The Bleeding Game

★½
“Bleeding terrible, innit?”

It is possible to do Lovecraft on a low-budget and make it work. Earlier this year, I was introduced to the delightful films of Lars Henriks, who did a whole trilogy of micro-budget movies, loosely in the Lovecraft universe. Taken in the right spirit, they’re quite charming. Then, there’s this… I think I can safely say, it’s neither delightful nor charming, regardless of spirit. The best I can say is there is a non-terrible core concept here.  Mr. Temple (Bolton) wants occult power, and feeds on blood, so summons a trio of Shoggoths, mystical minions who possess a sleazy businessman, a metalhead, and a rent boy. They prey on the women who frequent his bars, bringing their essence back to their master. Arrayed against him are three sisters (one adopted), the Proctors: Aida (Mixter), Flo (Bland) and Lizzy (Alison), who come from a family of white magicians. When the corpses of the Shoggoth’s victims start piling up, they seek to stop first them, then Temple, from continuing their dark harvest.

I should have recognized the director’s name: I’m presuming he’s the brother (or something) of Sean-Michael Argo. That is the Argo who gave us one of the worst ever action-heroine films in Iconoclast. He shows up here as The Grin, an Oracle-like figure to whom the Proctor sisters turn for advice. His relative Ian is, at least, able to tell a coherent story, so that puts him well ahead of his relative. However, there are still way too many problem present for this to be successful, even by the low-standards of incredibly cheap horror. The audio is inconsistent from scene to scene, varying from muffled to incredibly echoey. The pacing is terrible, with scenes that serve no real purpose, and the backstory involving their father is murky, at best. Though I was quite amused by the way that shotguns are basically more effective than any traditional tools, and there is a half-decent impalement.

My biggest complaint, however, was the flat-out terrible British accents sported by the Shoggoths. I’m not sure why being taken over by a demonic entity causes the victims suddenly to channel Dick Van Dyke from Mary Poppins, but here we apparently are. I feel personally attacked by this blatant example of Britwashing, not least since it’s an accent that serves absolutely no purpose whatsoever, any more than the top hat sported by one Shoggoth. The film is at its best least worst when they aren’t speaking on screen, simply because I no longer had a rising desire to put my fist, the living-room table or our cat through the television. Even writing this paragraph is sending my blood pressure spiking. The sisters don’t bother with fake accents, and occasionally border on being interesting characters: looks like two of them have an on/off sexual relationship, though we cut away from ever seeing anything there. Like the rest of the film, that demonstrates its disappointing failure to deliver.

Dir: Ian Argo
Star: Whitney Mixter, Shey Bland, Alison Tussey, C. Jason Bolton

Sever

★★
“When you order À l’interieur on Wish…”

The French film À l’interieur (a.k.a. Inside) is one of the most ferocious and intense of all action-heroine films. It’s the story of a pregnant woman who has to defend herself and her unborn child from an absolute psycho who turns up on the doorstep of her remote house one night. This film, more or less, has the same plot. It is, however, a pale imitation in just about every single way. Where À l’interieur was spare and taut, this is bloated and meandering. When it had nothing but excellent performances, the ones here are largely poor or worse. And while the French movie delivered on its hellish premise, this possesses almost no impact at all.

The targets here are Cord (Caillouet) and Mindy (Kavchak), an apparently happily married couple, who are having a weekend getaway at their family retreat, deep in the Rocky Mountains. Their vacation is interrupted by the arrival on their doorstep of a stranger, a woman who claims to need help. With the cabin having no phone, and ‐ this is my thoroughly unsurprised face – being out of cellphone range, Cord invites her to stay the night, without even consulting his wife. This is the first of many truly poor decisions the couple will make. For the woman is Martha (Cruz), who recently staged a brutal escape from the psychiatric facility in which she was incarcerated, and is now intent on making her unwitting hosts, Cord in particular, pay for the sins of the past.

Which is part of the issue: the resulting narrative is so convoluted it becomes ridiculous. Though especially in the final act, I actually found myself thoroughly amused by its excesses. The problem is, I think I was supposed to take it seriously. Yeah, that’s gonna be a “No” from me, dawg. The other big flaw are the performances of Kavchak and, especially, Caillouet. The former is flat and thoroughly unconvincing as a woman in peril of her life. She is still Oscar-worthy compared to the oak wardrobe which is her on-screen husband, delivering lines with all the energy of an airport departure announcement. A cord of wood might have made a better Cord.

