Genre: Action/Drama
Director: Martin Owen
Cast: Raff Law, Sir Michael Caine, Lena Headey, Rita Ora, Franz Drameh, Sophie Simnett
Runtime: 1 hr 32 mins
Rating: NC16 (Some Mature Content and Coarse Language)
Released By: Shaw Organisation
Official Website: 

Opening Day: 4 March 2021

Synopsis: Twist is a Dickens’ classic brought thrillingly up to date in the teeming heartland of modern London, where a group of street smart young hustlers plan the heist of the century for the ultimate payday.

Movie Review:

The title is short for Oliver Twist, re-imagined here as a young graffiti artist who falls in with east London art dealer turned crime boss Fagin and his gang of fellow orphan misfits.

Billed as a modern-day reboot of Charles Dickens’ most famous work, director Martin Owen’s ‘Twist’ glosses over its character’s formative orphanage experience and skips ahead to his street crime exploits with the ‘gentleman whom the Artful Dodger spoke’. In particular, Twist gets caught up with Fagin’s revenge plot against his former unscrupulous competitor, while needing to contend with a sinister villain Fagin is in cahoots with.

At just under one and a half hours, the plotting – scripted by Owen with co-writers Sally Collett and John Wrathall – moves briskly enough to keep you engaged, weaving a heist narrative with double-crosses and forbidden teenage romances. So besides trying to make off with sleazy gallery owner Crispin Losberne’s (David Walliams) stolen Hogarth painting, Twist has to make sure Sikes (Lena Headey) does not kill him first, especially since he has fallen in love with her lover Red (Sophie Simnett).

We should add that Sikes isn’t the only gender-switched character in the film; there is also Dodge (or ‘Dodger’), played by British singer-songwriter Rita Ora. Like in Dickens’ book, Dodge and Batesy (or ‘Charley Bates’ if you remember the characters) are the ones who introduce Twist to Fagin, and who will eventually be torn between loyalty to Fagin and standing up for the injustices which Twist has to endure at the hands of Fagin and Sikes.

It’s not hard to guess with so many characters that few would be sufficiently developed, and indeed, besides Twist, the motivations and convictions of all the other supporting players are either too simplistic or undercooked. By extension therefore, the likes of Caine and Headey are sorely underused, even as they take top billing in the ensemble. Even Twist, whose story this movie is supposed to tell, is barely compelling enough to be worthy of a movie to his name, not least because the central relationship between Twist and Fagin is given short shrift.

What it does have going for it is rhythm and vigour. Owens has clearly seen his fair share of Guy Ritchie movies, and he brings the same hyperactivity to the action and comedy here, especially the parkour scenes that see Twist and Red running, jumping and leaping over buildings. Than build drama, Owens goes for the sort of gangster aesthetic that catapulted Ritchie to Hollywood fame in the first place, and although he never reaches the same heights, there is no denying the energy and light-footed momentum that he injects into the picture.

In truth, billing it as a modern-day take on the classic Oliver Twist story is probably just a gimmick, and an unnecessary one at that. Ultimately, ‘Twist’ is no more than a diverting caper flick which tries to be fun, entertaining and rousing while it lasts. The association with Dickens is less clever than unfortunate, especially since it hardly lives up to the source material in the first place. You’re better off thinking of it as ‘Lock, Stock and Two Smoking Barrels’-lite, and enjoying it for what it is worth on that basis.

Movie Rating:

(For fans of Guy Ritchie's British gangster flicks, 'Twist' is a diverting enough filler in between 'The Gentlemen' and his next genre exercise)

Review by Gabriel Chong

SYNOPSIS: An unfulfilled man (Owen Wilson) and a mysterious woman (Salma Hayek) believe they are living in a simulated reality, but when their newfound ‘Bliss’ world begins to bleed into the ‘ugly’ world they must decide what’s real and where they truly belong.

MOVIE REVIEW:

In Bliss, we find the usually comical Owen Wilson outside his comfort zone and into a reality-bending world with Salma Hayek. For the most part, Bliss contains interesting ideas and concepts from The Matrix to Inception but yet fails to deliver anything beyond mere mumbo-jumbo.

Greg Wittle (Wilson) is a broken man right from the start. He is divorced, struggling to keep his job and daydreams about a coastal retreat and a mysterious woman. After a violent outburst which incidentally caused the death of his boss, Greg met an eccentric woman, Isabel (Hayek) at a bar who told him he is actually living in a simulated world and she possessed telekinetic powers as well.

Things get weirder when Isabel introduced Greg to another “world” where they are indeed a real-life couple and Isabel is an esteemed scientist working on a scientific experiment called the brain box. Greg on the other hand is confused and can’t seem to recall this version of the world but he is more than content living here. His only concern is his love for his daughter, Emily (Nesta Cooper) who has been searching high and low for her missing dad.

