Katsuhito Ishii on The Red Carpet for SMUGGLER

Here is director Katsuhito Ishii on the Midnight Madness red carpet talking about his latest film, Smuggler.

The Intro/Q&A for SMUGGLER

Here is the Introduction and Q&A for Katsuhito Ishii's latest film, Smuggler!

The Kindness of Strangers--A Heartwarming Tale

While the Midnight Madness crew is usually more interested in chilling you to the bone or scaring you into unconsciousness, sometimes we come across a nice little story that reminds us that our audience is the best in the world and it warms the cockles of our long-dormant hearts.  Over on Reddit, a user named 'Etheo' has such a story and wanted to pass on a little good Karma to the TIFF volunteer that helped him into the Midnight Madness screening of Smuggler:

Here be the story to celebrate a man who was almost our hero that fateful day, but we will remain forever grateful for your action. For those of you who don't care, please do not waste your time reading this and move on with your life.

So last week during the last week of TIFF event... my girlfriend and I went down to see Smuggler at the midnight launch event. We bought these groupon coupons that are essentially 2for1 ticket, and didn't know that we had to redeem these coupons prior to seeing the film. It sucked, but we sucked it up and lined up at the rush line to see if we could get in.

After 1.5 hours of lining up, while I went to retrieve my car to park closer to the theater, my girlfriend had a rude awakening from the staff at the line and was told that our coupons would not be redeemable at the rush line as well. It was rather unimpressive to know we had lined up for so long for nothing.

Fortunately, behind her, you stood out as a shining statue of human being in the form of a Jamaican friend (which I could only assume due to the strap he was wearing). You casually gave her a voucher that was given to TIFF volunteers only, letting her know that your friends ditched you and you have no use for the voucher. My girlfriend was taken aback at your gracious offer, and hesitantly let you know that I was also in line so the voucher would be useless to her. You, being the amazing altruist that you are, casually gave her another voucher in strides.

When I returned to the line she let me know of the situation, and I believe we humbly thanked you (at least I hope we did--we're too reserved to know how to handle these situations and thank people properly). Since we had no cash with us on our persons, we offered you coffee, tea or food from Starbucks as it was the only currency we had. We were sadden that you did not take our offer as you don't like coffee and weren't hungry. There was not much else we could have offered. We stood in line awkwardly as I thought of every possible way to make it up to you for your kindness.

When we were able to get into the theater, we tried to use our coupon at the ticket booth, and fortunately they had accepted the coupons in exchange for the admission tickets. I had to survey through the entire theater, but I was successful in finding you and returning the vouchers to you. You, again, casually took the vouchers and thanked us. And then we parted ways and proceeded to wait another hour for the movie to begin.

So thank you, random TIFF volunteer, for your kind acts towards 2 total strangers at the rush line. Your friends were asses to ditch you for the movies. You're the man.

TL;DR GF and I went to line up for TIFF, after waiting for hours we were almost told to leave the line but a random TIFF volunteer behind us gave us free vouchers for the movie. We end up didn't use the vouchers and returned, but he was a pretty nice guy.

Just wanted to let people of Toronto know that chivalry and human kindness are not dead, and there are pretty awesome people in Toronto too, not just jerks.

Edit : Smuggler was awesome. Can't hide the smell of fear.

Edit² : Also I witnessed a few people in TIFF giving up their tickets to people waiting in the rushline as well--some were selling, but some were giving. You guys made TIFF pretty cool.

So next time you luck your way into an extra ticket and think about selling it, why not brighten someone's day by helping them out? You might just find yourself immortalized here on the Midnight Madness blog, with all the parted velvet ropes and champagne bubble baths it affords.

And now back to your regular hammer-shots to the face and head.

Bobcat Goldthwait's Impromptu Midnight Madness Set

MM Blogger Robert Mitchell recorded Bobcat Goldthwait's impromptu stand up set last night. Bobcat saved the night and entertained the audience while the technical difficulties with Smuggler were fixed.

Smuggler screening times:

Sun., Sept. 18th, 12:00PM, SCOTIABANK THEATRE 4

@thesubstream - Midnight Madness Review - SMUGGLER

A mea culpa, to start: me trying in earnest to apply any kind of critical analysis to Katsuhito Ishii's manga adaptation Smuggler would be like me trying to review the national epic of a country I've never heard of. It comes from a filmic/manga comic place that I know next to nothing about, so I'll just get to summarizing the plot.

