Genre: Comedy
Director: Steve Carr
Cast: Griffin Gluck, Lauren Graham, Rob Riggle, Thomas Barbusca, Andy Daly, Adam Pally
Runtime: 1 hr 31 mins
Rating: PG
Released By: Cathay-Keris Films
Official Website: 

Opening Day: 6 October 2016

Synopsis: Rafe has an epic imagination...and a slight problem with authority. Both collide when he transfers to an oppressive, rule-crazy middle school. Drowning in do's and don'ts, Rafe and his scheming best friend Leo hatch a plan to break every rule in the school's Code of Conduct. It's Ferris Bueller meets Home Alone as their battle with Principal Dwight explodes into chaos both real and imagined. But Dwight displays his own fiendish creativity, striking back at the rulebreakers. Meanwhile, Rafe struggles to hide his misbehavior from Jeanne, the straight-A, overachieving girl of his dreams, and at home, his mother's boyfriend - a moochy, jack-of-no-trades named Bear - threatens to become his stepfather.

Movie Review:

Based on a novel by James Patterson (yes the same Patterson who wrote the Alex Cross series) and Chris Tebbetts, Middle School: The Worst Years of My Life is liked an unfunny, less meaningful version of Diary of a Wimpy Kid that you wished you had stayed at home and rewatched the latter on cable or DVD instead.

Targeted at the tween crowd, this Steve Carr (Paul Blart: Mall Cop) directed comedy stars Griffin Gluck as Rafe Khatchadorian, a gifted art student who has problems adjusting to his new school after his doodling book is destroyed by his Principal (Andrew Daly). In order to get back at his principal and his endless rules, Rafe and his buddy Leo (Thomas Barbusca) concocts plans to violate the school rules and that includes spraying graffiti and turning the trophy case into an aquarium. Extravagant pranks that you won’t expect ordinary boys to carry out. But hey this is just a movie.

But since this is also a flick about family and puppy love, there’s a self-centered, doofus named Carl (Rob Riggle), boyfriend of Rafe’s mum (Lauren Graham), witty sister Georgia (Alexa Nisenson) and the school’s tech girl and love interest, Jeanne (Isabela Moner) to keep the narrative going.  

Middle School: The Worst Years of My Life actually has lots more going than mere over-the-top pranks. It has all the potential to delve into the pressure of today’s academic expectation especially when you have Principal Dwight going ballistic over the school’s B.L.A.A.R. (Baseline Assessment of Academic Readiness) scores or emphasized on the cool teaching methods as demonstrated by teacher Teller (Adam Pally). Unfortunately, Steve Carr decides to dumb down the entire affair by constantly showing Andrew Daly’s character being pranked and Rob Riggle being an asshole. Seriously, not funny.     

Although quite jarring to the overall tone, there’s an unexpected “sixth sense” like sad twist in the last act that actually bump up the score of the movie by a little. Pretty sure the crowd will be taken aback by this sudden moment of seriousness. The absolutely contagious animated hand-drawn sequences derived from Rafe’s imagination of course serves as the movie’s main highlight.

The movie fails to deliver messages on the onset of adolescence, bullying and the reason why Rafe chooses to constantly defy authority. It wastes so much time on the unfunny nonsensical pranks that there’s only a miserable portion of good stuff left in the end.       

Movie Rating:

(Not the worst middle school comedy but definitely a forgettable one)

Review by Linus Tee

Genre: Horror/Thriller
Director: Bryan Bertino
Cast: Zoe Kazan, Ella Ballentine, Chris Webb, Aaron Douglas
Runtime: 1 hr 31 mins
Rating: NC-16 (Violence)
Released By: Shaw  
Official Website: 

Opening Day: 10 November 2016

Synopsis: From the creator of The Strangers comes a world of the lost; freezing spitting needles of rain, thunderbolt lightning, hypothermic cold and disorientating utter darkness. Mother and daughter trapped and tormented in a pitch-black forest by a screeching creature - it is unlike anything we have heard before. Not human. Not animal. Like a thousand horses, like a mother’s clamour, a baby’s wail, a father’s howl. Their relationship at breaking point, 10 year-old Lizzy is all out of faith in her mother Kathy (Elisabeth Moss) but tries to stay brave and fearless. Kathy, on the edge, barely keeping it together, knows that only a mother’s protective love, her most primal instinct, can save her daughter from what's lurking in the darkness...

Movie Review:

“Mom tells me there’s no such thing as monsters, but she is wrong. They are out there, waiting for you, watching… waiting. They are in the dark… Sometimes where you see them… Sometimes where you don’t. I know that now.”

Lizzy’s (Ella Ballentine) narration of the above bookends this indie horror from writer-director Bryan Bertino, best known for his surprisingly effective thriller ‘The Strangers’ almost a decade ago which finds a couple at the crossroads of their marriage suddenly confronted with the threat of a random home invasion. There are parallels between that and the premise of ‘The Monster’, which strands an estranged mother-daughter pair on a lonely rural road and forces them to contend with a ferocious beast of unknown origin. Indeed, it is through fighting for their survival that they will each re-discover the deep bond between parent and child that exists between them, clouded over the years by emotionally destructive patterns which we learn stem from Lizzy’s mother’s substance abuse issues.

