Genre: Romance/Comedy
Director: Chayanop Boonprakob
Cast: Naphat Siangsomboon, Pimchanok Luevisadpaibul, Jason Young, Benjamin Joseph Varney
Runtime: 1 hr 59 mins
Rating: PG13 (Some Mature Content)
Released By: Golden Village Pictures
Official Website:
Opening Day: 4 April 2019
Synopsis: In this world, there are many people who seem to be wandering along a relationship borderlining ‘friends’ and ‘lovers’. This borderline is also commonly known as the FRIEND ZONE. It is a special area for those who are stuck in the middle where they cannot really stay friends with their close friends, nor move forward to be their friends’ lovers. Palm (Naphat Siangsomboon) is one of those who has been stuck in the friend zone with his best friend, Gink (Pimchanok Luevisadpaibul), for 10 years. During high school, he tried to cross the line by confessing his feelings for her. But Gink simply rejected him, saying that “being friends is good enough.” Since then, Palm and Gink have grown closer as true best friends. Every time Palm breaks up with any of his countless girlfriends, Gink will tell him off, talking some sense into him. And every time Gink fights with her boyfriend, no matter where she happens to be in Myanmar, Malaysia, or Hong Kong. All she has to do is make a call to Palm, who uses his perks as a flight attendant to catch flights to be with her. Perhaps, it is because of his excessive kindness that also makes Gink has a problem with Ted (Jason Young) her boyfriend. One day, Gink asks Palm out of the blue, “have you wondered… what if we were an item?” Right then, sparks fly wildly inside Palm’s mind, knowing that this might be the only chance for him to cross the borderline. Although, Palm has no way of knowing if leaving the FRIEND ZONE this time will lead him to the beginning of his romantic love life or to the end of his friendship with Gink for good.
Movie Review:
Can a girl be best friends with a guy, and vice versa? Seeing how often that question is asked and debated, it is a wonder that there aren’t more rom-coms about such relationships. And yet how befitting it is that GDH, the studio behind crowd-pleasers as ‘One Day’, ‘A Gift’ and ‘Brother of the Year’, would turn that very subject into the premise for their latest movie, an altogether amusing, delightful and winning confectionery whose sheer charms make up for its lack of depth.
The couple in question here is Palm (Naphat Siangsomboon) and Gink (Pimchanok Luevisadpaibul), who have been stuck in ‘friend zone’ since their high school days. An inventive though slightly far-fetched sequence at the start shows the lengths to which Palm would go to for Gink, not only borrowing his family’s car so that they can commit truancy to check if Gink’s father was indeed having an affair, but also accompanying her all the way by flight to and from Chiang Mai. Just from how they react to news that the other has found a boyfriend/ girlfriend is proof to us that both Palm and Gink already had feelings for each other way back then in 2007, even if they refuse to acknowledge that simple fact.
The years between 2007 and 2017 are covered in a montage which shows how readily Palm is willing to come to Gink’s aid, whether is it for a listening ear or a helping hand, and how being so close to another girl ultimately dooms his relationship after relationship. On the other hand, it is not until 2016 that Gink would discover that her boyfriend of many years from high school was cheating on her, whereupon Palm would once again become a shoulder for her to lean on. Yet that occasion would once again reinforce why Palm had never dared to confess how he felt about Gink to her. What if she didn’t feel the same way? What if being honest only made things awkward between the both of them? What if it meant possibly losing even their close friendship?
With that context, the movie brings us to present day, which finds Gink in a new relationship with singer-songwriter Ted (Jason Young) whom she is also manager to. While holidaying with his current girlfriend in Myanmar, Gink receives an unexpected cry for emotional support from Palm, who happens to have fractured her leg and is cooped up in a hotel room in Malaysia. As you may expect, Palm immediately rushes to Kuala Lumpur to be next to Gink, and ends up accompanying her for an extended period of time while Ted flies off to several neighbouring countries (including Vietnam, Laos, Indonesia and Hong Kong) on a recording project for King Power.
That project sees Ted working with young female singers from these countries on the same ditty, and Ted’s friendliness with these attractive celebrities has Gink’s head in a spin. In part, Gink’s previous relationship fuels her current insecurity over Ted’s fidelity, so much so that she pulls Palm along to retrace Ted’s footsteps in Malaysia and follow Ted to Hong Kong without his knowledge, in order to check if he is cheating on her. In particular, the latter voyage will have Gink catching Ted lying to her, and concluding therefore that Ted has indeed been unfaithful. So begins an impromptu escapade to Krabi, where after some hiking and a hilarious encounter with an alpha monkey (that you see in the trailer), both Palm and Gink will be forced to confront the truth that they have had feelings for each other all along.
Will they or won’t they end up being a couple? The last half hour sees director and co-writer Chayanop ‘Mu’ Boonprakob inject some depth into the story that is otherwise conspicuously absent before. Oh yes, it is only quite late into the movie that the narrative settles into a more consequential exploration of the implications of such relationships. How far will each party go for the other, before the one who has feelings finds himself or herself giving disproportionately for the other? To what extent will the other take the former for granted? What happens if the former is honest and realises that his or her feelings are one-sided? Or if in fact the feelings are mutual, will both parties be willing to take the leap of faith, knowing that being a couple inadvertently imposes expectations on what was otherwise a relationship with no obligations?
