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DVDs in Collection: 382

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Kagemusha - Criterion Collection
Foreign Criterion PG
The 1970s were difficult years for the great Japanese director Akira Kurosawa. Following the box-office failure of his 1970 film "Dodes'ka-den" and an unsuccessful suicide attempt, Kurosawa was unable to find financial backing in Japan, and he made his acclaimed 1975 film "Dersu Uzala" in Siberia with Russian financing. With only partial Japanese backing for his epic project "Kagemusha", the 70-year-old master then found American support from George Lucas and Francis Ford Coppola, who served as coexecutive producers (through 20th Century Fox) for this magnificent 1980 production--to that date the most expensive film in Japanese history. Set in the late 16th century, Kagemusha centers on the Takeda clan, one of three warlord clans battling for control of Japan at the end of the feudal period. When Lord Shingen (Tatsuya Nakadai), head of the Takeda clan, is mortally wounded in battle and near death, he orders that his death be kept secret and that his "kagemusha"--or "shadow warrior"--take his place for a period of three years to prevent clan disruption and enemy takeover. The identical double is a petty thief (also played by Nakadai) spared from execution due to his uncanny resemblance to Lord Shingen--but his true identity cannot prevent the tides of fate from rising over the Takeda clan in a climactic scene of battlefield devastation. Through stunning visuals and meticulous attention to every physical and stylistic detail, Kurosawa made a film that restored his status as Japan's greatest filmmaker, and the success of "Kagemusha" enabled the director to make his 1985 masterpiece, "Ran". "--Jeff Shannon"

Karas - The Complete Collection
Anime & Manga Manga Video NR
I actually bumped into this box set this weekend. I like how they did the box design. They kept the two dvds in their original clamshells, but I only opened the 2nd one and didn't find any inserts (not sure if all are like that or if the separate dvd does have promotional materials).



The box set is definitely worth getting if you want to continue the widescreen experience in the second part.



The pacing of the story seems to be bit slower in some areas, and the sound isn't as fantastic as the first part. I just felt the music, pacing and sound was excellent especially in that hospital chase in the 1st one.



There was a change in cast, as Yurine is done by another voice actress, but although noticeable, she was still an excellent replacement. In a lot of ways I find the dub surpasses the original Japanese voice acting. For example in the first DVD I really love how they changed one of the characters with a creepy electronic voice.



You will get backstory into Otaha which is great, in the second DVD you'll learn more of what a Karas is. I'm very much hoping for a spinoff due to the potential of the series.



I think there are some drawbacks in the second part, such as the animation quality seemed to have dropped a bit. Example is when characters are doing attacks it looked like they forgot to render some backgrounds as they would in the first dvd.



I found the conclusion very fitting, and I'm definitely not upset at the ending. Otaha is an extremely interesting character.



I kinda wished they'd have more interaction with other characters like Nue and the Snail guy in the second part, but I was amused by the female character that accompanies the other Yurine.



I had thought about knocking this down a star, but in all honesty I find that the series is just an excellent addition to add to anyone's collection. The drawbacks are *extremely* minor. I found that their approach on mixing 3d with 2d elements of anime was just refreshing, they didn't bother making everything realistic and I found it worked just right, unlike the Final Fantasy Advent movie where it started looking cartoonish when they went through all the trouble of making something realistic and then added in cartoony moves on the characters.



Karas is an excellent animation to show to people at the very least in technical aspects that won't bore people like Ghost in the Shell may.

Kill Bill, Volume 1
Action & Adventure Miramax R
Quentin Tarantino's "Kill Bill, Vol. 1" is trash for connoisseurs. From his opening gambit (including a "Shaw-Scope" logo and gaudy '70s-vintage "Our Feature Presentation" title card) to his cliffhanger finale (a teasing lead-in to 2004's Vol. 2), Tarantino pays loving tribute to grindhouse cinema, specifically the Hong Kong action flicks and spaghetti Westerns that fill his fervent brain--and this frequently breathtaking movie--with enough cinematic references and cleverly pilfered soundtrack cues to send cinephiles running for their reference books. Everything old is new again in Tarantino's humor-laced vision: he steals from the best while injecting his own oft-copied, never-duplicated style into what is, quite simply, a revenge flick, beginning with the near-murder of the Bride (Uma Thurman), pregnant on her wedding day and left for dead by the Deadly Viper Assassination Squad (or DiVAS)--including Lucy Liu and the unseen David Carradine (as Bill)--who become targets for the Bride's lethal vengeance. Culminating in an ultraviolent, ultra-stylized tour-de-force showdown, Tarantino's fourth film is either brilliantly (and brutally) innovative or one of the most blatant acts of plagiarism ever conceived. Either way, it's hyperkinetic eye-candy from a passionate film-lover who clearly knows what he's doing. "--Jeff Shannon"

