westendboy47

Unless you have living under a rock, your social media would have been bombarded by the raved reviews and insightful discourses generated by Netflix’s Adolescence. I doubt I can add much value to all the glowing reviews but you know me, not saying anything would be doing it a huge disservice. Here’s my 2-cent’s worth… This is a clinical psychological study of why a 13 year-old boy would stab his classmate, a girl, to death. If this is an American show the weapon of choice would probably be a gun. Think about a knife as the weapon of choice. You have to be really close to use it and the assailant will feel the blade going into soft tissue. You need a certain level of determination to stab someone. This is not a whodunnit, by ep3 it would be quite conclusive he did it and ep4 will completely carve it in stone. No, it’s not even a howdunnit, it’s a whydunnit. It unravels the truth not by melodrama, but by balls-to-wall narrative gut punches that will make you see the minefield a teenager has to navigate through adolescence. Oh my goodness, when did it get so hard? The thing is it’s not so easy these days for teenagers to be teenagers unlike my time. It’s a very real thing – I was teaching enrichment in a secondary school some time back and seriously, nobody cared. The indifference was skull-numbing and life-sapping, and I even had a random male student, who wasn’t in my class, shouted the f word at me because I politely told him to speak to a girl in my class after the lesson. I turned to look at the teacher sitting in my class and he averted his eyes. If their own teacher wasn’t going to step in I would be stupid to do anything. I knew what it was – a show of who is the boss and how “man” he was to everyone especially that girl. Just last night I had a meetup with a group of friends of over 40 years and we talked about the usual stuff – life, girls (I can’t believe we still do this), politics, food, the good old days when there was no internet and we talked about teenagers nowadays. One shared about how his nephew dons a mask for the majority of every day and he asked him why. It took a lot of coaxing and my friend realised the mask was a defense mechanism so he doesn’t need to converse with his peers and then it came out – he was being bullied in school. You are probably thinking WTF is this wall of words. Is this a review about Adolescenceor what? It is and it has already started. To me great shows and movies have a way of making you reflect on the truths depicted and feel how relevant they are. Whether you are an educator, a social worker, a counsellor, a police officer or a parent, you are going to feel your core and moral compass shaken. Adolescence is one of those rare shows that immediately feel bigger than what it is and makes you contemplate about how difficult it is for teenagers, in particular male teenagers, to navigated the tricky terrain of adolescence and in some instances, it can be a life and death situation. Adolescence is worthy of all the praises it has garnered and all the awards it will be grabbing at the end of the year. It is a 4-episode limited series, every episode is a different setting and a different time frame. The clarity with the storytelling is crystal, it doesn’t try to do everything like we don’t even see story from the perspective of the victim or even her family. It doesn’t try to be a debate by looking at an issue from every viewpoint. Yet, no minute of this feels redundant or excessive. You are going to feel the shame from being arrested, the indignation of a father, the shame and the suffering of the suspect’s family, the ineptitude of the educators or even the system, and the fear feel by other teenagers impacted by the act of violence. You are going to feel all of it to the bone. The writing, acting, cinematography are all top-notched. Stephen Graham, I have seen him in many movies and shows, but here he is on a different level. His silent indignation is always roiling just beneath the surface, threatening to erupt any moment and he does at one point to devastating effect. The effect it has on his family feels utterly painful and intense. To watch him is to feel a father’s anguish that he is as much to be blame as the son and to see him grappling with the magnitude of what it all means is to witness a 14.7 earthquake in slow-motion. Elsewhere, Christine Tremarco as Manda Miller is also a revelation. To see her superb turn in ep4 is to feel a mother slowly coming to terms with what her son has done and she is the glue that holds everything together. The child psychologist Briony Aristotle (a superb Erin Doherty) in ep3 is also a standout. In fact, ep3 might just be the best 52 minutes of any TV show this year. They say if you cast well the show or movie will make itself. Then casting 15 year-old Owen Cooper who has no acting experience is a helluva audacious coup. Look nowhere else than his performance in ep3 (which was the first thing the filmmaker shot) is to see the embodiment of a typical teenager who goes through a tsunami of emotions that a teenager typically displays – being friendly, self-deprecating, funny, livid, cheeky, cruel and utterly lost. You would know by now that the cinematography is all done in one take. Director Philip Barantini and Stephen Graham had experience with the one-take narrative in the excellent Boiling Point (2021), and they have up the ante with some audacious shots that are going to have you think “wait a minute. How is that possible?”. Unlike Birdman, there is no cheating here, there’s no moving the shot to a dark spot to steal a cut. But herein lies the thing, the one long take scene always feels gimmicky and calls attention to itself (think John Wick, Atomic Blonde and Ong Bak). Here, gimmicky is a word you throw out of the window after a while. The one take essentially lets you intrude into the scene and you get to feel the raw intensity of emotions as they happen. I have seen some of the making-of videos of how they did it and it is breathtaking what they have achieved. Last night, a friend said he loves watching those 45-minute an episode light shows that are entertaining and he can go to bed after that. I am not sure Adolescence qualifies as entertainment but it does something else more important. It stirs the heart, shakes your core and makes you think about the silence that engulfs a kid or the sarcasm that punctuates his speech. It makes you want to understand them better. Before it’s too late. 5/5

Some quick musings on some movies we have seen and I thought I try something different… I will give a heads up to some shows we are currently following. Mickey 17 (2025), we caught at the cinema. Ever since Memories of Murder, I made a decision to watch anything Bong Joon Ho makes. Adapted from the novel Mickey7 by Edward Ashton, this stars Robert Pattinson as an “expendable” – a disposable crew member on a space mission, selected for dangerous tasks because he can be reprinted if his body dies with his memories largely intact. With the 17th regeneration, though, things go very wrong because the previous version hasn’t expired yet. Let’s face it – Bong’s Hollywood output are just not of the high standards of his Korean ones. However the early images and trailer of Mickey 17 seemed to suggest he might break the duck with this. To this movie buff, the movie is a lot of fun but it doesn’t reach anywhere top tier. It starts off well and from the get-go Robert Pattinson has the uncanny ability to bring you alongside him, empathising with his plight as he goes through his latest iteration in a dangerous spot. His naivety and innocence shine like a halo. Pattinson plays two versions of himself with deft delineation you won’t be lost who is who, but it also helps when their personalities are so different. Herein lies one of the issues I have with the story – I get why for the sake of storytelling you would want all the iterations to retain their memory but why would their personalities be so different? All of Bong’s movies are clever social critiques wrapped in black humour satires and clever genre-mixing. Mickey 17 addresses the ethical issues that come with human printing and how technology in the future is weaponised against the poor and downtrodden. All that is good but the way it is handled here feels heavy-handed and at over two hours it bite off more than it can chew. The villainy comes in the form of the megalomaniacal couple of Mark Ruffalo’s Kenneth Marshall and Toni Collette’s Ylfa. Marshall especially comes across as an amalgamation of Elon Musk and Trump. Ylfa has heavy shades of power women who see lower people as pawns for their agendas. Both characters grate on my nerves after a while. The campiness was so thick that their tomfoolery and buffoonery weaken the storyline. All that said, you have to admire Bong’s ambition and visually this looks incredible. For me, the movie does make me question society’s place in determining who is disposable. Sadly, I doubt the moment I post this musing my mind will continue to linger on the social issues. (3.5/5) Don’t be fooled by the derogatory title of My Old A** (2024), this one is all heart. The story and plot is really simple, but the execution is pure bliss. A mushroom trip brings free-spirited Elliott (Maisy Stella) face-to-face with her 39-year-old self (Aubrey Plaza). But when Elliott’s “old ass” delivers warnings to her younger self, Elliott realizes she has to rethink everything about her family, life and love. The script cleverly side-steps the cliche situations like why won’t the older self tell the younger self how to get rich and all the other usual pot-holes. It’s a coming-of-age story with oodles of the 3 H’s: humour, hope and heart, yet it feels authentic and honest. It is breezy to watch, making you let down your guard because of the cool premise and vividly drawn characters. I’m sure you won’t see the emotional gut punch coming in the last act. Make sure you are holding a piece of tissue in your hand at this point but you know me, I just let the tears make tiny rivers on my face. The emotional third act is well-earned, tender and heartfelt. It might feel like a “small” movie, but when I think back it didn’t feel that way. Writer-director Megan Park has a sure hand on the story and she understands adolescent desires and all the wee bit struggles adolescents go through which always feel like Defcon-one problems for them. The search for identity, questions about love, family and the future loom large for young people on the cusp of new changes. The story could easily try to do too much, but Park has a firm hand and addresses a few salient touchstones – if you know the future, do you teach your younger self how to navigate the emotional minefield? Or is life an accumulation of mistakes and it’s about you learning from them and be molded from the lessons? Perhaps it is just about reassuring your younger self that you are going to be okay and never to stop asking questions about life. (4/5) You know how Netflix introduces new stuff to you when you open the app, so one evening it was showing a scene from a Taiwanese dramedy series called I am Married… But (童话故事下集) and my wife laughed her head off. The scene depicts a wife who couldn’t sleep because of her husband’s snoring. Oh boy… the scene just rang too close to home, but anything that can make Choo laugh without a care in the world I have to press “play”. This is a depiction of a modern marriage from a female perspective. I thought writer-director Nyssa Li does a solid job distilling the joys and pitfalls of a modern marriage. Many of the scenes resonated with me and it’s so funny laughing at the antics on this side of the screen which are reminiscent of a time not too long ago. I thought it was keenly observant of what couples go through especially when they are not yet capable of getting a place of their own and have to live with the in-laws. Being a Taiwanese dramedy, do expect some campiness but I must say it never overwhelms the drama. The chemistry between the two leads also sells the show. Not every episode is stellar though. I thought some problems are solved in the usual cliche ways which offer no surprises and for this reviewer, I abhor baby jokes, especially those about making babies. That’s my numero uno bugbear. However, the final episode manages to surprise me with a poignant message about how to make marriages work and the emotional closure is beautiful. (3.5/5) One of my all-time favourite movies is Soulmate (七月与安生) (2016). I remember coming out of the cinema feeling stunned and quickly a discussion with Choo ensued and it didn’t end till we reached home. Both actresses were amazing in their roles and were pitted against each other at the Golden Horse Film Festival and both rightfully received the Best Actress award, an unprecedented feat in the history of the award festival. Come 2025 and I found out that there is a Korean remake. The original movie is already perfect in its own right but I searched out the Korean movie for a watch out of curiosity. Surprise, surprise this doesn’t suck at all. This is a coming-of-age story where two friends first meet at 11 years old and spend the course of 14 years remaining close and sharing experiences in both friendship and romance. It is a very fateful remake but it changes one thing which I thought makes the story stronger – it makes the two girls the central focus and shifts the focus away from the boy who drives them apart. The two leads are perfectly cast and their chemistry is palpable. I like the cultural change but I already know how the movie will end and it’s never going to better the original. Nothing can change the magic of how the original ended which will beg 3 different readings. This Korean remake is excellent but it will never be able to put a shade on the original. If you have a chance do seek out the 2016 Chinese movie for a watch and I promise you will not regret it. This is my amateurish review of that movie. (3.5/5) And now for some quick ones of TV shows we are currently following and also just gave up. HBO’s The Pitt is about the daily lives of healthcare professionals in a Pittsburgh hospital as they juggle personal crises, workplace politics, and the emotional toll of treating critically ill patients, revealing the resilience required in their noble calling. Every episode is one hour in the A&E department and the entire season is a 16-hour tour of the crazy emergency department. It’s all very realistic but after 5 episodes we got bored and no A&E, no matter which part of the world you are in, is not a fun place to be in. HBO’s Industry is already in its 3rd season but we binged S1 in a jiffy. It’s about young bankers and traders make their way in the financial world in the aftermath of the 2008 collapse. This show has no sympathetic characters, everyone is on various notches on the loathsome scale and they take turns to be the worst. Drugs, sex and money are the ingredients. It is full of tension and nail-biting suspense to see them ring in the latest client or get bamboozled. Expect no kindness on the trading floor. It told me that I should have studied finance in the university instead of Math. We went on to S2 but Choo got exhausted by it because it is more of the same thing. So I am watching this on my own. Prime’s Reacher S3 is a lotta fun. It improves on S2 because there are fewer characters to concentrate on and just to see Reacher infiltrate a gun running gang and see him play Yojimbo on the scumbags is so fun. The guy kills bad guys like he is swapping mosquitoes without his moral compass wavering. This is one of those shows you need to put your brain on the floor as you watch it because if you don’t you will start to wonder how come the bad guys are so dumb that they don’t see the mountain of a dude is the stool pigeon. Netflix’s The Hot Spot is a recommendation by a friend. It’s about Endo Kiyomi, a single mother near Mt. Fuji, who works at a business hotel. One day, she meets an alien. Unlike a pure-hearted girl seeking justice, her life experiences lead her to ask the alien to solve minor work or personal issues. We binged 3 episodes through and laughed our heads off. The humour is so dry and delivery so dead-pan, and the jokes land like an earthquake. You can see this as the anti-thesis of a superhero movie, but the dude with superpowers and the people who know of his talents are not enamoured to try to save the world. I think if Godzilla appears the dude will just hide in the onsen. The people who know of his powers will ask him to solve mundane problems like putting screen protectors on handphones because of his ultra-focus superpower and that’s just one of many “small” jobs he does, but to the people he is amazing. There is also this visual joke that I love a lot – in numerous scenes you will see the majestic Mount Fuji in the background but nobody cares because they probably see it every day. I do find it cumbersome to watch this once a week when a new episode drops. You should just binge this when all the episodes are down. Less said about Hulu’s Paradise the better. Trust me, go in to this one blind and the reveal at the end of ep1 will floor you. We are 3 episodes in and so far it is very intriguing – a murder mystery, evil government types and every character cannot be trusted. This is created by Dan Fogelman, who did the massively popular This Is Us, but over here he is working on a different register. Every Monday evening is HBO’s The White Lotus night. We love this show and by this current 3rd season it already has a grammar. It is a menagerie of first world behaviour of the worst kind. We guffaw at hypocrites getting their comeuppance, rub our fingers in glee at greedy people getting what’s coming for them and spout F-bombs at detestable and pretentious behaviour, all in the name of fun. Shifting the story to an Asian culture has opened lots of possibilities and the music soundtrack is awesome. The icing on the cake is seeing Lisa of Blackpink who puts in a sweet performance. It won’t win her any acting awards but she won’t be complaining of the expansion of her repertoire. Can’t wait to see how this ends, it will probably be bloody judging from the opening of the first episode. Netflix’s When Life Gives You Tangerines is currently at 4 episodes but based on just these episodes I have a feeling I am watching something magical. By that I mean it made me think about my parents as teenagers meandering through this thing call life and their love story. I don’t think any show or movie has even done that for me. It’s probably too early to adorn it with a wall of words but I will say a bit more to hopefully entice some readers to check it out. This is a drama that tells the adventure-filled life of the rebellious Ae-soon (Lee Ji-eun) and Gwan-sik (Park Bo-gum), both born in Jeju in the 1950s. I love the look of Jeju in the 50s to the 60s, so idyllic but also no stranger to vile human behaviour. To watch how Ae-soon navigate her life with so much feistiness is a joy. IU, as she is affectionately known, turns in a career-defining performance. I said the exact same thing when she was in My Mister and Hotel Del Luna, and I meant it every time. How does she pull off this feat? This is a helluva fierce performance and behind her portrayal you see legions of women who were treated like second class citizens cheering her on. In Gwan-sik you witness the blueprint of how men should protect their lovers by standing up to injustice. Both of their performances are so powerful and fierce that you won’t even question the logic of their relationship. The first 2 episodes didn’t grab me. Like most Kdramas they felt overstuffed. Then it happened – the tears started streaming and yet I couldn’t control myself from laughing like a nutcase. Forget about watching Tom Cruise run in Mission Impossible, you damn well need to see IU run in the driving rain while wearing a long tight skirt, she runs for her love who is already in an ocean liner. Will he hear her? Heck! Can he even see her? I will let you find out for yourself but I will say this – if this scene doesn’t move you to the heavens, you are too jaded and have lost touch with life. After this scene I started to see what this is about – it’s a love letter to the past and all things that will make you, you. Can’t wait for the rest of the episodes to drop. When Severance ends, I will also be getting a month of AppleTV to watch that, PachinkoS2, Silo S2, Disclaimer and others. That’s it. Thanks for reading. It means a lot to me.

