#Tartan Asia Extreme

[gbhbl]

Horror Movie Review: Into the Mirror (2003)

There are a series of grisly deaths in a department store, all involving mirrors, a troubled detective investigates them.

Into the Mirror is a South Korean horror film that was directed by Kim Sung-ho, releasing in 2003. The film focuses on a series of grisly deaths in a department store, all involving mirrors, and the troubled detective who investigates them. After accidentally causing the death of his partner during a hostage situation, Wu Young-min quits the police force to work for his uncle as head security of…

[xtruss]

Who Were The Tarim Basin Mummies? Even Scientists Were Surprised. The Enigmatic, Extremely Well-preserved Mummies Still Defy Explanation—and Draw Controversy.

— By Erin Blakemore | September 15, 2023

Hundreds of bodies have been excavated from cemeteries like this one around the Tarim Basin in Xinjiang, a region of Western China. Known as the Tarim Basin mummies, these people lived some 4,000 years ago—and their ancient DNA has yielded surprising insights. Photograph By Wenying LI, XinJiang Institute of Cultural Relics And Archaeology

Though they died thousands of years ago, hundreds of bodies excavated in East Asia’s Tarim Basin look remarkably alive. They retain the hairstyles, clothing, and accoutrements of a long-past culture—one that once seemed to suggest they were migrant Indo-Europeans who settled in what is now China thousands of years ago.

But the mummies’ seemingly perfect state of preservation wasn’t their only surprise. When modern DNA research revealed the preserved bodies were people indigenous to the Tarim Basin—yet genetically distinct from other nearby populations—the Tarim Basin mummies became even more enigmatic. Today, researchers still ask questions about their cultural practices, their daily lives, and their role in the spread of modern humanity across the globe.

How Were The Tarim Basin Mummies Found?

Buried in a variety of cemeteries around the basin as long as 4,000 years ago, the naturally mummified corpses were first unearthed by European explorers in the early 20th century. Over time, more and more of the Tarim bodies were unearthed, along with their spectacular cultural relics. To date, hundreds have been found. The earliest of the mummies are about 2,100 years old, while more recent mummies have been dated to about 500 B.C.

One of the most famous mummies found in the Tarim Basin is the Princess of Xiaohe, also known as the Beauty of Xiaohe. Named for the cemetery where her body was found, she is remarkably well-preserved even down to her eyelashes. Photograph By Wenying LI, XinJiang Institute of Cultural Relics And Archaeology

Who Really Were The Tarim Basin Mummies?

At first, the mummies’ Western-like attire and European-like appearance prompted hypotheses that they were the remains of an Indo-European group of migrant people with roots in Europe, perhaps related to Bronze-Age herders from Siberia or farmers in what is now Iran.

They had blond, brown, and red hair, large noses, and wore bright, sometimes elaborate clothing fashioned from wool, furs, or cowhide. Some wore pointed, witch-like hats and some of the clothing was made of felted or woven cloth, suggesting ties to Western European culture.

Still others wore plaid reminiscent of the Celts—perhaps most notably one of the mummies known as Chärchän Man, who stood over six feet tall, had red hair and a full beard, and was buried over a thousand years ago in a tartan skirt.

Another of the most famous of the bodies is that of the so-called “Princess” or “Beauty” of Xiaohe, a 3,800-year-old woman with light hair, high cheekbones, and long, still-preserved eyelashes who seems to be smiling in death. Though she wore a large felt hat and fine clothing and even jewelry in death, it is unclear what position she may have occupied in her society.

But the 2021 study of 13 of the mummies’ ancient DNA led to the current consensus that they belonged to an isolated group that lived throughout the now desert-like region during the Bronze Age, adopting their neighbors’ farming practices but remaining distinct in culture and genetics.

Scientists concluded that the mummies were descendants of Ancient North Eurasians, a relatively small group of ancient hunter-gatherers who migrated to Central Asia from West Asia and who have genetic links to modern Europeans and Native Americans.

How Were They Mummified?

These bodies were not mummified intentionally as part of any burial ritual. Rather, the dry, salty environment of the Tarim Basin—which contains the Taklimakan Desert, one of the world’s largest—allowed the bodies to decay slowly, and sometimes minimally. The extreme winter cold of the area is also thought to have helped along their preservation.

How Were They Buried?

Many bodies were interred in “boat-shaped wooden coffins covered with cattle hides and marked by timber poles or oars,” according to researchers. The discovery of the herb ephedra in the burial sites suggests it had either a medical or religious significance—but what that religion might have been, or why some burials involve concentric rings of wooden stakes, is still unclear.

Mummified corpses were first unearthed in the Tarim Basin by European explorers in the early 20th century. Their Western-like appearance and clothing originally led researchers to believe these ancient people were migrants from Europe—but DNA later debunked that theory. Photograph By Wenying LI, XinJiang Institute of Cultural Relics And Archaeology

What Did They Eat?

