Vengeful Lovely

Full disclosure, I rented Female Prisoner 701: Scorpion for strictly vanity reasons. When I went dark with my hair and got a new brimmed Japanese hat, there was some image in mind that kept popping up. There was a trench coat, ravens, and a sharp knife…

Eventually I tracked down the image and the film series it came from and settled into this wildly stylized exploitation film. I quickly realized, of course, the I look nothing like the stunning Meiko Kaji, being that I am not a stunning Japanese beauty myself, but I can certainly claim her as a personal style icon. The vengeance outfit (trench and brimmed hat) is impeccable, but I also ran out to get liquid eye liner inspired by the perfect dark lids she somehow boasts while hog tied in solitary confinement.

Kaji’s 1973 film, Lady Snowblood was one of the inspirations for the Kill Bill films. Below/after the jump are some of images from the trippy, visually wowzer Female Prisoner 701: Scorpion.

Click here for the rest of Meiko Kaji

See more: Style Icons: Female Actors Japanese

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Posted on December 13, 2009

Director Park Chan-wook's revenge thriller Oldboy is a noted entry in the cinematic canon of Asian Extreme… which is an apt moniker for the genre – and this movie in particular. The plot is extreme: a man is imprisoned in a room for fifteen years without any reason only to be unexpectedly released into a bazaar game of cat and mouse.

The violence and action sequences are extreme: some scenes will make you squirm and, unlike most cinematic combat scenes, the ones here are memorable and pop off the screen – one in particular took seventeen days to perfect and was shot in a single, continuous take. The movie leaves you feeling socked in the gut – and liking it.

It's based on a manga series by Nobuaki Minegishi and Garon Tsuchiya who, someone along the line, must have been inspired by my favorite sci fi writer, Jack Vance. We were thrilled to see so many of his classic ideas on screen, even if it is just a coincidence (nowhere online can I find any concrete evidence of his influence… perhaps I'm the only pseudo scholar with a dual Vance/Park Chan-wook interest?).

The movie itself falters at the end; as is often the case, the conclusion of a compelling mystery can never be as intriguing as the initial investigation. Still, it's a worthy investment if you crave an action thriller and find that Hollywood just hasn't been delivering.

Chan-wook has a new vampire thriller out in theaters now called Thirst.

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Posted on September 7, 2009

News of the wagyu butcher Japan Premium Beef coming to NoHo brought smiles to all the city’s meat loving home-chefs. Thrilled to see the offerings myself, I headed over after work intent on bringing home something special. The space itself is absolutely pristine and the very helpful staff even wears perfectly tailored suits as they walk you through the meat freezers.

I kind of expected to walk out with a much lighter wallet – and believe me, if I’d chosen a tenderloin, I would have – but shockingly, a pound of their juicy marbled ground cost me only five dollars. The butcher recommended I cook the beef with nothing more than salt, pepper, and (his own personal special recipe) a pinch of nutmeg. The resulting burger was fantastic and I will be returning to try other cuts.

See more: Spend a Couple Minutes Beef Food Japanese NoHo Shops

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Posted on July 13, 2009

See it here

The History:
1.Toaplan creates the Zero Wing video game.

2.Toaplan releases a port for the Sega Genesis console with the addition of an intro scene, which is then translated into english (very poorly) and released in the United States.

3. Toaplan goes out of business.

4. Someone from a Zany Video Game Quotes website notices the poor translation, and highlights the game.

5. Overclocked.org does a humorous voiceover of the Zero Wing intro in a fake Wayne Newton voice.

6. Dozens of game-related messageboards begin to post quotes from the parody, and images altered to show the phrase.

7. Most of the threads lose interest and die off quickly as the trend is pronounced dead countless times.

8. The Flash movie/video is released with images from the threads and music taken from the original game someone had added the phrase “all your base” to.

9. AYB explosively expands to the general (non game messageboard-reading) public.

10. The original site for the video is shut down within hours due to excessive traffic, and moves to PlanetStarsiege.

11. Lycos ponders how “All your Base” was transformed from obscurity to a top 50 search practically overnight.

12. Mainstream media begin to notice the trend, and stories appear in Time Magazine, USA Today, Fox News, The Los Angeles Times, Tech TV, Wired, and many others.

13. As the 'remix' used in the video goes from 58 hits a day to several thousand per day, mp3.com notices the track has been ripped directly from the video game and pulls the music off their site due to copyright violations. It is later returned unchanged.

14. The trend continues to grow as it expands into nearly every corner of the web.

15. Large websites like Angelfire and Hewlett Packard sneak “all your base” references into their designs.

16. “All Your Base” is pronounced dead several times every day, yet it's 15 minutes of fame continue for some reason…

See more: Laughs Games Japanese Viral Videos

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Posted on December 18, 2005

Has a twelve dollar pre fixe menu.
Plus seven for wine pairing.
You won't get full on any of the desserts.
But you will be satisfied.
One warning: come early, this place is TINY.
They don't take reservations either.

See more: Desserts East Village From a Restaurant Japanese

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Posted on November 21, 2005