This massive favorite of mine needs no introduction as Erina is one of the most popular woman ever here and don't we all miss her so much?! The last two posts in this series have featured some long time favorites of mine who have been slightly forgotten about because they had so few posts the last few years. So said I would use the intro to these drama/movie posts to revive someone for a few paragraphs and have some ultra sizzling photos, in the case of Erina that's easy to do! The first post featured Yuika, the second Manami and viewing her pics inspired me to work on a post for her and that was a success, look for another in December. However have a very strong(and sad) feeling we'll never see another post for Erina, she got married in 2018 and in July 2024 had her first child. Erina had been living in Spain for her husband played soccer there but unsure where she is these days but do know she's in semi-retirement. She will be turning 35 in age next April and did have a lengthy career so as long as she's doing well that's fine by me and sure her huge fan base. That top pic below was my #1 favorite photo of all time 😍 from 2016 until late 2019, it was eclipsed by a few others but would still have it about my fifth all time picture and I truly can't find the right words to describe it.... WOWOWOWOWOW!!!!
Erina's final photobook, which was her tenth, was released in March 2018 and for over four years it was by all time favorite book! Plus Erina made the yearly faves list three times and in she 2018 finished in the seventh position on my 'Top Twenty Faves of All Time' list!!!! So Erina has so many accolades here and to say she is(was?) a massive favorite is such an understatement so you can see why she's been missed, of course many of you reading this feel the same way. Enough of the gushing and on to my recent movie viewings, glad I began this series as while I did grow tired of writing up such long reviews for films I still enjoy talking about them and I had taken a vacation from them for too long. I came into this post with no clue what I would talk about and have been doing that much more recently for all kinds of posts and my adlibbing has seemed to work out well enough. The date is November 21st, tonight will begin on the 6-7 movies you will read about today but as of now have no idea what they will be but a thought just crept into my head.
Usually will have an American film or two in these posts but for this one will stay with movies from Japan and Korea as those are the ones I've talked about for over a decade. So that will be one theme for today with the other being all of the movies will be ones I've never seen before! Will confess I watch too many films over and over which isn't a bad thing but then again there's so many hundreds I've never seen that I want to view. I also tend to watch quite a few movies from the 1950's/60's but for this post will try to have most be somewhat recent or at least the ones from Korea. Writing things down often helps me make decisions and have decided to begin off with a few horror flicks from Korea, have acquired about a dozen this past month and have viewed zero of them. Unlike my regular movie review posts these only contain 2-3 paragraphs so can't give a complete rundown on what happened in the film which could be better if you plan on viewing any but the odds on that are about a million to one! For each movie will have those couple of paragraphs where I briefly talk about what took place, some screenshots or other photos from the movie and also a video from it which is usually a trailer. Before we get to my latest movie watches need one final batch of Erina photos and sadly we'll never see any of these kinds of sizzling ones in the future.... hmmmm, maybe a list that would be interesting but so difficult to do because of it's sadness is one of my top women of all time who are now.... retired....
If you read the above you know that I didn't have much of a clue about the format of this post. So had I come in with a plan may have begun off with a different woman but then again how can one ever get tired of gaping at those Erina photos?! I can't but here's someone I had never mentioned before and she had the lead female role in the first film for today, that will be the next section. The woman is Kim So-Eun and it's become close to impossible these days to do posts for Korean actresses, because of that I haven't tried hard enough to do them. But think I should for So-Eun who looks so, so fabulous and could pass for someone a few years younger. She was born on September 6, 1989 which would make So-Eun 36 in age but she could pass for a woman in her late twenties and wow(!), does she look amazing. So let me roll up my sleeves and do some work on a possible post or two, have a feeling it'll be a success though not right away. So-Eun is a popular actress and I had seen her in the Korean version of "Liar Game" that aired in 2014, wonder why she slipped my mind after that? Though 36 in age So-Eun is still single and just the other day mused about how many actresses from Japan and Korea are over the age of thirty yet have never gotten hitched.
