Missing You (2016) – Mo Hong-Jin.

Battle not with monsters, lest ye become a monster.

At just 7yrs old Hee Joo's (Shim Eun-Kyung) detective father was killed. After suspected serial killer Ki-Bum (Him Sung-oh) is released 15yrs later, fellow detective Dae-Young (Yoon Je-Moon), and the slain detective's daughter take an especial interest in Ki-Bum's release. This deliciously dark-toned Korean crime thriller is stylishly directed, with robust performances, and an utterly compelling, razor-honed narrative. While others may feel quite differently, I never tire of gritty, vividly blood-spattered revenge thrillers, especially those produced in Asia, since many are strongly inflected with gory horror tropes, Missing You is certainly no exception. Expect scenes of graphic violence, thrilling drama, a fascinating, hugely sympathetic protagonist, gripping suspense, and an absolutely ripping climax! One of the reasons revenge chillers are ubiquitous, and prove so popular, is that so many of us have our own secret yen to rebalance the scales. While the super-sinewy Ki-Bum has a singularly brutal modus operandi, it must be said, he winningly provides for a dastardly, evilly charismatic nemesis! There's a tremendously thrilling interlude in Ki-Bum's apartment which raises it stratospheres above the infinitely more routine Serial Slashers from the U.S. I have always thought the Slasher was one of the more mundane iterations of horror, yet Missing You excitingly proves that it doesn't have to be thus.

 Man in Love (2014) – Han Dong-Wook.

'I wish everything was chicken!'

Handy, but ultimately tiny taters debt collector with a big fuzzy-wuzzy heart Han Tae-il (Hwang Jung-min)has a major crush on pretty, debt-ridden Joo Ho-jung (Han Hye-jin), dutifully caring for her comatose father, he offers to cover her debt if she will agree to go on a number of dates with him. This winning romantic drama benefits greatly from its two engaging leads, a witty,humane script, and sure-footed direction from Dong-Wook. The chalk and cheese lovers set-up references the fast-talking Hepburn/Grant screwball comedies of the 40s, and Tae-il's bellicose exterior belies an empathic nature, not unlike Cagney in Angels With Dirty faces, or Bogart in The African Queen. Refreshingly, the comedic elements are genuinely funny, their fitful romance is charmingly presented, and the jaunty, pitch-perfect score proves entirely complimentary. I appreciated the fact that the plot didn't gloss over his more abrasive edges, he's manifestly a villain, but thankfully a wholly three-dimensional one. While Man in Love has a fairly recent Taiwanese reboot, I sincerely hope Hollywood keeps its mawkish hands off this lucid Korean gem. While I am often an overtly sentimental fellow, I was genuinely moved by the final act, and it's a singular treat to see a Korean Underworld(ish)feature that isn't prodigiously drenched in steaming viscera. All that being said, the kinetic gambling hall heist was pretty gnarly!

 Fatal (2012) – Lee Don-ku.

A meek, sensitive schoolboy Sung-gong (Nam Yeon-Woo), fatally hangs out with an especially invidious group of predatory bullies, who later initiates retribution upon his blithe abusers, who so cruelly forced him to participate in a gang rape of a fellow High School classmate Jang-mi (Yang Jo-ah) ten years before. Not especially unusual for Korean genre cinema, Don-ku's rapier taut, immaculately conceived, stirringly acted, appealingly lensed revenge thriller remains a cerebral, darkly compelling, slow-building emotional gut-puncher. With its rigorous attention to detail, and unhurried pace, Fatal almost ruthlessly draws you deeply into this increasingly nerve-wracking tale of serial abusers, and the profound, long-term trauma experienced by their victims. The stark film can arguably be appreciated allegorically, coldly dissecting the institutionalised brutality of bully boy governments, Big Business, or the military, wherein similar abuses of power are entirely commonplace, those ostensibly regarded as weak are systematically coerced, desensitized, forced to accept the will of those who rule, by any means necessary. The film contains a strong theological core, but I'm always struck by the bizarre fact that monotheism took hold at all in Asia, especially as they have so many infinitely more dynamic-looking gods to choose from? While it is impossible not to feel a profound sympathy for the fragile Jang-mi, whose young life was so negatively impacted, but I also felt that the bullied boy's persistent torment over his forced actions are penance enough. That being said, haunting thriller Fatal certainly doesn't offer much in the way of catharsis, even with no evil deed going unpunished, the bloody conclusion, while existentially apropos, is nonetheless tinged with melancholy. While I don't share Jung-Mi's belief in the supernatural, I very much hope she finds the solace she deserves. 

 Feto Morto aka Dead Fetus (2003) Fernando Rick.

One can safely infer from the charming title that the film's content may NOT be exclusively for all tastes! Brazilian Gore-blasting, like its martial arts, can be a brutal business, and Feto Morto aims to grimly continue that noble tradition. A young mother, and the cruel slaying of her thankfully plastic-looking baby provides the gratuitous entre to a deliciously unsavoury barrage of near continuous carnage, all rendered in exquisitely poor taste! The diabolical Droogs of Feto Mortal make Kubrick's Clockwork Orange's look like timid Tangerines! Sordid, and heroically Henenlotter-esque, this gory, winningly warped exploration of our hero with the partially developed fetus strapped to his gormless noggin is horribly close to Grindhouse genius!

