Latest news with #action
Geek Girl Authority
13 hours ago
- Entertainment
- Geek Girl Authority
Saturday Morning Webtoons: BLOODHOUNDS and VIGILANTE
Good morning, fellow WEBTOON readers, and welcome to this week's installment of Saturday Morning Webtoons! This is where we shine a light on two WEBTOONs we are thoroughly enjoying. These stories have captivated us, chapter by chapter, each week, and we couldn't pass up sharing them with you! So grab your favorite snacks and an electronic device and settle into these sensational stories. DISCLAIMER: The following posts may contain spoilers for the WEBTOON series Bloodhounds and Vigilante . RELATED: 10 Best WEBTOON Series Released in 2024 Bloodhounds Bloodhounds WEBTOON Original Series. Nothing gets our heart racing more than a good action WEBTOON series. Kicking off this week's picks is Jeong Chan's Bloodhounds . In the darkest reaches of the Republic of Korea, people lie, cheat and steal. And while many avoid these things at all costs, others build their lives on making those who commit crimes pay the price. But they aren't police officers. They only play by their rules, and in this world, anything goes to bring back the goods. We love a good action series that focuses on building a backstory and world throughout. Bloodhounds isn't just all about fighting. The series focuses on creating drama through its characters and setting high-stakes risk and reward, and ties it together with well-played-out action sequences. The series has a dark and gritty side that gives us the Sin City feel. It's an excellent read for those looking for an action series with a mature tone. Bloodhounds is complete. Readers can find it on the official WEBTOON page. RELATED: Action-Packed WEBTOON Series You Should Check Out Vigilante Vigilante WEBTOON Original Series. The action train keeps rolling with our second pick, Kim Kyusam and CRG's Vigilante . The story follows Jiyong Kim, whose mother is murdered at a young age. To make matters worse, the assailant was let off easy. Sent down a path of righteousness, Jiyong grew up to pursue a career in law enforcement. But even that isn't enough. When he isn't protected by the badge, he takes justice into his own hands and hunts down ex-convicts released from the system before getting what they deserved. All good action WEBTOON series need good origin stories, and Vigilante sets the stage from the very first chapter. Like any good vengeance-filled story, this one fits the dark tones, and each chapter continues to add suspense to the growing story. It evokes Batman vibes without the cape and the very wealthy backing. Jiyong is just a kid who lost his mother and decided to take on the injustice in the world. Anyone could understand the path he chose to take, and getting to watch it play out is a must-read for everyone. Vigilante updates every Thursday. Readers can find it on the official WEBTOON page. 10 More LGBTQIA+ WEBTOON Series To Read for Pride Month
Yahoo
a day ago
- Entertainment
- Yahoo
‘Lazarus' Creator Shinichirō Watanabe On Modernizing His Action Anime Series & Teases Upcoming 'Ghost Story'
In Adult Swim's Lazarus, the latest anime action series from Cowboy Bebop creator Shinichirō Watanabe, one man aims to free the world of pain at a catastrophic price. The year is 2052 when an era of peace and unbridled indulgence reigns supreme. The reason for this? Humankind has been freed from sickness and pain after a Nobel Prize-winning neuroscientist, Dr. Skinner, invented a miracle cure-all drug with no apparent side effects called Hapuna. However, after society grows an unhealthy dependence on the pills, Dr. Skinner vanishes. Three years later, Dr. Skinner returns only to bring a message of doom. He announces that Hapuna, while vital to those hooked on it, has a short half-life, and everyone who has taken it will die in approximately thirty days since its release. A group of ragtag individuals forms a task force to locate Dr. Skinner and persuade him to develop a vaccine at the risk of humanity's impending global extinction. More from Deadline 'Legend of Mecha Scholars' Gets Global Distribution In Ad Astra, DRock Cultural Exchange Initiative 2025-26 Awards Season Calendar: Dates For Tonys, Emmys, Oscars & More 'Big Mouth' Creator Nick Kroll On Animating Puberty & Destigmatizing The Experience: "It's All Weird And It's All Normal" Here, Watanabe speaks to Deadline about the creation of the series. DEADLINE: SHINICHIRŌ WATANABE: I always wanted to make an anime like 007 or Mission: Impossible. The reason our project kicked off was because I got an offer from Cartoon Network. The inspiration for Lazarus specifically came from watching foreign news, where the topic often revolved around the opioid crisis. I thought that this isn't something that's really covered or touched upon in action movies. So, I thought it would be a great topic. Opioids are not illegal; you can get a legal prescription for