Up first is a decent horror flick released on July 2, 2014 titled "Mourning Grave", most Korean movies I view are horror films as the best ones do come from there! Talked about Kim So-Eun above and that's her wearing that school uniform, she was 23 when this was filmed but could have passed for being seventeen in age! In this movie So-Eun played a ghost named Sae-Hee but for the longest time she couldn't remember her name nor did the boy sitting next to her know she was a ghost! His name in the film was In-Su who was kind of the hero, he too was 23 in age when this was filmed and looked younger thanks to the makeup crew. What made In-Su so special was his ability to see ghosts and communicate with them, he's been able to do that since he was born. His parents couldn't see ghosts but In-Su's uncle Seon-Ii can, he's about twenty years older than In-Su who had been living in America for the last seven years. At his prior school In-Su had been bullied for his ability to see ghosts, he left Korea but has recently returned. First to Seoul and then In-Su moved in with his uncle in a town twenty miles outside the city, the home belonged to In-Su's parents. Things weren't too much better for In-Su as a few remembered his ability so see ghosts, once again he was picked on but it wasn't as severe as it once was. Bullying was a key theme to this movie and a person who had been bullied ruthlessly was the ultra cute ghost Sae-Hee. This was a ninety minute movie, neither we viewers nor In-Su knew about Sae-Hee's past until the seventy minute mark and she had such a unique feature for a ghost which was.... she had a dual personality and that was a new twist to a ghost story.
There were two Sae-Hee ghosts, one the nice and cheerful one that hung around with In-Su and no one else except for his uncle Seon-Ii could see her. Then there was the extremely evil Sae-Hee who wore a bloody mask and was responsible for about five deaths since In-Su returned to his hometown. Towards the end we saw a flashback of how Sae-Hee became to be, a few months before In-Su's arrival she had been bullied so severely by a girl named Hyun-Ji along with five of her cohorts, two of them were males. The reason was Sae-Hee had reported her for bullying another girl, when Hyun-Ji discovered that in a way it was the end of Sae-Hee's life! No one at school would help out Sae-Hee and isn't that so common in these kinds of films, the bullying even intensified and it got to be so unbearable Sae-Hee eventually hung herself. The good side of Sae-Hee was prepared to forget the past and live happily as a ghost, not the evil Sae-Hee who ended up killing four of the six that bullied her to no end and a fifth person who did nothing to help Sae-Hee out during that period of bullying. In the end the evil Sae-Hee was exorcised by In-Su's uncle Seon-Ii and just in time as ghost was about to add even more to her Killed list! Of course more took place but can only give some highlights in these mini reviews but all in all this was a film I enjoyed. What would have helped if it was ten minutes shorter, there were two five minute stretches that dragged but this was a movie all horror fans should get into and would recommend it.
Here's quite an unknown short movie and it will be the first of four of them. Back in 2002 KBS had a series of four TV movies that were each about 48 minutes in length, have recently acquired them and thought even if they're bad sure I won't miss those 48 minutes from a day and perhaps some will be good. Have viewed two and the next section is for the second movie which was much better than this one. The series was called "City Horror", this part one had the subtitle of 'Scream'. Which was a hard film to explain and not really sure how I felt about it! What I mean is the movie was okay though extremely confusing, at the end I was so unsure about why so many incidents took place. So it wasn't the best of watches but for some odd reason I did end up liking this mini movie, one reason was Go-Hyung was in it though she was killed at the 25 minute mark. She was in the 1999 film "The Quiet Family" and as far as Korean films go that's in my top five of all time! Go-Hyung played Mina in that film and now need to view it again, she was such an underrated beauty who sadly retired fifteen years ago at the age of thirty but it wasn't because of a marriage.
From what I could deduce like the above movie there was a ghost who was out for revenge, this time it's target was a medical intern named Choi. Most of the film was set at a hospital and of a class of interns who were killing themselves and why would that be? I don't know for the only person the ghost, who was named Mi-Su, should have had a grudge against was the intern Choi. He had met Mi-Su while on a mini vacation, she had worked as a waitress at a seaside town. The two had a fling for ten days, then Choi returned to Seoul never expecting to see Mi-Su again. But she followed the creep and in a way was stalking Choi who refused to see Mi-Su and told her to high tail it out of Seoul. Which didn't happen as Mi-Su killed herself, of all things it was Choi's class that had to do her autopsy. It was discovered then that Mi-Su had been pregnant which was a shock to Choi, none of his mates knew about the fling he had with Mi-Su. So it made sense for her ghost to enact revenge on Choi and have him commit suicide but why didn't the ghost of Mi-Su stop there? For she made four others do what Choi did and that part I didn't understand why. Even so it was still an okay time killer but no must watch movie though least it had more horror than most TV movies. There was no trailer for this movie nor any of the others, not even a thirty second clip that KBS would have run to promote the four films.
