Genre: Romance/Drama
Director: Takahiro Miki
Cast: Jun Matsumoto, Juri Ueno, Tetsuji Tamayama, Masaki Suda, Koji Ookura, Sansei Shiomi, Midori Kiuchi
RunTime: 2 hrs
Rating: PG
Released By: GV
Official Website: http://www.hidamari-movie.com/

Opening Day: 20 February 2014

Synopsis: The story is set in Shonan area along the coast of Sagami Bay. This fantastic romance begins from a serendipitous reunion. A newbie salesman named Kosuke Okuda (Jun Matsumoto) happens to meet Mao Watarai (Juri Ueno), a friend from his junior high school days, through business. In spite of the fact that Mao used to be called as the “dumbest student in school” and was often bullied by the others, she has totally transformed into a beautiful and charming woman when they are reunited 10 years later. This fateful reunion makes them remind innocent feelings of their childhood and fall in love with each other immediately. It does not take long for them to decide to get married. However, Mao is keeping one big mysterious secret about her… The young couple’s love of a lifetime makes “two miracles”. One is the “miraculous reunion” which is brought by Mao’s secret. What might the other be ? When the secret is revealed, their romance comes to an unprecedented happy ending.

Movie Review:

Girl in the Sunny Place (aka Hidamari no Kanojo) is a movie adaptation of a Japanese romance novel of the same name. The novel is one of the most fast selling novels in Japan and was voted the No.1 novel women want men to read. The story centers Watarai Mao (Ueno Juri) and Okuda Kosuke (Matsumoto Jun). Kosuke first met Mao in junior high school and their relationship sprouted from there as they established a unique connection. However, due to Kousuke’s ambition and aspiration of moving out of the hometown to Tokyo, they lost touch for about 10 years till they crossed paths again at work.

Mao, a PR representative of a company, works closely together with Kousuke, a railway ad placement representative, on a PR campaign. Their feelings for each other reignited while they spent time together working on the project. As they catch up on the lost times and went back to their hometown for a date, Kousuke was then warned of Mao’s mysterious past by her foster parents. Kousuke knew only a part of Mao from the gossips he heard back in the school days but never knew the full story. Mao seemed to have suffered a form of memory loss before she was found at 13 years old and brought into the foster family. There’s a possibility that Mao may eventually forget Kousuke. Despite such challenges, both of them decided to cling on to each other and to move on from there. However, mysterious happenings continue and led Kousuke to discover a deeper secret behind Mao’s identity. Their affinity had begun way before Kousuke was aware… Where will all these ultimately lead them to?

Given that this movie was adapted from a novel, it might seem that there are many holes in the movie’s narrative. Where the novel has the capacity to have the events illustrated in great detail, the movie only has limited time to tell the story. However, the movie did the novel a good-enough justice, and in fact delivered what the novel could not do with the superb use of sight and sound. It was done remarkably well. The director made use of nice and warm lightings for most parts of the movie, giving you the warm fuzzy feelings. You’ll also probably find it Instagram-ish. The cinematic experience is definitely more dynamic than just reading off the novel. The movie also has the liberty to reorganize some sequence of events to bring out the story better.

As much as the directing style scored, both Ueno Juri and Matsumoto Jun were in one of their best forms in the movie. They breathed so much life into the characters and created an atmosphere that was dear and precious to watch. Their onscreen chemistry was unbeatable, their romance so sweet (for the most), and they genuinely cared for each other. Their interactions, down to the details of their characters, were all well delivered. Both of them really broke out of their past typecasting – Ueno Juri with whimsical characters such as Nodame in Nodame Cantabile, Matsumoto Jun with strong headed characters such as Domyoji in Hana Yori Dango. Undoubtedly, the movie was only made possible with their good acting and strong presence.

Half way through the movie, you might be able to catch from the telltale signs about Mao’s secret. But that bit of ‘predictability’ did not spoil the beauty of the movie. The mystery was still unveiled subtly, prompting us to its end. Mao and Kousuke’s serendipity is like a loop, making a full circle only to open up to a new loop. As the memories fade, disappear and return to zero, everything withdraws to black. Then it had Mao’s favourite song, ‘Wouldn’t it be nice’ playing in the background, with every word of the lyrics mean something, heart wrenching and stirring up so much emotion. Even so, the resolution is open to imagination and interpretation. Please, you have to watch all the way to the end, till the credit rolls! 

Movie Rating:

("We had a beautiful love there, what a sad beautiful tragic love affair"... Captivating love story worth recommending to others! Wouldn't it be nice if we watch this together?)

Review by Tho Shu Ling

Genre: Drama
Director: John Krokidas
Cast: Daniel Radcliffe, Dane DeHaan, Ben Foster, Elizabeth Olsen, Jack Huston, Michael C. Hall, Kyra Sedgwick, Jennifer Jason Leigh
RunTime: 1 hr 45 mins
Rating: R21 (Homosexual Content)
Released By: GV & Scorpio East Pictures
Official Website: http://sonyclassics.com/killyourdarlings/

Opening Day: 6 March 2014

Synopsis: The movie stars Daniel Radcliffe and is about the previously untold story of murder that brought together a young Allen Ginsberg (Radcliffe), Jack Kerouac (Huston) and William Burroughs (Foster) at Columbia University in 1944, providing the spark that would lead to their Beat Revolution. This is the true story of friendship and murder that led to the birth of an entire generation.

