The Most Dangerous Game and Other Stories of Adventure, by various authors

(pb; 1957, 1967: story anthology)

OVERALL REVIEW:

Solid, action-oriented anthology, with only one stinker in the mix. Worth checking out from the library.


REVIEW, STORY BY STORY:

1.) "The Most Dangerous Game" - Richard Connell: Sanger Rainsford, an American hunter, gets trapped on the island of a homicidal Cossack (General Zaroff), and becomes Zaroff's prey in literal manhunt. Gripping, sharp work, with a zinger end-line.

Numerous film versions have resulted from this story.

The first film version was released stateside on September 16, 1932. It was directed by Irving Pichel and Ernest B. Schoedsack, from a script by James Ashmore Creelman.

Joel McCrea played Bob. Fay Wray played Eve. Robert Armstrong played Martin. Leslie Banks played Zaroff. Steve Clemente (billed as Steve Clemento) played Tartar. An uncredited Buster Crabbe plays "Sailor who falls off boat".

Other versions include, but are not limited to: A Game of Death (1945), The Most Dangerous Game (1953), Bloodlust! (1961), Surviving The Game (1994, sporting a great cast, among them Rutger Hauer).


2.) "Leiningen Versus the Ants" - Carl Stephenson: A Caucasian gung-ho plantation owner and his native "peons" battle an ant invasion in Brazil. If you can ignore its era-inherent racism, this is a visually wild and thrilling tale.

This story was released stateside as a film on March 3, 1954. Titled The Naked Jungle, it was directed by Byron Haskin, from a script by Ranald MacDougall and Ben Maddow (credited as Philip Yordan).

Charlton Heston played Christopher Leiningen. Eleanor Parker played Joanna Leiningen. Abraham Sofaer played Incacha. William Conrad played "Commissioner". Romo Vincent played "Boat Captain".


3.) "Journalism in Tennessee" - Mark Twain: Witty, raucous take on Southern firebrand newspapermen.


4.) "Alone in Shark Waters" - John Kruse: After a hurricane sinks his ship and leave him afloat in the Indian Ocean, a fisherman (Mike Gardener) fends off dehydration, sharks and other forms of ocean-borne death. Harrowing, intriguing story.


5.) "Rikki-Tikki-Tavi" - Rudyard Kipling: This story lost me almost immediately, interest-wise, so I didn't finish reading it - his writing style here is so jangly-noisy, perhaps too vivid.

Two animated films resulted from this story.

The first animated version aired on stateside television on January 9, 1975. Chuck Jones directed and scripted the thirty-minute short.

Orson Welles provided the voices for Narrator, Nag and Chuchundra. June Foray provided the voices for "Nagaina the Cobra, Wife of Nag", Teddy's Mother and Darzee's Wife. Les Tremayne voiced Father. Michael LeClair voiced Teddy. Shepard Menken voiced Rikki-Tikki-Tavi the Mongoose. Lennie Weinrib voiced Darzee the Tailorbird.

A later animated version, made by a different film crew, aired on Hungarian television on November 10, 1983.


6.) "To Build a Fire" - Jack London: In seventy-five-below-zero degree weather, a man wages a spirited struggle for survival against an omnipresent Yukon threat. Infotainment, with a nature-centric, telling finish.

Two film shorts have resulted from this story.

A twenty-minute short resulted from this story in 2003. Directed and scripted by Luca Armenia, Olivier Pagès played The Man.

A second, thirty-minute short was released stateside in October 2008. Mark Dissette co-directed this with Dave Main (who also scripted the short).

Michael Elmendorf played The Man. Eldon Cott played The Old Man of Sulfur Creek. Steven Kramer played Macmorvan. Chad Rowland played Bud. Bill Selig played Jedadiah.


7.) "Locomotive 38, The Ojibway" - William Saroyan: A seemingly crazy Indian (Locomotive 38) and a fourteen year-old boy (Aram, aka "Willie") go on a fishing trip in Locomotive 38's new Packard. Odd, light and charming, this.


8.) "High Air" - Borden Chase: Tunnel miners encounter a potentially fatal emergency. Solid, crises-exciting story.


9.) "The Secret Life of Walter Mitty" - James Thurber: A wife- and society-pecked older man (Mitty) imbues his mundane life with unseen but intuited adventures. Fun, brief, to the point.