Kinuta (Satoshi Tsumabuki) is a mild mannered failed actor turned "slacker", who unwittingly finds himself indebted to a gang of goofy Chinese gangsters. To pay it off, he's told to work with Joe (Masatoshi Nagase), the surly leader of a gang of body disposers. After they dispose of a body of a yakuza killed by the supernaturally-gifted "ultra assassin" Vertebrae, Kinuta, Joe and the Yakuza's widow find themselves in the middle of an alternately goofy and horrifyingly bloody gang war.


The joy in the film, for me and I'm going to assume many Western viewers is in watching the effects-laden ass whippings that Vertebrae hands out. He's scarred and tattooed and borderline psychotic, and he's a whiz with a pair of beaten up nunchuks, and Ishii fills his to be honest kind of disturbing fight scenes with more than a helping of pretty broad slapstick humour.

It's pure hubris that lets me think I can you a good movie from a bad one in the first place, but even I am in major balk-mode trying to decide if Smuggler is worth recommending. It's in more than one language I don't understand: Japanese, Mandarin and the completely all-over-the-place tonal language of manga movies. It pairs saccharine-sweet moments of golly-gee-whizzery with some of the most brutally sadistic torture scenes I've ever seen, and it's utterly baffling in a way that renders it simultaneously super enjoyable and kind of tiresome, to my foreign eyes. It's a mash-up that from moment-to-moment seeks to dazzle, to entertain, broadly, to gross you out, to engage you and to repulse you straight out of the movie-watching experience. It works, a lot of the time, insofar as it does all of those things, but is that rollercoaster experience by design or by dint of my being, well, kind of ignorant? Who knows. The good parts are great, and the bad parts are… different, and that's the smartest thing I can say. Sorry.

@thesubstream - Midnight Madness '11 Ep. 09: Smuggler!

Last night's TIFF 2011 Midnight Madness screening of Katsuhito Ishii's Smuggler (a film that guest host Matt Brown of MAMO knew absolutely nothing about) was delayed by an hour due to an unspecified technical glitch! Thankfully, Bobcat Goldthwait, humanitarian and all-round decent human being volunteered to keep the crowds entertained with 15 solid minutes of his hilarious stand-up routine. And Smuggler? It's all over the place, man. thesubstream.com's Midnight Madness coverage continues! ONLY ONE MORE NIGHT - Can you believe it???

Bobcat Goldthwait Saves Midnight Madness

Thanks, Bobcat!

As Ben Kenigsberg reports at Timeout Chicago, last night there were some "technical difficulties" at the MM screening of Smuggler. "Technical difficulties" is an industry euphemism for fun-hating ninjas. I'm as surprised as anyone that (some) ninjas hate fun.

Fun hater?

But God Bless America director Bobcat Goldthwait saved the night when he took the stage for some impromptu stand-up. We hope to have some footage up later, including, ideally, close-ups of Colin Geddes leading MM bloggers, TIFF volunteers and fans against the ferocious fun-hating ninjas arrayed against them, seizing back the Smuggler film cans for the enjoyment of all.

Unidentified fan defends fun.

Smuggler screening times:

Sat., Sept. 17th, 6:45PM, SCOTIABANK THEATRE 4

Sun., Sept. 18th, 12:00PM, SCOTIABANK THEATRE 4

Ando Vs. Ando

 

Spoiler level: Mild (knowledge based on trailer  of Smuggler and the film Battle Royale (not the book or manga, which is supposed to be amazing, but I am scared it will ruin my love for the film) )

Japanese star Masanobu Ando's new movie will be screening tonight (Friday, September 16th, midnight!)  In Smuggler he plays dangerous cargo - as an assassin who is being transported by the main character.  Ando is no stranger to deadly roles, having already been in Takashi Miike's Sukiyaki Western Django, and Fukasaku Kinji's Battle Royale.

In an entirely imagined celebrity death match with himself, I present to you:

ANDO VS. ANDO!

Movie:  Battle Royale

That's right.

Character:  Kazuo Kiriyama

Profile:  During the BR act, kids from all over Japan were forced to kill each other, largely against their own will as a way of punishing Japan's out of control youth. However, Kiriyama was so bad ass, that after already improbably surviving a round of the murderously psychotic game, he willingly gave up his hard won freedom and transfered back to a brand new game, just so he could keep smoking people, because it was so much fun.

Weapons of choice:  Moves up from fan, to sub-machine gun  and butterfly knife (skipping over frying pan), to mega phone (so you can hear the death rattles of his victims), to GPS tracking device (no where to hide!)

