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Joker: Folie à Deux (2024)
It's like the Joker from the comics directed this sequel deliberately to upset everyone who liked the first Joker... It's a strange movie but I liked it!
Let's say the Joker leaped out of the comics in 2019 and witnessed the global success of Todd Phillips' Joker and Joaquin Phoenix winning an Academy Award.
An idea sparks, and a wide grin spreads across his face...
The Joker decides to kidnap Todd Phillips and produce a sequel in hopes of destroying the audience's conventional joy and expectations, Joker: Folie à Deux would be the result.
When this sequel was announced, my first reaction was a puzzled head scratch. "Didn't they say everything already with the first Joker?"
Todd Phillips had already deconstructed his version of the Joker. It was not a comic-accurate interpretation, and he was borrowing the icon to say something of his own.
An unstable man in an insane, depressing world (too artificially depressing, in my opinion) is pushed to murderous insanity-the end.
The last thing I'd expect from Joker was a sequel to a bigger movie universe loaded with mid-credit scenes. Folie à Deux's trailer suggests that the Joker, now teamed with Harley Quinn, will cause social upheaval and chaos in Gotham City, but I never bought that for a second...
I can't believe I'm saying this, but I thoroughly enjoyed Joker: Folie à Deux. Unironically.
It's a strange movie operating as a niche character study of Arthur Fleck, meditating on the first film's events.
The audience assumes that Arthur Fleck fully becomes the Joker in the first film. However, Todd Phillips does not take that view and dislikes audiences cheering him on as an anti-hero figure, and proceeds to break down that populist assumption.
Is Arthur Fleck the Joker? Or is the Joker a character manifested out of mental necessity?
As shown in the first film, the Joker has a cult group of followers and supporters who cheer him on, most notably Lee, played by Lady Gaga, this movie's version of Harley Quinn.
Why do these people admire the Joker as a symbol? Does the Joker symbolize their beliefs, or did the followers choose the Joker to be their symbol? Are they truly ideologically aligned?
The film questions who society chooses to idolize and how people and media eat up people's life stories during their 15 minutes of fame and blow them up to a legendary status beyond who that person truly is. This applies to how we idolize movie stars, instant celebrities, and serial killers...
Where does that need for an idol come from? Is it the same human need for a narrative like Greek myths in the past to give us something to believe in and cheer for... but gone wrong?
Joker: Folie à Deux got me thinking about these themes, and for that, it's the superior film simply because it had more to say.
The first film, Joaquin Phoenix's performance aside, was too artificially depressing and lacked conviction. If making silly faces at a child on a bus will get you yelled harshly at by the mother, then anyone would go crazy.
There's been a semantic debate about if Folie à Deux is a musical. It's not Singing in the Rain, where the songs are completely original. The songs in Folie à Deux are mostly cover songs, but it's not Moulin Rouge either because the motivations behind the songs come from an inner space, not external like we're used to.
Namely, the musical numbers are a projection of what's happening in Arthur's mind, a sort of continuation of the "is this happening" hallucinations from the first film. And for some audiences, that doesn't count. The songs worked for me, though.
I understand the hate behind Joker: Folie à Deux. It deserves it in some ways. It is mean-spirited to blow up populist expectations by deliberately making an anticlimactic sequel.
Imagine the parents who got a babysitter, paid parking, and popcorn were absolutely let down by this sequel and drove home in awkward silence, upset.
On the other hand... this anticlimactic turn is unexpectedly cool, fresh, and, if I may say, hilarious on a meta-level.
The Joker from the comics would get the joke.
Beetlejuice Beetlejuice (2024)
Overly nostalgic sequel that callbacks to the first film, instead of playing with new weirdness
While the nostalgia is entertaining, Beetlejuice Beetlejuice is like seeing an elementary school friend after 36 years and realizing they're still the same. Nothing has changed. You're ecstatic to see them, and it's still fun like it used to be, but you were hoping for some change for their sake.
Having taken a break from being tired of big-budget filmmaking, Tim Burton's passion for film reignites as he returns to his aesthetic roots, bringing back the practical effects and handmade kitschy look from the first Beetlejuice.
It's fun to see Michael Keaton and Winona Ryder back in their roles, but their characters are stuck on callback duty referring back to the first film and its old gags. Day-O....
I wished the writers could have given Michael Keaton better material. There were one too many gags of Beetlejuice speaking in a dubbed voice.
Alfred Gough and Miles Millar's screenplay juggles great plot ideas in the air but is indecisive about which one to focus on, much like a first draft. The most intriguing storyline is Jenna Ortega's Astrid meeting a love interest in Winter River.
The new characters are hilarious in concept. Willem Dafoe got a few chuckles in as a dead star of a cop show who becomes a ghost detective in the afterlife. Justin Theroux scores the most laughs as Rory, Lydia's TV show producer and boyfriend. That said, the gags are 50/50 and the laughs are inconsistent.
When the finale kicks in, these multiple subplots are fast-forwarded and quickly resolved in an unsatisfyingly clipped manner. I wish the first act moved faster and dispensed with its Easter eggs to allow more time for the more interesting storylines to breathe.
The nostalgia callbacks hamper the comedy, making it less funny than it should be. There's so much new weirdness that the film never gets to truly play with, as it has its foot firmly stuck in the past. The most disappointing part is Beetlejuice and Lydia's dynamic is still very much the same.
The Beetlejuice cartoon show was one of my favorites growing up and it famously rewritten Beetlejuice and Lydia as best friends and they go on adventures in the afterworld together. James Cameron brilliantly changed the Terminator from a villain into the hero in T2.
...Why can't they change things up more?
Love Lies (2024)
Exploring modern loneliness in the smartphone era
A high school teacher once taught me that everytime something is invented, something else gets replaced. Cars replaced horse carriages. Emails replaces letter writing. QR code ordering replaces restaurant service.
With all its multiple connective social functions, smartphones have indeed turned the world into a much lonelier place.
Love Lies explores that modern loneliness, and finding love and connection in the smartphone era. It's distinctly a story about love, rather than a love story.
Dr. Veronica Yu, a renowned recently-widowed gynecologist, joins a dating app and falls for French engineer Alain Jeunet.
It's revealed that Veronica is a victim of an internet fraud. Alain Jeunet is played by Joe Lee, a young man freshly recruited by a local crime syndicate that specializes in running scams via dating apps.
First-time director Ho Miu Ki, screenwriter of Stephen Chow's Mermaid, hooks the audience cross-cutting between Veronica and Joe's storylines, highlighting the irony between what's being imagined online and what's actually happening behind the scenes in reality.
There are laughs, even though strictly speaking, it's not a comedy.
The mood is clean and pristine, filled with long contemplative silences, like the film's wearing noise-canceling headphones. This uncomfortable stark silence, with nobody around, evokes the feeling of loneliness.
Sandra Ng and MC Cheung Tin-fu give solid performances, playing their roles completely straight and giving the sense that despite that their interaction is a lie across digital space, there's a tinge of an unspeakable connection there.
Stephy Tang's Joan stuck out as a character that can only exist in movies. She's a fraud schemer but happens to be attractive, dressed scantily-clad, looking like she's about to go clubbing. I'd imagine the real case to be a much sketchier and creepier person.
The story ends on an odd message that suggests love exists in one's mind, and that as long as one thinks it's happening, then it's real. It's a seemingly woeful and profound note to end on, like ending a piano ballad with a stretched out minor notes.
I don't buy that sentiment. Having read recent articles about loneliness being a public health issue in our current age of handheld devices, I am sure a lot of people would disagree and say, "No, love can't just be in my mind. Love has to be reciprocated to be real. Someone give it to me now!"