The only thing which kept this watchable was Cruz (credited as Batya Haynes). Her bible-spouting religious fruitcake was a genuinely scary creature, truly devoted to her philosophy of life. If it may not be one with which you can agree, it is possible to see where she’s coming from. You certainly have to admire the commitment to her chosen purpose, even though such fanaticism is terrifying at the same time. It’s just a shame it’s not a performance in the service of a better movie. I’ve just realized I’m not even sure if Mindy actually was pregnant. If so, it never played much part in proceedings. I suspect I may simply have spliced that plot-point in from another, far superior one. No prizes for guessing where.

Dir: Matthew Ryan Anderson
Star: Batya Cruz, Maia Kavchak, Garret Caillouet, Phyllis Spielman

My Day

★★½
“Where the streets have no name.”

Sixteen-year-old Ally (Smith) is living her life very much on the fringes of society. Coming from a broken home, she is now homeless on the streets of London, relying on the dubious charity of questionable friends. Though Ally does have her limits as to what she’s prepared to do, she has no issue with occasional bits of work, delivering drugs for dodgy couple Carol and Gary. It’s this that gets her into trouble: a job goes wrong, after the customer tries to rape her, and Ally flees – without either the drugs or the money. Carol and Gary are bad enough. Yet even they live in mortal fear of their boss, Eastern European gangster Ilyas (Adomaitis). He wants his merch back – and Ally, as interest, for sale to his sex trafficking friends.

Ally ends up in Ilyas’s clutches, increasingly strung out on heroin. Luckily, help to escape comes from a couple of unexpected sources. First is Carol and Gary’s son Kevin (Jackson), who has bigger plans outside the estate on which he currently lives. Then there’s old age pensioner Frank (Kinsey – whom I remember from close to fifty years ago, playing a soldier on classic Brit-com, It Ain’t Half Hot Mum!), who has befriended Ally for his own reasons, is concerned by her sudden absence, and sets out to track her down. Are either of them prepared to cope with someone as morally bankrupt and brutally violent as Ilyas?

This is likely a fringe entry here, considering Ally spends much of the time lying on a squalid mattress, off her head. Yet there are likely just enough moments to qualify, and she has absolutely no aversion to using violence herself when necessary – beyond what any of her male allies can deliver. Although Ally is not a particularly likeable character, there is still enough of a moral code that I did find myself eventually warming to her. The problems here are more in the other cast members, who largely appear to be single-note descriptions, e.g. “kindly old codger,” with the actors not apparently given enough information to flesh them out by first-time feature director Miiro.

I did appreciate a slightly different view of London from the one often shown. Not least, it unfolds on the Western edge of the city, rather than the inevitable go-to when film-makers want to show deprivation, the East End (with an occasional foray Sarf of the river Thames!). Not that it looks notably different: still, it’s the thought that counts. The script somehow manages to end up both a bit too neat, and simultaneously leaving too many loose ends, which may be a result of this being an expanded version of the director’s earlier short. To be honest, it feels fractionally too earnest, in a Ken Loach kind of way, even if depicting a world where everyone is, to some extent, embedded in criminal culture. I suspect that was not the intended point, however…

Dir: Ibrahim Miiro
Star: Hannah Laresa Smith, Mike Kinsey, Karl Jackson, Gediminas Adomaitis

Regarding the Case of Joan of Arc

★★½
“Joan of Waco”

Joan is always a figure who has the potential to be co-opted into other times and locations. Recently, we reviewed Maid of Baikal, a novel which relocated her to the Russian Revolution. This takes a similar approach, moving her from the 15th century to a contemporary setting, and also relocating it to middle America. It begins with largely unseen forces orchestrating the bombing of a federal building, also only heard. We then leap forward to the military tribunal trial of “Joan (LaLiberte – such a conveniently appropriate name for the role, I have to wonder if it’s a pseudonym), who is convinced her actions were in accordance with God’s will. Not everyone is in agreement, shall we say.