Unsurprisingly, seeing as how late Palm and Gink come to grips with these dilemmas in their relationship, the movie doesn’t give more than superficial treatment to each of them; instead, for a significant part of the film, Boonprakob and his co-writers seem content to entertain their audience with a string of physical gags. There is nothing wrong with that per se, not least because most of these gags are staged with impeccable comic timing and performed with screwball flair by Siangsomboon and Luevisadpaibul. But equally, those expecting a more textured portrayal of such titular relationships will probably come off disappointed, especially since much of the time we see Palm and Gink onscreen is actually of them goofing around.
Indeed, we’d admit that we were hoping for more between Palm and Gink before that inevitable happily-ever-after, which is also supposedly meant as encouragement for those who find themselves trapped in similar circumstances; and yet, as we said earlier, there’s no denying that you’ll still find this an utterly charming affair from start to finish. Thanks to the infectious chemistry between our two lead stars, you’ll find yourself almost effortlessly rooting for Palm and Gink, and probably cheer when the movie finally rewards your patience with a endearing finish. This is a crowd-pleaser all right, much like GDH’s previous hits, and as long as you don’t expect more, ‘Friend Zone’ will definitely have you feeling in the zone.
Movie Rating:
(A crowd-pleaser through and through, 'Friend Zone' trades depth for easy laughs, and coasts agreeably on its stars' effortless charms)
Review by Gabriel Chong
Genre: Adventure/Fantasy
Director: Joe Cornish
Cast: Louis Ashbourne Serkis, Dean Chaumoo, Tom Taylor, Rhianna Dorris
RunTime: 2 hrs
Rating: PG (Some Violence)
Released By: Fox
Official Website: https://www.facebook.com/KidWhoWouldBeKing/
Opening Day: 21 March 2019
Synopsis: Old school magic meets the modern world in the epic adventure THE KID WHO WOULD BE KING. Alex (Ashbourne Serkis) thinks he's just another nobody, until he stumbles upon the mythical Sword in the Stone, Excalibur. Now, he must unite his friends and enemies into a band of knights and, together with the legendary wizard Merlin (Stewart), take on the wicked enchantress Morgana (Ferguson). With the future at stake, Alex must become the great leader he never dreamed he could be.
Movie Review:
‘The Kid Who Would Be King’ promises a contemporary twist on the classic King Arthur legend, but we’ll take the medieval version over this modern-day bore anytime.
As conceived by writer-director Joe Cornish, the movie imagines a 12-year-old boy Alex (Louis Ashbourne Serkis) stumbling upon a sword lodged deep in a block of concrete at an abandoned construction site. After pulling it out and bringing it back home, Alex is accosted by a goofy yet supremely confident high school student Mertin (Angus Imrie), who tells him of his destiny to defeat the evil sorceress Morgana (Rebecca Ferguson) and her army of undead demon knights.
It doesn’t take a genius to guess that the sword is in fact the famed Excalibur, or that the student Mertin is really the legendary Merlin in disguise. Neither for that matter would it be any surprise that Alex will come to embrace his destiny as king, and rally his best friend Bedders (Dean Chaumoo) to be one of his loyal knights. Same goes for the pair of older bullies at his school, Lance (Tom Taylor) and Kaye (Rhianna Dorris), whom Alex was running away from the night he finds Excalibur – they too will eventually be counted among his knights, and aid in Alex’s quest to save the world.
To inject urgency into the proceedings, Alex and his friends only have four days to get themselves ready, before an upcoming total solar eclipse will enable Morgana to emerge fully from the Earth’s crust into our world above. Each night offers an opportunity for practice, what with Morgana’s army emerging from the bowels of the Earth to try to snatch the sword from Alex’s grasp. Each day thereafter is training with Merlin, who conveniently cannot appear in human form in our realm after sundown. So the routine goes, thrice in a row, until of course the day of the eclipse itself, when Morgana shows herself in her full glory as a winged fire-breathing dragon.
Frankly, the proceedings are a lot less exciting than they read, coming off mostly bland, tame and unexciting. At no point do you get the sense that Alex and his friends are in any sort of real peril, and therefore that they display any compelling heroism; the latter is also owing to a lack of character development, which fails to adequately convey the emotional vacuum in Alex that his father’s absence for a good part of his childhood has caused. It certainly doesn’t help too that Serkis (son of mo-cap extraordinaire Andy Serkis) is simply too mild as a lead character, such that we never fully buy why Alex is meant to be the chosen one.
In all fairness to Cornish, his writing does have occasional flashes of wit. The Brexit-era context is a nice touch, with multiple references to how the kingdom on Earth is no longer as united as it once had been, and with a growing devotion to tyrants and strongmen. So too the riffs on classic Arthurian elements, such as how Alex summons the Lady of the Lake in a bathtub, or how Merlin’s elixir of beetle blood, beaver urine and ground animal bones happens to be the stuff of modern-day fast-food items like nuggets, soda and ice cream. Even so, these hardly compensate for an altogether dull narrative, which at close to two hours, will test the patience of even its target audience of teenagers and young kids.
This is also Cornish’s sophomore outing as director, and it shows. The CG fantasy sequences are lacklustre, and would clearly have benefitted from someone with a stronger sense of visual imagination. Ditto the action, which barely raises a pulse even at the so-called epic showdown where Alex enlists the help of the whole school to fight off Morgana’s assault. You wouldn’t have figured that the movie had a US$60 million budget, seeing as how the film as a whole comes off scrappy and amateurish.