One film has resulted from this story. A remake of that film is rumored to be on the way.

The first version, released stateside on September 1, 1947, was directed by Norman Z. McLeod, from a script by Ken Englund, Everett Freeman and Philip Rapp.

Danny Kaye played Walter Mitty. Virginia Mayo played Rosalind van Hoorn. Boris Karloff played Dr. Hugo Hollingshead. Fay Bainter played Mrs. Eunice Mitty. Ann Rutherford played Gertrude Griswold.

The second version is scheduled for stateside release in 2012. According to comingsoon.net, Gore Verbinski is set to direct it, from a script by Steve Conrad.

I'll update this remake listing, as more information becomes available.

Asia Shock: Horror & Dark Cinema from Japan, Korea, Hong Kong and Thailand, by Patrick Galloway

(hb; 2006: non-fiction. Illustrations by Greg Lofrano)

From the back cover:

"Asian Extreme cinema is hot, and this book celebrates all its gory glory. Patrick Galloway, who last looked at samurai films in Stray Dogs & Lone Wolves: The Samurai Handbook, now takes on Asian masters of suspense, exploitation, the supernatural, and bone-chilling, blood-curdling horror. This critical guide contains over 50 reviews of fans' and critics' favorites ranging from classics like [Nobuo] Nakagawa's The Ghost of Yotsuya to contemporary cutting-edge films by Takashi Miike and Park Chan-wook. Included are viewing tips, cultural backgrounds, and genre overviews."

Review:

This is an indispensable guide to Asian cinema. Whether you're unfamiliar with the cultures and films Galloway analyzes and appreciates, or you're somewhat familiar with them (like I am), there's something for any dark cineaste here.

Knowledgeable, critical (when necessary) and enthusiastic about its subject matter, Asia Shock is one of the best books I've read about these types of films.

Own this, if you have a bent for splatterific, vicious and/or lurid films.

On Stranger Tides, by Tim Powers

(hb; 1987)

From the inside flap:

"Sailing unwittingly into this unsavory company comes one John Chandagnac, bookkeeper and puppeteer. He seems an unlikely candidate for piracy, or the machinations of dark sorcery. But christened Jack Shandy by a drunken pirate captain, he may turn out to be one of the greatest of them all. . .

"A hunt for unearthly spirits with the aid of a mummified two-headed dog. A journey through the Florida swamps in search of the Fountain of Youth. A battle at sea with the Royal English Navy. An encounter with sunken ships crewed by zombies. . ."

Review:

Jack Chandagnac is on his way to reclaim a stolen inheritance when pirates seize the ship he's on; he gets a choice: join the pirate crew, or die.

He chooses to join them, falling in love with another non-pirate passenger, Beth Hurwood, as he does so.

Problem is, he and Beth are caught up in the dark-magic schemings of Beth's father (Benjamin Hurwood), her father's toadlike companion (Leo Friend), and an equally dark rendezvous with Edward Thatch, more commonly called Blackbeard.

These three men (Hurwood, Friend, Blackbeard) seek the Fountain of Youth, located in the dangerous-strange swamps of Florida, toward various ends -- all of them involving the death of Chandagnac's love, Beth.

Engaging, exhilarating, and bursting at the seams with action and black magic, On Stranger Tides is a rollicking work that never lets up: it has zombies, pirates, ghosts, vodun, terrifying sea storms and soul-claiming, ick-inducing swamps.

Check this out.

On Stranger Tides is the source/plot-structural overlay novel for the fourth Pirates of the Caribbean film, Pirates of the Caribbean: On Stranger Tides.

Johnny Depp is scheduled to resume his role of Jack Sparrow. Geoffrey Rush is rumored to returning as Barbossa.

Keira Knightley and Orlando Bloom, who respectively played Elizabeth Swann and Will Turner in the first three Pirates films, have passed on taking part in the fourth Pirates film.

On a further disheartening note, Gore Verbinski who helmed the first three films, won't be directing the fourth. Rob Marshall, a director known for visual panache but little cinematic substance, will direct the upcoming film, which is scheduled for a May 20, 2011 stateside release.