Alien: Romulus (2024)
A fun Alien movie with 2 strong leads and innovative set pieces, but doesn't go anywhere new.
As the ninth film in the franchise, Alien: Romulus is as entertaining and fresh as an Alien sequel can be.
Colony workers Rain Carradine and her adoptive android brother Andy discover their work contract on LV-410 has been forcibly extended by the Weyland-Yutani corporation.
The siblings join a group of workers and hatch a plan to retrieve cyrostasis chambers from a derelict space station, thus allowing far-distance space travel to their home planet Yvaga...
Writer-director Fede Alvarez, director of Don't Breathe and the 2013 Evil Dead remake, approaches the material as a labor of love, employing practical effects and innovative action sequences in the spirit of upping the ante and returning to the franchise's roots.
The Alien franchise has run its course since James Cameron's Aliens. The audience is aware of the Xenomorph's life cycle, eliminating any possible suspense, and there's just no way to bypass that, period.
As a passionate fan of the series, Fede Alvarez works hard to incorporate elements from all the Alien films, even Prometheus. Like the Xenomorph absorbing elements of its host body, the final product is a hodgepodge of familiar elements that plays its hand too safe.
Fortunately, there are more hits than misses.
Cailee Spaeny and David Jonsson are charming and memorable leads that the audience cares about and root for. The human-android sibling relationship is affecting and is the heart of the piece. I am pining for a sequel just to see their story continue.
The practical effects approach was effective, giving weight to the environment, which blended beautifully with the cinematography. The Facehuggers, as practical puppets, were far creepier than the Xenomorphs. I wished more films would go back to practical effects.
The action set pieces are creatively designed, like levels in a fantastic unmade Alien video game that brilliantly plays with the established rules of the Xenomorph.
As for the misses, the film features an actor from the original Alien as a full CGI creation, like Grand Moff Tarkin from Rogue One. The computer effects of recreating a person's face remains stranded in the uncanny valley. Against the backdrop of the film's realistic sets, the CGI character's plastique look was unnecessarily distracting.
The famous line uttered by Sigourney Weaver's Ellen Ripley is quoted in the most toe-curling forced manner. I squinted...and the sting kept drilling into me until I had an epiphany: Easter eggs are not cool anymore.
Romulus illustrated the fine line between linking the world building details from previous movies and just straight out re-enacting iconic moments. I loved how Alvarez linked the details from the other films but when he re-enacted iconic moments from the series, it felt like there was a huge missed opportunity in pushing the series forward to new places.
As fun as it all is, the same core issue for the Alien franchise remains: the audience still need to be taken somewhere new.
The Bikeriders (2023)
A lifeless nostalgic postcard of 1960s motorcycle culture
Even with its incredible cast, The Bikeriders is a dull period drama that relies too much on motorcycle chic for intrigue, resulting in an empty nostalgic postcard of the early motorcycling subculture that lacks tension or suspense.
Set in 1960s Chicago, Kathy meets and falls in love with Benny, a member of the Vandals, a hobbyist motorcycling club led by Johnny. As the Vandals slowly become a violent gang, Benny must choose between Kathy and Johnny.
Writer-director Jeff Nichols' approach to the material is too insider. He transports the audience back to the 1960s biker culture, but that's it. The focus is the backdrop, in the vintage motorcycles and the growling engine noises, the leather jackets, and cruising with all your best friends and going wherever you want to go... I have that motorcycle fantasy, too, but it's not enough for a dramatic narrative.
It was difficult to place what The Bikeriders was about. There are subdued elements of a gangster story here, from the Vandal's formation, the rise of power, and the descent into crime, taking it too far until their eventual undoing. If that was the theme, it's presented too blandly. Storywise, what you predict will happen happens. There are no surprises.
There's also a theme of reinventing yourself as escapism, Tom Hardy's character Johnny models his image and the Vandals, after Marlon Brando in The Wild Ones. Austin Butler's Benny takes after James Dean.
However, Jeff Nichols' decision to have Jodie Comer's character narrate the story puts a barrier between the audience and the two male leads. Any insight into Johnny or Benny is only through a secondary viewpoint. If that was the theme, it didn't come through.
Why do these bikers feel the need to escape and create their counterculture? Why do they feel the need to commit crime? I had no real insight.
The cast creates interesting characters, and the accents are fun to listen to. It's hard to say if the performances were good because I didn't feel moved by them.
It'd be interesting to be a fly on the wall and observe director Jeff Nichols pitching this script to his incredible cast. What hooked all of these great actors to tell this story? Did they achieve it?
Presumably, the actors had more fun riding the motorcycles than I did watching the film.
Robot Dreams (2023)
An earnest and emotional 2D animated film that explores loneliness and the importance of friendship, very close to a masterpiece
After seeing the poster for Robot Dreams, my eyes instantly screamed. I knew immediately I had to see this movie.
What struck me was that I realized how much my eyes missed seeing 2D animation, having grown up on Looney Tunes, The Simpsons, 90's Disney films, and 90's Saturday morning cartoons.
With all the technological developments in animation, my eyes still prefer the hand-drawn, flat 2D look with less shading and photorealistic depth and more abstract basic geometric shapes. All that extra sensory detail, like real hair strands and water ripples, is too much.
Set in 1980s New York, populated by animals, a dog tired of living alone purchases a robot companion through mail order. They become best friends until one fateful summer day; they are separated when the dog is forced to leave the robot at the beach...
Adapted from a graphic novel, Robot Dreams operates almost completely wordless and explores themes of dealing with loneliness, the blossoming of a friendship, and, eventually, life's bittersweet way of setting people on separate paths.
The silent film aspect was endearing. It was infinitely more cinematic to watch the characters behaving in silence and expressing themselves through action. It earnestly pulls in the audience, and I slowly felt I was moving along with these characters with every little gesture.
Animated characters these days all speak like awkward misfits, rapidly shifting between speaking then doubting and commenting on what was just said.
Is this a result of the rise of geek culture in the past decade? Or are writers doing it unconsciously? Children are modeling themselves after these examples. Simba from The Lion King accidentally got his father killed, but at least he sounds sure of himself.
The animators recreate New York to great geographical detail and hilariously cast animals as New Yorkers. There's a randomness to how the animals are assigned, and I started to keep track for the fun of it. It was intoxicating to take in all the dazzling backdrops.
There's one crucial story point that remains unconvincing. The dog could have tried harder to retrieve his robot after being separated. Just pull a Karen!
It's not the point, yes, but it took too much away from the overall experience. It was a huge sour lump to swallow to go along with the rest of the story.
Overall, Robot Dreams is a much-needed breath of fresh air to the high-octane mainstream animated movies and a hair's length from being truly great. I was amused, endeared, and moved by it all, but I wish it could have been on an even deeper level.
Trap (2024)
An entertaining one-time watch for Shyamalan fans with a fun pulpy Josh Hartnett performance
While attending a pop concert with his daughter Riley, firefighter Cooper Adams notices the heavy security surrounding the performance venue. He snoops around and finds out the concert has been set up as a trap by the FBI to catch a serial killer known as "The Butcher", which is revealed to be Cooper himself...
M. Night Shyamalan films are all feature-length Twilight Zone episodes, packaging high concept what-if scenarios as old school Hitchcockian thrillers.
Shyamalan is, and always has been, pushing whimsy. His plots trapeze walk on the thin knife edge between astonishing and preposterously stupid.
What may be perceived as a mistake or flaw during the movie, I tend to accept it as how M. Night Shyamalan perceives the world works. It's more fun to just go along with his warped unconventional ideas. It's afterwards upon digestion that I decide how much the film resonated with me.
There are scenarios in Trap that would never happen in the way Shyamalan depicts them. One scene in which Josh Hartnett's character gains access to the performance stage seems too easy.