Oh yes, if you’re expecting a man-versus-monster showdown from start to finish, you’ll probably find your patience tested by the deliberate pacing here. In no hurry to show off the fairly old-school ink-black reptilian beast that is stalking Lizzy and her mother Kathy (Zoe Kazan) while they wait for help, Bertino spends the first hour building up the sense of dread that there is some creature out there which had attacked the wolf their vehicle had hit shortly after losing control, occasionally taking us away from that fateful night to earlier episodes between them that underscore the hurt, rage and guilt which now passes between them. These flashbacks also serve to lend context to a spare but powerful early scene, which sees Lizzy cleaning up her mother’s beer bottles and cigarette butts while waiting for her mother to wake up from her drunken stupor to drive her to her father’s.

It is not because of narrative cliché therefore that they are on the road so late at night, and Bertino is equally careful employing genre conventions here. A giant fang lying nearby the dead wolf that hints at the scars on the animal’s carcass which could not have come from the accident. The sudden disappearance of the wolf’s corpse despite the fact that the animal was clearly dead the last time they checked. A bloodied dismembered arm from the driver of the tow truck who had moments earlier been working under the chassis of their car to fix the leaking fuel. Slowly but surely, Bertino gathers anticipation for the title character watching and waiting in the cover of the trees, glanced only at the edges of the frame or draped in shadow while Kathy and Lizzy stay in the tight confines of their broken-down vehicle.

Once all hell breaks loose though, Bertino holds nothing back, and the last half-hour is brutal and relentless as the monster descends upon Kathy and Lizzy as well as the two ambulance personnel who have come to their rescue (but end up needing more help themselves). Even then, the relationship between mother and daughter remains at the heart of the horror, with Bertino’s script conspiring to make them rely on no one else but each other to survive the night. Thankfully then, his plotting is supported by two strong central performances. Kazan is entirely believable as a woman who became a mother too soon, with too little self-control to rein in her worst impulses; on the other hand, Ballentine is utterly convincing as a child who is forced to grow up faster than her years. Theirs is a fraught relationship of pathos, not caricature, and it is not difficult to root for them to make it out of this terror together.

What ‘The Monster’ deliberately omits is explanation for its menace, which remains a complete mystery right up to the end. Where did it come from? Why has it only appeared now? Why is it so bloodthirsty? Somewhat disappointingly, there is little attempt to shed light on these conundrums. But insofar as the struggle to slay the monster could in fact be a metaphor for the ‘monsters’ that lurk beneath the relationship between Kathy and Lizzy, we are willing to overlook these flaws of an otherwise well-acted, character-driven lean mean creature horror. It doesn’t reinvent the genre, but it’s a solid low-budget effort that knows what it sets out to achieve and accomplishes it neatly. 

Movie Rating:

(Anchored by fierce performances by its two central leads, 'The Monster' is a lean, mean, character-driven horror that offers great atmosphere and effective thrills)

Review by Gabriel Chong

Genre: Action/Thriller
Director: Chad Stahelski
Cast: Keanu Reeves, Ian McShane, John Leguizamo, Common, Peter Stormare, Lance Reddick, Ruby Rose, Laurence Fishburne
Runtime: 2 hrs 2 mins
Rating: M18 (Violence)
Released By: Golden Village Pictures
Official Website: 

Opening Day: 16 February 2017

Synopsis: In this next chapter following the 2014 hit, legendary hitman John Wick (Keanu Reeves) is forced back out of retirement by a former associate plotting to seize control of a shadowy international assassins’ guild. Bound by a blood oath to help him, John travels to Rome where he squares off against some of the world’s deadliest killers.

Movie Review:

Keanu Reeves is a very specific kind of actor. That isn’t a bad thing in and of itself; it just means that there is a very specific type of role that he plays and will play best. It is precisely this quality that the Wachowski brothers saw and capitalized on in ‘The Matrix’ and its sequels, and therefore for perfectly good reason that his Neo is one of his most, if not the most, memorable role of his acting career. It is this same quality that his ‘Matrix’ stunt coordinators Chad Stahelski and David Leitch had tapped on when casting Reeves as the eponymous assassin three years ago, and it is no coincidence that John Wick is one of his best roles in years, tapping not just on his lithe physicality and impressive kungfu skillset but also his ability to channel gravitas and wryness with intense focus. Oh yes, Reeves makes it perfectly believable that his John Wick had once killed three people in a bar using only a pencil, as Peter Stormare’s Russian crime tsar reminds us in the opening minutes. So too do we believe that the unstoppable killing machine named ‘The Boogeyman’ had embarked on a revenge-fueled warpath to avenge the death of the puppy gifted to him by his late wife.

‘Chapter Two’ picks up only a few days after the events of the first film, with John Wick retrieving his prized 1969 Black Mustang from New York’s Russian mob before trashing it in a gut-wrenching car chase and brokering a truce to put his former vendetta to rest. No sooner has he retreated back to the quiet suburban life he had created for himself than a former associate comes knocking at his door with a ‘marker’ that Wick had given in exchange for saving his life. In short, Wick owes his Italian crime boss Santino D’Antonio (Riccardo Scarmacio) a debt, and the latter has come to claim. “Rules – without them, we live with the animals,” says Winston (Ian McShane), an arbiter of the fraternity of assassins known as the Continental to which Wick belongs. Wick has little choice but to honour his previous blood oath – disobedience would mean falling outside the favour, and the protection, of the Continental and the strict codes that bind the far-reaching network of assassins, which would hardly fulfil his intention of living a peaceful life.