Kill Bill, Volume 2
Action & Adventure Miramax Home Entertainment R
"The Bride" (Uma Thurman) gets her satisfaction--and so do we--in Quentin Tarantino's "roaring rampage of revenge," "Kill Bill, Vol. 2". Where "Vol. 1" was a hyper-kinetic tribute to the Asian chop-socky grindhouse flicks that have been thoroughly cross-referenced in Tarantino's film-loving brain, "Vol. 2"--not a sequel, but Part Two of a breathtakingly cinematic epic--is Tarantino's contemporary martial-arts Western, fueled by iconic images, music, and themes lifted from any source that Tarantino holds dear, from the action-packed cheapies of William Witney (one of several filmmakers Tarantino gratefully honors in the closing credits) to the spaghetti epics of Sergio Leone. Tarantino doesn't copy so much as elevate the genres he loves, and the entirety of "Kill Bill" is clearly the product of a singular artistic vision, even as it careens from one influence to another. Violence erupts with dynamic impact, but unlike "Vol. 1", this slower grand finale revels in Tarantino's trademark dialogue and loopy longueurs, reviving the career of David Carradine (who plays Bill for what he is: a snake charmer), and giving Thurman's Bride an outlet for maternal love and well-earned happiness. Has any actress endured so much for the sake of a unique collaboration? As the credits remind us, "The Bride" was jointly created by "Q&U," and she's become an unforgettable heroine in a pair of delirious movie-movies ("Vol. 3" awaits, some 15 years hence) that Tarantino fans will study and love for decades to come. "--Jeff Shannon"

Kindred the Embraced - The Complete Vampire Collection
Television Republic Studios NR
Enter the dangerous and sexy world of the undead when vampires clash with mortals and each other in modern-day San Francisco. Five clans of vampires are known as the KINDRED, and in their terrifying embrace, one becomes forever young…forever beautiful...forever doomed. From the savagery in the premiere to the climactic finale, the KINDRED draws you into a mysterious realm of Mafia wars, forbidden liaisons and inhuman hunger in a spellbinding saga of erotic danger and unworldly suspense!

King Kong
Classics Turner Home Ent NR
"Now you see it. You're amazed. You can't believe it. Your eyes open wider. It's horrible, but you can't look away. There's no chance for you. No escape. You're helpless, helpless. There's just one chance, if you can scream. Throw your arms across your eyes and scream, scream for your life!" And scream Fay Wray does most famously in this monster classic, one of the greatest adventure films of all time, which even in an era of computer-generated wizardry remains a marvel of stop-motion animation. Robert Armstrong stars as famed adventurer Carl Denham, who is leading a "crazy voyage" to a mysterious, uncharted island to photograph "something monstrous ... neither beast nor man." Also aboard is waif Ann Darrow (Fay Wray) and Bruce Cabot as big lug John Driscoll, the ship's first mate. "King Kong"'s first half-hour is steady going, with engagingly corny dialogue ("Some big, hard-boiled egg gets a look at a pretty face and bang, he cracks up and goes sappy") and ominous portent that sets the stage for the horror to come. Once our heroes reach Skull Island, the movie comes to roaring, chest-thumping, T. rex-slamming, snake-throttling, pterodactyl-tearing, native-stomping life. "King Kong" was ranked by the American Film Institute as among the 50 best films of the 20th century. Kong making his last stand atop the Empire State Building is one of the movies' most indelible and iconic images. "--Donald Liebenson"

Kingdom Hospital
Television Sony Pictures NR
"Kingdom Hospital" is horror novelist Stephen King's adaptation of Danish director Lars Von Trier's cult miniseries "The Kingdom", geared very much for an American audience. The story unfolds across 15 hours, telling the story of a hospital in Maine that's been built on the site of a 19th-century mill fire that killed most of its young occupants--themes that King fans will be familiar with. In the present day, Kingdom Hospital is haunted by the ghost of 10-year-old child worker Mary and, even more bizarrely, a fearsome giant anteater-like creature called Antubis. It falls to the ace doctor Hook (Andrew McCarthy), the paraplegic artist Jack Coleman (Peter Rickman), and the hypochondriac psychic Sally Druse (Diane Ladd) to enlist the help of a surreal assortment of hospital staff and patients to help Mary and save Kingdom Hospital itself from certain doom.
Fans of Stephen King will probably enjoy the blend of black comedy, spectral horror, and general weirdness, which owes a big debt to previous television series like "Twin Peaks" and even "ER". But too often, "Kingdom Hospital" seems to be trying too hard to make itself into a cult series, something which King is just not a subtle enough writer to carry off. But "Kingdom Hospital" looks good, especially the CGI Antubis, who steals every scene in which he appears. Generally, though, the series is more of an entertaining experiment than a cult-in-the-making. "--Ted Kord"

