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Something to Watch: Discs

7 Assassins is the movie this week, about a group of assassins who have banded together to rid the government of corruption. This movie is quite good, even if it does have a death toll that could rival a Shakespearean tragedy adapted by George R.R. Martin, as the reviewer linked here said.

TV has Continuum: Season Three, with another roll of the time-travel dice pushing Kiera still farther from her original timeline. If you live in Canada you can get the Enhanced Video experience by watching it online, with original bonus webisodes, extended scenes, and behind-the-scenes content in each Continuum Season 3 episode. You can get a lot of that from Continuum on Syfy, but not all of it, and not as nicely integrated. US viewers should go for the discs to get the full effect. We also get Dominion: Season One this time around, about the war between the angels and humanity. I am sure you won’t be too surprised to learn Humanity is in trouble.

The Anime stand out this week is Sword Art Online: Extra Edition, the bit that came between the first and second season, an OVA that comes in at just 100 minutes. It sets the stage nicely for what comes next, and brings its own context and development. There is also One Piece; Season 6 Part 3, which may not sound like much but is 11 full episodes. What Japan calls a TV season is everything produced in a year, and since they go around the calendar with this series, each actual season ends up being 10 to 12 episodes long.

Męskie Granie Orkiestra

The first track is 2014’s Elektryczny, the second is 2012’s Ognia!, and the third is 2013’s Jutro jest dziś. The Męskie Granie Orkiestra (Men Playing Orchestra) is one of the more interesting bands to come out of Poland this decade. A big chunk of the reason is they are more of a project than a band, with a ton of quality artists drifting in and out of the core group, contributing their talents to each song they are involved with. These few songs give you an idea what they are up to; there are a lot more in their discography. If you like what you hear you should check the rest of them out, you can find lots of them on You Tube and iTunes.

Kill Dil: Music and Trailer.

The entire collection of excellent audio from Kill Dil, the Bollywood variation on Kill Bill, sort of. Except with a different plot, a great collection of music, and you can dance to it! It should only take you about 40 minutes to go through the entire collection, and you can follow that by watching the trailer. It will be hitting the big screen on November 14th, but I have not confirmed in which country. Enjoy!

K-Jazz

Not an aspect of Korean pop music you usually hear much from on this side of the Pacific, K-Jazz has some quite tasty examples, and I thought I would share a few this week. The first track is Bank by Puer Kim from her new mini-album Purifier. She isn’t singing about money here, but how to save up good deeds in your spiritual bank account, so you end up making a positive difference in the world with your life. The second track is the Girls Generation 2013 hit Twinkle, a jazz/rock fusion K-Pop masterpiece. There are a lot more where these came from, be sure to explore this musical category when you have a chance.

THE SAND STORM (沙尘暴)

Low-fi Sci-fi lives, as this wonderful little clip from China makes abundantly clear. Ai Wei Wei, the iconic Chinese dissident, becomes a mysterious figure in this short film from Jason Wishnow set in a dystopian Chinese city of the near future. THE SAND STORM (沙尘暴) should at least teach a bit about water conservation in a Mad Maxian kind of world. This was a kickstarter project meant (as near as I can tell) to be a test platform for a feature length film, but it didn’t pull in the support it was hoping for once the original backers saw the end result. I am of two minds about this, since I thought the production quality was excellent, but I have also seen all the Mad Max Wannabies I will ever require in my life. So I will withhold judgement for now, and keep my eyes open for the next Ai Wei Wei story, and hope for something a bit more robust in the next iteration.

THE SAND STORM (沙尘暴) from jason wishnow on Vimeo.

Kundo Trailer

This Korean historical epic hits theaters this Friday the 29th, about the Joseon dynasty in 1859, towards the end of its 500 year long reign. Kundo is about a resistance movement that did not appreciate being enslaved by the rulers of that government at that time, and reacted accordingly. The Joseon dynasty was also the source of all the best Cinderella stories for that culture; with a half millennium of events to choose from, there were a few good ones.