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TRAILER WATCH - AGENT MR CHANPosted on 19 Jan 2018 |
SYNOPSIS: Determined to make it big in America, Polish-born band leader Jan Lewan draws his fans into a Ponzi scheme in this comedy based on a true story.
MOVIE REVIEW:
With such a cheesy title, you might wonder what exactly is The Polka King all about? Well, just think of it as a milder, kid-friendly version of The Wolf of Wall Street.
Polish immigrant Jan Lewan (Jack Black) believes anyone can make it in American, the land of dreams. He makes his living mostly by touring with his ever-growing band doing polka music to the elderly crowd and he also runs a modest gift shop selling polish souvenirs. As his dreams grow bigger and his expenses increasing, Lewan hatched a scheme to lure the rich old folks to invest in his company by promising an attractive 12 percent returns compared to a measly 3 percent from the banks.
Directed and written by Maya Forbes and Wallace Wolodarsky (Monsters vs Aliens, Diary of a Wimpy Kid: Dog Days), The Polka King is more of a screwball comedy than a fully developed biography of a real-life criminal. It’s hugely entertaining and perhaps it’s the ongoing funny music that keeps your toes tapping from start to finish that you forgot there isn’t much elaboration on how Lewan’s Ponzi scheme actually works.
To be fair, Forbes and Wolodarsky is no Martin Scorsese and definitely, they don’t really need to mimic the master and most important of all, they have Jack Black the ever-consummate actor and comedian. Black easily commands the screen with his charm, flawless song routines and accented English. Maybe it’s the wafer thin script or maybe it’s Black’s talents that make the character of Jan or Yan Lewan more sympathetic than awful.
Though it’s hard to upstage Black in the same screen, he is joined by a superb Jenny Slate (Gifted) who plays his wife Marla, a woman who desires to be known more than just plain Mrs Lewan. Notably later on in a stand out, laugh-out-loud sequence, we see Slate parading clumsily in a beauty pageant contest. Other familiar faces include Wes Anderson’s frequent collaborator, Jason Schwartzman playing Lewan’s co-musician, Mickey “Pizzazz” and a fantastic Jacki Weaver playing Lewan’s no-nonsense mother-in-law.
The Polka King is no in-depthlook into the character of Jan Lewan though he certainly led a colorful life including being nominated for a Grammy for best polka album. The fast-paced comedy does its obligatory bits to deliver but the performance of Jack Black, for better or worse becomes the soul of the entire movie surpassing the fact that it’s based on actual events and a real person.
MOVIE RATING:
Review by Linus Tee
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TRAILER WATCH - TOMB RAIDER TRAILER #2Posted on 19 Jan 2018 |
Genre: Action/Thriller
Director: Roar Uthaug
Cast: Alicia Vikander, Dominic West, Walton Goggins, Daniel Wu, Kristin Scott Thomas
Runtime: 1 hr 58 mins
Rating: PG13 (Some Violence)
Released By: Warner Bros
Official Website: https://www.facebook.com/TombRaiderMovie/
Opening Day: 8 March 2018
Synopsis: Lara Croft is the fiercely independent daughter of an eccentric adventurer who vanished when she was scarcely a teen. Now a young woman of 21 without any real focus or purpose, Lara navigates the chaotic streets of trendy East London as a bike courier, barely making the rent, and takes college courses, rarely making it to class. Determined to forge her own path, she refuses to take the reins of her father’s global empire just as staunchly as she rejects the idea that he’s truly gone. Advised to face the facts and move forward after seven years without him, even Lara can’t understand what drives her to finally solve the puzzle of his mysterious death. Going explicitly against his final wishes, she leaves everything she knows behind in search of her dad’s last-known destination: a fabled tomb on a mythical island that might be somewhere off the coast of Japan. But her mission will not be an easy one; just reaching the island will be extremely treacherous. Suddenly, the stakes couldn’t be higher for Lara, who—against the odds and armed with only her sharp mind, blind faith and inherently stubborn spirit—must learn to push herself beyond her limits as she journeys into the unknown. If she survives this perilous adventure, it could be the making of her, earning her the name tomb raider.