Truth be told, it is a terrible double-bind for Wick, and one that would probably make little sense if writer Derek Kolstad had not demonstrated as much discipline in adhering to the norms that he sets out here. Indeed, besides showing us just who Wick is, Kolstad and his directors Stahelski and Leitch had in the first movie successfully teased a fictional universe that plays by its own rubrics, ostensibly so that there can be some semblance of order in an otherwise lawless world. Here, they expand on that universe, further elaborating on the privileges of membership – be it access to its global chain of luxury hotels, tailors of impeccable taste and exceptional bullet-proofing material, or ‘sommeliers’ of impressive range of weaponry. Wick’s debt entails assassinating Santino’s sister Gianna (Claudia Gerini) in order that Santino can assume her existing seat at an all-powerful council of high-level crime lords known as The Table, and upon discharging his dues, Wick finds himself pursued not just by Gianna’s loyal bodyguard Cassian (Common) but also by every other money-hungry assassin hoping to clinch the $7 million bounty Santino has subsequently placed on Wick’s head.

It is a stretch, we admit, to buy into the mythology of ‘John Wick’, especially as the extent of the Continental network extends itself somewhat too ubiquitously – from a violinist in the subway to a heavyset Japanese-looking man in the street to two working-class men in their handyman uniforms, and not to mention the alternate under-the-table ring of street-eat spies headed by Laurence Fishburne’s Bowery King. There is also no semblance of police presence here, which is certainly incredulous considering the gratuity of the firepower and blood count. And yet, logic and credibility are second-order considerations here, preceded by classy kick-ass visuals that are conceived for maximum primal impact. Against pools of indigo and ultraviolent, Stahelski and his cinematographer Dan Laustsen orchestrate jaw-dropping sequences of bone-crunching glorious violence with gleeful exuberance, no doubt inspired by the sheer kinetic, balletic violence of early John Woo movies.

More so than in its predecessor, Stahelski displays greater ambition and confidence in his staging of each action sequence. The ancient Catacombs form the backdrop of an intense shootout between Wick and waves of armed attackers right after Wick fulfils his mission to eliminate Gianna. Shortly after, along Rome’s stone-cobbled stairs, Wick and Cassian engage in a fierce mano-a-mano, grunting, grabbing, punching and kicking at each other before crashing through the plate-glass windows of one Continental hotel and retiring to the lounge for a drink, in strict obedience to the first rule not to shed any blood on Continental grounds. Stahelski loves to film his action in breathtaking long takes – and nowhere is this more evident than in the relentless third act, which goes from the fountain at Lincoln Centre to the Calatrava PATH station’s gleaming white subterranean passageways to a vicious knife-fight on board a moving subway train. Saving the best for last, the riveting climax takes place in an elaborate museum hall of mirrors exhibit, where the dizzying reflections are no less a reflection (pun intended) of the meticulous and sophisticated planning that must have gone into it.

Amidst the firepower and fisticuffs, it is Reeves who holds it all together by not just performing his own driving and judo/ jujitsu stunts but also in defining a fascinating lead character whose actions and reactions are driven by his own motivations and morals. Like we said at the start, Reeves is a very specific kind of actor, and Wick is a role which is crafted and designed specifically for him. Though it may be the promise of elegant hyper-violent action which may draw you in (and which it accomplishes exceedingly), ‘John Wick: Chapter 2’ is ultimately a character vehicle, built on our love and embrace of the titular hitman. And like Reeves’ ‘The Matrix’, ‘John Wick’ exists in a world that turns and moves according to its own rules and rhythm, so how much you enjoy this sequel and the inevitable one after this depends too on how much you subscribe to that. In a time when much of Hollywood seems seized by the ‘Jason Bourne’ style of gritty action, the 'John Wick' franchise is a sweet reminder of beautiful stylized action and as perfect an excuse as any to put aside your conscience and indulge in some visceral bloodletting. 

Movie Rating:

(Stylish, hyperviolent and viscerally thrilling, 'John Wick: Chapter 2' expands the mythology of its predecessor with breathtaking elan, and features Keanu Reeves at his laconic best)

Review by Gabriel Chong

MISS SAIGON: THE 25TH ANNIVERSARY PERFORMANCE TO SCREEN EXCLUSIVELY AT CAPITOL THEATRE Posted on 11 Oct 2016 This October, MISS SAIGON: THE 25TH ANNIVERSARY PERFORMANCE brings an all-new spectacular film production of the legendary musical to Capitol Theatre. This acclaimed new staging of Boublil and Schönberg's Miss Saigon was one of the most highly anticipated musical events the West End had seen in recent years; smashing box office records and winning numerous awards, it was described ... more

Genre: Fantasy/Action
Director: Shinsuke Sato
Cast: Masahiro Higashide, Sousuke Ikematsu, Masaki Suda, Erika Toda, Rina Kawaei, Eiichiro Funakoshi, Sota Aoyama, Mina Fujii, Ryosuke Takei
Runtime: 2 hrs 15 mins
Rating: PG (Some Violence)
Released By: Encore Films and Golden Village Pictures  
Official Website: 

Opening Day: 10 November 2016

Synopsis: 10 years has passed since the Death Note murders and the final confrontation between Kira and L. Again, the shinigami ('God of Death') sends Death Notes to the ground, and the world soon falls into chaos. A ripple of mass murders caused by the Death Notes occur in the United States, Japan and other countries around the world. Mishima (Masahiro Higashide), a member of the Death Note special task force, takes up the case with 6 other investigators. Famous private detective Ryuzaki (Sousuke Ikematsu), who is the rightful successor of L, joins in the investigation. They discover that 6 Death Notes currently exist in the world. While they are investigating the case, cyber terrorist Yuki Shien (Masaki Suda) sends a computer virus throughout the world's systems. The virus carries a video of Kira that says to surrender all 6 Death Notes... Who will be the first to secure all 6 Death Notes?