Ki never knew that story and it seems as though someone from when the play was staged thirty years ago holds a grudge against the play and anyone who tries to stage it. Thirty years ago a student named Eun-Bin tried out for the lead role and though she was better didn't get the part, shortly after she hung herself! On opening night the drama club director Wong noticed the spirit of Eun-Bin appear but didn't say a word, a few minutes later the lead actress hung herself. In present time or thirty years later Wong is now a professor at the college and after the lead actress Sha-Yan had been spooked a few times by a ghost Wong told the current director Ki the whole story. But just a tad too late as Ki's sister Yu-Mei was killed by the ghost of Eun-Bin who was planning on making Sha-Yan yet another victim and came so darn close to killing her! But she had been saved by a few other cast members, shortly after Ki cancelled the "Tragic Love" play and with that the spirit of Eun-Bin disappeared. So as long as the play remains dormant the ghost will not appear but in the last thirty seconds we saw what was about to happen a year later, the new senior class was getting ready to stage the same play! As I said wished this was just a bit longer but still thought it was a very enjoyable movie, had a bit of gore and some suspenseful moments but it airing on TV meant you could only go so far. That was the second movie I watched last night, right below was the first.
The year was 2000 and to me the internet was nothing like it is today, actually I can't remember it so well as I was kind of young at the time and knew so little about computers. But the above group did as there was a group of nine who had formed a chat room, all were around 22 in age and none had ever met face to face. So an outing was planned at the beach for the nine which soon turned into seven, one woman was killed on the train heading to the beach(!) while a man with the user name of Sandmanzz had killed himself or least that's what the rumor was. At first this was a fun movie or least for the seven who arrived alive at the beach house, four males and three women. Except for one in the cast none ever went on to a successful acting career and that's a shame as the women were ultra adorable. The woman in the red bathing suit was named Yu-Na in the movie, her real name is Lee Seung-Chae and don't think she was ever in another film! Least her character was the best in this movie, especially when she briefly lost her top twice(!), five minutes after the second time she was a victim of this unknown killer who had made the man Yu-Na was fooling around with his first victim on this fateful night! And in a gruesome manner, the killings by this deranged madman were some of the best and most gory ones I've ever seen!
Rambled on for too long so let's wrap this up quickly. To date three of the nine are dead, Eun-Ju was killed on the train so never made it to the beach, Yu-Na and Sang-Tae were sliced up after a roll in the hay(his car)!!!! The man Jung-Min who wore glasses felt this was the work of their mate named Sandmanzz and was it only a rumor he had killed himself? To Jung-Min it was for he felt some of the chatroom members had picked on their mate which led to his demise, now he's back getting revenge for that cyber bulling! As it turned out Jung-Min was correct and had been secretly communicating with Sandmanzz via e-mails to let him stay updated on the group's activities. The remaining group accused Jung-Min of being Sandmanzz, that of course wasn't true and Jung-Min was soon killed. Shortly after so wasn't the male Yeong-Woo and the overly cute gal Do-Yeon which meant two were left, the 'heroine' Nam-Kyeong and the young man Won-Ii who we learned was Sandmanzz in disguise! Nam-Kyeong almost discovered that too late but she ended up being the only survivor after she and Sandmanzz jumped off a cliff onto the ocean, funny how often a weak/small female comes out as the only living person in these movies. Of course so much more did take place but had to wrap this up quickly but even though the next film will be the best one for this post bet most of you viewers would enjoy this movie much more. So to end off this section will give "Bloody Beach" a high recommendation if you're into slasher movies though no lunatic in a goalie's mask in this one....
**** The YT trailer can't be embedded so here's the link to it, could have embedded a inferior quality version but this one is so much better: "Bloody Beach" trailer
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Here's a film I had been wanting to view for years but it took me until last night to view it and can't give a good reason on what took so long. It was a 108 minute movie and to do it justice need about ten paragraphs to explain it all but will limit myself to three. Wouldn't classify this as a horror movie but it was a psychological thriller which are often more intense and this one sure was! Had high hopes for this film and often when that happens you're let down but not for this movie which does deserve it's classic status! There was a remake in 2010 that was much more erotic, this is the original that was released on November 3, 1960 and Korean cinema was behind the times back then and they did have many valid reasons for that but they did catch up to the world rather quickly. Most of the film(80+%) was set at a house but there were a few outdoor scenes, even though the year was 1960 it could have passed for the 1930's. The cars they drove were older makes and I don't know their history too well but it looked to me Korea had struggled for a long time after the war and weren't a wealthy country but at least other country ruled them. Times did change for the better and not just of the movie industry as I've thought Korea is even more advanced than America is for many things and that they have the best internet in the world but we're here for a movie and not a history class.