Movie Review:
Unlike say Wonder Woman, Lara Croft was less an icon of feminist empowerment than a geekboy’s wet dream, and as sexist as it sounds, the female English archaeologist has her place in pop culture as much because of her physical assets as her intelligence and athleticism. Yet to emphasise the former in this day and age would have been utterly anachronistic, which also explains why his big-screen reboot has opted for the critically lauded actress from ‘The Danish Girl’ and ‘Ex Machina’ than say a more well-endowed actress a la Angelina Jolie. With utmost respect to Jolie, Alicia Vikander proves herself to be a much more engaging Lara Croft than Jolie was in the earlier two ‘Tomb Raider’ feature films, even though the movie itself isn’t quite as impressive as it needs to be to justify its existence.
Like most such reboots are oft to do, this one takes the route of an origin story – here, the screenwriting duo of Geneva Robertson-Dworet and Alastair Siddons (working off a story credited to Evan Daugherty and Robertson-Dworet) reimagine Lara as a 21-year-old bike courier on the streets of East London who is struggling to make ends meet. When we first meet her, she’s engaged in an intense boxing match that she eventually loses, but not without demonstrating her tenacity by refusing to tap out until she almost loses consciousness. That same fierce independence is the reason why she hasn’t signed the papers to claim her father’s inheritance since his disappearance seven years ago, although when her aunt Ana (Kristin Scott Thomas) tells her the estate would be sold if she doesn’t, Lara acquiesces by turning up at the offices of her father’s company Croft Holdings.
Besides the papers, the lawyer hands her a wooden puzzle that opens up to reveal a key and a message which points her to her late mother’s niche within the family memorial. There, she finds her father’s secret office, learns of the legend of Himiko which he was pursuing, and follows a string of clues to try to track down his whereabouts. That journey will lead her first to Hong Kong’s iconic floating village Aberdeen, where she meets the boatman Lu Ren (a criminally underused Daniel Wu) who leads her to the Japanese island of Yamatai where her father had vanished. You can pretty much guess how it unfolds from that point – Lara will fall into bad company (led by Walton Goggins’s stony-faced Mathias Vogel), find out just what happened to her father, and then race against time to stop Vogel from opening the tomb and unleashing an ancient curse that would doom humanity forever.
To the film’s credit, our scepticism at the existence of such a primordial power is reflected in Lara herself, who up until confronted with the truth, cannot quite decide whether to dismiss the legend as pure myth. To its credit too, the revelation remains rooted in reality, which is in line with the filmmakers’ intention to create an authentic heroine not unlike what Christopher Nolan had done for Batman. In fact, we dare say this version of Lara Croft owes a fair amount of dues to Nolan’s ‘Batman Begins’, particularly with its father-daughter arc that underlines Lara’s anguish following the sudden disappearance of her father as well as her subsequent reconciliation. Truth be told, giving a touch of pathos to Lara isn’t exactly a bad thing: after all, Vikander certainly has the acting chops to make it work, and she does make Lara a lot more relatable, empathetic and worth rooting for.
In the same vein, Lara is a lot less superhuman than she used to be. Save for one at the end, you won’t see her making her signature incredible leaps. Indeed, one of the very first sequences that we see her spring into action – which features the iconic escape from the plane hulk from the 2013 edition of the game – finds her wounded, bleeding and in pain by the end of it. That same sensibility runs throughout the action in the film, which insists on a level of realism that the ‘Tomb Raider’ franchise is hitherto not known for – and among the highlights are a thrilling foot chase around the Aberdeen harbour atop its fishing boats and floating establishments, another exhilarating one through the dense tropical jungle that culminates in a literal cliff-hanger involving the aforementioned aircraft, and last but not least the perilous trek into Himiko’s tomb full of hidden traps and life-and-death puzzles.
At the helm is Norwegian director Roar Uthaug, who’s honed his craft in action thrillers on his home turf like ‘The Wave’ and ‘Escape’ and applies that sense of pace to sustain an energetic momentum from start to finish. Though the focus is no doubt on the Indiana Jones-style stunt pieces, one certainly hopes that Uthaug could have spent more time on developing its characters – not only are supporting ones like Lu Ren and Vogel hardly given much attention or thought, the fundamental turning point of Lara’s transformation from plucky daughter to determined heroine comes off too abrupt – one moment she is pleading with her father to forget about his research, the next she is running through the forest back to Vogel’s camp without breaking a sweat.