Weakness:  Explosive collar on throat, tied to game rules. Eyeballs later melt, ruining his chances of appearing in a non time-machine related sequel.

Last Seen:  In the hearts of cosplayers and BR fans everywhere! By the way, this is my most watched favorite movie. I can watch BR back to back to back.

Eyes:  Like staring into the Abyss.

Hair:  Spiky, Peroxide wash, likely used Japanese equivalent of bed head products.

Distinguishing features:  That glazed-over, disconnected look in his eyes that would chill Micheal Myers.

Theme music:  hellsya -- start it at 2:11 if you want to get an instant visual of him walking through writhing bodies and smoldering corpses.

**** VS ****

Movie:  Smuggler

Say that one more time.

Character:  Sebone

Eyes:  Looks pretty pissed off!

Hair: Appears to be more heavily bleached - scalp singingly so!

Weapon of Choice:  Nunchaku! Finally the most badass weapon has returned to the action movie!

Distinguishing Features:  Dark ink spine segments tattooed over his own spine. I hear that it hurts a lot on the bone. Also, that maze of scars tells the violence of a 100 movies!


Fun fact:  His name, "Sebone" - means spine in Japanese.

Weakness:  TBD

Last Seen:  TBD

Profile:  TBD

Theme music:  God, I hope so.

So who's the winner? You guys! As much as I love Kiriyama, Ando looks to have incarnated an entirely new monster in Sebone, cementing his legacy as iconic over the top characters in Japanese genre films.  Here's to hoping someone miraculously awesome will plug my breakdowns into a computer and make a video game of all of this, and also make a solid side-scrolling beat'em up for The Raid. 


Check out Smuggler:


Fri. Sept. 16th 11:59pm, RYERSON
Sat. Sept. 17th 6:45pm, SCOTIABANK THEATRE 4
Sun. Sept. 18th, 12:00pm, SCOTIABANK THEATRE 4

Retrospective of WTF Cinema at Midnight Madness

There's a TIFF programmer in those pyjamas.

Colin has said that this year Midnight Madness is about discovery, but as a (relatively) long time Midnight Madness acolyte, this year feels more like a return to Midnight Madness roots. In the last few years, MM has been associated with cutting edge horror, and while that's true, there's also a long tradition of action, rock'n'roll, documentary, comedy and films that make an audience go, "WTF?"

Smuggler follows in a long line of insanely awesome Japanese movies at MM. Fellow Japanese filmmakers who have shown repeatedly at Midnight Madness include: MM All-Star, Takashi Miike with Fudoh: The New Generation (1997), The City of Lost Souls (2000), Ichi The Killer (2001), Gozu (2003), Zebraman (2004) The Great Yokai War (2005), Sukiyaki Western Django (2007)); Shinya Tsukamoto with Tetsuo/Iron Man/ Tetsuo: The Iron Man (1990), Tetsuo 2 /Tetsuo: The Bodyhammer (1992), and Tokyo Fist (1995); and, most recently,  Hitoshi Matsumoto with Dainipponjin/Big Man Japan (2007) and Symbol (2009).



But less well-known filmmakers like Tetsuro Takeuchi  amazed the Uptown with his "rock'n'roll JET movie," Wild Zero (2000):



And in 1998 Lance Mungia envisioned a future in which the King is dead. (Though MM acolytes know that the King is in a nursing home in Nacogdoches, Texas):



There's also Jung Jun-Hwan's almost uncategorizable  Save the Green Planet (2003)--a brutal sci fi "torture porn" romantic comedy with action elements?



And the animated wonder of Stephane Aubier and Vincent Patar's A Town Called Panic (2009)



But for me, the quintessential WTF Midnight Madness movie will always be Pornchai Hongrattanaporn's Bangkok Loco (2005) about a drummer who might or might not have committed murder and can save the world through a drum duel. It features a bunch of Thai visual puns that are probably hilarious if you understand Thai.

SMUGGLER screening times:

Fri., Sept 16th, 11:59PM, RYERSON

Sat., Sept. 17th, 6:45PM, SCOTIABANK THEATRE 4

Sun., Sept. 18th, 12:00PM, SCOTIABANK THEATRE 4

 

BlogTO Submits Five Picks for MIDNIGHT MADNESS 2011!

Excited for Midnight Madness yet? If, for some reason, you haven't made your picks for this year's lineup yet, BlogTO has posted their five top picks to see in our little late-night fiesta of fists and phantoms!

First up is Midnight Madness opening film The Raid, which screens tomorrow night:

"I ALSO declare a thumb war!"