The Kim family consists of their father Dong-Sik who teaches music at a factory made up of female workers. I wondered how good could that job have paid and bet not much so did he have a side job(s) we didn't learn of? There was also his pregnant wife and never did hear her first name, to help out with the finances the wife did a lot of sewing. Then there was their twelve year old daughter Ae-Soon who had leg injuries and needed crutches to assist her with walking. Lastly was the nine year old son Chang-Soon and what a snobby brat he was, I wasn't upset when he met his untimely demise! At the factory so many of the young women swooned over Kim and one day he received a love letter signed by a woman named Kwak. He reported it to a factory director who suspended Kwak who didn't leave easily and instead quit her position. She was never able to find another job and eventually killed herself with many blaming Kim. Kwak had written the love letter but she wrote it on behalf of her friend Cho and that wasn't known for a while. Cho had such a crush on Kim and began to take piano lessons with him at his house. Which was a new one that had been built right behind the house his family had been renting, still wondered how Kim could afford this with his job? With a bigger house Mrs. Kim had a struggle keeping up with the chores because of being pregnant, Kim asked Cho if she knew anyone that could be a live-in housemaid? Bet Cho wanted the job for herself but instead recommended her friend Myung-Sook who was a cleaner at the factory. She soon moved into the new Kim house and that was the beginning of the family's Life from Hell!!!!!!!
Myung-Sook was a bit slow in the head but smart enough to be extremely conniving and cruel. Once Cho confessed her love to Kim Myung-Sook moved in for the kill as she had heard the whole conversation, if Kim didn't sleep with her she would tell all to his wife! Will try to keep this third and last paragraph brief, after they slept together Myung-Sook became pregnant and that secret didn't remain one long as Mrs. Kim found out. She was able to convince Myung-Sook to throw herself down the stairs to have a miscarriage which worked. Mrs. Kim's pregnancy went well as she had a son but after that her other son Chang-Soon fell down the same stairs in a panic when he thought Myung-Soon poisoned his water! Many other incidents took place, in a way everyone in the movie was both a victim and a perpetrator so it was hard to feel sorry for anyone yet we viewers did. In the end Kim and Myung-Soon drank some poison and died but least Kim was able to crawl to his wife and died in her arms, end of this tragic tale? Not quite for the movie opened and closed with Kim telling his wife this story which was one he read in the newspaper that day. So while it didn't happen with his family the events did to another and the bottom screenshot was of Kim giving a lecture to all men to beware of falling into this trap! Which didn't take anything away from the movie as I forgot quickly that Kim had opened the movie narrating the story to his wife but there was no voice over. What Kim told his wife is what could have happened to their family and of all things they had a housemaid named Myung-Soon! Haven't been grading these movies but on occasion will for a classic and this film was so I will give it a grade of 9.5/10, I highly recommend viewing it. There is a trailer below which is worth checking out but there could be better ones on YT. This made it five Korean films for this post, want to end off with at least one from Japan and hopefully one that's not too ancient but as of now have no idea what my choice will be.
Here's yet another film without a trailer or any kind of video which is because I've been trying to watch many that aren't too well known, this 1998 movie was definitely one! I'm not into the Pinku genre too much but the dozens of movies that came out of them between 1970-75 are ones I enjoy watching, of course the women were often sizzling but the main reason is most of those movies had a decent plot. Many Pinku films from that era had a subtheme of being Sukeban and/or Yakuza films, if any featured Reiko Ike or Miki Sugimoto then they're must watches!!!! The next film for this post was quite entertaining but was only 82 minutes in length, how could I fill up another hour as I often leave myself 2 1/2 hours of viewing before I hit the hay at night. This movie was only an hour long and looked somewhat interesting so decided what do I have to lose, not a movie I would recommend highly but passable. "Sexy S.W.A.T. Team" was a legit police squad of four women who solved sex crimes, usually they're not so busy but an odd incident just occurred and it needed their immediate attention. That was of a crazed scientist doctor named Smith who had developed a Laser Ray that could make a person horny to the Nth degree, his assistant Eric has only used it on females, soon after they see that evil red ray they sexually attack any nearby males!
