Nie Yinniang is an assassin, trained by the nun who cared for her as a child. When she fails one of her assignments she is sent on a mission to kill a cousin she was betrothed to. Killing him means returning to the family and past that she left behind before her exile. Her cousin just also happens to be the well protected governor at the center of a province of intrigue.
This film is intensely beautiful in its cinematography and its action; it’s shot in an interesting collage fashion with a mix of film stocks and aspect ratios. The Assassin is a multi-layered tale of loyalty and betrayal and the past coming back to haunt. It was Taiwan’s selection for the Academy Awards but it was not nominated, though it dearly deserved to be. This is one of those movies like Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon where even if you’re not a fan of the genre it is easy to be awed by grandeur and drama of the film.
The Assassin bonus features include:
- Behind the Scenes featurette
- Theatrical Trailer
One hundred years after London, a Jack the Ripper copycat is stalking Los Angeles. John Wesford (a very young James Spader) is an intern at an inner-city health clinic who accidentally stumbles across his coworker in the act of killing. The Ripper gets the upper hand and hangs him; that’s when John’s twin brother Richard (also Spader) wakes up from a nightmare vision of the murder. That’s just the set-up of this strange, long out of print, little suspense thriller.
The film moves at a snail’s pace and never quite gets to suspenseful, but it’s just weird enough that I found a lot to like about it. James Spader is utterly charming in his own unnerving way and the whole twin thing is awesomely bizarre. The image quality is good, coming from the original negative, but still looks a little murky. Scream Factory did a good job though of loading up the disc with extras that grants us some insight into what is otherwise a pretty obscure title.
Jack’s Back bonus features include:
- High Definition Transfer from the Original Negative
- Audio Commentary with Writer/Director Rowdy Herrington
- “The Making of JACK’S BACK” – Interviews with Writer/Director Rowdy Herrington, Producer Tim Moore, Actress Cynthia Gibb, and Director of Photography Shelly Johnson
- Theatrical Trailer
You might be asking ‘what’s this film about? It doesn’t even have a wiki page.’ I’m not sure I could really even tell you, but I can say decisively it’s one of the most poo-flinging crazy films I’ve ever seen. Weasel (Brad Dourif at full volume Chucky-laughing) steals a car for the local gangster of a dusty desert town. Unbeknownst to him, there’s a baby in the backseat that is adopted by the gangster’s transvestite wife (David Carradine, yes, that David Carradine). The baby grows up to be the titular Sonny Boy, a mute geek who helps his criminal father terrorize the town.
It sounds like a lesser Troma film I know, but there are production values here and the characters are surprisingly sincere, with the tongue in cheek kept to a minimum. This film plays like John Waters directed The Hills Have Eyes. I have no idea where Scream Factory dug this film up but if you love bizarre, cult cinema and haven’t seen Sonny Boy, you need to run out and buy a copy immediately. This has to be one for the weird record books. I’m putting the trailer in so you can get a taste but it doesn’t near do this film justice.
Sonny Boy bonus features include:
- Audio commentary with director Robert Martin Carroll
- Audio commentary with writer Graeme Whifler
- Script – 1st draft (BD-Rom)
- Theatrical Trailer
Adam Ruhl is a writer and life long Cinephile. He is the Executive
Cinema Editor of Pop Culture Beast’s Austin branch; covering festivals,
conventions, and new releases. When not filing reports, Adam can be
found stalking Alamo Drafthouse Programmers for leads on upcoming
DrafthouseFilms titles. Adam once blocked Harry Knowles entrance to a
theater until he was given extra tickets to a Roman Polanski movie.