Genre: Crime
Director: Shen Ao
Cast: Zhang Yixing, Gina Chen Jin, Darren Wang, Sunny Sun, Zhou Ye
Runtime: 2 hr 10 mins
Rating: NC16 (Violence & Some Coarse Language)
Released By: Golden Village Pictures
Official Website:
Opening Day: 14 September 2023
Synopsis: The film is based on tens of thousands of real fraud cases, and the horrifying inside story of the entire industry chain of overseas cyber fraud. Programmer Pan Sheng and model Anna were attracted by an overseas recruitment ad and went abroad to seek wealth, but they were scammed and ended up working in a factory. In order to leave, the two are going to attack the gambler Ah Tian and his girlfriend Xiao Yu, take their money, and complete their business... Can Pan Sheng and Anna escape from the cruel leaders of the fraud group, Manager Lu and Ah Cai? Facing cross-border investigations and pursuit of the police, where can they escape to?
Movie Review:
If you don’t already know, the fact that you are reading this review on the Internet means your online activity is probably being tracked. How you are clicking through the website, your mouse movements, the scroll depth and other navigation patterns are important pieces of information that can be analysed to monitor and collect your browsing behaviour. If it is any consolation, you are probably one of the millions of Internet users who are part of this ongoing activity used by corporations to grow their businesses.
And that is why this Mainland Chinese production is a stark reminder that the Internet can be a scary place if you fall prey to the traps set up by unscrupulous online scammers.
Produced by Ning Hao and directed by Shen Ao, it tells the story of Pan (Zhang Yixiang), a programmer and Anna (Gina Chen), a model who find themselves in an unnamed Southeast Asian country to be part of an organisation executing cyber scams through online gambling and gasp, crypto-related frauds. If you aren’t familiar with how cryptocurrencies work, it is best you steer clear of any related dealings that promise a fortune.
Through a clever non linear storytelling structure, we see how Pan and Anna join the organisation managed by Lu (Eric Wang) and have no way out of the system once they are sucked in. It is a horror seeing how the two are coerced into the scheme with the threat of violence and torture. As the plot is based on the director’s research on true life incidents, one can only imagine how scary it is to be trapped in a foreign country running scams with no way home.
Elsewhere, there is another storyline where we see Tianzhi (Darren Wang), a young man with a promising future becoming a victim of the online fraud. Without saying too much, the ending for this character is melodramatically tragic and that sets up another side plot where his girlfriend (Zhou Ye) is determined to spread awareness about online scams, and a police officer (Yong Mei) goes all out to crack down the fraud factory.
With a runtime of 130 minutes, this well produced thriller is constantly engaging, thanks to the committed performances delivered by the ensemble cast. Zhang, who made his debut in showbiz as a member of the boyband Exo, shed his pretty boy image to play a nerdy programmer who gets embroiled in this dismaying experience and has to find a way to escape. It is harrowing to watch his repeated attempts and it’ll keep you at the edge of your seat. Chen’s character of a model who wants to become famous is also one you can sympathise with, and the actress does a good job in portraying someone who is stuck in a very bad situation.
As the movie progresses and you see the Chinese officials going all out to bust the bad guys, you also realise this is a heavy handed approach to promote an anti fraud public message. There is even an end credit montage where real life victims talk about their experience and how they feel safer back home. It is no wonder why the movie made it to the top at the box office in the world on the opening weekend after general release. There is another upcoming movie from China about online romance scams, and we can’t wait.
Movie Rating:
(A well-executed movie that delivers the thrills and sheds light on the horrors of online frauds, while sending an important message about being careful with your online activities)
Review by John Li
Genre: Horror/Thriller
Director: Michael Chaves
Cast: Bonnie Aarons, Taissa Farmiga, Storm Reid, Anna Popplewell
Runtime: 1 hr 50 mins
Rating: NC16
Released By: Warner Bros
Official Website: https://www.thenun2.com.sg
Opening Day: 7 September 2023
Synopsis: 1956 -France. A priest is murdered. An evil is spreading. The sequel to the worldwide smash hit follows Sister Irene as she once again comes face-to-face with Valak, the demon nun.