We finished S5 recently and sadly this is where the cracks are showing. The grammar of the show is still the same. This time round it is a decomposed leg falling from a fireplace which opens up a new decades long investigation. I find the story uneven, the twists and turns not convincing, and the final revelation, frankly a pipe dream - convince me that a man would admit to murder (which he didn’t do) when throughout every preceding minute he shows no remorse, and I will swim in a tank with sharks. To me, the big reveal done through telling sentences is a no no. Here we get a Rashomon-esque revealing the final moments of the victim through voice narration by two persons who are so untrustworthy to begin with. Showing the climatic scene through an enactment would have gone a long way to make the audience feel the anguish and pain. I am not saying it cannot be done but here it feels so lazy. In all my years of watching TV shows only one show manages to do this superbly and the show is The Leftovers. You will feel your spine tingling when the reveal is described so convincingly you can see the enactment in your head. The investigation in Unforgotten has always been nuanced with kindness for victims and a relentless search for justice. There is also that veiled social critique which is quite heavy handedly dealt with. The blueprint is abandoned here, I guess because mostly because of DCI Jessica James who takes the place of irreplaceable DCI Cassie Stuart. Chris Lang could have replicated another Cassie in a lazy manner, but thankfully he didn’t. I don’t know man… I find James unsympathetic from the get go with her standoffish manner and her lazy work ethics. Previously, when the proceedings get very dark and bleak, we can always fall back on the easy camaraderie of Sunny and Cassie, but there is no respite for Season 5. God, I miss Cassie. Please tell me S6 improves… please. Otherwise, I am stopping here.

The Oscars are around the corner so I tried to catch as many of the Best Picture nominees as I could. We saw 3 on top of the others we have already seen. The Brutalist is a helluva full meal, not only because it’s a 3.5-hour magnum opus (complete with an overture and an intermission) but every aspect of filmmaking is up the Ying Yang. It is complex, dense and impossible to be pigeonholed. It is most definitely about the arduousness of immigration, class disparity, architecture, capitalism, trauma and even filmmaking itself. Of course it is a little pretentious, but the film is so ambitious that you can see through the pretension. From the fluid and organic cinematography to the superb acting to the grandeur of every scene, every aspect of filmmaking seems to be embracing the great American historical novel. But with such ambition also comes a distancing effect. I did find myself not being totally immersed in the proceedings, preferring to marvel at the marvellous aspects of the film. Though Adrien Brody put on a career best performance, I find myself at arm’s length with his character and not being to feel sympathetic to his plight. To me, this is an Emperor’s New Clothes movie. You are going to get a whole lot of critics singing praises about it like it’s the cure to Covid. It is a superbly made film no doubt, but it is one that I can never watch again. And what the hell happened to Guy Pearce’s Harrison character? Aaarrggghhh… I hate it when I have a nagging question bombarding my head. (4/5) A Real Pain follows mismatched cousins David (Jesse Eisenberg) and Benji (Kieran Culkin) as they reunite for a tour through Poland to honor their beloved grandmother, but their adventure takes a dark turn when the odd couple’s old tensions resurface against the backdrop of their family history. It is an odd couple road movie, a formula that has been used many times, but with the right storytelling it can smell like a bed of roses which it does here. Eisenberg brought out his A game – his screenplay is funny and poignant, his acting is resonant and his directing is impeccable. Of course, his casting choice is a match made in heaven. Kieran Culkin is a force of nature – he can literally lit up a room and in a spontaneous moment can lay a shite on everything. I thought the script wisely steps over cliches typical in opposing family members narratives. The funny moments support the heart wrenching ones and vice-versa. This should win the Oscar for screenplay. And who can forget the final frame with the title card of “A Real Pain” appearing for the first time and suddenly you realised you can read the title in two ways. I am still haunted by Benji’s mien – should I lean towards pity or step back away from it? (4.5/5) A Complete Unknown is a right proper music biopic of an enigmatic music icon, Bob Dylan. Forget about walking out of the cinema thinking you will know Dylan’s thought process as he writes the seminal folk songs or even know what motivates him. This is not that movie. The answers to these questions about the man is blowing’ in the wind. Prior to watching this I suggested to Choo to watch Don’t Look Back (1967), a documentary covering Dylan’s tour of England in 1965 and so we did. This here is a right proper window into the man’s talents and bad behaviour. I think Dylan was so nonchalant he didn’t bother to check the film before it was printed. Like all great artistes who seemed to live on a plane higher than all of us commoners, Dylan was so disrespectful and condescending towards journalist and his band mates. This here is a right proper a55. James Mangold’s A Complete Unknown is set in the influential New York City music scene of the early 1960s. It follows 19-year-old Minnesota musician Bob Dylan’s meteoric rise as a folk singer to concert halls and the top of the charts as his songs and his mystique become a worldwide sensation that culminates in his groundbreaking electric rock-and-roll performance at the Newport Folk Festival in 1965. I thought Timothee Chalamet did an incredible job portraying the enigmatic Bob Dylan and he even does his own singing in Dylan’s distinctive style that hits it out of the park. Chalamet does a superb job, creating the distant, aloof and self-absorbing nature of the music icon while exuding a charisma that is undeniable. Monica Barbaro as Joan Baez is also a class act. She is so good in her singing she can quit acting. Edward Norton also turns in a noteworthy performance of a man stilted in tradition and not able being able to embrace the new. The sense of place and time is impeccable, and the biopic is testament that you don’t have to tell a story about a music icon by laying bare his personal demons. I don’t think I came away from the movie knowing more about the man, but to be awash by his powerful words and simple chords is a gift in itself. (4/5)

I have so much reading in front of me that I have neglected, so this will be a quick post filled with many brushstrokes. Hopefully I will get you curious to check out some stuff and also to stay away from an iffy one. I wrote a long and comprehensive review for Paatal Lok S1 (2020) but won’t be attempting another one for S2. It’s not because it isn’t good, in fact it’s better than what I thought it will be. It seems lightning can indeed strike the same spot twice. An influential political leader from Nagaland is murdered brutally in Delhi in the middle of a vital Nagaland Business Summit. Imran Ansari (Ishwak Singh), now an IPS officer, is tasked with the investigation. Concurrently, Hathiram Chaudhary (Jaideep Ahlawat), who is still languishing in the Jamuna Paar Police Station, is investigating the disappearance of a lowly drug courier. Soon, the two ex-colleagues realise their cases are linked and it takes them to Nagaland, where nobody trusts them and the local SP (Tillotama Shome) is more hindrance than help. Navigating the complexities of politics, insurgency, narcotics, and family, Hathiram must get to the truth before this paatal lok sucks him in. I have seen countless of Hindi and Tamil movies and shows, but this marks the first time it takes me to NE India to a state called Nagaland. S1 is media-political heavy, while S2 is more socio-political, wading deep into the murky depths of dark politics. Not for a second was I lost in the mire of dirty politics, which is told with crystal clarity. The story is always focused on Hathiram who is our surrogate through this crazy world. He is the “invisible” man and always gives the impression he is a pushover, but his being is propelled by an innate desire to find the answers to the mystery and find justice for disenfranchised. Nagaland as the setting is quite an eye-opener. To see indigenous people living there and their cultural practices is like given privy to something the world hasn’t seen. To me, the setting is a character in itself. Every element of storytelling is in top form – the acting, the cinematography, the plot, the characterisation, everything feels like it had gone through a pressure cooker, cooked to perfection. When S2 ended, I was in a daze, the good kind that only masterclass storytelling can do. The ending was so satisfying and the process of reaching that destination was a scrumptious buffet of cool storytelling. I was convinced this is the first great show of this year. Sadly, I think the western side of the world will never know about this. Trust me, get your hands on both seasons, clear your schedule and get ready to be surprised. (4.5/5) My wifey and I are huge Hirokazu Koreeda fans and would watch anything by him. Asura is him trying his hand at the long form of a TV show. Set in 1979, this drama follows the story of four sisters whose conflicts and secrets begin to unravel when their elderly father becomes involved with a mistress. Miyazawa Rie plays Tsunako, the eldest sister who makes her living as an ikebana (flower arrangement) instructor after losing her husband. Ono Machiko portrays Makiko, the second sister who is a full-time housewife living with her salaryman husband and children. Aoi Yu plays Takiko, the third sister who works as a librarian and is awkward in romance, while Hirose Suzu takes on the role of Sakiko, the youngest sister who works as a café waitress and lives with an aspiring boxer. The constant theme of Koreeda is family. He is always fascinated by what will happen to the family unit when it is tested by a problem. 4 sisters getting wind of their aging father’s affair is sure to send ripples throughout the family. The show has a superb sense of place and time. 1979 has never looked so cool and I love watching the interactions between the 4 sisters. They can get jealous and argue till the cows come home, but when it comes to trouble in the family they will rally together. All of them are fleshed out so well, each with a back story and their acting is marvellous to behold. Where the show falters for me are the payoff or the lack-there-of and how the pace isn’t well-managed with characters repeating beats. I am afraid I felt the runtime and didn’t feel compelled to finish the show fast, preferring to come back to it when we had nothing worthy to watch. That said, I didn’t regret watching this and anything by Koreeda is always a treat. (3.5/5) I wanted to watch The Day of the Jackal since last year but the show is on Peacock which I don’t have. Then a week ago it appeared on HBO Max and I stopped everything we were watching and dived into this. I was a huge fan of the novel and even the 1973 movie and yes I also watched Hollywood’s remake The Jackal (1997) which was made for simpletons. Thankfully, the TV series that fall into the trap and uses the long form well. Eddie Redmayne is perfectly cast as The Jackal. Feline in his movement, he weaves in and out of crowds like he is an invisible man with an expertise to die for. He is entirely convincing with his meticulous planning and execution. It reaches a point Choo and I were rooting for him to succeed which means the show has sold the idea. Where it feels weak and this is probably just me is how the chaser is a Black woman probably necessary to be woke in these present times we live in. That said, Lashana Lynch does a superb job as an operative who has The Jackal in her sights and she is willing to break the rules to neutralise him. If the show is focused on both of them it’s an adrenaline pumping show, where it falters is with The Jackal’s wife Nuria. Yes, the world’s best assassin has a family. This has to be any assassin’s piped dream and its mistake #1 for him. I will let you see what transpires with regard to this element of the plot on your own. That aside, this is a helluva entertaining and you are going to see your allegiance to everything moral waver like a flag in the wind. The moment it ended, Choo asked me when is S2 up. I had to tell her it’s probably still on the writing table. You should see the disappointment on her face. (4/5) A couple of weeks ago, AppleTV was free for a weekend. I only had time to dive into the latest season of Slow Horses and this, Presumed Innocent. I was a big fan of the novel and also saw the Harrison Ford led movie. Since Choo loves legal dramas we dived in and didn’t come up for air until it was over. David E. Kelley has done a fine job adaptating the story into the long form with a side plot focusing on the wife. I will keep this short – this is gripping and masterfully made thriller that rewards the old faithfuls and also gives a fevered rush to those who aren’t familiar with the story of a man vehemently attesting his innocence with the jaws of justice clamping around him like a vice. The twists and turns are well-earned, the pacing is electric, the cast performances are superb all round and the twist in the ending I didn’t see coming, yes even for someone who had read the novel and saw the movie. The news is Kelley is doing a S2 which I kind of know the direction it will take. Here’s to hoping it will surprise me again. (4/5) Blink Twice, well you can blink ten times but the movie still won’t work, at least for me. This is Zoë Kravitz’s baby and she even went behind the camera for this. The story takes too long to get to the main conceit and by the time it reaches there I didn’t care anymore. I can totally see the Get Out vibe but it comes at it at such an oblique angle that it doesn’t land with any impact. If this had been in Alfred Hitchcock’s hands it will be a very different movie. A good storyteller will able to sell the conceit and you will believe it for 2 hours. Kravitz didn’t sell it to me and the whole thing feels like hogwash. But don’t take my word for it, maybe it will work for you. (2/5)

Thanks for the heads up on the noir and Nordic crime thread. Some good recommendations there. I especially love The Killing (not the American one) I think I wrote something about it and named it Forbrydelsen. Wonder if it’s still in this website.

The following is a series of posts on my FB as I binged the series and I will just reproduce them here. This is an outstanding series that hardly anyone talks about. I have a few minutes and I hope it will be enough. Every CNY, I will always unearth some TV show that I have never seen before and binge between house visiting. Some noteworthy ones we have seen in the past years include The Leftovers and Succession. This year we are diving into Unforgotten which is up to S6 which will happen some time this year but I have only gotten my hands on S1 to S4 which featured one of my fave actresses, Nicola Walker. She is one of those rare actresses you can see her once and she has already wormed her way into your heart. I first saw her in River and what a fine performance it was. This is a police procedural and it opens with a body. Actually it is skeleton and it has been lying in a shallow grave for 39 years. So it is essentially a cold case and all the investigation had been filed up in a dusty file in some godforsaken storage. Enters DCI Cassie Stuart (Nicola Walker) and her partner DI Sunil Khan (Sanjeev Bhaskar) who will find out the identity of the 39 year old skeleton and the perpetrator/s who put him/her there. I have to confess that even before the detectives do their thing I already have good vibes because the theme song is All We Do by Oh Wonder, one of those bands hardly anybody knows about. I have all their albums and there is that. The first episode is a piece of brilliant writing and a showcase of masterclass acting. So many disparate plot-lines are presented and my head was going in circles trying to hold all the information because something tells me a bomb is going to drop. We have a clergyman, an entrepreneur, a community worker and a wheelchair-bound husband caring for his wife who has dementia. Sure enough, right in the final scene of the first episode my jaw dropped to the floor and Choo next to me went “oh my god!” Just like that we are hooked. I love the procedural work and the forensic science. Maybe it is because I have been watching so many American stuff, but there is such a freshness with this British show. The two lead detectives aren’t Sherlock-clever and unlike their American or even Korean counterparts they don’t need to have personal demons to make them feel real. They just need to do their job so well for you to have the upmost respect for them and their craft. They don’t need to be alcoholics, have a dead beloved or even have ghosts in their lives. Sure, they do have family problems but who doesn’t? The show also doesn’t need to create a bleak atmosphere like those Scandinavian shows or what have you. You don’t need atmosphere when the depravity of man are slowly coming into focus. I love the drama. Does 39 years wipe a slate clean? Does time erase pain? Is there a word to describe a mother’s pain in not knowing what has happened to her only son? There are none. No word exists to describe the pain a single mother has to suffer in not knowing what has happened to her only son. Does being a useful citizen or a great human being wipe off every ounce of guilt? I don’t know… but I am having a delirious relish in seeing the vice of justice slowly closing in on the truth of what happened 39 years ago. We still have 2 episodes to go with S1 but we are getting ready for reunion dinner. Choo already said we will be done tonight. When she declares a statement like this you know this is magnificent stuff. See ya all 24 episodes later. Happy Chinese New Year to my friends and readers! We were done with S1 on the dot at midnight. It was too late to collect my thoughts and write something but now I can. I love the ending. It’s one of my faves – you win but you realised you also lost so much. The thing I love about this S1 is everybody is so human. Every action stems from a human need without any of those out-of-body big twists. I love how the show interrogates the theme of the weight of sin in so many facets. How the gravity of sin can hold you in a prison; how it can make you even bolder to do anything to stop it from resurfacing; how it affects and has repercussions on all your loved ones. I particularly loved watching Beth’s story unfold. She definitely needed to go through hell and her husband needed the time to come to terms with her past actions. My heart sank to the pits at one point and some time later it climbed up the warm heavens. I was so happy for them. That’s it. It’s onwards to S2 today whenever we can find the time. We were done with S2 this morning. It’s very difficult to write about this without dropping the plot which will rob you of the fun of discovery. So I will be intentionally vague. S2 is storytelling heaven. It takes the themes presented in S1 to the stratosphere. It’s very discursive and thought-provoking. It made us question the sanctity of marriage, the purpose of prison, the rigor of punishment, where the law is particularly grey and outside of war when is killing justified. You won’t believe the number of times Choo and I shout words like “damn muthaf6&ker” and “a piece of ****”. S2 retains the grammar set in S1 with some clever tweaks that give it a new coat of paint. It begins as usual with a body. This time it is preserved body in a suitcase in River Lea (subject of an Adele song). We quickly see 4 possible suspects but this time the bombshell doesn’t drop at the end of ep1. It drops at the midway point. The sleight of hand is sheer class. The plot seems to be treading a predetermined path, then it didn’t. I won’t say more about the plot from here on out. One of aspects that I love about this show about how remarkable Cassie and Sunil are in being so unremarkable. Sometimes it is so cool to develop characters through what they do (go also look at Day of the Jackal) and their work ethics. They are dogged in their search for justice for the dead even if they have been dead for two dozens of years. No skeletons in their closet, no personal demons, no dark pasts, just plain people with family problems. I told Choo isn’t it so cool they don’t fall in love like all the American cop shows. But I think Chris Lang heard me and planted a romantic scene. However I take nothing away from the brilliant scene with how they handled it. This season I particularly love all the drama from all the principals, especially Sara and Hassan’s devastating story. You would think no marriage can ever survive what they go through, but the way they persevere lays the blueprint of what a marriage should be. The closures to all the stories are amazing and our tears were well-earned. The ending is so satisfying and put us on a plane of euphoria where only good storytelling can do. As much as the perpetrators deserve their comeuppance, the ones who knew and stood by and did nothing are just as guilty. S2 surpassed S1 in every aspect. This is storytelling heaven and how nobody talks about this is absolutely criminal. Tonight we will begin S3 and we are already counting down the minutes. It’s house visiting time but my soul is on the show. Choo has no work today, so we snuggled up for S3. We are onwards to S4 now. I will do a closure to both seasons later but I have to say I know how S4 ends. I didn’t tell Choo because I am a nice person. I am counting down the minutes this season ends. We hit the ending of ep5 of S4 and it’s the ending I dreaded to see. Choo kept uttering “why why why”. One of the most painful endings ever and we are hoping it doesn’t hit the inevitable. One last episode to go. We are done. This is without a scintilla of doubt one of the best shows we have seen. You are now probably thinking where the f&*k did he find the word “scintilla” and is it even a word. It is and where else can I expand my vocabulary than by watching a British show. I doubt American stuff can teach me new words. The thing is I really mean it. Across 4 seasons creator-writer Chris Lang constantly ups the game and takes us into a world of crime and investigation. The writing has a clarity like no other. It isn’t just the crime he turns his microscope on but also the relationships and how secret and lies can weigh a person down. So we get 4-6 mini-dramas on top of the procedural spine. S3 has a helluva villain. If you ever want to know the face of true evil, this is the one. The brilliant part is the revelation only happened in the last episode and that Seven’s what’s-in-the-box ending really put the shiver in me. S3 also deepens the theme of how secret and lies can put chains around the feet of anyone. It also goes to show that a lot of times you can never know everything about a person. When we hit S4 I dreaded it. When I was researching what to binge during this CNY holiday I noticed Nicola Walker doesn’t return in S5. One doesn’t need a lot brain power to know what will probably happen to her character. At one point Choo was going to”no no no” then “why why why” and in the end her tears started rolling down as was mine. It was a superb ending and audacious. Who the heck destroys the essence of a great show when you are on such a superb run? What I read was S5 won everyone’s hearts back. The disc is sitting in my Amazon cart and I doubt it will be in there long. Across 4 seasons Lang does a superb job of keeping everything fresh, full of aha and wow moments but never to the point of the twists feeling like they stretch credulity. Everything feels so organic and across 4 seasons all the characters and I am also including the secondary characters grow in unexpected ways. I like the relationship between Cassie and Sunny. They are colleagues but also such close friends. It is nice to know that both of them can prove that a man and a woman can be good friends and not be lovers, so don’t believe what Harry said in When Harry Met Sally. Their mutual respect for each other is so palpable and the way they read people is so profound. Just watch and listen to how they interrogate suspects. The show didn’t show any dip in form throughout the 4 seasons that I have seen but for me the best season was the second. That one was a masterclass in storytelling and only up to the final moment you will see how everything fits. The mystery to me is how no one has ever talked about this. Watch this. Let me know if you would like to borrow the discs from me, but right now I am planning to lend mine to maybe two people whom I know will appreciate this.

