Smash Cut

A movie mash-up that could happen, er, “Only In My Dreams” is ready to chomp up home theaters in the form of Mega Shark vs. Giant Octopus. What’s it about? Read the title! Need to know more? It stars brooding, would-be tough guy Lorenzo Lamas, former pop wonder Deborah Gibson, and a slew of not-so-special-yet-thoroughly-enjoyable creature effects.

Don’t believe me? Feast on the tasty trailer below.

Scott Adkins. Who’s he, you ask? Well, he’s the Brit-born actor/martial artist who plays the monstrous Weapon XI at the end of last weekend’s box-office smash, X-Men Origins: Wolverine. (Nope, that wasn’t Ryan Reynolds.)

But if you ask me, the more unfettered (in name and narrative) Ninja will show off Adkins’s impressive skills much better than that Hollywood franchise. Made on an indie shoestring by fan-fave director Isaac Florentine, Ninja stars Adkins as Casey, a Westerner studying ninjutsu in Japan. His talents prove so formidable that he’s asked by his sensei to go to New York City to protect the legendary Yoroi Bitsu, a sacred armored chest that contains the weapons of the last Koga Ninja.

Ludicrous? A buncha baloney? Yeah, probably, but so was Wolverine, and this flick at least promises to be more action-packed and exciting. Don’t believe me? Then check out the trailer below.

Neill Blomkamp. Remember that name, people. Because in a few months, you’ll probably be seeing it everywhere.

Blomkamp is a filmmaker whose style tends to blend a kind of docu-realism with sci-fi elements. His 2005 short film, Alive in Joburg, about an eerie alien encounter in Johannesburg, South Africa, caught the attention of none other than the acclaimed Lord of the Rings trilogy helmer Peter Jackson. The latter was so impressed that he tapped Blomkamp to direct a live-action feature of the video game hit Halo, a project that eventually fell through.

No matter. Blomkamp’s new feature, District 9, a politically-charged “what if” tale in which alien visitors are forced into slum-like internment camps on Earth, promises to deliver a gritty blend of social allegory and sci-fi spectacle that few talents seem capable of pulling off these days.

District 9 is slated for release this August, but you can enter the film’s densely-imagined world via the vividly rich and detailed official website created for the film. And you can watch the knockout trailer for it below.

Hey, I’m just reporting here, so don’t sue, okay? The trailer for the straight-to-video/DVD sci-fi rip-off actioner The Terminators has dropped, and while it may not have Christian Bale or a studio budget, it does have lotsa robots and big explosions!

Peep the preview below.

Ah, Twitch. You can always count on that site for the best updates, and this one’s no exception: an exclusive presentation of the first trailer for Samurai Princess.

I showed you the scorching one-sheet image above when I first  blogged about this destined-for-cult-classic-status, psychotronic Japanese actioner at the beginning of the month. The poster’s image of lead star/adult video actress Aino Kishi was probably enough to get your tongues wagging, but the preview delivers on many, many more levels, folks. We’re talking explosive breasts and scissor feet here.

Watch the trailer here on Twitch. You can visit the Official Samurai Princess Website for more details as they arrive.

“New Samurai is Born.” Indeed!

Literally! The preview clocks in at around a minute-and-a-half, but only about ten seconds of it is gunplay-free. And that’s a good thing, in my book.

If you’re a regular reader of my blog, you know that I’m all about Hong Kong filmmaker Johnnie To and any offering from his Milkyway Image production company. I’ve been tracking his latest effort Vengeance, starring French crooner/thesp Johnny Hallyday, for quite some time, and posting info and teasers whenever possible.

A new entry obviously means new material, and this one’s the best yet: an international trailer for the potboiler about a French assassin-turned-chef who’s forced to pick up pistols once again when someone rubs out his loved ones. It’s stylish, action-packed, and atmospheric. In short, it’s another Johnnie To classic!

Go to the Official Vengeance Website to take a look at the goodies offered there (stills, press notes, and interviews, for starters), or paste your eyes below on the blazing trailer. Wake up and smell the cordite, kids!

A sequel gets cranked out, of course!

