The 2009 Toronto After Dark Film Festival is in full swing at the Bloor Cinema. This year’s fest has it all: Horror, action, science fiction and thrillers are all represented. It all kicked off on August 14th with Black Dynamite and ends on the 21st, this Friday, with the zombie-baby flick Grace. Here is a list of just a few of the highlights so far:
Black Dynamite
Scott Sanders‘ amazing send up of the 1970′s blaxploitation genre. Michael Jai White plays Black Dynamite, and kicks so much ass in this film; both in terms of his performance and in actual ass kickings. Black Dynamite was easily one of the most entertaining times I’ve had at a movie in a long time.
The Warlords
This brutal Chinese war epic stars three of Asia’s biggest stars: Jet Li, Andy Lau and Takeshi Kaneshiro. Lau and Kaneshiro are great, but they’re always solid. Li gives perhaps the best dramatic performance of his career. This is not a classic wuxia film, no wire-work here; The Warlords is about massive battles between armies. Cavalry charges, plenty of severed limbs, people being impaled in horrible ways and emotional decapitations. Wartime melodrama at its best.