It has been eight years since Cornish made a splash with his class-conscious science-fiction indie ‘Attack the Block’ that became a sleeper cult hit, but just as how we were ultimately underwhelmed by his debut, so too were we disappointed by his latest. In almost every respect, ‘The Kid Who Would Be King’ fails to live up to its promise, so much so that we wonder the point was of contemporising the King Arthur legend at all. There have been comparisons to classic 80s movies like ‘The Goonies’, which would have been fine if this movie had been released in that era; yet, in today’s day and age, its mix of fantasy and reality needs to be a lot more potent to count for something. As it is, not even the kids are likely to feel kingly sitting through it.
Movie Rating:
(Bland, tame and unexciting, this contemporary twist on the King Arthur legend will make you wish that they had stuck with the medieval tale instead)
Review by Gabriel Chong
Genre: Biography
Director: Dexter Fletcher
Cast: Taron Egerton, Jamie Bell, Richard Madden, Bryce Dallas Howard
Runtime: 2 hr 1 min
Rating: R21 (Some Homosexual Content)
Released By: UIP
Official Website: https://www.facebook.com/rocketmanmovie/
Opening Day: 13 June 2019
Synopsis: ROCKETMAN is an epic musical fantasy about the incredible human story of Elton John’s breakthrough years. The film follows the fantastical journey of transformation from shy piano prodigy Reginald Dwight into international superstar Elton John. This inspirational story - set to Elton John’s most beloved songs and performed by star Taron Egerton - tells the universally relatable story of how a small-town boy became one of the most iconic figures in pop culture.
Movie Review:
Comparisons with last year’s ‘Bohemian Rhapsody’ are inevitable, but ‘Rocketman’ boasts more than its fair share of distinctive flair to be regarded in its own right. Both are directed by Dexter Fletcher (in the case of ‘Bohemian Rhapsody’, after Bryan Singer decided to go AWOL on set), and although both revolve around rock acts in the 70s and 80s whom survived self-destructive phases of alcohol and drug abuse after becoming hyper-popular, ‘Rocketman’ is hardly the straight-up biography that its predecessor was, playing more like a full-blown Broadway musical with lavish production numbers that you would expect from say ‘Mamma Mia’ or ‘Les Miserables’.
It’s not hard to understand Fletcher’s motivations for doing so. Even as it is based on the real-life story of how a tubby kid from Middlesex called Reggie would go on to sell 300 million records, ‘Rocketman’ still more or less follows the rags-to-rock-to-riches narrative of the subgenre: a brief look at his (often difficult) childhood, a fortuitous meeting with a cynical record executive, a breakout performance that catapults him to instant fame, an aforementioned descent into drink-and-drugs hell, and finally a triumphant comeback. Kudos therefore to Fletcher for his cinematic inventiveness of visual and emotional embellishments, in order that the film transcends its conventions, and we dare say, lifts you off your feet.
In fact, we mean that literally: in portraying Elton’s breakthrough at L.A.’s Troubadour, Elton floats in the air over his piano while performing ‘Crocodile Rock’, and the audience in turn levitate with him. That is the sort of creative license which Fletcher and writer Lee Hall (of ‘Billy Elliott’) have taken with the material, that they establish right from the beginning with an opening act that sees Elton barreling off stage dressed in satanic red with devil horns and plopping himself down for a group therapy session (to exorcise his own demons, get it?). That same brio is subsequently demonstrated in how the film refuses to confine the tunes to the concert stage, preferring instead elaborate song-and-dance sequences that often break the fourth wall.
Some of these are gorgeously staged, such as that which Taron Egerton (who plays Elton) performs the titular song with his boyhood self at a bottom of a swimming pool, or that which Egerton sings ‘Sorry Seems to be the Hardest Word’ after he blames his mother for an unhappy childhood and pushes Bernie Taupin (Jamie Bell) away when the latter offers him advice to sober up, or that which Egerton tells the world ‘I’m Still Standing’ upon his successful recovery following rehab. But admittedly, there are others which may come off a little awkward, like when Elton is conveyed to hospital to the tune of ‘Goodbye Yellow Brick Road’ that sees a team of ER doctors and nurses spin him around on a stretcher in an empty glass-walled room.
But thankfully, even amidst the pageantry, ‘Rocketman’ never does lose focus of the repressed emotions from his tumultuous childhood years that Elton was bound to have to overcome, as well as the relationships which for better or worse defined his life and his music. The former forms much of the necessarily more deliberate-paced first half-hour of the movie, which conveys not only a dad (Steven Mackintosh) who had withheld his affection and approval, but also a mother (Bryce Dallas Howard) who ran hot and cold over him depending on her needs; the latter, on the other hand, consists primarily of that with Bernie, and his manipulative manager cum sometimes lover John Reid (Richard Madden).
With John, the film gets to live up to its promise of not shying away from portraying Elton’s homosexuality, as we see them both kiss, grind and have sex in as vivid a manner as possible for an R21 rating without having to be censored. John is quite inevitably the movie’s antagonist, whose betrayal is cast as what is responsible for Elton’s downfall; yet the more compelling supporting act here is Bernie, whose friendship with Elton (not in the romantic way, mind you) is the genuine love story of the movie, and is captured beautifully in their collaboration on ‘Your Song’. Oh yes, with Bernie, Elton’s story finds its humanity and poignancy which, more than the glitter and excess, is arguably what will stay with you long after the credits roll.
You’ll certainly remember too the fact that Egerton sings every tune here in the movie, compared to say Rami Malek’s lip-synching in ‘Rhapsody’, an achievement which must be seen and heard for yourself to be believed. To be sure, Egerton isn’t trying to mimic Elton; rather, he channels Elton’s spirit and emotion into each and every song, and coupled with an utterly committed performance, delivers a tour-de-force that captures every elation and heartbreak in equally vivid detail. It is Egerton’s show from start to finish, but both Bell and Madden offer excellent support, the former beautifully emphathetic and the latter coolly seductive in complementing Egerton’s rich, varied and multi-layered portrayal.