The weather has been so cool and dreary that I seized the chance to watch some horror movies in my stash. You can’t buy atmosphere like that. I will just mention two of them. The above is a sweet photo of the couple (Kelly Reilly and Michael Fassbender) before everything goes to hell. The movie is Eden Lake (2008) and it starts off in bright sunlight and with romance in the air. Then it slowly goes off the rails when they are harassed by a group of feral teenagers on BMX bikes. For me, good horror doesn’t rely on CGI and its launching pad should be from a place of societal fears and hard-as-nails realism. This one scared the bejesus out of me with its unrelenting, hard-edged grit. I had no idea that the movie starred Kelly Reilly of Yellowstone fame and boy can she act. I literally believed she was going through every harrowing experience. Then there is also Fassbender and I sure wouldn’t want to be in his shoes. It was also very frustrating to watch because given the same situation I would have high-tailed out of there. Fu$k pride! I would have apologised and left the place. Being alive and kicking is better than being in a world of pain. I have been dealing with teenagers all my adult working life (and I still am) and sometimes there are those really nasty ones you can’t reason with no matter how hard you try. One look at this crazy bunch I know the couple would in for a world of anger and frustration but yet they persist on their high horse. That said, they don’t deserve what is coming for them. This is one helluva rollercoaster ride and it had me punching the air in victory when some of the scumbags get their just dessert, but the ending… holy cow! You would hardly see this in a Hollywood movie. The downbeat ending is absolutely earned to the max. I sank down into the sofa and after a brief silence Choo asked me for something light and bright. I think both of us would have had a heart attack if I had followed it up with another white-knuckled horror flick. (4/5) Yes, that’s a pic of a scene from The Hitcher (2007), a remake of the 1986 starring Rutger Hauer. I couldn’t get my hands on the original and so this will have to do for now. I know the riff-raff about the remake and how pointless it was when compared to the original, but I can’t comment on that… yet. I just found out the original movie is on YouTube and will probably cue that one up this weekend. The story is simple: a couple from college get caught in a dangerous game of cat and mouse with a psychopathic hitchhiker and the police after witnessing a murder and being framed. This is another cautionary tale and the life lesson here is “never pick up strangers”, especially when they are wearing a trenchcoat. I thought it was a fun movie and doesn’t require an ounce of brain juice (sometimes you need movies like this). There is quite a bit of gore including tearing a body into half, but overall the movie feels very by-the-numbers. I find it difficult to empathise with the two protagonists who are terrorised by the psychopath unlike the couple in Eden Lake, so much so that they feel more like body #1 and #2 rather than hero #1 and #2. For some reason they also annoy the hell out of me. So with that goes the catharsis and the celebratory note when they one-up the villain. I also find the choice of showing some scenes of ultra-violence off-screen goes against the grain of the movie. I mean if you are going to show a body explode in a shotgun blast and a body torn into half, why refrained from showing how a poor family and a whole police department get slaughtered? Sean Bean does a decent job but his role only requires him to look menacing. His character lacks a psychological subtext to make you want to know him albeit from a distance. He seems like a man running from a dark past and has a death wish. But he just didn’t get under my skin and I basically watch the whole movie at arm’s length. It isn’t a bad way to spend a cold and rainy night, but I just wish for something with a bit more depth, blood and entrails. (3/5)

just 3 this week and all of them are gems. Conclave’s dialogue sizzles like sirloin steaks on a hot grill. Superbly acted by a solid ensemble of actors and an actress, it gives you an inside look into one of the most guarded arcane process in the world – choosing the next pope. It’s absorbing, sometimes funny and twisty as hell. My goodness, the Cardinals are just like greedy and unscrupulous politicians when it comes to election time. Cardinal Lawrence (a superb Ralph Fiennes) is tasked with running this covert process after the unexpected death of the beloved Pope. Once the Catholic Church’s most powerful leaders, all 118 of them, have gathered from around the world, they are locked together in the Vatican halls. Then Lawrence uncovers a trail of deep secrets left in the dead Pope’s wake – secrets which could shake the foundations of the Church. I was kept spellbound throughout the movie, drinking in all the details because it is not every day you get to wander along the hallowed halls and power corridors of the Vatican Church and see the Cardinals engaged in the olden practice of voting for the next pope since the beginning of the Catholic Church. The movie respects the audiences’ intelligence to make the judgement of who will be the best choice as the Pope with all the evidence and facts lay out. Our surrogate is Lawrence and Fiennes is fascinating to watch as he is constantly torn between conducting an impartial process and letting the destructive evidence fall on the floor for everyone’s scrutiny. Where the movie jumped the shark, well at least for me, is with the last twist. To most, I would think, the movie does enough for one to accept the last piece of the jigsaw puzzle, but it did not sink down well with me. I don’t know… there are some vocations in the world where wokeness should never expose its ugly head and the Catholic Church is definitely the one that is high up on this list. To me, for the Church to condone this, is to accept this act as a ticking time bomb and it is bound to explode down the line. This audacious choice of an ending made it a 4 for me, or else it would have been a 4.5. (4/5) Last year I ended my musing on The Wild Robot with an outrageous statement that I would bet my bottom dollar that it will win the Oscar for Best Animated Film. Oh man… I have to eat humble pie now after watching Latvia’s entry in the category Flow. But I count myself blessed that I am graced by two outstanding animated features this year that push the medium to new frontiers and in the case of Flow it is so far off the charts that I don’t see land anymore. In Flow, the world seems to be coming to an end, teeming with the vestiges of a human presence. Cat is a solitary animal, but as its home is devastated by a great flood, he finds refuge on a boat populated by various species, and will have to team up with them despite their differences. In the lonesome boat sailing through mystical ocean-logged landscapes, they navigate the challenges and dangers of adapting to this new world. Wordless, but not without the power of language, the animals: a spunky cat, a lethargic capybara, a majestic bird, a feisty dog and a lemur with a serious hoarding habit, survive on a boat. Without any words (not even subtitles) and purely using animal behaviour and cinematic language, the gorgeous looking movie will charm your socks off. None of the animals need to look cute or perform some wisecrack to grab your heart. I doubt anyone will not understand the grunt from the capybara which means “don’t disturb me. I want to sleep” or the energetic barks from the dog which mean “I am bored. Come on let’s play catch”. Such is the magic of the movie and suddenly you would understand in an animated feature characters don’t need to personify human qualities to work. The animals just need to be themselves. Flow is one of those movies you will want to watch again because you will not be able to catch the significance of every scene. It’s thought-provoking and can easily invite much spirited discussion. Allow me to help you out with some pointing questions: Think about how the feature is bookended with the cat looking at its reflection in the beginning and with all the animals looking at their reflection at the end. Think about what happen to the bird (I swear this part is full of Miyazaki vibes). The animation feels very fluid and many times the camera work is reminiscent of you running alongside the cat, putting you right in the flow of feeling every instance of dread and danger. There is something of a dystopian message about how human beings have messed up earth, but Flow’s fable-like narrative refuses to go down that obvious road so things are only hinted at. Thematically, this soars. Let a bunch of animals teach you about strength in numbers, the power of community, bravery, renewal and conflict resolution. I can’t wait to pick up the 4K UHD disc but I always feel the first time you should experience the movie in a full house theatre. Nothing will beat that feeling. (5/5) Hidden under tonnes of “loud” shows all vying for your attention is a bonafide gem. This was a recommendation by a friend and even he was surprised it is available in Netflix. This J-drama is voted #1 on Douban (China’s equivalent of IMDb) list of top 20 best J-dramas of all time and you can trust this list 100% because the Chinese netizens’ reviews can be the most brutal ones you will ever read. Unnatural (2018) is a crime drama centered around experienced pathologists at UDI Lab (Unnatural Death Investigation). It follows the lives of the employees as they try to make sense of the cause of death and what exactly happened. It follows a traditional case-by-case approach, with each episode delving a little into its overarching plot. The drama stars veterans Satomi Ishihara, Iura Arata and Kubota Masataka amongst others. It’s also a crime/mystery drama with forensic science as a main theme. I have been watching a lot of K-dramas and this 10-episode J-drama was a breath of fresh air. The average runtime for the episodes is not more than 45 minutes so they don’t over-stay their welcome. Each episode is devoted to a crime with a body hailing from an unnatural death and an over-arching plot involving a serial killer runs through all the episodes. I didn’t find it episodic at all. The cases are all interesting and no one case is the same as the previous, each is able to throw light on the fragility of man and how each person is capable to be the worst and the best of himself. Some of the story premises hit the jugular, for example, imagine you are a pathologist getting ready to perform an autopsy with all the important people looking at you. You then open the body bag and see your fiancée, what will you do? This one hit me hard and I had to choke back a lump in my throat, while my wifey’s tears rolled down. Unlike many K-dramas with a thousand and one sub-plots running all over the shop, this J-drama hardly holds any fats, every scene is there for a good reason. At 45 minutes each, the story runs fast and yet knows how to slow down to paint the characters in cool hues, with each of them having a back story which feeds their character motivations. The team of UDI is practically an ensemble of Avengers and they bring down criminals not with guns and tasers, but with forensic science and meticulous work, that’s their super power. The show is also superbly well researched and I was kept spellbound with all the science. We were sad to see this one end and can’t wait to see more of this team of UDI. Will there be a S2? I hope and pray so, but the writer needs to do an outstanding job to top this season. (4.5/5)

https://reelthoughtsfromageek.wordpress.com/2024/12/24/my-favourite-albums-movies-and-tv-shows-of-2024/ I will just put this here. Season greetings everyone.