Ring by Koji Suzuki

(hb; 1991, 2003: first book in the Ring Cycle; translated by Robert B. Rohmer & Glynne Walley)

From the inside flap

"Asakawa is a hardworking journalist who has climbed his way up from a local-news beat reporter to a writer for his newspaper's weekly magazine. His one mistake along the way, getting too close to the subject of one of his stories on the occult, still haunts him.

"Never much of a family man, not even his niece's sudden, inexplicable death moves him... until he leanrs that on the night of her death another healthy teenager died in Tokyo at the exact same time of sudden heart failure. Sensing something extraordinary, Asawkawa begins to investigate with the aid of his strange old classmate Ryuji, a cynical philophy professor and a self-proclaimed rapist.

"The two are led from a metropolitan Tokyo that teems with modern society's fears to rural sections of Japan -- a highland resort, a volcanic island and a countryside clinic -- that are haunted by the past. The hunt puts them on the trail of an apocalyptic force that will call for Asakawa to choose between saving his family and saving civilization."

Review

Suzuki constructs this terrifying tale with crystal clarity, steadily ratcheting up the horror ante, as Kazuyuki Asakawa, a workaholic reporter, and Ryuji Takayama, a philosophy/mathematics professor and Asakawa's morbidly funny friend, pursue the facts relating to a video tape that causes its viewers to die in a mysterious and grisly fashion within seven days of them viewing it. The deeper Asawkawa and Takayama dig into the video tape's history, the more they find themselves immersed in Japan's not-so-distant past -- and a viral, psychic phenomena -- which may just kill Asakawa, Takayama and many more, as well.

Brilliant, scary, full of crazy-effective twists, and sporting a wow-that's-cool unsettling ending (that practically demands a sequel), this is one of the best mainstream horror novels I've read in a long while.

Followed by Spiral.

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Ring has been filmed many times.

The first film, Ringu: Kanzen-ban, aired on Japanese television on August 11, 1995. Katsunori Takahashi played Asakawa. Yoshio Harada played Takayama. Ayane Miura played Sadako Yamamura. Mai Tachahara played Shizuko Asakawa, Kazuyuki's wife. Chisui Takigawa directed.

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On January 31, 1998, Ringu hit the Japanese silver screen. Directed by Hideo Nakata, it starred Nanako Matsushima as Reiko Asakawa (the now-female cinematic counterpart to Kazuyuki Asakawa). Miki Nakatani played Mai Takano. Hiroyuki Sanada played Ryuji Takayama. Rie Inou played Sadako Yamamura. Hiroshi Takahashi scripted.

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Ringu: Saishuso, a Japanese television series, first aired on January 7, 1999. Lasting twelve episodes, the drama -- not a horror series -- is a different take on the Ring story.

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On June 10, 1999, Ringu 2 hit the Japanese silver screen. It's strictly a cinematic sequel, mostly using characters created for Ringu. Miki Nakatani returned as Mai Takano, a surviving character from the first film (who was also in the novel). Hitomi Sato, also from the first film, once again played Misami Kurahashi. Hideo Nakata, director of Ringu, directed.

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The Ring: Virus, a Korean remake of Ringu, was released on June 12, 1999 in South Korea. Dong-bin Kim, who also scripted the film, directed. Eun-Kyung Shin played Sun-ju. Jin-yeong Jeong played Choi Yeol. Du-na Bae played Eun-suh.

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On October 18, 2002, the American remake, The Ring, graced stateside cineplexes. Naomi Watts played Rachel Keller (the female cinematic counterpart to Kazuyuki Asawakawa). Martin Henderson played Noah Clay. David Dorfman played Aidan Keller. Brian Cox played Richard Morgan. Jane Alexander played Dr. Grasnik.  An uncredited Chuck Hicks played a "Ferry Worker".

 Directed by Gore Verbinski, it's a less atmospheric, more linear take on the Ring story.

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Following the lead of Ringu 2, The Ring Two (released stateside on March 18, 2005) was less about continuing the ideas of the novel than furthering the storyline of the cinematic characters. Naomi Watts returned to her role of Rachel Keller. Simon Baker played Max Rourke. David Dorfman once again played Aidan Keller. Elizabeth Perkins played Dr. Emma Temple. Gary Cole played Martin Savide. Sissy Spasek played Evelyn. It was directed by Hideo Nakata, director of Ringu and Ringu 2.