The scripting and direction by Mike Cahill seem to leave viewers confused and muddled rather than mesmerized by his mind-bending material. Is he trying to link mental illness and drug addiction to the strange crystals taken by Greg and Isabel? Is this supposed to be some kind of mystifying metaphor? What is real and what is not? The simulated world is filled with homeless people and hookers while the rich and powerful resides in reality. Outrageous.

Interestingly, there seems to be no serious consequences in the simulated world. Greg and Isabel have the cool abilities to flip over anyone for example in a rollerskating ring. The dead can be revived again after the system is reboot. The simulation is so real that Emily is desperately trying to reconnect with her estranged dad although her brother doesn’t seem to care much. Probably it’s just a glitch.

It’s good that Owen Wilson and Salma Hayek is playing against type here. Both are pretty likeable as a couple. Frustratingly, the concept wears off pretty fast that despite the cast’s strong performances, they are unable to deliver any real-depth or sleekness out of Cahill’s meandering narrative. It’s crammed with so many provocative ideas but Cahill is content in letting his two leading stars on auto-pilot mode. Comedian Ronny Chieng has a small role as well because why not? In the simulated world, anything goes.

Bliss is one pretentious hollow sci-fi flick. It never delivers anything adequate or live up to its promise especially the ambiguous ending. Red pill or blue pill? You decide.

MOVIE RATING:

Review by Linus Tee

Genre: Musical/Drama
Director: Sia
Cast: Kate Hudson, Leslie Odom Jr., Maddie Ziegler
Runtime: 1 hr 48 mins
Rating: PG13 (Some Drug References And Coarse Language)
Released By: Shaw Organisation
Official Website: 

Opening Day: 25 February 2021

Synopsis: MUSIC is about the magic that can happen when someone who cannot speak with words finds people who can listen with their hearts. The story begins when Zu (Hudson), estranged from her family and a lifelong self-saboteur, finds herself the sole guardian of Music (Ziegler), her teenage half-sister, after the death of their grandmother. Music is nonverbal and on the autism spectrum, and her grandmother has lovingly created a schedule and daily routine to support her with the help of some neighborhood friends. Not having had her grandmother’s experience of loving and caring for Music, Zu instantly struggles with her new responsibility as caretaker. Their less than peaceful first breakfast together is overheard by their neighbor Ebo (Odom), a kind and gentle soul who surprises Zu by demonstrating not only his compassion, but his keen understanding of Music. His own, slowly revealed life story, makes him someone Zu can depend on and learn from as well. MUSIC combines a heartfelt tale about the power of love with musical sequences that propel and amplify the story, giving the audience a vivid window into the characters’ inner lives.

Movie Review:

Ironically, for a movie titled ‘Music’ that marks the filmmaking debut of the multi-platinum selling musician Sia, this family drama is utterly tone-deaf.

We’re not talking about the music (by Sia obviously) or the song-and-dance numbers choreographed by Ryan Heffington; oh no, we’re referring to the very concept of the film itself, which has Sia’s real-life, able-bodied, neurotypical teenage muse Maddie Ziegler play a non-verbal autistic girl struggling to cope with the death of her beloved grandmother (Mary Kay Place).

Plenty of non-autistic Hollywood actors have played autistic characters before, but Ziegler’s performance is so affected that you’ll be left cringing from start to finish. Indeed, it doesn’t require that you know or have interacted with a person suffering from autism to know that Ziegler is ‘faking’ it, and to sit through 100 minutes of it is not only torturous but infuriating at how she has (inadvertently or otherwise) turned disability into mockery.

Just as exasperating is how Sia’s movie, while titled after Ziegler’s character, decides after the first act that it is in fact more interested in Music’s older half-sister Zu (Kate Hudson), a former drug dealer struggling to stay sober. It doesn’t take a genius to know that Zu is ill-equipped to take care of Music, and Sia’s focus shifts quickly to chronicling Zu’s efforts to recover from her alcoholism and drug-filled lifestyle. The topic is personal to Sia, given her own past struggles with substance abuse, but the ‘kitchen-sink’ realism which she is clearly aiming for here feels no less artificial than Ziegler’s portrayal of autism.

Both Hudson and Ziegler are trapped in a movie that frankly doesn’t seem to know what story it wants to tell. Neither Music or Zu are developed enough for this to qualify as character drama, and the plotting by Sia and Dallas Clayton (based on Sia’s own story) is as boring as watching paint dry. It is so dreary that we found ourselves falling asleep on multiple occasions trying to finish the movie, and ending up hating the movie even more for making us sit through it more than once.