So even though ‘Rocketman’ comes so soon after ‘Bohemian Rhapsody’, you’ll find that it offers its own unique pleasures which more than differentiates itself. Like we said, this isn’t a straightforward biopic of Elton’s life, but one that (Elton and his husband David Furnish, as executive producers, have endorsed) isn’t afraid to juggle the songs in order to achieve maximum emotional resonance with the precise moment within the film. It is without a doubt all the better for taking those artistic liberties, and with such a magnificent lead in Egerton, deserves to be a smash hit come awards season next year. We guarantee you’ll have a euphoric blast of a time with it, which is exactly how a biopic of an ebullient star like Elton John should leave you.
Movie Rating:
(Exuberant, heartbreaking and deeply poignant, this lively retelling of Elton John's life in Broadway fashion is a euphoric blast of a time)
Review by Gabriel Chong
Genre: Horror/Thriller
Director: Lee Cronin
Cast: Seána Kerslake, James Quinn Markey, Kati Outinen
Runtime: 1 hr 30 mins
Rating: PG13
Released By: Shaw Organisation
Official Website:
Opening Day: 28 March 2019
Synopsis: Trying to escape a broken past, Sarah O’Neill is rebuilding her life on the fringes of a backwood rural town with her young son Chris. Following the discovery of a mysterious sinkhole in the vast forest bordering their new home, Sarah must battle to unearth if the disturbing changes that begin to manifest in her little boy are a transformation driven by something more sinister and threatening than her own maternal fears.
Movie Review:
If you like your horror served in straightforward fashion, we’d advise you to stay far, far away from ‘The Hole in the Ground’. Little here is clear-cut, and the ambiguity that persists throughout the film right up till its end will probably frustrate the hell out of viewers looking for definite answers.
On the surface (pun intended), first-time director Lee Cronin’s film is about a single mother Sarah (Seána Kerslake) who suspects that her grade school-age son Chris (James Quinn Markey) has been replaced by a changeling. Both mother and son have recently moved into a dilapidated farmhouse on the outskirts of a small Irish town in the middle of nowhere, presumably to escape an abusive relationship which Sarah sports an ugly wound on her forehead as evidence of.
To be sure, we are never told with any certainty that Sarah was indeed physically abused, or that the abuser was in fact her husband and Chris’ father; like much of the film, that detail is only strongly implied, much of it through conversation between Sarah and the local doctor who examines her. Similarly, we will never be sure after mysteriously disappearing for a couple of hours one night that the boy who returns and looks exactly like Chris is actually “not Sarah’s son” anymore, as the neighbourhood crone (Kaurismäki regular Kati Outinen) warns her.
Certainly, Sarah grows increasingly sure of the said lady’s proclamation, noticing subtle changes to Chris’ behaviour that prick her maternal instincts. This Chris, she feels, seems too perfectly polite, appears no longer scared of spiders, and cannot seem to remember the games that the two of them used to play. On her part, Sarah is plagued by hallucinations of him doing terrible things, which only adds to her disquiet. And the final straw appears to be when Chris shoves a heavy wooden table across the room in a fit of anger at her, leading Sarah to be deadly sure that her son has been lost to the hole in the ground.
Ah yes, the titular hole – which Sarah first discovers while searching for Chris who had run off into the woods when they had first arrived at the house. It is a massive pit all right, perfectly shaped as if someone had dropped a giant bowling bowl right into the middle of the forest. Again, there is no particular indication that Chris had fallen or climbed into the sinkhole, given how he just turns back up in his room after Sarah goes looking for him frantically. We’re not even sure if the hole really does exist, since no one in the village seems to have heard or are aware of it.
We’re certain of this though – whether literal or not, the sinkhole is also meant as a metaphor for Sarah’s psychological state of mind, having run away from an apparently abusive spouse and now trying to raise a kid on her own. Even if the last third starts to take the shape and form of a conventional possessed-kid movie, followed by a straight-up creature feature, it is clear that both Cronin and his co-writer Stephen Shields wants to keep their metaphor well and alive, especially given how Sarah will come face to face with herself inside the sinkhole.
That is however its most fundamental issue, i.e. that the movie ends up wanting to be both literal and metaphorical at the same time, never fully committing one way or another. Oh yes, much of the tension in the first hour comes from trying to figure out whether the real threat is within or without, but we cannot but help feeling more than a little frustrated when it becomes clear that it continues flirting both ways right up till the very end. Unless therefore you like to be teased as such, you’ll likely feel the same way we did, notwithstanding the arrestingly empathetic performance by Kerslake that conveys without doubt the anxiety and desperation of a mother who thinks she has lost her son.
Those looking for a good scare should also moderate their expectations; at no point does the movie make you jump in your seat, or for that matter, make your skin crawl. Rather, the chills it aims for are more of the low-key and slow-burn variety, so even at a modest one-and-a-half hours, you’ll need to exercise some significant degree of patience in order to get through it. While befitting the overall gloom, many of the scenes are also very dimly lit, so much so that you’ll have a hard time making out what exactly is happening within.
Frankly, we cannot say that we were too impressed by this Irish feature that gained some buzz when it debuted at the Sundance Film Festival where it was subsequently acquired for wider release. We acknowledge that it is in large part because of how the movie never does settle for what it wants to be – either a literal or psychological horror – and is content to leave its audience hanging. To its credit, it never does opt for cheap jump scares, but by trying to have its cake and eat it, it literally and metaphorically ends up digging its own hole in the ground.
