Wuxia Film review: Six Assassins 1971 Shaw Brothers Classic!

Shaw Brothers Classic! Six Assassins

One year before he directed his masterpiece Five Fingers of Death (AKA King Boxer) Chang-hwa Jeong Directed this almost equally good Shaw brother produced more traditional Wuxia film. Six Assassins might seem like a Chinese take on the Japanese classic Eiichi Kudo’s early sixties classic The Thirteen Assassins, Shaw studios wouldn't be be above cutting seven assassins to save on the bottom line. After watching it I feel it has more in common with another Kudo film 11 Samurai. It does however have several influences from both. This is a neat old wirefu movie. Lots well staged moments not just in the fight scenes. There are two song numbers that remind me of the King Hu Classic "Come drink with me." at one hour and 19 minutes this is short but sweet movie. It has laugh out loud over the top deaths, great swordplay and cool lightness kungfu wire dance moments that make up for any weakness in plot. Chang-hwa Jeong is an above average Shaw brothers director, I could be wrong but I think he was Korean. I was going to post a trailer but hell I watched it on you tube. I'm going to pick this one up for my DVD collection.

Book Review: Holes for Faces by Ramsey Campbell

Holes for Faces by Ramsey Campbell

Hardcover and trade paperback Dark Regions press

Ramsey Campbell is a modern master of horror, one of the longest running and most published British horror writers that has bestsellers and award galore. My favorite novels of his include "The Face that must die" (reviewed here last summer) and "The Count of Eleven."

This collection published by (newly) locally Portland based publisher Dark Regions press has 14 well written stories. They are all excellent as you would expect. By the end of the book some themes repeat and a couple of the stories have a similar feel. Every single story is written with skill you would expect coming from such a respected horror professional.

A few stories stood out for me. "Peep" was an interesting tale of a grandpa overwhelmed by twin grandkids who drive him to confront the truth behind a innocent seeming game. I loved "Chucky comes to Liverpool," which felt very different in tone from the rest of the collection. Campbell is a long time film critic and he uses his film knowledge to add to the power of this geek nightmare.

For me however the best story is the first one you read when you open up the book. "Passing through Peacehaven is a beautifully composed tale of gothic feeling and tone. Great use of atmosphere makes this a great read.

Campbell is a safe bet, I am not sure you need to read this book cover to cover all at once but like many great short story collections this would be great to have on the shelf to read a story here and there in single sittings. Campbell fans of course will love it. and Dark Regions packaged it up nice with a great artwork.

Book Review: 5th Wave by Rick Yancey

Fifth Wave by Rick Yancey

458 pages Penguin

Sometimes you have to be careful in promoting books/movies to invite comparisons that smell of hyperbole. I have not read Hunger Games, but I read this book which is constantly being suggested as the NEXT hunger games. I have also read “Ender’s game meets The passage,” I mean Penguin really dug deep to market the hell out of this book. Perhaps they thought the connection was based solely on the teenage female lead who has to become a badass to survive. Is that it? What I do know about Hunger Games is a lot of non-readers (as in not serious readers) read those books. Even Lebron James read hunger games at his locker before going on his long awaited first championship run.

I assume those books are well written with strong characters, and that thankfully is the case here with Fifth Wave. Yancey is a gifted story teller, and you can tell this book was well guided by strong editors and publisher support.

The story centers around a teen named Cassie and her little brother Sam as they try to survive the various waves of alien attack. 1st wave EMP knocks out electronics, 2nd wave earthquakes kills massive populations on the shore lines. 3rd wave population die-off in the form of bird flu. 4th and 5th waves well that you don't want spoiled.

It is not a super original story, but it is hard after 100 plus years of alien invasion novels and movies to be fresh. So what! It was fun and engaging, and the characters were strong enough to hook me. If I have one complaint it is starting the book during the 4th wave. Aliens showing up and the start of an invasion is a pretty interesting set of events to skip and peppered in with flashbacks. Falling Skies did the same thing. Spielberg's peeps said they did it, because the alien invasion story has been done to death and their story is about survival and resistance. 5th wave has a similar excuse I am sure, but I am OK with tropes as long as you bring a fresh spin.

I liked most of the writing, but as writer and nitpicker I do have to complain about the choice of First person. Sure, sure that means we assume Cassie will survive. She is telling the story after all. Then the first person narrator switches from chapter to chapter. I got confused a few times whose story I was following. Whose story is this book telling? It is a personal pet peeve but the problem for me is this takes me out of the story and constantly reminds me “hey the author is doing this , or that” I don't want to be reminded that the wizard is behind the curtain pulling levers.