Movie Review:
Those who have followed ‘The Conjuring’ universe religiously will know that the films of the same name which centre around Ed and Lorraine Warren as the husband and wife pair of paranormal investigators are ultimately the real deal, with the rest of the spinoffs – such as ‘Annabelle’, ‘The Nun’ and ‘The Curse of La Llorona’ – being largely inferior gap-fillers in between. Notwithstanding that, ‘The Nun’ had in 2018 gone on to become the highest grossing film of the franchise, which made this sequel inevitable.
Set four years after the events of its predecessor, ‘The Nun II’ finds Sister Irene (Taissa Farmiga) serving at a convent in Italy and Maurice, otherwise known as Frenchie (Jonas Bloquet), working at a Catholic boarding school in France. Some may recall that while it had seemed that the demon Valak was banished by the blood of Christ, it had in fact possessed Maurice, as evidenced by an inverted crucifix seared into the back of his neck. As it turns out, Valak still haunts Maurice, and his presence at the school that used to be a former monastery is no coincidence.
You can probably guess that it is only a matter of time before Sister Irene crosses paths with Maurice once again, summoned as she is by the Cardinal to investigate a series of deaths across Europe – including that of the self-immolation of a priest in a church in Tarascon – that had Valak’s fingerprints on them. Joining Irene on her mission is a young, somewhat precocious, novice from the convent named Debra (Storm Reid), whose struggle with faith could do with a jolt from an encounter with pure evil.
To say any more would be to give too much away from a threadbare story – which we’re not sure why is credited to three writers, including James Wan’s frequent collaborator Akela Cooper – that knows its purpose to provide just enough narrative filling in between the horror set-pieces. Indeed, the only mystery here is just what Valak is searching for at the site of the former monastery, which is revealed all too quickly in a scene at the end of the second act where Irene meets up with an elderly librarian at the Palais des Papes.
That said, those looking for plain old good horror will find that director Michael Chaves – a veteran of these films with ‘The Conjuring: The Devil Made Me Do It’ and ‘The Curse of La Llorona’ – knows just how to make his audience jump. Taking a leaf from the true master Wan, Chaves eschews the jump-out-at-you scares in favour for a solid buildup through suspense and dread, complemented by a strong mise-en-scene courtesy of some choice old-world European locations and Tristan Nyby’s atmospherically evocative cinematography.
A prank within the old chapel inside the boarding school is suitably spine-tingling, followed soon after by an even more sinister encounter that results in the unfortunately gory death of the school’s principal. A foot chase down the creepy alleys of the small town near Aix-en-Provence leads Irene to come face to face with Valak through the fluttering pages of a newsstand. And last but not least, a gleefully demented finale that features no less than a goat demon and a splash of the Catholic sacraments will leave you breathless right up till the mid-credits scene teasing the return of the Warrens. Oh yes, Chaves knows just how to get under your skin, and ‘The Nun II’ is hands down scarier than its predecessor.
So even though it is hardly iconic enough to make genre history, this latest entry into ‘The Conjuring’ canon is nothing less than serviceable, and we might even say well-constructed to deliver the requisite thrills its audience would no doubt be expecting. It is certainly one of the stronger spinoffs to date, and as long as you set your expectations right, will do just fine to keep fans occupied before the inevitable next instalment of the Warrens’ case files.
Movie Rating:
(One of the better spinoffs of 'The Conjuring' franchise, this solidly constructed sequel packs plenty of spine-tingling moments to keep fans gleefully entertained)
Review by Gabriel Chong
Genre: Thriller
Director: Maximilian Erlenwein
Cast: Sophie Lowe, Louisa Krause
Runtime: 1 hr 31 mins
Rating: NC16 (Some Coarse Language)
Released By: Shaw
Official Website:
Opening Day: 31 August 2023
Synopsis: Two sisters go diving at a beautiful, remote location. One of the sisters is struck by a rock, leaving her trapped 28 meters below. With dangerously low levels of oxygen and cold temperatures, it is up to her sister to fight for her life.