I've never read The Canterbury Tales, but I'm convinced it's tiny taters compared to the gruesomely edifying experiences of this cephalically distorted, plasma-plastered Protagonist. To provide additional savour, there's abundant nudity, vomit-slathered coitus, and a dude being bloodily boinked in a gaping stomach wound with his own severed schwantz! My main takeaway from the fearlessly fetid body-shocker Feto Morto is that I should move to Brazil asap! There may well be some socio-political satire here, but I kept on rewinding the scenes with prodigious oatmeal sticky spattered on deliciously bronzed Brazilian botties!!!!! DO NOT play the drinking game, wherein you imbibe extra-strong libations whenever an increasingly dingy character shouts 'Puta!!!!'

 Mayonaka (2022) – Robert Capria.

Visually arresting, strongly acted downer noir, set during one fateful evening at Japan's Shinjuku station. A lonely, entrancingly beautiful, deeply despairing young woman Kimi (Nanami Akatsuki) happens upon a creep-o Vloggers lost smart phone and spontaneously documents her random experiences, her hopes for happiness, or a sexual encounter materialize in the amiably shambling form of a troubled Middle-aged man Akira(Tsuyoshi Takashiro) drunkenly celebrating his resignation. While low-budget, Mayonaka provides exemplary performances, relatable human drama, and the brightly persistent, harshly inorganic colours of the busy station are crisply captured on HD video. A dark-toned, compellingly interior narrative that benefits greatly from the vivid contrasts of the consistently populous, ceaselessly kinetic metropolitan hubbub at, and surrounding Shinjuku station. Bitter-sweet, melancholy themes abound throughout, with Kumi's exquisitely sad face providing a strangely hypnotic mirror to her unpredictable nocturnal adventuring. A timid, would-be songbird who, sadly, might never find her her true voice. Mayonaka is robustly structured, with an equally rigorous text, and the protagonists felt alive, rather than mere cyphers. To give the writer/director additional credit, while it is made quite clear all will not end well, he is engagingly subtle about it. Deceptively banal, with eloquent silences, the intimate, crimson-hued Karaoke scene between Kimi and Akira proved exceptionally moving.

 Death File 2 (1989) – Susumu Saegusa (Kaoru Adachi).

Adachi's gonzo, mondo-morbid shockumentary series continues with a palpable upscale in explicit scenes of grisly human misfortune. Necro-addicts will enjoy multifarious examples of human physiognomy crudely decimated by explosives, gory murder scenes, bodies incinerated by fire, and horribly pulverised by all manner of monstrously death-dealing vehicles. Thrillingly gruesome content for all those with a salacious interest in human anatomy, namely its luridly crimson-hued contents displayed for all to see! With pun MASSIVELY intended, it is a no-brainer to suggest, the prodigiously gore-blasted Death File 2 provides more than enough sordidly corporeal material to momentarily distract one from the increasing banalities of modern life. Do I think there is something sick about watching this type of blithely gratuitous corpse-sploitation? Absolutely not, humans are innately curious beasts, and there is nothing quite so fascinating as death in all its kaleidoscopically brutalised forms. Do I appreciate the elements that feature animal cruelty? No, I manifestly did not; people mostly suck, while animals are majestic beings. Aye! I'm being a mite fanciful there, but animals demonstratively deserve all the rich bounties of the earth far more than we do. The compellingly explicit Death File 2 remains an intense, frequently bloody compendium of morbidly titillating snuff-gore grotesquery! Non-necro elements include some gynaecological enchilada, a charming indigenous wedding ceremony, and the miserable realities of cruelly impoverished children forced to eke out a meagre existence upon a toxic city landfill.

 Ensuring Your Place in Hell II (2021) -

'The isolated head even reacts to light???!!!'

I thought I would be less anal and deliberately bypass Ensuring Your Place in Hell I, and get straight to hell itself with the magnificently mondo-stuffed Bootleg bonkers sequel. This enjoyably haphazard product presents four prurient parts crudely stuffed into one hole, no, excuse I, four prurient parts that make up a whole lotta gorily grotty what-not. Part 1. An Exorcist in Turkey. This features the best Non-SAG performance of a make-up free zombie. I am led to believe the singy-voiced fellow is shrilly reading aloud from the prohibited Book of Enoch, and should therefore be regarded as being altogether suspect. Part 2. Lurid crime footage from the Wonderland murders crime scene. Quite graphic. DO NOT play the take a drink whenever the cops say 'there's evidence of ransacking!', as you will very soon get rather tiddly. Part 3. The infamous, and intolerably fantabulous B/W 40s Soviet piece 'Experiments in The Revival of Organisms'. I hope to make violent love with great power to this some day. Part 4. High Impact Hand Safety. I foresee a rabid A/V cult forming over this one. Includes splashy scenes of gloriously cheapnis gore, graphically recreating especially grisly workplace accidents.