As valiant as the attempt may be to give Lara Croft a new breath of life, we suspect that ‘Tomb Raider’ is simply not distinguishing enough in a time when popular culture is saturated with real-life heroes and comic book superheroes. This Lara is certainly a lot more grounded than Jolie’s two earlier incarnations were, but besides taking a narrative leaf from Nolan’s ‘Batman Begins’, this origin story should definitely have learnt the depth of character work required to establish a compelling lead character. If you’re just here for the action, you probably won’t be disappointed, but it’ll take a lot more for you to be enthused for a sequel, which the epilogue of the shadowy organisation Trinity and a pair of HK USP Match handguns all but suggests.
Movie Rating:
(There is life yet in this Tomb Raider, but not quite enough in Lara Croft to transform this former geekboy's wet dream into an icon of feminist independence)
Review by Gabriel Chong
Genre: Documentary
Director: Richard Dale, Peter Webber, Fan Lixin
Narrated By: Robert Redford
Runtime: 1 hr 34 mins
Rating: PG
Released By: Shaw Organisation
Official Website:
Opening Day: 25 January 2018
Synopsis: From BBC Earth Films, the studio that brought you Earth, comes the long awaited sequel - Earth: One Amazing Day, an astonishing journey revealing the awesome power of the natural world. Over the course of one single day, we track the sun from the highest mountains to the remotest islands, from exotic jungles to urban jungles. Astounding breakthroughs in filmmaking technology bring you up close and personal with a cast of unforgettable characters; a baby zebra desperate to cross a swollen river, a penguin who heroically undertakes a death-defying daily commute to feed his family, a family of sperm whales who like to snooze vertically and a sloth on the hunt for love. Told with humour, intimacy, emotion and a jaw-dropping sense of cinematic splendour, Earth: One Amazing Day is the enchanting big screen family friendly adventure that spectacularly highlights how every day is filled with more unseen dramas and wonders than you can possibly imagine- until now!
Movie Review:
Lest we forget the beauty that surrounds us, ‘Earth: One Amazing Day’ reminds us of the wonder that we can’t see, don’t see and even won’t see.
Narrated with stateliness by Robert Redford (or Jackie Chan if you’re watching the Chinese version made for Mainland China), this sequel to BBC Earth Films’ ‘Earth’ traverses the various continents of our blue planet over the course of the beginning of a single day until its end to show how different animals respond to the sun’s warming rays. A 100-strong camera crew led by a trio of directors – Richard Dale, Peter Webber and Fan Lixin – have endeavoured to capture these creatures in their natural habitats, and the result is stunningly gorgeous visuals that are nothing less than a feat of technology and artistry.
Among the breathtaking ensemble are bamboo-chewing pandas from the forests of Sichuan in China, sun-bathing iguanas on the salt-drenched rocks of the Galapagos Islands, trekking chinstrap penguins from the South Atlantic, pouncing servals in the African wilderness, toothed whales (or ‘narwhals’) swimming along the cracks of the ice in the Arctic, and last but not least an amorous sloth making its way leisurely across the waters of a tropical island to meet its mate. You’ll be blown away by how the filmmakers have managed to shoot these animals in such exquisite detail, even as you marvel at the glories of nature.
It bears noting that the voiceover is blissfully free of sermonising, avoiding such subjects as the impact on climate change on these habitats or even mankind’s destruction of their homeland. Instead, it focuses on the diversity and resilience of wildlife, finding both humour and thrills in the day-to-day lives of assorted fauna – a sequence of just-hatched marine iguanas fleeing a horde of hungry snakes provides biting excitement, and so does that of a zebra foal trying to cross a raging river; another on the other hand, a montage of North American bears scratching their backs against trees is genuinely amusing, ditto two towering giraffes pummelling each other to show just who is alpha male of the terrain.