Kung Fu - The Complete First Season
Television Warner Home Video NR
Everybody was kung-fu fighting after the 1972 premiere of this mystic western starring David Carradine (snatching the role from Bruce Lee) in his signature, Emmy-nominated role as Caine, a stoic Shaolin monk forced to flee China after killing the royal family member who slew his Master. Our wandering hero roams the west in search of his long-lost brother, while eluding American and Imperial bounty hunters, and imparting his ancient wisdom on those he encounters and is compelled to aid. "Kung-Fu" was never a ratings force, but its cult status was assured long before Samuel L. Jackson referenced it in "Pulp Fiction". Along with the inaugural 15 episodes, this three-disc set contains the feature-length pilot that establishes the series' iconography: the inscrutable aphorisms ("When you cease to strive to understand, then you will know without understanding"); the flashbacks to Caine's youth, where the orphaned half-American and half-Chinese boy served as disciple ("Grasshopper") to the Old Man; and, of course, the anticipated moments when the peaceful Caine, like "Billy Jack", is reluctantly compelled by some frontier bigot to use his fighting skills. Look for appearances by father John Carradine and brothers Keith and Robert in the episode, "Dark Angel." That's 11-year-old future Oscar-winner Jodie Foster in "Althea." Other notable episodes include the Emmy-winning "An Eye for an Eye" and "Chains," featuring an Emmy-nominated turn by Michael Greene as a not-so-gentle giant to whom an imprisoned Caine is chained. "With each ending," Caine observes in the episode, "The Third Man," comes a new beginning." "Kung Fu"'s new beginning comes on DVD. Thanks to the timeless frontier setting and the uniqueness of its genre-bending concept, "Kung Fu" dates better than other '70s series. As these episodes demonstrate, the show still has plenty of kick. "--Donald Liebenson"

Kung Fu - The Complete Second Season
Television Warner Home Video NR
He is a man of peace in a violent land. He is Kwai Chang Caine, schooled in the spirit-mind-body wasy of the Shaolin priesthood by the blind avuncular Master Po and the stern , yet loving Master Kan. He is the Old West's most unusual hero. Season 2 guest stars include Harrison Ford, Don Johnson, Slim Pickens, Gilbert Roland, Tina Louise, John Carradine, Benson Fong and More!

Kung Fu - The Complete Third Season
Television Warner Home Video NR
While it may not rank with Richard Kimble's fateful meeting with the One-Armed Man in the series finale of "The Fugitive", Caine's reunion with his long-lost brother, Danny, brings "Kung Fu", to quote the title of the four-episode story arc's conclusion, "Full Circle." The series' rich iconography and episodes featuring returning characters may make this final season heady going for newcomers. But those who have faithfully followed Caine (David Carradine in his iconic role) on his nomadic adventures will be richly rewarded with some of the series' best episodes. The season begins with a stellar two-parter, "Blood of the Dragon," in which Caine seeks the truth about his grandfather's murder, while Imperial assassins are dispatched to kill Caine. The venerable Patricia Neal guest-stars as the grandfather's iron-willed, cold-hearted former lover. Eddie Albert also stars as a doctor who sides with Caine. Other memorable guest stars this season include William Shatner broguing it up, Scotty-style, as a sea captain who arrives with an Imperial pardon for Caine (but at what cost?) in "A Small Beheading." Barbara Hershey portrays an aspiring Shoalin priest in the two-parter, "Besieged." In "The Brothers Caine," a pre-"Airplane" Leslie Nielsen is a ruthless magnate who puts a $10,000 price on Danny's head, making for an awkward reunion when Danny thinks that Caine is a bounty hunter. David's father, John, returns as blind preacher Serenity Johnson in "Ambush."
This season was distinguished by innovative episodes set in China during Caine's "Grasshopper" tutelage. In "The Demon God," the youth, poisoned by a prince, experiences mystical visions of his older, wandering self, who is stung by a scorpion. In "The Thief of Chendo," young Caine's Master imagines an adventure for the aspiring priest. Two Carradine commentaries, and a near-hour long chronicle of Carradine's 30-years-on visit to a Shoalin monastery in China (an incredible journey that ends with Carradine's soulful rendition of "America the Beautiful") help to give "Kung Fu" a worthy DVD send-off. "--Donald Liebenson"

Kung Fu Hustle
Foreign Sony Pictures R
Movie-kinetics genius. "Kung Fu Hustle" takes the gleeful mayhem of Hong Kong action movies, the deadpan physical humor of silent comedies, and the sheer elasticity of Wile E. Coyote cartoons and fuses them into a spectacle that is simple in its joys and mind-boggling in its orchestration. A run-down slum has been poor but peaceful until a bunch of black-suited gangsters called the Axe Gang show up to cause trouble--and discover that, hidden among the humble poor, are three kung fu masters trying to live an ordinary life. But after these martial artists repulse the gang with their flying fists and feet, the gang leader hires a pair of assassins, whose arrival leads to the unveiling of more secrets, until both the screen and the audience are dizzy with hyperbolic fight artistry (choreographed by Yuen Wo Ping, who also choreographed "The Matrix"). Weaving through this escalating fury is a loudmouthed loser (writer/director/actor Stephen Chow) who suddenly finds himself having to live up to his bragging. "Kung Fu Hustle" more than lives up to the promise of Chow's previous film, "Shaolin Soccer"--it's a movie made by an imagination unfettered by the laws of physics. Hugely entertaining. "--Bret Fetzer"


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