For Trap, I enjoyed the experimental reversal of having the villain as the protagonist in the predicament of having to escape the police. Although the audience isn't rooting for Josh Hartnett's character to win per se, there's a suspense of seeing how he'll logistically achieve this goal.
Josh Hartnett gives an entertaining pulpy performance. In conversation, his line deliveries are like bad dramatic readings, and retains that psychopathic quality of saying what he thinks people want to hear.
Trap falls in the mid-range of Shyamalan's films. It's beneath his best, like The Sixth Sense, Unbreakable, or Signs but surpasses the laughably bad like The Happening. It's in the range of his last two films, Old and A Knock at the Cabin, which make for entertaining one-time watches, just as long as you go along with his whimsies.
On a final note, Shyamalan's daughter Saleka, a real-life musical artist, is cast as the fictional pop artist Lady Raven. People have sneered at this, calling it nepotism.
This criticism, in my opinion, is an oversimplification. Since 2015's The Visit, all of Shyamalan's projects have been self-financed, including his show in Apple TV. Having put his money on the line to make his own alternative experimental films, you must respect that as the highest artistic integrity.
Borderlands (2024)
Uninspired, unfunny by-the-numbers video game adaptation
Eli Roth's video game adaptation borrows the bright colored aesthetic and ragtag team dynamic from James Gunn's Guardians of the Galaxy and The Suicide Squad, but fails to copy what made them resonate.
Bounty hunter Lilith is recruited by Atlas, a powerful corporate magnate, to return to her home planet Pandora to rescue his daughter Tina. On Pandora, Lilith forms an alliance with a team of misfits: Roland the soldier, the psychotic Krieg and a robot named Claptrap.
The hackneyed script is primarily concerned with moving its cast from set piece to set piece, but forgets to build an entertaining team dynamic between the cast. As contrasting and outlandish as the characters seem, their contrasting personalities never clash.
Reportedly, one of the screenwriters removed their own credit from the film. I'm sure there's a fascinating story behind that to come.
The humor falls completely flat. Move aside, Jar Jar Binks. Jack Black's Claptrap the robot takes the mantle as one of the most annoying movie characters, endlessly misfiring stale one-liners into cricket-filled theater silence.
A part of me was waiting for funny zingers from Kevin Hart, but he was playing the straight part in an oddly restrained manner, as if he was directed to just say the lines, and not allowed to improvise.
As much as she tries to hold it together, Cate Blanchett falls short of creating an iconic female action lead role. The material is just not giving her enough to build a performance around. Although I'm unfamiliar with the Borderlands games, Blanchett does seem miscast in this part.
As a result, I didn't buy into the Borderlands world. This is a barren desert planet with limited resources, yet everything looks so colorful and the people behave so casually. Nobody looks convincingly hungry, desperate or crazy. There's even a shuttle bus service that ferries people around on this planet.
Why do we need to care about these people finding this girl on this planet? Why does it matter?
Eventually, my brain gave up and I fell asleep through the third act. I watched the rest in glimpses and yawns.
Taam pun juen ga (2024)
A cliched remake that's carried by Sean Lau and Francis Ng's lead performances just enough to get by
Crisis Negotiators is a serviceable formulaic action thriller that's elevated by Sean Lau Ching Wan and Francis Ng's lead performances and supporting cast. The film's biggest hamper is its paint-by-numbers unambitious approach to its material.
A remake of 1998's The Negotiator starring Samuel L. Jackson and Kevin Spacey, the story follows senior negotiator Cheuk Man Wai who has been framed for murder and holds a police station hostage to clear his name, with the help of a former negotiator- turned-social worker Tse Ka Chun.
Looking over Herman Yau's filmography, he's quite the survivor of the Hong Kong industry. Reputable for bringing his films on budget and on time, Yau has worked consistently across a widespread of genres, releasing B movies quick enough to catch what's trending, such as undercover police thrillers or Ip Man follow-ups.
Now as the go-to guy for Hong Kong-Mainland co-production action films, Yau's paint-by-numbers, veering towards televisual style is a commercial choice to create easy entertainment that everybody can follow-and probably puts the investors at ease. And Yau achieves that.
However, it leaves a lot to be desired. We are all so familiar with cop films already. There's little attempt to deliver anything new or challenge its audience.
The film constantly over-explains itself. Every line of dialogue either explains, reminds or plans out what needs to be done. There are flashbacks to scenes we have just seen. You could follow the entire story from listening while making dinner in the kitchen.
Lau Ching Wan and Francis Ng deserve better material. That said, it's impressive watching the two veteran actors rise above the written material. They masterfully maneuver around their lines, adding nuances and gravitas in the silences.
Producer Andy Lau disappears in a memorable cameo as a mentally unstable father who starts a crisis in the Social Welfare Department office with his wife. It's Lau's best recent performance.
Yeung Wai Lun from The Sparring Partner is also funny as a police informant who becomes one of the hostages.
The most memorable scene is Sean Lau taunting a novice police negotiator on the phone and it's the closest the film gets to letting loose and allowing the actors to play with the material. My theater erupted in laughter from the fresh and immediate energy.
Everybody seems to be delivering these stale lines as written. How often can an actor and director explore a scene until it's right in these productions?
Imagine if the production let Herman Yau, Sean Lau and Francis Ng chisel and tweak their scenes to create something more magical and exciting.
At the bare minimum, I need to see that attempt.
Civil War (2024)
Alex Garland's haunting portrait of a possible future
From Alex Garland, writer-director of Ex Machina and Men, Civil War is a gripping arthouse political thriller that examines politics as part of the human condition, without preaching for the left or right. It is speculative fiction working at its best, presenting a haunting warning about a possible future if humanity is not careful.
As a civil war occurs in an alternate dystopian America, four war journalists journey cross-country through the warzones towards Washington DC to interview the authoritarian third-term President, who's holed up in the White House fighting rebel forces.
War photographers are fascinating people. I've longed to meet one. What is the psychology behind this absurd job? How do they mentally deal with the danger? Is it the artistic endeavor of landing the perfect shot? Or the ultimate journalistic scoop? Or is it about adrenaline and living on the edge?
The film suggests it's all of the above. The audience rides shotgun alongside the four characters in the car and through cinematic osmosis, you feel the vibe of this alternative America. The film encourages the audience to reflect on its images, the same way one thinks deep thoughts looking outside their car window on a road trip.
The war set pieces are nail-bitingly tense. Following the journalists sneaking through gunfire and snapping photos, the whole time in my head I was screaming for them to get out of there.
America is a civil and pristine place in everyone's minds. We see it daily on the news, with clean buildings and steady peaceful traffic. The truth is, that we mentally associate war and civil unrest in other countries.
Alex Garland subverts this by showing the Americana as a wartorn wasteland in an array of abandoned shopping malls, and smoking buildings, littered with gunfire and protests erupting in the streets that we normally see from the Middle East or Vietnam.
The imagery is unsettling to watch. Who knew that the global media set the Americana as the baseline for safety in our minds?
Kirsten Dunst's war photographer perpetually carries a look of disconnect, blending in naturally with the gritty surroundings and making the world feel lived in. The four photographers create an engaging and subtle dynamic, despite it not being a character piece. Jesse Plemons also shows up in a frightening scene-stealing cameo.
Civil War is ultimately more about the journey than the destination. The true story is in its war imagery, not the plot, and it is powerfully delivered.
Garland has announced Civil War as his last directorial effort, choosing to focus only on writing in the future. He has experienced his fair share of struggles dealing with studios in his directing career but I truly hope that won't be his last directorial effort. We'll be losing a unique cinematic voice.
