I worship at the altar of my god, Chow Yun-Fat, and this film was a freaking unhinged baptism.
Unlike its other HK counterparts at the time, there's nothing romantic or honorable about Prison on Fire. Its filthy, it's grimy, it's sweaty. This colorful cast of characters are either two-faced backstabbers or murder-happy lunatics who can flip a switch at the drop of a dime. It is the anti-heroic bloodshed.
As the third act crescendos into a no holds barred riot,…
A heart stomper. A ripper of weepy souls. Captures young love and first heartbreak like no other film. Where every frame, emotion, word carries the weight of the world, and ready to burst without a moment's notice or hesitation.
I no longer struggle with the sung dialogue or sing talking. There's a unique rhythm, cadence, and structure to it that feels kinetic - almost like a dance or a fight sequence. There's bolts of melodramatic energy and splashes of kaleidoscopic color that creates an otherworldly and transportative experience that has only ever been copied, but never matched.
I was told about how my Great-Grandmother was murdered in Vietnam when I was very young. She was killed by American soldiers riding in a helicopter one afternoon when she was tending to her garden — as my young Bà Nội watched her own mother perish while she was hiding underneath the floorboards of her house. These nightmarish images seared in my mind made the "iconic" Ride of the Valkyries sequence all the more unnerving.
I have yet to watch…
Vancouver International Film Festival 2024
I've grown to admire Sean Baker's work over the years, and him as a person for championing and capturing the unheard and the unseen through a naturalistic and dignified lens.
This one I don't get, and I don't get how he got here. As the festival smoke settled, I was left feeling empty and confounded by the universal praise for what is, ultimately, a weightless cartoon.
For all of Mikey Madison's efforts, Anora was unjustly a secondary character in her own story (a very scream-y and shout-y story with an offensively regressive ending).