Movie Review: 

If the phrase ‘kill your darlings’ doesn’t immediately leap at you, you’d probably want to think twice before attending this dark coming-of-age story with ‘Harry Potter’s’ Daniel Radcliffe in the role of a very different kind of boy prodigy. Indeed, this first feature by director John Krokidas takes as its subject matter the Beat generation, a group of American writers who came into prominence in the 1950s that were notorious for rejecting social norms, expressing alternative sexualities and whose works portrayed extremes in human condition and emotion.  

Unless you’re a literary type, you are unlikely to have heard of the names Allen Ginsberg, Lucien Carr, William S. Burroughs and Jack Kerouac. Radcliffe plays the first of them, a youthful Ginsberg to be more precise, at a time when he was still a rapturous Columbia University freshman coming into his own. Not only was he a writer struggling to break free from the shackles of literary classicism, Ginsberg was also as an individual coming to terms with his own sexuality as a gay man amidst the homophobic inclinations of society. It was at Columbia that he meets the dangerous and charismatic Carr (Dane DeHaan), whose derring-do the Jewish kid from New Jersey is instantly smitten with.

Completing the ‘unholy Trinity’ is Burroughs (Ben Foster), a Harvard man who hails from a privileged background and has a particular fondness for pornography and drugs, as well as Kerouac (Jack Huston), a randy ex-jock who stays with a live-in girlfriend (Elizabeth Olsen) he regularly cheats on and quarrels with. Burroughs and Kerouac are but sideshows though; Krokidas and his co-scripter Austin Bunn (who is also given story credit) focus instead on Carr’s influence on the life and poetry of Ginsberg as the latter becomes inexorably drawn to the former’s seductive wit and bravado.

This is a period of both emotional and artistic growth for Ginsberg, who joined Carr, Burroughs and Kerouac in defining the radical movement called the ‘New Vision’ through a merry blend of protest, Dadaism and performance art. There is however no mistaking the other less than rational impulses associated with the creative process at work here; indeed, Ginsberg is motivated not just by the thrill of challenging conventional rules about rhyme and meter, but also by his obsession with winning Carr’s affections, which ultimately motivates him to impress Ginsberg with his literary works.

But to those familiar with these Beat generation artists, the more interesting story arc here lies with Carr’s relationship with an older man named David Kammerer (Michael C. Hall). Krokidas teases his audience by keeping the exact nature of their relationship deliberately vague until late into the movie; all we do know during the first half is that the two go way back to when Carr was in Chicago, and Ginsberg sees Kammerer as his romantic rival despite the latter warning him about getting too close to Carr.

History will reveal that Carr had in fact fatally stabbed Kammerer in 1944 and turned himself in for the crime, although he had alleged his act was in self-defense to provocation by a known homosexual. While the truth may forever be lost, Krokidas offers a different perspective from Ginsberg’s point of view, i.e. that Kammerer was no more than a victim of Carr’s emotional and psychological manipulation and whose murder was really much more premeditated than Carr had for many years portrayed it to be. Suffice to say that the film’s sympathies aren’t with Carr, who had in real-life broken from the group after the murder and demanded that Ginsberg remove his name from the latter’s maiden publication ‘Howl and Other Poems’ which he had dedicated to Carr.

That we feel so strongly against Carr is testament to DeHaan’s mesmering performance, whose smoldering charm you’re unlikely to be immune to. DeHaan and Radcliffe share genuine chemistry, with Radcliffe complementing his co-star’s febrile presence by a sensitive and nuanced portrayal of Ginsberg’s journey of sexual and artistic discovery. At some points, one gets the feeling that Radcliffe is trying too hard to shake off his ‘Harry Potter’ image, but you can hardly fault the earnestness and commitment by which he throws himself into the role.

It’s not difficult to see then why this picture was so titled; like the titular advice given to writers about editing out the parts that you love most, the question about indulgence and inspiration is similarly posed to the viewer as we watch these characters go about their formative years before eventually transforming into the artists that we know them as. Yet, there is an esoteric quality to the entire movie which is simultaneously alluring and alienating, in particular as it relates to the destructive nature of the creative process; ‘Kill Your Darlings’ won’t be a film that speaks to everyone, but to those who understand such a process, its combination of creativity and emotional upheaval will certainly prove meaningful. 

Movie Rating:

(Daniel Radcliffe completes a daring transformation from 'Harry Potter' into an adult thespian in this alternately mesmering and yet alienating portrayal of the complex nature of the creative process)

Review by Gabriel Chong 

Genre: Horror
Director: Simon Barrett, Adam Wingard, Edúardo Sanchez, Gregg Hale, Timo Tjahjanto, Gareth Huw Evans, Jason Eisener
Cast: Lawrence Michael Levine, Kelsy Abbott, L.C. Holt, Adam Wingard, Hannah Hughes, John T. Woods, Jay Saunders, Bette Cassatt
RunTime: 1 hr 36 mins
Rating: R21 (Violence and Gore)
Released By: GVP
Official Website: https://www.facebook.com/VHS2

Opening Day: 13 February 2014

Synopsis: Searching for a missing student, two private investigators break into his abandoned house and find another collection of mysterious VHS tapes. In viewing the horrific contents of each cassette, they realize there may be terrifying motives behind the student's disappearance. 