Movie Rating:
(Slow, plodding and frustratingly ambiguous, this low-key, slow-burn Irish horror will leave anyone looking for answers coming out empty)
Review by Gabriel Chong
Genre: Horror/Thriller
Director: Wisit Sasanatieng
Cast: Ananda Everingham, Natthaweeranuch Thongmee, Ploy Sornarin, Jarunan Phantachat, Teerawat Mulwilat, Peerapol Kijreunpiromsuk
Runtime: 1 hr 45 mins
Rating: NC-16 (Horror)
Released By: mm2 Entertainment
Official Website:
Opening Day: 18 April 2019
Synopsis: In a stormy night at an isolated mansion, 6 people gathered, lead by “The mother”. They are practicing a mysterious ritual with an unknown body, not knowing that it would summon a wandering spirit to come into their presence. The terrifying spirit possesses members of the group and no one has any clue who will it go for next or when. The spirit does not only desire to fear but to bury its roots and take complete control on the innocent souls.
Movie Review:
At first glance, ‘Reside’ appears to be one cut above the crop of forgettable Thai horrors which come and go without making much of an impressionable dint. Not only does it reunite the leads from ‘Shutter’ for the first time since that iconic classic, it is also written and directed by Wisit Sasanatieng, whose earlier works such as ‘Tears of the Black Tiger’ and ‘Citizen Dog’ have won international acclaim. And true enough, while it doesn’t reach the heights of ‘Shutter’, we dare say that this reunion of Ananda Everingham and Natthaweeranuch Thongmee will probably be one of the better, if not the best, of its kind that you’d have seen in a while.
From the beginning, the film grabs your attention with a slow-motion close-up into the orbit of a skull placed on a table adorned for devotion, before zooming out from the eye of an elderly woman performing a ritual on a body completely wrapped in white cloth placed on a long dining table. The woman, known throughout as Madam (Tarika Tidatid), aims to bring back the spirit of the dead person whose identity shall remain a secret until much later on, but ends up also attracting some other spirit(s) with unfinished business. That entity will have taken residence in Madam’s body by the end of the ceremony, and thereafter will move from body to body among the other five people gathered in the same house with Madam.
Together with Dej (Everingham), who is curiously absent during the ceremony and only turns up after Madam is possessed, these individuals are disciples of the Infinity Spiritual Centre which Madam runs. Through a series of flashbacks, we learn that Madam believed the majority of spirits are those which have died a violent death and are waiting for the right moment to return, with the centre positioned specifically within a patch of woods where the spirits are expected to converge. Dej, whom we later find out is Madam’s son, explains that the ritual had probably inadvertently summoned one of these wandering spirits into the house.
It isn’t so much who the spirit is than what it does to these members of the centre trapped within the house; in particular, the most vulnerable of them happens to be a teenage girl named Soy (Ploy Sornarin), who was adopted by her aunt Kruea (Jarunun Phantachat) after her father abandoned her and her mother passed away when she was only three. Not that the rest will be spared – before the night is over, each one of them would have been possessed by the spirit at least once, including Prang (Thongmee), Nop (Peerapol Kijreunpiromsuk) and Krit (Teerawat Mulvilai), and experienced its manipulative taunts.
Though most, if not all, of the possession scenes seem to have been taken off the genre playbook, Sasanatieng choreographs them with enough flair to keep your pulse racing, with the highlight being a terrifying sequence in the dining room where Soy and Krit gang up to attack the rest of them, leaving Kruea with no choice but to assume certain painfully extreme measures in order to save everyone else. Sasanatieng also has fun with the obligatory body contortions during these scenes, which not only see that of the possessed bending backwards to walk on all fours down the stairs, but also twist their torsos in unexpected ways to get at their victims.
Thankfully, Sasanatieng knows better than to rely on these superficial thrills to sustain his movie; instead, the last third unveils the history among these characters bit by bit, culminating in the identity of the body whose spirit Madam was trying to summon in the first place. The latter isn’t so hard to guess as long as one has been paying attention to the proceedings, but how and why that individual ended up dead in the first place, as well as why Madam would risk going through such a ritual at all, are fundamental questions that are surprisingly satisfactorily answered by the end of the movie. We dare say too that the conclusion is unexpectedly poignant, especially in its rumination of how we are connected with spirits by our memories of them.
‘Reside’ also benefits from an engaging lead performance by Everingham, who injects gravitas and poise into his role as the de facto leader of the group. Fans of ‘Shutter’ may be hoping for more scenes between Everingham and Thongmee, but unlike that earlier film, this is meant as an ensemble and has rightly been written as such. Still, those curious about their latest collaboration on the basis of their last will likely not be disappointed, as Sasanatieng weaves an intriguing story about how death doesn’t always bring closure for the departed. Like we said, ‘Reside’ is one of the better Thai horror movies we’ve seen in some time, so if your guts are up for it, you won’t regret checking into this residence of mystery and terror.
Movie Rating:
(A cut above the usual crop of Thai horrors, 'Reside' packs some effective possession scares and a suspenseful narrative into a neat residence full of mystery and terror)
Review by Gabriel Chong
Genre: Sci-Fi/Thriller
Director: Rupert Wyatt
Cast: Vera Farmiga, Ashton Sanders, John Goodman, Madeline Brewer
Runtime: 1 hr 50 mins
Rating: PG13
Released By: Shaw Organisation
Official Website:
Opening Day: 11 April 2019
Synopsis: Set in a Chicago neighborhood nearly a decade after an occupation by an extra-terrestrial force, CAPTIVE STATE explores the lives on both sides of the conflicts - the collaborators and the dissidents.