Even with ‘Hamilton’ heavyweight Leslie Odom Jr playing a Ghanian immigrant named Ebo whom Zu develops a liking for, there is hardly enough to keep you engaged in an utterly tiresome slog. Neither for that matter do the other supporting acts, such as the building supervisor George (Hector Elizondo), an adopted boy Felix (Beto Calvillo) living with abusive parents, or Zu’s drug dealer Rudy (Ben Schwartz), enliven the proceedings at any point, largely because Sia cannot quite figure out just what she wants to do with these characters.

In place of any meaningful plot or character development, Sia throws in more than the occasional musical set-pieces of bouncy pop tunes accompanied with colourful sets and costumes. These spectacles represent the flights of fancy of the characters, whom Sia paints as trying to escape from the drudgery of their everyday lives, but the juxtaposition between reality and fantasy comes off crass and jarring. Don’t get us wrong – they are enjoyable in their own right, perhaps as music videos to Sia’s tunes, but in the context of the movie, they are simply superfluous and clumsy.

We do not doubt Sia had the good intention of giving voice to the marginalised people represented as characters in her film, but that does not excuse how misbegotten an exercise this is. As Warner Music correctly figured, Sia does not have the filmmaking chops for this to be the compelling dramatic vehicle she had envisioned; but the subsequent choice to throw in 10 original songs in the form of cotton candy confections results in off-balance schizophrenic swings only makes the film worse. Certainly, it doesn’t save the movie from its horrendous lead Ziegler, who just simply cannot pull off the role.

So put the two (roundly panned) Golden Globe nominations it had received aside, ‘Music’ is tone-deaf, and like the singer who likes to hide her face, should have been hidden away too.

Movie Rating:

(You'll want to turn off this cacophony of painful acting, shallow writing and misguided direction)

Review by Gabriel Chong

SYNOPSIS: IP MAN: KUNG FU MASTER harks back to Ip’s early days before the Communist Revolution in 1949. Ip, portrayed by Dennis To for the third time as the martial artist who famously tutored Bruce Lee, was then a police captain who was framed for the murder of a ruthless but honorable mobster, and targeted for vengeance by his dangerous daughter. Forced to quit the force, Ip soon also has to contend with the arrival of the Japanese army in Guangzhou.

MOVIE REVIEW:

Ip Man: Kung Fu Master is one of those small mainland titles that are relegated to streaming due to Covid-19. Honestly the best if not economic move for a title like this.

To put it bluntly, Ip Man: Kung Fu Master is yet another copycat title that ride on the immense popularity of the Ip Man franchise spearheaded by Wilson Yip and Donnie Yen. Instead of Donnie Yen, we have Dennis To as Ip Man. If you recall, To also appeared as the same character in the Herman Yau directed Ip Man: The Legend is Born.

The original franchise was a reimagined story on the life of the late Wing Chun master, Ip Man. Ip Man: Kung Fu Master fares much worse than the latter as parts of the story and setups are lifted straight out of the original Ip Man (2008), The Grandmaster and Kung Fu Hustle.

It’s the 1920s, Ip Man is a police inspector in Foshan who is investigating a case of opium smuggling. The policeman part is a true fact by the way not sure about the opium case though. Anyway he suspects the leader of the axe gang, San Ye (Michael Wong in a cameo) is behind the crime and that’s where we see Ip confronting San Ye and hundreds of his henchmen in the opening scene.

It turned out San Ye is not the culprit instead the baddies happened to be a cunning, sinister Japanese businessman and his military counterpart who are planning to invade Foshan. No guesses on how the story is going forward from this point on.

The good thing about this kung fu flick is that it’s basically packed to the brim with fight scenes. There’s no additional subplot to pad out the runtime except a clumsily introduced character which is based on Leung Bik, one of Ip Man’s masters and the birth of Ip’s elder son. The rest of it is spent on Ip Man sparring against the prior mentioned military guy and the ax gang which has somehow went over to the Japanese side. There’s also the daughter of San Ye looking to avenge his father’s death.

Because Dennis To is a trained martial artist and has been in the industry for years as an action choreographer, stuntman and actor, he is incredibly skilled and believable whenever he pulls off his punches and kicks. As the storyline is plain straightforward, it does not require To to showcase any of his dramatic acting chops except looking all too serious or staring blankly into the camera.

We do not really comprehend why Ip Man need to don a Black Mask to be a vigilante midway into the movie but yet another idea that is copied right out of Donnie Yen’s Legend of the Fist or the 90’s Jet Li flick. The story for the most part is a joke. The smell of nationalism doesn’t help either. This is a kung fu title that is purely watchable for the decent and we mean very decently choreographed action sequences. 