Movie Review:

If you’ve never heard of L, Light, Kira, Misa, Ryuk or for that matter the Death Notes, then we suggest that you catch up with the first three movies of the ‘Death Note’ film franchise before watching this fourth chapter. Oh yes, despite set ten years after ‘Death Note 2: The Last Name’, this new instalment by ‘Gantz’ and ‘I Am A Hero’ director Shinsuke Sato draws heavily from its predecessors – among the key members of the task force set up to investigate the new rash of Death Note murders is Ryuzaki (Sosuke Ikematsu), an Interpol officer who has inherited L’s DNA and therefore not only his spiritual but also biological successor; the main nemesis is also codenamed ‘Neo Kira’ (or ‘New Kira’), after the nickname that Light uses to execute his own brand of vigilante justice; and last but not least, there are appearances by L, Light, Misa and Ryuk in both physical and digital form to draw reference to their legacy from the earlier movies.

It is therefore somewhat inevitable that ‘Death Note: Light Up the New World’ is compared against the earlier Shūsuke Kaneko’s duology, but unfortunately that comparison does no favours to this latest addition. Central to the thrill of the first two ‘Death Note’ movies was the battle of wits between L and Light, each of whom recognized the imperfections of the existing system of law and order but had fundamental disagreements over how to make things right – and between them of course was the death god Ryuk, who had his own ambitions but was ultimately constrained by the rules governing the gods assigned to the ‘death note(book)’. That same cerebral tension is sorely missing in this adaptation, which struggles to summon the same level of cleverness in the to-and-fro between Ryuzaki and Yuki Shien (aka the ‘Neo Kira’); neither do we find the same exchange of intellectual plotting between Ryuzaki and his fellow bright-eyed investigator Tsukuru Mishima (Masahiro Higashide), who have their fair share of run-ins given the former’s unconventional methods.

Worse, in trying to be smart, Sato and his screenwriter Katsunari Mano tie the narrative in some implausible twists and turns especially in the last half-hour. The so-called ‘Neo Kira’ turns out to be someone else. Mishima is not quite who he says he is. Ryuzaki ‘cheats’ death in a similar way that L used to trap Light. And one of Mishima’s teammates turns out to be the vengeful sister of a victim who died at the hands of the ‘Neo Kira’. As fast-paced as these revelations come, they come off unconvincing. Are we supposed to accept that Ryuzaki can just waltz into the Metro Police’s headquarters and break Mishima out of detention, after he is accused by his superior of withholding critical information from the investigation? Are we supposed to accept that the both of them can then access the same headquarters’ vaults to retrieve one of the ‘death note(books)’ the Police has managed to retrieve? Indeed, there is a blatant disregard for logic as the film tries to stay one step ahead of its audience, but the surprises are just too far-fetched.

Without sufficient character work between Ryuzaki, Mishima and Yuki Shien, it is pretty much left up to the plotting to sustain interest throughout its two-hours plus runtime. Admittedly, things do start off intriguing as not one but six notebooks are found to be circulating around the world – which is the reason for a Russian prologue that sees a doctor discover one of them and unintentionally cause the death of one of his close friends/ patients – but, for obvious budgetary reasons, these notebooks quickly and inexplicably find themselves in Tokyo, Japan, which the taskforce comprising of only Japanese is assigned to track down. A cyber-terrorism link that could have taken the story in a fresh new direction is also under-developed, such that the narrative is reduced to no more than a police procedural around the hunt for the ‘Neo Kira’. There is a fair bit of excitement no doubt, but the fact that the proceedings unfold on a much smaller scale is inevitably disappointing.

Sadly too, the combined talent of Higashide, Ikematsu and Sada cannot quite make up for the considerable absence of Kenichi Matsuyama and Tatsuya Fujiwara (who had played L and Light respectively). There is a palpable sense of joy seeing them on the screen, which promptly evaporates once we realize that they are no more than cameos. The advances in CGI have made the ‘shinigamis’ (or ‘death gods’) look much more imposing and humbling though, including a white female one named Arma (voiced by Miyuki Sawashiro) that forms an intimate connection with Ryuzaki. But besides Ryuzaki and Arma, the bond between [notebook] bearer and god (including that between Yuki Shien and Ryuk here) is hardly fleshed out, lacking therefore the nuances which characterized that between Light and Ryuk in the previous two movies.

As an addition to the film franchise, ‘Death Note: Light Up the New World’ is probably the weakest next to ‘L: Light Up the World’. There is no exposition on the philosophical conundrums of the Death Notes, of being able to judge and decide who lives and who dies, nor for that matter of how that power changes its wielder (as it did Light). There is also little intellectual machination that the earlier two films had, or character intricacies that made L and Light such complex and fascinating characters in their own right. In place is a fitfully exciting police procedural that only becomes more and more ridiculous as it tries to outwit itself, ending on a predictably open note that leaves the possibility of a sequel all but inevitable. Alas, its very title proves a misnomer – not only does it not light up a new beginning, it pretty much casts a dull shadow on the franchise by expending much of the goodwill built up by its far superior predecessors. 