Movie Review:
How many times are we willing to subject ourselves to watching people get out of unimaginable life-threatening situations? Your response to that will determine how much you will enjoy ‘The Dive’, a perfectly serviceable survival thriller that nonetheless doesn’t differentiate itself enough from other similar genre fare like ‘127 Hours’, ‘The Shallows’ or even last year’s ‘Fall’.
German director Max Erlenwein’s remake of a 2020 Norwegian film sees two sisters – May (Louisa Krause) and Drew (Sophie Lowe) – drive to a remote seaside setting for their annual dive trip, only to have the former trapped under a boulder after a catastrophic landslide. It is of course deliberate that the less experienced Drew is the one who not only has to ensure that May doesn’t run out of oxygen but also find a way to free May.
Thankfully, Erlenwein – who scripted his remake with its original Norwegian co-writer Joachim Heden – does not belittle either of his characters. Indeed, despite the circumstances, May or Drew remain competent under duress, and never make the sort of idiotic decisions that you’ll end up hating them for. In fact, to her credit, Drew makes a couple of ingenious moves, including deliberately crashing their car to bust open the boot and using a combination of everyday tools to eventually lift the rock pinning May down.
Most of the action takes place in real time, lending a sense of immediacy and urgency to the proceedings. Given how each tank has only enough oxygen to last for 20 minutes, Drew has to make multiple trips to the surface and back, while enduring the hazard of rushed decompression. Thanks to Frank Griebe’s smart, carefully choreographed cinematography, these scenes are often adrenaline-fuelled, with some admirable underwater photography to boot.
Compared to Drew, May has relatively much less to do except to recall how she and Drew used to learn diving together as kids and hallucinate about how they ended up drifting apart as adults. While the movie hardly bogs itself down with melodrama, it is also the reason why it runs out of narrative puff especially in the last third, especially to depict the increasingly sense of hopelessness between them as they run out of good options.
How much you’ll enjoy ‘The Dive’ therefore depends on your appetite for such survival thrillers. Whilst perfectly competent, this latest also hardly breaks any new ground for the genre, except for say its underwater location. There is also little emotional depth to the story, which diminishes the payoff at the end. It is still though a taut, tense watch most of the time, and if that sounds good enough for you, then go ahead and take the plunge.
Movie Rating:
(A taut, tense survival thriller that ultimately proves serviceable at best)
Review by Gabriel Chong
Genre: Mystery/Thriller
Director: Kenneth Branagh
Cast: Kenneth Branagh, Kyle Allen, Camille Cottin, Jamie Dornan, Tina Fey, Jude Hill, Ali Khan, Emma Laird, Kelly Reilly, Riccardo Scamarcio, Michelle Yeoh
Runtime: 1 hr 43 mins
Rating: PG13 (Some Violence and Frightening Scenes)
Released By: Walt Disney
Official Website:
Opening Day: 7 September 2023
Synopsis: Set in eerie, post-World War II Venice on All Hallows’ Eve, “A Haunting in Venice” is a terrifying mystery featuring the return of the celebrated sleuth, Hercule Poirot. Now retired and living in self-imposed exile in the world’s most glamorous city, Poirot reluctantly attends a séance at a decaying, haunted palazzo. When one of the guests is murdered, the detective is thrust into a sinister world of shadows and secrets.
Movie Review:
This writer is not much of a reader, so movies adapted from novels are a great way for him to have an understanding of the magic that can happen within the pages of a thick book. This time round, he is treated to the very entertaining adaptation of Agatha Christie’s 1969 work Hallowe’en Party, and even gets a chance to see the majestic Venice on the big screen.
If you ask this reviewer, Belgian detective Hercule Poirot is a lucky man. The fictional character created by Christie gets to travel to some of the most breathtaking places in the world. The thing is, while most of us would love to be there on a holiday, he ends up having to solve mysteries, usually to find out the killer behind a grisly murder.
After chugging along with the train in Murder on the Orient Express (2017) and witnessing beautiful pyramids in Death on the Nile (2022), Poirot heads to the picturesque Venice, which is also known as the The Floating City. This means that the movie promises eye candy in the form of winding canals, striking architecture and beautiful bridges.