MOVIE RATING:

Review by Linus Tee

Genre: Adventure/Sci-Fi
Director: Doug Liman
Cast: Tom Holland, Daisy Ridley, Mads Mikkelsen, Ray McKinnon, Nick Jonas, Demián Bichir, Cynthia Erivo, David Oyelowo
Runtime: 1 hr 49 mins
Rating: PG13 (Some Violence)
Released By: Encore Films
Official Website: 

Opening Day: 11 March 2021

Synopsis: In the not too distant future, Todd Hewitt (Tom Holland) discovers Viola (Daisy Ridley), a mysterious girl who crash lands on his planet, where all the women have disappeared and the men are afflicted by “the Noise” – a force that puts all their thoughts on display. In this dangerous landscape, Viola’s life is threatened – and as Todd vows to protect her, he will have to discover his own inner power and unlock the planet’s dark secrets.

Movie Review:

This movie has some of the biggest stars in showbiz. There’s Daisy Ridley who has made her name in a galaxy far, far away, Tom Holland who has charmed audiences by playing a bona fide web slinging Marvel superhero, Mads Mikkelsen who is an established Danish actor who sent chills down our spine as TV’s Dr Hannibal Lecter, Cynthia Erivo who is a celebrated Emmy and Grammy recipient, David Oyelowo who favourably portrayed Martin Luther King Jr, and the good looking Nick Jonas who is married to the beautiful Priyanka Chopra.

Yet, you don’t see any of these celebrities enthusiastically publicising this film based on the sci fi trilogy Chaos Walking, adapting its first book, The Knife of Never Letting Go by Patrick Ness.

Then you remember reading about several rewrites from a first script draft written by the quirky Charlie Kaufman. And then there were the reshoots following poor test screenings, which cost the studio an additional $15 million to the film's budget, bringing the total cost to $100 million.

So what’s so wrong about the dystopian action movie set in a world where there are no women and all living men can hear each other's thoughts? As you sit through the 109-minute film, you feel that there was great potential for the production, but along the way, things got really messy.

Holland is aptly cast as a young man living in a “New World” where the thoughts of everyone in their all male village are audible. Things change when Ridley’s space traveller crash lands on his planet and chaos ensue. Holland’s fans will giggle at how the 24 year old talks non stop as his happy, worried, sheepish and naughty are heard throughout the show. Donning a dirty singlet, he also gets to show off his lean physique. The movie also has some action sequences for him to exhibit his parkour skills.

Viewers may be intrigued by the “noise” that swirls over the characters’ heads and the overlapping voiceovers that reflect their thoughts. After a while, they do prove to be distractions to what seems to be the real problems of the movie.

The story introduces The Spackle, an indigenous species who are supposedly responsible for the elimination of the female speices. After a sequence to showcase a CGI creature, this thread was left hanging. When Holland and Ridley arrive at a location called Farbranch, they are greeted by male and female inhabitants, and little effort was put into explaining their back story, which is a waste in terms of storytelling. And let’s not even talk about the ending which is supposed to set up a sequel, but does nothing more than making us go: “That’s it?”

Also wasted is the talented cast. Mikkelsen does his best to be a mayor with evidently sinister motives, Erivo doesn’t have much to do as the leader of Farbranch, Oyelowo plays a preacher who has angry and loud thoughts about sinners and martyrs all the time, while Jonas’ role as the male mayor’s son could easily be played by anyone else.

Given the decent production values and the number of big names involved, we were really hoping that this would be a fun action movie exploring timely societal themes.

Movie Rating:

(With the star-studded cast and interesting premise, it is a pity that this dystopian action thriller falls short of expectations)

Review by John Li

Genre: Drama/History
Director: Ridley Scott
Cast: Matt Damon, Adam Driver, Jodie Comer, Ben Affleck, Marton Csokas, Harriet Walter, Alex Lawther, Željko Ivanek
Runtime: 2 hrs 23 mins
Rating: R21 (Sexual Scenes)
Released By: Walt Disney
Official Website: https://www.facebook.com/TheLastDuelFilm

Opening Day: 14 October 2021

Synopsis: "The Last Duel" is based on Eric Jager's book The Last Duel: A True Story of Crime, Scandal, and Trial by Combat in Medieval France, which brings the turbulent Middle Ages to life in striking detail. When etiquette, social aspirations and justice were driven by the codes of chivalry, the consequences for defying the institutions of the time - the Church, the nobility at court, a teenage king - could be severe. For a woman navigating these violent times, one who had no legal standing without the support of her husband, the stakes were even higher.

Movie Review:

For a movie that has Sir Ridley Scott at the helm and stars Matt Damon and Ben Affleck, no one turned up for The Last Duel despite stellar reviews. For our local scene, the medieval drama was shown only in a handful of theatres with limited showtimes due to the R21 rating. Despite the odds, this is one duel that is worth catching on the big screen.

