Manga to Movies Week

Over the last week or so, I have watched several Japanese movies from the 60's and 70's to support my current habit for all things Toei and Toho. As it turns out ,several of the movies I watched were adaptations from Manga, as Lone Wolf and Cub is. This was not on purpose, except for the in the case of the Golgo 13 movie I watched. I played the shitty video game 20 years ago and have known for several years that it is one of Japan's longest running mangas. I figured instead of writing one seperate review, I would just give you a rundown of the comic-born awesomeness that blessed my television screen.

Lady Snowblood: I would have to say Lady Snowblood now has a place in my permanent top 10 if I had such a thing. I started watching Snowblood knowing that Tarantino was heavily influenced by it. So much in fact, he used alot of the greatest elements found in Lady SnowBlood and used them in Kill Bill. Killer swordplay, ridiculous blood sprays, and vengeance up the fuckin' ass. This movie was very much the blueprint for the latter half of Kill Bill. I tried, for the life of me to write a seperate review, but i couldn't put into words how great this movie is. Take a very hot Meiko Kaji, of Pinky Violence genre fame, and throw her into the role of an assassin raised to avenge her mother, add a sword and some very violent killings, and you have yourself a masterpiece. At first I picked this up because its considered a Pinky Violence, but then realized there was a whole fuckin' bunch more to it. It turns out that the creator of the manga, Kazuo Koike, is also the same guy responsible for Lone Wolf and Cub. Yet another reason this caught me hook, line, and sinker. I have never been much of a manga fan, as I have stated in ealier posts, but watching Snownlood has made me crave for something more than the two movies, which I'll still watch over-and-over again.



Oggon Batto(the GoldenBat):It's a bird,it's a plane, it's...ummm......a flying mummy with a shiny, gold jumsuit and a hideous laugh?!? As ridiculous as it sounds, Oggon Batto was a pretty entertaining movie. If your a fan of Kaiju, golden-age superhero serials, and Sonny Chiba in one of his earliest roles (no he wasn't the Golden Bat), this is probably the movie for you. This was yet another movie that was not only based on a comic character, it was based on THE japanese comic character. Apparently, Oggon Batto has existed in one for or another since the 40's and is Japan's first superhero creation. The movie had such a great reception when it was first released in 1966 that it ran for 52 episodes on TV as an anime series,w hich is apparently impossible to find if you live in the States like I do. Fucking bullshit. It's probably a good thing I can't get my hands on the anime series right now, I wouldn't leave my room until I had seen every fucking episode because I'm like that.



Golgo 13: Kowloon Assignment: What more do I really have to say about this than Sonny Fuckin' Chiba plays manga's premiere sniper. Not only do we get Chiba shooting muthafuckas with pinppoint accuracy, but we also get the ultra-violent karate action that made The Street Fighter such a fucking kick ass movie. This happens to be the second Golgo 13 movie, I still have yet to see the first one. Again, all I really have to say is Sonny Fuckin' Chiba and that name should speak volumes.