If there is one criticism, it is that it moves sometimes too quickly from one landscape to another, without giving equivalent depth to each. But that arguably isn’t its intention – rather, it wants you to remember the natural world that exists side-by-side with ours, filled with beauty and wonder by all creatures great and small, perfectly balanced by day and night. It is amazing all right, and all the more to watch it on the big screen, so bring the whole family to be inspired, enlightened and humbled.
Movie Rating:
(A fascinating tribute to the beauty that surrounds us, 'Earth: One Amazing Day' makes up for what it lacks in depth with sheer breathtaking imagery)
Review by Gabriel Chong
Genre: Thriller
Director: Francis Lawrence
Cast: Jennifer Lawrence, Joel Edgerton, Matthias Shoenearts, Jeremy Irons, Mary-Louise Parker, Charlotte Rampling
Runtime: 2 hrs 20 mins
Rating: M18 (Some Sexual Scenes and Nudity)
Released By: 20th Century Fox
Official Website: https://www.facebook.com/RedSparrowMovie
Opening Day: 1 March 2018
Synopsis: Dominika Egorova is many things. A devoted daughter determined to protect her mother at all costs. A prima ballerina whose ferocity has pushed her body and mind to the absolute limit. A master of seductivipte and manipulative combat. When she suffers a career-ending injury, Dominika and her mother are facing a bleak and uncertain future. That is why she finds herself manipulated into becoming the newest recruit for Sparrow School, a secret intelligence service that trains exceptional young people like her to use their bodies and minds as weapons. After enduring the perverse and sadistic training process, she emerges as the most dangerous Sparrow the program has ever produced. Dominika must now reconcile the person she was with the power she now commands, with her own life and everyone she cares about at risk, including an American CIA agent who tries to convince her he is the only person she can trust.
Movie Review:
Ah, Jennifer “I’ve-got-range” Lawrence. Hers is the name that launches a thousand roles, but maybe that brand is starting to slip with over-exposure. Forbes’ highest paid actress in 2015 and 2016 lost her place last year to Emma Stone - a sign that maybe the starlet’s reign is over?
So Red Sparrow would be like a tail wind of a gig for her. And it shows, though luckily just slightly. Lawrence’s Russian espionage flick is based on Jason Matthew’s book of the same name, and she performs adequately in the role of an intelligence spy eliciting information from an American CIA agent.
With her barely-there accent and dated haircut, Lawrence seems a little confused on which route to take with her character, Dominika Egorova, at times. A ballerina with her future cut short by a crushed leg, her uncle Vanya (Matthias Schoenaerts) offers the damsel a way out of her financial predicament, by offering her the chance to be a compliant patriot as a Sparrow.
Unlike the demure bird, the Russian Sparrows are a group of intelligence spies, trained in the art of seduction. They are taught weapons in psychology to extricate a person’s weaknesses and desires, so as to use them against the target.
“A person is a puzzle of desires, and you become the missing piece,” purrs the matron (Charlotte Rampling) of the intelligence school. Which begs the question from a reluctant Dominika - are we really just in a whore school? With her home country’s associates clearly putting state above person, she finds herself in a dilemma when the American CIA Nate Nash (Joel Edgerton) turns out to be sympathetic. Of course. United States, good. Russia, baaaaad.
This is where Red Sparrow is seduced itself. By over-simplifying the geopolitical relationship, it comes across as frail propaganda, and the promised story of a tormented Sparrow torn between sides becomes clear much too early.
Or is it?
Director Francis Lawrence does finesse his detours with reasonable skill, with some wanderings that confuse more than compel, and lands a few good twists even for a seasoned goer. But his lead actress struggles from the layers of deception, which makes for a few uncomfortable scenes.
Speaking of uncomfortable, the movie enjoys quite a few scenes of sexual abuse and gory torture, so folks with a sensitive palate might be doing a lot of tsk-ing in the theatre. It’s all meant of course to drill in the brutality of the Russian regime, compared to the liberal Americans, and so no expense is spared there. Bring on the skin scraper.
As Lawrence dances from persona to persona, it’s likely some in the audience will get lost in the plot. The comments overheard after the credits are a testimony to the quick-switches and incremental pacing of the spy thriller.
Red Sparrow is stylish and able, like the agent Lawrence herself plays. It does a few maneuvers and raises the pulse a little, but may fall short of being the prima ballerina she desperately dreamt to be.