The story alone is going to stir some excitement among film students. First it’s based on The Last Duel: A True Story of Trial by Combat in Medieval France by Eric Jager which is about the last legally sanctioned duel in France. Secondly, the same story is told from three different perspectives. Basically Rashomon style. Even if you are not a film student or a film critic, rest assured that the eighty-three year old Scott seldom makes an unwatchable bad movie.

Chapter One tells it from the perspective from Sir Jean de Carrouges (Damon), a knight who challenged his former friend, Jacques Le Gris (Adam Driver) to a duel after his wife, Marguerite (Jodi Comer) accuses Le Gris of raping her. Do also note that Carrouges is a compulsive man consumed with jealousy and obsessed with power and he is envious of Le Gris who is a buddy of a powerful Count Pierre d’Alencon (Affleck).

Chapter Two on the other hand focused on Jacques Le Gris who mistook Marguerite’s kindness and mutual interests as a form of flirt. So while Carrouges is away, the ruthless Le Gris went to pay Marguerite a visit to declare his love and ended up forcing himself on her although he absurdly claimed later on nothing of that actually happened.

No surprises, the last chapter involves Lady Marguerite who is bent on telling the truth in order to preserve her dignity. Carrouges seeks revenge for his wife which explained why there is a last duel. But is Carrouges a true hero aiming to protect the honour of his wife or is he trying to cash on the matter in order to win back his pride and honour?

For a story that is set in 1386 France, the script co-written by Damon, Affleck and Nicole Holofcencer is stunningly relevant in today’s context. The historical drama adequately touches on delicate topics such as unwanted female sexual assaults to victims being constantly being advised to be stay quiet or be in denial. There’s no #metoo movement in medieval France yet but Lady Marguerite sure is not going to stay silent for the humiliation she faced even though her mother-in-law thinks it’s unwise to speak up.

As if in an attempt not to confuse (or bore) the audiences, Lady Marguerite’s perspective apparently holds the most weight despite the ambiguity of the plotting. Both men see themselves as sort of a heroic figure although both are just selfish snobs lusting over their own goals and ambitions. For a supposedly complex story, Scott has assembled a spectacular flick with riveting plotting that speaks ill of toxic masculinity. However despite Scott’s noble intention, it’s kind of hard to watch a sexual assault happening twice onscreen.

If you are here purely for some lavish and gory (far lesser than the action seen in Gladiator and Kingdom of Heaven) battles, you have to wait for the climatic duel between Carrouges and Le Gris as Scott reserved the best for last. Expect generous amount of blood spray and violence as both men went all out to crush the other party’s ego in a fight to the death.

Damon and Affleck maybe the more familiar faces here. But it’s Jodi Comer (last seen in Free Guy) and Adam Driver who stole the show. Comer mesmerised with her overall nuanced performance and effortless facial expressions while Driver competently portrayed a complex egoistic man, likely the most hated man onscreen this year. Damon too scored points for playing a less than perfect character and a blond Affleck comes across as more out-of-place than a scheming, manipulative Count. For a movie that stretches more than 150 minutes, uneven at times, Scott once again proves he is still a filmmaker to watch out for given his grand old age. This is simply an earnest yet daring epic that only Sir Scott can deliver.

Movie Rating:

(The Last Duel is gorgeously filmed, filled with an extremely watchable cast and a polished meaningful script)

Review by Linus Tee

Genre: Action/Thriller
Director: David Lam
Cast: Louis Koo, Julian Cheung, Kevin Cheng, Jessica Hsuan, Bosco Wong, Rosyam Nor
Runtime: 1 hr 33 mins
Rating: PG13
Released By: Shaw Organisation
Official Website: 

Opening Day: 31 December 2021

Synopsis: Luk (Louis Koo) and Ching (Kevin Cheng) were working on a Customs corruption case. They found out the case was linked to King, the leader of an international human trafficking group, which also involved Emma Pong (Jessica Hsuan), the Chief Justice of South East Asia. Luk and Ching, together with Chief Inspector Lau Po-keung (Julian Cheung), were determined to bring King to justice.

Movie Review:

We’d be honest that we had never thought after watching ‘Z Storm’ that it would spawn a franchise that now spans four sequels, and yet here we are with ‘G Storm’, touted as the concluding chapter after a seven-year run. As with the earlier movies, this latest is anchored by ICAC Special Investigator William Luk (Louis Koo), who finds himself going up against a ruthless gang of human traffickers bent on assassinating a chief justice Emma Pong (Jessica Hsuan) intent on exposing their misdeeds.

