Takashi Miike

CHICAGO – You will see a lot of movies this season that don’t deliver on their set-up. Whether it’s because they’re setting up the audience for another installment in a blockbuster franchise or just the fact that movies made by big studio committees often drop the ball, it’s simply a fact. Whatever one can say about Takashi Miike’s “13 Assassins,” opening this weekend at the Music Box Theatre in Chicago and currently available On Demand, it absolutely, undeniably delivers the goods. And those goods are soaked in blood.

CHICAGO – The DVD Round-Up has traveled the globe this week to bring you a diverse slate of under-the-radar titles received in the HollywoodChicago.com offices this holiday season. With so many major releases this time of year, it’s hard to cover everything, but we wanted to make sure you knew these were out there in case you have a gift card burning a hole in your pocket.

CHICAGO – Takashi Miike’s controversial and terrifying “Audition,” recently released in a ten year anniversary Blu-Ray edition, feels even richer and more dramatically interesting than it did ten years ago as the dating world has become so much more reliant on technology.

CHICAGO – Hello, J-Horror. Please hang up and dial again. In fact, the message “please hang up and dial again” should have given to Eric Valette before accepting Takashi Miike’s remake “One Missed Call” as his American directorial debut.

Hollywood’s successful calling to remake mediocre J-Horror films has finally ended with this tragic interpretation of “Chakushin Ari” in which an evil spirit haunts the cellular phone network for a group of bad-acting college friends.