This will be my final musing on movies watched until next year. Being the holidays we really got it on and saw many movies and shows, but I will just choose 6 to say something about. We caught two movies at the Singapore Film Festival. The first one was Lou Ye’s An Unfinished Film (2024), a meditation on what it means to be “unfinished”. A film crew unearths a computer hard drive that contains an unfinished film that they had made ten years ago which was essentially the first act of a movie, but abandoned because of a lack of funds. They watch with their senses transfixed, kinda like how we are amused when we see old home movies of ourselves. “My God, look how young we were.” Then they have a bright idea – why don’t we tell the next act of the characters’ stories ten years later. So In January 2020, the film crew reunites near Wuhan to resume the shooting of a film halted ten years earlier, only to face the unexpected challenges as cities are placed under lockdown. This is a very unusual and organic film and it morphs into different genres with a life of its own. It is amusing at first and has a docu-realist vibe. A conversation between the director and the main actor where the former tries to convince him to return to play the main part again is especially realistic. The actor says time has changed and he is married with a kid and making a film that most probably be banned and thereby not lucrative is not attractive to him. So there is a strong sense of time in the movie. There is also a strong sense of place when the movie was halted when Wuhan goes on a sudden lockdown; we all remember that right? The movie becomes a different beast from this point onwards. Suddenly, “invisible” people from behind the camera become the principals of the movie. The movie then documents the chaotic state of affairs in Wuhan and I don’t think the world are privy to a lot of the scenes shown here. There is one that haunts me till now – a forlorn voice reverberates in the night, the actor wakes up with a jolt and captures the scene of a girl walking behind an ambulance on his handphone. She cries out “mother, don’t go. Stay here with me.” My heart broke into a thousand pieces. The movie also shows how fragile life can be and how the indelible human spirit always finds a way in moments of darkness. This is not a popcorn-munching easy-to-watch movie but it is an essential one. Perhaps leaving it unfinished is a metaphor for how our lives were all halted during the pandemic. It is also a celebration of the fighting spirit of human beings. (4/5) I Saw the TV Glow (2024) is an odd one. I read that it’s a horror movie and the cryptic movie title sold it for me. In 1996, Owen (Ian Foreman) is a withdrawn middle-school kid dealing with his mother, Brenda (Danielle Deadwyler) and mean father, Frank (Fred Durst). Owen is drawn to ninth grader Maddy (Brigette Lundy-Paine), who’s obsessed with the television show, “The Pink Opaque,” a teen fantasy series about two psychically connected girls who battle monsters, working their way to meet Mr. Melancholy. Maddy shares the show with Owen, who becomes a fan, trying to sneak looks at the series whenever he can. As the years pass, Owen (Justice Smith) and Maddy bond over their shared love for “The Pink Opaque,” responding to the depth of its unreality and depiction of friendships. One day, Maddy disappears after stating her intent to run away, leaving Owen to carry on with his humdrum life, silently dealing with his anxieties and desires. When she returns to his world as an adult, Owen is confronted with her version of reality, unsure about his own mind as he deals with the banality of life. The synopsis is clear but the plot isn’t. Many scenes feel pregnant with meaning but the story lacks purpose. Characters feel like enigmas but I never felt a compulsion to want to know and understand them. Later, I saw an interview with the director who said the story and characters are allegories of trans-sexuality and all the stigma and difficulties that come with the struggle with sexual identity. Oh man… I didn’t see any of that until I saw the interview. If I had to find all that out after watching a movie it means the movie has failed for me. In the end, other than some arresting visuals, the movie felt flat and hollow. That’s just me, but not to the girl who was talking to her Caucasian guy friend outside the toilet after the movie. “I really felt the characters like they were speaking to me. I love the story too.” That’s all I caught as I walked away. I didn’t think it was BS; I think movies and stories work differently for different people, but I can’t forget the bewildered look on the guy’s face. I feel him. (3/5) These next 4 I saw at home… Kiyoshi Kurosawa’s Chime (2024) is 45 minutes of unease and looming doom. Yes, you saw that right, it’s runtime is just 45 minutes, lean, mean and killer. It starts with a scene of a culinary teacher teaching a class, but his delivery is impassioned even if his instructions are crystal clear to all his students. But one male student is clearly out of it. The instructor goes to him but the student says cryptically whether he hears it too. A scream or a chime, that bounces in his head. Soon the knife in his hand goes somewhere it ain’t supposed to go. This one creeped me out and how Kurosawa achieves that is masterclass. There are no music cues to announce scary scenes, just clinical look at a scene to demonstrate that anyone and anything can be creepy and scary. The teacher’s wife is obsessed with recycling and their son spends too much time in his room, all this sound so trivial but I studied the characters like they all have a propensity for evil and violence. Violence can explode from a simple scene where the last thing on your mind is a bout of sudden violence, which makes it all the more scarier. The entire movie is built on a mystery but yet Korusawa is defiant in wanting to explain the source of the sound. The ending isn’t even conclusive but I never felt for one second that this was a waste of time. The whole thing feels like a pilot for a longer movie or a TV series and when it ended I swear I heard an odd noise in my head. Love this! (4/5) Perfect Days (2023) was sitting underneath a pile of to-be-watch blu-rays until it pop up in a chat group. That piqued my interest and in it went and I can only say this was such a Zen watching experience. Hirayama (Koji Yakusho) lives alone in Tokyo and cleans toilets for a living. He has a routine, seemingly dull, uneventful and insular life. Yet he is happy and content, living a simple, undemanding, uncluttered, analogue existence. His balanced demeanor seems unshakable. Win Wenders have crafted a movie of simplicity and yet has profound meaning. I watched with my senses fully enamoured by a man’s routine whose purpose is cleaning toilets till they are spotless. It brought to my mind what a church friend once said to me years ago that if one is faithful in doing the smallest task to the best of his/her ability he/she will be able to do the big things in life. The movie is never boring and can easily hold you in a calm rapture. It features a cleverly curated soundtrack that includes Lou Reed on tape because that’s how he loves his music. We get snippets of his past through his dreams and meetings with person in his past. It is also funny especially with the other characters who interact with him in the narrative. The movie builds an emotional power all around you and you will hardly see it coming. Love this! (4/5) Marcel the Shell with Shoes on (2021), I swear I watch a silly smile plastered on my face throughout and when it ended I felt like I was given a warm hug by a friend. Marcel is an adorable, 1-inch-tall shell who ekes out a colorful existence with his grandmother, Connie, and their pet lint, Alan. Once part of a sprawling community of shells, they now live alone as the sole survivors of a mysterious tragedy. However, when a documentary filmmaker discovers them, the short film he posts online brings Marcel millions of passionate fans, as well as unprecedented dangers and a new hope of finding his long-lost family. Marcel the Shell has an interesting back story. The character was created out of boredom at a wedding by Jenny Slate and director Dean Fleischer Camp. The one-inch tall shell took YouTube by storm, earning millions of fans of all ages around the globe, leading to two online shorts and a New York Times bestselling book. Interestingly, I didn’t catch on to the Marcel phenomenon till this movie and what a movie this is. The stop-motion animation melds seamlessly with all the live-action and after a while I didn’t even notice the stop-motion animation anymore. Marcel became a fascinating character with its immense perseverance and profound kindness. The movie taught me to see the world with child-like eyes and to see wonder in everything. The themes of love, family, grief and loss are brilliantly handled and it is so hilarious. I find it so inspiring and it was movie I didn’t know I needed so much. (4.5/5) Rebooting (2023) is a Japanese mini-series recommended by a friend. Another friend in the chat group checked that the Douban score is a staggering 9.4! That’s practically a score that screams “stop whatever the heck you are watching and watch this!” If you don’t already know Douban is China’s equivalent of IMDb and the site is full of brutally honest reviews. With a score of more than 9.0 you can be sure it will be good in that it has resonated with the multitude. This series is also #4 on Douban’s all time best Japanese series list. So one night, with nothing interesting on the current TV front, I pressed play and we guffawed like children at the time travel antics. A mundane woman is about to get a do-over with her banal life. Asami Kondo (a roll at Sakura Andô), age 33, is single, lives with her parents, and works at the local city hall. One night, after hanging out with her best friends, she meets with an accident and dies. She goes to a room suffused with white except for a spectacled pencil-pusher man manning an enquiry desk. She soon learns from him that she has two choices – either become an anteater or reboot her life again. No prize in guessing what she chooses to do. To be reborn as a human she has to accumulate karma points and so begins Asami’s first cycle where she retains all of her memory of her past life as she relives her life. The mechanics of time travel or more specially timeline manipulation is rather simple. The writer isn’t out to reinvent the time travel wheel and prefers to use it as a tool to examine what it means to be a good person and what would you change to improve your chances to be reincarnated as a human. Asami doesn’t go out there to buy up sure win lottery tickets and blue chip stocks because these won’t improve her karma. She uses her second chance at life to make sure her friends are happy and all her loved ones are safe. I find it noble and her getting into hilarious situations trying to do good is the stuff of great storytelling. I love the concept of being able to reboot your life and it made me reflect on pivotal moments in my life that have shaped me. It was the time travel concept that got me first. The second aspect that grabbed me is the relationship between the girls. They way they finish each other sentences and the way they interact with their entire being is just priceless. The boisterous dialogue feels so natural and spontaneous. It made me believe they are bosom friends. How I wish I have friends like these. This being a Japanese show you do not see Asami doing things to satisfy her selfish desires. It almost feels like the storyteller is teaching you the way all of us should behave. I especially love the episode where Asami is a TV producer and she works so hard to make sure everything goes smoothly. There is this scene where Asami is stuck at work but she knows if she doesn’t go to the train station to help her ex-teacher he will be in trouble. So she comes up with some super power to rearrange all the events for the day just so she can go help that teacher. That is a task that is not easy to do. I know because just a few days ago I was tasked with arranging make-up classes with 5 students on separate days and it gave me a headache. Once done, my boss said why didn’t I move this and that to save 2 days and she proceeded to do it for me. An hour later she told me it was done and she saved me two trips. So this episode was especially an eye-opener to me. At 10 episodes, the show moves briskly but what I didn’t count on was all the twists and turns and those last minute tick tock suspense. All that aside, this is all heart. However, there are some stuff that didn’t sit well with me especially with the final plotline. If I were in Asami’s shoes I wouldn’t have try to solve the last problem that way. I don’t know… maybe it won’t bother you but I was scratching my head. You can see I am being intentionally vague here. All in all, this is a great watch – entertaining and meaningful. Most of the time these two aspects are mutually exclusive, but not here. You will be laughing, crying and mentally noting down to do stuff. I am sure it will make you think of your old friends. This is on Netflix where I am from. (4/5)

I was all of 6 or 7 seven years old when my grandfather passed away. Scenes of that chaotic day still remain vivid in my mind. I can’t remember whose bright idea it was to make me go to his death bed (my grandparents lived one door away on the same floor as me) to see him in his final state of repose. Maybe I was too young to understand death, but I don’t remember I was scared. Then there was the Taoism funeral which was a complete eye-opener to me. I remember being fascinated by all the paper house, car, servants, and the huge racket made by the Taoist priests every night. The incessant clanging of cymbals can wake the dead, maybe that’s the purpose. Growing up, I learned there are a few professions that will never go out of fashion. Morbid subject aside, working in the funeral business is an iron rice bowl. Funerals depicted in cinema are seldom done with much depth. I mean who wants to put the idea of funerals front and centre? Doesn’t that spell instant box-office death with such a taboo subject? Fortune favours the brave and writer-director Anselm Chan has done just that in one of the year’s most life-affirming film. The irony hits like a thunderclap – it takes a movie about death to demonstrate how beautiful life can be. As I type this, the movie is in second place of Hong Kong’s list of all time top grossing domestic films and I won’t be surprised it will surpass the top film, A Guilty Conscience (2023) in no time. The story follows Dominic (Dayo Wong) whose wedding planning business went up in smoke because of the pandemic and economic downturn. He is buried underneath a mountain of debt until his girlfriend Jade (Catherine Chau) shares with him that her uncle Ming (Paul Chun Pui) is retiring from the funeral business and wants somebody to take over him. It is hardly Dominic’s forte but since nothing is worse than poverty according to him he takes over the business. He is warned that he has to deal with the other partner, Master Man Kwok (Michael Hui), a Taoist priest who is a stickler of arcane rules and traditions. We also learn about Man’s fractured family which consists of his son Ben (Chu Pak-Hong) who is married. His wife and son are Catholics because she wants the son to enrol in a prestigious Catholic school, while Ben is tasked with taking over the family’s business eventually. There is also an emotionally estranged daughter Yuet (a superb Michelle Wai), a paramedic who has to put up with her father’s misogynistic remark that “women are filthy” because of his ancestral belief. The movie gets out of its block as an odd couple story and what a coup it is in getting two comedy heavyweights to play both pivotal roles. Both gave nuanced portrayals, never allowing their well-honed comedic histrionics to overwhelm any scene. It isn’t difficult to see Man and Dominic as personifications of tradition and modernity respectively, both circling around each other in discrete orbits. Gradually, through circumstances and with both letting down their guard their orbits start to intersect. Both character arcs are superbly drawn and I would be hard pressed to decide which arc is the best. Dominic gradually learning the true meaning of empathy in a business in which empathy comes as fake as plastic flowers is particularly heartrending. Then there is Man, a cantankerous curmudgeon who feels he is the last man standing in a fast changing world which has no room for arcane traditional practices. Both characters’ interactions are well-written and you can feel the weight of their words as both of them learn to see from each other’s point of view. Man at first sees both of them as handling two separate aspects of the funeral process – Man handles the afterlife of the dead by performing the Breaking Hell’s Gate ritual which allows the soul of the deceased to transcend 9 levels of hell in order to gain reincarnation, while Dominic sees to the needs of grieving bereaved. In one particular poignant conversation, Dominic shares the living also has their own hell and there are overlaps in what they do. The screenplay is not content with just focusing on the two main characters’ arcs and drops numerous sub-plots including poignant stories of the deceased with strong Departures (2008) vibes albeit with a more Hong Kong-centric focus. At one point I thought a 2-hour runtime is not going to deal with every aspect satisfactorily, but the movie passed with flying colours. Every sub-plot is so well-drawn that you won’t even notice they are actually feeding the main narrative thread. The standout from all the sub-plots has to be Yuet’s story with Michelle Wai in a superb turn as the long-suffering daughter who longs for her father’s love and respect. Through her moving arc we understand why it is always the hardest to seek forgiveness from a loved one and the pain from navigating rigid societal norms. The culmination of her arc serves as the climax of the movie and I pray you have a tissue in your hand at this point. As it turned out The Last Dance is also a female empowerment story and it is a superb one at that. I was in a warm cocoon with my heart gently swelling, waiting for the series of emotional earthquakes that will lead to an explosion of the feels and then the story over-reaches with a new sub-plot bomb early in the last act. This concerns Dominic’s Jade which I had forgotten about. Have you seen movies that are perfect until one careless narrative move that render everything obsolete. I couldn’t believe the director pull this rabbit out of the hat and the movie is fast running out of time to give it an empathic closure. Then it did a magic act that I didn’t see coming – in a final voice-over by Dominic it closes that sub-plot and the entire story in such a resonant manner that it closed the book emphatically. The final metaphor is icing on the cake. There are movies that make you sit at the edge of your seat, make you scream in horror, make you shed tears, make you punch the air in joy. The Last Dance does something even better – it gives you a gift to see the world in a different light. This is the best film from Hong Kong I have seen in years and it has the grace and power to resonate with anyone no matter your station, creed or race. This is also one of the best films I have the privilege to see this year too. I actually saw this in its native language of Cantonese and I am of the strenuous belief that this dance should be experienced this way. Make a trip to Malaysia before the run is over. 5 / 5 My review is done, but at this point I want to include the final metaphor verbatim. Needless to say this is spoiler territory and I would encourage you not to read on. One selfish reason I write reviews is that I wrote it for myself, so I can read them again and remember the story. I have a feeling down the road when going to the cinema is going to be difficult I will still have the words, my words, to comfort me. This is the metaphor: “人生就好像一程車，重點不是上車的人可以陪你去到哪個站，而是你們一起欣賞過哪些風景。有機會來到這個世界已經賺了，何必介懷什麼時候下車，不如好好欣賞沿途的風景。” Life is a bus ride. The most important thing isn’t who accompanies you on this journey or the destination itself. Rather than focusing on when to alight, why not spend the time enjoying the marvellous scenery with the passengers. Perhaps getting on this bus is a bonus itself and the length of the journey isn’t important. Dayo Wong (黃子華) and Catherine Chau (周家怡) walking in Hung Hom, with the International Funeral Parlour (萬國殯儀館) in the background