The man wants to retire in the Italian city as he has lost belief in faith and humanity, and you won’t expect him to take any more cases. But what’s a mystery movie without a crime to solve? Poirot finds himself at a Halloween party at a grand palace, where a séance takes place after the fun and games. A medium is going to make contact with the palace owner’s dead daughter, who didn’t exactly have the best life – she broke off her engagement with a man she loved, fell terribly ill and eventually committed suicide.
Alas, the medium dies horribly soon after and everyone in the palace is a suspect. Poirot has no choice but to put his sleuthing skills to the test to solve the mystery. With sightings of spirits, is there really a supernatural force to be reckoned with? Without giving away too much, let’s just say no one is safe because by the end of the 103 minute movie, there will be more deaths.
Kenneth Branagh directs himself the third time to portray the world weary Poirot. Together with him is a competent ensemble cast that makes this effective mystery murder movie engaging to watch. The star studded lineup includes Tina Fey as a nosey mystery writer, Jamie Dornan as a doctor truamatised by his time in a war concentration camp), Michelle Yeoh as the medium who otherwise may just be a con artist, and Kyle Allen as the dead girl’s fiancée who is mysteriously invited to the Halloween party.
There is also Kelly Reilly as the palace owner, Camille Cottin as her housemaid, Jude Hill as the doctor’s son, Riccardo Scamarcio as Poirot’s bodyguard, as well as Ali Khan and Emma Laird as the medium’s assistants. With so many characters, it is like playing a game of Cluedo where you are guessing who’s the murderer alongside Poirot.
In a good way, the movie doesn’t try to be too clever and all viewers need to do is to follow the comfortable pacing to be led to the answer. Everyone’s on form here, and you just need to go along for the ride. There are even some nifty scares along the way to coincide with the Halloween season, making this a fun whodunit to sit through.
Movie Rating:
(An enjoyable and effective whodunit that works, thanks to Kenneth Branagh's sure-handed direction)
Review by John Li
SYNOPSIS: Allison is a young woman with a wonderful fiance, a blossoming career, and supportive family and friends. However, her world crumbles in the blink of an eye when she survives an unimaginable tragedy, emerging from recovery with an opioid addiction and unresolved grief. In the following years, she forms an unlikely friendship with her would-be father-in-law that gives her a fighting chance to put her life back together and move forward.
MOVIE REVIEW:
Every decade or so, Zach Braff would write and direct his own movies liked the much acclaimed Garden State (2004) and the forgettable Wish I Was Here (2014). And now he is back with A Good Person except he is not in front of the camera at all as compared to his other feature films directorial efforts.
Roping in his ex-girlfriend, Florence Pugh and Oscar winner and famed narrator Morgan Freeman in the leading roles, A Good Person is a solid drama about grief, guilt and “amor fati”.
The drama starts with the rousing engagement party of Allison (Pugh) and Nathan (Chinaza Uche). We can tell the two of them are very much in love but good things don’t last long especially on screen. The next day, Allison together with Nathan’s sister and her husband are involved in an accident which claimed the lives of the couple.
A year later, Allison is back living with her mother (Molly Shannon) and addicted to painkillers. Elsewhere, Daniel (Freeman) is finding it hard to raise his orphaned rebellious teen granddaughter, Ryan (Celeste O’ Connor). It turns out that Daniel is supposed to be Allison’s father-in-law until the fatal accident changes everything. Both parties attempt to reconcile their differences at an Alcoholics Anonymous meeting as they reopened old wounds and undergoes their pain and healing process.
No doubt about it, A Good Person is a slow burn. It can be a little heavy-handed at times which resulted in one or two unnecessarily uncomfortable situations. Yet this small misstep never take away the heart and soul of the movie. Braff has done a fantastic job building his narrative and characters, making them as believable as possible to the audiences.
Pugh delivers yet another mesmerising performance as the tortured Allison who left her beloved Nathan presumably out of guilt. Watching Pugh’s character trying to crawl out of the darkness is both painful and harrowing and the actress nails it without being overly dramatic.
Freeman’s Daniel has his own demons to fight against. As a long-time recovered alcoholic, he has to face his past abusive acts towards his son. And now he has to raise a teenager who has trouble behaving in school and outside school. It has been a long while since we saw Freeman in a role as weighty as Daniel and true enough, he gave his very best.