Movie Review:

Like its predecessor, ‘V/H/S 2’ is structured as a collection of found footage horror stories that are meant to have a ‘shock and awe’ effect on its audience. Yes, you better believe that R21 rating you see on the poster, for what you’ll get are four blood-soaked short films which trade in as much violence and gore as the rating allows to offer up some flesh-crawling scares. Is it any good? Well, that really depends if you’re a hardcore genre fan - and yes, we’d warn you that only the most diehard ones need apply to this indie omnibus.

Framed similarly with a story that provides the connecting tissue for the rest contained on the titular video cassette format, it opens with private investigators Larry (Lawrence Michael Levine) and Ayesha (Kelsey Abbot) breaking into the apartment of a missing college student whom they are hired by his mother to track down. There, they discover a stash of videocassettes, a laptop and a setup with multiple TV monitors playing back static onscreen; and while Larry goes from room to room searching for any trace of human presence, Ayesha starts viewing the video footage on the TV.

First up is Adam Wingard’s ‘Phase I Clinical Trials’, which establishes itself by finding a surprisingly inventive raison d'être for the first-person format. Wingard himself plays the rocker dude Herman, who receives a prosthetic eye implant following a car accident; because the implant is just in its test stages, it also doubles up as a video camera so its manufacturer can use the data to record its performance. Once home, Herman starts seeing dead people all around his house - and though the rest of the ‘I see dead people’ conceit unfolds rather perfunctorily, it moves at a breakneck pace and packs a number of good ‘in your face’ scares to keep you on edge.

The same cannot be said of the next short, original “Blair Witch” alums Eduardo Sanchez and Gregg Hale’s ‘A Ride in the Park’. Zombies are the order of the day, which begins as a unnamed mountain biker (Jay Saunders) stops to help a woman, gets bitten and turns into z zombie in the matter of minutes. This ‘pass it on’ syndrome continues somewhat ad nauseum until a sizeable enough horde reaches a children’s birthday party, whereby the already over-the-top nonsense just goes ballistics. As guts are spilled and heads are blown off, what becomes clearer is just how the filmmakers are grasping at straws to keep their audiences from getting bored from the brainless (pun intended) onslaught.

It gets much better with ‘Safe Haven’, a made-in-Indonesia short from Timo Tjahjanto (‘Rumah Dara’) and Gareth Huw Evans (‘The Raid’). A TV crew interviews the head of a mysterious cult named “Father” (Epy Kusnandar) and gets permission to film inside his gated compound where he runs a school for young children. Easily the most developed of any of the shorts, it even has some character development as it comes to light that one of the reporters, Lena (Hannah Al-Rashid), is two-timing her fiancé, Adam (Fachry Albar), with one of the camera crew and is now pregnant with the latter’s child.

No thanks to the constraint of time, the proceedings feel rushed and a little underdeveloped; nonetheless, the combination of exoticism, religion and fanaticism make for a particularly intriguing watch that culminates in a jaw-dropping conclusion which has to be appreciated for its low-budget and grungy nature. The f/x isn’t top-notch to say the least, but this is one short we would really like to see expanded into feature length with a bigger budget.

The last of the lot is “Slumber Party Alien Abduction,” from Jason Eisener (“Hobo With a Shotgun”). It doesn’t get more straightforward than that, as some teenage hijinks for a weekend without mom and dad become much more terrifying when aliens (yes, aliens) that look like they walked off an episode of ‘The X-Files’ stumble in and start abducting them one by one. There is no explanation nor any backstory, but thankfully Eisener keeps it brief and doesn’t let it last beyond its welcome.

It does end off though where it started, in the house with the two detectives Larry and Ayesha, who are beset by the same horror which had possessed the house and its occupant (i.e. Larry’s target) in the first place. For fans of the ‘V/H/S’ series if there are any, it opens the door for yet another chapter to advance the mythology of just how these tapes are made, even though we hardly think the revelation will be anything as profoundly scary as ‘The Ring’ despite the obvious similarities.

Like we warned you earlier on, this is a strictly genre exercise that has no restraint nor any knowledge of excess. It is grotesque and decidedly so, gory, violent and deranged in every sense of the word. Check your sentiments about watching something like that before stepping in - and if that piques your interest, well ‘V/H/S 2’ will be right up your alley. 

Movie Rating:

(Strictly a genre exercise for hardcore fans of the horror genre - this gory, grotesque, violent and deranged collection of shorts is hardly for anyone else)

Review by Gabriel Chong

Genre: Drama
Director: Scott Cooper
Cast: Christian Bale, Casey Affleck, Zoe Saldana, Woody Harrelson, Willem Dafoe, Forest Whitaker, Sam Shepard, Boyd Holbrook, Dendrie Taylor
Runtime: 1 hr 56 mins
Rating: M18 (Drug Use and Coarse Language)
Released By: GVP 
Official Website: https://www.facebook.com/outofthefurnace

Opening Day: 20 February 2014

Synopsis: From Scott Cooper, the critically-acclaimed writer and director of Crazy Heart, comes a gripping and gritty drama about family, fate, circumstance, and justice. Russell Baze (Christian Bale) has a rough life: he works a dead-end blue collar job at the local steel mill by day, and cares for his terminally ill father by night. When Russell's brother Rodney (Casey Affleck) returns home from serving time in Iraq, he gets lured into one of the most ruthless crime rings in the Northeast and mysteriously disappears. The police fail to crack the case, so - with nothing left to lose - Russell takes matters into his own hands, putting his life on the line to seek justice for his brother.