Movie Rating:
(Richly produced film with heavy emphasis on Lawrence, the sexual and violent nature will no doubt raise eyebrows, but you have to admit then that you were seduced to watch it anyway)
Review by Morgan Awyong
Genre: Action/Sci-Fi
Director: Steven Spielberg
Cast: Tye Sheridan, Olivia Cooke, Ben Mendelsohn, T.J. Miller, Simon Pegg, Mark Rylance, Lena Waithe, Philip Zhao, Win Morisaki, Hannah John-Kamen
Runtime: 2 hrs 20 mins
Rating: PG13 (Some Violence And Coarse Language)
Released By: Warner Bros
Official Website: https://www.facebook.com/readyplayerone/
Opening Day: 29 March 2018
Synopsis: From filmmaker Steven Spielberg comes the action adventure “Ready Player One,” based on Ernest Cline’s bestseller of the same name, which has become a worldwide phenomenon. In the year 2045, the real world is a harsh place. The only time Wade Watts (Tye Sheridan) truly feels alive is when he escapes to the OASIS, an immersive virtual universe where most of humanity spends their days. In the OASIS, you can go anywhere, do anything, be anyone—the only limits are your own imagination. The OASIS was created by the brilliant and eccentric James Halliday (Mark Rylance), who left his immense fortune and total control of the Oasis to the winner of a three-part contest he designed to find a worthy heir. When Wade conquers the first challenge of the reality-bending treasure hunt, he and his friends—called the High Five—are hurled into a fantastical universe of discovery and danger to save the OASIS and their world.
Movie Review:
Ernest Cline’s titular pulp sci-fi novel was so awash in 1980s pop-culture references that it instantly became a geek calling card, but adapting it quite literally for the big screen would certainly have made it too self-indulgent, even more with Steven Spielberg at the helm. After all, the 71-year-old director was himself responsible for many of those reference points, and save for the snazzy DeLorean car from ‘Back to the Future’ (which he produced) and the rampaging T. Rex from ‘Jurassic Park’ (which he directed), he has wisely chosen to cut out most of the Spielbergian references. But more substantially, even as he retains some of the book’s biggest plot twists, Spielberg has made substantial changes to the specifics and structure in ways that will surprise Cline’s readers.
That said, we’ve never believed that a movie based off a book need be wedded to its source material, and with Cline on board as co-writer alongside Zak Penn, this film version boasts a much more streamlined narrative that allows for maximum breathtaking visuals. So rather than sketch out its lead protagonist Wade Watts’ (Tye Sheridan) banal day-to-day existence in the real world circa 2045, the film drops us straight into the virtual playground called the OASIS where millions of citizens spend hours upon hours living out their own fantasies. It is in the OASIS that its late creator James Halliday (Mark Rylance) has hidden three keys which will not only grant the one who finds them heir to a massive fortune, but also total control of the game itself, prompting fierce competition amongst ‘gunters’ (or egg hunters for short).
Such a quest requires both Spielbergian underdogs and villains. Wade belongs squarely to the former, a teenager living in a trailer park in Columbus, Ohio with his aunt ever since both his parents passed away; and he is joined by four other players he comes to ‘clan’ with as the ‘High Five’, comprising the sassy Samantha (Olivia Cooke), his best pal Aech (Lena Waithe), the Jap-cool Daito (Win Morisaki) and Daito’s 11-year-old brother Sho (Philip Zhao). The latter is led by corporate overlord Nolan Sorrento (Ben Mendelsohn), CEO of Innovative Online Industries (IOI), who runs an army of players known as Sixers to find the keys in the OASIS and another army of bruisers headed by F’Nale Zandor (Hannah John-Kamen) out to terminate Wade and his friends in the physical world before they succeed.
Like we said at the start, there are enough significant differences in the story here to make even those who have read the book guessing what happens next – and these range from the challenges to earn Halliday’s copper and jade keys, to the role of the big-talking I-R0k (T.J. Miller), to an entirely new backstory which links Nolan to Halliday and his co-inventor Ogden Marrow (Simon Pegg). There are a lot of moving parts here, but Spielberg proves he is one of the very best filmmakers of our generation by masterfully spinning them all at the same time. In particular, it is fascinating to be reminded every now and then how the tiny details we may not have paid much initial attention to (hint: watch out for what the Curator of the virtual Halliday library gives to Wade) are in fact pivotal pieces in the story.