But what makes the prospect of Ip Man 2 — a follow-up to last year’s excellent biopic about Bruce Lee’s revolutionary martial arts instructor, Ip Man — is that the talented kung fu choreographer/actor/director Sammo Hung (that’s him, third from the right, taking off the shades in the March 31, 2009, Ip Man 2 press conference) will be performing in the film as well as supervising the action. Hung is an amazing force to reckon with on-screen: he may look portly, but he can move lightning-fast (he did train alongside Jackie Chan, after all), and in the sequel he’ll play a Hung Gar kung fu master who’ll clash with Wing Chun practitioner Ip Man, played again by Donnie Yen.

And if you’ve never seen Yen go mano-a-mano with Hung before, then…you’ve never seen action! Well, maybe that’s a bit of hyperbole, but just get ready to pick your gaping jaw off the ground after you check out this clip from 2005’s stellar Hong Kong police actioner Sha Po Lang (which happened to be directed by Ip Man and Ip Man 2 helmer Wilson Yip) which climaxes in a down-n-dirty rumble with those two Chinese superstars trading blows.

From the oh-so-delightfully-twisted minds behind loony Japanese genre fare like The Machine Girl and Tokyo Gore Police (movies that are exactly what their titles describe them to be) comes Samurai Princess. And if the poster pictured above is any indication, then Yoshihiro Nishimura — the director of Tokyo Gore Police and effects supervisor on Machine Girl and Princess — will be three for three with his trifecta of pics that deliver on the promise of their names (not to mention poster campaigns).

Distributor CREi offers this plot description:

Erotic-grotesque action film from Japan to worldwide viewers! Produced by Yoshihiro Nishimura, a world-famous special effects director!

The story takes place sometime, somewhere in a world during the Samurai era, where people live together with highly developed mechanical dolls. However, excessively-developed mechanical dolls start causing harm to the human society, leading to ghastly bloodshed happening all over the place. Under the circumstances, Kyoraku, a mad scientist, creates a female ninja mechanical doll. Equipped with 11 types of built-in weapons, the ninja doll, who will not die even if she is slashed by a sword or shot by a gun, is virtually indestructible.

As of this moment, there’s no Samurai Princess trailer, but there is an official website that is, simply, a mega-image of the poster. Nothing else to check out as of yet, but that does mean that you get an even more ginormous pic of star Yukari Tateishi than the one I’ve hooked you up with.

Everybody wants to go Bollywood these days, and I guess the Italian Stallion is no exception, even if it’s just for a walk-on.

Kambakkht Ishq (which is also known as Incredible Love) is an action/comedy/romance/musical vehicle for Indian superstar Akshay Kumar, who can probably do the musclebound-funny-heartthrob character in his sleep at this point. Anyway, Kumar stars as a world-renowned stuntman who’s tops in Hollywood (hence all the guest appearances by celebs and quasi-stars like Stallone, Denise Richards and, allegedly, Arnold Schwarzenegger and Carmen Electra). And yet, for all his glory and fortune, the guy just can’t find the right gal. Naturally, his first encounter with a supermodel (played by the always-enchanting Kareena Kapoor) is like oil and water, but…hey, I wouldn’t have called this movie a part-romance if sparks weren’t going to fly, right? The film is sure to be another one of those jokey “movies about movies” but you can always count on Bollywood to deliver, at the very least, some unbridled energy and glamor.

You can check out the trailer for Kambakkht Ishq, complete with Stallone appearance, over here.

Also known as Korkusuz, 1986’s Rampage is probably best known (if at all) as the Turkish version of Rambo: First Blood Part II. And by “version,” I mean shameless rip-off.

The thing is, if you’ve never seen a Turkish “adaptation” of a Hollywood hit (such as the legendary Dünyayi kurtaran adam, a.k.a. Turkish Star Wars), then you’re missing out. The flicks may grab everything from their source inspirations with a copyright-infringing zeal that would leave any legal team in the dust, but they spit and whirl those elements with such devilish (or should I say “dervish-like”) glee that they often surpass the originals in terms of pure entertainment value. And Rampage — which is, amazingly enough, from the very same mastermind director of Turkish Star Wars, Çetin Inanç — could deliver the goods in exactly that manner.

What’s Rampage about? A Turkish commando has to kick a lot of bad-guy ass. Whadja think it was about?

Take a look at the amazing Rampage trailer on the DVD’s official website, courtesy of its releasing studio Dark Maze. Or, better yet, have a gander at this clip.