Reviews

My first thoughts when I started watching this film was that it was just another rip off of Tarantino ripping off John Woo. It starts with all too clichéd climax that then pushes you back 18 hours in time to see just how we got into this predicament of people speeding around in a car covered in blood (hello....Reservoir Dogs?). Then we have the even more clichéd Mexican stand off between gangster, more gangsters and gangsters who are really dirty cops. But as this movie slowed down to breath for a minute the movie gets much more interesting. The story has a few twists on the average shoot em up and the main characters played by Paul Walker and Cameron Bright develop into much deeper and more nuanced characters then the writing would suggest. Then before it all crashes to a halt they tack on a unnecessary happy ending which kills the grittiness of the movie.

All in all, an imperfect movie but it has more then enough positive points to keep your interest.

I am a fan of Miike and I wanted to like it but I just couldn't. The movie was offensive on so many levels. The torture sequence made me as squeamish as the Dumplings from Three Extremes but here I didn't really feel entertained at the same time. This movie is full of shock for the sake of shock and it's clear why it was banned from American television.

The feel of the movie comes off as Miike trying to do his best David Lynch impression. But the most offensive part of the movie is the acting and story. The story was unoriginal, uneventfully and repetitive. The acting was god awful. The movie is full of Japanese people speaking poor English and a horrible lead "American". I'm not sure if the lead was really that bad or if the Japanese peoples accents were that bad or if Miike was trying to exaggerate to add to the "weirdness" ...but whatever it was it wasn't working for me.

Doesn't even make my top 10 episodes of Masters of Horror.

*minor minor spoiler at end* I don't know what to say about this film to really express what it made me feel. Before seeing the movie , I had gotten mixed reviews from people. Some people hated it and even told me they wanted to walk out on it. Some people liked it but nobody really raved about it, not even my roommate who is a hardcore Cronenberg fan. I don't remember the last movie that I saw that affected me so much. I really haven't been able to stop thinking about it since I saw it. I go as far as to say it was the best Cronenberg movie I have ever seen, even toping Dead Ringers which I never thought was possible.

At the core this is just a perfect examination of the human psyche. What makes us who we are and can we ever change our primal instincts? Mortensen and Harris were incredible but the 10 or so minutes of screen time by William Hurt at the end of the movie really stole the film for me as far as acting performances go.

This is a rare film that can both be slow, methodical and thoughtfull and be ultra violent, gory and brutal at the same time. And the bottom line is that this is not your average Hollywood movie. Where Hollywood wants to give you something easy to digest, Cronenberg wants to give something that is difficult to look at and makes you want to vomit it back up.

The last scene says it all. Cronenberg's take on the happy ending. Tom returns, nobody says a word but they welcome him back to his spot at the family dinner table as if nothing has changed but it will never be the same.

I really don't see how someone can not love this movie. Sure, there are those who might be offended by the hyper violence, the gore, the perversion, the bizarre body piercing and mutilation, the rubber suits or whatever...but I haven't met any of those people. This movie just rocks! The bottom line is that this is something that no American studio would ever produce which is what makes is so engaging to watch as an American viewer. It's just so far from the average Hollywood sameness. Take the ending for example. The first time I saw this movie every instinct about plot predictability that Hollywood has conditioned into my head over the years made me believe that Ichi would save and protect the young boy and they would ride off into the sunset and live happily ever after. Ichi is the tormented one who sees himself in the little boy and sees the opportunity to right all the wrongs that were done to him by saving him, so what does he do? Well....watch the movie and you'll see but obviously it's the opposite of saving the kid. But then again, in Ichi's mind I'm sure he was saving the kid by preventing a possible life of suffering like he has had to deal with.

