It's hard for me to get excited about anything associated with Ghost in the Shell theses days. I didn't like Ghost in the Shell 2 and the TV series Ghost in the Shell: Stand Alone Complex was just plain irritating.

It would be hard to match the sheer visual brilliance or thought provoking storyline of the original movie - especially under the high-turnover production pressure of a TV series - but the addition of Tachimokas or 'think tanks' for comedic value was surely somthing few people could have appreciated.

So the April 28th release of Ghost in the Shell: Individual Eleven (or to give it its full title Ghost in the Shell: SAC 2nd Gig - Inividual Eleven) was about as welcome as another potential Man Utd Premier League title win. But spank me for making rash assumptions because how wrong was I!

Like drum and bass, it seems that in SAC 2nd Gig (the Stand Alone Complex second series) GitS has returned to its roots and is all the better for that.

Individual Eleven is not only part of that series edited into a two and a half hour movie, but we have also been treated to additional scenes that re-focus the storyline, and the soundtrack has been re-mixed.

We are back in that green tinted cityscape and plug-in virtual world so lovingly 'borrowed' by The Matrix, as Major Motoko leads a reformed Section 9 in pursuit of a revolutionary terrorist cell called the Individual Eleven. And where would GitS be without poltical conspiracies and back-stabbing officials?

And as much as I hate giving away the plot (here comes a spoiler alert folks!) I personally was incredibly satified to see the demise of those helium-voiced jumping spiders that wind me up so much - well sort of.

Perhaps it is time for me to rehabilitate Ghost in the Shell, instead of simply re-watching the original for the eleventh time?

Ghost in the Shell: Stand Alone Complex 2nd Gig - Individual Eleven is out on DVD on April 28th 2008.

Horror buffs might remember Jacques Tourner's 1957 B&W classic Night of the Demon in which a skeptic of the supernatural finds himself pursued by a winged demon after being slipped a note containing a curse. Almost 50 years later, the Manga Death Note adapts the theme and turns it on its head.

Immediately after the UK cinema release of the Japanese live action movie on April 25th, the 28th sees the arrival on DVD of this beautifully drawn Anime series.

In Death Note a bored college student Light Yagami finds a note pad which has the power to kill anyone whose name is written inside it.

Light decides to use the book to cleanse the world of evil by systematically listing the names of criminals and evil doers. His actions do not go unnoticed and soon Light finds himself pursued in turn by L, Japan's answer to Columbo.

The note book belongs to Ryuk, a winged Shinigami or Death God, who accidentally drops it into the human realm. Ryuk appears to inform Light of the ever growing rules that accompany the book and that he will one day write Light's name in his own Death Note.

Unlike most Anime/Manga series, Death Note is unusual for its preoccupation with suspense over action but it is brilliant and shouldn't be missed. As for what I've seen of the live action movies (there are two), I'm still to be convinced.

Death Note is out on Manga, the dvd label that began most UK fans' obession with Anime as far back as the 80s. Hence the confusion - strictly speaking, Manga are the comic books and Anime are the animated onscreen adaptations.

Death Note was first serialised in top Japanese Manga magazine Weekly Shonen Jump who reprint some of their best output in book form in the West under the name Shonen Jump Advanced. Which brings me to their new Manga Claymore.

Written and drawn by award winning artist Norihiro Yagi, Claymore takes us into more traditional Manga territory as it follows the adventures of Clare, a sword-wielding monster slayer in a medieval fantasy world.

Clare is a member of a sect of young silver-eyed warrior women, nicknamed Claymores after their huge weapon of choice, who rid villages of Yumas, flesh eating monsters who hide in human form.

Its clean artwork and rounded mythology makes Claymore enjoyable and instantly addictive. At under six quid a pop, you'll soon be whizzing through all 11 volumes.

If you're new to collecting Manga, series are available in small paperback volumes from both comic book specialists and general bookstores. Reprinted from the Japanese, the authentic ones read from back page to front and top right corner to bottom left.

You won't be surprised to hear that late last year Claymore was also aired as an Anime series in Japan.