Movie Rating:

(Fitfully exciting as a police procedural but little more, this new entry into the 'Death Note' film franchise lacks the wit, character detail, and thrill of its far superior predecessors)

Review by Gabriel Chong

Genre: Fantasy
Director: Scott Hicks
Cast: Addison Timlin, Jeremy Irvine, Harrison Gilbertson, Joely Richardson, Lola Kirke, Sianoa Smit-McPhee, Daisy Head, Hermione Corfield, Malachi Kirby
Runtime: 1 hr 31 mins
Rating: PG13 (Some Coarse Language)
Released By: Cathay-Keris Films  
Official Website: 

Opening Day: 10 November 2016

Synopsis: Based on the worldwide bestselling book series, Fallen is seen through the eyes of Lucinda "Luce" Price, a strong-willed seventeen-year-old living a seemingly ordinary life until she is accused of a crime she didn't commit. Sent off to the imposing Sword & Cross reform school, Luce finds herself being courted by two young men to whom she feels oddly connected. Isolated and haunted by strange visions, Luce begins to unravel the secrets of her past and discovers the two men are fallen angels, competing for her love for centuries. Luce must choose where her feelings lie, pitting Heaven against Hell in an epic battle over true love.

Movie Review:

Not to be confused with the 1998 supernatural thriller starring Denzel Washington, this Fallen is more in line with other YA fantasies such as Twilight, The Mortal Instruments and Beautiful Creatures. Unfortunately, it comes a little too late and offers way to little to satisfy even the hardcore YA crowd.

Clearly lacking the flair and budget of its predecessors, Fallen is based on a series of successful books by Lauren Kate, the first being published a year after the release of Twilight the movie. And not to discredit the work of Kate, it seems that the eerily familiar template of Twilight has been stamped on it even though it’s eight years since the phenomenal box-office success of it.

Lucinda (Addison Timlin) who believes she can see mysterious combusting shadows from time to time voluntary sent herself to a boarding school named Sword and Cross, a gloomy place where strange wayward students enrolled. There she met Daniel (Jeremy Irvin), the handsome boy who loves to doodle in class and Cam (Harrison Gilbertson), the rebel and troublemaker. In addition, there’s her talkative roommate and best friend, Penn (Lola Kirke) and a few other creepy students, one who happens to know about her dark past. Lucinda feels she has known Daniel for the longest time though he quickly brushes it off. Is it a result of reincarnation? Or is Lucinda’s sickness getting worse? Or perhaps there’s more to Daniel and Cam.

For those who actually care about the background of the movie, it’s about fallen angels hiding in the mortal world after Lucifer fell out with God. The war is ongoing and every angel must choose a side in the end. This is the interesting part of the story that never really delves on. While there are no vampires or werewolves here, there’s an almost perfect looking angel and a rebellious one vying for the love of a girl. A painful love triangle sounds awfully familiar if you know what I mean. Despite its relatively brief runtime, Fallen is content in delivering long pauses especially when it comes to scenes of boy meets girl. Lucinda meets Cam for the first time. Cue in a long pause. Lucinda then meets Daniel. Cue in a long pause. Lucinda meets Daniel in the courtyard. Cue in a long pause. Lucinda meets Daniel in the swimming pool. Cue in a long pause.  

Seriously we get it! We don’t need countless long pauses to understand the torture, the pain, the deep love suffered by the two lovebirds. What the audiences need is more background and story to feel for the characters instead of lingering shots of Daniel and Lucinda staring blankly at each other. If this is the setup for more adventures of fallen angels and demons then the filmmakers have practically wasted the chance.

Australian filmmaker Scott Hicks directed this gig though it’s best you stick to his 1996’s Shine. The U.S. distributor for Fallen happens to be Relativity Media, coincidentally the fallen movie company. The budget for this is touted to be US$40 million on the contrary the entire affair looks like a $4 million botched job. If other better done YA franchises liked Divergent has sputter before they reach the finishing point, chances are we are not likely to see another Lucinda’s outing on the screen again.   

Movie Rating:

(A battle between angels and demons? More like a slow painful romance affair that goes nowhere by the time the credits rolled)

Review by Linus Tee

Genre: Thriller
Director: Herman Yau
Cast: Gordon Lam, Andy Hui, Janice Man, Jacky Cai, Wilfred Lau, Coco Chan, Steve Chan, Candice Yu
Runtime: 1 hr 28 mins
Rating: NC-16 (Some Sexual Scenes And Violence)
Released By: Shaw  
Official Website: 

Opening Day: 3 November 2016

Synopsis: The beautiful yet naive Tsang (Janice Man) has second thoughts about her arranged marriage with the most eligible bachelor in town (Lam Ka-tung) because she is secretly in love with the dog-loving math prodigy Fong (Andy Hui). One night, she is attacked on her way home. She wakes up and finds herself trapped in a room and tied to a bed naked. She was raped but managed to escape…

Movie Review:

Coming from a director who bemoans the lack of film noir thrillers in Hong Kong, one would expect Nessun Dorma to be an excellent film noir thriller that has all the right elements in place. Sadly, Herman Yau, the director who helmed Nessun Dorma, does not walk the talk and  Nessun Dorma is a film that tries too hard to be smart but ends up more schlocky than sophisticated.

Yau fails badly at creating an ominous atmosphere and only succeeds in freaking the audiences out with a loud thumping sound every time an overly creepy security guard with a badly scarred face appears (it is almost as if that sound effect is the guard’s signature character music of sorts). The only real reason why the audience gets freaked out in this case is due to the loudness of the sound and not because the character poses as any kind of threats. The red herrings that the script-writer throw in – the abovementioned security guard and a driver- are too obviously creepy to qualify as possible candidates responsible for the abduction of the female protagonist, Jasmine (played by Janice Man).