some of them, but people will still get addicted to them, and people do die from them. I thought that maybe you could make a drug that would be similar in the way that it would be like an opioid but also designed to kill people in a certain amount of years. Whenever I talk about this, people ask if this is a metaphor for the opioid crisis, but it is not really like that. This is just media and entertainment, and it's set in the future, so it's nothing like that. DEADLINE: John Wick WATANABE: It's been a while since I've made an action anime—about roughly 20 years, to be exact. So, I can't just make the same type of action anime I made before. I needed to modernize. So, the best person to reach was Chad. DEADLINE: WATANABE: In the past, anime production budgets were very low, so there wasn't much wiggle room for what we could actually make. There was no way we would have been able to call on Chad's team in the past due to budget constraints. Now, while the budgets are bigger, there's a lot more we can do, and there's a lot of work that needs to be done, but there aren't enough people in the industry to get the work done. We can't just add more people willy-nilly; the animators are artisans and craftspeople, so they take a long time to train. That's the reason we have a shortage now. This goes to directors, too. They take a lot of time to train and a lot of skills and experience to have a good director direct a series. DEADLINE:Lazarus? WATANABE: There are a lot of themes. But the biggest one is pain. Dr. Skinner does say in the beginning that not feeling pain is the same as dying, and for him, it's a question of whether pain should be moved completely, both physically and mentally. DEADLINE: WATANABE: I'd like to make a series based on a ghost story in the future. I've been consuming a lot of ghost-related media lately—specifically, movies where evil ghosts make an appearance. Oh, and I recently watched The Exorcist. [This interview was conducted through an interpreter add has been edited for length and clarity.] Best of Deadline 'Poker Face' Season 2 Guest Stars: From Katie Holmes To Simon Hellberg The 25 Highest-Grossing Animated Films Of All Time At The Global Box Office The Movies That Have Made More Than $1 Billion At The Global Box Office
Gizmodo
a day ago
- Entertainment
- Gizmodo
The Success of ‘M3GAN' Let ‘M3GAN 2.0' Go Even Campier
Horror fans had an idea M3GAN was going to lean into the goofy and surreal aspects of setting a killer doll loose in the world when the trailer showcasing the main character's slice-and-dice dance number dropped. And while the 2022 original was a hit, and contained the expected gore and body count, it caught on mostly for those campy elements: murderous robots can be a lot of fun, actually! M3GAN 2.0 is arriving next week, and star and producer Allison Williams explained to the Hollywood Reporter that the success of M3GAN—particularly relating to how much audiences embraced its tone—gave the team much more confidence to go further in M3GAN 2.0. 'We knew that the characters and the tone from the first movie worked, and that definitely gives you a little bit of confidence in terms of not problem solving for those things anymore,' she said. 'You're sort of beyond that, but we weren't sure about anything else, which is why we tried our very best to perfect all of the newer elements in the movie, including the fact that we were moving into the action genre. That was not even something that we had explicitly set out to do, but it just felt obvious to [director] Gerard [Johnstone, director of both M3GAN movies and screenwriter of M3GAN 2.0] that if there's a second doll, we are going to be in that genre now. So we let ourselves enjoy that experience.' Williams' character, Gemma, is the brainy inventor of M3GAN, and fight scenes are not her natural setting. However, as Williams teased, that's part of what makes M3GAN 2.0's comedy elements work so well. 'There's this meta humor to the idea of Gemma suddenly being in an action movie. It's ridiculous in a hopefully fun way, and we had a lot of fun finding the humor in the mere fact of it while it was happening. It's as unbelievable and as random a series of events for Gemma as it is for an audience watching the movie,' she said. To make it believable, Williams had to make sure Gemma seemed to be taking the ridiculous circumstances she finds herself in as seriously as possible. 'When I am in scenes with M3GAN … if I'm at all winking at this hilarious ride we're on and the camp of it all, it doesn't work anymore. So I was completely aware of the fact that the only successful version of this movie is one where we're all just fully committed to this world and its stakes, and the execution of all of that is everything,' she said. 'The characters themselves can't believe that they're finding this to be their milieu, and they're just going to make the best of it.' M3GAN 2.0 opens June 27.
