Rating: 3.5

Short but sharp samurai flick from an early on in his career Hideo Gosha, ‘Samurai Wolf’ still packs a punch despite its short running time and being almost 60 years old.

Slicker and swifter this time around, ‘Samurai Wolf II’ is still some dark, fight filled, chanbara entertainment but is perhaps unnecessarily complex and convoluted for its own good.

‘Savage’ pulls few punches in its tough tale of a mountain cop on a quest to extract revenge on a trio of criminals who killed his partner.

A pulpy period actioner is a good way to describe ‘Savage Dog’ but come the second half, the film veers into full on exploitation madness as the violence is ramped up.

Yu’s epic is often stunning to look at, is a lot less stuffy and longwinded than many a recent Chinese period epic, moves at a fair clip and delivers a surfeit of adrenaline surged spectacle.

Despite eschewing all the trappings of a big budget thriller, ‘Saving Mr. Wu’ is still a tense and perhaps even thought-provoking production.

The slightly absurdist Japanese style means that the film is very much an acquired taste, likely to baffle as many as it might amuse.

This comedy succeeds because of its wit and characterisation, two attributes that go hand-in-hand in the better efforts of the genre.

All nicely shot on location and featuring the crisp and crunchy fight action we expect from Adkins and Florentine, ‘Seized’ delivers the goods.

The two most striking things about ‘Send Me To The Clouds’ are the photography and the performance of actress Yao Chen.

It’s gonna be a love it or loathe it kind of movie as it’s not the dark, vicious film I expected, although there are some disturbing scenes thrown in there.

After my thoughts that he might well be resigned to uninspiring Hollywood fodder, I’m glad to eat humble pie and say that ‘Shanghai Knights’ contains some of his best action in recent years.