13 Assassins
OFFICIAL SELECTION
— Venice Film Festival, Toronto International Film Festival, SXSW
With over eighty films under his belt, ranging from family fare (The Great Yokai War) to the unconventional (Ichi The Killer), Takashi Miike is best described as both prolific and versatile. With 13 Assassins he has remade a 1963 film based on a real-life incident into an exhilarating, blood-soaked epic. Set in the twilight of the samurai era, an honest government official covertly enlists thirteen swordsmen to assassinate a sadistic lord before he can seize more power.
A Lonely Place To Die
Five mountaineers on a climbing trip in the Scottish Highlands stumble across a child buried in a box, her cries echoing through a breathing pipe jutting from the earth. Digging her out, they throw themselves into the middle of a vicious kidnapping scheme and become targets of the culprits who will hunt them to the ends of the earth.
Bail Enforcers
Seven-time World Wrestling Entertainment (WWE) Women’s Champion Trish Stratus leaps from the ring to the silver screen with her debut performance as the member of a crackerjack team of bounty hunters who hit the jackpot when they pick up an informant with a hundred thousand dollar bounty on his head.
OFFICIAL WEBSITE: http://www.bailenforcersmovie.com/ »
Bangkok Knockout
Panna Rittkrai is the grand master of Thai action cinema. He started out as an action star in the 1980s and went on to mentor the most famous Thai film star of all time, Tony Jaa. Skilled at capturing furious kinetic motion either in combat (Chocolate) or jumping and bouncing off rooftops (Born To Fight), Rittkrai is highly regarded by action fans.
Battle Royale
BATTLE ROYALE is a brutal yet emotionally compelling film about a group of ninth-graders who are forced to fight each other until only one of them is left alive.
Bellflower
OFFICIAL SELECTION — Sundance Film Festival, SXSW
Two friends spend all their free time building flame-throwers and weapons of mass destruction in hopes that a global apocalypse will occur and clear the runway for their imaginary gang “Mother Medusa”.
Black Dynamite
This is the story of 1970s African-American action legend Black Dynamite. The Man killed his brother, pumped heroin into local orphanages, and flooded the ghetto with adulterated malt liquor. Black Dynamite was the one hero willing to fight The Man all the way from the blood-soaked city streets to the hallowed halls of the Honky House.
Bunraku
OFFICIAL SELECTION
— Toronto International Film Festival, Austin Fantastic Film Festival
In a hyperreal, hyper-saturated dystopia, guns are banned and the sword is king. Nicola the Woodcutter (Ron Perlman) is a powerful, shadowy crime boss who rules with an iron fist and the help of the Red Gang. His right hand man is Killer #2 (Kevin McKidd), a cold-hearted, smooth-talking, toe-tapping murderer who wields a deadly blade without remorse. However, a mysterious loner (Josh Hartnett) and a samurai (Japanese pop star GACKT!) who meet in a local insurgent’s (Woody Harrelson) bar are on a bone-breaking, head-cracking journey to kill him.
OFFICIAL WEBSITE: Facebook »
Fightville
The draw of two men fighting is as old as civilization itself, but as far back as Plato, the sport of fighting has been at odds with the notion of a civil society. Over the last decade, Mixed Martial Arts (MMA) has grown from a controversial no-holds-barred gladiatorial sideshow into a billion dollar phenomenon eclipsing boxing as the dominant combat sport in the world. But far from Las Vegas, in sweat-soaked gyms and low-rent arenas across America, the big lights are but a dream. Here, men fight to test their mettle, fortified with the mythic promise that an ordinary man can transform into a champion. FIGHTVILLE is about the art and sport of fighting: a microcosm of life, a physical manifestation of that other brutal contest called the American Dream, where men are not born, but built through self determination, hard work and faith. It may be a myth, but in FIGHTVILLE, that’s what champions are made of.
Films Of Fury: The Kung Fu Movie Movie
Framed by the Saturday-morning cartoon style antics of an oppressed peasant seeking kung fu wisdom from an anachronistic Shaolin Temple video store clerk, Films Of Fury delves into the rich, exhilarating and frequently hilarious history of kung fu movies.
Hobo With A Shotgun
OFFICIAL SELECTION: Sundance Film Festival, SXSW
A vigilante homeless man pulls into a new city and finds himself trapped in urban chaos, a city where crime rules and where the city’s crime boss reigns. Seeing an urban landscape filled with armed robbers, corrupt cops, abused prostitutes and even a pedophile Santa, the Hobo goes about bringing justice to the city the best way he knows how – with a 20-gauge shotgun. Mayhem ensues when he tries to make things better for the future generation. Street justice will indeed prevail.