The National
4 days ago
- Entertainment
- The National
Gangs of London actors on how the show strikes the perfect balance of action and drama
Three seasons in, Gangs of London hasn't lost any of its dark grandeur, with the British crime drama still delivering a potent mix of white-knuckle action and brooding pathos. At its centre are characters navigating a foreboding urban landscape where brutality is as prized as ambition. British-Nigerian actor Sope Dirisu, who plays undercover officer turned mob enforcer Elliot Finch, describes the series' sprawling scope – involving warring multicultural criminal syndicates battling for control of London's underworld – as positively Shakespearean. 'When I first met with Gareth [Evans, series co-creator] almost seven years ago, he spoke about the operatic nature of the series. And I think it's a very small step between opera and grand theatre, which is Shakespeare,' Dirisu tells The National. Dirisu, who began his career with stints with London's Royal Shakespeare Company, sees Elliot as a figure drawn from that tradition – torn between duty, survival and loss. 'Looking at the entire city through that kind of lens means you need characters who can stand on that stage and carry the story,' he says. 'Elliot, being front and centre from the beginning of the series, needs to have a certain gravity – but also the ability to hold silence. If the whole series was just big explosions, it wouldn't be as gripping.' That balance of grit and gravity continues to shape Gangs of London. The action in the new episodes is as kinetic as ever, but often grounded by the unfolding drama of morally complex characters. For Iranian-German actress Narges Rashidi, who plays Kurdish militia leader Lale, the show's moral tension is what keeps the series compelling. 'We rarely see drama and action combined so well,' she says. 'If it's action-heavy, usually there is not much emotionality or depth. I feel like we've managed to achieve that balance.' As Lale is one of the show's most fully realised characters – an idealist using criminal activity to serve a wider political goal – Rashidi approached the role methodically. 'That complexity makes her special but, as an actor you do research. I studied the London crime scene extensively, the Kurdish crime scene in particular. But then the show allows you to go to places where you just jump in and trust your instincts,' she says. From her tightly coiled emotional restraint to sudden bursts of violence, Rashidi compares Lale to a jaguar. 'There's this profound stillness in her. But what I love about the character is when this animal emerges, it's not pretty any more and not silent. It's just an unleashed force,' she says. The same can be said of Gangs of London 's extraordinary action sequences, whose bloody and balletic style evokes the work of classic Hong Kong filmmakers John Woo and Tsui Hark. Dirisu credits Evans – who announced himself with the acclaimed 2011 Indonesian action film The Raid – with setting the tone for the show's signature visual mayhem. 'I think it's very clear that he has a wonderful East Asian cinema influence in his own filmmaking,' Dirisu notes. 'And I think he would be delighted as a Welshman to be continuing the strong history of East Asian cinema throughout the world.' While hyper-stylised, the action is meant to up the emotional stakes as opposed to being purely escapism, Dirisu says. 'I think it's easy to create action heroes who just storm into a bar and beat up seven guys and then they're seen as invincible. Whereas what was really important about this character is that he's actually just a human being. He's not a superhero and he is not Batman,' he adds. 'So he's not going to come through unscathed through everything. There have to be moments of jeopardy for us to care about whether or not he's going to survive this sequence. Otherwise, it just becomes something that we can sit back and let wash over us.' That eclectic style extends to both the multicultural plotline and production team. Gangs of London reflects the city's cosmopolitanism through a network of rival criminal factions. While Dirisu and Rashidi share the screen with standout performances from Pakistani actor Asif Raza Mir, British-Tanzanian actor Lucian Msamati and British-Albanian actor Orli Shuka, half of the third season's eight episodes are directed by South Korea's Kim Hong-sun, known for Money Heist: Korea – Joint Economic Area. Rashidi says the international continent is essential to the success of the series. 'London is incredibly diverse with so many cultures, languages, people from every background. Our producers understand this is London's reality, and it's crucial we reflect that both behind and in front of the camera,' she says. 'Everyone behind the camera brings something from their culture, their background, making it more authentic.' Dirisu says the series has already cemented its legacy through its scale and visual ambition. 'There have been a lot of series that have tried and done very well to emulate the action design that we have achieved in Gangs of London,' he says. 'And it's a wonderful little gentle competition to keep the quality high and to do something again that people haven't seen before.' This raises the question of whether a fourth season is on the way. 'Whenever I come to the end of a really good story, I'm always asking: 'What's next?'' Dirisu says. 'Give us some time to cook it up, so we can make sure it's good.'
