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Features Live Action Movies

Cloud
(Kuraudo,
クラウド)

Director – Kiyoshi Kurosawa – 2024 – Japan – Cert. 15 – 124m

*****

The art of the deal. The past of an internet goods reseller driven by making money who has made enemies among his one-off suppliers and customers comes back to bite him – out in UK cinemas on Friday, April 25th

Ryosuke Yoshii (Masaki Suda) makes a take-it-or-leave it offer to Tonoyama (Masaaki Akahori), who manufactures electric therapy devices: ¥90 000 for his entire inventory. Tonoyama protests that at such a low price he will barely make any money after all the investment he has made. Tonoyama’s wife (Maho Yamada) is horrified and pleads with Yoshii, but he is ruthless. He explains that if he can’t sell the items, the ¥90 000 will ocver him to pay someone to take the unsaleable goods away. Returning home to his sometime live-in girlfriend Akiko (Kotone Furukawa), Yoshii puts the items online at ¥200 000 each. They quickly sell out. He tells her she can buy whatever she wants with his credit card.

At Yoshii’s day job, in what appears to be a factory floor for the laundering of clothes, his boss Takimoto (Yoshiyoshi Arakawa) holds him in high regard, feeling his talents are underused as a mere shop floor worker and regarding him as a future leader.… Read the rest

Categories
Features Live Action Movies

Tinker Ticker
(Deulgae,
들개,
lit. Wild Dog)

Director – Kim Jung-hoon – 2013 – South Korea – Cert. 18 – 102m

*****

A university professor’s aide who in his spare time builds bombs and sends them to people free of charge connects with a spoiled student prepared to detonate them – from LKFF, the London Korean Film Festival 2023 which runs in cinemas from Thursday, November 2nd to Thursday, November 16th

High school student Park Jung-gu (Byun Yo-han) makes bombs as a hobby. Ten years later, he’s on the internet, sending bombs out free of charge to any interested parties. However, people who receive his bombs do nothing with them.

By day, Park works forBaek (Kim Jong-goo from Exit, Lee Sang-geun, 2019; Poetry, Lee Chang-dong, 2010; Nowhere To Hide, Le Myung-se, 1999), a lecturer in business studies at the local university, and watches arrogant, rich kid Lee Hyo-min (Park Jong-min from LKFF 2023 Closing Night Film Dr. Cheon And The Lost Talisman, Kim Seong-sik, 2023; Decision To Leave, Park Chan-wook, 2022; Deliver Us From Evil, Hong Won-chan, 2020; Netflix series Hellbound, Yeon Sang-ho, 2021) argue coherently against Baek’s pro-consumerist lecture and get failed in the course for his trouble.… Read the rest