Movie Review:

Away from the gleaming metropolises of America lies the Rust Belt; once known as the industrial heartland of America, their economic fortunes have long since faded in a postindustrial era, its people largely working-class folk with little hope for a better future. It is in the rusting Pennsylvania steel town of Braddock that director Scott Cooper has set his sophomore feature film, shot on location to lend authenticity to the depiction of the factories and the streets that stand as crumbling remnants of a once-thriving town.

Those who remember Cooper’s ‘Crazy Heart’ will find the same melancholy in the belching smokestacks and dust motes dancing in penumbral interiors that form the quiet opening of the film. Deliberately beginning in 2008 on the eve of Barack Obama's presidential nomination with the (false) promise of change hanging in the air, it paints a grim picture of the downward-spiralling lives of two brothers, Russell (Christian Bale) and Rodney (Casey Affleck). While the former spends his days working the steel mill blast furnaces, the latter gambles away money he doesn’t have in between multiple tours of duty to Iraq.

An early twist of fate lands Russell in prison, just as Rodney is sent for a fourth tour of Iraq. Without explicitly saying so, Cooper skips ahead in time to move the narrative along, as Russell is released to find his terminally ill father dead, his schoolteacher girlfriend (Zoe Saldana) with the local police chief (Forest Whitaker) and his brother Rodney participating in bare-knuckle underground fights around town in order to pay off his debts. It’s almost an understatement that these are hard times, with both lower-class brothers trying to get by in their respective lives while battered by vicissitudes beyond their control.

In both its milieu and its reflection on the after-effects of battle, Cooper’s film evokes Michael Cimino’s post-Vietnam blue-collar drama ‘The Deer Hunter’. Here the shadow of the Vietnam War has been updated to the Iraq War, but there are obvious similarities in how both films address post-war trauma in the context of a Pennsylvania town. With some generous help from cinematographer Masanobu Takayanagi, Cooper steeps us in the dead-end mood of the doldrums of forlorn bar rooms and rusted factories, as well as in the blue-collar environment that our protagonists inhabit.

Unfortunately, things get a tad predictable after the first hour when Cooper ups the dramatic ante with the introduction of the backwoods crime kingpin Harlan DeGroat. Introduced as a sadistic masochist at the start, Harlan’s malevolent nature becomes much clearer when he exacts cruel revenge on Rodney and his bookie cum fight manager John Petty (Willem Dafoe) after the former forgets to throw a fight he is supposed to. What could have remained a moving tale of brotherhood becomes a personal tale of revenge, as Russell struggles with his own moral bearings to take matters into his own hands. That path is not one which viewers will find unfamiliar with, right down to the penultimate showdown between Russell and Degroat in a long vacated factory.

Indeed, if it isn’t yet clear, there is no cheer to be found here in this insistently downbeat crime drama turned revenge saga that wants to a socio-economic commentary of our recession-weary times. And yet the tale of honest good-hearted men trying to avoid the downward suck of crime and violence ultimately comes off depressingly rudimentary, with not even a lurid final act able to lend it the necessary gravitas to come off meaningful. What does keep you watching are the all-around strong performances by an ensemble cast, which go a long way in elevating the quality of the material.

Even as he demonstrated his comedic side in ‘American Hustle’, Bale’s repertoire as an actor has been defined by strong machismo characters. Russell is no different, and Bale digs deep to portray with empathy and earnestness a decent hardworking individual undone by his circumstances. He shares an easy brotherly bond with Affleck, whose signature broken singsong voice and furtive gaze are put to good use here to deliver a searing portrait of a broken young man undone by the horrors of war. Among the supporting players, Harrelson stands out for his intensely feral performance as the unhinged villain of the movie, though Saldana, Whitaker and Sam Shepard as Russell’s grizzled uncle are no less convincing.

At least from the standpoint of the performances, Cooper continues to be able to draw out raw compelling stuff from his actors, very much the same way he guided Jeff Bridges to a Best Actor Oscar playing the washed-out musician in ‘Crazy Heart’. Despite some nicely crafted moments (such as the juxtaposition between one of Rodney’s bloody fights and Russell’s hunting of a deer in the woods with his uncle) and a promising first hour, this decidedly and deliberately bleak drama hardly achieves the poignancy that one suspects Cooper wanted to. Pity though, there is a great sense of place in the American rust belt setting, but too many dramatic conventions scuttle what could have been a heartfelt and even thought-provoking examination of the fading American dream in a post-industrial America. 

Movie Rating:

(Excellent performances save an otherwise uneven drama of crime and circumstance with a strong sense of place in post-industrial America)

Review by Gabriel Chong

Genre: Thriller/Crime
Director: Hirokazu Kore-Eda
Cast: Masaharu Fukuyami, Koji Yakusho, Suzu Hirose, Shinnosuke Mitsushima, Mikako Ichikawa, Izumi Matsuoka, Yuki Saito, Kōtarō Yoshida, Isao Hashizume
RunTime: 2 hrs 5 mins
Rating: PG (Some Violence)
Released By: Golden Village Pictures and Clover Films
Official Website: 

Opening Day: 11 January 2018

Synopsis: Leading attorney Shigemori takes on the defence of murder-robbery suspect Misumi who served jail time for another murder 30 years ago. Shigemori’s chances of winning the case seem low - his client freely admits his guilt, despite facing the death penalty if he is convicted. As he digs deeper into the case, as he hears the testimonies of the victim’s family and Misumi himself, the once confident Shigemori begins to doubt whether his client is the murderer after all.