Masks, twigs, possibly phallic objects, and animal bones found at the mummies’ cemeteries provide a tantalizing view of their daily lives and rituals. Though most questions about their culture remain unanswered, the burials did point to their diets and the fact that they were farmers. The mummies were interred with barley, millet, and wheat, even necklaces featuring the oldest cheese ever found. This indicates that they not only farmed, but raised ruminant animals.

What Were Their Daily Lives Like?

The Tarim Basin dwellers were genetically distinct. But their practices, from burial to cheesemaking, and their clothing, which reflects techniques and artistry practiced in far-off places at the time, seem to show they mixed with, and learned from, other cultures, adopting their practices over time and incorporating them into a distinct civilization.

Researchers now believe their daily lives involved everything from farming ruminant animals to metalworking and basketmaking—helped along by the fact that the now-desolate desert of the Tarim Basin region was once much greener and had abundant freshwater.

Researchers also believe that the Tarim Basin residents traded and interacted with other people in what would eventually become a critical corridor on the Silk Road, linking East and West in the arid desert.

But archaeologists still have much to learn about what daily life was like for these ancient humans, including who they traded with, what religious beliefs they adopted, and whether their society was socially stratified.

Most of the bodies were found buried in boat-shaped coffins like this one, with the site typically marked by oars. This coffin is covered with a cattle hide, suggesting that the Tarim Basin people raised cattle and other ruminant animals. Photograph By Wenying LI, XinJiang Institute of Cultural Relics And Archaeology

Why Are The Tarim Basin Mummies Controversial?

The amazingly preserved mummies have long fascinated archaeologists. But the Tarim Basin mummies have also become political flashpoints. The Tarim Basin is located in the modern-day Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region, land claimed by China’s Uyghur minority. Uyghur nationalists claim the mummies are their forbears, but the Chinese government refutes this and has been reluctant to allow scientists to study the mummies or look at their ancient DNA.

In 2011, China withdrew a group of the mummies from a traveling exhibition, claiming they were too fragile to transport. Some research about the mummies’ DNA has been criticized as downplaying the region’s distinctness in support of China’s attempts to assimilate Uyghur people. Just as more remains to be learned about the enigmatic mummies, their future as political and national symbols remains disputed too.

[cryberpunkart]

Every year, my friend hosts a horror marathon we dubbed Spoopfest.

This year we did Talk to Me, Come True, and Gonjiam Haunted Asylum.

Talk to Me was the only one I'd seen before, I really like it, but it has an element of loss that resonates a bit too close, so it can be a difficult watch for me depending on the mood. Excellent, harrowing, I do like a horror with a more bleak ending.

Come True _blew me away_. Comparable to It Follows in score, liminal space in history ("What year is it set in?" "Yes."), and colour palette, but with the addition of some of the most beautiful, horrifying, surrealist imagery I've ever seen in film. I loved it so damn much I immediately wanted to watch it again when it ended.

Gonjiam Haunted Asylum had some things that will stay with me for a long time. I went through my Tartan Asia Extreme edgelord phase so dammit, I love some Asian horror. My chest and incisions are sore from how tense I was.

[joshuamyra]

Check out this listing I just added to my Poshmark closet: Silk "The Realism of White Noise" DVD

[validation-curse-blog]

The Curate's Egg: Film 73

The Curate’s Egg: Film 73

Public Enemy, 2002 (Dir: Kang Woo-Seok, also producer)

https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0306909/

On a rainy night whilst on duty, Kang Chul-joong encounters a suspicious man in a hooded raincoat. Where he tries to question him, the man cuts his face and casually walks away, leaving the weapon behind. What’s suspicious about someone wearing a raincoat in the rain? And don’t they all have hoods?

So,…

[swampflix]

Doppelgänger (2003)

There’s something bittersweet about the early-2000s boom of Japanese & Korean horror films that were imported to the United States through home video labels like Tartan Asia Extreme.  On the one hand, it’s wonderful that daring, genre-blurring films like Suicide Club & A Tale of Two Sisters were able to find an audience outside of their respective home countries.  On the other hand, those films’…

[ozu-teapot]