Sometimes the best ingredients for a film at Midnight Madness is fast-paced frenetic action film with a little bit of martial arts and perhaps some disposable criminals to punish. The opening night film Midnight Madness film, The Raid provides all of the above.

Next is, uh...You're Next. No, not you - the film! It screens this Saturday the 10th:

Brenda would stop at nothing to win Dinner Party Wars.

This year director and writer Adam Wingard returns with You're Next a locked-house horror film about a family reunion gone completely awry. Remember that feeling, which only arises at family functions, of wanting to commit matricide or patricide to get your parents to stop talking? How would you react if somebody else tried to beat you to the punch? You're Next attempts to find that out, as a dinner with the family turns deadly when a group of armed invaders attack and send the familial unit on the defense as they try to band together against their assailants.

Third up is the film I'm most looking forward to, that gruesome French fairy tale, Livid which screens this Sunday the 11th:

"Well dammit, now you owe me a new bedsheet, ya jackwagon! You are SO never sleeping over again."

The directors who presented the unapologetically gory and disturbing film Inside to horrified audiences at Midnight Madness in 2007 return this year with Livid, a dark, dream-like horror film about going where you don't truly belong...Rumoured to be the goriest film at Midnight Madness this year, Livid promises to be a terrifying fairy tale of horror that you won't soon forget.

Fourth is the dark post-apocalyptic road movie with a stellar cast and a distinctly bleak outlook, The Day, screening next Thursday the 15th:

"This commute is really starting to get to us."

The story sounds similar to other zombie-related apocalypse films, but The Day seems like it might have a more ambiguous edge to it that will propel the story further than your average survival flick. With an interesting ensemble cast with lesser known but respectable names such as Dominic Monaghan (LOTR), Shannyn Sossamon (The Rules of Attraction) and Shawn Ashmore (X-Men Franchise), there seems to be something a bit different here, while absolutely bleak at the same time.

Finally, the funniest Japanese flick you'll see at TIFF this year, Smuggler, providing you a necessary break from the high tension (see what I did there?) of the rest of the lineup next Friday the 16th:

"Dye job? WHAT DYE JOB??"

While there aren't too many laughs to be found on the programme this year, Smuggler makes up for that in spades as a ridiculous black comedy about Kinuta, a man indebted to the Yakuza and burdened with the unfortunate task of disposing of their dead. When a major Yakuza boss is murdered, Kinuta and his associates are imperiled when his minions plot revenge on anybody they believe may have had a part in his death. And let me assure you, stuff is only about to get stranger.

Don't forget that if you're still undecided, no one would fault you for foregoing sleep all week like your intrepid blog team will be doing, and coming out to all the screenings! Whoever said that sleep was integral to a healthy lifestyle (other than most health professionals)?!

The Raid screens:

Thurs., Sept. 8th, 11:59PM, RYERSON

Sat., Sept. 10th, 12:15PM, AMC 2

You're Next screens:

Saturday September 10 11:59pm RYERSON

Monday September 12 6:30pm AMC 7

Friday September 16 4:00pm TIFF BELL LIGHTBOX 2

LIVID screens:

Sun., Sept. 11th, 11:59PM, RYERSON

Tues., Sept. 13th, 5:00PM, AMC 7

The Day screens:

Thur., Sept. 15th 11:59pm Ryerson

Fri., Sept. 16th 3:00pm Scotiabank Theatre 2

Sat., Sept. 17th 9:45pm Scotiabank Theatre 11

Smuggler screens:

Friday September 16 11:59 PM RYERSON

Saturday September 17 6:45 PM SCOTIABANK THEATER 4

Sunday September 18 12:00 PM SCOTIABANK THEATER 4

Katsuhito Ishii and Midnight Madness--Together At Last!!

I love the films of Katsuhito Ishii. If you love it when films at Midnight Madness bring the wild and the strange, then chances are you do too. Maybe you haven't seen one before though, why not let Smuggler be your first?

I could go on and on and on about Ishii's films but it would probably deteriorate into a ramble that the uninitiated would give up on pretty quickly. So instead I'll just post some choice images from his previous films to give you an idea of what kind of sweet, sweet weirdness you could be in store for if you come out for the World Premiere of his latest film, Smuggler.








And here's Smuggler's trailer:

Smuggler screens:

Friday September 16 11:59 PM RYERSON
Saturday September 17 6:45 PM SCOTIABANK THEATER 4
Sunday September 18 12:00 PM SCOTIABANK THEATER 4