Just as, if not more, amazing is how Spielberg balances storytelling with spectacle, the latter making for some of the most viscerally immersive and engaging stuff we’ve seen in a long time. Each one of the three challenges to earn Halliday’s keys is a marvel in itself to behold – the first a breakneck race through an ever-shifting New York cityscape with maze-like highways, swinging wrecking balls, crashes, explosions, King Kong and Godzilla; the second a brilliant recreation of Stanley Kubrick’s ‘The Shining’; and the last an all-out assault on Planet Doom’s Castle Anorak that among other things sees the Iron Giant and Gundam battle Mechagodzilla at the same time. Worth noting too is a brief but mesmerising dance-off between Wade and Samantha to the Bee Gees’ ‘Stayin Alive’, which like the other virtual sequences, is testament to the top-notch quality of the motion-capture performances as well as the technical artistry of long-time Spielberg collaborators Janusz Kaminski’s camerawork and Michael Kahn’s tight crisp editing.
As much as it is an adventure from start to finish, ‘Ready Player One’ is also a timely and poignant cautionary tale. Not only does it warn of the power that tech companies potentially wield, it also paints a troubling portrait of how meaningless our lives could become if we ceded ourselves to the virtual world. While Cline’s book held the latter, the former is as a result of significant additions that Spielberg has made in his adaptation to the real ‘unplugged’ world that Wade and his team have to confront. Given how much narrative and thematic ground the film covers, you’ll likely forgive the somewhat lacking character depth: though not yet reducing the characters to mere avatars, there is not enough detail in their respective backstories, especially the history between Halliday and Marrow in the book that led to the very design of the OASIS.
But there is still plenty to love about Spielberg’s sci-fi blockbuster packed full of astonishing visuals and tidbits of pop nostalgia. There is classic Spielbergian mastery throughout its mix of retro and futuristic, and despite a very busy story unfolding at more than two hours, there’s never a dull or confusing moment throughout. Instead, ‘Ready Player One’ is a dazzling thrill ride both exhilarating and uplifting, so whether you count yourself a geek or not, we guarantee that it’ll be an absolute blast.
Movie Rating:
(Whether as sheer spectacle or as an ode to pop nostalgia, 'Ready Player One' is a dazzling mix of retro and futuristic, thrills and emotion, familiar and surprising)
Review by Gabriel Chong
Genre: Drama
Director: JANG Joon-hwan
Cast: KIM Yoon-seok, HA Jung-woo, YOO Hai-jin, KIM Tae-ri
RunTime: 2 hrs 9 mins
Rating: NC-16 (Violence)
Released By: Golden Village Pictures
Official Website:
Opening Day: 1 February 2018
Synopsis: In January 1987, a 22-year-old college student dies during a police interrogation. Under the orders of Director Park (KIM Yoon-seok), the police request the body to be cremated in order to destroy evidence. Public Prosecutor Choi (HA Jung-woo), who was on duty on the day of the incident, denies the request and calls for an autopsy. The police maintain the lie that the death was a simple accident, resulting from shock. The autopsy results, however, point to torture as the cause of death. Yoon (LEE Hee-jun), a journalist following the case, reports that the death was a result of asphyxiation during torture. Director Park attempts to conceal the truth by ending the case, arresting two detectives including inspector Cho (PARK Hee-soon). While in prison, inspector Cho reveals the truth to prison guard Han Byung-yong (YOO Hai-jin), who embarks on a dangerous mission to relay the information to an opposition politician through his niece, Yeon-hee (KIM Tae-ri).