Let’s go… Some quickie musings on some movies and shows we have seen. Gladiator II (2024), I wanted to love but I only managed to like from a distance. The story and emotional beats at times feel like a facsimile of the original and breaks little new ground. Same revenge plot with the dude’s wife killed, same gladiator owner but this time with some sinister political aspirations, same tyrannical emperor but this time we get two nut cases and same coliseum mayhem but this time we get crazy monkeys, a rampaging rhinoceros and sharks, sharks! That cannot be historically accurate with a coliseum transforming into a giant salt-water tank. That aside, this is very entertaining to watch and almost 3 hours whizzed by. I am guessing most who had gone to the cinema to catch this will have a déjà vu feeling – the battles, the Roman politics, the gladiator fights, the impossible odds in the coliseum, the revenge angle and wanton bloodshed. The wheel just wasn’t being reinvented much, plus in my humble opinion, Paul Mescal can’t fill Russell Crowe’s shoes, Pedro Pascal sleepwalks with his character and we have double the crazy with the emperors. What ultimately saved it for me is Denzel Washington’s slimy portrayal of Macrinus. Washington practically stole every scene he appeared in. Best temper your expectations if you are catching this. (3.5/5) Meiyazhagan (2024) is testament you can make a movie about anything and in this case, nothing. By that I mean the premise is about something trivial like you going to a reunion gathering of sorts and someone talks to you so animatedly but never introduces himself, thinking that you know who he is. You don’t want to be rude and feel confident that you will eventually remember who he is. As the night wears on you realise you have no idea who he is. How’s that for a premise for a 3-hour movie? And I am going to tell you it is a surprisingly good movie with an important message at the end. Sure, at 3 hours it does get repetitive but the chemistry between Karthi and Arvind Swamy is what sold it for me. The former is one positive person with incandescent sunshine radiating from his entire being and the latter is still in a world of hurt which festered in him when he was forced to leave the town as a young man. The build-up to the final revelation was quite something. In the end the name wasn’t as important as what he did for the other. It goes to show that we must always be kind no matter the circumstances. Reaping any rewards isn’t as important as the act of kindness itself because you will never know the impact it has on others. Sometimes you can never fathom what you did till years later. I had such a great time with this movie and it’s a good reminder of what kind of person we should all aspire to be. (4/5) The Taste of Things (2023) is about cooking and loving as an art. Right from the opening scene which goes on for more than 30 minutes I was captivated like you have suddenly gained access to a Michelin starred kitchen and see artists at work. There’s no conversation going on in the country kitchen between the two cooks and their two young assistants beyond throwaway lines like “bring me the vegetables”. Yet so much of their characters is established through their intricate actions rather than they talking about themselves. The invisible camera glides through the entire kitchen like an angel marveling at human beings creating art. This is the story of Eugenie (Juliette Binoche), an esteemed cook, and Dodin (Benoît Magimel), the fine gourmet chef she has been working for over the last 20 years. The details of their relationship will emerge eventually like a gradual explosion of tastes. It’s a love story between adults who don’t play games anymore. They know what they want – he wants to marry her, but she doesn’t want to affect the fine balance of their work relationship. They do engage in sensuous sex, as I said they are adults and they make love like how they cook five-course gourmet dinners. I love their love story and there will come a time when Dodin cooks for her and her alone which is so beautiful. Don’t see this on an empty stomach. (4.5/5) Twilight of the Warriors: Walled in (2024) came highly recommended by a couple of friends earlier this year and I finally picked up the blu-ray. This is quite an assault on the senses with an incredible dystopian set-design and an orgasmic martial arts fight-fest. Realism isn’t on the cards and it features a grandstanding pulp-ish screenplay for an essentially us-against-them story. The star to me is the set-design showcasing the much fabled Kowloon Walled City which has its own set of laws. The action is epically spectacular and massive fun to watch. There is always that brotherhood bravura but it wears its sentimentalism on its sleeves. This one will give your home theatre a good work-out. (3.5/5) Kill (2024) is a Hindi bloody action thriller and it’s formula is The Raid on a train to Mumbai. Choo usually hates movies like this but she enjoys this so much that she was cheering on the hero as he bashes the next goon till his head becomes mashed potatoes. There is a sense of economy in how it establishes the characters and just enough is done for us to know who we should root for and the stakes are palpable. When the action starts it’s 2 men against 40 scumbags on a moving train and pretty soon it becomes one-man against an army of hoodlums. The action choreography is solid and the cinematography in the tight space is impressive. This is a massive crowd-pleaser if you are an action junkie. Logically, it doesn’t make sense like why doesn’t the train driver stop the train when the mayhem begins. Who cares when the action is so relentless and this inventive. The damn movie title isn’t even subtle. The train’s destination is the 40 scumbags’ funerals. I have seen movie deaths thousands of time but I have yet to see one that involves a can of Zippo lighter fluid. If you like The Raid, board this train! (3.5/5) The Penguin (2024) is the story Oz Cobb (Colin Farrell) in The Batman (2022) and I must say it is best show DCU has come out with all these years. If you take a step back you won’t see this as a show based on a comic book character, you will see a couple of brilliant character studies. Yes, it’s two, the other being Sofia Falcone (Cristin Milioti). Prior to this, I had no idea who is the character and the actress. Now I, and possibly the world, know both. Spoilers will abound from here on out. If you have an intention to see this, please stop reading. I followed this show religiously every week on Monday when it drops he latest episode. I can’t remember the last time I do this, preferring to just binge all the episodes but there is nothing so tangible as we wait patiently for each episode to drop, have a spirited discourse the moment it ends and count the minutes till the next episode drops. This is so well-written and Batman doesn’t even need to do a cameo to bring up the viewership. Colin Farrell acted up the Ying Yang underneath all the blubber of makeup. He plays the sociopathic character with so many fine strokes that he comes alive in a compelling manner. I find myself hating him, pitying him, my emotions see-sawing through all the paces. He craves power and above all else he wants his mother’s approval and love, so much so that he can kill his brothers without any remorse. Yet, through his relationship with Vic, his sidekick, you are feeling Oz has redeeming qualities. Then there is Sofia Falcone. Holy moly! Her character and the way Milioti portrays her is one for the ages. Hers is a no-nonsense, fully nuanced and layered, female character. This is the blueprint of how female badass characters should be written. After this, I am sure tonnes of projects will be knocking on her door. The formula for The Penguin is Sopranos + Yojimbo + Godfather. Character motivations are painted in nuanced strokes and right up at the end it goes beyond a showdown between Cobb and Sofia to a death scene that completely caught me by surprise. Choo was crying “noooo…” and I was going “oh my god”, yet at the back of my mind it was a death that made every sense because it announces to us who Cobb really is – a villain. This is not an anti-hero show. My mind was swirling with the why and it made sense in the huge scheme of things. Cobb is a user of people, a master manipulator. He doesn’t deserve our pity. The joke was on me if I had sympathised with him throughout the show. His portrayal of the Penguin is up there with Heath Ledger’s Joker. The ending also teases a possible S2 with Catwoman’s name being mentioned and the undeniable Batman signal floating in the night sky. Even if S2 doesn’t happen and I am scared lightning doesn’t hit the same spot twice, this is as perfect a show about a comic book villain can ever get. (5/5)

Just 2 I saw at the theatres and 2 at home… I saw Kung Fu Panda 4 at home a few weeks ago. It is one of those by-the-numbers animated movies that screamed CASHGRAB in full caps in your face. It was 94 minutes I couldn’t get back. Then there are other animated movies like The Wild Robot (2024) that just enboldens you with new lenses to see the world with. Not a smidgen of it spells cashgrab and every frame oozes with love and passion. This one comes straight from the heart and I think it is the best animated movie in a long long while and one of the best movies I have seen this year. In a world immersed in technological wonders, Roz, an endearing helper robot, finds itself in a precarious situation after crash-landing on a remote, untamed island. Programmed to assist anyone in need, Roz embarks on an unexpected journey through the dense wilderness, only to stumble upon a mysterious egg. As the island’s curious animals gaze at the metallic newcomer with bewilderment and mockery, Roz realises that survival in this unfamiliar territory demands more than just its programmed skills. Now filled with uncertainty, Roz must evolve and learn the ways of the wild. Of course, forging alliances could help. But time is not on its side; Roz must reach its full potential before winter. With reality blurring the line between technology and life, what if the wild robot discovered what it means to be a human? I didn’t write the above synopsis. There is this guy (Nick Riganas) who regularly writes movie synopsis and post them on IMDb. His prose is so engaging it makes you want to check out the movie or stay away from it. So allow me to quote what he wrote. The Wild Robot hits me in the feels. Thematically, it’s nothing you have never seen before – empathy, the strength of a community and the power of human connection. It is how the themes are packaged and presented that gives the film resonance and authority. I mentioned human connection but that is forged through an unlikely relationship between a robot who wants to serve its client and animals who see him as an outcast. How they eventually managed to communicate is so simple and yet so believable. I was watching a tapestry of human experiences personified through a robot and all sorts of animals without any schmaltz. Visually, this is stunning from first frame to the last. I am convinced if you just randomly freeze-frame any scene it could serve as a movie poster. The voice-acting is incredible and the storytelling is way up there. Come Oscar time I am betting all my assets on this animated movie and deservedly so. (5/5) Vettaiyan (2024) has two monumental thespian actors holding fort and that’s enough reason to check out the movie. The movie doesn’t disappoint – SP Athiyan (Ranjinikanth) an encounter specialist is known to eliminate criminals and believes it could set an example for other criminals. By that I mean the dude is the law and the executioner two-in-one package. He comes under radar of Judge Sathyadev (Amitabh Bachchan) who feels encounter justice is not the only solution and many fake encounters have killed innocent people. Meanwhile, Saranya, a school teacher exposes a drug racket and gets promoted to a school in Chennai but within few months she is found raped and murdered on the school terrace. Athiyan tries to get involved in her case but isn’t allowed until the Chennai police are left helpless and the criminals are in for a world of pain when Athiyan becomes in charge. This is a movie of two distinct halves. Everything seems to be wrapped up with a nice bow in the first half, but knowing Bollywood narratives I know I will be in for a wild ride in the second half. Betrayal and double-crosses ensue, and Athiyan doesn’t have it easy and rams through scumbags like white on rice. Sadly, the two actors shared the screen only for a few meaningful times and the heavy lifting is mainly handled by Ranjinikanth who at 74 has his action spectacles relegated to speed-ramps and slow-motion. This is a crowd-pleaser with a social message shoehorned in. It coasts along on the star power and the twists and turns feel perfunctory. I like how it opens a can of worms in that cram schools can be a source of scams in a society so focused on education. Sadly, the movie only skims the surface, preferring to let Ranjinikanth do his thing but I have to admit I had a hoot seeing him put scumbags to the ground with one stroke of his arm and had an inkling he would floor Ip Man in one stroke. “Police are not hunters; they are protectors” – that about sums it up and this one put a smile on my face but it could have been an important movie. (3.5/5) Movie-wise I knew the above two are what I want to say something about, but when it comes to movies or shows that I have seen at home it kept changing. This is all because I got lazy and lost the impetus to say something after I had seen them. So I am picking two recent movies we saw in the comfort of my home theatre. Suzhou River (2000) was a recommendation by a movie lover friend. At 80+ minutes it went by like a whimsical dream. The river Suzhou that flows through Shanghai is a reservoir of filth, chaos and poverty, but also a meeting place for memories and secrets. Lou Ye, who spent his youth on the banks of the Suzhou, shows the river as a Chinese Styx, in which forgotten stories and mysteries come together. Mardar, a motorcycle courier in his mid-twenties, rides all over the city with all kinds of packages for his clients. He knows every inch and is successful thanks to the fact that he never asks questions. One day he is asked by a shady alcohol smuggler to deliver his sixteen-year-old daughter, Moudan, to her aunt. Mardar and Moudan grow fond of each other. But their tender happiness is disrupted when Moudan thinks that Mardar has kidnapped her for a ransom. She is so disappointed in him that she jumps off the bridge into the Suzhou River. Mardar is now suspected of murder. When a couple of years later he comes out of jail, he meets the dancer Meimei, an alter-ego of Moudan, and becomes fascinated by her. There is an undeniable Wong Kar-Wai vibe to this and philosophical whimsies peppered the story that felt like it was made off the cuff. That said, it is a very coherent piece of gonzo filmmaking. I practically wore a smile for the whole movie that has murder, kidnapping, motorcycles and a mermaid. Love this. (4/5) The Animal Kingdom (2023) is about a world hit by a wave of mutations that are gradually transforming some humans into animals. François does everything he can to save his wife, who is affected by this mysterious condition. As some of the creatures disappear into a nearby forest, he embarks with Émile, their 16-year-old son, on a quest that will change their lives forever. This movie has layers, metaphorical ones. It isn’t difficult to see the human animals as diseased folks and the movie examines how we deal with a health crisis. Do we lock up the diseased and throw away the key or do we help them? With the latter where is the point we stop, is it when our loved ones lose all human attributes or when they start to harm you? Technically, this is a wonder. The blend between the real world, the makeup and the CGI is perfect. At its core this is a coming-of-age tale with elements of horror, scifi and fantasy thrown into what should have been a potent concoction. However, I felt the movie bit off more than it could chew and I didn’t feel it was developed to god levels. It is a shame because the premise is original and I can feel the aspiration in every scene, but there was too much to handle in a runtime of over two hours which I also felt the time wasn’t well-used. Still, if you chance upon the movie you should definitely give it a watch and after what I had said this is still a piece of brilliant filmmaking, much better than a lot of the garbage out there. (3.5/5)

One of the questions I always get in my writing classes is “I have no idea what to write about”. My advice will always be “start with something you know and go from there”. Singaporean writer-director Nelicia Low did just that. Low was a former national fencer. Being a sport she obviously knows a lot about, she uses the intricacies of fencing to effectively mirror the fractured relationship between two brothers. Also, in an interview, Low mentioned that she drew inspiration from her relationship with her autistic older brother to tell a story about the difficulty in unreciprocated emotions in sibling relationships. The story: High school fencer Zijie (Liu Hsiu-fu) is estranged from his older brother Zihan (Tsao Yu-ning) because their mother (Ding Ning) believes Zihan is guilty of a violent incident at a fencing competition. Zihan is released from juvenile detention after seven years. Unbeknownst to their mother, Zijie reconnects with Zihan, causing events that will force him to question everything he believes about family and truth. Nelicia Low’s debut feature Pierce is a Singapore-Taiwan-Poland production. It is a deeply personal effort and treads a distinct path from many similar movies about complex sibling relationships. One of the many grace notes in Pierce is how Low plays with character motivations, painting them in fine deliberate strokes and gently teasing the audience to figure out the two brothers’ motives, especially Zihan’s. Did he intentionally hurt someone or was it an accident? While with Zijie, we are kept at bay by his desperate search for the truth and his constant need to believe in Zihan’s goodness. I find this a deft balancing act buoyed by two outstanding performances and fine cinematography that kept me spellbound. Most stories rushed out of the blocks to define the characters’ motivations, not here. It takes its time to get there but knows how to play the game to keep audience in rapture, waiting for the ball to drop. Liu puts in a sit-up-and-look-at-me performance, capturing the physical demands of the sport and the emotional complexity of a young man caught in the throes of family commitments, self-awareness and deception. Tsao brings a brimming menace bubbling just below the surface, crafting a character that feels ambiguous and yet in a split second becoming as evil as a night without stars. Both characters feel totally realised and immediately sympathetic. Pierce has a visual style that is arresting and hypnotic. Helmed by Polish cinematographer Michal Dymek (Eo and The Girl with the Needle), I love the lighting and framing of each shot, which is such exquisite and meticulous work. The subtle play with spaces to suggest the gulf between various characters and how evil and deception reside there is particularly unsettling. Even the boys’ mother Ding Ning’s singing of oldies from the 50s and 60s in a nightclub feels particularly haunting, bringing a sinister layer to the storytelling. When the movie hits the shocking final act, Low makes some brave choices which makes Pierce a better movie for it but also making it polarising. I could get behind the shocking ending but Choo couldn’t and I could not fault her. Though challenging, it stems from a belief that sometimes we all rather live a life of lies rather than confronting the cold hard truths. PS – I saw this in a theatre with only 3 people and that included me and Choo! Quite unbelievable, I know. This movie is so much better than all the other crap screening presently and it really needs a viral word-of-mouth and I am hoping my words would implore some of you to check it out. 4 / 5

Just 4 from a couple of dozens we have seen recently and the first is a concert film. This year marks the 40th anniversary of Stop Making Sense (1984), a Talking Heads concert film by Jonathan Demme. I was never a huge fan of their music but all that changed when I saw American Utopia (2020), with Spike Lee documenting David Byrne’s Broadway show. It was then I realised that Talking Heads’ music needed to be experienced visually rather than just sonically. With American Utopia, it was with a 68-year-young Byrne. I have always wondered what he was like with his band during his heyday. Then one night, a website that I fervently followed blasted out a news that they have secured limited quantities of the 40th anniversary edition of Stop Making Sense remastered in 4K UHD and Dolby Atmos and I just clicked “buy” immediately. Let’s just say after watching this I now understand why this is revered as the greatest rock concert film of all time and I absolutely concurred. Jonathan Demme (Silence of the Lambs) and cinematographer Jordan Cronenweth (Blade Runner) documented three nights of Talking Heads’ performances at Hollywood’s Pantages Theater, a band at the peak of their popularity. It starts off in a fashion that cannot be any simpler – a handheld camera captures Byrne’s white sneakers as he walks onto the stage. The camera pulls back to reveal Byrne clad in a grey suit and he Is carrying a guitar and a boom box. “Hi,” he announces, “I’ve got a tape I want to play.” He presses the play button and a beat from a drum machine reverberates in the air, Byrne then launches into Psycho Killer that just grabs you and doesn’t let go. As the song progresses, the drum machine spits out scattershot beats that cause Byrne to stagger and trip in theatrical manner across the stage. The opening number essentially sets the tone for the show to come – unrelenting, unhinged and unpredictable. With each song an additional band member will join the stage while stagehands in black roll in pieces of new equipment on stage. It was really strange but beguiling to behold like getting a behind the scenes view of how a show is built stage by stage till it is ready. The music is utterly danceable and infectious, and it is so obvious that everyone is having so much fun. This is the most kinetic concert I have ever seen and at one stage Byrne was practically running around the stage. It is often a mistake to think Talking Heads is all about charismatic presence of David Byrne. He is the main substance, but every member brings forth a unique ingredient and the film exemplifies this. I had so much fun watching this and it makes me feel so deliriously happy to see all the talent on stage. When the film ended, I replayed Psycho Killer again. Oh man… what would I have sacrificed just to get inside a time machine to go back to 1983 to experience the concert among the audience. (5/5) Summer Palace (颐和园) (2006) is banned in China which means it needs to be seen. The story is about a girl named Yu Hong who leaves her home village and starts university in Beijing, where she develops a consuming and compulsive relationship with another student Zhou Wei. The student riots from 1989 then ensue and take a toll on their lives. The government of China wants this film eradicated from the face of the planet or least from the consciousness of its citizens that it doesn’t even exist in Douban, China’s equivalent of IMDb. When someone tells me a movie or a song or a book is banned, I have to get a hold of it to find out why it’s banned. It is easy to know why – the sex, the full frontal nudity, although I think this isn’t the main reason. It is how it addresses the Tiananmen incident that ultimately seals its fate because it is always a taboo subject matter in China. But the sex… holy cow! I turned to Choo at one point and said: “these young people practically never study and just have sex the whole day. I think I mix with the wrong company during my Uni days because I only studied.” This is something I don’t see in a made in China movie and that said I can understand this new found feeling of freedom when these young people escaped from a repressed lifestyle. It must have been a confusing time for the youths at that time. Summer Palace is long and repetitive at some spots and I didn’t think the political aspect integrated well into the story, but the acting is daring and the direction is incisive. It has oodles of mood and ambience, and sex, definitely sex, sex on grass patches, sex in cramped spaces, sex in a toilet… (3.5/5) Next up is a masterful detective procedural TV series, River (2015). I don’t know what’s up with me back in 2015 that this excellent TV show would elude me. Good thing it came up on my socials feed and the ending of of the first episode sent me on a tailspin and I was all in. The story concerns hardened, yet psychologically vulnerable, Swedish-born police detective John River who struggles to deal with having witnessed the murder of his detective partner. He must come to terms with the loss whilst investigating her murder, helped (and sometimes hindered) by what he calls ‘manifests’ – the ghosts of both victims and criminals, including the shade of his partner. This one ticks all the boxes of my definition of a great show: it has something to say; it brings something new to the medium; it has great acting, editing, lighting, cinematography and the other aesthetics; it has great writing and directing; it vibes with something to say about the human condition; and lastly it has that elusive X factor that invites next day’s conversations at the office canteen and if you aren’t in those conversations you will feel like an outcast. I enjoyed watching all the flawed characters and each episode will peel new layers from them. Stellan Skarsgård and Nicola Walker are stupendous in their roles with the uncanny ability to communicate so much with just a look. The show is testament that sometimes you can elevate a cliche police procedural to a whole new level with a few clever tweaks. I was just coasting along with the first episode not thinking it will be anything great and then right at the end of the first episode my jaw dropped. Yes, it’s gimmicky but it is also very clever, and from that moment onwards I was all in. Then it hits the penultimate scene in the final episode and I was a goner. If I had been holding back tears, this was the point I let it all go. It’s the single most beautiful and the saddest scene I have seen in all my years of watching TV shows. This is one of those shows that is perfect and you don’t need a S2 because I doubt anything can top it. I want to say a lot more but I think this is enough words for the discerning person to check it out. (4.5/5) Lastly, something we caught at the cinema. Holy cow! What an insane movie this was! The Substance (2024), I couldn’t tear my eyes away. It’s a fevered dream, a sharp critique on modern society’s preoccupation with the female beauty standards and it is a helluva cautionary tale. The story concerns a fading celebrity played by Demi Moore who decides to use a black-market drug, a cell-replicating substance that temporarily creates a younger, better version of herself played by Margaret Qualley. This is practically a ten-car-pile-up accident waiting to happen. Doesn’t take a genius to know that but I can understand why Demi Moore’s Elisabeth wants to play with fire because society isn’t kind to female celebrities past their sell-by date. I love writer-director Coralie Fargeat’s previous effort Revenge (2017) which gave the rape-revenge genre a brand new coat of paint. With The Substance, Fargeat has outdone herself and maybe even tastelessly depending on your predilection. I love the Cronenberg vibes but with Cronenberg the wild aesthetics can sometimes overwhelm the narrative. The Substance doesn’t fall into the same trap, remaining in sharp stiletto focus on the theme and what it wants to scream in your face. The movie would have failed big time if the performances by the two leads are not 100% committed. Both Moore and Qualley gave their all, including denuding themselves and also looking like disgusted messes through extreme makeup. Perhaps the last act feels like an overkill but I must say I had such a hoot watching all the mayhem. In a year of movies, how many of them you can say push the envelope? The Substance does this so many times. (4.5/5) I will stop here because I ran out of words. I actually saw The Wild Robot last night which I thought is amazing. Mark my words, this is going to win Best Animation Oscar.