Jiu Long cheng zhai · Wei cheng (2024)
An entertaining blend of comic book action and Hong Kong nostalgia
Twilight of the Warriors: Walled In is a colorful blazing fury of fisticuffs that spins the infamous Hong Kong landmark into an entertaining pop art mythology.
Director Soi Cheang, cinematographer Cheng Siu Keung, and production designer Kenneth Mak strike the perfect tone, crossing Hong Kong nostalgia with a wuxia comic book aesthetic.
The story chronicles the rise of Chan Lok-Kwan, an illegal immigrant and bare-knuckle boxer surviving on the streets of 1980's Hong Kong. Getting in trouble with local gangster Mr. Big, Chan finds refuge in the Kowloon Walled City, a lawless territory outside of British Hong Kong, and is taken in by gang boss Tornado and his underlings.
The British Government announcing the demolishing of the Walled City ignites a gangland war, settling personal vendettas and seizing the Walled City.
Kenji Tanigaki's inventive fight choreography is fluid and powerful, slightly exaggerating the character's comic book fighting abilities just right.
The Kowloon Walled City set is exquisitely detailed, keeping with Soi Cheang's trademark of arranging garbage into intricately beautiful backdrops.
The set design and fight choreography are well integrated and tell the story visually, with the characters scurrying through the cement crevices, alleyways, and scaffolding.
Raymond Lam, largely known as a TV actor, shines in an iconic movie role and establishes himself as a solid action lead. As Tornado, Louis Koo gives solid support, building a memorable character separate from the star persona created from ubiquitous film appearances. Richie Jen's mob boss is the weakest link, lacking grit and veering into dress-up pantomime territory. Phillip Ng steals the show as the crazy laughing villain King.
The one flaw is a gaping plot hole, an unexplained story contrivance of "how did that character know that?" The error wasn't obvious to me until after the film ended, but it hangs there like a jigsaw puzzle missing its last piece.
Walled In is no masterpiece, but a well-executed crowd-pleaser that has entered the zeitgeist at the exact moment for the audience.
In its quieter moments, Soi Cheang directs the audience's eyes toward the lives of the Walled City residents. Even though this is an exaggerated comic book film, it nostalgically refers to real history where people lived and struggled in these harsh conditions. This is the film's heart; it works in a "look how far we've come" way.
Locally, the film's been the talk of the town, and everybody I know has seen it, some even more than once. It achieves a classic status that Hong Kong people will remember fondly, like a Bruce Lee film.
Gojira -1.0 (2023)
A moving gripping human drama about WWII aftermath in Japan
Godzilla Minus One brilliantly transcends the Kaiju genre, delivering a gripping human drama first, and a monster movie second. Set in World War II era Japan, writer-director Takashi Yamazaki creates a true thematic sequel to the original 1954 Gojira, telling a culturally Japanese story.
In 1945, Koichi Shikishima, a kamikaze pilot flees battle and inadvertently causes the death of a garrison during an encounter with the monster known as Godzilla. Returning home to Tokyo and guilt-ridden by his actions, he supports Noriko Oishi, a woman whose family died in the bombing, and an orphaned baby...
The film's most impressive feat is it turns the audience Japanese, viscerally putting them in the shoes of a WWII Kamikaze pilot suffering survivor's guilt after going AWOL.
To anybody non-Japanese, the idea of being a Kamikaze pilot is a ridiculous waste of one's life, even a laughable notion. But under the Japanese Bushido code, it's a great dishonor for a soldier to value one's life when everyone is dying in battle.
That guilt is beautifully examined and fully explored through the story and performances. Seeing strangers form a newly formed family amidst wartorn Japan was powerfully moving.
Godzilla works best as a metaphor, a physical embodiment of the horrors of war, as opposed to a pro wrestler. Takashi Yamazaki understands this and chisels an extra dimension here, having Godzilla symbolize survivor's guilt from Shikishima's perspective.
Every time Godzilla emerges in front of Shikishima, the audience immediately feels the purgatory that he's in, subversively turning Shikishima's guilt into ours.
The special effects look gorgeous for its budget, and it was great to see the special effects team win at this year's Oscars. That said, I was so immersed in the drama that I paid no mind to how Godzilla looked.
This film defies the idea that the human characters in a monster movie don't matter and that the audience is just there to watch the action. I love that the film takes such a subjective and personal viewpoint. Watching the main character work on a post-WWII minesweeper ship clearing sea mines was eerily arresting and effectively shows the horrors of war, far superior to Oppenheimer.
I cared about the characters, which made the action all the more gripping. There is a pitch-perfect amount of Godzilla. The monster appears sparingly, but when he does, it is for maximum dramatic effect.
I lament that Godzilla Minus One, outside of Japan, wasn't screened theatrically across Asia. An unconfirmed news report stated that Toho and Legendary shared a contractual agreement that they wouldn't release competing Godzilla films within the same year.
Whatever the reason was, it's a big darn Kaiju-sized shame. Godzilla Minus One had the potential to be a hot topic and permeate the culture in a bigger, badder way if it had a theatrical release.
World War II happened across the Asian Pacific. Imagine the potential water cooler discussions.
Ming'an (2023)
An excessive, overacted and soulless crime drama
Mad Fate, the latest from Limbo director Soi Cheang and produced by Johnnie To, is a mean-spirited, nasty crime drama that tries too hard to execute its ridiculous superstition-laden premise, following its soulless characters trying to fool God in a hyper-violent depressing cartoon. It's best enjoyed ironically for its warped bent view of humanity.
San, a fortune teller meets Siu Dong, a cafe delivery boy who possesses a burning psychopathic desire for murder. Siu Dong has a criminal record of assault and animal abuse. Through San's calculations, the boy is destined to spend life in prison for a brutal murder that's due to happen.
San proceeds to help Siu Dong through Feng Shui rituals and practices, guiding him to be a good person and steering him away from his fate. Will the boy change his fate? Or is San just crazy?
Mad Fate's premise and execution are contradictory from the get-go. It wants to build an ambiguity about Feng Shui but then presents it as fact.
To properly ground its premise, writers Yau Nai-hoi and Melvin Li's script suggests that Gordon Lam's fortune teller could be going crazy, from having a family history of mental illness. However, the script blows this out of the water.
Gordon Lam's fortune teller proves to be scientifically correct in his fortune-telling readings to a blatantly accurate degree. San can calculate where people will be geographically whenever he needs to chat with them. San regularly screams at God, represented as the sun in the creamy clouds above (the same one from Soi Cheang's Accident), which appears to be silently mocking him.
This lack of solid foundation launches the story into utter ridiculousness. We are really watching a movie about a superstitious man trying to best God and it's too far-fetched of a concept to suspend disbelief for.
Roland Emmerich's Moonfall asked the audience to entertain Hollow Moon conspiracy theories to follow its sci-fi story. Mad Fate asks the audience to raise their superstitions to believe that Feng Shui can change the fate of a psychopathic killer.
Soi Cheang's trademark gritty graphic novel aesthetic eliminates subtext, or hope. There's a morbid sense of malaise in the air where the most cynical thing you can think of about humanity is immediately played out violently.
I hated the characters and the world this film is trying hard to manufacture. It artificially tries to make the audience feel awful and hopeless, but it sinfully forgets to add heart.
I was disengaged from frame one but out of curiosity, watched how far it took its premise. I forgot the ending a day after.
Xue bao (2023)
A deep discussion on living in harmony with nature
Snow Leopard is an arthouse drama that meditates on the subject of animal preservation. It presents a deep poetic exploration into the transcendental from a Tibetan context. It is the final film of writer-director Pema Tseden, who passed away last year before the film's release.
Set in a village in the deep Tibetan mountains, a snow leopard sneaks into a sheep pen and kills 9 sheep.
