Blade Licking Thieves - An Anime, Kaiju, And Asian Movie Podcast

Special guest Nate Ming joins the Blade Licking Thieves to talk about one of his all time favorite martial arts films, The Prodigal Son (1981), an action comedy romp featuring the mega talents of Yuen Biao, Sammo Hung, Lam Ching-ying, and Frankie Chan. Review (36:08)

We chat about the 3-D anime, centered around 1990s arcade nostalgia, Hi Score Girl.  Argue the merits of the Berserk anime before a court of law.  Sally forth into the whimsical world of slimes, heroes, and dragons with the launch of Dragon Quest Your Story.  And, finally, review a hidden gem from 1985, Rintaro's tragically underappreciated ninja epic: The Dagger of Kamui.    

We spend an hour talking Tezuka's Phoenix, Sega's Yakuza series, and too-horny-for-TheHeat-mecha-show Godannar, among other things, before breaking into our review of director Yoon Jong-bing's Nameless Gangster: Rules of the Game (2012), which chronicles the rise and fall of two South Korean gangsters (Choi Min-Sik and Ha Jung-woo) during the 80's and 90's.      

BLT Team B review the 80s slasher cult classic, Maniac Cop, starring always a treat Bruce Campbell and man with a huge face Robert Z'Dar!

Dawn from the Anime Nostalgia Podcast joins us to review Ryuhei Kitamura's break out Japanese action film Versus! Review (39:48) Twitter Questions (2:32:05)

We review the 2006 anime film The Girl Who Leapt Through Time from director Mamoru Hosoda: a delightful coming of age comedy / drama loosely based on a story by Paprika writer Yasutaka TsuiTsui about a teen-aged girl named Makoto who discovers she has the ability to quite literally leap through time. Review (25:45) Twitter Questions (1:27:58)

Daryl Surat, writer for Otaku USA Magazine and host of the Anime World Order Podcast, joins us on this special "regular" episode for a long chat about stuff we've been watching, Chinese action films (and their perpetual mistreatment by western companies), and for a review of Zhang Yimou's utterly majestic wuxia drama, Hero (2002), starring Jet Li, Maggie Cheung, Tony Leung, Zhang Ziyi, and Donnie Yen. Review (44:45) Twitter Questions (2:40:50)

We ring in the New Year with a review of Satoshi Kon's somewhat overlooked Christmas film, Tokyo Godfathers (2003): an animated comedy about three homeless people on a quest to reunite an abandoned baby with its parents that, through a series of wildly improbable, yet seasonally appropriate, coincidences and several generous sprinklings of movie magic, carries with it the promise of salvation for all.   Review (41:05) Twitter Questions (1:50:02)

Once again proving they are a danger to themselves, BLT Team B willingly dive head first into the pit of darkness that is Holiday themed B-Movies and emerge, bloodied and maimed, with a review of arguably the most well-known film of that odious genre: Silent Night, Deadly Night Part 2.

On today's Spotlight episode, Grant chats with Gabi (@yamineftis) and Scarlet (@scarlet_simply) about creating fan art, writing fan fiction, and doing cosplay of their favorite works.

We review the 2014 fantasy adventure series Rage of Bahamut: Genesis from studio MAPPA and Tiger and Bunny director Keiichi Sato, loosely based on the mobile card game by Japanese developer Cygames. Review (29:56) Twitter Questions (1:38:30)

It's the annual Blade Licking Thieves Halloween episode, so, of course, as seems to have become something of a tradition for the show, that means we're reviewing yet another Takashi Miike film. This time we're watching the joyfully bizarre, genre mashup that's part family drama, part dark comedy, part musical, and many parts absurd: The Happiness of the Katakuris. Enjoy the show! Review (42:49)

In 2008, after a relatively successful stint in Hollywood, John Woo returned to Chinese-language features with Red Cliff Part I & II, a two part epic adapted from arguably the most famous novel in Chinese literature, Romance of the Three Kingdoms. Tune in to hear Grant's book report on that 1400 page tome along with our thoughts on this nearly five hour film series.

There's nothing quite like Survive Style 5+. With an unusual narrative of five interweaving stories, off the wall humor, tripped out art direction, and an all around odd sensibility to it, this debut film from commercial and music video director Gen Sekiguchi feels just as fresh and exciting today as it did in 2004 the year of its release. You don't want to spoil this one for yourself -- please go watch the film first, then listen to the review. Enjoy!

Life keeps finding ways to delay the release of our next show (the Survive Style 5+ episode should be out by end of next week, I promise), but thankfully BLT Team B is here to fill the void with a short review of the truly terrible: Yor: The Hunter from the Future. I apologize in advance to anyone that tracks down this movie because of us. Please don't do that.

He's a loner.  A rebel.  And so are we...because Blade Licking Thieves is quite possibly the only podcast daring (or stupid) enough to spend nearly thirty five minutes talking about old 1970's Tatsunoko cartoons, wuxia-puppet-shows, Godzilla, and the Chinese epic Romance of the Three Kingdoms before completely flipping the script and launching into a review of an american comedy classic like Pee-wee's Big Adventure.  But then there's a lot things you don't know about us.  Things you wouldn't understand.  Things you couldn't understand.  Things you shouldn't understand.

Get your quarters ready! Because we're traveling back to the early 1990s -- a time of flashy arcades, fighting games, Saturday Anime, and peak Masami Obari -- to find out whether Fatal Fury: The Motion Picture still possesses the power to... ROCK YOU! Review (19:50) Twitter Questions (1:44:30)

One Piece Film: Strong World, the 10th film in the franchise but the first to feature designs and story ideas from One Piece creator Eiichiro Oda, catapults the Straw Hat crew onto a mysterious series of floating islands controlled by Shiki, a vicious pirate hailing from the era of Gol D. Roger with plans to destroy all of East Blue. Review (24:25) Twitter Questions (1:41:48)

The Blade Licking Thieves romp, stomp, and skreeonk our way to the box office to check out Legendary Picture's Godzilla: King of the Monsters. Tune in to find out whether Hollywood has finally given Goji and friends the justice they deserve! Review (00:00) Twitter Questions (1:05:20)

We review Highlander: The Search for Vengeance, an anime continuation of the HIGHLANDER saga. The movie follows immortal Colin MacLeod’s quest for revenge in the future, and is directed by veteran director Yoshiaki Kawajiri (Vampire Hunter D: Bloodlust, Ninja Scroll). Intro (00:00) Review (35:57) Twitter Questions (1:33:45)