Thank you for your kind words. I actually have trouble posting pics here from my iPad (it’s my iPad’s fault, not the forum) so I gave up posting. Then last night I tried again using my phone. It works but it’s a pain in the a55. However getting a huge encouragement from you I will continue to do so. Your words warmed my heart

I have seen a lot of movies and TV shows since my last post. Watching is easy, finding the time and energy to write is hard. I will just do 4: 2 of which I saw at the theatres and 2 at home. Speak No Evil (2024) is about a family who gets invited to spend a whole weekend in a lonely home in the countryside, but as the weekend progresses, they’ll soon realize that the family who invited them has a dark side. This is cautionary tale 101 – never trust strangers no matter what. I have yet to see the 2022 Danish original which I read is more intense and raw, so I can’t compare. But as it is, James Watkins’ film opted for a more slow burn approach, gradually escalating the stress an innocent family is put under. The thing is this: half an hour in, the missus and I already knew the deep shite the family will be going through. The signs are all there: the micro-aggressions, the questionable parenting, the shifty motivations. If it were me, I would be leaving the first chance I get, but Ben and Louise and their daughter Ciara look like they want to see the looming accident up close and personal. In short, it took its time getting to that final realisation. By then the catharsis has dissipated for us. What was left was the frustration building within us for a family who chooses not to heed the warning signs. There were no cinema patrons near us so at one point I was going “ f&$k the rabbit!” and my wife chorused the same sentiment too and added “damn useless man!” which sent a cold shiver down my spine. The cinema was basically our funhouse! The movie reminded me of Michael Haneke’s Funny Games (1997) which is a perverted home invasion thriller. Funny Games managed to do lot more than Speak No Evilincluding indicting the audiences as accomplices. But I take nothing away from James McAvoy’s superb unhinged performance. This might as well be called The James McAvoy Show. I also read what was the ending iof the Danish original and let’s just say this ending will never be in Hollywood’s playbook. The ending in Speak No Evil is still a shocker but it can’t hold a candle next to the original which I believe will make you come out of the theatre feeling utterly gobsmacked and hopeless. (3.5/5) Wonderland (2024) is a locally made film that ticks many of the emotional and culture-specific boxes, and brings on all the feels without being condescending. In my opinion, this is one of the best locally made films in recent memory. Wonderland is a family drama about how a “white lie” spirals into a full-blown deception that brings two men together in an unlikely friendship. To pay for his daughter Eileen’s education abroad, Loke sells his family home and moves into a tiny one bedroom rental. There, he meets Tan, his neighbour who helps him write his letters to Eileen, and read her letters to him. Meanwhile, Tan finds comfort in Loke’s dedication to his daughter, as he yearns for a reconciliation with his estranged daughter. Then tragedy strikes… I like how the movie begins – Loke (a superb Mark Lee) sitting on a bench with an amusement and all its gaiety in the background. Loke holds not a smidgen of expression in total juxtaposition with everything around him. My interest was immediately piqued and I was in rapt attention as I gradually discovered who Loke is. I have seen Mark Lee in numerous comedic roles but never in anything as serious as the main role in Wonderland and I must confess this is one of the finest performances I have enjoyed this year and I say this with respect to everything I have seen from all over the world. Peter Yu is Mark Lee’s equal and both of them elevated each other, never eclipsing one another. Their friendship resonated with me because it is exactly how older men with a long trail of emotional baggage become friends. The attention to details is quite something to behold. You will see things that will immediately transport you to Singapore in the late 70s and the early 80s. Even the scenery is carefully shot with gorgeous lighting which will make you reminisce the good ole days of the 80s. Is there a better time than the 80s when the world hasn’t been “corrupted” by the internet? The story is defiantly very Chinese and every Chinese will understand the behaviour depicted. We just don’t say everything in our heart preferring to mask it with simplistic sentences like “have you eaten?” The conceit of the story takes a while to materialise and to spin the lie out of proportion involved a whole village. I found it heartwarming and when it hit the final twist I was already in tears likewise with many patrons on my right, all except the one sitting on my left who remained dry-eyed throughout. I told her she might need to see a doctor the next day. (3.5/5) Dogfight (1991) is a gem of a movie. It’s so confined and small, but it punches way above its weight. Long after it’s done, I am still thinking of the two characters and writing their next chapter. In 1963, the night before 18 year-old “Birdlace” Eddie and his friends are shipped to Vietnam. They play a dirty game called ‘Dogfight’: all of them will seek a woman for a party and whoever finds the most ugly one wins a prize. Eddie finds the lonesome pacifist Rose working in a coffee shop. He is hesitant at first but Rose is so enthusiastic and the game is afoot. The game is cruel, hateful and downright misogynistic, but Nancy Savoca steered the story to unexpected and meaningful territory. I am convinced in the hands of a male director, the movie would be a very different movie, but in Savoca’s sensitive hands the story examines male machismo, patriotism and gender roles. River Phoenix is always amazing to watch as he struggles with conformity and being human. Lili Taylor is a superb casting choice. Her vulnerability shines through and you can feel she is just one setback from giving up on the humankind. Yet her core of steel is admirable, believing that everyone is capable of being good. I know the main argument here is that Rose would never forgive Eddie which makes the story illogical. I am of the mind one needs to be an idealist to appreciate the movie and isn’t it heartwarming to believe someone like Rose existed in the world – quick to be angry at injustice but also quick to forgive. (4/5) Gate of Hell (1953) has been on must-see list and I finally acquired the Criterion disc. It is the winner of Academy Awards for best foreign language film and best costume design, well-deserving of both awards. In 1159, during an attempted coup, one of the court’s ladies in waiting disguises herself as the lord’s wife, and a loyal samurai conveys her from the city. This diversion allows the royal family to escape. After the coup fails, the samurai asks his lord to let him marry the woman as his reward. The lord grants the request and then discovers she is already married to one of the ruling family’s lieges. The samurai clings to his desire, importuning her to leave her husband, then challenging the husband to release her. Although the husband stays calm and she stays faithful, the samurai remains intemperate and stubborn, with tragic consequences. This is a story about fierce loyalties, unrequited desires and swinging between these two ends of the emotional spectrum. The story unfolds slowly, adding layers upon layers upon the characters until the inevitable. The samurai is one stubborn blockhead and doesn’t the sanctity of marriage means anything, but in his eyes he is perfectly justified in getting the woman as his prize. The film is also an early triumph of colour cinematography in Japan. If you want to understand how deep a hole obsession can put you in, this is a helluva cautionary tale. (4/5)

Boy do I have some good movies to recommend this week. It’s fun to write about crappy stuff, but with the good ones I always wonder if I have done enough for people to seek them out. I will just do my part and leave the rest to you. As usual, my taste in shows and movies can be quite different from the usual crowd, so decide for yourself. The first one… Maharaja (2024) was a recommendation by a friend. The text message came at 12.27am so that meant he had just finished the movie and he immediately thought of me. How could I not check this out on Netflix? The next evening I pressed “play” and didn’t move from my seat for 2h 30min, my mind working over-time trying to put all the events in chronological order only to some degree of success. This is a Tamil revenge action-thriller with some investigative procedural element and some God level storytelling. The sub-genre is something I coined eons ago – mindf$&k The story is simple – A barber named Maharaja (Vijay Sethupathi) seeks vengeance after his home is burglarized, cryptically telling police his “Lakshmi” is stolen. His quest to recover the elusive “Lakshmi” unfolds. I will let you find out what or who Lakshmi is. It will be more fun if you don’t find out before watching the movie. The plot is the mindf$&k part. You see, this isn’t just a simple piece of storytelling, it is a cerebral exercise in plotting. Writer-director Nithilan Saminathan has crafted a superb brain exercise and yet never forgets the power of storytelling with a cast of vivid characters in all sorts of tussle with fate. He challenges the audience by moving critical plot events around the timeline and he has the utmost respect for the audience because he doesn’t give you signposts that something you are watching is a flashback and tells you how it fits into the chronology. Movies like that can easily become too clever for its own good, but to Saminathan’s credit he knows how to keep the audience in a stranglehold, with an uncanny ability to release its grip in a moment of levity and then sends you to the high heavens with a jaw-dropping revelation. The ending packs a wallop and it’s deeply satisfying and Saminathan can’t help but ends it with the metaphorical moment that brings out all the feels. Maharaja isn’t perfect. There are some plot-holes and wild coincidences, but I didn’t mind it. The next day I unpacked the movie with Choo and two other guys who saw it and it was a helluva fun, but at one point Choo was getting sick of listening to me quip: “how did Maharaja know the car is at the pub?” I think she is going to divorce me if I bring it up again. We actually saw this twice, the second time was about catching the details in all the key moments so we could fill in the gaps. I myself watched it a third time to answer my nagging question about the car at the pub. It sounds like a lot of hard work but I can’t tell you how much fun it was to unpack the whole movie. After the second viewing I could even pick out gems like how when Maharaja was interrogated a few times about the theft of Lakshmi he always drinks a tumbler of water before he dictates the sequence of events. The sentence structures and the words are always the same, a tell-tale sign that he is lying and reciting from a pre-prepared script. I read that in a criminology book. Mindf$&k movies are few and the good ones even fewer. Sometimes you won’t even get good one in a year. We are lucky this year we get a great one. Clear your schedule, gather some friends for a watch party and get ready one helluva discussion after that. (4/5) From one crazy barber to another one, but thankfully this next one is on the other end of the spectrum. Day Off (本日公休) (2023) was screened at the Chinese Film Festival. By the time I zeroed my sights on it, the tickets were all snapped up. So I had to pick up the blu-ray for a watch and what a bittersweet movie it was. I didn’t know my heart can swell with so much love for a profession as nondescript as a small town barber. 80s sex siren Lu Hsiao-fen plays 40-year-old A-Rui who has been running a barbershop in a small town. One day, she receives a phone call from the family of an old client who moved away, asking if she would be willing to travel to give the bedridden old man a haircut. I love watching A-Rui in action, her scissors floats just above the customer’s head, the music of “snip snip” permeates the air and a light conversation ensues. It reminded so much of a time where visiting the barber was a fun time because I could read comics while waiting for my turn. There was never a rush to get my hair cut quickly unlike now when barbers can purportedly cut your hair for not more than 10 minutes. The movie celebrates a time when human connection is forged through something so plain as getting a haircut. A-Rui is the resident barber and you get the feeling she knows every person who sits in her chair, and she has seen each person’s head going from a full crop of hair to a balding one or to a mop of gray hair through the years. It almost feels like she is cutting the years away from the customers and herself. There is a sense of familiarity as the customers get their haircut and it feels like home. The movie was coasting along on a bed of nostalgia and then it hits the scene where she has to give a bedridden old customer a haircut in another town. I lost it here. A lump appeared in my throat, my lips quivered and then I didn’t bother to hold back anymore. I think it is noble to hold on to the old ways and the movie ends on a bittersweet note in that she will never change and will continue to do it the old school way till she can’t anymore. I love the theme song and I will include it here. The movie is quietly stately and in the end it sneaks up on you to give you a bear hug. (3.5/5) The next two I caught at the cinema. Successor (抓娃娃) (2024) is a big box-office hit in China and it is still raking in the dollars there. I would think its subject matter, intensively nurturing a child so that he will become successful in the future, is lost to the Western world. But here in Asia, including Japan and Korea, it is practically a way of life. I shouldn’t complain because this is why I have a never ending string of jobs. Ma Chenggang (Shen Teng) and Chunlan (Ma Li), who have “no oil in their soup and no money in their pockets”, ride a donkey to work and on the outside they are the epitome of working class poor. Their son Ma Jiye is the only hope who can change their fate. The father and mother are of course rich to the sky heavens, but thinking their super rich status will encumber their only child’s character and intellectual growth, they decide to move into a ramshackle house and bring up their child the hard way. I love the cockamamie scheme and it is actually mocking parents who go through the extremes to shuffle their children to tuition classes and extracurricular activities with super coaches. Ma and Chunlan spare no expense with an underground bunker of educators and CCTV monitoring their child’s every action. Above, the child is surrounded by security personnel who never lets him go out of sight. Doesn’t that remind you of The Truman Show (1998), Successor doesn’t disguise the inspiration and puts its own spin on a satire about overbearing parents who mistake sending their kids to endless classes as love. The first two acts are hilarious. I laughed like I was on drugs and it is very clever in the way it pokes Asian parents’ behaviour without stepping on toes. Where it falters is with the last act. It just doesn’t hit anywhere emotional so the central message rings a little hollow, and suddenly the jokes miss their marks and the lyricism which was already starting to become wafer-thin becomes pronounced. (3.5/5) Alien: Romulus (2024), it starts off a little slow but that’s understandable because you need a little context before you send a group of millennials into the gladiator rink. You get the leader, the reluctant one, the wise-cracker, the pregnant one, the Asian looking one and so on. Your everyday plethora of characters ready to be slaughtered are all present. The only thing you know is who will be the last one standing and you can try guessing which annoying character gets killed first. Uruguayan director and co-writer Fede Alvarez brought his bag of tricks to the Alien universe without all the mumbo-jambo philosophy. This is a straight up brute-powered survival sci-fi thriller and I am going to declare this is one of the best movies of the year of any genre. I enjoyed seeing all the callbacks to Alien(1979) and Aliens (1986) – the way the tunnels open, the sound of pulse rifle, certain lines of dialogue, a character from Alien and so on. The visuals are spectacular and we can also see the different birthing stages of the xenomorph which was cool. Alvarez knows when to pay homage and when to give us something new and by that I mean the “how to get away from the sonafo****es” mechanics. Boy, were some of them heart-park-in-mouth action sequences. The heart of the movie is the relationship between Rain (Cailee Spaeny) and Andy (David Jonsson) and it carries the movie to the ending. Spaeny plays the last woman standing convincingly and Jonsson plays the android sibling who imbues more humanity than humans. Contrary to what they say, in space they can hear you scream. (4/5)

i have trouble uploading pictures so I will just post the link https://reelthoughtsfromageek.wordpress.com/2024/08/02/quickies-deadpool-wolverine-twisters-warriors-two-one-second/