Besides Luk, other characters which return for the sequel include Chief Inspector Lau Po-keung (Julian Cheung), ICAC inspector Ching Tak-ming (Kevin Cheng) and fellow-inmate-turned-informer Wong Lam-luk (Louis Cheung). It’s as packed an ensemble as it gets, what with new characters such as Tak-ming’s half-brother Fei-hung (Bosco Wong), former drug lord-turned-terrorist leader King (Malaysian actor Rosyam Nor), and the enigmatic criminal mastermind Siu Cheuk-ah (Michael Tse) added to the fray.

Those who have seen any of the earlier four movies will know that they are primarily plot- than character-driven, and with director David Lam and writer Wong Ho-wah back at the helm, ‘G Storm’ is no different. Opening with a skyline of Singapore’s Central Business District with the intertitle of “somewhere in a Southeast Asian city”, the movie wastes no time in embroiling the fates of Luk and Judge Pong, when the latter is targeted by a suicide bomber and other gunmen at the fictional Pan-Asia Convention Against Corruption and is saved by the former.

Back in Hong Kong, Ching and other ICAC colleagues have been tracking the activities of businessman Kwong Yat-long (the late and great Liu Kai Chi). Whether out of expediency or sheer laziness, Luk immediately links what happened back in “Singapore” to Kwong, and after tailing him from the Western District Public Cargo Working Area to a warehouse, the ICAC team discover following a brief shootout a container packed with girls abducted from their villages along the Thai-Burmese border. It so happens too that Judge Pong has arrived in Hong Kong under a guest speaking invitation at the Hong Kong Cultural Centre, setting the stage for Hong Kong to be the focus of criminal and terrorist activity.

Not unlike the earlier movies, the plotting is as straightforward as it gets. Lau is assigned to protect Judge Pong during her time in Hong Kong, and has to weather not one but two further attempts by King and his men at eliminating her. While Lau is busy with Judge Pong, Luk tries to uncover Siu’s links to the smuggling as well as to King, inadvertently endangering those to whom he is close to. Oh yes, it unfolds like a procedural, though not with the kind of attention of detail you would expect of good police work.

Those looking for some good old Hong Kong cops-and-robbers action will also be disappointed. Despite touting itself as the most action-packed instalment, and with veteran Li Chung-chi as action director, the shoot-outs and vehicular chases are largely humdrum. The only consolation is that the finale does end on a series high, with an extended climactic sequence which wraps a hostage/ bomb disposal situation, a tense gunfight along the corridors of the famed Hong Kong Cultural Centre and a closed-door firefight within the dome theatre of the neighbouring Hong Kong Space Museum. That said, it is frustrating that Lam hasn’t gotten any better at shooting the action in his ‘Storm’ movies after four equally middling chapters.

Indeed, ‘G Storm’ is as mediocre as ‘Z Storm’, and a good reminder therefore of why we had never expected that Koo would go on to reprise his role as the fictional ICAC Special Investigator William Luk in four subsequent thematically related sequels. It’s equally surprising that Lam and his stalwart producer Raymond Wong has been able to attract such a stellar cast for such an underwhelming effort, especially given how little each one of the individual members is given to work with in the movie. Now that the franchise has officially come to a close, we hope Koo, Cheung (both Julian and Louis), Cheng, Hsuan and Tse will find much more compelling material worthy of their considerable talents.

Movie Rating:

(Except for its climax, this anti-corruption procedural is as middling and as unexceptional as the other four 'Storm' instalments which have come before it)

Review by Gabriel Chong

SYNOPSIS: The film is based on the Newbery Award-winning book about 10-year-old Flora, an avid comic book fan and a self-avowed cynic, whose parents have recently separated. After rescuing a squirrel she names Ulysses, Flora is amazed to discover he possesses unique superhero powers, which take them on an adventure of humorous complications that ultimately change Flora's life-and her outlook-forever. 

MOVIE REVIEW:

Based on the Kate DiCamillo’s 2013 Newbery Award-winning book “Flora and Ulysses: The Illuminated Adventures”, Flora and Ulysses will have young kids in stitches with its abundance of silly CGI squirrel antics presented in true Disney fashion.

Flora (Matilda Lawler) is a cynic young girl who loves to read comics but believes that superheroes don’t actually exist in the real world until she met a squirrel who possess super powers and writes poetry after a near death experience. At the same time, Flora is struggling with the temporary separation of her parents. Mum (Alyson Hannigan from American Pie and How I Met Your Mother) is an award-winning cheesy romance novelist who has lost her inspiration and dad (Ben Schwartz from Sonic the Hedgehog and Space Force) has given up hopes on becoming a comic book creator and now works at an office supply store.

Since nearly every movie needs a good antagonist, we have an overzealous animal control guy (Danny Pudi) to give the movie a cartoony threatening presence. Together with her temporarily blind friend and neighbour, William (Benjamin Evan Ainsworth), Flora must work to keep Ulysses safe from being captured and also hoping to patch up the relationship of her parents along the way.

