Genre: Drama

Further elevated by an offbeat sense of humour, with periodic bursts of slapstick and broad comedy, Teruo Ishii’s ‘Blind Woman’s Curse’ is nothing if not memorable.

A straightforward martial arts film it may be but is all the better for it and features a great cast, blistering fight scenes and proves that sometimes old school is the best school.

Takeshi Kitano has played a gallery of rogues during his career, but his performance as Shunpei Kim, a brutal Korean immigrant in Yoichi Sai’s ‘Blood and Bones’ is his most powerful.

Not a complete waste of time as it does provide some basic gangster movie stylings but ‘Blood Brothers’ is just that: an exercise in style and a style that has been done much better by other films.

Although I like a lot of the people involved, there’s no escaping that ‘Bloodfight’ simply isn’t a very good martial arts movie.

What puts it slightly above most is the charisma of a youthful Van Damme coupled with some decent action.

Existing in its own heightened reality, ‘Bodyguard Kiba’ is all about making our hero look cool (and indestructible!) and the bad guys as nasty as possible.

Not as riotously entertaining as the first instalment, ‘Bodyguard Kiba 2’ is still a fun watch, mainly to see Chiba strutting his cool stuff and for the impressive fight scenes that open and close the film.

It may be a little rough around the edges but its ambition and heart is in the right place and if given a chance, ‘Bodyguard: A New Beginning’ is an often rewarding experience.

Overall it’s a wonderful film, a blockbuster people call it, and maybe it is, but really for us Asian movie fans this is what it’s all about – a hard hitting, hard punching film with a heart of gold and a fist of iron.

For newcomers, it may prove a little difficult to get into and occasionally confusing but those already enjoying Kitano’s films will easily find several merits here that are synonymous with his best work.

‘Book Of Swords’ offers very little of substance and is really only suited to hardcore Mortal Kombat fanboys.