Jinpa, a local shepherd, locks the snow leopard in his sheep pen and vows to kill the snow leopard unless there's financial compensation for his loss.
As an endangered species, the snow leopard is protected under environmental protection law and killing it is considered a major crime.
Nyima, Jinpa's brother, tips off his former classmate Dradul, a TV reporter, who arrives with a TV crew to cover the incident.
Having past encounters with the snow leopard and acting out of Buddhist faith, Nyima is against killing the animal. Nyima's father is also against the killing, viewing the snow leopard as a spirit animal, and that it used to be a cultural tradition to set the creature free.
As the family and the TV crew wait for the authorities to arrive, they argue over what to do with the snow leopard...
Writer-director Pema Tseden dives into the uncanny, suggesting that there's an unspoken relationship between man and animals. Is there a mutual balance between the species, or perhaps even a long-forgotten friendship? There's even a suggestion of humanity within the snow leopard itself.
Tseden communicates these rich fanciful ideas with earnestness, patiently easing the audience into the Tibetan perspective, examining the problem through tradition, modernity, law, religion and money. Slowly, the film pulls you into its spiritual head space.
As Jinpa explains in the story, the snow leopard usually eats 1 to 2 sheep, which he willingly tolerates as an acceptable loss. Why did the snow leopard kill 9 sheep this particular time? Was this an act of rage or a final battle cry from being the last of its species? Did the snow leopard cross the line because humans crossed the line first?
I was reminded of the divisive dinosaur scene from Terrence Malick's Tree of Life. It's a scene that I understood intellectually but didn't feel in the gut viscerally. Perhaps Malick simply made his point too quickly.
Tseden inherently understands the screen time required in making such a profound statement and not coming off pretentious. Tseden's greatest talent, in my opinion, is letting the audience sit there, observe and soak it all in with no fear of boring them.
Pema Tseden will be sorely missed. There's a universality to how he presents Tibetan culture in his films with such poetry and beauty.
Dune: Part Two (2024)
Technically marvelous but loses Part One's mystique from switching to a faster blockbuster pacing
Dune: Part 2 is a remarkable technical achievement that blends the line between arthouse cinema and a commercial blockbuster and continues to raise the standard for sci-fi epic cinema.
Director Denis Villeneuve ups the spectacle factor, delivering large-scale desert action sequences against a romping Hans Zimmer score. Greg Frasier's breathtaking cinematography continues to reach new heights.
It takes tremendous artistry and effort to find depth and shadow in a perpetually flat and bland desert. I tried to photograph a desert on holiday recently. It's bloody difficult.
The spice, presented as fine sparkling orange grain sprinkled in sand, is sumptuous and addictive to look at. The sandworm riding sequence in IMAX is spectacular. Period
As Paul Atriedes, Timothy Chalamet convincingly transitions from a boy into a full-fledged leader with a hard edge and grit. The central theme of being a messiah for the support of the masses for personal gain without true faith in the cause is richly fascinating.
And yet, Dune: Part Two is a less engaging experience.
Part Two uses the pacing of a commercial blockbuster to cover a bigger chunk of its ambitious story. Having rewatched the first Dune an hour before seeing the second, the pacing was jarring.
What's gone is the lingering mood from the first Dune, where the shots were held a bit too long and slowly immersed the audience into its world. There was a metaphysical quality to Paul's contradictory visions that was compelling. The mood was delivering all the emotions.
Now, these wistful moments are shortened and traded for plot points. It is delivered like summarized information.
I'm aware I'm in the minority and the stylistic transition worked for most people, which is great. I just left the theater exhausted-undesirably I might add.
Perhaps it's the nature of the source material itself. Frank Herbert's book is embedded with lots of scattered themes. The challenge of adapting it theatrically will always be choosing parts of it and condensing it into something cohesive.
The first Dune captured my imagination more deeply. It was like slowly walking into a world with culture, history and intimate access into the characters' inner thoughts. Part Two retained some of those qualities, no doubt, but now's there's an usher hurrying me along to keep the line moving.
Di er shi tiao (2024)
A hilarious, thought-provoking comedy courtroom drama from Zhang Yimou
From director Zhang Yimou, director of Hero, Shadow, and Full River Red, Article 20 is a courtroom drama uniquely packaged as a Chinese New Year comedy, cleverly broaching the sensitive topic of justifiable defense.
Han Ming, a newly assigned public prosecutor, works on a controversial case involving a husband stabbing his loan shark after raping his wife. Is it murder or a justifiable defense?
Meanwhile, Han Ming's son Han Yu Ming gets into a fight in school stopping a bullying incident. The injured bully is the son of the school guidance counselor Mr Zhang, who has reported the crime to the police.
As a criminal record threatens Yu Ming's chances of getting into a good university, Han Ming and his wife Li Maojuan rush to mediate the situation and plead for Mr Zhang to retract the police report...
Based on real-life defense cases in China, Li Meng and Wang Tianyi's script is sharp and thought-provoking. It brilliantly uses comedy to discuss the heavy uncomfortable topic of the often-neglected self-defense clause.
Zhang Yimou shoots the script as written, preserving its tight structure and rhythm, leaving his signature color palette aside. As seen previously in Full River Red, Zhang is surprisingly a talented comedy director-and in a witty fashion! There's a self-referential gag that refers to Zhang Yimou's previous film Full River Red that's wickedly funny. I prefer Zhang's new artistic direction making comedies over his wuxia or historical epic. This is among Zhang Yimou's best.
The hyper-verbal comedy between Lei Jiayin and Ma Li as the bickering husband and wife is hilarious. This becomes the emotional center, as a lightened comedic take on a family caught in a legal snag and arguing about what to do. Whenever the film switches gears and gets serious, it's gripping.
How do we judge what is right in a given situation? Do we judge from what's written in law or intuition? Can something be lawful if it's not in the law book? How do you judge motivation when a person's intentions change every second?
The current wave of Chinese crime films is a fascinating trend. They have more narrative freedom now, allowing for all sorts of crime subgenres and all conclude with a public message discouraging said crime. The restrictions have become its version of the early Hollywood Hays Code. Article 20 has beat the system, somehow.
Article 20's greatest achievement is how it packages itself as a laugh-out-loud comedy, cleverly slips past government restrictions inoffensively to acknowledge and ease the public about these misjudged self-defense cases in the past. From the end title cards, the government is on board as well.
I haven't seen a Chinese film quite like this. It's something to behold.
Dream Scenario (2023)
A Kafkaesque absurdist comedy with an exceptional Nicolas Cage performance
Dream Scenario Review
A famous quote from Oscar Wilde says that there are two tragedies in life- not getting what you want and getting it.
This quote, in its essence, is the theme of Dream Scenario, a surreal absurdist comedy by writer-director Kristoffer Borgli starring Nicolas Cage.
Paul Matthews, a meek evolutionary biology professor, feels unnoticed and unappreciated. He discovers that a colleague is publishing a book based on ant intelligence, a premise he first came up with when they were in school. He meets to confront her about stealing his idea but at the last minute, begs to be credited.
Paul's life is irrevocably changed when he discovers he's the subject of people's dreams worldwide, turning him into an instant celebrity. While delighting the attention, Paul is upset to hear that he behaves passively and does nothing in the dreams...
Nicolas Cage delivers an impressive performance, unleashing all his acting tools, and transforming an otherwise plain and passive role into an engaging presence.
Everybody laughs at Cage's bad B movies but misses that it's the secret to his madness. The fact is, Cage chooses his parts for his reasons beyond what's written in the script. It's in these crazy indies where he practices loud crazy experimental performances to fine-tune his acting sensibilities.
He brings those sensibilities to express the film's concept, a Kafkaesque allegory about manifesting what you want in life and being ultimately disappointed by it.