Wuxia Film Review: Donnie Yen in Dragon (Wuxia)

I am a huge Donnie Yen fan so I wanted to see this as soon as I read about it. I am also a fan of Director Peter Chan's films most of all the gritty War drama based on the Three Kingdoms Warlords. This film a tribute to the One-Armed Swordsman, but is not a reboot or remake. The plot is actually similar to the Cronenberg film "A History of Violence." A connection I didn't see until someone pointed it out to me later. This makes this feel like an odd Kungfu movie that subverts the typical plot.

Donnie Yen is fantastic in the film as the lead but also as the action director who maximizes the short but powerful action scenes.

What makes the film awesome is the actors. All the performances are great. Jimmy Wang who in the late 60's played the one-armed swordsman is fantastic as the leader of the notorious 72 demons gang. Donnie Yen shows range, even if his comedic touches are a bit over the top early in the film. The show stealing is Japanese actor Takeshi Kaneshiro (House of Flying Daggers) as Xu Baijiu, a detective versed in physiology and acupuncture.

I loved this movie. kung fu movie fans can't go wrong!

My favorite horror novel of all time!

Number one is:

I enjoy doing top ten lists and I have meant to do this one for awhile. The art of the horror novel is a very special one for me. My first horror novel that I remember reading was The Stand by Stephen King, it was my seventh grade year(I still have that copy which has note in the inside cover to do a Social Studies report!). Skeleton Crew by King and Clive Barker's Books of Blood had a bigger impact on me personally were talking novels at the moment. Over the years I have grown to love the feeling of closing the book on a well written horror novel.

Generally you have been taken on a journey, often it is one filled with terror. The most important elements often come from well defined characters. For a horror novel to work to have to either care about the characters or imagine yourself in the shoes of the character. No story can be scary if you can't imagine yourself in the moment with the characters.

Imagine for a moment you lying in bed at 2 AM and someone starts to bang on the door. You will likely go to the door confused and sacred. In a novel that might not seem to be a scary moment but if you put yourself in the moment it will scare you. These are novels I find scary, and why. You may have read them already, and if not I hope you'll check them out. Leave a comment tell me what you think I missed.

David Agranoff is the author of two published novels the Wuxia Pan style horror fantasy crossover "Hunting The Moon Tribe," and the satire "The Vegan Revolution With Zombies. He is also the author of the Wonderland award short story collection "Screams From a Dying World." His next novel Bootboys of the Wolf-Reich is due to be released soon by Deadite press.

Number 10: (tie) Testament by David Morrell & The Girl next Door by Jack Ketchum

Number 9: A Perfect Union by Cody Goodfellow

Number 8: The Sheep Look Up by John Brunner

Number 7: The Keep (Adversary cycle #1) by F.Paul Wilson

Number 6: Exquisite Corpse by Poppy Z.Brite

Number 5: What Dreams May Come by Richard Matheson

Number 4: The Shining by Stephen King

Number 3: Hellbound Heart by Clive Barker

Number 2 is: Swan Song by Robert R. McCammon

And Number one is Wetbones by John Shirley

I have been reading horror novels for a quarter of a century now. Since I discovered Clive Barker and Stephen King in the 7th grade I have read several hundred horror novels and equal number of science fiction. I have read horror novels that effected me emotionally like the family tragedy in King's The Shining, terrorized me like McCammon's vision of nuclear aftermath in Swan Song, Poppy Z. Brite made me squirm in disgust with Exquisite Corpse, and Barker expanded my thinking of the fantastic with The Great and Secret Show.

One novel has affected me on all those levels deeper than any other. John Shirley's 1990 masterpiece Wetbones. I think of this book as something like Requiem for Dream written by Lovecraft and directed by a young David Cronenberg. I have read this novel three times, it freaked me out each time. It is powerfully written novel about addiction. Written by an angry author trying to deal with the addiction he was still fighting to overcome. There is a serial killer, who controls the monster inside his victims that feed off their addictions. There are several moments that made me cringe and those uncomfortable feelings didn't dull the second and third time I read it. It is a supernatural story of monsters fictional and at the same time all too real.

John Shirley is a master at using the horror and science fiction novel as means of making a socio-political point. Wetbones is very much a horror novel about addiction, and while it drags the reader through a disgusting and hurtful gutter that reflects real life all too well it also has monsters.