The main plus here is the lead actress, who is instantly plausible in the role, It’s clear that Joan, as first encountered, is absolutely possessed with unshakeable faith. However, things like an encounter with a relative of one innocent victim, begin to suggest her belief is not on the utterly solid foundation it initially appears. On the other hand, the main problem is an obtuse and distanced approach, which makes it hard to be sure what approach the film-makers are taking. It’s brave to position an extremist as the heroine of your film. Yet, it feels like they chicken out, and are unwilling to take that ride to its natural conclusion, instead swathing almost every scene in a haze of moral ambiguity.

The modern setting does cement the moral that historical – or, indeed, current – narratives are almost always subjective. At the time of her death, Joan of Arc was a heretic to the Catholic Church; now, she’s a saint to the same body. A similar angle becomes very apparent here: the script has Joan visiting locations such as Waco, Ruby Ridge and Oklahoma City, the stories of which depend largely on your own, pre-existing beliefs. Everyone surrounding the case seeks to manipulate it and Joan to their own ends, whether it’s chief interrogator Major Calhoun (Cook), or the Human Rights Watch advocate (Hunter), who wants Joan to use her rights, in order to help LGBT activists in Hungary. It’s agendas, all the way down. Hell, there’s even a character identified in the end credits as “The Deep State.”

I think I’d rather this had picked a lane and stuck to it. I don’t care particularly which lane: make Joan a terrorist who totally deserves to die for her crime of cold-blooded murder, if you want. Or a heroine, bravely fighting for what’s good in the country, a reminder of the awkward truth that the United States was formed by armed insurrection. This wants to be both, and neither, playing its cards too close for the audience to be willing to bet on it with any emotional investment. As a result, the ending doesn’t pack the wallop you feel its aiming for, though I certainly admire the attempt to spin the story in a new way.

Dir: Matthew Wilder
Star: Nicole LaLiberte, Christopher Matthew Cook, Erin Aubry Kaplan, Alice Hunter
a.k.a. American Martyr

Mermaid Team

★★★
“Ariel assault?”

This feel like it could easily have come out of the nineties, with the distinct whiff of a throwback to the golden age of Hong Kong “girls with guns” movies. That is, of course, not a bad thing. However, this is not really golden. It’s probably not even bronzey. High-quality PVC perhaps? I think the main difference is probably that the classics starred the likes of Moon Lee, Cynthia Khan and Yukari Oshima, who could kick ass in a convincing fashion. The actresses here are largely limited to gun-play, and most of them look like they would be soundly defeated by a stiff oncoming breeze. However, I can’t knock the production values here: this is slick, well-made and looks very nice.

The group of the title consists of six young women, under the leadership of Yang Yi/Moman (Xu) – the subtitles say one thing, the credits another – who go after drug dealers and related bad guys. It’s the usual group of individuals, each with their own special skills. For instance, Qi Xia (Zhou) appears to be the smart girl of the group. Well, she wears glasses and sucks a lollipop, anyway: her intelligence never has much relevance. Similarly, Sha Lv, which I have no idea how to pronounce, is the team’s sniper, and so on. None of them make much of an impression, save for Moman, who is also the one lucky enough to receive a dramatic arc, since her sister was killed during the escape of a captured villain. Or was she?

This runs barely an hour long in the version officially released on YouTube, – maybe there’s a director’s cut somewhere? There did definitely seems to be edits. It’s not so much slim as positively anorexic, with not much room for development of story or characters. Moman and her team work their way up the chain, with some light action, though there is a surprising amount of death on the way. Let’s just say, Mermaid Team will be placing a ‘Help wanted’ advert. I did like Zhu, who plays Mi Lai, a henchwoman to one of the bad guys, and has an appropriately wild-cannon vibe to her. I was hoping for a final battle between Mi Lai and Moman; however, this seems almost totally disinterested in hand-to-hand action.

Not that it’s by any means bad, just competently forgettable, with a lack of many memorable elements – in either good or bad direction. I don’t know what the budget was on this. I suspect, like many Chinese films, it was relatively small by Hollywood standards, yet Ma certainly does a good job of squeezing every ounce of production value out of the price, and the images pop off the screen too. I must confess though, given the title, I was expecting at least some aquatic shenanigans, but these mermaids remain resolutely land-dwelling. On the other hand, while Googling the title, I did learn there is apparently a World Mermaid Championship. Never say this site is not informative…

Dir: Ma Hong-Wen
Star: Xu Zi-Lu, Zhang Da-Ke, Zhou Jing, Zhu Jue

Ever After

★★½
“Off-centre, not dead centre”

This is not your normal action heroine film. Nor is it your normal zombie apocalypse film. While it certainly nods in both directions, it seems entirely committed to going in its own direction. My mental jury is still out on whether or not this was a good thing or not. I think if I’d perhaps been prewarned what to expect, I might have been better equipped to handle this. It takes place after the outbreak of a plague, with the dwindling number of survivors now holed up in two cities: Weimar, where infection is an immediate death sentence, and Jena, reported to be trying to research a cure. 