Let’s just do 4 out of a wholotta movies and shows I have seen. IMHO Hong Kong cinema has regressed into a safe cocoon with filmmakers not willing to push the envelope. It has reached a point where it is just churning the umpteenth crime thriller replete with outrageous action set-pieces. But sometimes out of this mired mess comes a social drama that has the ability to cleanse your palette. I like these social dramas that let you see a forgotten strata of the Hong Kong society. 流水落花 (Lost Love) (2022) shines its iridescent light on the country’s foster care system, in particularly, on a middle-aged couple Chan Tin Mei (Sammi Cheng) and Ho Bun (Alan Luk) who decides to foster children. The reason why Mei wants to do this will be revealed at the halfway point and it is a heartbreaking moment. The story will follow the couple through 13 years as they foster 7 different children. The plot is episodic as we see Mei and Bun foster the next kid. Though episodic, first-time director Sing-Fung Ka, is a sure hand as he gives the story a rhythm and cadence not unlike the seasons. Every one of the children feels like a real person and every one of them is so natural in their role. Watching them felt like getting Hirokazu Kore-eda vibes. Sammi Cheng is excellent in her role and absolutely deserved her Best Actress Award at the Hong Kong Film Festival. With not a smidgen of diva-ness on her mien, she is so nuanced in her portrayal of a mom with is not willing to give up motherhood yet. Luk also does a superb and understated portrayal of a long-suffering husband. I love how the passage of time is so subtly rendered through hair-styles, technology and fashion. I especially love the motif of falling petals which suggest the temporality of all things and how they fall gently into a river as if to suggest a generational flow of life. This is a well-made film that respects the intelligence of the audience who are entrusted with the task of connecting the dots through time. A good example would be Hedwig Lam who plays the recurring figure of the social worker. With the first foster child, she is all bossy and suspicious. As the years go by she continues to be the social worker for Mei’s foster children and you will see a different side of her. In fact, it took me a while to recognise her because of her fashion change and especially with her attitude. The movie never stoops down to become a manipulative cloying drama and it could easily have done so. It draws from Neo-realism and gives you an authentic and honest look at a mother who is not ready to give up on her maternal instinct and the challenges involved in fostering problem children. A gem from Hong Kong that deserves to be on any cinephile’s watch-list. (4/5) 非诚勿扰III (If You are the One III) (2023) is not kind to anyone who hasn’t seen I and II, but then again why would anyone see III with no knowledge of I and II. It has been 15 years since the release of Feng Xiaogang’s If You Are the One, a popular romantic dramedy with oodles of smarts in which a mismatched pair build on a spark of connection. The sequel delved into themes of the transience and the cyclic nature of life. Last we met Qin Fen (Ge Yu) and Xiaoxiao (Shu Qi), they were contemplating giving marriage a go. Did they live happily ever after? Well… the voice-over narration says yes, but one day Xiaoxiao decided to take off with a group of cult-like international rubbish collectors. Since then Qin Fen has been waiting patiently for her return. His old friend Lao Fan gifts him an AI robot that looks exactly like Xiaoxiao and all manner of shenanigans ensue. I wanted to love this but I just couldn’t. It might be because it wasn’t funny and situating the story in the future of 2030 makes the story lose its immediacy. In all its previous installments, there is a grounded-ness even if the story is wacky. This one strays too much into goofy territory. The theme of whether a robot can take the place of a human feels tired too. That said, Shu Qi ironed out all the rough spots for me. There is a line that I loved a lot. It was uttered twice, first by Qin Fen and later by the AI robot. Both times they hit me hard and I realised I should have paid more attention during my Chinese lessons when I was a kid. This is the line: 你知道什么是思念吗？思念就是，高山上盖庙还嫌低，面对面坐着还想你。 你知道什么是挂念吗？挂念是害怕，怕你过不好，怕你受委屈，怕你不回来。 It is not easy to translate this to English and even if I managed to translate this passage it would have lost the beauty of the words in Chinese. But I will give it a shot: Do you know the feeling of missing someone? Missing someone you love is like you are looking at a beautiful temple in the mountains but you will still think the temple is flawed because you are thinking of him/her as if he/she is in front of you. Do you know the feeling of truly missing someone? It’s a feeling of fear, the fear that he/she is not happy in life, the fear that his/her life isn’t smooth sailing, the fear that he/she is not coming home. See? I told you it makes no sense in English but in Chinese it all makes perfect sense. (3/5) Now for a Nicolas Cage double-bill which I didn’t plan on. We saw Dream Scenario at home and in the next evening we saw Longlegs at the cinema. In Dream Scenario (2023), Nicolas Cage stars as Paul Matthews, a listless family man and tenured professor with an affinity for evolutionary biology and anxiety regarding his own anonymity. One day, he discovers he has begun to appear in other people’s dreams at an exponential rate. As in life, his presence in these dreams is banal and non-intrusive – he’s simply there, staring indifferently at the fantasies and nightmares of strangers. Nonetheless, he becomes an overnight celebrity, and is soon showered with the attention he has long been denied. But when Paul encounters a dreamer whose visions of him differ substantially from the norm, he finds himself grappling with the Faustian bargain of fame as his dream-selves start inexplicably becoming violent within their respective subconsciousnesses. What a brilliant premise! Written and directed by Kristoffer Borgli, the film interrogates the consequences of fame. At first, Mathews revels in the new found fame and PR firms come knocking on his door relentlessly, but in the second act it becomes a nightmare for him as he becomes the boogeyman in everyone’s nightmare. This was so fun to watch with a whip smart screenplay that milks the premise for what it’s worth. Nicolas Cage is marvelous in the role and it is savagely funny to see the screws turn on him. Yes, fame is a double-edged sword, a good reminder to myself that sometimes it is good to be ordinary. Personally, I didn’t feel the story ended strongly, tarnishing a brilliant premise. All through the movie, I had a tussle in my brain about why Mathews is held accountable for everyone’s dreams and nightmares, then I realised that is exactly how the court of public opinion works. Social media is both judge and jury, and Mathews stands no chance in this arena. It is scary to see how a person gets cancelled till he becomes hated till kingdom comes. In the end, he uses a dream device (that he inadvertently pioneered but receives no credit for) to fulfil his wife’s fantasy. It is a poignant way to end the story but it felt shooed in when it should have been built upon as the story progresses. (3.5/5) It has been a long time a movie has such a brilliant marketing campaign. Before the movie even opened, the teaser trailers gave me goosebumps, building up a frenzy in me. They are brilliant teasers, never revealing Nicolas Cage as Longlegs, but it made sure we hear and see parts of him. This was Movie of the Week for me and I only hoped the movie is as good as what the teasers promised. Longlegs delivered in spades, axes, knives, guns and many more. I originally wanted to devote a long review post for this but the damn movie gave me weird dreams last night and I will just punch this out in a stream of consciousness and be rid of it. The story: FBI Agent Lee Harker (Maika Monroe) is a gifted new recruit assigned to the unsolved case of an elusive serial killer. As the case takes complex turns, unearthing evidence of the occult, Harker discovers a personal connection to the merciless killer and must race against time to stop him before he claims the lives of another innocent family. The movie begins with the boxy 4:3 aspect ratio dripping with creepiness and dread. It will soon hit the widescreen format and will go back to the 4:3 for flashbacks. This is a slowburn with dread filling every frame. There are no cheap jump scares, but violence comes at you in a quick manner like how real violence starts in a rocket burst with no warning. The movie has Silence of the Lambs and Se7en vibes. Maika Monroe is terrific in her role and thankfully Os Perkins (son of Anthony “Psycho” Perkins) develops her character so economically. You will fill in the blanks willingly on why she behaves so vacantly and concentrate on the proceedings to tick off what you had assumed. If dread has definition, every frame of Longlegs vividly portrays it. Nicholas Cage continues his streak of legendary roles with the demented role of the serial killer, but his modus operandi is sheer nuts. The only misgiving I had of it was the last act with an exposition heavy revelation. It felt counter-productive when the first two acts are so defiant in spelling out anything for us, only for the last act to give us a exposition lecture. In the end I understood everything but I would have loved it more if I had arrived at the knowledge on my own. (4/5) It’s done. Begone Longlegs. Peace out!

I love movies about monsters, specifically how the humans will engage in problem solving heuristics to kill ‘em hard-to-kill monsters. This genre is my guilty pleasure, even with the lousy ones I can still find something that will make me feel like a twinkle-eyed boy again. A Quiet Place(2008) was a brilliant one in that it never feels disposable. It manages to strip the roles of parents down to the core and showcase monsters who use their ultra-keen sonic ability to hunt. A Quiet Place: Part II expands on the familial themes and continues to balance the human and monster elements perfectly. Before part 3 is announced we get a prequel, A Quiet Place: Day One. We did see what happened on Day One in Part II albeit in a small town. This time round we see the apocalyptic chaos descend on New York City. Like all of its precedents, Day One doesn’t always take a macro view, preferring to wisely focus on a few characters and in this case, two. Samira (Lupita Nyong’o) is suffering from a terminal disease in a hospice. She is sort of friendly with a male nurse named Reuben (Alex Wolff) who has organised a trip to watch a marionette show in the city. The show is disrupted by the arrival of the aliens who get into the busy job of slaughtering noisy New Yorkers scrambling for safety. Samira and her service cat manage to survive the initial wave of attack. She, together with many others, soon finds out that the only way to survive is not to make a sound. She receives help from Henri (Djimon Hounsou) but soon finds herself alone with an aim to go back to Harlem, in particularly a pizzeria from her youth. Along the way she picks up a stray survivor in Eric (Joseph Quinn). And now we know his name is Henri, the man on the island in Part II. We get an effective backstory that gives credence to how his character has evolved to in Part II and he becomes the only link to the main movie. I like this artistic move but knowing how he meets his demise through a dumb decision leaves a bad taste in my mouth. Just imagine if instead of Henri, we get Cillian Murthy’s Emmett as the cameo. But I think after his Oscar winning turn in Oppenheimer it might be difficult to get him to do an extended cameo. Michael Sarnoski is a great choice as the writer-director of Day One, no doubt because of Pig (2021). In the wrong hands, a story about a truffle forager going all out to get his stolen pig back can easily become a John Wick knock-off. How the story is told is a marvel – so spare, yet so intimate and artful without being too clever for its own good. It is a story about a man trying to hang on to emotional ties which make him human and a loving depiction of the grieving and mourning process. John Krasinski must have seen that and knew he has the right person to bring Day One to fruition. Sarnoski gets the emotional ride down pat. He is a seasoned hand when the story focuses on the small moments of the characters; he is assured when it comes to the big moments of sheer chaos. After a good night’s rest, the one scene that still continues to resonate with me is the one Sam and Eric share in her apartment and the sequence when Sam and Eric have to escape from the creature in a tunnel partly submerged in water. Lupita Nyong’o is a great casting choice with the ability to channel fear and the steel will to survive. Making her character suffer a terminal illness is a clever intrinsic move in that she has nothing to lose and will only sign out of this world at her own terms (at the start of the last act, I turned to Choo and whispered how she will go out and she whispered back something else. She was right, of course. Seriously, how does she do this?). I won’t take anything from Nyong’o’s performance but Frodo, the cat, deserves side by side billing with Nyong’o. Where the movie rubs me the wrong way is with Eric’s character and the creatures. Who is he and what’s with the panic attacks? I find his character motivation vague, but I guess in dire life-and-death situations people who don’t know each other can come together to become an organic unit. Likewise, with the creatures, we still don’t know what is the beef they have with us. I see them killing humans, but I don’t see them eating us. There is an interesting scene of manic creature behaviour in that they gather around a translucent pod and start to gouge on what is inside. What was that? Hey, I want to know, but nothing was explained. On the ride back home, I uttered that Day One doesn’t break any new ground in the franchise and it isn’t an essential chapter of the bigger story. She concurred. I can only say it is a nice detour from the Abbotts’ universe and we get to see how the alien invasion has affected others. Enough… give me Part III, the concluding chapter now, NOW! 3 / 5

