sense. Izo bordered on being a waste of 2 hours. That's about the worst thing I can say about a movie, that it was a waste of time. On a scale of Shaun of the Dead to House of the Dead, it ranks House of the Dead.

Read a review from someone who "gets" it if you want.

Now I REALLY want to see this

Showtime has apparently turned sissy. Takashi Miike' contribution to Showtime's Masters Of Horror has been pulled from the schedule. His contribution, titled Imprint, was apparently a bit more than Showtime anticipated, so they've decided to release it with the DVDs for the series but not air it.

Seriously, sounds interesting. Of course you know this will be a huge selling point for the DVDs.

Check it out, the NY Times wrote about this one.

2 Extremes and 1 WTF

Watched 3 Extremes tonight. I enjoyed it for the most part. Three "extreme" short films from three different countries, Japan, China and Korea.


Fruit Chan's Dumplings was really good, though it reminded me of Jonnaton Swift's 'A Modest Proposal' with a fountain of youth twist. Chan Wook Park's Cut didn't remind me of anything, but I really enjoyed it's movie within a movie feel with the sets. Takeshi Miike's contribution, Box, left me scratching my head a bit, and was probably the weakest of the three if I had to choose.

For the most part though, if you're a fan of any of these directors, or asian movies in general, it's worth checking out. They're the kind of stories that Hollywood tends to stay away from. Then again, I said that about Oldboy, and it looks like Hollywood is going to take a stab at it anyways.