As Paul Matthews, Cage captures an everyday dissatisfaction, that deep fear of not living up to your potential and being recognized or remembered for something, heck, anything!
It's a technical performance consisting of body language and unspoken gestures. In one crucial dream sequence, Paul Matthews' eyes and demeanor physically change into a superhero's.
Writer-director Kristoffer Borgli beautifully weaves through themes like social media, trends and cancel culture, and how fame chasing can lead one to miss life's forest for the trees. The film has a literary vibe, like a satirical novella immediately written to reflect our current times.
I thoroughly enjoyed Dream Scenario for its originality and bizarre tone, riveting that I had no idea where the story was going. It switches from whimsical, hilarious, tragic, and upsetting. Also, the dream sequences were all detailed and hilariously spot-on.
I walked out deepened, not upset, by the film, pondering how we've all been Paul Matthews at one point or another. We have all yammered about chasing our dreams and wishing for recognition, without taking enough action.
It is a scary and potentially depressing truth to confront about life, and I'm glad Dream Scenario brought us there in such a witty thought-provoking fashion.
Perfect Days (2023)
How does one live a happy life?
What's the key to living a happy life? Is it success, money, love, family, or pleasure?
Perfect Days, a reflective slice-of-life arthouse drama from Paris, Texas, and Wings of Desire director Wim Wenders, explores this philosophical question through the life of Hirayama, a soft-spoken toilet cleaner living a quiet life in Tokyo with a simple routine.
Every morning Hirayama wakes up, buys a coffee from a vending machine, and drives his truck to clean two public toilets, which he takes great pride in. For the rest of the day, he rides his bike, indulging in photography, looking at nature, and listening to his cassette collection. At night, Hirayama reads a book before he sleeps.
Perfect Days is a poetic meditative experience. Slow-paced with little plot beats, writer-director Wim Wenders thrusts the audience into Hirayama's life quietly, observing the minute details of how he lives his life, and eventually holding up a mirror to how you are living yours.
Lead actor Koji Yakusho's performance is seamless and natural, immersed into his character in every frame and physically shows Hirayama's whimsical private thoughts with no deliberate scenery chewing or saving it for the close-up.
On paper, Hirayama's life looks awesome. He works approximately 5 hours per day, does what he loves for the rest of it, and keeps to simple inexpensive pleasures. Happiness is simple in concept, but perhaps not easily achieved.
Upon reflection, it does come at a cost. This monk-like simplicity takes tremendous mental fortitude to withstand loneliness. Hirayama lives in solitude with no companion or friends or any attachments that may require a higher income or responsibility.
The story lightly refers to what may have happened in Hirayama's past, but screenwriters Wim Wenders and Takuma Takasaki prefer to leave it open. Or perhaps this is the filmmakers' statement on life itself! Perhaps there is no such thing as 100% happiness; there's always some dissatisfaction... and we must accept it.
At times, all this empty space reduces Hirayama into just being an idea instead of a developed character. The lack of a plot does take something away at the very end. The final shot, a long take of Koji Yakusho smiling, felt like a director's closing statement to wrap everything up. It's an unearned character moment that plays vaguely and left me desiring more of an emotional punch.
Jim Jarmusch's Patterson, a similar film in story and tone, struck a better landing by comparison.
All that said, Perfect Days is a rewarding watch. The visuals, jukebox soundtrack, and quiet intimacy rubbed off on me and I enjoyed reflecting on the film's themes afterward.
Having a deep interest in stoicism, it was doubly cool to see a fully realized example of a stoic living in modern society. The film reignited a forgotten awareness within me to just let go, take life as it is, and just enjoy it all.
Ferrari (2023)
Michael Mann delivers an intimate complex portrait subject featuring great performances from Adam Driver and Penelope Cruz
With outstanding performances from Adam Driver and Penelope Cruz, Michael Mann's Ferrari delivers an intimate and complex biopic that leaves a lasting impression of its subject, Enzo Ferrari.
Michael Mann makes a directorial breakthrough, moving away from his trademark realistic high-def crime dramas and turning his meticulous eye into recreating a tiny slice of Ferrari's life, transcending the typical Hollywood biopic reenactment.
The story covers Enzo Ferrari's life in the summer of 1957, dividing between his professional and private life.
At home, Enzo and his business partner and estranged wife Laura are grieving the loss of their son, Dino, who passed away a year ago. Meanwhile, Enzo's mistress Lina pressures Enzo to give their illegitimate son Piero the Ferrari name.
The Ferrari car manufacturing company is financially suffering as he's prepping his Formula 1 racing team for the Mille Miglia, an open road, endurance-based thousand-mile race. To keep his company running, Enzo is forced to merge with Fiat and must convince Laura to sign over her half of the company shares...
Admittedly, I walked into Ferrari with low expectations. Michael Mann previously went down a rabbit hole of making crime films with high-definition cameras, peaking at Collateral but lost his touch with Public Enemies and Blackhat. Now, I happily stand corrected.
Michael Mann's direction is in top form, masterfully walking the line between documentary realism and drama, allowing the audience to follow Ferrari through perceivably the most dramatic day of his life.
It's an immersive watch. The scenes are written with screenplay economy but are filmed with a realistic lingering time, following Adam Driver walking and driving through town, which gives everything a tangible weight.
Mann captures the essence of Enzo Ferrari, what the man was like, how he lived his life, and perhaps what it felt like to stand next to him.
Adam Driver inhabits the part with a real-life complexity and is convincingly Italian, showing the visionary engineer and entrepreneur, a husband locked between his wife and his mistress, and a father grieving the loss of his son.
The easy cliche approach would have been to play Enzo Ferrari as an autistic, as a shorthand to display his engineering mindset and lay out the highlights sequentially.
Penelope Cruz is electric as Laura, giving the film weight and stakes as the film's centerpiece. Cruz and Driver play a brilliant tennis match in their scenes, creating a strikingly raw dynamic that feels like they've been fighting for years.
The race sequences are nail-bitingly intense, viscerally showing the speed and danger of racing firsthand in the 1950's.
Ferrari is a great film, perhaps even amongst Michael Mann's best. It has the misfortune of being too niche and released in a year where its subject matter is not in the zeitgeist. In another time or place, the film could have been nominated for acting, writing, and directing in this year's awards season.
Kimitachi wa dô ikiru ka (2023)
A surreal soul-searching odyssey in Hayao Miyazaki's childhood memories
While lacking the broad commercial appeal of previous Studio Ghibli classics Castle in the Sky or My Neighbor Totoro, Hayao Miyazaki continues to mature his craft in The Boy and the Heron, a surreal odyssey that soul searches through Miyazaki's personal childhood experiences as a fever dream.
Mahito Maki loses his mother Hisako to a hospital fire in Tokyo during World War II. Mahito's father Shoichi moves them back to their family estate in the rural countryside and marries his mother's younger sister, Natsuko.
Struggling to adapt to his new home and school life, Mahito meets a mysterious heron that leads him to an abandoned tower built by Natsuko's architect granduncle, luring him with the opportunity to reunite with his mother. When Natsuko disappears, Mahito follows the heron into the tower to rescue her...
The Boy and the Heron is best enjoyed for its surrealism, visualizing grief and trauma as dream symbols. Hayao Miyazaki draws the fantastical creatures from a deeply personal place, conjuring his own Jungian and Freudian archetypes, and mixing folklore, and Eastern and Western views of the afterlife.
For example, the heron resembles a stork, normally the trusty deliverer of babies in popular folklore, but is now subverted into a monstrous trickster with occasional body horror moments.
It's up to the audience to interpret the meaning behind the dream motifs and extrapolate what Miyazaki is attempting to say, like learning the context behind a painter's life before judging a self-portrait.
