Weisser's books

[Robert Stuhr]

Weisser and his books have been an issue in alt.asian.movies for several
years.
You will find plenty of postings regarding this topic, not to mention all
those
regarding his person. In his book about HK cinema, there are said to be
over 200
mistakes: Wrong credits, misspelled titles and so on. Weisser's reputation
there is
very low. 

His books are in some way useful simply because there are no other books
available
in english about these movies, Mondo Macabro by Pete Tombs being a notable
exception.
As there are plenty of other and far better books about HK cinema (for
example by
David Bordwell, Stephen Teo, Poshek Fu/David Desser and Ralph Umard) nobody
needs his
HK book anymore. There never has been a volume about any other japanese
genre by him,
so IMHO Weisser simply tries to make a few quick bucks by publishing some
review books. 

Actually, many people in alt.asian.movies believe, Weisser has only seen
very few
of the movies he has been reviewing in his books. As far as I am concerned,
I still
have my japanese cinema Weisser's, have sold my HK Weisser and try to get
as much
information elsewhere as possible. Mark Shilling's book is far more useful
for a 
fan than Weisser (except when you're only interested in sex films)!  

Isn't Weisser closely related to Video Search of Miami and their pirated
videos?


Robert Stuhr