Things are a lot easier now since Disney owns Marvel. There are generous mentions of the Sliver Surfer and Wolverine right in the prologue. Nothing liked some free endorsement to entice the young generation into comics. Flora and Ulysses employs the meanings and values on how to be a true superhero in real-life to produce a few positive messages but they are mostly buried under loads of non-stop slapstick and action gags.

By leaving a disastrous trail everywhere it goes, the digitally-created squirrel did a decent job in entertaining the masses. All it has to do is messed up Flora’s room, her mom’s typewriter, eat cheeseballs and destroyed a donut shop. Fortunately, it also doesn’t talk annoyingly like Alvin the chipmunk except making cute critter noises. There isn’t any huge scientific explanations on how Ulysses acquired his superpowers perhaps parents need to impart this knowledge to the kids or simply dismissed this as pure “Hollywood magic”. There’s a menacing kitty dubbed Mr Klaus who is constantly after the animal control guy that is kind of hilarious as well.

Alyson Hannigan and Ben Schwartz did more than a decent job balancing the family drama and squirrel madness. At least both actors are genuinely likeable. Kudos to Matilda Lawler who did a marvellous not irritable job as the smart, heroic Flora. Flora and Ulysses is a predictable, entertaining children flick which was sort of Disney’s bread-and-butter decades back before they took over Pixar, Star Wars and Marvel. Some treatment simply never gets old although Mummy and Daddy are the only ones likely to catch the Titanic joke.

MOVIE RATING:

Review by Linus Tee

SYNOPSIS: "Be Water" is a documentary chronicling the life of legendary actor and martial arts master, Bruce Lee. The film takes a look at Lee's early life in San Francisco and Hong Kong and adulthood in Seattle while teaching Kung Fu. Lee would return to Hong Kong  and become an international superstar. Interviews and archival film illustrate Lee's charisma, passion, philosophy and dedication to his art.

MOVIE REVIEW:

There will never be enough documentaries, books and discussion on the late martial-arts superstar Bruce Lee for he will always remained a legend, an enigma after passing at the young age of 32.

Directed by acclaimed Vietnamese American filmmaker Bao Nguyen, Be Water is the latest documentary on the iconic actor. Mostly narrated by Shannon Lee, daughter of Bruce and his wife, Linda Cadwell, the documentary takes viewers on a somewhat subtle, nuanced journey recounting the life of the short-lived man who thinks of himself as just a plain human being.

Bruce Lee Jun-fan was born in 1940, San Francisco but spent most of his growing years in Hong Kong before being sent back to the States by his father to further his studies. Lee was once a famous child actor and very much a troublemaker but his time in the States slowly turned him into a young, sought after martial-arts master in the Bay area while slowly finding his way into Hollywood.

According to the long list of interviewees including his students, Dan Inosanto, Kareem Abdul-Jabbar, producer Andre Morgan, film critic Jeff Chang and his younger brother Robert, Lee was a man with a purpose, a man of principle all his life. His aim was to penetrate into Hollywood bringing along with him the rich vast Chinese culture. He frequently turned down roles that demeans Asians and he was strongly against racism.

In an ironic turn, nothing much has changed in the Hollywood system decades after his unfortunate passing. Most of the time, you still see a white actor or actress playing an Asian-oriented role. Remember Scarlett Johansson in the live-action remake of Ghost in the Shell? If Lee is still alive today, he probably will be the first to stand up for this sort of unfair treatment. The final straw which led him to his eventual return to his native land came when Warner Bros refused to cast him in the leading role of Kung Fu (which subsequently went to the late David Carradine), a story idea that was initially conceived by him.

Beside discussion on racism, the documentary also touches ground on Lee’s philosophies which of course covers his famous Be Water analogy and his approach to martial-arts in general and his very own Jeet Kune Do. Despite Bao’s well-intention, the documentary seems more like a brief introduction and best-of compilation of the charismatic actor and martial-artist. Meaning to say, for long-time fans of Bruce Lee, they will not find anything new or exceptional right here while for those who are curious after watching Quentin Tarantino’s unflattering portrayal of Lee in Once Upon A Time in Hollywood will likely be surprised by the unfolding facts.

Perhaps hamstrung by the running time or out of respect for his love ones, Bao notably left out the discussion on actress Betty Ting, the actress who played quite a role on Lee’s last day on earth, We also got a fleeting glimpse at his son, Brandon who also tragically lost his life at the age of 28. Even the boss of Golden Harvest, the late Raymond Chow never received much running time even though he was the man that gave Lee his big break in Hong Kong.

Nevertheless, Be Water is a serviceable if not respectful documentary on Bruce Lee, a man whose legacy is cut short by his untimely passing in 1973. For more on Bruce Lee, we suggest you check out: Matthew Polly’s Bruce Lee: A Life.