I was on a flight to Hong Kong recently and when it comes to choices of entertainment it is very important to me. The flight time allowed me to watch two movies comfortably if both movies are less than 150 minutes. There is no way I would choose blockbusters which I know will appear on streaming sites sooner than later. So I spent a good 10 to 15 minutes curating all the foreign films which are hard to gain access to. After that I got ready for a good time. These are the 4 I chose for both flights, to Hong Kong and back to home. Target (2023) sounds like a fun movie with a cockamamie storyline plucked out from a remote possibility. It was in the theatres for a while and received some positive reviews. I put it on my watch list and now I can scratch it off. Soo-hyeon (Shin Hye-sun), who has recently moved into a new house, buys a used washing machine through a second-hand app but finds out it doesn’t work. Annoyed by the seller’s irresponsibility, she leaves a comment calling the seller a con man, and reports it to the police. Little does she know that the seller is a psychopathic serial killer who uses an online second-hand market to lure his victims. Her comment renders his hunt for a new victim all but impossible so she becomes his next target. She starts receiving obscene phone calls, countless unwanted food deliveries, and strange men knocking on her door looking for a good time. A trip to the sender’s address proves deadly serious when the police and Soo-hyeon find a dead body. This is a very brisk and entertaining movie. By entertaining I mean it is quite an eye-opener to see how Soo-hyeon gets harassed and the stress feels real, and all because she left a negative feedback on a psychopath with superb computing skills. Makes me think twice when an internet transaction goes sour and I am tempted to leave a scalding feedback. This is the type of movie best enjoyed with your head on the floor which Choo reminded me at one point (both of us were watching the same movie at the same time). I think I told her “why are these cops so dumb?” She mimicked taking out my brains and leaving it on the floor. After that I was totally vested in Soo-hyeon’s character arc and it was a great feeling to see her eventually get the one up on the scumbag. I didn’t quite like the bombastic final act which I felt wasn’t earned, complete with ultra-physical mano a mano fights and a nailgun in a hazardous environment, but I wanted something entertaining and this one got the job done. (3.5/5) Evil Does Not Exist (2023) was on my watch list and it was one of the films for a local film festival but tickets were sold out in a snap and I missed the boat. After Ryûsuke Hamaguchi’s superb film Drive My Car (2021) I told myself I will watch anything made by him. Now I am not so sure anymore… The story: Takumi and his daughter Hana live in Mizubiki Village, close to Tokyo. One day, the village inhabitants become aware of a plan to build a camping site near Takumi’s house, offering residents a comfortable escape to nature. The languid opening is a warning of what will transpire, especially with the tone of the film. It feels like a never ending continuous shot of looking up at a canopy of trees. Think of yourself lying on your back on a plank being carried by people and you are looking at the sky being blocked by the canopy. You know what? A better analogy will be you lying in an opened coffin being carried by pall bearers. You are going to feel this continuous shot all the way down to your bones. After an eternity, it opens with a scene of two people fetching buckets of water from a stream or is it a girl wandering in the wilderness. It is one or the other. Though nothing much happens for a long time, I find the movie has a rhythm of its own and I was lulled into a cadence dictated by Hamaguchi. A long time later a semblance of a story problem presents itself – a corporation wants to move into the village which will destroy the idyllic nature of all who live there. There is a town meeting and all the villagers stand firm in the belief that the corporation will destroy the nature they have come to love. The scene is not cut like a movie; it has a documentary feel as the camera lingers on the principals as they share fervently. I wasn’t bored but I wasn’t holding any hope that it would put the rug from under my feet. I was just down all the way to find out how it will end. However, I never counted on the movie giving me a tight slap with a full-on abrupt ending that came out of the left field. Let’s just say there is blood, a murder and all manner of befuddlement. Nothing in the preceding 2 hours gives credence to what happens in the ending. I sat in my economy seat feeling robbed, robbed of 2 hours of my life. But still I hang on, trusting that Hamaguchi will at least explain the WTF ending but no. It ends again with the first languid shot of the movie. I felt like tearing out the LED screen of the seat but good thing my good sense and the depth of my wallet prevail. Once I had mobile signal, I immediately googled the meaning behind the ending and it turns out that Hamaguchi intentionally ends the movie abruptly so as to let audiences discuss the ending. I have my doubt that he was successful in doing that. To accomplish that one does not pull a rabbit out of a hat that goes against the grain of the story and the characters need to be well-defined for us to be vested in them. This is not the case here. (2/5) On the return flight I already knew the two movies I would watch. I started out with The Goldfinger (2023), not the James Bond one. This is a Hong Kong movie that had Andy Lau and Tony Leung back together since Infernal Affairs, and it is a movie written and directed by Felix Chong, one half of the filmmaking duo who made the seminal film that spawned 2 sequels. The story: Set in the 1980s, the film depicts cut-throat machinations between Hong Kong’s jostling business elites amidst the backdrop of the tail end of British colonial rule. It tells the story of the rise and bust of a fictional Hong Kong company called Jiali Group, following the travails of its chairman Cheng Yiyan through 15 years of investigations by the Independent Commission Against Corruption as murders are committed, billions in market value evaporate and millions are spent on litigation fees. There is no way to sugarcoat this – this is a piss poor film. Even with all the big names, this is a remarkably hollow film. There is a wholotta of machinations going on, with plenty of ideas borrowed from Scorsese’s films like The Wolf of Wall Street and even The Usual Suspects, but by the end of the movie I still didn’t know the characters’ motivations. I have no inkling whether Tony Leong’s character is intelligent or just incredibly lucky. Those of you hoping for a dynamite reunion of Lau and Leung will be pissed because Lau essentially plays a secondary character and if the two do share a scene, there are no pyrotechnics. The plot is convoluted, no doubt to brainwash audiences into thinking it is cleverer than them. In the end the twists and turns are plain hocus pocus which are preposterous. I felt like I was taken for a free ride when I paid a first class ticket for it. Very disappointing movie which was feted with 12 nominations at the Hong Kong Film Awards 2024 and walked away with 6, including Best Actor. (3/5) I ended my movie marathon with the heaviest film of the lot, The Zone of Interest (2023), which was not released commercially at my local cinema chains. The story: For Rudolf Hoss, life is good. He lives in a big house the country with his wife and five children, whom he dotes on. He has several servants. He has his dream job and is very good at it, leading a very large team and garnering praise from peers and superiors alike. His job? He’s the commandant at Auschwitz concentration camp. There are so many great films about the Holocaust and the horrifying subject has been addressed in so many ways, do we need another? Trust me, you need this one and it is essential viewing. This is no popcorn movie. Disturbing yet simple in its execution. Essentially, it opines that evil comes in all forms. Rudolf Hoss isn’t Amon Goeth in Schindler’s List (1993) or any of those simple one-dimensional Bond villains. In all manner of speaking, he is just a man doing his job and his moral compass swings only for his family. He kills hundreds every day and every night he goes home to read his children bedtime stories without a nudge on his conscience. It’s spine-chilling and suddenly I realise how narratives tend to paint villains in easy hues. That said, this feels like a long film. Within 10 minutes you are going to be hit by the above mentioned idea but it never develops the idea, preferring to just plough on with a man focused on doing his job. Once I was privy to the main concept I started to doze off (god forbid it’s a movie about the terrifying subject of the Holocaust) and had to rewind a few times. After re-watching the scenes I slept through, I realised it is more of the same. Still, I must say this is a must-see if you are cinephile but on hindsight watching this on a flight is not a good way to appreciate it. I suspect the sound design is stellar but listening to it through cheap earphones on a flight doesn’t do it any justice. You will hear gunshots, trains and screams in the background. The juxtaposition with the everyday life of the Hoss idyllic household will hit you like a sledgehammer. I also like the coda at the end when the movie switches to a current look at the Holocaust museum at Auschwitz. It’s very disconcerting and it stirred up lots of emotions in me. (4/5) Then it was back home and I will just pick 2 to say something. Inside Out 2 (2024) is no cash grab exercise and the story went through a 9-year pressure cooker hibernation to be another well-written piece of animation. For me the last time Pixar scored with me was Coco (2017) so this was a great reminder of what Pixar is capable of. The story starts 2 years from the ending of the first film when we saw the “puberty” button. The story: Teenager Riley’s mind headquarters is undergoing a sudden demolition to make room for something entirely unexpected: new Emotions. Joy, Sadness, Anger, Fear and Disgust, who’ve long been running a successful operation by all accounts, aren’t sure how to feel when Anxiety shows up. And it looks like she’s not alone. There are so many gags – some obvious ones, some subtle ones, some superb puns and so many great ideas. I like how the story happens over a weekend and how Anxiety isn’t portrayed as a conventional villain; he is there to protect Riley. The last act is a great reminder of Pixar of the good old days – the ability to make you forget you are watching animation and the story hitting a raw nerve. I love the message and it is a timely reminder to all parents, that sometimes we just need to let a kid grow up and be patient with him or her. There is a scene that hit me hard long after the movie ended. It’s the scene where Sadness has to go somewhere alone and she asks Joy to be with her. Long after the movie has ended, this innocuous scene surfaced in my consciousness. It is a great reminder that for happiness to make sense one needs to experience sadness, and vice versa. It is a great movie but it just couldn’t be as fresh as the first movie which isn’t its fault. (4/5) Hit Man (2024) is one of those movies that baffled me. Critics love it to bits and the grapevine was screaming that Glen Powell is Hollywood’s new leading man. But I can’t put a finger on why this was a drag to watch. The story: When not teaching at the University Professor Gary Johnson offers his services to the local police department as an undercover official. His job is to pose as a hit man and trap people to reveal their intention to pay for getting someone killed. He does this job well, his superiors are happy but this doesn’t last long as he botches up a case when he gets romantically involved with a beautiful woman client. The setup and premise was brilliant. It held so much promise, but Richard Linklater loves his writing so much that he doesn’t know when to call it quits. I already get the point of a scene but it will just linger on with all the principals talking till the roosters come to roost. A good music track would have smooth out many of the scenes and lead the audience down the path, but the scenes keep on going till revelations feel drawn out and jokes land flat. There was no catharsis for me and it just left with me bamboozled why so many critics and audiences enjoy this. (2.5/5)

I have ever mentioned that the hardest reviews I have written are the ones for great movies. Then this is going to be the easiest review I will ever write, not because it isn’t a great movie, but because the words were already forming in my mind when I was watching it last night in a near sell-out screening (I can’t even remember the last time I attended a screening with such a large audience post-Covid). The laughter was so infectious and when the last act rolled in everyone was just crying softly away. Sheer cinematic magic! The story and plot are simple – M (Putthipong Assaratanakul), a teenage university student dropped out of school to become a game caster, a career he hopes will make him a lot of money, but it wasn’t as he thought it would be. M saw an example from Mui, a young cousin who inherited a mansion worth tens of millions from being the caretaker her dying Agong. M volunteers to take care of his Amah (Usha Seamkhum), who has terminal cancer who lives alone, hoping for an inheritance. Esteemed film critic Roger Ebert once declared that movies are towering empathy generating machines, a statement I wholeheartedly embraced and there is no better demonstration of this phenomenon than with How to Make Millions Before Grandma Dies. The see-saw of emotions and the rollercoaster of feels, what a ride it was! Writer-director Pat Boonnitipat didn’t even try to reinvent the wheel. You know exactly what will happen in the end; there is no final miracle cure (here’s looking at you, Queen of Tears), there is no “it is always darkest before the dawn” ending and there is no final twist (there is a kind of twist but Choo whispered to me what the twist will be an hour before it dropped and she was of course correct. How does she do this every time?), but this is testament to great storytelling in that you don’t need any twists and turns, flashy cinematography, full orchestration, CGI dream sequence or the whole shebang to serve up a scrumptious dish of the feels. You just need authenticity without any artifice. The movie’s greatest asset is its relatability. If you are born into an Asian family with ancestral roots that stretch wide and beyond, you will sense the familiarity with all the characters. Perhaps you will see manifestations of your relatives and family members here – the long-suffering daughter, the son who feels problems that can be solved by money are not problems, the calculative daughter-in-law, the good-for-nothing son and the kid whose eyes are glued to the computer screen. The story is fictional but it feels true to life with its keen observation of family dynamics when the death of the matriarch is imminent and the vultures start to circle. Grandma isn’t stupid, she knows why she is the centre of attention and even M is not spared when she says to him: “you are also sowing seeds in hope of reaping them right?” Credit has to be bestowed upon the actors who breathed life into their characters. I am surprised this is Usha Seamkhum first acting role. She is such a natural without a single smidgen of artifice. Putthipong “Billkin” Assaratanakul is the perfect foil to Amah’s no nonsense approach to life. You will follow his arc fervently knowing he will wise up to the ways of life and when that moment arrives it is so subtle that you know it is an accumulation of Amah’s many interactions with him. Though the plot is straightforward I doubt anyone will find this boring. As it steamrolls towards the inevitable ending, it will happen – your tears will flow, but know that every rivulet will be well-earned just like every peal of laughter. Incidentally, this is currently the highest grossing film in Thailand and Indonesia, evidence that it has resonated with many audiences. This is that rare film that Choo and I were still talking about over breakfast this morning probably because we didn’t want the magic to dissipate, desperately trying to hang on to the tendrils of a heartfelt story. You will be surprised that we can still unearth vignettes of truth after a good night of sleep like a quick scene of a monk in a wheelchair at the chemo clinic as if to suggest that sickness affect everyone, including the religiously pious ones or the scene where Amah goes to meet her estranged brother to borrow money for a burial plot. My theory is that Amah already knows the outcome but she still wanted M to learn a hard life lesson. School is out. Forget about taking your kids to The Garfield Movie, instead take them to see this. Don’t be ashamed to let them see you cry and laugh heartily. After the movie, sit down somewhere and over a warm drink, share stories about your mother, their grandma. I think for a few minutes, she will be alive in everybody’s memory. 4.5 /5

just 4… Furiosa: A Mad Max Saga (2024), I saw on IMAX and it is money well-spent. It was back to the Wasteland we went. Divided into 5 chapters, each denser and more complex than the preceding one, the story is filled with character beats that will establish Furiosa’s hard as nails character in Mad Max: Fury Road. I love the opening story about a young Furiosa, acted by Alyla Browne, a dead ringer for Anya Taylor-Joy. The establishment of The Green Place is deftly done and how an inventive opening chase sequence opens and continually opens up to epic proportions made me delirious with unbridled joy. When Anya Taylor-Joy eventually appears an hour later, the segue was so perfect that I had to do a double take. The opening story also establishes a villain in a messiah-like Dementus (Chris Hemsworth) who steals every scene he appears in. Hemsworth hams it up for the screen and he seems to be having the time of his life playing a charismatic mad man spouting many quotable lines: “You fabulous thing. You crawled out of a pitiless grave, deeper than hell. Only one thing that is going to do that for you. Not hope. Hate. No shame in hate. It’s one of the greatest forces of nature.” We get more backstory and background to Bullet Farm, Gas Town and The Citadel. We get nods to characters that we have come to love and hate in Fury Road. There is fan service but there is also a freshness to how the new information is doled out, which makes me want to check out Fury Road again (it will probably be my 5th time). Where Furiosa didn’t work for me is the story on Praetorian Jack (Tom Burke) who essentially took Furiosa under his wing and taught her the way around the War Rig. I could sense a deeper relationship between the two, an information we could only guess at. So the demise of Jack which should turn the final screw in Furiosa’s heart into the warrior in Fury Road doesn’t quite hit the spot for me. The vehicular mayhem this time round employs a lot of VFX effects, which also means I didn’t get the same high when I was watching Fury Road which mostly used practical effects. There are stunts here that looked too death-defying to be practical effects. At the end of the day, this prequel doesn’t hit the highs and burn as much rubber as Fury Road, but it is still a well worth a trip back to the Wasteland. Nobody tells wild dystopian stories like George Miller and he still has it in him to make it epic. (4/5) LTNS (2024) stands for “long time no sex”. With a title like that you know you are in for a wild ride. This is a Kdrama that breaks off from the usual status quo and with the superb opening racy scene it forges its own path. The story is about a couple, Samuel (Ahn Jae-hong) and Woo Jin (Esom), whose love for each other is a flatliner and the sex is what-sex?. It’s all very satirical but there are vignettes of truth here because intimacy and sex can become a wasteland in a Mad Max movie if you don’t do anything about it. Then it happened… No, not love or sex. They realise they are the dynamic duo who is perfectly placed to blackmail cheating couples. She works at the front desk of a hotel and he is a taxi driver who can follow the cheating parties to their location of their pleasure dome. The blueprint I could soon see – while spying on these fornicating couples they will rediscover their hots for each other. It doesn’t quite go in that direction and the last story arc surprised me in wonderful ways. I enjoyed some of the stories of the cheating couples. Sometimes there is more than what meets the eyes, but the central story is always on Samuel and Esom who obviously have a lot of chemistry. As I am typing my thoughts a smile is plastered on my face thinking of the many funny scenes and that revelatory metaphorical scene of Samuel and Esom quarrelling. It’s that kind of argument that no one can come back from. Forgiveness is so far away that you can’t even see it. They just want to hurt each other till it’s the last thing they do. How the director framed this scene in their home is lovely. LTNS has all its cards in the right place but for me it doesn’t hit the top tier of Kdramas. I find the humour tedious at times and it loses momentum after a great start. Still, at 6 episodes it never overstays its welcome and I have no regrets watching this because this is a Kdrama that dares to be different. (3.5/5) The Gentlemen (2024) came recommended by a few friends. I have seen Guy Ritchie’s film but have largely forgotten the plot. So I entered this 8-episode series with fresh eyes. Somehow you will always know it’s a Guy Ritchie vehicle just through a scene or two. His signatures are everywhere – the whip-smart dialogue, the wise-cracking gangsters, the inventive violence, the captions on screen, the editing and many more. Nothing wrong with that at all, especially when I like Guy Ritchie doing Ritchie-esque gangsters like they are from an alternate-universe. The thing is this – as a film the stylistics seldom overstay their welcome but as an 8-episode series it can be very tricky. Moreover, it has one of the most annoying characters ever in Freddy because he is the spanner in the works, the **** stirrer and #1 problem causer. I have no idea why Eddy just doesn’t let the bad guys do the worse to him, but Ritchie probably read my mind and he addressed this nagging itch in the last episode. I thought Ritchie just manages to sustain the effervescent energy till the finishing line with a revelation you saw it coming from the first episode in that the aristocratic soldier and good man is the perfect crime overlord. It begs a S2 at the end but I can’t say I am excited for it. (3.5/5) The Hunger Games: The Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes (2023) is the story of Coriolanus Snow (Tom Blyth), years before he would become the tyrannical President of Panem. He is young, very determined and though the Snow family has fallen on hard times, Coriolanus sees a chance for a change in his fortunes when he is chosen to be a mentor for the 10th Hunger Games only to have his elation dashed when he is assigned to mentor a girl tribute named Lucy Gray Baird (Rachel Zegler) from the impoverished District 12. I know I am very late to the party and I only recently picked up the blu-ray. I showed blu-ray to Choo and she immediately said “you can watch this on your own. I am not interested”. Sometimes I think she has a sixth sense with stories. She saved 2h 37min of her life to do something else, but I lost 2h 7min of mine. Wait a second… you are thinking where did 30min go? I fell asleep after one of its initial long drawn out scenes where characters talk big but do nothing and it was even before the games started. When I did wake up I realise I could easily connect the dots and I wasn’t going to throw away a good nap. I have no idea why this needed to be 2h 37min film because the movie felt like a black hole sucking any momentum. I read the movie adhere very closely to the book but it is always a mistake to make a movie exactly like the book. As a movie, I felt like I was watching 2 movies with 2 different settings and the first setting is at least more interesting than the second one in District 12. The characters are so bland like chewing gum that already has no flavour. Tom Blyth has some good acting chops and the future looks bright for him, but for me the jury is still out on Rachel Zegler. Maybe she can sing but singing her way out of dire situations feels so cringe-worthy. Perhaps it works better in the book, but in a movie I threw up my hands in frustration. After 2h 37min, you would think the movie will segue nicely into the The Hunger Games, but no… the studios feel the extreme urge to milk movie-goers at least one more time with one of the worst endings ever. I felt so cheated because it ended with a nagging question – where the heck is Lucy Gray? Aarrgghhh! Meanwhile, I must learn from Choo how to smell BS from a mile away. (2.5/5)