While the subject matter is definitely not on the creative side, the drama soars when it comes to the terrific performances of Pugh and Freeman and their onscreen relationship and chemistry. It’s such a sincere and emotional drama that Braff should have been a little more prolific over the years.
MOVIE RATING:
Review by Linus Tee
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ALIEN HUANG STARRER, FAT HOPE (超磅名模) COMING IN FEB 2024Posted on 06 Sep 2023 |
Genre: Action/Thriller
Director: Scott Waugh
Cast: Jason Statham, Dolph Lundgren, Randy Couture, 50 Cent, Megan Fox, Tony Jaa, Iko Iwais, Jacob Scipio, Levy Tran, Andy Garcia, Sylvester Stallone
Runtime: 1 hr 43 mins
Rating: NC16 (Violence and Gore)
Released By: Warner Bros
Official Website:
Opening Day: 21 September 2023
Synopsis: A new generation of stars join the world’s top action stars for an adrenaline-fueled adventure in THE EXPENDABLES 4. Reuniting as the team of elite mercenaries, Jason Statham, Dolph Lundgren, Randy Couture, and Sylvester Stallone are joined for the first time by Curtis “50 Cent” Jackson, Megan Fox, Tony Jaa, Iko Iwais, Jacob Scipio, Levy Tran, and Andy Garcia. Armed with every weapon they can get their hands on and the skills to use them, The Expendables are the world’s last line of defense and the team that gets called when all other options are off the table. But new team members with new styles and tactics are going to give “new blood” a whole new meaning.
Movie Review:
More than a decade ago, Sylvester Stallone stars, co-wrote and direct an ensemble action movie called The Expendables with a focus on old-school action sets and a cast of action stars including Jason Statham, Jet Li, Dolph Lundgren with Bruce Willis and Arnold Schwarzenegger cameoing. It did well enough for Lionsgate and went on to release two more sequels with the likes of Van Damme, Wesley Snipes, Antonio Banderas, Chuck Norris, Mel Gibson and even Harrison Ford chipping in for some fun.
It has been nine long years since the release of the last Expendables and Sly is back with his rotating members of mercenaries. While Statham, Lundgren and demolition expert, Toll (Randy Couture) are still hanging around, 50 Cents, Megan Fox, Andy Garcia and Tony Jaa are the new members with Iko Uwais as the main antagonist.
Since the movie needs at least a paper thin plot before we see our mercenaries in action, the story has it that the Expendables has been assigned on a mission to go to an old chemical plant in Libya to intercept Suharato Rahmat (Uwais), a former arms dealer who is out to steal nuclear missile detonators for his wicked client, Ocelot.
The movie more or less plays out similarly to the past Expendables outings despite having several different writers serving on the franchise. Co-writing every of the earlier ones, Sly decides to sit out on this one. Not sensing an ounce of good vibe, Kurt Wimmer (writer of the Point Break and Total Recall remakes) and another two guys took over the assignment and turns in a story that sounds it’s churned out by an A.I. in minutes. Of course, diehard fans of the Expendables are here for the action and the filmmakers deliver exactly what they wished for.
Under the helm of Scott Waugh (who directed Need for Speed and the recent Jackie Chan’s Hidden Strike), Expend4ables attempts to pass the baton to the next generation with the inclusion of Fox as Statham’s Lee Christmas’ love interest with a limp romance angle and playful bantering that is embarrassingly corny. To be fair, it’s much more enjoyable watching Ross and Lee teasing each other and making jab at Gunner (Lundgren).
Nevertheless, Waugh soldiers on to deliver a relentless, testosterone-fuelled action outing with countless gunshots and CGI enhanced violence all over. Taking place almost entirely on a gigantic cargo ship for the second half of the actioner, Alan Ng, a regular member of Jackie Chan’s Stuntman team is in charge of choreographing the fights although there’s zero fight sequences here that are worth a look. You might as well check out Iko Uwais in The Raid again or the underutilized Tony Jaa in his classic Ong Bak outings. You know all these Hollywood’s hyper-stylised, choppy edits, frenetic cinematography don’t really sell to Asian audiences who grew up on those hardcore HK/Asians action flicks.