Movie Review: 

Towards the end of this 125 minutes movie, a character mentions something along the lines of: “The Judge, the prosecutor and the defending attorney are all sailing on the same ship named Justice”. That perhaps sums up the complexity of Hirokazu Koreeda’s latest self-penned directorial feature, The Third Murder.

Koreeda, who made his name helming acclaimed family and social dramas including Nobody Knows and Like Father, Like Son, ditches his usual fare to tackle a legal drama that questions life morals and Japan’s criminal justice system. You know Koreeda is not going to make things easy for the audiences despite his new challenge.    

A mild-mannered man, Misumi Takashi (Yakushi Koji) has confessed to robbing, killing and buring the body of his former boss along a river bank. Fukuyama Masaharu - last seen in John Woo’s Manhunt - plays a defence attorney Shigemori Tomoaki who is tasked to take over Misumi’s case from his senior partner. On the surface, the case is clear-cut and straightforward and Shigemori’s mission is to reduce Misumi’s supposedly death-penalty charge to life sentence. As the story unfolds, Misumi starts to change his testimonies, causing the seemingly infallible confident Shigemori to question Misumi’s motivations and action.

Without a single pyrotechnic, loud dramatic music cues and onscreen violence in place, Koreeda effortlessly creates a compelling drama that generously offers questions onhuman nature and who has the right to judge mere mortals like us. Do you assume Misumi is the killer based on the fact that he was sentenced to 30 years in jail for killing two loansharks decades ago? Or as what the retired judge (who happens to be Shigemori’s dad by the way) who presided the case says, he shouldn’t have allowed Misumi to escape the gallows in the first place? 

At the same time, the movie reveals more twists and turns, such as a seemingly adultery affair between Misumi and the wife of his late boss and the victim’s daughter Sakie (Suzu Hirose), who decides to testify to help reduce Misumi’s sentence by revealing the fact that all along she was sexually abused by her father and perhaps Misumi was just trying to protect her. Shigemori and his assistant’s trip to icy-cold Hokkaido to interview the cop that arrested Misumi three decades prior only reveal a man that is anything but an empty vessel.

Perhaps the most powerful scenes lie with Shigemori and his client in the prison interview room with just a plexiglass inbetween. The scenes while talky are profound and enlightening. Did Misumi commits murder because he is in debt? Or rather there is more to Misumi’s motive? An angel in disguise perhaps. Does the death penalty the ultimate way to dispense justice? The movie never provides any clear, concise answers, which more or less reflects the uncertainties in life.

The only glaring fault in this drama is the depiction of Shigemori’s neglected teenage daughter. Divorced and a workaholic, Shigemori’s only time for his daughter is only when she needs his help when she got into trouble. Perhaps Koreeda is trying to connect Shigemori’s predicament with Misumi’s equally estranged daughter, though it’s merely a frail, touch-and-go attempt that is never followed up subsequently.

To be frank, The Third Murder is not as accessible as the episodes from Law and Order, in case you are expecting thrilling set pieces based on the title alone. Legal and courtroom proceedings are not even the highlight of the day. But the impressive acting - especially veteran Yakushi Koji who puts in a sizzling subtle performance - the beautiful cinematography by Koreeda’s frequent cinematographer Mikiya Takimoto and the boggling script will have you craving for more.  

Movie Rating:

(Philosophical and at the same time ambiguous, The Third Murder will stay in your busy mind for a while)

Review by Linus Tee

SYNOPSIS: Tokyo, the present day, June. The body of a seven-year-old girl, Ninagawa Chika, is found in the district of Kitazawa, west Tokyo, and the murder is blamed by her grandfather Ninagawa Takaoki (Yamazaki Tsutomu), multi-billionaire head of Ninagawa Industrial, on Kiyomaru Kunihide (Fujiwara Tatsuya) who was released from prison the previous October. Takaoki takes out a print ad offering a ¥1 billion (US$10 million) reward to anyone who can kill Kunihide. His two conditions are that (a) whoever kills him must also be tried and punished under the law and (b) Kunihide's murder must be authorised by the government. When a drug smuggler, Tanaka, who is sheltering Kunihide in Fukuoka, southern Japan, tries to kill him, Kunihide just manages to escape and turn himself into the Fukuoka police. Lieutenant Mekari Kazuki (Osawa Takao), a hotshot with the Security Police's Unit 4, is sent from Tokyo to bring Kunihide safely back to the district attorney's office for prosecution within 48 hours. The highly skilled Shiraiwa Atsuko (Matushima Nanako) goes with him, along with veteran Okumura Takeshi (Kishitani Goro) and the younger Kanbashi Masataka (Nagayama Kento). After surviving an attack by a policeman in Fukuoka, Kunihide is hospitalised, where the four meet him. Also coming along for the ride is Captain Sekiya Kenji (Ibu Masato), head of Fukuoka police. After Kunihide survives yet another attack, the sextet sets out for the two-hour flight to Tokyo in a massive convoy to the airport. But on a special website created by Ninagawa, Kunihide's exact location is shown for anyone to have a go at killing him. After more attacks, and the cancellation of the plane, the group decides to make the 1,200-kilometre journey by bullet train instead. But it soon becomes clear there's a mole working for Ninagawa among them.

MOVIE REVIEW:

Finally there’s a Takashi Miike movie that can be enjoyed by most of the family members. While the prolific Japanese filmmaker is known more for his controversial works, Shield of Straw is a safe commercial product done in the vein of a Hollywood production.