Yahoo
5 days ago
- Entertainment
- Yahoo
Duster goes Looney Tunes in a rollicking episode
Well, that was fun! After a second episode that channeled some Quentin Tarantino flair and a third that went full Halloween II slasher, Duster goes Looney Tunes this week. And by that, I mean this episode literally opens with Josh Holloway's Jim Ellis imagining his current criminal predicament as a Looney Tunes cartoon. It's a hilarious bit of animation and a welcome reminder that Duster doesn't take itself too seriously, so neither should we. In fact, this episode ends with one of my favorite action set pieces yet: a bathroom brawl between Jim and an assassin that eventually turns into a team-up car chase motivated by a dose of Russian sociology. It's not at all how I expected this more character-centric hour to end. But part of the fun of Duster is that you never know what you're going to get when you tune in each week, and this hour totally delivers on the surprise front. The other thing that impresses me about Duster is how it's balancing episodic and serialized storytelling. Though each of the first three installments felt like distinctive hours of TV, they've all been continually adding to the overarching plot as well. Back in the premiere, Jim briefly made and then broke a deal to drive for Mexican crime lord 'Mad Raul,' which now comes back to haunt him here as Raul's assassin Enrique the Blade (Rigo Sanchez) enters the scene. Meanwhile, it turns out Nina's trip to the Kirkbridge Sanitarium last week wasn't so pointless after all. Agent Breen may be dead by suicide (yikes), but it turns out he left a secret code for his replacement to follow. And Awan's love of comic-book riddles is just the thing to crack it. Even Elvis' blue suede shoes are still in play, as Jim didn't bury Sunglasses in them after all. It's fun to see Duster maintain such a strong sense of continuity even as the tone and locale changes week to week. This time around, Jim and Nina both get out of Phoenix for the day, as he offers to drive Saxton's son Royce to the Snowbird warehouse in Scottsdale while she pays a visit to the Navajo Nation reservation with a reluctant Awan in tow in order to find the secret message Breen hid there. After two 'showcase' episodes, it's nice to see our two co-leads on more of an equal playing field again—especially when characters like Izzy, Royce, and Awan all get some new dimensions this week too. If there's an overall theme to this episode, it's about feeling caged in by 'the man.' Izzy, for instance, is struggling with the reality of being one of just 126 female long-haul truckers in her union. There aren't safe bathrooms or showers on the road, and sexual harassment is a frequent reality of the job. When union president Bob Temple (Kevin Chamberlin, returning from the premiere) refuses to take her concerns seriously, she rallies some of her fellow female drivers to take him down. That Izzy lets Luna serve beers and listen in on some very adult ranting is a hilarious bit of low-key '70s parenting in action. But it's also a sweet example of the way she lets Luna into the realities of daily life as a woman in a male-dominated field. Izzy is letting her daughter understand both the hardships women face and the solidarity they can find together, and those are lessons that will surely serve Luna well as she grows up. If only Royce could be so lucky. Unlike Luna, Royce has been shut out of the day-to-day details of his father's work life. Though he's ostensibly a power player and future leader of Snowbird, in reality he's being treated more like a child. And in a classic 'chicken or the egg' dilemma, it's hard to tell whether that's keeping him in a childlike state or whether Saxton might have the right instincts that Royce isn't really up for the tough jobs. While Royce was sympathetic when he was recovering from heart surgery and reading his little sci-fi novels, he comes across like a bit more of an off-putting dweeb this week. He picks up Howard Hughes' famed Lincoln V12 'Aeromobile' only to immediately overheat it on the road. And he fails to do even the most basic of price negotiation with the mechanic he hires to fix it. Royce is naive at best and ineffectual at worst. Thankfully, that makes him just the right mark for Jim's newfound interest in sleuthing. It's kind of hilarious how easily Jim is able to manipulate Royce's 'we both feel powerless' sympathies into a full-on tour of the Snowbird Mesa Scottsdale warehouse. One of the main pleasures of Duster is watching Jim grow in confidence as a spy as Nina keeps pushing him for more and more hard evidence about Saxton's organization. Holloway is