Movie Review:
As significant as they were, the series of protests last year and the year before that precipitated President Park Geun-hye’s resignation were nowhere as momentous as that three decades ago. That was the year 1987, when people from all walks of life rose up against the military dictatorship of ex-President Chun Doo-hwan and clamoured for the right to fair and free democratic elections. The spark that ignited the flame was the accidental death of student activist Park Jong-chul at the hands of the government’s powerful Anti-Communist Investigations Bureau (ACIB) on January 14, and it is also the starting point of director Jang Joon-hwan’s sprawling, multi-character procedural that chronicles the chain of events over the next six months leading up to what has been dubbed the June Struggle.
Less character- than plot-driven, the swiftly-paced drama cycles through an assemblage of characters whose presence or absence at specific points of the film is based solely on how much they contribute to what is happening at that point in the story. So in succession, the story moves from: the cynical, fed-up prosecutor Choi (Ha Jung-woo) who refuses to sign a warrant authorizing Jong-chul’s instant cremation without an official autopsy; the equally defiant journalist Yoon (Lee Hee-jun) whom Choi tips off about the student’s true cause of death (note: it was the ACIB officers’ waterboarding techniques that led to his drowning, and not a ‘heart attack’ as the police coroner claims at a press conference); the prison guard Han (Yoo Hai-jin) who smuggles notes scribbled by a former journalist locked up in the same facility as two ACIB officers ‘nominated’ to take the fall for the student’s death; and last but not least the female college student Yeon-hee (Kim Tae-ri) who experiences a political awakening after being unwittingly caught up in the fierce, even indiscriminate, crackdown by the authorities on student protests against Jong-chul’s death.
No one character features throughout the movie, with the exception of ACIB chief Park Jeol-won (Kim Yoon-seok) who is seen browbeating Choi, orchestrating the media blackout of Jong-chul’s death, threatening his former staff to keep their mouths shut in jail and last but not least, trying but failing to control the massive public fallout. To be sure, it isn’t easy keeping up with the primary characters mentioned above and more than twice that number of secondary characters – though some, such as the boyishly handsome university activist Lee Han-yeol (Gang Dong Won) whom Yeon-hee is besotted with, could very well be excluded without losing much. While Jang’s intent to credit the real-life persons whose actions in one way or other contributed to the democratic revolution is noble, the title cards which pop up each time any one of them appears is less clarifying than confusing and distracting.
Even as the film bounces from character to character, Jang and his screenwriter Kim Kyung-chan’s keep a firm, tight and confident grasp of the plot. At no point does the sequence of interlocking events become muddled, and Jang maintains a tense, propulsive momentum throughout the film’s two-hour duration. For the most part, Jang maintains an impartial focus on the proceedings, refraining from outright sympathy for the underdog heroes who dared to defy authoritarianism. Though some may prefer a less clinical view, the artistic decision to avoid positioning the film as social advocacy ultimately serves it better by allowing its audience to come to their own conclusions about the people and their respective circumstances. That said, the last act does go off on tangents which threaten to overshadow the significance of the larger national movement, but Jang brings the various threads to a rousing finish despite some unnecessary melodramatic detours.
Not often do you see as big an ensemble of notable character actors in a single Korean movie, but ‘1987’ excels from a strong suite of performances throughout. Ha is delightfully wry as the prosecutor who decides he’s had enough of the ACIB bullies. Yoon cuts a sympathetic figure as the guard who makes the conscious decision to stand up for what he feels is right despite the toll he sees it takes on his family. But perhaps surprisingly, the one who leaves the most lasting impression is Park, whose portrayal of the former Commie turned ACIB chief starts off suitably intimidating given his tendency to bend the law to his will, and yet concludes with surprising empathy at his fierce and indomitable protection of his men.
You can tell that there has been great care in ensuring the authenticity of the retelling, and the result is gripping cinema verite of a historic turning point in the country’s history. Jang’s third feature film following the stylized ‘Hwayi’ and the quirky ‘Save the Green Planet!’ is as different as can be from his previous films, but is easily his most ambitious and most accomplished one yet. It takes skill, ingenuity and meticulousness to corral the series of inter-related events into a cohesive whole, but Jang has managed to fashion a gripping chronology that illuminates the circumstances, choices and consequences that eventually snowballed into an entire regime change. Especially as the contrast between the two Koreas comes into sharper focus in recent time, ‘1987’ is an important, insightful and invaluable reminder of how the South broke free of the shackles of dictatorship.
