International Eye Candy returns! Men in rabbit suits! French animation! And Norwegian teens hacked to bits!

Hey there kids … it’s Todd from Twitch here with another dose of International Eye Candy, our bi-weekly wrap up of the best – and occasionally the worst and sometimes the just plain strangest – that the world at large has to offer. This time out? Men in rabbit suits, French animation and Norwegian teens hacked to bits. Nummy. Okay, we’re getting our martial arts fix in early this time around, with a little picture called, aptly enough, Fighter. But once you get past the title anything you may expect from this gets tossed out the window. First of all, it’s female centered with both a female lead and female director. Secondly, it’s as much a serious drama as it is a kick ass martial arts film – and the trailer truly does kick much ass. Third, it’s from – of all places – Denmark. Yep. Fighter is, to the best of my knowledge, the second ever film from Scandanavia to prominently feature martial arts – the first was Finnish wuxia picture Jade Warrior – and it looks really damn good. Info and trailer link here. From Denmark to Spain for the sophomore entry in the Mortadelo and Filemon series. Based on a popular – and riotously rude – comic series the first film did only middling business so this time out the producers handed the keys to cult director Miguel Bardem, the man behind titles such as the stellar Incautos and the very, very strange cult title The Ugliest Woman In The World. Bardem’s never had a budget like this to work with before and it’s obvious he’s loving it – the end result playing like a Tex Avery cartoon lifted directly into real life. It’s sheer madness, it’s very silly, very rude and very, very funny. Yes, please. Details and links here Heading a little north now to Norway for hotly anticipated slasher picture Rovdyr. Hollywood sharks are already circling around this one and it’s easy to see why. Director Patrik Syversen is a big lover of the genre, he obviously knows his way around the camera and the freshly released trailer for this one is gripping, nasty stuff. The setup is the standard teens in the woods scenario but people keep using it because in the right hands it keeps working and it’s working here. Hell, yeah. Details and trailer here. To France now, for animated omnibus Fear(s) of the Dark, which collects a fistful of acclaimed French comic artists and turns them loose to tell stories about the things that scare them, each tale animated in stark black and white. The drawing style varies pretty wildly from piece to piece but this looks like pretty stunning stuff. Between this and Persepolis, France is looking like the new hotbed for serious animation. Details and trailer here It’s an animated opera about sea birds battling off a giant octopus monster. Why are you still reading this? It’s an animated opera about sea birds battling off a giant octopus monster! Get going! Okay, you’re waiting for the man in the bunny suit and, as promised, here he is. It’s a straight to DVD project in Japan titled Rabi Pappa, directed by one of Tarantino collaborator Katsuhito Ishii’s business partners and it’s got Kimura Yoshino from Miike’s Sukiyaki Western Django and the new one by the director of City of God starring as a giant bunny working as a salaryman while raising his mixed race family with his human wife. Really. Details and trailer here It’s the most expensive Russian film ever made – or was at the time production began – and now also the most delayed, the release now pushed back to 2009 to allow for more effects work and to coincide with the 200th birthday of novelist Nikolai Gogol, who wrote the source novel. This one could be horrible or it could be brilliant in an old school Sam Raimi sort of way – I’m not really leaning either way yet – but the trailers are great fun and a new one has been released to coincide with the latest delay announcement. Details and trailer links here What the hell … we name dropped Katsuhito Ishii, who supervised the anime sequence in Kill Bill, a couple entries up so let’s keep the Bill theme going. Kill Buljo is a Norwegian parody of the Tarantino epic that’s just landed itself a North American sales rep and a hysterically dubbed trailer to sell the thing to US audiences. It’s total trash but it’s trash of the Zucker variety which means it’s damn funny trash. The world needs more dick and fart jokes and, apparently, Norway has arrived to fill that need. Details and trailer here Jaume Balaguero and Paco Plaza’s Spanish horror picture [REC] has been blowing audiences away everywhere it has played, to the point that a US remake is already in the works and the film hasn’t even had it’s theatrical run in its native Spain yet. Played entirely from a first person perspective it’s the story of fire fighters trapped in a building during the midst of a quasi-zombie holocaust. Did I mention it’s really good? Details and trailer links here Denmark’s Anders Morgenthaler stirred up a hornet’s nest last year with his animated anti-porn revenge opus Princess last year and now he’s coming back with Ekko. This one’s a live action feature starring Kim Bodnia from Pusher as a police detective in the middle of a divorce who kidnaps his own child. These sorts of things never turn out well. Details and trailer here If you’re thinking this has been a very Scando sort of column you’re quite right, but hey … they make a lot of good films over there. In this case there are actually five of them. 5 Grøss is an anthology featuring new horror shorts from five of Norway’s best and brightest, all of them boasting a healthy selection of international awards for their earlier work. And it’s pretty easy to see why, some fantastic, atmospheric work in here. Details and trailer here Asia is always good for a scare and upcoming Thai horror The Screen At Kamchanod looks to be one of the better upcoming efforts. Helmed by a former assistant to the Pang Brothers – who shot the brilliant The Eye before bogging down in mediocrity – the film is based on actual, well documented events from eighteen years ago and looks to be genuinely creepy stuff. And the trailer’s in English, even. Details and trailer here And now we close the column with a bang – namely the loooooooong awaited return of Marc Caro to the director’s chair. For the uninitiated Caro was the long time creative partner of Amelie director Jean-Pierre Jeunet, credited as a co-director on classic films The City of Lost Children and Delicatessen, but Caro largely dropped out of sight after serving as art director for Jeunet’s entry in the Alien franchise. Perhaps out of shame. Whatever the reason he’s back with upcoming sci-fi picture Dante 01 starring Lambert Wilson (The Matrix Reloaded) and Jeunet regular Dominique Pinon. The trailer is yummy. Details and trailer here