The pacing picks up once Mahito crosses into the fantasy world where there's lots of location-hopping with numerous characters. It's trippy and a bit too much to take in all at once, but it was fun to be lost in all of it.
Studio Ghibli's animation is gorgeous and lifelike, patiently pulling the viewer into its reality step by step. Miyazaki is a master at capturing the eccentricities of human movement, especially the subtle ways people sway and shift their weight.
Do the Studio Ghibli animators ever get self-conscious walking around the office, knowing that the boss is observing their little movements?
The film's original Japanese title translates to "How Do You Live?" A more fitting English translation of the film's message would be "How Do You Live On?" .
The film explores grief head-on without any cartoon cuteness. The Mahito Maki character is realistically presented as a quiet boy who's haunted by the memory of his mother dying, visualized as a nightmarish inferno. Mahito's determination to face his demons alone was unexpectedly moving.
The Wind Rises, Miyazaki's previous feature that was also an autobiographical soul searching piece, could be viewed as a thematic companion piece. The Boy and the Heron is the superior work; it's imaginative and magical and likely will be more memorable over time.
May December (2023)
A complex psychological character drama with great performances that deeply explores an uncomfortable subject
Wonderfully uncomfortable and wickedly complex, Todd Haynes' May December is a slow-burn psychological drama that explores the nature of an illegal relationship, featuring three standout performances from Julianne Moore, Natalie Portman, and Charles Melton.
In 2015, actress Elizabeth Berry travels to Savannah, Georgia to research the lead part for an independent film. Elizabeth is portraying Gracie Atherton-Yoo, a school teacher who was caught having sex with a 13-year-old Korean American Joe Yoo while working together at a local pet store in 1992. During her prison sentence, Gracie gave birth to Joe's child. They've since been married for 23 years with 3 children.
As Elizabeth interviews the Atherton-Yoo family and their friends in town, the married couple begins to buckle under pressure...
Todd Haynes intricately explores the uncomfortable subject of statutory rape by presenting the aftermath and patiently examining trauma in the life after.
Screenwriter Amy Burch frames the story brilliantly, allowing these characters to be deeply studied under a sanitized non-violent setting. The audience can imagine the past crime, but its explicit details aren't required. It's not about the story of the crime, but rather taking an icky uncomfortable walk in the characters' shoes.
Julianne Moore and Natalie Portman play off each other in perfect cadence in a wonderful game of subtext. The pretense behind their interaction, a diabolical case of acting on top of acting, is entertainingly cringeworthy.
Julianne Moore communicates her character's anguish physically in quick hysterical micro-expressions and uncomfortable pauses, slowly imploding beneath the surface.
Natalie Portman brings a quiet vampiric edge to Elizabeth, who is feeding off the intimate details of Gracie's life to make art. Elizabeth claims to honor Gracie truthfully despite the situation being unavoidably exploitative. In one pivotal scene, Gracie teaches Elizabeth how she dons her make-up in the mirror and it is eerie in a David Cronenberg-esque way.
Charles Melton steals the show as Joe, delivering a raw portrayal of a victim locked in arrested development since the affair and is just starting to deal with the unusual nature of his marriage.
Todd Haynes presents the situation as it is, looks at its characters in three dimensions, and peels the proverbial onion, never judging or asking the audience to sympathize with the culprit or the crime. It's rewarding as it goes down the layers, stirring the line between black and white into the murky grey.
As such, the film provides no answers, letting the audience draw their conclusions.
May December deepened my perspective of sex crimes and illegal relationships and the rippling damage it has on the party involved, and that love might not be enough to justify it all. It had me thinking about the importance of boundaries and the price one pays for crossing them.
Rebel Moon - Part One: A Child of Fire (2023)
Zack Snyder's blatant space adventure that plays like Star Wars fan fiction
I remember the moment I connected to Zack Snyder's aesthetic. It was a slow-motion shot from Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice of a flood survivor reaching her hand desperately to Superman, cape billowing in the sky.
Initially, I thought, is it unnecessary to hold a visual for that long? Wouldn't it be more economical to have a montage of Superman saving people from the flood instead, like how Christopher Nolan might do in his more left-brained approach?
Then, it hit me that Zack Snyder's artistic intention is akin to a still painting, or a comic book splash page, and the audience is meant to bask in the prolonged moment and imagine the story behind the image, filling in what happened before and after.
I've since accepted Zack Snyder's visual storytelling style and his alternative way of thinking, even its flaws, and have retroactively enjoyed his films on a whole new level. Zack Snyder's Justice League is his best work to date.
Snyder's latest film released on Netflix, Rebel Moon, is an uninspired space adventure that indulges in long stretches of world-building and showcases its characters like a collection of action figures, before getting the audience to care about them.
Rebel Moon, pitched as "Seven Samurai set in the Star Wars universe'", originated as a story treatment Zack Snyder wrote in film school and was unsuccessfully pitched to Lucasfilm as a Star Wars movie. Following up on his partnership with Netflix after 2021's Army of the Dead, the story pitch has been reworked and released as an epic two-parter.
The film's biggest sin lies in its unoriginality. The script does little to repackage or find alternative original moments of its own. It feels like stepping into Zack Snyder's subconscious and seeing everything he's a fan of all clumped together.
Its cinematic influences are so blatant that film fans will immediately spot which movies the script is pulling from. There are droids, lightsabers, the Mos Eisley Cantina, its own version of Han Solo, and a familiar sequence from the first Avatar.
As the screenwriter, Zack Snyder also has a perplexing understanding of "show, don't tell". He can compose fantastic breathtaking visuals but still chooses to give exposition through words in the most boring way possible.
Shockingly, every character is introduced exactly the same. As the two farmers set off to recruit its ensemble of warriors across the galaxy, the routine quickly becomes repetitive.
Enter character. The character displays fighting ability and their backstory is verbally told. The character says yes. The recruiters move to recruit the next warrior on another planet. Repeat.
Snyder's trademark slow-motion shots didn't work as there was no emotional attachment to any of these characters or any substance behind the story for the audience to truly bask in. And at times, I was eagerly waiting for the next shot.
Rebel Moon re-highlights the lesson of Sucker Punch: Zack Snyder works better when he's working with a screenwriter, namely to do the plotting and keep him from his worst tendencies.
Ironically, or unironically depending on how you look at it, the film plays out exactly like what it sounds like on paper: Star Wars fan fiction. It truly can be enjoyed as the more mature and violent version of Star Wars.
That's how I ended up enjoying Rebel Moon. It's gotten up to 63 million views on Netflix within ten days of its release, so I cannot be alone. Certainly, there must be lots of people enjoying it in this way as well.
George Lucas' idea behind manufacturing toys was to allow fans to tell their own stories in the Star Wars universe. Admittedly, I wrote Star Wars fan fiction as a 12-year-old in a Creative Writing class, which were John Woo movies set in the Star Wars universe.
Rebel Moon would have certainly satisfied my 12-year-old self. Donna Bae, Snyder's version of a Jedi, wielding dual red laser swords battling Jenna Malone as a villainous arachnid cybernetic alien is truly metal.
All that said, can I say Rebel Moon is great and everybody should see it? No.
Did I enjoy it? Yes, I found enough pieces to enjoy it for what it was, though I still cannot defend it.
Will I watch Part 2? Yes, but only as more Star Wars fan fiction.
Jin shou zhi (2023)
A flashy rise-to-fall crime story that misuses Tony Leung and Andy Lau, makes for a disappointing reunion since Infernal Affairs
There's a shot from the Goldfinger teaser that got me wildly excited: a close-up of Tony Leung biting a cigar smugly laughing with gold Mardi Gras raining down all around him.