Freaky as hell monsters, probably one of the sickest and most awful serial killers in print, without a doubt my favorite horror novel ever written.

In 2010 the novel was re-issued including an e-book. I did a three part tribute on this blog, that was later used as a bonus feature on the e-book. Check out this two part interview I did. Well the second is filled with spoilers. Do check out this novel if you have not read it.

http://davidagranoff.blogspot.com/2010/10/wetbones-revised-and-re-issued-part-2.html

My Top ten Horror novels. Coming in at number Two - A post nuclear nightmare...

Number Two is:

I enjoy doing top ten lists and I have meant to do this one for awhile. The art of the horror novel is a very special one for me. My first horror novel that I remember reading was The Stand by Stephen King, it was my seventh grade year(I still have that copy which has note in the inside cover to do a Social Studies report!). Skeleton Crew by King and Clive Barker's Books of Blood had a bigger impact on me personally were talking novels at the moment. Over the years I have grown to love the feeling of closing the book on a well written horror novel.

Generally you have been taken on a journey, often it is one filled with terror. The most important elements often come from well defined characters. For a horror novel to work to have to either care about the characters or imagine yourself in the shoes of the character. No story can be scary if you can't imagine yourself in the moment with the characters.

Imagine for a moment you lying in bed at 2 AM and someone starts to bang on the door. You will likely go to the door confused and sacred. In a novel that might not seem to be a scary moment but if you put yourself in the moment it will scare you. These are novels I find scary, and why. You may have read them already, and if not I hope you'll check them out. Leave a comment tell me what you think I missed.

David Agranoff is the author of two published novels the Wuxia Pan style horror fantasy crossover "Hunting The Moon Tribe," and the satire "The Vegan Revolution With Zombies. He is also the author of the Wonderland award short story collection "Screams From a Dying World." His next novel Bootboys of the Wolf-Reich is due to be released soon by Deadite press.

Number 10: (tie) Testament by David Morrell & The Girl next Door by Jack Ketchum

Number 9: A Perfect Union by Cody Goodfellow

Number 8: The Sheep Look Up by John Brunner

Number 7: The Keep (Adversary cycle #1) by F.Paul Wilson

Number 6: Exquisite Corpse by Poppy Z.Brite

Number 5: What Dreams May Come by Richard Matheson

Number 4: The Shining by Stephen King

Number 3: Hellbound Heart by Clive Barker Number 2 is: Swan Song by Robert R. McCammon I am not a huge fan of novels in the 800 to 1,000 page range. Most often novels that long just drag and I have a hard time believing the same story could not be told in 500. Swan Song in paperback clocks in at a thick 956 pages and I never felt like it dragged or that a page was wasted. The first time I read this book I raced through it faster than some books I have read that were half the length.

Many people will complain that Swan Song is a rip-off of Stephen King’s the Stand. That is somewhat valid in the sense that it has similar apocalyptic setting and length. Both stories include a journey across an American wasteland. Both have a huge confrontation at the end between the ultimate good and evil. Ok, OK there is a lot in common, however for my money Swan Song is a far superior novel.

King intended for The Stand to be a modern Tolkien style fantasy set in a post Plague America. I see Swan Song as a more straight forward horror post-apoc novel with a lot less supernatural and fantasy elements. I have read several intense accounts of nuclear war, I have read all the classics(Alas Babylon, On the Beach) and this is the most intense description of a nuclear attack I can think of. The image of the DC Transit bus lifted into the sky and slamming into Air Force One is an unforgettable moment.

{Note: honorable mention to James Herbert’s novel Domain which also had an amazing intense Nuclear attack on London}

This novel is grueling, I have never felt so deeply about the horrors that characters have gone through. A nightmare reading experience, every hundred pages is like another step down into a dark basement. There is a moment about five hundred pages in when I just turned away from the book and shook my head. I knew I could not survive what these poor characters do.

Of all the novels on this list this is the one that I found myself thinking, boy I need to re-read this soon.

Ok another funny story about this novel being on this list here. At bizarro-Con last year author MP Johnson and I were talking about our favorite horror novels and I said Swan Song was my number two. As we kept talking Robert Devereaux (Author of Deadweight and Salughterhouse High) walked up and I asked him “Hey Robert what are your two favorite horror novels?” He said “Ghost Story by Peter Straub and Swan Song by Robert McCammon. Great minds think alike.

They do but I have a different number one, next week the wait is over. However you have read my blog in the past and followed me on facebook it is a good chance you already know…