Still, Sly has been hinting he is retiring his Barney Ross character and Statham looks set to take over as team leader consider he is featured heavily in the finale. Sorry to say, Fox and 50 Cents aren’t exactly box-office big-name actors so Statham might have a tough job ahead. Supposedly carrying a $100 million budget, Expend4ables at best is nothing but an overly expensive direct-to-streamer action movie with expired plotting and cheap cartoony violence. For our part, we are moving on with or without Sly.
Movie Rating:
(Expend4ables does nothing to lift the franchise out of its doldrums in fact it’s probably a nail in the coffin)
Review by Linus Tee
Genre: Drama/Sports
Director: Simon Cellan Jones
Cast: Mark Wahlberg, Simu Liu, Juliet Rylance, Nathalie Emmanuel, Ali Suliman, Bear Grylls, Paul Guilfoyle
Runtime: 1 hr 47 mins
Rating: PG13 (Some Coarse Language)
Released By: Encore Films
Official Website:
Opening Day: 4 April 2024
Synopsis: Starring Mark Wahlberg, Simu Liu, Juliet Rylance, Nathalie Emmanuel Over the course of ten days and 435 miles, an unbreakable bond is forged between pro adventure racer Michael Light (Mark Wahlberg) and a scrappy street dog companion dubbed Arthur. Based on an incredible true story, ARTHUR THE KING follows Light, desperate for one last chance to win, as he convinces a sponsor to back him and a team of athletes (Simu Liu, Nathalie Emmanuel, and Ali Suliman) for the Adventure Racing World Championship in the Dominican Republic. As the team is pushed to their outer limits of endurance in the race, Arthur redefines what victory, loyalty and friendship truly mean.
Movie Review:
Mark Wahlberg has played almost everything, from a porn star to cops to even a priest. The megastar is seen regularly on the big screen as well as on television. For that matter, he just appeared in The Family Plan on Apple TV+, an action comedy directed by Simon Cellan Jones. That movie by the way is terrible. Prior to that, Jones also made another movie with Wahlberg and that is Arthur The King.
Arthur The King is basically a sports-theme movie but with a twist. There’s a cute dog thrown in to all the gruelling routines. Wahlberg plays Michael Light, an adventure racer who partakes in a race that takes them across hundreds of miles of wild terrain in five days or more. It takes hell lot of endurance and toughness to complete the course let alone winning the championship. However, Light is determined to win the game after losing the last one in Costa Rica three years ago.
Together with his other three teammates, Leo (Simu Liu), the social media addict, Chik (Ali Suliman), the one with a bad knee and Olivia (Nathalie Emmanuel), the girl who wishes to make her sick dad proud, the foursome embarks on a race across the jungle terrain in Dominican Republic. At the mid point, a stray dog which Light named as Arthur joined them in the race after the latter fed him some meatballs.
Believe it or not, Arthur The King is based on a true story of high-adventure athlete Mikael Lindnord and his dog. While it’s marketed as a “dog” movie, the main character doesn’t really has a lot of screen time till the second half of the movie. The first half focused mostly on Light and his determination to reenter the race after failing to be a proper realtor in his dad’s company.
Then it’s the various aspects of the trekking which makes things interesting. It seems that there is no fixed path for the racers to follow. You can chose to take harrowing, risky shortcuts so long you can make it to the next meeting point alive and in one piece. Jones and his crew manages to pull off a tensed, giddy sequence involving a faulty zipline ride. If you are looking for one memorable scene in the movie, then this is the one.
Without sounding too sacrilegious, the narrative turns a bit too predictable once the stray mutt comes in. Well, there’s already enough elements in the story to tell an entertaining underdog sports tale so Arthur seems to be a minor distraction. Let’s see, there’s the underlying tension between Leo and Light and the numerous obstacles along the way that hinders the competition. It’s a gruelling competition that is taking place in a sometimes wet, jungle terrain. Pretty sure there’s more to that than just simple trekking, canoeing and dehydration.