The abduction, which sets the stage for the mystery element of the movie to unfold, raises many questions. Despite the abduction lasting for a couple of days, right up to the eve of Jasmine’s wedding to wealthy business playboy, Vincent (played by Gordon Lam), no one seems to realize Jasmine’s disappearance or is concerned about how highly strung she has become. Convinced that she has been raped, Jasmine continues with her wedding and plans to marry Vincent so as to protect the illustrious reputations of both families and to feed her mother’s vanity. Vincent, being the stereotypical rich playboy cad that he is, shows no sympathy when he learns of Jasmine’s ordeal and promptly beats his wife up for deceiving him that she was ‘pure’ when she has clearly been ‘tainted’.  Rather than contact Jasmine when she is at the lowest point, her captor, who seems to have sight of every development in Jasmine’s life, decides to contact her only after she has made up her mind to leave Vincent and be together with her one true love – mathematics genius Fong Mo-Chit who miraculously overcame childhood autism to become a well-adjusted and socially adept adult.

After a moment’s hesitation and lament over being made the scapegoat for Vincent’s terrible ways that has clearly ignite her captor’s desire for revenge, Jasmine signs up for her captor’s plan to bring Vincent down and relishes in the idea of causing Vincent’s downfall. It is incredible how the meek and fragile Jasmine chooses to cast her lot with the captor who chose to punish her for the wrongdoing of a cad who she just happened to marry. More amazing is how Jasmine instantly becomes a strong woman who relishes in the thought of torturing and inflicting harm upon Vincent – the same man who she could only whimper in front of even as he beat her up for being a victim.

The movie also attempts to bolster its artistic cred by dropping blatant references to Puccini’s Turandot. However, unlike Turandot which has a clear message about love and which anchors its characters with strong motives, Nessun Dorma is badly let down by its characters’ indecipherable motives which completely change to suit the scriptwriter’s whims. The only character whose motive is consistent is Vincent but he is written lazily as a stereotypical rich playboy whose only motive is to satisfy his selfish hedonistic desires.

Ultimately, this movie’s attempts to be clever completely backfire and it ends up more of a schlock than a sophisticated piece.  

Movie Rating:

(Rather than elevate the selection of Hong Kong’s film noir thrillers, Nessun Dorma does just the opposite. If you are looking for a good Chinese/Mandarin film noir thriller, go watch (or rewatch) Kelvin Tong’s Rule No.1 instead)

Review by Katrina Tee

DEATH NOTE: LIGHT UP THE NEW WORLD Continues Box Office Success After 10 Years Posted on 16 Nov 2016 10 years after the last DEATH NOTE film, sequel DEATH NOTE LIGHT UP THE NEW WORLD continues the series’ success at the box office, grossing over S$530,000 in just 6 days. The film currently ranks second at the local box office after DOCTOR STRANGE, winning titles like TROLLS, OUIJA: ORIGIN OF EVIL and YOUR NAME, which was a big hit in Japan. In Japan, the film achieved over ¥458,645,8 ... more

Genre: Drama
Director: David Frankel
Cast: Will Smith, Edward Norton, Keira Knightley, Michael Peña, Naomie Harris, Jacob Latimore, Kate Winslet, Helen Mirren
Runtime: 1 hr 34 mins
Rating: PG13 (Brief Coarse Language)
Released By: Golden Village Pictures
Official Website: http://collateralbeauty-movie.com

Opening Day: 5 January 2017

Synopsis: When a successful New York advertising executive suffers a great tragedy he retreats from life. While his concerned friends try desperately to reconnect with him, he seeks answers from the universe by writing letters to Love, Time and Death. But it's not until his notes bring unexpected personal responses that he begins to understand how these constants interlock in a life fully lived, and how even the deepest loss can reveal moments of meaning and beauty.

Movie Review:

Love, time and death – three abstractions that connect every human being on Earth; because, as advertising guru Howard Inlet tells the staff of his company at the beginning of the movie, ‘we long for love, we wish we had more time, and we all fear death’. Not surprisingly, these same three elements become running themes in Will Smith’s latest feel-good tearjerker (think ‘Seven Pounds’ and ‘The Pursuit of Happyness’), albeit through an unnecessarily convoluted, arguably absurd and unequivocally contrived setup. As you probably already know, ‘Collateral Beauty’ unfolds in the wake of the unfortunate demise of Howard’s six-year-old daughter, which plunges him into depression and causes him to rail against the very abstractions he embraced before, i.e. in the form of angry letters addressed to Love, Time and Death that he even makes the effort to drop off in the postbox opposite his rented apartment.

That’s not the end of it, not even close in fact; to save the company from being dragged down in Howard’s tailspin, his three co-workers/ partners Whit (Edward Norton), Claire (Kate Winslet) and Simon (Michael Pena) decide to pay three struggling theatre actors Amy (Keira Knightley), Raffi (Jacob Latimore) and Brigitte (Helen Mirren) to play Love, Death and Time respectively. The intention is by no means noble – with the help of a private investigator (Ann Dowd) that they had hired to follow Howard in the first place, his supposed friends aim to use the personifications of these three abstractions to engage him in public and record footage of such confrontations, thus proving to the board of the company that he is mentally incapable and force Howard’s hand to sell off his majority share. Notwithstanding their initial reluctance and persistent reservations towards Whit’s plan, it still is a decidedly bastardly move, which Brigitte persuades Amy to go ahead with for the money to be able to put up their own stage performance.