MOVIE RATING:

Review by Linus Tee

Genre: Biography/Drama
Director: Shaka King
Cast: Daniel Kaluuya, LaKeith Stanfield, Algee Smith, Darrell Britt-Gibson, Dominique Thorne, Amari Cheatom, Caleb Eberhardt, Lil Rel Howery 
Runtime: 2 hrs 6 mins
Rating: M18 (Coarse Language and Some Violence)
Released By: Warner Bros
Official Website: 

Opening Day: 8 April 2021 (The Projector)

Synopsis: In 1968, a young, charismatic activist named Fred Hampton became Chairman of the Illinois chapter of the Black Panther Party, who were fighting for freedom, the power to determine the destiny of the Black community, and an end to police brutality and the slaughter of Black people. Chairman Fred was inspiring a generation to rise up and not back down to oppression, which put him directly in the line of fire of the government, the FBI and the Chicago Police. But to destroy the revolution, they had to do it from both the outside…and the inside. Facing prison, William O’Neal is offered a deal by the FBI: if he will infiltrate the Black Panthers and provide intel on Hampton, he will walk free. O’Neal takes the deal. Now a comrade in arms in the Black Panther Party, O’Neal lives in fear that his treachery will be discovered even as he rises in the ranks. But as Hampton’s fiery message draws him in, O’Neal cannot escape the deadly trajectory of his ultimate betrayal. Though his life was cut short, Fred Hampton’s impact has continued to reverberate. The government saw the Black Panthers as a militant threat to the status quo and sold that lie to a frightened public in a time of growing civil unrest. But the perception of the Panthers was not reality. In inner cities across America, they were providing free breakfasts for children, legal services, medical clinics and research into sickle cell anemia, and political education. And it was Chairman Fred in Chicago, who, recognizing the power of multicultural unity for a common cause, created the Rainbow Coalition—joining forces with other oppressed peoples in the city to fight for equality and political empowerment.

Movie Review:

In this biographical depiction of revolutionary Fred Hampton, director Shaka King condenses the events of his influential years as a chairman in the Illinois chapter of the Black Panther Party, that inevitably led with his assassination in 1969. He was 21.

But the focus here is less on his incredible charisma that realised a “rainbow coalition” of divergent sub-groups to challenge capitalist oppression, or his enduring tenacity to make sacrifices for the people, but as the biblical allusion in the title suggests, about how the FBI instigated the deep betrayal by grooming one of his closest aids, William O’Neal.

Needless to say, this theme of police brutality and an unjust system strikes raw in today’s climate - not only evidenced by the many victims that birthed the Black Lives Matter movement, but even closer to home, by the actions of Myanmar’s military coup. The relevance here is what makes the film so necessarily disturbing.

Daniel Kaluuya is hard to fault. He saturates himself with the activist’s magnetism, and releases it with gusto in his stirring speech scenes. It’s impossible not to be affected, especially when the intensity here is paired with truth, sometimes abrasive and radical, but mostly just facts.

But it is Lakeith Stanfield as the informant William that holds the thread to this tale. King steers the film through this unfortunate character, letting his wavering commitment seed tension into the otherwise “regular” scenes that follow. It’s a motivation that leaks out of Stanfield brilliantly - in furtive glances and awkward bravado - if sometimes a little repetitive.

Because here’s a missed exploration - that Stanfield and his FBI agent handler Roy Mitchell (Jesse Plemons) has a blatantly lopsided relationship. It doesn’t take much for Mitchell to leash Stanfield back to his duty, and much of the priming in the early (such as the KKK reference and role model inferences) doesn’t bear out much later on.

So while Stanfield does an excellent job of stretching emotional conflict in his scenes, they seem much too reactive - often triggered by external circumstances than internal reflection or emancipation. Even at the end of the film, we find it hard to determine the person that is William O’Neal, and his inner motivations beyond personal survivalism.

Thankfully, King includes nuance through the broader cast, opening up complex constructs in ideologies with more pragmatic and human concerns. It tempers the more simplistic over-vilification, and lets it sit more comfortably as a realistic drama.

Along with some arresting visuals from cinematographer Sean Bobbitt and flashes of imaginative editing from Kristan Sprague, the understated Mark Isham adds a richness to the film presentation with his plucky score, allowing the film and its characters to have a compassionate bold stroke running through it.

While the invitation to explore the story from William’s perspective may fall a little short, Judas and the Black Messiah remains an affecting watch - a worthy tribute to sacrifice and the fallen, and a timely reminder that the fight continues to this day.

Movie Rating:

(A stirring watch with a brilliant cast, the script falls short in areas but the production is nonetheless arresting and pertinent)

Review by Morgan Awyong