With material based on a novel, Shield of Straw begins promisingly enough to grab your attention once the opening credits rolled. A billion yen reward is offered by one of the country’s richest men, Ninagawa to kill the murderer of his 7-year-old granddaughter, Kunihide Kyomaru (Tatsuya Fujiwara). And now it’s up to two Security Police officers, Kazuki Mekari (Takao Osawa) and Atsuko Shiraiwa (Nanako Matsushima) and three fellow cops to escort Kunihide from Fukuoka to the district attorney in Tokyo. Along the way, they must fend off countless attackers who hope to lay their hands on Kunihide.

Miike keeps one gasping for breath for the first 30 minutes as the five officers risk their lives to transport Kunihide to his destination from a bus to a high-speed train to a minivan. It’s obvious he has a hefty budget to work with that he blew a major portion of it during this time. A nitroglycerin tanker driven by an attacker served as the movie’s highlight as it crashes through numerous police cars on a highway. Then the entire convoy decides to carry on the journey by train as someone within the five of them is suspected of leaking Kunihide’s whereabouts to the media. 

Thus this is also the point where Shield of Straw starts to sputter or perhaps some executive in the movie company informed Miike that he has already blown three quarters of the budget and he has to dial things down. There’s a continuous debate of who is the mole in the group. What’s worse is the endless debate between the surviving officers on why a ruthless asshole liked Kunihide deserves to be saved from being killed. As a result, the flick turned from an action-packed crime thriller to a talk heavy philosophical crime drama for the next 85 minutes!

Kanji: The Ultimate Gambler’s star Tatsuya Fujiwara should be commended for his choice of role but his performance as a psychotic mad man stays flat. Takao Osawa fares better in the role of a tortured cop whose pregnant wife is killed in an unfortunate automobile accident while TV starlet Nanako Matsushima is impressive as the cool, ambitious Shiraiwa.

Shield of Straw is a disappointing affair considering it belongs to one of those rare Japanese action movies and one that is helmed by Takashi Miike no less. You can either choose to enjoy the first 30 minutes of it or prepare to be underwhelmed by the ludicrous climax.   

NIL

AUDIO/VISUAL:

Visually, the colors are vibrant and imaging is detailed. Sound effects during the shootouts are loud and bombastic. 

MOVIE RATING:

DVD RATING :

Review by Linus Tee

SYNOPSIS: In the twilight of the Ming Dynasty, the Imperial court is plagued by corruption as tyrants rule over the land. With the Manchurians preying on a weakened empire, war is imminent. The situation is even worse near the northwest border, where widespread famine is rapidly claiming lives. To save the victims from further suffering, sorceress Jade Raksha fights the soldiers that oppress people for their own gain. As payback, local government officials decide to pin the murder of Governor Zhuo Zhonglian on Jade, turning her and the members of her cult into wanted fugitives for a crime they didn’t commit. Meanwhile, Wudang sect’s Master Ziyang intends to nominate disciple Zhuo Yihang to become the next sect leader, sending him to the capital to present the Red Bolus to the Emperor as royal tribute. However, the emperor dies after consuming the Red Bolus, and the Imperial Guards are quickly dispatched to capture Yihang……

MOVIE REVIEW:

Two of China’s hottest actors, Huang Xiaoming and Fan Bingbing teamed up to play the titular characters, Zhuo Yihang and Lian Nishang in this latest remake of wuxia novelist Liang Yushen’s famous work, The White Haired Witch.

The world has turned into some sort of a fast food nation and inevitably that’s the case for movies as well. The White Haired Witch of Lunar Kingdom as it is known is a glaring example. Within 15 minutes, the viewers are treated to a mash up of events that ranged from the kind noble people from the Wudang clan, a corrupt Eunuch Wei (Ni Dahong), a pending war with the Jins, an evil General Jin (Vincent Zhao) and of course the loving meeting of our leading characters in a cave.

In addition, you got to pay attention to the occasional flashing of names and events with dozens of other smaller characters emerging in and out of the story. Such is the problem with The White Haired Witch of Lunar Kingdom. You are never invested in the characters nor are you keen in the speed-up expository in the end even if the entire affair is helmed by veteran HK director Jacob Cheung (Cageman, A Battle of Wits) and Tsui Hark in the capacity of Artistic Consultant.

Comparing this to the 1993 version that starred the late Leslie Cheung and Brigitte Lin is unavoidable. Back then; The Bride with White Hair was a lavish production, which became a two-parter affair. Cheung and Lin sizzled onscreen with their ill-fated romance and nearly scorched everyone in the theaters with their heated passion and love. Unfortunately, Huang and Fan both capable actors in their own right disappoints in their first pair up. It could be Huang’s injury during production that hinders his performance or likely it’s the ambitious plotting that failed miserably to juggle between war and matters of the heart.

Despite a runtime of only 103 minutes,The White Haired Witch of Lunar Kingdom is a vexing watch through and through. Technicalities are average given the scale of the story and Hark’s contribution to the production is questionable. In fact, my hair is fast turning white even before Lian Nishang does. 

SPECIAL FEATURES:

NIL

AUDIO/VISUAL:

Visual is a plus given the excellent colors and details projected onscreen. Sound is a letdown as it’s only presented in Dolby Digital 2.0.