But Howard’s recovery isn’t the only motivation here; as Whit teams with Amy, Claire with Raffi, and Simon with Brigitte, it becomes clear that Allan Loeb’s screenplay is just as concerned with Whit’s estrangement from his teenage daughter, Claire’s yet-unfulfilled hope to be a mother, and Simon’s inability to tell his family that he is sick and possibly dying. Because Whit, Claire and Simon need help with Love, Time and Death respectively, too little focus is placed on Howard and his own loss – especially missing is the bond between him and his daughter Olivia, apart from a recurring scene of him swinging his daughter around. Where it does find time for Howard, those precious moments are unfortunately lost on scenes with him and grief counsellor Madeleine (Naomie Harris), who runs a support group for parents who have lost their children – not only because of a disingenuous twist towards the end about Howard and Madeleine’s relationship, but also because of the titular concept that sounds disingenuously like New Age Philosophy 101.

Ah yes, so much has been said about love, time and death that the entire notion of ‘collateral beauty’ seems to have been forgotten. Madeleine will relate her own experience of losing her kid to explain it to Howard, but the long and short of it is to not be buried in one’s grief but to see and recognize the beauty which still exists all around. Intriguing as it sounds, it really isn’t as deep or inventive as it appears to be; worse still, more than love, time or death, this rather simplistic concept ironically remains an abstraction throughout the film, simply because so little time is spent developing it or fleshing it out. Its impact is also diminished because of how it comes through a second, only slightly less, disingenuous twist that underscores how needlessly protracted the entire setup was in the first place – specifically, why Love, Death and Time needed to come through three actors – and opens up a gaping plothole that not Loeb or his director David Frankel is capable of glossing over adequately.

Neither for that matter does Frankel manage to smooth over the unwieldiness of the narrative itself that seems perpetually encumbered by too many characters fighting for attention over a seemingly compact but ultimately plodding 96 minutes. Thankfully though, he has an enormously appealing A-list ensemble to add weight to the paper-thin characters, led of course by the always watchable Smith who does his darnest to emote in the few scenes he is allowed to express his anguish. Norton, Winslet and Pena have good rapport, while Knightley, Latimore and Mirren inject some much-needed verve into the proceedings. Why each of these talented actors agreed to such bit roles is perplexing, but one imagines that there must have been a point where the movie was compared to a modern-day ‘Love Actually’, as much as the final product turns out far short.

‘Collateral Beauty’ won’t be the first time Hollywood has tried at holiday-season treacle, but even as undemanding sentimental eggnog, it is hardly as moving or poignant as it needs to be. To centre a story on the elements of love, time and death is interesting in and of itself, but it seems the filmmakers are quite at a loss how to develop it into something compelling. The same can be said of the idea of ‘collateral beauty’, which turns out shallow and pretentious. Since the movie seems to be hooked on the law of ‘threes’, here’s three abstractions it could do a lot more of – Truth, Empathy and Authenticity; Truth so that we do not feel ‘gas-lighted’ by its twists, Empathy so we care more for each one of its characters, and Authenticity so that the emotions it deals with and wants us to feel come off real and genuine. That’ll be the beauty, we say. 

Movie Rating:

(Unfocused, under-developed and disingenuous, this holiday-season feel-good tearjerker does not earn your emotions, your intelligence and ultimately your time)

Review by Gabriel Chong

Genre: Comedy/Romance
Director: Banjong Pisanthanakun
Cast: Chantavit Dhanasevi (Ter), Nitta Jirayungyurn (Mew)
Runtime: 2 hrs 12 mins
Rating: PG
Released By: Golden Village Pictures
Official Website: http://www.fandaythemovie.com/web/

Opening Day: 27 October 2016

Synopsis: 'Denchai' (Ter – Chantavit) is a geeky 30-year-old IT officer whose existence is only acknowledged when his colleagues need tech support. He feels even more of an outcast every time his co-workers call on him for help and can’t even remember his name. Denchai’s mundane world is flipped upside down when he goes to fix a printer for a new girl in the Marketing department named 'Nui' (Mew – Nittha). Nui happens to get his name correct, making him feel valued once again. From that heartfelt moment, Denchai falls head over heels for Nui, but only admires her secretly from afar, since he wholeheartedly knows that Nui is completely out of his league. It’s not until one day when their company arranges a company trip to a ski resort in Hokkaido that Denchai finally takes a leap of faith by making a wish at the resort’s landmark Lucky ‘N Love Bell. Denchai’s wish is for Nui to be his girl for just ONE DAY. In an ironic twist of fate, Nui goes skiing alone and passes out in the snow. When she wakes up, she is diagnosed with TGA - a rare but temporary memory loss disorder, which lasts for just one day. Figuring that this is fate’s way of granting him his wish, Denchai decides to lie to his dream girl by telling her that he is her boyfriend and that they had plans to travel around Hokkaido together. Would you risk everything, no matter how impossible, whatever the outcome, just to be in love for just ONE DAY?