Tony Leung's cheese-eating grin came across as an attempt at something new, different from the usual shy side smirk from his repertoire of introverted characters. Leung is creating a high-energy chaotic character, a performance we haven't seen yet.
In The Goldfinger, Tony Leung plays Henry Ching, a fictionalized version of real-life businessman and financial criminal George Tan who ran the Hong Kong conglomerate Carrian Group which collapsed from a corruption and fraud scandal in the 1980s.
Henry arrives under mysterious circumstances in Hong Kong in the 1970s, working his way up to founding the Carmen Group. The sudden collapse of a billion-dollar company due to a stock market crash draws the attention of ICAC prime investigator Lau Kai-yuen, who begins an investigation on Ching.
The Goldfinger is a disappointment. It pains to say...
Writer-director Felix Chong, one of the writers behind the Infernal Affairs trilogy, gets lost in an overbaked plot and delivers a flashy run-of-the-mill rise-to-fall crime thriller that sinfully misuses its two leads Tony Leung and Andy Lau.
Felix Chong gets caught up in window dressing the plot, using a non-linear structure of police interrogations conducted by Andy Lau's ICAC officer to fill in Henry Ching's past and set up the mystery behind Henry's secret money backer. It's a plot that Chong never gets the audience to care about.
The audience's priority is quite simple: to see Andy Lau and Tony Leung chewing scenery.
Infernal Affairs fans who are eagerly anticipating Tony Leung and Andy Lau's reunion will be let down. First off, Andy Lau is in a supporting role as the ICAC investigator. Secondly, Leung and Lau's scenes are procedural and plot-serving and lack the dramatic scene-chewing quality like the rooftop finale in Infernal Affairs.
As for Tony Leung's performance, it's an unsatisfying half-creation that lingers between the Tony Leung we're all familiar with and something brand new. The script positions Henry Ching as a mysterious cipher for so long that Leung never gets the screen time to properly develop his part.
Decked out in flashy expensive suits and tinted sunglasses, there are glimpses of the chaotic flamboyant Tony Leung that the trailer promised, but it's too few and far between, only appearing in montage moments-just enough to cut into a trailer!
What remains is Tony Leung's usual persona. As a result, the performance becomes an unfortunate case of the costume wearing the actor, like a cosplay.
Andy Lau is stuck in a bland stock hero role who's delivering exposition and driving the story, or rather investigation, forward. Lau is given a family subplot involving a disgruntled wife who's mad at him for neglecting his family for his job, but it goes nowhere.
It all fizzles out awkwardly at the end. As the end title cards are showing the fate of the characters, you realize the whole film is a string of historical facts.
I walked out of the theater bored and exhausted, contemplating how I got so excited over a trailer. Trailers lie. Lesson relearned.
Napoleon (2023)
Ridley Scott directs great battle sequences. Joaquin Phoenix swings and misses. Vanessa Kirby steals the show. Looking forward to director's cut.
With its impressive production values and epic battle sequences, Ridley Scott's Napoleon is a riveting history lesson for the uninitiated, covering Napoleon Bonaparte's rise from general to the ruler of France, his glorious victories on the battlefield, and his romantic relationship with Joséphine de Beauharnais.
Dariusz Wolski's cinematography is stunning and impressively diverse, infusing shadowy grittiness into a classical painting aesthetic. The cinematography adds solid weight to the period costumes and sets, with candlelit scenes that luminously call back to Stanley Kubrick's Barry Lyndon.
The Battle of Austerlitz and Waterloo war sequences are superbly staged and photographed with a kinetic sense of danger. The Fire of Moscow sequence was jaw-dropping.
Having no previous knowledge of history, Napoleon had me on the edge of my seat. Biopics usually wrestle with the subject's life not being dramatic enough for an exciting story, but Napoleon's is the rare exception.
Joaquin Phoenix carries the film sufficiently but doesn't get a handle on the role. It's like Phoenix is instinctually hunting for the ultimate moment to explode and iconize his Napoleon in a single scene, but that perfect moment never arrives and gets caught up in quirks. What remains is an inert ball of energy awkwardly vibrating.
What was Napoleon driven by? Was it his love for his country? Was it a thirst for power? Was it a need to prove himself to the world? It's a murky blend of all of the above.
To quote Gary Oldman in Mank, "You cannot capture a man's life in 2 hours. All you can do is to leave an impression of one."
And therein lies the problem. The script's box-ticking approach leaves no lasting impression of Napoleon Bonaparte. Napoleon is a larger-than-life figure no doubt, however, there was nothing to take away from the film other than the historical events.
Vanessa Kirby is magnetically captivating as Empress Josephine, committing wholeheartedly to her role as written, even pulling in the seemingly overthinking Phoenix. Their scenes are on fire and the highlight of the entire film, above all the impressive battle scenes.
Historians have accused the film of being inaccurate, but I feel the film could have been more ruthless with its liberties. I wanted something more daring from David Scarpa's screenplay, hoping it would seize what it wants to say and present Napoleon boldly, instead of reenacting the events chronologically.
Ridley Scott, by reputation, has always been known as a shooter-type director and his films have always succeeded and failed based on the quality of the scripts.
I couldn't help but wonder if Scott picked up on the power of Vanessa Kirby's performance in production and reworked the Napoleon-Josephine relationship further as the centerpiece and ruthlessly cut out the excess scenes. Devoting more time to that emotional anchor would have given Napoleon that much-needed final punch.
Apple TV has announced an upcoming 4-hour cut and I look forward to it in the hope there's more of the Napoleon-Josephine story.
Bak yat ji ha (2023)
An effective social issue drama with strong ensemble performances
Putting a loved one into a care home is a difficult predicament. There's the powerlessness and guilt of not being able to do more than you can. Knowing that they're waiting for the inevitable end alone, the hope is your loved one person is in the best hands possible.
In Broad Daylight is a slice-of-life social issue drama that toys with that very notion in a thought-provoking fashion. Based on a real-life scandal of the Cambridge Nursing Home, whose staff was caught water hosing the elderly in groups on an open rooftop in 2015 and later exposed for physically abusing their patients.
Investigative reporter Kay receives an anonymous tip and goes undercover into the Rainbow Care Home, an elderly home that is allegedly physically abusing and mistreating its patients behind the scenes.
In Broad Daylight is a heavy but worthy watch. The film forces the audience to confront difficult ignored feelings, empathizing with the elderly being alone, neglected, and becoming an unwanted burden on their families. And for younger people, there's the abject terror of living in an elderly home when you get old one day.
Jennifer Yu leads the movie adequately as the journalist and is wonderfully supported by a strong ensemble cast of veteran actors, including Shaw Brothers' David Chiang and Bowie Wu as elderly patients and Bo Pui Yue as the scary abusive nurse and a scene-stealing Bowie Lam as the care home's warden. Rachel Leung and Henick Chou also shine as two mentally disabled patients. I expect acting accolades for the majority of the supporting cast come awards season.
Writer-director Lawrence Kwan Chun Kan presents the everyday ins and outs of life in the elderly home, peeling the onion layers and examining the situation from all sides, even from the perspective of its supposed evil staff.
In the film's highlight moment, Bowie Lam's warden delivers a bone-chilling monologue on how society neglects the elderly. And he is right.
The film emphasizes that it's up to the press to expose these scandals further to end them, ending on a slight dissonant note. That might be true, but as the credits rolled, my mind gravitated towards the fate of the abused elderly patients-specifically all the actual abused patients out there that the film is representing. That's a much more compelling thought to end on.
That minor quibble aside, In Broad Daylight achieves its goals effectively, almost like a wake-up call to anyone with a parent living in a care home, reminding them to spend more time and perhaps even to examine their living conditions. This movie is bound to leave a lasting impression.