MOVIE RATING:

DVD RATING :

Review by Linus Tee

Genre: Horror/Thriller
Director: Vincenzo Natali
Cast: Abigail Breslin, Stephen McHattie, Peter Outerbridge, Michelle Nolden, David Hewlett
RunTime: 1 hr 37 mins
Rating: PG13 (Horror)
Released By: Cathay-Keris Films
Official Website: http://www.ifcfilms.com/films/haunter

Opening Day: 27 February 2014

Synopsis: Lisa Johnson is one day shy of her sixteenth birthday. And she will be forever. She and her family are dead and doomed to repeat that fateful last day before they were all killed in 1985. Only Lisa has “woken up” and realizes what is going on. She starts to feel as if she is being haunted, but the “ghost” turns out to be Olivia, a very much alive girl who lives in the house in the present day with her own family. With her help, Lisa discovers that the house once belonged to a serial killer who kidnapped teenage girls and burned their remains in a hidden furnace room. When he died, he became a Haunter - a powerful, evil spirit able to possess the living.

Movie Review: 

The conventional ‘haunted house’ setup gets an unusual twist in ‘Haunter’, a low-key but always intriguing indie horror thriller that unfolds largely from the perspective of 15-year-old Lisa (played by ‘Little Miss Sunshine’s’ Abigail Breslin) who is forced, like the rest of her family, to relive the events of the day before her sixteenth birthday. The only difference? Her dad (Peter Outerbridge), mom (Michelle Nolden) and kid brother are blissfully unaware of their ‘Groundhog Day’ circumstance, going about their routine as if it were just another day in family banality.

There’s a good reason for it. Lisa and her entire family are ghosts, trapped in their 1985 Reagan-era suburban home after being murdered by the spirit of a serial killer who collects the souls of his victims like butterflies in a jar. They ain’t alone in fact; Lisa soon discovers that there are many other families like hers who have suffered the same fate at the hands of a creepy Edgar Mullen (Stephen McHattie). What’s worse, Edgar’s next target is a similar family of four living in the house in present-day, his modus operandi exactly the same as that of Lisa’s and the other families who came and went before hers.

To his credit, debut screenwriter Brian King’s high-concept premise is inventive and intriguing, teasing its viewer to guess just how Lisa and the rest of her family met their deadly fate at the hands of Edgar. Unfortunately, there isn’t quite enough to sustain your attention for the entire duration, particularly because it becomes too plainly clear just why and what Lisa has to get away from halfway through the movie. In particular, the introduction of Lisa’s real-life equivalent named Olivia (Eleanor Zichy) only serves to confirm the viewer’s suspicion that the once-promising conceit is headed for much more conventional territory.

On his part, cult director Vincenzo Natali (of ‘Cube’ and ‘Splice’) pulls out all the stops to make sure that his picture looks cool. With his cinematographer Jon Joffin, Natali conjures up a moody atmospheric attitude that cleverly contrasts the world of the living and the world of the dead. The collision of these two parallel worlds within the same setting makes for some interesting visual ‘electricity’; ditto the transition through time as Lisa makes contact with the other girls who have also died in the same house. There is also much artistic finesse in the way Natali presents the redundancy of Lisa’s days at the start, which quickly and surely draws his viewers into the peculiarity of Lisa’s circumstance.

That credit also has to go to Breslin, who has played her fair share of surly teens since graduating with age out of ‘Little Miss Sunshine’ and ‘Kit Kittredge: An American Dream’ type roles. Her greatest accomplishment is in bringing a grounded sense of realism to her role, avoiding the overacting and false hysterics that many unfamiliar with the horror genre tend to lapse into. McHattie might not appear familiar, but he makes for a perfectly veral villain who conveys sinister menace with just a turn of the lips.

Viewers who are looking for big scary moments will probably find ‘Haunter’ outright disappointing, for there are no such setpieces to be found here. Instead, there are decent scares now and then to give you a jolt in the seat, though the suspense here works more as a mystery than anything else. Still, there is novelty to be found in this ghost story, even if it does work better as an interesting experiment of genre conventions than a fully-fleshed thriller in its own right. Haunted you may not be, but we guarantee you that you’ll at least be piqued. 

Movie Rating:

(Low-key but intriguing twist on the ‘haunted house’ setup that unfolds a mystery thriller from the perspective of a dead protagonist)

Review by Gabriel Chong

Genre: Comedy/Action
Director: Li Chi Ngai
Cast: Kelly Chen, Tony Leung Ka Fai, Ekin Cheng, Eric Tsang, Wong Cho Lam
RunTime: 1 hr 36 mins
Rating: PG
Released By: Clover Films and Cathay-Keris Films
Official Website: 

Opening Day: 21 March 2014

Synopsis: While interviewing for a relics smuggling case in London, television hostess Ha Mui meets multi-faced thief Nine-Tailed Fox and washed out police detective Cheung Ho. One wants to reveal the truth, one wants to steal the "Tang Dynasty Pottery Horse" and one wants to take criminals to justice. The three of them have different goals, but they must work together to gain the pottery, during which attracted a hunt for Nine-Tailed Fox by his rivals. What will be the final outcome?

Movie Review:

From the playful animated introduction set to a jazzy instrumental rendition of Michael Buble’s ‘It Had Better Be Tonight’, it is clear that scriptwriter cum director Lee Chi Ngai just wants his audience to have fun. At no point during its breezy 96-minute runtime does Lee load on anything dramatic that would weigh down the proceedings, preferring instead to rely on an incredibly game cast and some exquisite location shooting in London and Prague to deliver some pure cinematic escapism.