Films Watched in October 2019

Onibaba | Kaneto Shindô | 1964

Ring | Hideo Nakata | 1998

Audition | Takashi Miike | 1999

The Ghosts of Kasane Swamp | Nobuo Nakagawa | 1957

Ju-on | Takashi Shimizu | 2002

Kwaidan | Masaki Kobayashi | 1964

The Mansion of the Ghost Cat | Nobuo Nakagawa | 1958

One Missed Call | Takashi Miike | 2003

The Vampire Doll | Michio Yamamoto | 1970

Ring 2 | Hideo Nakata | 1999

The Woman Vampire | Nobuo Nakagawa | 1959

Joyû-rei (AKA Don’t Look Up) | Hideo Nakata | 1996

The Ghost of Yotsuya | Nobuo Nakagawa | 1959

Dark Water | Hideo Nakata | 2002

Kuroneko | Kaneto Shindô | 1968

Joker | Todd Phillips | 2019

Rasen (Spiral) | Jôji Iida | 1998

Uzumaki | Higuchinsky | 2000

Blood: The Last Vampire | Hiroyuki Kitakubo | 2000

Mizuchi (AKA Death Water) | Kiyoshi Yamamoto | 2006

Lake of Dracula | Michio Yamamoto | 1971

Ju-on 2 | Takashi Shimizu | 2003

Jigoku | Nobuo Nakagawa | 1960

Ring 0: Birthday | Norio Tsuruta | 2000

Marebito | Takashi Shimizu | 2004

Evil of Dracula | Michio Yamamoto | 1974

Curse, Death & Spirit | Hideo Nakata | 1992

Horrors of Malformed Men | Teruo Ishii | 1969

Sadako vs. Kayako | Kôji Shiraishi | 2016

Snake Woman's Curse | Nobuo Nakagawa | 1968

Vampire Girl vs. Frankenstein Girl | Yoshihiro Nishimura / Naoyuki Tomomatsu | 2009

Versus | Ryûhei Kitamura | 2000

Hausu (House) | Nobuhiko Ôbayashi | 1977

Bold = Top Ten

Some notes: So just in case anyone hasn’t been paying attention the theme of this year’s Halloween was horror and spooky stuff from Japan. This was sparked by Arrow releasing Ring (and it’s disappointing sequels / prequel) on Blu earlier in the year which I decided to save and revisit at Halloween along with some of those other 90s and early 2000s films I remembered from the days of Tartan’s “Asia Extreme” DVDs and when Channel 4 used to show good stuff, plus some of those Japanese cinephile faves like Onibaba, Kwaidan and the obligatory Hausu. I also looked at some new-to-me stuff including the films of Nobuo Nakagawa and the “Bloodthirsty Trilogy” but there were a few interesting sounding titles I searched for but just couldn’t find by fair means or foul! I really tried to post all the films I’ve watched within the Halloween period before the end of October but that just wasn’t to be. I know some people have found it all a bit too much - one country, one genre - but hey, at least it’s all over now!

Splitting my perfect run of J-Horror was my trip to see that Joker film. I’m in neither the masterpiece nor travesty camps but I did enjoy it and thought Joaquin Phoenix was great. I also watched that El Camino film which I enjoyed as a fan of Breaking Bad, but it really felt like a TV episode to me rather than a movie.

[yellodisney]

you..absolutely MUST stop eating beautiful Camellia japonica Bella Rossa Princess Banana Komatsu....when u check it it's actually more japanese wtf factor isn't it..like why are u standing in a bush nibbling beautiful Camellia japonica Bella Rossa ukno ? not to mention u killt a beautiful one ? and spat it completely out with absolutely no regard princess banana komatsu ....u rilly are manga aren't you ...wow ...u scary...i think you're tartan asia extreme banana komatsu...it's clear to me you have absolutely no feelings whatsoever for that lonely , poor Camellia japonica Bella Rossa banana komatsu....did you actually eat the stem ????...is that a flower killer in full effect even eating the stem like an *absolutely horrendous destroyer of beauty ???...wow u creepin' me the hell out bananagirl .....don't sprint across the road when you've swallowed the still screaming stem and dropkick me to motionlessness in a blink n gnaw all on my head then !!!! ...i'm not beautiful Camellia japonica Bella Rossa banana lady !

[clgamble]

I programmed the European release of this, and I can tell you exactly where the bugs are to make the DVD break aaahahahaha

The kit developed a bug where it would crash after 6 hours of compiling. Yeah, it took that long for 9GB, this was 2000. So we'd make these changes, hope whatever was causing the kit to freak out had been resolved, and wait another 6 hours. I got banned from coming into the office until I had been out for 12 hours (the law) so when I worked in Britain and was expected to pull all nighters in Soho without even being paid overtime, I sort of clocked that the conditions in the UK do benefit somewhat from having the EU at least TRY to help workers not grind themselves to death.

The costume and photography in this film are SO STUNNING even though it's one of the most disturbing things I've ever seen - and I used to do the Tartan Asia Extreme titles too. There is something just absolutely transcendent about the way Singh makes this deeply cruel, twisted sickness, this perversion look... just... it looks so decadent and enticing. The evil looks seductive in ways that don't seem to fall into the common tropes of sensuality, the extra flair and edge the costumes bring to each scene distance us from the mental processes and are so disorientating that we almost empathise with the murderers urges. How could we fail to when they're so captivating? Anyone would be helpless.