Movie Review:

‘What if you could have one day with the girl of your dreams?’ That is the wish fulfilment teased by writer-director Banjong Pisanthanakun in ‘One Day’, in which 30-year-old IT nerd Denchai (Ter - Chantavit Dhanasevi) gets to live out his wish of simply having a day with the sweet and attractive marketing executive Nui (Mew - Nittha Jirayangyurn) while on a company trip in picturesque Hokkaido. Not only will they end up visiting iconic tourist attractions on the island including the Music Box Museum in Otaru, the ‘Valley of Hell’ in Noboribetsu, the Yunokawa Hot Spring in Hakodate and finally the Snow Festival in Sapporo, the unlikely couple will also find themselves falling in love with each other, with perhaps the only mystery being whether they can still find a way to be with each other for good at the end of that magical day – and we use ‘magical’ here metaphorically and not literally, since it is through a twist of events that leads Nui to suffer from a rare but true medical condition known as ‘transient global amnesia’ (‘TGA’) which creates that serendipitious opportunity for Denchai.

And yet that is only the ostensible premise of a romantic comedy that proves to be far more textured than what its official synopsis and trailer has revealed. In order so that his audience root for Denchai and Nui, Pisanthanakun devotes the first half of the movie to establishing Denchai’s circumstances, beginning with him at the company’s New Year party where he is not just the wallflower but has literally dressed himself to blend in with the brick wall behind him. That is indeed an appropriate representation of his lonely existence – the security guard at his company doesn’t recognise him even though he’s been there for several years; colleagues who do not remember his name; stallholders who cannot remember him or his usual order; an automated advertising message that serves as his only birthday greeting; and last but not least acquaintances who contact him only because they want to sell him some useless skincare products. Denchai proclaims the computer his best friend, because it does whatever he asks it to, whether to print, to save, or simply to delete.

Of every other non-IT employee in his company, Nui is the only one who remembers his name, and following a bit of spot involving some printing issues, Denchai starts to take notice of her – what time she comes to work daily, her routine at work, and even her favourite food (that happens to be ‘uni’ or sea urchin). Unfortunately, Nui is in love with no less than the tall, dashing and handsome company president Top (Tui - Teerapat Satjakul), who courts her with flowers at the carpark and asks her out for lunches. But perhaps the most significant gesture of his affection for Nui is bringing the whole company to Hokkaido – under the pretense of the annual company outing – so that she can finally visit the Snow Festival. And yet if that sounds a little suspicious, it is – yes, Top is in fact already married with a kid (though he promises Nui that intends to seek a divorce so that they can be together), which explains why the need to keep their romance a secret from the rest of the office as well as for a pretense to travel with her.

As fate would have it, not only does Top’s wife and kid turn up unexpectedly at the Kiroro Resort where the company is staying for the duration of the trip, she comes bearing news that she is pregnant with their second kid, a devastating piece of news which Nui happens to overhear. Instead of extending his stay with Nui, Top leaves her to travel onwards to Tokyo with his wife and kid, which only makes her feel even more depressed. In a moment of utter despair, she puts on her skiing gear and deliberately pushes herself off a cliff. All this while, Denchai watches her every step quietly and helplessly in the background, and it is he who triggers the search and rescue operation which conveys her unconscious to the hospital. In truth, it isn’t coincidence that she suffers from TGA that effectively blanks out her memory from before she joined the company, nor is it coincidence how Denchai ends up her only friend in a foreign land - though, for reasons that will only become clearer later on, Denchai assumes the role of Top and tells her that they have been dating for the past few years.

Opportunistic as it may have sounded at the start, Denchai’s only aim is to let her find happiness if only for just one day, with no illusions whatsoever about how that day may change the course of his life or for that matter make him any more attractive than he really is. And despite her initial apprehension, Nui slowly accepts Denchai as her boyfriend, with plenty of charming moments in between – like how Nui forces the incomprehensibly shy Denchai to look into her eyes, or Denchai’s mixing of fact and fiction when Nui asks how he had made her fall in love with him, or their enactment of ‘meet-cute’ encounters in the alley of a convenience store while waiting for a heavy snowstorm to subside. It is these moments that make the film pure enchantment, and we dare say possibly one of the most romantically delightful ones we’ve seen this year.

Yet that doesn’t mean one should therefore expect a ‘happily-ever-after’ – not only will die-hard romantics find themselves denied of such convenient gratification, it is likely that some will feel frustrated by the deliberately open ending (which cynics will say is simply intended to leave room for a sequel). Not that Pisanthanakun doesn’t prepare his audience for that upset; a late twist to that New Year company party intro explains just why Denchai does not try harder to make the happiness of that one day last a lifetime and even goes the extra mile to destroy what hope there may be of Nui recollecting that beautiful day once she recuperates from TGA the morning after. It is bittersweet no doubt, but an entirely befitting one when seen against the self-sacrificial ways in which Denchai was content to love Nui behind the scenes – going to work early so to save a parking lot for her, hacking into her farm game account to accumulate nails and wood for her, organising her messy desk after work, and looking up the names of the old songs she likes but could never figure out their titles.

All great romances rest on the chemistry of the lead actors, and ‘One Day’ is no different. Ter is completely believable as the socially withdrawn Denchai, whereas Mew slips in effortlessly – in no small part due to her natural good looks – into the role of Nui. Next to each other, Ter and Mew share an easy unaffected rapport that carries the film from being awkward strangers at the start to kindred souls at the end of the titular day.  Though it may seem as mere wish fulfilment at the start, ‘One Day’ ends up asking a much more profound question of how we love. Do we need to hold on to the ones we love? Or are we content to let them find their own happiness? At slightly over two hours, it may run a little longer than it should, but ‘One Day’ is engaging from start to finish – romantic in parts, funny at others, but most of all winning throughout. 

Movie Rating:

(You will laugh, you will cry, and you'll be swept away by love - 'One Day' is romantic, amusing, moving and thoroughly winning)

Review by Gabriel Chong