The mentally fragile Vivi (Kohlhof) tries to do her part by volunteering on the fences surrounding Weimar, but a brutal incident on her first day sends her into a state of shock. She tries to head for Jena on the automated train which runs between there and Weimar. On it, she meets Eva (Lehrer), who is considerably more versed in the ways of survival. When the train breaks down, the two young women have to set off on foot across country. Which is where things get increasingly odd, as they bump into characters such as the Gardener (Dyrholm), who is running a market garden in the middle of the apocalypse. The zombies themselves also begin to mutate, such as the one on a wedding dress, whose face is half plant. Is nature healing? Or is a human apocalypse not necessarily such a bad thing from the perspective of the rest of Earth’s species?

There is a fair amount going on here to unpack, and it feels like the kind of party to which you have to bring your own booze. For the film offers no easy answers; indeed, I’m not necessarily certain what are the questions it is asking. At times it felt like there was a religious aspect with the Gardener being the snake in Eden. Yet at others, it is more about the different ways Vivi and Eva come to terms with the traumas they have experienced. Vivi shuts down, emotionally and mentally, while Eva adopts a hard shell, prepared to do whatever is necessary to survive. Also of note: there are almost no male speaking roles, though it’s subtle enough not to matter [The crew are also largely women]

There are still the required moments of threat, heroic sacrifice, etc. familiar from the genre. However, these feel almost perfunctory, as if imposed on the director in some kind of contractual obligation. The film might have been better to avoid the standard beats entirely, as these feel out of line with the rest of the movie. On the other hand, if it had gone full art-house, it’s possible I would not have bothered watching it, and almost certainly wouldn’t be reviewing it here. Still, it’s an approach to the zombie film I’ve definitely not seen before. Even if this wasn’t what I expected – or wanted, to be honest – that has to be worth something. 

Dir: Carolina Hellsgård
Star: Gro Swantje Kohlhof, Maja Lehrer, Trine Dyrholm, Barbara Philipp
a.k.a. Endzeit

Loss Prevention

★★★½
“Missing this would be your loss”

After a series of recent films which… well, let’s just say, left a little to be desired, it was a real palate-cleansing pleasure to encounter this. Oh, make no mistake: this is no classic. But, considering the budget was supposedly under $20,000, this operates within its limitations very nicely. The makers sticks to what they can do, and what it does, it does more than adequately. In particular, the movie is populated with a good number of interesting characters, that are fun to watch. The central one is Nik (Uhl), a young woman who dropped out of college and is now scraping by, working behind the bar at The Soggy Weasel, the pub belonging to her father (former wrestler Snow).

However, her slackerish lifestyle is rudely interrupted when one patron drinks too much, and has to be separated from his keys. Unfortunately, the key-chain also holds a flash drive of industrial espionage data, which he was supposed to hand over to Boland (Wells), the operative of a rival company. Boland is unimpressed, and will go to any lengths to retrieve it, providing the bottom line is deemed sufficiently profitable. Fortunately for Nik, also on hand is Brooke (Albert), a thoroughly competent operative of the company who is the data’s rightful owner, and she takes on the defense of Nik and her father. Not that Nik is averse to getting her own hands dirty, as things turn out.

It does take a little while for things to kick off, as we get introduced to the characters. Nik is more than slightly sarcastic, so can only be respected as such, and also a thoroughly unrepentant lesbian – both combine in an entirely unrepeatable comment about breath mints. But Hollywood could learn a lot about depicting sexual identity from this, which makes absolutely no attempt at moral posturing in this area. Instead, it’s far too busy providing a fast-paced gallop around the city of Louisville, ending up in Brooke and Nik mounting an assault on the headquarters where Boland is holding her father hostage. Yet there’s a twist or two to come, with things not quite ending in the massive firefight you’d expect – another way in which this manages to confound expectations.