Shonen Jump official site

Since I'm on an Anime tip this week, I wanted to recommend a Japanese TV series from 2004 called Samurai Champloo. I only discovered it recently thanks to one of the big online stores who are currently offering a wide selecton of Manga dvds on BOGOF.

'Champloo', a loose translation of the Okinawan word 'chanpurū', is effectively a pun meaning 'remix'. So Samurai 'Remix' makes no apology for its cheeky mash-up of Edo period Japanese swordsmen and modern day hip hop culture.

The editing is straight out of the DJ Yoda school of video scratching, the anti-hero Mugen fights with a style that includes breakdance moves and the title sequence even throws in a turntable. The soundtrack is hip hop and the graphics are at times both simple and stunning.

It's a work of genius! No surprise then that its creators have some pedigree. Champloo was  directed by Shinichirō Watanabe (Cowboy Bebop, Animatrix), and designed by Kazuto Nakazawa (Kill Bill Vol. 1) and Mahiro Maeda (Last Exile).

All 28 episodes seem to be available on UK DVD as both box set or single volumes. I'm only 8 episodes in but I'm hooked already and plan to work my way through the entire series.

If you want to try before you buy, there are stacks of clips on YouTube.

The year is 2077 and Japan has become a rogue state isolated from the rest of the world. For a decade it has shielded itself from outside communication and satellite surveillance, and no one has been in or out of the country - until now.

Fearing that the Daiwa Corporation has defied a UN ban to develop android weaponary, the US sends in a crack Special Forces unit led by female commander Vexille to investigate.

This is the setting for the new CG Anime from the creators of Appleseed due out in selected UK cinemas on May 9th.

Like Appleseed, the movie is scored by Paul Oakenfold, and features tracks by Basement Jaxx, DJ Shadow, Underworld, Asian Dub Foundation and the Prodigy.

Enjoy the UK trailer from Momentum Pictures.

 Watch the trailer on YouTube

London promises to host the largest gathering of Anime and Manga in the UK as it plays home to the Movie Comic Media Expo next month.

Over the weekend of the 24th and 25th of May cosplay characters will mingle with sci-fi geeks, gamers and comic fans at the Excel Convention Centre, Royal Victoria Dock.

So if your guilty pleasure is to dress up as your favourite Manga hero or heroine, stock up on purple hair dye because there will be prizes on offer in daily competitions.

If instead you fancy yourself a real-life Bradley Branning, you can queue up to have your photo taken with stars of sci-fi or just fill your autograph book.

For those of us who are more Earthbound, it's our chance to trawl through trader stalls for collectibles and join in the numerous Q&A sessions.

Tickets range from £9 - £14 for adults and £4 for kids.

For booking info and full details visit the Official Site

Send me you Cosplay photos Asianprovocateur@live.co.uk

In a departure from the kind of roles that made him famous, Donnie Yen is back on our screens in a brutal cop thriller.

Flashpoint is set in Hong Kong just before the 1997 handover, for no other reason perhaps than it helps bring to mind Jackie Chan movies but there is no humour to be found in this Police Story.

Instead Donnie doffs his rage to one of his favourite movies Fist Of Fury and his hero Bruce Lee. This he does with gusto.

Our hero swaps swords for guns and pigtail for a pair of shades as a modern day cop on a quest to bring three psycho brothers to justice. And of course even before Hong Kong was handed back to the Chinese, it had cops who knew kung fu!

Hamstung with red tape and officials who seem more on the side of the Triads than justice, Donnie is driven to extremes when his undercover pal's identity is blown.

"You will not have seen moves so fast and furious or such swaying swagger since the great Bruce Lee himself. Donnie must be proud."

Yes you've heard it all before and despite treading a fine line between gloss and realism, the movie is little more than average for the first 40 minutes.

But if you can hang tough like Donnie asks his pal Louis Koo, you will be rewarded with an Ong Bak influenced chase scene and one of the most hardcore MMA (Mixed Martial Arts) fight scenes yet committed to celluloid.

