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The Prince Charles Cinema

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ShowingMonday 17th August
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Shogun Assassin
1980 85mins Japan (18) Action/Adventure

The legendary midnight movie sensation that firmly embedded samurai mythology within American pop culture consciousness, this English-dubbed reedit of the first two films in the classic Japanese chanbaraseries Lone Wolf and Cub is a giddily entertaining, mesmerizingly gory classic of East-meets-West grindhouse mayhem. Following the murder of his wife at the hands of an evil shogun, an avenging ronin (Tomisaburo Wakayama) roams the countryside with his young son—and the boy's sword-shooting baby carriage—in tow, dispatching ninja assassins with steely resolve in operatically stylized flurries of hallucinatory violence. With its pulsing synth soundtrack (cowritten by Mark Lindsay of Paul Revere & the Raiders) and delirious action set pieces—kinetically edited whirlwinds of flashing blades, spurting blood, and severed limbs—Shogun Assassin proved an instant cult favorite that has bubbled its way up from the underground to the mainstream thanks to its influence on artists ranging from the Wu-Tang Clan to Quentin Tarantino.

The Blade
1995 106mins Hong Kong (15) Wuxia

* ON SALE 3rd AUG *

Among the boldest accomplishments of Hong Kong cinema’s golden age, this uniquely visceral martial-arts movie puts a gritty new spin on the story of the one-armed swordsman, an iconic figure from the moment he was introduced by the Shaw Brothers studio in 1967. Composed in a whirlwind of immersive close-ups and fractured editing, The Blade follows the young sword-maker Ding On (Vincent Zhao), who, after losing an arm in an ambush, transforms himself into a furious avenger. With its intentionally disorienting stylization and starkly brutal tone, The Blade was a rare commercial disappointment for Tsui Hark, but it has since been reclaimed as one of the director’s most radical visions—a tour de force of action expressionism, and a scathing reappraisal of the wuxia genre’s code of masculinity, that achieves a feverish intensity.

Your Name [Kimi no Na wa.]
2016 106mins Japan (12A) Anime

Two teenagers share a profound, magical connection upon discovering they are swapping bodies. Things manage to become even more complicated when the boy and girl decide to meet in person.

Seven Samurai [Shichinin no samurai]
1954 207mins Japan (PG) Western

Farmers from a village exploited by bandits hire a veteran samurai for protection, who gathers six other samurai to join him.

Lust, Caution
2007 158mins China, Hong Kong, Taiwan, USA (18) Romance

During World War II era, a young woman, Wang Jiazhi, gets swept up in a dangerous game of emotional intrigue with a powerful political figure, Mr. Yee.