Wednesday, January 31, 2007

Asia Shock in the East Bay Express

In this week's issue of The East Bay Express, Anneli Rufus reviews Patrick Galloway's excellent film guidebook, Asia Shock: Horror and Dark Cinema from Japan, Korea, Hong Kong, and Thailand. Here's the buzz:

Pacific grim: What with brain-sauce spaghetti, switchblade cellphones, and other wonders, could horror flicks from Korea, Japan, and Hong Kong be any better? Patrick Galloway savors the genre in Asia Shock ($19.95), from Berkeley's Stone Bridge Press. Check out Organ, Convent of the Sacred Beast, and Eight Immortals Restaurant: Human Meat Roast Pork Buns. And who could resist such source-material details as "Back in 1995, a report came out of the town of Shenzhen in mainland China concerning hospital staff eating aborted fetuses and offering them to others as a nutritional supplement"?