Hooper
An aging stuntman (Burt Reynolds) is challenged by an up and coming daredevil in this 1978 action film directed by Hal Needham.
Ironclad
Ironclad is a bone-crunching medieval action film that graphically depicts the real-life siege of Rochester Castle in 1215. At the request of a group of English land barons, King John (Paul Giamatti from Shoot ‘Em Up) signs the Magna Carta. He quickly reneges on his agreement and assembles an army of Danes to re-establish his reign over England.
OFFICIAL WEBSITE: Facebook »
Little Big Soldier
After hiding throughout a brutal battle, an old soldier (Jackie Chan) inadvertently captures the only surviving enemy, a young General (Leehom Wang). Recognizing the opportunity for reward and advancement, the soldier sets forth with the tied-up General on a long journey home, only to be besieged by bears, bandits, assassins and each other’s unlikely company.
OFFICIAL WEBSITE: http://dbxj.ent.sina.com.cn/ »
Machete
Betrayed and left for dead by his corrupt employers, Mexican Federale turned gun-for-hire Machete (Danny Trejo) sets out on a warpath seeking vengeance.
Machete Maidens Unleashed!
OFFICIAL SELECTION
— Toronto International Film Festival, Austin Fantastic Fest
Two years after Not Quite Hollywood, a dizzying doc on Australia’s genre cinema, Mark Hartley returns with another ambitious assessment of all things ‘sploitation. This time, his focus is the B-movie movement in the budget-friendly Philippines.
OFFICIAL WEBSITE: http://www.machetemaidensunleashed.com/ »
Never Back Down 2
Ex-boxer Zack (Alex Meraz), talented MMA fighter Tim (Todd Duffee), bullied record store clerk Justin (Scott Epstein), and wrestler Mike (Dean Geyer) come from various backgrounds, but they all share one thing in common: a passion for the “savage science” and quickly become loyal to their unorthodox trainer, Case (Michael Jai White), a brilliant ex-UFC Champion down on his own luck. Teaching them about much more than fighting, Case prepares the young men for a competition called the Beatdown, run by local college kid and fight impresario Max (Evan Peters). When their mentor gets set-up by some bad cops, the young men band together to root out a traitor in their midst.
Outrage
The plot concerns a struggle for power amongst Tokyo’s Yakuza clans, today just as likely to be playing the stock market as shaking down pachinko parlors, over which the Sanmo-kai clan holds sway in the face of constant betrayal and ever-changing allegiances. Sanmo-kai chairman Ototomo (played by Kitano himself) learns that his henchman Ikemoto has struck an alliance with the drug-dealing Murase family, and is not best pleased, to say the least. The ensuing retaliation triggers an orgy of killings, territorial invasions and score settling.
Super
OFFICIAL SELECTION
— Toronto International Film Festival, SXSW
No stranger to rebel filmmaking, James Gunn cut his teeth writing for Troma before his directing debut with 2006′s Slither. His follow-up feature combines absurd humor with balls-out violence to create something that is both unashamed and inimitable.
OFFICIAL WEBSITE: http://www.thecrimsonbolt.com/ »
The Heir Apparent: Largo Winch
Based upon a series of famous graphic novels by Jean Van Hamme and Philippe Francq, Largo Winch is a globe-trotting action-adventure film about a man who battles corporate sharks with both his brains and his fists.
OFFICIAL WEBSITE: http://www.largowinch-lefilm.com/ »
The Wraith
Featured in Destroy All Movies!!!: The Complete Guide to Punks on Film, published by Fantagraphics Books!
Packard Walsh and his motorized gang control and terrorize an Arizona desert town where they force drivers to drag-race so they can ‘win’ their vehicles. After Walsh beats the decent teenager Jamie Hankins to death after finding him with his girlfriend, a mysterious power creates Jake Kesey, an extremely cool motor-biker who has a car which is invincible. Jake befriends Jamie’s girlfriend Keri Johnson, takes Jamie’s sweet brother Bill under his wing and manages what Sheriff Loomis couldn’t; eliminate Packard’s criminal gang the hard way.
Tomorrow, When The War Began
Seven Australian teenage friends from a small town go on a camping trip to be with nature. During their trip, they see military aircraft fly overhead. What they didn’t know was their country was being invaded by another country. Returning home, they discover that they are at war. With no training, they band together to fight the enemy.