Like it or not, our cute heroic stray dog is here to stay and there’s an obligatory teary scene in the end. Wahlberg as usual manages to be an onscreen inspiring everyday hero. Simu Liu and Nathalie Emmanuel pulled off a decent job alongside Suliman. Even though it’s less of a dog movie, there’s much to like about Arthur The King. At least you won’t suffer from dehydration watching the leads slugging it out.
Movie Rating:
(More of a sports movie than a dog movie but nevertheless, a crowd-pleaser)
Review by Linus Tee
Genre: Action/Thriller
Director: Jung Woo-Sung
Cast: Jung Woo-Sung, Kim Nam-gil, Park Sung-Woong, Kim Jun-han, Park You-na
Runtime: 1 hr 38 mins
Rating: NC16 (Some Violence and Coarse Language)
Released By: Golden VIllage Pictures
Official Website:
Opening Day: 7 September 2023
Synopsis: Soo Hyuk who spent 10 years in jail covering for his boss, is finally released. After learning that, during his time on the inside, he has become the father of a baby girl, Soo Hyuk wants to live a normal life with his former girlfriend, Min-seo, and their daughter, In-bi and cut his ties with the criminal world. But the boss who doesn't want to release Su-hyuk. The boss hires an assassin to silence him and the hitman holds Soo Hyuk's daughter hostage.
Movie Review:
Perhaps inspired by his off-screen buddy, actor turned director Lee Jung-jae (Squid Game, Hunt), Jung Woo-sung directs himself in A Man of Reason making this actioner his directorial debut as well.
The “retired hitman” genre continues to strive given the astounding success of John Wick and The Equalizer. And this time, Jung plays Su-hyuk, a former gang member and powerful henchman of a crime syndicate who wishes to retire after spending a decade in prison.
Su-hyuk discovers he is now a father after his girlfriend, Min-seo bore him a daughter shortly after he is imprisoned. Min-seo offers him a chance to be a responsible father something which Su-hyuk decides on after declining working again for his former boss, Eung Kook (Park Sung-woon).
But as expected, chaos ensued when Eung Kook’s overzealous right-hand man, Kang (Kim Jun-han) orders two unhinged killers Woo-jin (Kim Nam-gil) and Jina (Park Yu-na) to assassinate Su-hyuk and in a twist of event, her daughter is kidnapped in the process.
Co-written by Jung, A Man of Reason is mostly let down by it’s by-the-numbers and weak narrative. The various colourful characters feel mostly like a caricature despite immense potential to develop further. Eung Kook is one menacing boss and Park nails it perfectly yet his character is mainly limited to a couple of growling exchanges with Kang. And talking about Kang, he is one inferior fellow that lacks a decent backstory to justify his detest for Su-hyuk.
Another issue lies in the casting of Kim Nam-gil and Park Yu-na who lacks the acting range to portray two psychotic killers on a mission to execute Su-hyuk. Kim probably got his idea of how to be a crazy killer from the Joker given his constant over-the-top screaming and whining. As for Jung, one of the biggest stars from Korea gives a fine, stoic performance as the quiet fighter who wishes for a normal life with his daughter. His character is closer to John Wick than Robert McCall. He doesn’t talk much and he prefers to let his black BMW does all the talking and manoeuvring.
While the story is almost barebones, A Man of Reason delivers a few ass-whopping action sequences particularly one that sees the BMW crashing through a hotel lobby with Kang and his henchmen being thrown around like rag dolls and a solid explosive chase sequence set in a tunnel. Not to mention a nail-biting, nail-gun shootout in a neighbourhood that took place prior which to be honest, deserved a far longer execution.
Although A Man of Reason serves as yet another boost of adrenalin given the excesses of GGI in contemporary cinemas, it lacks the complexity of Oldboy and the vigour of The Man of Nowhere to make it a memorable effort from Jung. Glaringly, the relationship between father and daughter is hardly explored as the story goes. As much as we want to embrace it, there’s better actioners with a heart out there. Let’s hope Jung can do better in his sophomore effort.