It all kicks off quite literally when Donnie gets down to business with Triad boss Colin Chou who played Seraph, the Oracle's protector, in Matrix Reloaded. You will not have seen moves so fast and furious or such swaying swagger since the great Bruce Lee  himself. Donnie must be proud.

And there's even a nod and a wink to Jackie Chan as the titles roll but instead of the funny out-takes, we get the hard as nails training fights the actors put themselves through.

I'm not convinced yet that Flashpoint will become a classic but for the big fight scene alone, it's a must-see.

Charlize Theron is to produce and star in an English language remake of 2005 South Korean movie Sympathy For Lady Vengeance. The remake is due out next year.

Theron won the Oscar for Best Actress in 2004 for her role in Monster but you may have seen her in the adaptation of sci-fi animated series Aeon Flux (pictured) or opposite Mark Wahlberg in the remake of The Italian Job.

The former model is also famous for appearing in Playboy.

Lady Vengeance was the final installment in Korean director Park Chan-wook's Vengeance Trilogy starring Lee Young Ae, most famous for its middle installment Oldboy.

Which version of the film will Charlize follow? The original is famous for its additional 'Fade to Black and White' version which progressively loses colour as the protagonist loses her humanity and becomes the murderous Lady Vengeance of the title.

Ekin Cheng and Aaron Kwok are to reprise their roles as Whispering Wind and Striding Cloud in a sequel to The Stormriders ten years after the original was released.

Produced by legendary Hong Kong film studio Golden Harvest, The Stormriders was a huge box office success based on a series of comic books by  Fung Wan, which were in turn highly praised for their depiction of swordplay.

The first Stormriders movie was a special effects extravaganza directed by Andrew Lau whose earlier work Young and Dangerous also starred Ekin Cheng and spawned 4 sequels and a prequel.

The Pang twins whose horror flick The Eye has just been remade for Western audiences had (inevitably) been linked with the role of directors.

Veteran actor Simon Yam, Cheng's co-star in Young and Dangerous 1, 2 and 3, is set to replace Japanese martial arts icon Sonny Chiba as the new villain.

Trivia fans might remember Chiba playing Hattori Hanzō, the world's greatest sword maker in Kill Bill. Chiba is also the hero of Christian Slater 's character in True Romance, also scripted if not directed by Tarantino.

Stormriders II, reported to have a budget of $12 million, is to be shot exclusively on blue screen in an effort to emulate the most recent successful graphic novel adaptation, 300.

Expect it in cinemas in 2009.

The English language version of eye-popping Hong Kong/Thai horror movie The Eye is out in UK cinemas on April 24th.

The remake of Oxide and Danny Pang's creepy classic stars the Fantastic Four's Invisible Woman, Jessica Alba, in the leading role as the blind violinist who sees dead after a double cornea transplant. The movie is released by Lionsgate home of all those Marvel Comics animes.

For more info on the original see my last blog entry. Meanwhile if you're an Alba addict, watch this trailer...

Visit the offical website to view the trailer in hi-def, see more pics and to download MySpace skins of the film.

Watch the trailer on MSN Video

Go to The Eye official website

The Hollywood remake of The Eye starring Jessica Alba (the Fantastic Four's Invisible Woman) will be in UK cinemas soon so I thought this would be a great opportunity to talk about the original for those who missed it.

Released in 2002, The Eye (Gin Gwai) is a spooky yet stylish horror movie in the vein of The Ring and The Grudge (Ju-on) with a bit of Final Destination thrown in for good measure. Like it's esteemed company it has spawned native sequels as well as an English language remake.

The plot surrounds Mun, a blind violinst played by Angelica Lee, who undergoes a cornea transplant from a dead Thai girl. Her sight is finally regained after 18 years of darkness but she soon realises that the operation was more curse than cure.

Things get creepy as she begins to see people no one else can - ghostly figures that seem to be premonitions of gruesome deaths!

As if things aren't morbid enough on-screen, the weirdness extends behind the scenes of the production.

It was made by twin brother screenwriter/directors Oxide and Danny Pang and that concept alone always make me picture the girls who haunt the hotel in Kubrick's The Shining!