I need to rewatch it because it really was an absolute pile of shite in terms of storyline and I think I found the acting really clunky and laboured, but the set design and costumes just blew me away.

49/? costume design: The Cell by Eiko Ishioka

[nikitkaluna-blog]

My “Tartan Asia Extreme” Collection To Day

Some of the best DVDs in my collection. I absolutely love then. A definite way to get Asian underground and mainstream movies.

Movie List: 

The Ring Trilogy (Japanese Original)

Battle Royale 2: Requiem 

Three... Extremes

Freezer 

[gbhbl]

Horror Movie Review: Infection/感染 (2004)

A doctor's mistake unwittingly creates horrific consequences for the staff at the hospital.

SInfection (感染) is a Japanese horror film directed by Masayuki Ochiai, releasing in 2004. After seeing Ringu (1998) at a somewhat tender age, I developed a bit of a J-horror obsession. I’d seek out any film that was distributed by “Tartan Asia Extreme” as this was usually the seal of approval that I was in for something great. One such movie was the one I am reviewing now, Infection. The film is…

[the-blair-witch-reject]

All I want in life is movies...  Shower me in unearthed film, tartan asia extreme, criterion, and the occasional lionsgate and I’ll be happy :sadcowboy:

[warehousefilms-blog]

Not our collection, but pretty close. These are the films that exposed us to the awesomeness that is Asian horror cinema. Tartan Asia Extreme. #art #film #films #filmmaking #filmlover #filmcollection #awesome #asia #japan #china #southkorea #hongkong #taiwan #dvdcollection #dvds #tartan

[validation-curse-blog]

Damned if you do...:Film 74

Damned if you do…:Film 74

Premonition, 2004 (Dir: Norio Tsuruta, also screenplay)

https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0419280/

Hiroshi Mikami plays Hideki, a father trying to prevent the death of his young daughter. When Hideki picks up a newspaper he knows what he will see…death. Think this may be a little bit of social commentary?

Another Tartan Asia Extreme and we’re back in Japan with a film from the (even I’ve heard of it)…

[loghanpeters3p18-blog]

Blog Post 2 (part 3)

There are many examples of mass media that can be subject to Stuart Hall’s encoding/decoding model which essentially claims that audience members decode messages and meanings that are encoded in the media. Different factors contribute to the way that we decode these encoded messages and that there are three different positions we can take when decoding a message; the dominant-hegemonic position, the negotiated position, and the oppositional position. An example of a mass media text that I think Stuart Hall’s ideas, as well as the ideas of semiotics, can be applied to is the show Keeping up with the Kardashians. This show is based on the Kardashian family, a very wealthy family who’s reality show revolves around their day to day lives, and often shows them driving their very expensive cars decked out in designer clothes with their multiple cell phones scattered around. Many of the signs that we see in the show are ones that are assumed to be connected with the notion of wealth, such as zoomed in shots of the type of car someone is driving or the red bottoms of Louboutin heels, and it is assumed that the knowledge of what these signs mean is common sense. Relating this to the notion of semiotics, it is highlighted that “Since the connection between signs and referents is never natural, it is therefore always changing and subject to power relations. Those in power will inevitably attempt to assign specific meanings to signs and to identify these meanings as “common sense”- this is the function of ideology.” (Sullivan, 2013. p. 138)  These types of expensive cars and designer brands that we see in Keeping up with the Kardashians are ones that are tied to the notion of the upper class and wealth in Western society therefore people who are a part of this society are able to decode the encoded message but what about the people who aren’t familiar with Western culture? Would the signs and their referents make sense to them or would they not be able to decode the encoded messages in the same way? It is likely they would be able to understand the denotative level of meaning- that is “the literal, “near universal”, or common sense meaning of the sign” (Sullivan, 2013. p. 141) that what they are looking at is a car or a pair of shoes however they would struggle with the connotative meaning of the fact that these objects are a show of wealth. This idea of misunderstanding or not fully grasping the encoded message of a mass media text because of cultural factors can be related to the issues discussed in the article Transnational cult paratexts: exploring audience readings of Tartan’s Asia Extreme brand. The article discusses different audience interpretations of cult films that are produced by the Asia extreme brand, Tartan, and says “without prior knowledge of Korean culture, international audiences might misinterpret the films they encounter via the Tartan brand.” (Pett, 2017) Without prior knowledge of Western culture, many aspects of Keeping up with the Kardashians can be misunderstood or certain examples of hegemony within the show can be missed because of this cultural barrier. People decode messages differently based on many factors and mass media messages can be missed or misunderstood because of things like these social, cultural, and economic factors.