Billed as a caper comedy, Lee sets the adventure around the theft of an antique horse statue that brings our three protagonists on a wild goose chase halfway across the world. Inspector Cheng Ho (Ekin Cheng) is on his own solo mission to find out just how the statue disappeared from police headquarters after being recovered from the scene of an accident. Meanwhile, Mui (Kelly Chen) has decided to investigate rumours that the statue will be the subject of an underground auction in London while attending a friend’s wedding. And as Cheng Ho and Mui cross paths, Cheng reveals that he is in fact on the hunt for an elusive thief who goes by the moniker Nine-tail Fox (Tony Leung Kar Fai).

Along the way, some occasional acts pop up to add a dash of zing. Eric Tsang and Wong Cho-lam are a pair of bumbling history experts who may or may not be involved in the disappearance of the antique horse. Mandy Lieu makes an entrance midway as an assassin employed by an underground antique smuggling ring to take out Fox. But pretty much, most of the attention is focused on our three key players – Inspector Cheng, Mui and Fox – who from London to Prague play out an elaborate game of cat and mouse which brings them from Piccadilly Circus to St Peter’s Church.

Shifting alliances, mistaken identities and hidden agendas – Lee throws them all in to keep his audience guessing just who is playing who and why.  Unfortunately, he underestimates the intelligence of his audience; indeed, anyone looking for a battle of wits should look elsewhere, for this ‘Horseplay’ turns out to be exactly that. Rather than relying on smarts, Fox gives Cheng and his merry band of policemen the slip by putting on various disguises (which look quite plainly obvious to us, if you ask me) and resorting to all sorts of tomfoolery. There is also hardly method to their pursuit of the valuable national treasure, which goes off in superfluous detours that end up nowhere – including an extended one in a giant indoor interactive amusement park in Prague.

That the excursion remains entertaining is in huge part due to the star wattage of its lead players. While Ekin Cheng’s pipe-smoking detective is increasingly sidelined as the movie progresses, the charismatic actor remains a delight to watch in a comic role which recalls that of his early 2000 action comedies ‘Hot War’ and ‘Tokyo Raiders’. Kelly Chen makes for an equally lively presence, but the one that holds the ensemble together is undoubtedly Tony Leung. Balancing gravitas with levity, Leung never overplays his character’s jokey persona, bringing an understated charm not unlike George Clooney’s anchoring presence in ‘Ocean’s Eleven’.

Complementing the actors’ good-humoured performances is veteran designer Yee Chung Man’s artistic flourishes, which further lend the movie a light-hearted whimsical touch from start to finish. It shouldn’t come as any surprise that this is the most un-Hong Kong movie for some time, but aside from the locations, tech credits here are top-notch, in particular Wade Muller’s cinematography of the European setting and Yuki Yamamoto’s jaunty score to accompany the merry proceedings.   

And indeed, how much fun you’re going to have with this ‘Horseplay’ ultimately depends on how much you’re determined not to take anything that happens within seriously. Like we said at the start, there’s never any doubt at every juncture that Lee is out to make broad crowd-pleasing entertainment of the somewhat slapstick style, so if you’re looking for anything that’s witty then we advise you to look elsewhere. Otherwise, Leung, Chen, and Cheng are great company for one half hours, and good reason enough to lighten up and simply enjoy the excursion. 

Movie Rating:

(A fun breezy ride and nothing more - this lightweight caper comedy coasts on the easy chemistry between its three stellar leads)

Review by Gabriel Chong

We don’t know about you, but we love the music from The Shawshank Redemption (1995), Road to Perdition (2003), Finding Nemo (2004) and Wall.E (2009) to bits. The original scores are brilliant creations of 58 year old American composer Thomas Newman. He has been nominated 12 times for an Oscar, but has never taken home one. His latest work for the sappily sentimental (we mean that in a good way) Saving Mr. Banks is, well, unfortunately overlooked by the Academy Award voters – again.

This is a soundtrack album you’d want to listen to when you are down, because it contains some brightly sentimental harmonies which will, like all things Disney, lift your spirits. Kicking off the 46 minute album is “Chim Chim Cher-ee (East Wind)”, a cue narrated by Colin Farrell who pleasantly loses his heavy Irish accent. It sets the mood going, as you indulge yourself in Newman’s heartfelt and spirited compositions “Travers Goff”, “Walking Bus”, “Uncle Albert” and “Jollification”.

Elsewhere in the album, Ray Charles performs “One Mint Julep” and The Dave Brubeck Company strums a jazzy “Heigh Ho”. There are also excerpts from John Lee Hancock’s film, including “Chim Chim Cher-ee (Responstible)”, “Supercalifragilisticexpialidocious” and “Let’s Go Fly A Kite” performed by cast members Jason Schwartzman and B.J. Novak (who play the Sherman Brothers), Emma Thompson (who plays P.L. Travers), Bradley Whitford and Melanie Paxson.

Things get a little melancholic with “To My Mother” and “Westerly Weather”, but you know with all things Disney, there will be a happy ending. “Saving Mr Banks (End Title)” closes the soundtrack nicely, leaving smiles on our faces.

This deluxe version of the soundtrack gets extra half a star because of its second CD which includes Mary Poppins pre demo recordings and actually tracks from the Mary Poppins film. Fans of Julie Andrews and Dick Van Dyke will want to make this a must own. 

ALBUM RATING: 

Recommended Track: (26) Let’s Go Fly A Kite (Disc 1)

Review by John Li