In its depiction of corporate warfare, this is rather sophisticated for a low-budget action flick. In particular, Boland’s actions are entirely determined by an accounting of the expected profits and loss. For instance, is it cheaper to buy someone off, or kill them, with all the resulting collateral expenses? It absolutely is not personal with him, just a question of what will balance the books most profitably. The same is true, to a slightly lesser degree, for Brooke – if I heard a late line of dialogue correctly, her surname in the film is Shields! This is an approach which plays into the unexpected finale, when Nik comes up with a solution which satisfies everybody. Well, almost everybody… This has not one, but two, action heroines who are fun to watch, and was considerably better than I expected

Dir: Brian Cunningham, Matt Niehoff
Star: Abisha Uhl, Al Snow, John Wells, Lauren Albert

Chained

★★
“Puts the gang in chain gang.”

Jaz (Severino) gets arrested by the cops and hauled off to Rikers Island on… well, let’s say slightly bogus charges. Her long time pal, Trouble (Martinez) is on the outside and sets about raising bail for Jaz, by any means necessary. That involves putting together a crew of her own who will seize the opportunity to take over drug-running territory in part of their neighbourhood. Needless to say, this decision doesn’t come without perils of its own, both from the authorities and the others with eyes on the profits to be made. Jaz, meanwhile, is having to come to terms with prison life, and isn’t exactly making friends on the inside. Even when the money for her bond is raised, Jaz’s issues aren’t over. However, Trouble finds a solution, after discovering the cops who arrested her have a little side-hustle of their own.

Considering this was made for $15,000, it has its strengths, Most obviously, it feels authentic. The players here may not have much in the way of formal acting experience or training. But I sense they’re not particularly required to do more than be enhanced versions of themselves. The way they act, talk and behave seems legit. Admittedly, who am I to judge? I didn’t exactly grow up on the mean streets of New York. But I can still tell when there is Obvious Acting going on, and it’s a flaw you often see in this kind of low-budget enterprise. I didn’t have to endure that kind of fakery here, and on the whole, the individual scenes were generally fine.

What didn’t work, unfortunately, was the overall flow, with the various plot threads never coming together into a coherent and engaging narrative. I felt like it was taking place over the span of several decades, but there were points when this wasn’t clear. Any film which wraps up with a brief “Twenty years later” scene – in which nobody seems to have aged a day – is on shaky ground. There were also a lot of moments where the script outran the budget. The “police van” in the opening scene, clearly isn’t. Indeed, I genuinely LOL’d later, as the same interior shows up on a van, rented from U-Haul, used for a raid on another gang. If you can’t afford a police van, or at least a decent facsimile, don’t write a scene needing one. The police station and Rikers Island were also… less than convincing, shall we say.

It is likely a little over-stuffed too. For a movie running only 76 minutes, the story tries to cram a lot in, and some of the threads (such as a pregnancy) end up feeling like afterthoughts. More restraint in writer-director Cardona’s ambition would have been for the best. She’s clearly familiar with street life, its characters, and how they behave. When the story sticks to this, the movie is at its most effective, although there’s nothing particularly new or important being said. When it tries to be more expansive, though, the resources just aren’t there, and the shortcomings are painfully apparent.

Dir: Deborah Cardona
Star: Rosemary Severino, Sheerice Martinez, Tyhem Commodore, Lexie Jose

Brutal

★★★
“Certainly lives up to its title.”

No-one does low-budget hyperviolence like the Japanese. Whether it’s pseudo-snuff like Guinea Pig: Flower of Flesh and Blood, or more fantastical entries such as Mutant Girls Squad, there have likely been more memorable entries from that country than any other. Note my use of the word “memorable”, as distinct from “good”, since they aren’t the same. I’d be hard pushed to recommend this to anyone, unless I knew they were predisposed to microbudget horror of a particularly savage type. I probably won’t ever watch it again. But I have to say this: I will remember it. As will Chris, who came in for the denouement, and was literally jaw-dropped by what she saw. I’m not going to spoil it, so apologies if some of what follows is a little vague.