The Pangs were inspired to write The Eye after remembering a report in a Hong Kong newspaper about a 16 year old girl who committed suicide after receiving a cornea transplant. They said they wondered what she had seen that drove her to take her own life.

Often described both as a Hong Kong or a Thai movie, it was in fact shot in both locations and is available with Cantonese and Thai soundtracks.

To add to the confuson, the Pang brothers although born in Hong Kong, made their names in the Thai film industry with their co-directorial debut Bangkok Dangerous in 1999.

A note for collectors - if you're lucky you can still get the special edition DVD from Tartan which includes an animated card of the sleeve artwork.

Tartan Video - The Eye DVD

The offical site has been launched for the new Jet Li/Jackie Chan collaboration The Forbidden Kingdom which is out in US cinemas next month.

Forbidden Kingdom is billed as the first onscreen pairing of the martial arts legends, surely the two most famous living martial artists on the planet, and is choreographed by much sought after Yuen Woo Ping (Crouching Tiger, Matrix, Kill Bill, Iron Monkey, Magnificent Butcher).

Dressed in all the trappings of a Hollywood blockbuster, this was actually shot on location in China and judging by the trailer looks amazing. Sort of Crouching Tiger meets Bulletproof Monk.

The plot takes 21st Century teenager Michael Angarano (last seen in 24) and transports him into Chinese mythology where he must free the Monkey King ... "Born in an egg on a mouuunntain top", everybody! .... from the Jade War Lord. But first he must be trained in 'kung fu' by Silent Monk (Li) and 'drunken master' Lu Yan (Chan).

It might look as spectacular as Hero or Curse Of The Golden Flower but this is a movie that doesn't appear to take itself too seriously. Expect lots of trademark Chan comedy as 'J +J' play off each other.

Watch the trailer on the offical website

The latest anime dvd from the awesome Studio Ghibli is the first directed by Goro Miyazaki but lacks most of the charm of those directed by his father Hayao Miyazaki (Howl’s Moving Castle, Spirited Away, Princess Mononoke).

Adapted from a collection of short stories by American sci-fi and children’s author Ursula K Le Guin, the book shouldn’t be required reading for enjoying the movie, but any clues to the storyline would have helped.

"the book shouldn't be required reading for enjoying the movie"

As far as I could tell, it is a story about the redemption of a young prince Arren in a land where magic and dragons exist. This is overshadowed by a long standing rivalry between the good arch mage Ged (aka Sparrowhawk) and an evil wizard Cob. Light versus darkness and all the usual gubbings.

In the English version, Sparrowhawk is voiced by former Bond Timothy Dalton and Arren by Matt Levin, one of the voice over artists from the Xbox sci-fi game Mass Effect.

The story is less comprehensible than Spirited Away and more Westernised than Howl’s Moving Castle but without any of their genius.

The drawing style is distinctly Ghibli but has a brighter (younger?) colour palette than usual – I’m not sure why but I kept thinking of Dogtanian and the Muskahounds.

"the most Japanese thing about this movie is the villain who looks like a woman yet talks like a man"

The viewer can’t help feeling that Ghibli are trying too hard to break the Western market without realising that the essence of their appeal to audiences here is their (for want of a better word) Japaneseness. Yet the most Japanese thing about this movie is the villain who looks like a woman yet talks like a man, as creepy as that is.

In all my years of watching Japanese cartoons, I have still to figure out why they do that! Maybe it arose from casting confusion when Manga first started to be dubbed into English?

In short, worth renting but not buying. (3 out of 5)

Japanese anime Speed Racer never made any waves here in the UK but was popular enough across the Atlantic to justify the big budget live action treatment.

Even that would be no great shakes if the new movie wasn't written and directed by the Wachowski Bros, creators of that mine of Manga references The Matrix trilogy.

If the trailer is anything to go by, the Wachowski's have made an acid trip of a movie that combines the visual styles of a Saturday morning cartoon and Nintendo's F-Zero video game. Trippy would be an understatement.

Watch the Speed Racer movie trailer on YouTube