Don't want to talk about this movie for too long, it was planned to be a nice time killer but all in all though a corny film it was quite fun. Smith was a Japanese doctor who ran a Brain Studies Institute and not sure why he created this laser gun which affected the brain area tied to making you extremely sexually aroused. First it was used on an ex-patient named Jane who was my favorite of the cast, then it was used on two of the S.W.A.T. team members Michelle and Heather, their boss is Susan. The mad scientist had his ex-assistant Eric use the beam on many women and this young man had been brainwashed to do so, that's the laser gun right above. Of course in the end the gals from this team nabbed the crazed scientist along with the help of a detective named John who had sex with two of the S.W.A.T. team members! These kind of Pinku movies do have sex scenes and nudity but in this film more time was spent on the police women working on finding out who was behind this very odd laser gun weapon. The gals did all look terrific and won't recommend this movie but it was better than I thought it would be, there's hundreds others out there in this vein and sure most are similar. But if you are looking for some sexy series with solid plots I suggest checking out the very long "Zero Woman" movies, the first came out in 1974 and still goes on today with a different actress being the Zero Woman in every movie. The bottom four screenshots below show who the cast were and none were names I had seen before.
Final movie for this post and they are getting longer but there's seven films in this post compared to just one in my usual ones for movie reviews. "Danger Pays" is a 1962 film and was one of the first that Jo Shishido had the lead role in, one of the oddest too! If I did a list of my top actors he's be around the fourth position, have seen about twenty of his films and one TV series, this is the fourth film I reviewed of his though this will be a very brief review. What I meant about this being one of Shishido's oddest movies is that there was a lot of comedy in it, he's always been known for playing tough characters. But this film did have quite a bit of action, blood, killings, etc. with much comedy mixed in. Which worked though wouldn't out this among my top Shishido films but one I would recommend to all of his fans or for those who enjoy older Japanese films. In this one Shishido played the role of Joe(!) who was a small time conman, he had just heard of a massive robbery and knew he had to get in on the action! For stolen was the watermarked paper that was going to be used to create 1,000 yen notes, enough paper for 1.08 billion yen to be made into counterfeit bills!
Of course an expert was needed to create the notes and that was an older man named Sakamoto who was arriving back in Japan the next day from Hong Kong. Others besides Joe had the idea of kidnapping Sakamoto and selling him off to a Yakuza boss named Hijikata for it was his gang that stole the watermarked paper. The others also after the older counterfeiter are above, Joe is on the right with Slide Rule on the left and wearing glasses is Dump Truck. The nickname Slide Rule was because the man Okita always played the percentages and let numbers run his life. Serizawa was nicknamed Dump Truck for that's the vehicle he always drove, the woman is Tomoko who had worked as Hijikita's secretary but had been canned and was helping the men out to get her back pay. The three were rivals and all had tried to abduct Sakamoto and sell him to Hijikita which always ended in failure. So eventually the trio became a team and were able to take down the Yakuza clan in a brutal gun battle as though being lighthearted at times it was also a violent movie. Hijikita's plan was to have Sakamoto create the notes but he wouldn't use them in Japan. Instead he was going to sell them to a buyer from Hong Kong and those 1,000 yen notes would be used outside of Japan so the gang would be home free as the authorities would have no clue what had taken place.
With the Yakuza gang out of the way Joe, Slide Rule, Dump Truck and Tomoko thought they were now rich beyond their wildest dreams as now the money was all theirs.... but there was a catch! The counterfeiter Sakamoto had hated Hijikita and his plan for selling the money, he created fake yen notes which could only be noticed by an expert. That's in the second to last screenshot below, when you looked at the note from a different angle the Emperor's mustache would disappear so if caught with these notes someone would be looking at a long prison sentence! So the new plan was for the quartet to sell the counterfeit notes to the Hong Kong buyer Wong, that took place but so didn't another incident to thwart Joe's plan! When Sakamoto had been in Hong Kong he had created fake U.S. bills for Wong, these were the same ones that Joe and his team had just received so they too were worthless! The movie ended on that note, none of the four were too upset at their misfortune as it seemed to happen often with them and while not the best of today's seven movies it was the most enjoyable and the 82 minutes zoomed right by! So as mentioned if you're a Shishido fan this is one to check out if you haven't and are there any reading this that know who he is? The next of these posts will be for dramas and have a couple from Korea that I'll be starting on soon, that should be done in about two weeks and then after that will have another pair for my recent movie watches. Hmmmm, that's the plan but December is also when I do the countdown for this year's favorite's list so I may be a bit tapped for time and there will be only one movie post. The trailer after these screenshots is quite good and is subbed in English.
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