TheRetroCritic

I finally talk about the new Ghost In The Shell .

Much to most anime fans' displeasure, Hollywood finally delivered on its promise to adapt the hugely influential animated classic Ghost In The Shell from 1995, directed by Mamoru Oshii, with Scarlett Johansson playing the lead role. After a controversy which saw the project get accused of "whitewashing" and persisting complaints that such an adaptation is basically sacrilegious, this looked set to be the least popular remake since Ghostbusters . Indeed, after hardly glorious anime adaptations like Dragonball: Evolution and Speed Racer , it's no surprise why so many were nervous about this new venture. Early trailers looked uninspired yet the more we saw from the film, the more interesting it looked with its slick Blade Runner -meets-Neo Tokyo look and all the potentially cool action scenes on display. It's very clear, right off the bat, that a lot more effort was put into this film than the criminally lazy Dragonball: Evolution. Visually, this new Ghost In T

With The Hunger Games becoming a popular franchise and all, it's only fair that I should re-watch and review the movie which first introduced us to the concept of kids going ape shit and killing each other for no particular reason. Let's talk Battle Royale . Directed by the late, great Kinji Fukasaku, Battle Royale is set in a troubled dystopian version of Japan where, every so often, a high school class is picked for an elaborate, deadly game where everyone is sent to a deserted island and made to kill each other until only one remains. A chilling yet always likeable Takeshi Kitano teaches them the rules of the game, they are then given weapons, necklaces rigged to explode, maps, a list of danger zones to avoid and a time limit before being sent out into the wild. You'd think that it would take longer for these kids to kill one another but the action starts straight away and the kills are always completely satisfying in how gory and bloody they are. It's a sadi