Movie Review:
It isn’t hard to guess what Rupert Wyatt had in mind when he co-wrote this science-fiction thriller with his wife Erica Beeney. On one hand, you have an alien race called the “legislators” who have taken up residence on our planet after conquering it with minimal resistance; and on the other, you have a group of insurgents planning an all-or-nothing assault on the aliens to resist the current state of authoritarianism. Yet by the end of an oddly lethargic one-and-a-half hours, you’ll be left frustrated with how Wyatt has failed to coalesce this hodgepodge of ideas, symbolism and conceits into a compelling social allegory that he had quite obviously intended.
The set-up is both familiar and peculiar: like most such alien invasions on film, this one begins with one such event that occurs out of the blue, takes the human race by surprise, and proceeds to wreck havoc and confusion. A prologue at the beginning shows the Drummond family attempting to drive out of the city of Chicago during the invasion itself, and losing both Dad and Mom to one of the extra-terrestrials in a tunnel, leaving two young boys in the backseat. Fast forward nine years later, these aliens have since oddly gone underground (we would have thought that it would have been the other way around) in closed zones, but continue to lord over mankind through installing willing human proxies in key Government functions.
That very proposition is intriguing all right, not least because as we hear the Chicago mayor proclaiming in a speech, there has been an “American renaissance” in a booming economy as well as a low crime rate. Could subjugation be in fact a better model of governance than democratic freedom, that has in turn fuelled the sort of destructive populism we are seeing in many countries around the world? Alas, while it teases that idea, the narrative is never focused enough to give it satisfactory treatment. Its attention is instead scattered amidst a number of characters, including the younger Drummond boy Gabriel (Ashton Sanders), his older brother Rafe (Jonathan Majors) and the veteran Chicago police officer Mulligan (John Goodman).
Whereas Rafe was a central figure in the resistance movement that had attempted a failed uprising called Wicker Park, Gabriel wants nothing to do with it, and tries to convince Mulligan of the same. On the other hand, Mulligan is convinced that the members of the movement called Phoenix are still active, and hopes that Gabriel will be his lead to finding these rebels. It would suffice to say that Rafe isn’t as dead as Gabriel had believed at the start, and that Mulligan is right to suspect Phoenix is again up to something major; although we should add that a pivotal supporting character is a prostitute named Jane Doe (Vera Farmiga), whom Mulligan follows a lead to and whose role in the larger scheme of things isn’t that much of a mystery even at the start.
Ditto the fact that Mulligan’s suspicions are right, i.e. that Phoenix is planning something big which will utterly upset the balance of peace which has been forged between our race and the aliens. If the first act struggles to define the relationships that matter (e.g. that between Rafe and Gabriel) as well as the motivations of these characters (e.g. Mulligan’s determination to crush the rebels), the second and third acts at least pack enough momentum depicting the resistance’s plan to ambush the aliens during a massive rally at Soldier Field and its subsequent fallout. To be sure, it is a far cry from the thrill of watching Wyatt’s more meticulously crafted ‘Rise of the Planet of the Apes’, but certainly more invigorating than the film’s turgid start.
If it isn’t clear, by the time the members of Phoenix are forced to go underground, Wyatt has long ditched the commentary and reverted to the beats of a more conventional action thriller. Yet the patchy character work at the start hardly makes us care for any of these people in the story in the first place, not just the resistance fighters who are one by one rounded up by both the law and the aliens, but also the ones supposedly at the heart of the story, i.e. Gabriel or Rafe or Mulligan. That we hardly care about the big last-minute twist at the very end shows how poorly invested we are in the narrative, and how the storytelling has indeed failed.
We don’t blame Goodman for being utterly dour throughout the movie, or for that matter, Sanders for his bland performance; ultimately, they as well as the rest of the actors are given too little to work with. Besides getting the dystopian atmosphere right (with plenty of monochromes), the rest of ‘Captive State’ could do with a lot more work, whether is it to sharpen the premise and its underlying messages or to give the characters more substance and texture. As it is, you’ll be left wanting by this undercooked alien occupation drama, which however nobly constructed from scratch (than say being a remake or adaptation), will have you feeling less captivated than held captive for its duration.
Movie Rating:
(A hodgepodge of intriguing but underdeveloped allegorical ideas, coupled with thin character work, will leave you less than captivated by this alien occupation drama)
Review by Gabriel Chong
Genre: Drama/Thriller
Director: Anthony Maras
Cast: Dev Patel, Armie Hammer, Jason Isaacs, Nazanin Boniadi, Anupam Kher
Runtime: 2 hrs 3 mins
Rating: M18 (Mature Content and Some Violence)
Released By: Shaw Organisation
Official Website:
Opening Day: 2 May 2019
Synopsis: A gripping true story of humanity and heroism, HOTEL MUMBAI vividly recounts the 2008 siege of the famed Taj Hotel by a group of terrorists in Mumbai, India. Among the dedicated hotel staff is the renowned chef Hemant Oberoi (Anupam Kher) and a waiter (Academy Award-Nominee Dev Patel, SLUMDOG MILLIONAIRE, LION) who choose to risk their lives to protect their guests. As the world watches on, a desperate couple (Armie Hammer, CALL ME BY YOUR NAME, ON THE BASIS OF SEX and Nazanin Boniadi, “Counterpart,” “Homeland”) is forced to make unthinkable sacrifices to protect their newborn child.
