by Sebastian Kluth
Brotherhood of Blades is a very entertaining wu xia movie. It combines dynamic martial arts and sword fights with historical costumes and settings and a dramatic dose of suspense in form of complex conspiracies. The greatest thing about the movie is that...
Samaritan Zatoichi is the nineteenth film in the franchise about the blind masseur, skilled swordsman and lowly yakuza. In this movie, Zatoichi reprises his work as yakuza to earn some money. Initially hired as observator, he ends up fighting and killing...
Before I Fall is best described as a contemporary feminist take on Groundhog Day. It tells the story of high school student Samantha who seems to have a quite normal life. She lives with her friendly parents and her good-spirited little sister. She has...
Zatoichi Goes to the Fire Festival is the twenty-first entry in the Japanese franchise about the blind masseur, skilled swordsman and lowly yakuza. This is also by far the most experimental movie in the series so far and comes as an unexpected positive...
Samsara Flight ~輪廻飛翔~ was released in two different versions. The first one was a package of three discs, including reworked classics, a selection of simply compiled greatest hits plus a live show honoring the legendary Thunder in the East album which...
When the infamous Iraq War started one and a half decades ago, I was still in high school but I remember many students of my age demonstrating against said war and the American President George W. Bush. I recall a classmate of mine who brought a poster...
After releasing one of the very best entries in the franchise with the sinister Zatoichi's Revenge, Zatoichi and the Doomed Man is one of the weakest films about the blind masseur. It tells how Zatoichi gets arrested for illegal gambling and meets a prisoner...
Midnattsol's The Aftermath is the first record of the German-Norwegian quintet since former Leaves' Eyes singer Liv Kristine joined her sister Carmen Elise Espenæs last year. I expected a clever use of the two distinctive vocalists but the new material...
A Cure of Wellness is one of the best Western movies in recent memory and it's a mystery to me why this film didn't get the attention it deserved. Many people claim that it bombed at the box office. That's not surprising because I was actively trying...
Three years after the pitiless Cavalo de Tróia, Brazilian crossover thrash metal quartet Ação Libertária is back with another thought-provoking full length effort consisting of twelve tracks and a running time of thirty-five minutes entitled Cidadão de...
Cypecore is band that mixes groove metal, industrial metal and melodic death metal. The vocals are mostly performed in a harsh melodic death metal style with a few isolated shouts and clean vocal passages. Distorted vocal effects also shine through here...
Wind River is the blockbuster you didn't know you had to watch this summer or autumn. The movie is a gloomy mixture of a sinister drama with a set of authentic, flawed and haunted characters and a quite gruesome, mysterious and tense thriller. The fact...
Every year again, citizens of the Western world get bombarded with Christmas music right after Halloween. We are exposed to it on the televison, on the radio and in shopping malls to just give a few examples. Instead of increasing the excitement for Christmas,...
Omnium Gatherum is a quite complicated case. The Finnish melodic death metal band is absolutely captivating in concert but rarely transmits this certain type of magic onto its regular studio albums. This is particularly obvious on Grey Heavens. The band...
Ring of Fire is a progressive power metal all-star band supported by the Italian label Frontiers Records. There are three elements that got me interested in the group's first release in ten years. First and foremost, the title Battle of Leningrad evokes...
The Tale of Zatoichi is the first in a long series of samurai movies centered around the blind gambler and masseur turned lowly yakuza who has a strong moral compass and makes us feel empathic not because he is blind and underestimated but because he...
I have always been a supporter of kawaii metal as it has revolutionized the metal genre. Revolutionary bands have always taken risks, expanded horizons and been controversially discussed. This was the case when doom metal created a whole new genre of...
*** This review may contain spoilers *** The Villainess could have been one of this year's greatest movies. The first-person action choreography is absolutely stunning, the characters are interesting to profound and the story is filled with numerous twists...
Jackie Chan is an incredibly skilled actor but he has often chosen rather uninteresting roles that limit him to slapstick comedy and a few fight scenes in exchangeable family movies like Kung Fu Yoga and Chinese Zodiac. His last entirely interesting movie...
Going into this movie, I didn't expect anything. I went to a movie night at my local cinema on a Tuesday night and simply needed to find a second film to complete my double feature. It turns out that I got much more than I would have expected from this...
Snarveien, better known as Detour, is a classic Norwegian horror movie. The story is quickly told. A young couple that illegally smuggles alcohol has to take a detour because of an accident and gets stranded on an abandoned road in the woods. Soon, strange...
I'm glad I didn't buy into the numerous negative reviews and purchased this film that seemed to have a very intriguing plot. I must say that I even got much more than I expected. 400 Days convinces with a gloomy and mysterious atmosphere, four distinguished...
Amorphis hasn't released a physical greatest hits compilation in more than thirteen years when ''Chapters'' had been published. Since then, Amorphis had an important line-up change with the chasrismatic and versatile Tomi Joutsen taking Pasi Koskinen's...
HammerFall has a very particular strength. While the band's song writing might be predictable and their musical qualities only of an average quality if compared to several genre colleagues, the band is able to write inredibly catchy songs that won't get...
There are many things that could be discussed regarding Avenged Sevenfold's seventh studio record The Stage. I might mention that the band released this record without any big announcements and promotions and kept their upcoming release a well-kept secret...
