Blade Licking Thieves Grant, TheHeat, and Zen

We review Venus Wars (1989), the lavishly produced, bubble era anime film from writer and director Yoshikazu Yasuhiko first introduced to many American anime fans due to heavy rotation on Sci-Fi Channel's "Saturday Anime" block.  Tune in for the full review!

Timestamps:

[00:00] Intro + After the Rain, Dune

[15:53] Review - Venus Wars

[2:22:30] Twitter Questions

Godzilla Minus One writer / director Takashi Yamazaki returns the venerable franchise to its roots with a dramatic period piece set in the immediate aftermath of world war 2 in which the titular kaiju looms large, like a terrifying spectre, over the defeated and demoralized Japanese populace. Tune in for the full review!

Timestamps:

[00:00] Intro + Kaiju No 8, The Great Pretender, Furiosa, Samurai Warriors 4DX

[38:25] Review - Godzilla Minus One

[2:21:18] Twitter Questions

We chat about Dune, Fist of the Northstar, Gokurakugai, and the new Sand Land game, before moving on to a review of our first Vietnamese film, Dreamy Eyes or Mat Biec, a 2019 Romance Drama chronicling the heart tugging story of a decades long one sided love affair.

Timestamps:

[00:00] Intro + Kaiju No 8, Dune, Fist of the North Star part 2, Gokurakugai, & Sand Land (Game)

[25:21] Review - Dreamy Eyes (2019)

The bionic superhero of science, Inframan, must save the planet from the evil Princess Dragon Mom and her gang of wicked monsters in Super Inframan (1975) Shaw Brothers Studio's terribly fun knock-off of the popular tokusatsu genre.   

Timestamps:

[00:00] Intro + R.I.P. Akira Toriyama [Check out Grant's article: "Who Can Beat Goku? The Monumental Legacy of Akira Toriyama"]

[27:40] Review - Super Inframan (1975)

The Blade Licking Thieves podcast has hit 100 episodes!  Thanks to all the listeners out there that have taken the ride with us.  Please keep sending us your comments, feedback, and suggestions for new films or shows for us to watch.

This being the 100th episode, we thought what better time than now to finally break the glass and at long last tackle a work by Akira Kurosawa, arguably, THE Japanese film maker.  Kurosawa's first film to achieve critical recognition in the West, Rashomon (1950) tells the story of an encounter in a bamboo grove between a bandit (Toshiro Mifune), a samurai (Masayuki Mori), and the samurai's wife (Machiko Kyo) ending with a rape and murder, yet the narrative is fragmentary, as the story is retold multiple times, through various eye witness accounts, often varying and contradictory, forcing the audience to judge "the truth" of the story for ourselves. 

Timestamps:

[00:00] Intro
[24:14] Review - Rashomon (1950)
[2:31:35] Twitter Questions

BLT Team B return with a review of the schlocky, horror movie Humanoids from the Deep (1980) in which a small fishing village is laid siege by mutated fish-men intent on rape and murder.