Movie Review:
This biographical thriller film is not an easy one to watch. And rightfully so, because it is based on the 2008 Mumbai attacks at the Taj Mahal Palace Hotel in India. The luxury hotel is one of the 12 targeted locations of a coordinated shooting and bombing attacks lasting four days across Mumbai. At least 174 people died, with more than 300 wounded in this globally condemned terrorist attack. It also claimed the life of a Singaporean who was at The Oberoi Trident, making her the first Singaporean to fall victim in an overseas terror attack
The movie is rated M18 with the consumer advice of “Mature Content and Some Violence”. You can expect strong depictions of violence. The terrorists shoot at hotel guests in a lobby. Hostages are bound and shot. People who try to escape are gunned down indiscriminately. These scenes are not for the faint hearted, and you can only imagine the horror felt by the people experienced this unfortunate incident.
The movie is directed and co written by Australian filmmaker Anthony Maras. The theme of terrorism is never an easy topic to deal with in a mainstream production, and this one doesn’t push the buttons. It contains extreme religious references where the terrorists are manipulated by their leader for ulterior purposes. The movie does not attempt to humanise them too much, and it is clear that their actions shouldn’t be tolerated.
Some may consider this project inspired by the 2009 documentary Surviving Mumbai exploitative. Why is the focus on a luxury hotel where the majority of the victims were wealthy foreigners? The attacks also targeted a railway station, a local cinema, a college, among others. Why does the ensemble cast include Indian actors who have appeared in foreign productions? Dev Patel is known for his roles in Slumdog Millionaire (2008) and Lion (2016), while Anupam Kher has appeared in Lust, Caution (2007) and Silver Linings Playbook (2012).
You see, filmmaking is very much a business after all. Certain decisions are considered so that the film can be sold to a global market. This movie’s stakeholders, who include folks from the Australian, American and Indian film industries, have done just that. Not that this is a bad thing, because the screenplay inserts positive messages of how the hotel staff protect guests while risking their own lives. The heroism displayed is much admired. The movie even ends with how the hotel picked itself up after the terrorist attacks.
The 123 minute movie, which also features familiar faces like Armie Hammer (On the Basis of Sex) and Jason Isaacs (The Infiltrator), moves along at a pace that will keep you at the edge of your seats. You will fear for the fates of the protagonists (most of the characters in the movie are based on amalgams of real people who went through the attacks), and feel a sense of dread knowing that things are not going to turn out well.
Packaged as a thriller, this dramatisation of a tragic real life terrorist attack does what it is supposed to do. It is a stark reminder of the very dire consequences of religious extremism, an ideology that should not be embraced.
Movie Rating:
(A painful and sombre reminder that the horror resulting from religious extremism is still very much present in today’s world)
Review by John Li
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ALL THE LATEST HONG KONG/ CHINA MOVIE TRAILERS YOU'LL WANNA SEEPosted on 24 Mar 2019 |
SYNOPSIS: Gary Hart, former senator of Colorado, becomes the front-runner for the Democratic presidential nomination in 1987. Hart's intelligence, charisma and idealism makes him popular with young voters, leaving him with a seemingly clear path to the White House. All that comes crashing down when allegations of an extramarital affair surface in the media, forcing the candidate to address a scandal that threatens to derail his campaign and personal life.
MOVIE REVIEW:
A post-Wolverine acting career sees one of Australia’s hottest exports, Hugh Jackman as a greatest showman and now a disgraced senator, Gary Hart in The Front Runner.
In the 1988 presidential nomination, Hart is touted as the hottest candidate for the post of president hence the title, The Front Runner. His campaign however came to an abrupt end when The Miami Herald published reports of Hart’s alleged extramarital affair with a certain Donna Rice after stalking Hart’s whereabouts.
Based on the 2014 book All the Truth Is Out: The Week Politics Went Tabloid by Matt Bai and directed by Jason Reitman (Juno, Up In The Air), The Front Runner is a cautionary tale for politicians wannabe. Never ever taut the media it seems. Perhaps Gary Hart would have been the 41stPresident of America and not George H.W. Bush if he had not challenge the press to follow him around on non-campaign days.
For a heavy theme movie that is closed to two hours, Reitman managed to keep things breezy and cohesive to the laymen. It can be both a drag and a mess to see Hart working things out with his campaign team and the press if you are not in the mood for a talky movie. At the same time, there’s frequent cutting to the discussion tables of The Washington Post and The Miami Herald. Thankfully, for most of the running time, The Front Runner offers an in-depth, fascinating look into the love-hate relationship between the press and politicians.
It’s kind of disturbing to know that Hart’s belief that the capability of a Presidential candidate is far relevant than his private live somehow rang true in today’s political climate. Still, by the time the credits rolled, The Front Runner offers no new insight into the whole scandal nor is it willing to take a stand on the entire spectacle. It’s by far a respectable movie but never establish itself as political or journalism.
Nevertheless, Jackman puts in a solid, believable performance while Vera Farmiga (The Conjuring) shows off a few heart-wrenching scenes as Hart’s long-suffering, supportive spouse. J.K. Simmons and Alfred Molina appears as part of the ensemble drama but the movie undeniably belongs to Hugh Jackman (sans claws) who at least deserved an acting nomination for his dramatic portrayal.
SPECIAL FEATURES:
There are roughly 4 minutes of Deleted Scenes, The Unmasking of a Candidate which had the cast and crew discussing the story, the current political and media climate etc and a detailed Audio Commentary which featuresCo-Writer/Director Jason Reitman, Producer Helen Estabrook, Production Designer Steve Saklad, Costume Designer Danny Glicker and Cinematographer Eric Steelberg.