doing a fantastic job layering Jim's rough-and-tumble demeanor with a level of charisma and confidence that makes him a really believable double agent. In fact, Jim is so charming that he literally gets Enrique the Blade to share some bourbon with him mid-fight, Princess Bride style. ('It wouldn't be very sportsman-like killing a man you just had drinks with.') Where Sawyer always had a chip on his shoulder on Lost, Jim is much more inclined to play nice where he can, which makes him a great take on the crime-driver archetype. Though I initially thought the show was just trying to pretend Holloway isn't in his fifties, it now feels like age and experience are real assets for the character. Where others in his position might be hotheaded or impulsive, Jim is smart enough to see the big picture and patient enough to know which battles are worth fighting. 'At least I get to live to fight another day,' he tells Enrique as he hands over Hughes' car to pay off his debt to Mad Raul. This episode ends with our most explicit cliffhanger yet, with Jim on the side of the road in the middle of the desert, unsure how he'll explain what happened to Royce. But it's actually the Nina/Awan half of the episode that felt a tad unfinished to me. Though I enjoyed pretty much everything about their trip into Navajo Nation, I was waiting for a slightly more substantial climax to bring it all together. It's interesting to see a 1970s reservation in action and fun to meet Awan's old friend Daryl (a delightful Tyler Laracca). I'm also intrigued by the idea that Awan's father sees him becoming a fed as a betrayal of his Navajo community—even as Awan feels that working for the FBI is the best way to get his community equal justice. Again, it's a moment where we see how 'the man' is weighing on our heroes in different ways, which is something Nina can relate to as well. Her criminal father wouldn't have wanted her to become a fed either, while her doctor ex-fiancé didn't want her to have a career at all. I just wanted one more button or elevation to really tie everything together. Hopefully the reservation will be a location we revisit often because it's a welcome addition to a series that's clearly trying to shine a light on the non-white-male 1970s Southwest experience. For now, however, the detour mostly exists to give Awan a little backstory and provide our FBI heroes another clue from Breen: a scratchy video recording in which he warns against Xavier, the same person Jim overheard Saxton and the Russians discussing last week. Still, even if some of the plotting is a little underbaked, that's a minor complaint for an episode that adds Robert Rodriguez as yet another directorial influence on the series. Enrique's endless hidden knives and over-the-top throwing skills bring some of that opening Looney Tunes energy into live action, albeit against some Mormon-looking carjackers rather than Jim. That the Jim/Enrique climax can be really goofy, violent, and unexpectedly noble all at once is a great example of what Duster is adding to our current TV landscape. The fact that Jim moves from fake bonding with Royce to really bonding with Enrique is also a welcome reminder of the ties can be forged in solidarity against 'the man.' If all of our characters are looking to 'move upward' in one way or another, here's hoping there will be more fun, unexpected pairings in the future. • This week in 'It's the 1970s!': I don't have much first-hand experience with urinals, but that trough-style one sure looked like a relic from the past. Also, David rocks some incredible cutoff jean shorts to go with his '70s stache. • Opening-credits watch: We get an advanced glimpse of Howard Hughes' car before it debuts in the episode. Plus, we finally see the Snowbird Mesa warehouse IRL this week, while David gives Luna a set of Hot Wheels complete with a loop track. • My main reference point for Kevin Chamberlin is Seussical The Musical, so it's hilariously jarring to watch him play a lecherous union president here. • Izzy walks into a building labeled 'Truckers Union Office Local 649,' but aren't they called Teamsters? • The one thing Nina kept from her college ex-fiancé is the idea of doing push-ups when you get stressed. • I never noticed the geometric shape of Nina's glasses before, but they look so cool! • It turns out Awan's love of superheroes extends to Adam West's Batman as well. 'I love Frank Gorshin, don't you?' he asks Nina. 'I'm more of an Eartha Kitt girl,' she responds. More from A.V. Club What's on TV this week—Revival and Echo Valley A teary Top Chef finds our final four in Milan R.I.P. Pippa Scott, The Searchers and Auntie Mame actress
