Nekrotronic (2019) - Movie Review

From the makers of Wyrmwood: Road Of The Dead, which remains one of the most fun movies I’ve covered on this blog, Nekrotronic is another showing of genre pastiche, basically taking everything the Roache-Turner brothers watched and loved growing up and putting their own spin on it. I can’t exactly say what I was expecting out of this, since Wyrmwood is such a weirdly unique film in its vigour and delivery, but I’m happy to report that not only have they stuck to what they know best, they’ve built on their toolkit to bring the same level of fun at a slightly higher polish.

Journey To The West: The Demons Strike Back (2017) - Movie Review

Even considering the filmmakers that I’ve already covered on this blog, Stephen Chow might be one of the single weirdest that I’ve come across. I say this because, from the works of his that I’ve seen, his cinematic expertise seems to lie in two very different and very conflicting thematic styles. He tends to stick to his own brand of martial arts shenanigans, as influenced by the Shaw Brothers as he is by Tex Avery, resulting in some incredibly energetic and cartoonish action scenes. Alongside that, he has a habit of injecting elements of Buddhist philosophies and a rather nuanced perspective on the matters of life and love, resulting in some remarkably touching moments and end-of-film codas.

These are two worlds that really have no business next to each other, which makes it even more perplexing when he does it well. And really damn well at that; Kung Fu Hustle got the man a lot of attention when it came out and for very good reason. So, with this sequel to his film Journey To The West: Conquering The Demons, and Stephen Chow’s script being utilised by director Tsui Hark, how does this clashing of energy levels turn out?