If you have a weak stomache, there might be some uncomfortable moments in this film but I liken it to Peter Jackson's Dead Alive in that the gore in this movie is so over the top and unrealistic that you can't take it too seriously. I mean, look at the seen after Ichi first puts on his rubber super hero suit and takes out a few victims and we see the aftermath of the room completely covered on every wall in blood and bits of flesh with so much blood dripping off the ceiling that you would think that a there was a flood on the floor above.

And what's up with Ichi's rubber suit? It just adds to the comic bookness of the whole movie. I really need to go out and pick up some of the anime that the movie was based on.

Obviously not for everyone, but anyone that can deal with comic book style hyper violence and gore will love this and it will certainly help to expand the mind of any viewers that are used to Hollywood predictability

First let me say that I am a huge horror, zombie and Romero fan. With that said, I definitely didn't think this was a great movie. As far as Romero movies go, I rank this in the Bruiser, Monkey Shines category....good movie for fans of Romero but probably not to many other people out there. If you haven't seen many Romero movies do yourself a favor and go watch one of the first three zombie movies, Martin or even The Crazies since they are much better examples of what he's all about.

What I liked about Land of the Dead: 1.Gore. definitely some good death scenes. when the soldier's leg gets blown off and he falls on the grenade and when the one zombie is pulling the insides right out of a living victim are both classic.

2. Zombies are evolving and using reasoning skills. I think this a prime example of Romero making a more thoughtful horror movie then the average splatter fest. It is an interesting twist.

3. Good ole' fashion slow moving zombies. Romero once again demonstrates for the kids out there that your zombies don't have to be track stars to be effective. The point of zombies is that the whole world is slowly becoming zombies and while they move slow they are swarming everywhere around you and you can't possible kill them all before they engulf you and eat you alive. That is creepy, that is scary...not just having some zombies on speed running all over the place What I didn't like: The story. Plain and simple, I think it was very thin. Romero introduces these nice thoughts and updates on his zombie story but the overall plot is non-existent and has too many holes to be engrossing. Why is money so important that people are willing to die to get a bottle of liquor to sell on the streets? If the world were really in a crisis of this magnitude and 90% of the world were the living dead and the survival of the human race was pretty much an impossible dream....I don't think the monetary system and economy would be standing up to the point where the paper dollar would mean anything. There would be no way Dennis Hopper would hold a government, economy and military together as long as he did.

In the grand scheme of things, I give this a 6 but to a die hard Romero fan it is worth seeing. And hey, it took a few viewing of Day of the Dead for me to really realize the genius of that movie so maybe this one will sink in after a few viewings.

I am a huge Romero fan but had never seen this gem due to poor video distribution. I just picked up the new DVD and watched Martin for the first time. It truly demonstrates Romero's genius. He takes the classic , Gothic vampire movie that we've seen done a thousand times and manages to put his unique stamp on it creating a deep, philosophical social commentary.

Is Martin really a vampire? What is the definition of a vampire in modern society? Just because Martin does not have fangs, garlic has no effect on him and he is more or less immune to sunlight that doesn't mean he is not a vampire. Romero leaves a lot of questions open ended in this film like Martin's mortality or immortality and whether he physically needs to drink blood to survive. Maybe he really is nothing more then a mentally ill, sexual deviant ....but is that really different then any other vampire that we've seen portrayed in any other movie? As you can tell by my comments, this movies raises more questions then it answers and it certainly will make you think more then the average horror movie...which isn't a bad thing.

Stylistically, I love the way Romero weaves the current time (the late 70's) in color with the black and white footage of the turn of the century era Martin. That gives a nice contrast between the Bela Lugosi Gothic vampire image and the updated version that is Martin. The cinematography is great and it is just a well crafted film.

At it's heart this is the same vampire movie we've seen remade over and over just with some new twists on the genre and in an updated setting. But it is more then that because it really is a mashing of various genres. There are the excorisism sequences which are not common in vampire movies, there are elements of the serial killer thriller genre, some elements of the teenage coming of age story and even hints of melodrama but it all blends seamlessly and keeps the viewer's interest throughout.