AUDIO/VISUAL:
The DVD delivers a serviceable, balanced Dolby Digital 5.1 soundtrack which is clear and solid. Shot on film, The Front Runner which took place in the late ‘80s looks appropriately good with an intended grainy look.
MOVIE RATING:
DVD RATING :
Review by Linus Tee
Genre: Drama
Director: Tsang Tsui Shan
Cast: Charlene Choi, Wu Kang-jen, Alex Lam, Deep Ng, Lau Wing, Cecilia Yip
Runtime: 1 hr 30 mins
Rating: R21 (Sexual Scenes)
Released By: Golden Village Pictures
Official Website:
Opening Day: 4 April 2019
Synopsis: Hong Kong Film Award winner for Best New Director Tsang Tsui Shan and producer Polly Yeung kindle sparks of passion with the pairing of Hong Kong entertainment goddess Charlene Choi and award-winning Taiwan star Wu Kang-jen. Charlene plays Ann, a repressed young lady whose psychological inability to consummate her marriage leads to divorce. But Ann’s drab demeanor begins to undergo seismic change after a life-changing encounter with a free-spirited chef, which revitalizes her in ways previously unimaginable.
Movie Review:
Much has been said about Charlene Choi’s bold performance in ‘The Lady Improper’, which not only sees her show more skin than you would expect from someone who used to pride herself on her squeaky-clean teenage idol image, but also has her engage in a passionate love-making scene on a kitchen table-top with her Taiwanese co-star Wu Kang-jen. Yet all that hype may end up working against Choi and the movie’s favour by setting up somewhat unrealistic expectations of her performance, which while certainly audacious by the actress’s own tame standards, will likely come off a lot milder than what her character as well as the movie needs it to be.
Chiefly, the movie demands that we believe in the character transformation of Siu Man (played by Choi), who starts off as a sexually repressed woman unable to consuumate her marriage to her ex-husband Kuen (Deep Ng), but whose psychological inhibitions gradually dissipate after she meets the free-spirited chef Jiahao (played by Wu). Neither state is however portrayed compellingly enough in the film, such that we never fully buy into why she was so uptight in the first place, and/or therefore how her interactions with Jiahao would set her on the path to sexual liberation, even with say some pole dancing added into the mix.
A significant part of why we can never invest completely in Siu Man is due to the imperfect script (co-written by director Tsang Tsui-shan and Link Sng), which fails to find a clear raison d'etre to Siu Man’s state of mind in the first place. There are late hints to how she had a very strict upbringing by her father Ping (veteran martial arts actor Lau Wing) after losing her mother at a young age, but not quite enough texture to their father-daughter relationship for us to be convinced how that has led her to be so high-strung. Similarly, it isn’t clear why she seems unable to fully give herself to Kuen despite being in love with him, especially given how she seems to want him back badly enough at the start to beg him for a second chance with a mechanical dildo.
On the other hand, Siu Man’s relationship with Jiahao comes off muddled, leaving us unsure just why he will be the one to unleash her passions. Is it because she is physically attracted to him? Or because she outwardly mocks, but inwardly admires, his happy-go-lucky attitude? Or is she grateful to him for rescuing her father’s ‘cha chaan teng’ business by whipping up the restaurant’s former signature dishes of Hakka-style pork belly and traditional steamed tofu? Or perhaps she is also jealous of the attractive lady (Ashina Kwok) selling ginger at the local market whom Jiahao flirts with, and whom she observes Jiahao having sex with on the kitchen stove? Whether it is one or a combination of these reasons, their relationship needs sharper definition, in order for us to be persuaded why Jiahao is her sexual elixir.
It doesn’t help that the story introduces an unnecessary supporting character next to Siu Man and Jiahao in Ah Him (Alex Lam), a regular at the ‘cha chaan teng’ restaurant who has a big crush on Siu Man and whom she agrees to go out. Not only is Ah Him a clumsily sketched caricature, it is more than a little cruel that she seems to hook up with him just to spite Jiahao, and breaks up with him after he proves too conservative to accept her pole dancing routine. Oh yes, the movie would have been much better served simply focusing on the attraction between Siu Man and Jiahao, so as to give some much-needed clarity just what each means to the other.
To make up for the narrative deficiencies would have needed an out-and-out candid performance by the lead actress, and it is in this regard that Choi’s acting, however audacious by her own standards, is still not daring enough to save the movie. Indeed, Choi is not only too restrained in displaying Siu Man’s repressions at the start, but also too muted to convince us that she is both physically and emotionally liberated by the end. At the risk of sounding lewd, Choi would need to really let go for us to be captivated by her character transformation, and her discomfort at going all out both physically and emotionally (which she herself has said in numerous media interviews) dulls what should be a gripping portrait of female emancipation.
So as much as she has been the selling point of ‘The Lady Improper’, Choi is also the reason why the movie with its flaws and all isn’t as compelling as it should be. Like we said, such a character-driven story needs tighter and sharper scripting, in order to define the central characters better as well as their focal relationship. But equally, Choi should either have chosen to strip away her own inhibitions completely or stepped away from the role, rather than end up in a ‘middle ground’ that is too subdued for the film’s good. As it is, both the movie and her character come off less improper than impotent, and will leave you unmoved, unconvinced and unsatisfied.
Movie Rating:
(Weak character work and a too-subdued performance by Charlene Choi, however bold by her tame standards, makes this drama about sexual liberation feel impotent)
Review by Gabriel Chong
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