The film is divided into three sections, and after the first one, called “Man”, you’ll be wondering what the hell it’s doing here. For it is a look at the work of a male serial killer (Butch), who kidnaps and tortures women. That’s basically it, for twenty minutes, and the director believes in getting as up close and personal as possible here, with many of the shots being literally “in the face” of either perpetrator or victim. This certainly enhances the claustrophobic intensity, though I could have done without the shaky-cam attempt to establish its cinema verite credentials. “Do you understand what I’m doing?” he demands of his prisoners. Sadly, the correct answer of “No, because you’re a loony” is never given.

Things get more interesting and relevant in the second section, “Woman”, where the roles are reversed. An unnamed woman (Ayano) honey-traps men back to her room, where she kills them. She has a particular fondness for repeated and enthusiastic stabbings in the crotch, which had me shifting uncomfortably on my chair. She’s also rather more psychologically inclined, conversing with her victims, rather than interrogating them. Though eventually, she brings home someone (Nishina) who is aware of her murderous intentions, and is intent on stopping her. The result is a bloody battle – again, shot in close-up – which swings one way then the other, before our “heroine” [quotes rarely used more advisedly] eventually prevails.

This sets up the third and final act, probably inevitably titled “Man and Woman”, in which the two killers cross paths. She follows him to his flat, apparently aware of his tendencies – how is never made clear. Barely have they crossed the doorstep before battle is joined. And if you thought the previous fight was vicious… Hoo-boy. This ends in a double-whammy of revelations, which make sense in one way – they’re clearly perfect for each other – but count among the more batshit crazy things I’ve ever seen. And I’ve seen some things. While it is somewhat poignant, we know so little about any of the people involved (how could we learn much, given it’s barely an hour between opening and closing credits), the emotional impact is limited. Brutal though? Definitely.

Dir: Takashi Hirose
Star: Butch, Ayano, Takashi Nishina, Katrina Grey

Red Blade

★★★
“Ninja family values.”

Poor teenage girl Mako (Ogura) is having a pretty crappy time of it. Her parents are feuding over money troubles, she’s getting bullied at school, and then, her father ends up arrested for fraud. But, just when things are their lowest, she gets a paper-cut. For reasons that are never entirely explained, this opens a portal through a storybook to a different world, which proves to be rather better. There, she becomes a ninja trainee, learning the skills under master ninja Saizo (Sakaguch), alongside co-trainees Hiro (Tsukimiya) and Yu (Hanakage). At first, things go very well, with her new talents helping her self-confidence and letting her handle the school bullies.

Then she discovers Hiro and Yu’s stories: they are orphans, training for revenge on Kansuke (Joey Iwanaga), the man who killed their parents. And, it turns out, he is also capable of existing both in this world and the “real” one. He has been duelling with Saizo for hundreds of years (in a thread not unlike another Sakaguchi film, the sublime Versus), and also has a hand in the misfortunes which have befallen Mako’s family. The question is, whether the trio of young women have the necessary skills to take down Kansuke, even with the help of Saizo. And if they do, what will that mean for the “storybook” universe?

This opens with close to a 10-minute, almost wordless fight sequence, in which Saizo takes on a slew of enemies (weirdly, I noticed their corpses seem to vanish after being dispatched, though this may just be because of the nature of this world). Things then go very much into a low gear as far as action is concerned. Instead, we have to deal with Mako’s domestic dramas and woes, then her training: and there’s a lot needed, as someone whose skills initially prove more a threat to her friends than her foes. Fortunately, time in this realm is independent of time in the real world, otherwise she’d probably middle-aged by the time she reached the necessary skills. It’s all pretty low-key, enlivened only by the trio’s first mission, to steal some floor plans. The fighting here is rather too informed by fast cutting and jerkycam to be of note.

However, it does redeem itself very nicely with the final battle against Kansuke and his many minions, which goes through a series of combinations, before settling down into Kansuke vs. Mako. This is really good stuff, and does a much better job of showcasing the skills of the various participants than the earlier action scenes, with Ogura standing out unexpectedly well. I will say, the ending has to be considered among the most abrupt I’ve ever seen, and is only slightly defused by the inclusion of a mid-credit sequence, tying up some of the loose ends. The script for this was written by Sion Sono, who gave us Tag. This isn’t nearly as good, yet the strong finish leaves me looking considerably more kindly on it, than it seemed I would at the half-way point.

Dir: Takahiro Ishihara
Star: Yûka Ogura, Kanon Hanakage, Himena Tsukimiya, Tak Sakaguchi