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Category Archives: Crime-Action

Who Killed Vincent Chin? (1989)

Directed by Christine Choy and Renee Tajima-Pena, USA, Academic Video Store, 1989 (82 minutes)
https://www.academicvideostore.com/video/who-killed-vincent-chin

Synopsis (IMDB): This film recounts the murder of Vincent Chin, an automotive engineer mistaken as Japanese who was slain by an assembly line worker who blamed him for the competition by the Japanese auto makers that were threatening his job. It then recounts how that murderer escaped justice in the court system.

 
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Posted by on June 13, 2012 in Crime-Action, Documentary

 

The Trainee (2006)

9m; Singapore

Director: Craig Rosenthal

Synopsis: This amusing Asian short revolves around a loser whose efforts to rob a convenience store are foiled by his own repeated stupidity.

Contact: Youtube link to the film: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HYTWpbanE2M Found on 2007 Palm Springs Shorts Film Fest: http://www.psfilmfest.org/festival/film/detail.aspx?id=19323&FID=31 hellocraigrosenthal@gmail.com

 

Soldiers of the Rock (2003)

94m; South Africa

Director: Norman Maake

Cast: Vuyo DabulaLebo Mathosa and Glen Gabela

Synopsis ( Variety): “A South African gold mining crew struggles with cultural pride, internecine friction and constant danger in the bracing, socially-conscious actioner “Soldiers of the Rock.” Despite overly-ambitious plotting, novelty of milieu and gritty action set pieces will earn pic fest play and distrib interest, with genre elements a good draw in ancillary . . . Seemingly inspired by both Ken Loach and Michael Bay.”

 
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Posted by on May 7, 2012 in Crime-Action

 

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Sometimes a Great Notion (1970)

114m; U.S.

Director: Paul Newman

Cast: Paul Newman, Henry Fonda and Lee Remick

Synopsis (IMDB): Hank Stamper and his father, Henry Stamper own and operate the family business by cutting and shipping logs in Oregon. The town is furious when they continue working despite the town going broke and the other loggers go on strike ordering the Stampers to stop, however Hank continues to push his family on cutting more trees. Hank’s wife wishes he would stop and hopes that they can spend more time together. When Hank’s half trouble making brother Leland comes to work for them, more trouble starts.

 

Steel (1979)

102m; U.S.

Director: Steve Carver

Cast: Lee Majors, Jennifer O’Neill and Art Carney

Synopsis (IMDB): Mike Catton was once a world-renowned construction foreman (at least in the construction world), but an accident left him with a serious fear of heights. Unable to climb the big skyscrapers while under construction, he retired and became a truck driver. But when an old friend needs him to help put up a building, and when the old friend gets harassed and threatened by an Evil Corporate Type, he comes out of retirement and assembles the creme de la creme of the construction world. Together, they race against time to finish the building while the Evil Corporate Type tries to stop them.

 

Strangers in the City (1962)

83m; U.S.

Director: Rick Carrier

Cast: Robert Gentile, Camilo Delgado and Rosita De Triano

Synopsis: Puerto Ricans in New York’s barrio. The boy is beaten by a gang and loses his job; the girl is raped by her employer and becomes a prostitute.

 
 

Swimming With Sharks (1994)

101m; U.S.

Director: George Huang

Cast: Kevin Spacey, Frank Whaley and Michelle Forbes

Synopsis: A young Hollywood executive becomes the assistant to a big time movie producer who is the worst boss imaginable: abusive, abrasive and cruel. But soon things turn around when the young executive kidnaps his boss and visits all the cruelties back on him.

 

Taxi! (1932)

69m; U.S.

Director: Roy del Ruth

Cast: James Cagney, Loretta Young and George E. Stone

Synopsis (IMDB): Amidst a backdrop of growing violence and intimidation, independent cab drivers struggling against a consolidated juggernaut rally around hot-tempered Matt Nolan. Nolan is determined to keep competition alive on the streets, even if it means losing the woman he loves.

 

 

Take Out (2004)

87m; U.S.

Director: Sean Baker, Shih-Ching Tsou

Cast: Charles Jang, Jeng-Hua Yu and Wang-Thye Lee

Synopsis: An illegal Chinese immigrant falls behind on payments on an enormous smuggling debt. Ming Ding has only until the end of the day to come up with the money.

 

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The Bad Sleep Well (Warui yatsu hodo yoku nemuru) [1960]

151m; Japan

Director: Akira Kurosawa

Cast: Toshirô Mifune, Masayuki Mori and Kyôko Kagawa

Synopsis: A 1960 film directed by the Japanese director Akira Kurosawa. It was the first film to be produced under Kurosawa’s own independent production company. The film stars Toshirō Mifune as a young man who gets a prominent position in a corrupt postwar Japanese company in order to expose the men responsible for his father’s death. It is Kurosawa’s unofficial Hamlet, reportedly the director’s favourite Shakespeare play. It also doubles as a critique of corporate corruption. Koichi Nishi (Toshirō Mifune) wants revenge for his father’s death. Nishi is a complex man, playing the troubled Hamletesque character, who lets his father’s past destroy his own future. Nishi is the easiest character to draw parallels with Shakespeare’s play. Nishi seeks to avenge the unnatural death of his father. Maysayuki Mori’s performance as the evil Iwabuchi resembles Claudius. The only other clearly corresponding character between Kurosawa’s The Bad Sleep Well and Hamlet is Horatio with Nishi’s accomplice. Nevertheless, the underlying themes of circumstance, revenge, and justice, connect the film and play. Source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Bad_Sleep_Well