Movie Rating:
(Unfolding like a procedural of the series of events that ushered in the current era of democracy in South Korea, '1987' is a gripping multi-character political drama brought to life by one of the best acting ensembles in Korean cinema)
Review by Gabriel Chong
Genre: Action/Thriller
Director: Dimitri Logothetis
Cast: Alain Moussi, Christopher Lambert, Jean-Claude Van Damme, Mike Tyson
RunTime: 1 hr 51 mins
Rating: PG13
Released By: Shaw Organisation
Official Website:
Opening Day: 1 February 2018
Synopsis: Remembering Kurt Sloan's battle against Tong Po to avenge his brother's death in Kickboxer:Vengeance, we now witness Kurt battling the World Champion. Victoriously, Kurt heads back to the locker room and is met by US marshals charging him with the wrongful death of Po but they sedate Kurt and he wakes up in the Bang Kwang prison in Bangkok. Kurt meets his abductors and refuses when told he must fight against, new foe, Mongkut to make up for the prize loses of Po or face life behind bars. Liu, Kurt's wife, tracks him down, is kidnapped once arrives, thus convincing Kurt to accept the fight. He is trained by his previous mentor, Master Durand. During a day release, Kurt and Durand are taunted by Mongkut and his entourage at a bar. Kurt notices tattoos on the bar fighters; learning many of the men are prisoners sent out to prize fight, Kurt now has an edge by having the prisoners to train with. Kurt faces Mongkut in an epic battle, ultimately winning and leaves Thailand with his wife.
Movie Review:
Kickboxer: Retaliation basically picks up where Kickboxer: Vengeance left off. I remember giving the latter a one star rating and I have no regrets doing so. Dimitri Logothetis returned to the director’s chair in another yet unremarkable, sequel to the rebooted troubled franchise that starred the very talented stuntman and actor Alain Moussi.
After defeating Tong Po (David Bautisa), Kurt Sloane is now a successful MMA fighter in the States until he is kidnapped and forced by a shady fight promoter, Thomas Moore (Christopher Lambert) to fight against a genetically enhanced gigantic fighter Mongkut (Icelandic professional strongman Hafþór Júlíus Björnsson) back in Thailand.
To prepare Sloane for the death match is imprisoned kickboxers played by real-life boxer Mike Tyson, Brazilian soccer star Ronaldinho (yes, you read that right) and Master Durand (Jean-Claude Van Damme in a recurring role) of course.
Strictly speaking, there is not much of a story in Kickboxer: Retaliation and despite that it takes a whopping 110 minutes, 25 minutes longer than its predecessor to sit through. Firstly, we are treated to the obligatory training montage and then he is on his way to save his wife who is being held hostage by Moore before the duel against Mongkut. It’s one long, long perfunctory fight to another that you need some chicken essence to stay awake before the climax.
While it’s indeed commendable to devote a huge bulk of the movie on action instead of pointless character development, the action choreography remains questionable. The action on display simply sucks big time with plenty of repetitive slow-mo shots and numerous unnamed attackers being kick around. Moussiis a fantastic action star; full of elegant, swift moves and kicks so it’s not really his fault if the editing, cinematography and choreography never really hit the mark. Pity those hardworking Thai stuntmen which really put in their effort in getting their asses kicked by Moussi though.
It’s hard to take Van Damme’s Master Durand too seriously as for a blindman, Durand can actually ‘see’ pretty well. Lambert who achieved international fame with Highlander and Mortal Kombat has a brief sparring session with Durand probably to satisfy fans from the ‘80s. At times, Kickboxer: Retaliation attempts to take things way too seriously. There’s even a dreamlike sequence which plays out like a parody of the opening scene of Skyfall, later on, an awful homage to Bruce Lee’s Enter the Dragon with two bikini-clad henchwomen as opponents.
This is honestly not really a movie that we can recommend watching on any day. Asian and international fans of action cinema should check out The Raid or any random HK action classics instead of Kickboxer: Retaliation. We heard that the third instalment is already in production but we are definitely not holding our breath for it.
Movie Rating:
(Dull and tedious, JCVD and Alain Moussi can’t save this crapfest)
Review by Linus Tee
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