Human Lanterns

Let the Asian Action Cast bring you HOPE (watch before listening!)! Na Hong-Jin’s South Korean blockbuster juggernaut chills, thrills and kills its way through its almost 3hr runtime.Starring the magnificent Hwang Jung-Min and eternally spunky Hoyeon, with heartthrobs Zo In-Sung and Michael Fassbender(?!?) it is a human story of being out of your depth.Some genuinely surprising moments with you questioning all the way, we take you through the highs and lows of this epic, and give you life advice about pushing buttons.

Are you in the mood for fear? Horror? Then join us for this spooktober episode as we hang up the Human Lanterns!Shaw Bro.’s 1982 martial arts murder movie stars a delightfully deranged serial-skinning star Lo Lieh, and smarmy pretty-boy Tony Liu, featuring the irrepressible moustache of Shaw alumni Chen Kuan-Tai.What starts as a tale of one-upping your neighbour turns sour as it delves into the absurdity of body horror. Lo Lieh is at his creepiest best tearing large strips of flesh and marvelling at how they will look on his HUMAN LANTERNS! (mmm a mole)

The Asian Action Cast gets locked up with a Ghost in the Cell in 2026! Joko Anwar’s Indonesian horror comedy ("horredy"?) ticks all the boxes in delivering a gorefest of creative killings while ratcheting up the tension, and the comedy too, in one of the year's most satisfying action flicks. Delivered by a masterful and confident story teller, this movie follows the exploits of a vengeful spirit linked to innocent journalist Dimas, unleashed in a corrupt Indonesian prison. Whilst it is an allegory for political corruption, Joko cleverly never lets this gets in the way of showing a good time. Truly another gem to come out of Indonesia there are some laugh out loud moments, as well as horror exclamations as we clawed our way out of the blood spattered walls of the jail. A wonderfully thrilling good time. They knew what they were doing and did it well – so check it out.

Pedring Lopez’s 2019 Netflix action thriller, Maria, brings Filipino actress Cristine Reyes to the Streaming Screen as trained assassin MARIA! She thought she left that life behind, but the sins of the past never remain dead for long.Cristine Reyes proves she can be a strong, sexy lead with the physicality and agility to be a bona fide action hero, unfortunately Maria is held back by a derivative plot, pedestrian performances and inconsistent pacing.Despite the issues this movie does have its enjoyable moments and is in no way a disgrace to action films or Filipino cinema. It is a little piece of action junk food and clocks in at a very digestable 90 minutes, so why not?Can you feel sympathy for evil henchmen? What's the "proper" way to eat rice? Would you allow your child to sit in the middle seat of your car? How come everyone in this film is so damn attractive? Join us and find out.

Sonny Chibas 1977 love letter to Kyokushin Karate founder Mas Oyama, Karate for Life, rounds out the trilogy of his exciting exploits.No stranger to fighting bears and wolves, this chapter focuses on his potentially fictitious prowess as a wrestler and TB survivor.Guaranteed eyebrows, intense stares and now violent asthma, Sonny Chiba holds you in his Karate Grip and never lets go, Karate4Lyf fools!

It's time to kick back, relax and journey back to the past as we showcase some of our favourite clips from the past (nearly) ten (10!) years of the AAC.Episodes covered include Bio-Zombie, Buddhas Palm, Devilman and more. We watch, review, recap and re-vap the best and worst of Hong Kong and asian action cinema.We'l be back in a fortnight with a regular episode, thanks for listening!

Larger than life, cartoon characters like Tak Sakaguchis Shozo bring hilariously fun fighting for half a film. The latter story does suffer from the whiplash tone change as it explores the tragedy of Jun Murakami’s Tetsu, and fumbles as it blends this with strangely funny/eroti-sex-violence?Yakuza weapon regularly forays into absurdity and lingers a bit overlong, but the colours and characters surprise and delight. One of Tak Sakaguchi’s most unique films, worth a watch!

Kenji Tanagaki’s prodigious 2026 martial arts film, The Furious, is a non stop kinetic revelation that ratchets up tension and creativity beyond anything you’ve seen.The Furious reinvents child star Xie Miao into a modern leading hero, blending an all star action cast with Joe Taslim, Joey Iwanaga, Yayan Ruhian, Brian Le and a bevy of har knock stuntmen selling brutal hits.The action is relentless and defies description - you have not seen anything like this. The way they have distilled the amount of chaos into intelligibly edited action set pieces is nothing short of jaw dropping. A must see.

Yuen Woo Pings 2026 Blades of the Guardians spins an epic wuxia tale of murder, betrayal, love, desert, brotherhood…in fact it’s too many tales.The labyrinthine plot and overbloated but underdeveloped character list does hide some great (plentiful) action, if occasionally marred by shaky cam (it’s Jet Li and Wu Jing!) and unnecessary CG.Despite its flaws it is still a media and audience darling, and little shame for Jet Li’s decade long (oh so brief) return to action cinema - worth a watch!

Fan Siu Wongs 1991 ‘splatterpunk’ entry, The Story of Riki, aka Riki Oh, is a great example of cult cinema - the hyper violent martial arts exploitation flick made barely a splash on entry but has gained notoriety after.With sensational blood and gore effects, Siu-Wongs justice laden acts of brutality still invokes awe and revulsion. Directed by SFX veteran Lam Nai-Choi (the Cat, 7th Curse, Peacock King) the deft visual hand is on magnificent display.Watch with an empty stomach or strong constitution, and a mind open enough to be clapped into smithareens…Riki Oh will bathe in the shower of your entrails while screaming “Noooooooooo!” at the sky.