Movie Rating:
(Jung Woo-sung serves up a cliché actioner that features entertaining car crashes and fist fights)
Review by Linus Tee
Genre: Horror/Thriller
Director: Gary Shore
Cast: Alice Eve, Joel Fry, Lenny Rush, Tim Downie, Nell Hudson
Runtime: 2 hr 5 min
Rating: M18 (Violence and Some Coarse Language)
Released By: Shaw Organisation
Official Website:
Opening Day: 21 September 2023
Synopsis: A luxury ocean-liner graced by generations of the rich and famous, HMS Queen Mary is now celebrated – and fear – as “One of the World’s Most Haunted Places” (Time Magazine). When photographers Erin and Patrick are brought aboard the ship with their young son Lukas, they unleash a series of events that entwines their family with the ship’s dark past. As the terror unfolds around them they begin to realise there is more to this sumptuous ocean liner than meets the eye: its remarkable legacy masking violent secrets. As Erin and Patrick uncover the haunted layers that the vast ship contains, it becomes increasingly clear that there is only one way out for them – to go even deeper.
Movie Review:
‘The Queen Mary’ holds plenty of promise as a nautical horror; unfortunately, it not only struggles to find its sea legs, it also ultimately runs aground due to its narrative incoherence.
Adapted by Irish director Gary Shore (of ‘Dracula Untold’) from various tales of the luxury transatlantic liner, ‘The Queen Mary’ interweaves two stories from past and present to show how the vessel’s spirits have been trapped in time.
The former opens the movie with a glimpse of the terror rippling through the ship on Halloween night in 1938, as one of its passengers sits in a straightjacket below decks after going on a murder spree while other passengers oblivious to these murders rush to the upper decks in their life jackets after a failure in the ship’s engine.
It’s a gripping opening, but before we are able to find out more, that chain of events is rudely interrupted with an abrupt jump to present day. Here, we are introduced to Anne (Alice Eve), who is on the way to visit the Queen Mary with her son Lukas (Henry Rush) and estranged husband Patrick (Joel Fry). On the pretense of touring the ship, Anne lobbies its existing captain (Dorian Lough) to allow her to collect material for her book and accompanying virtual 3D tour.
Alas, Lukas goes missing halfway through the tour, and is found completely drenched from head to toe. After returning home, Lukas also tries to escape from out his bedroom window, which further triggers Anne’s curiosity what had happened to Lukas below deck. Her quest for answers leads her to spend a night on board the Queen Mary with Patrick, where she realises just how haunted the ship is.
Whether intentional or otherwise, the story of that fateful Halloween voyage carries a strong whiff of class inequality, as it is revealed that the said murderer is a third-class passenger named David (Will Coban) who had tried to sneak his fortune teller wife Gwen (Nell Hudson) and 8-year old daughter Jackie (Florrie Wilkinson) into the restaurant for the ship’s first-class passengers before being painfully humiliated by one of them. Notwithstanding that Jackie eventually wins them over by tap-dancing with Fred Astaire no less, David loses it back in his cabin, slashing five of his fellow passengers after killing Gwen.
There are clear advantages to being able to film on board the actual ship, and Shore makes that plainly evident by establishing a strong mise-en-scene from the very start. His gothic stylings are impressive, and he is further liberated by the ability to take an axe to skull (literally) in its full brutality. Those who love their horror bloody will be glad to know that there is plenty of bloodletting here, which Shore stages with grisly glee.
Yet these visceral pleasures cannot quite disguise how the film struggles to keep up its narrative momentum while oscillating from past to present and drawing connections between the two. By the halfway mark, it is equally clear that the story is a muddle, especially with regard to Anne’s search for her missing son Lukas whom she believes is still alive on board the ship. Indeed, it would have made a richer film if it had dedicated itself entirely to its period subplot, than to have to dilute it with a present day distraction.
So despite its strong atmosphere, ‘The Queen Mary’ falters due to its weak plotting. As much as we’d have liked to, it is hard to overlook the narrative whiplash between past and present. It is also why we’re unlikely to see this materialise as a trilogy, as much as Shore would have wanted it to. No amount of Hail Marys can save this horror from ultimately running aground.
Movie Rating:
(No amount of Hail Marys can save 'The Queen Mary' from running aground due to its narrative incoherence)
Review by Gabriel Chong
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