Categories
Animation Features Movies

Giants of La Mancha
(Argentina: Gigantes;
Germany: Das Geheimnis
von La Mancha;
Spain: Los Exploradores;
US: Storm Crashers)

Director – Gonzalo Gutiérrez – 2024 – Argentina, Germany, Spain – Cert. U – 88m

***1/2

The young, present day descendants of Don Quixote and Sancho Panza must save La Mancha from a villainous property developer – animated children’s adventure is out in UK cinemas on Friday, March 7th

(UK cinemas are showing the English language version: further voice credits are given for Spanish and German language versions, where available.)

Alfonso (voice: English: Micke Alejandro Morena Lamprea; Spanish: Patricio Lago; German: Julian Jansson) the great, great, great, great, great-grandson of Don Quixote, lives with his parents in the small Spanish village of La Mancha which is under threat of terrible storms that the occupants attribute to climate change. Like his ancestor, Alfonso misreads things, such as an impending storm which he believes to be a storm monster.

He and his dad Dan Quixote (voice: English: Bradley Krupsaw), who alone among all the characters here speaks in rhyming couplets, and his mum (voice: English: Jennifer Moule; Spanish: Carla Petersen) are both idealists, to the extent that Dan is the one person in the village who has refused to sign his home over to besuited property developer Mr. Carrasco (voice: English: Thomas Harris), whose snake oil salesman charms seem to have convinced all the other villagers to sell up and move out to his development “with children in mind” of Carascoland, towards which they are currently heading in their cars en masse, despite Alfonso’s hurtling around on his bicycle warning everybody of the storm monster heading in their direction.… Read the rest

Categories
Features Live Action Movies

Hard Boiled
(Lat Sau San Taam,
辣手神探)

Director – John Woo –1992 – Hong Kong – Cert. 18 – 128m

*****

Woo’s directorial valediction to Hong Kong, at least for a time as he attempted to break Hollywood, rehashes his now familiar territory of brotherhood, loyalty and betrayal, etched in trademark bullets and blood with grander and greater operatic flourish than his earlier efforts. On-screen alter-ego Chow Yun-fat (The Killer, John Woo, 1989; An Autumn‘s Tale, Mabel Cheung, 1987) is cast for the first time in Woo not as gangster but cop, bonding with a ruthless triad hit man Alan (Tony Leung Chiu-wai from Bullet In The Head, John Woo, 1990, In The Mood For Love, Wong Kar-wai, 2000; Lust Caution, Ang Lee, 2007; Shang-Chi And The Legend Of The Ten Rings, Destin Daniel Cretton, 2021). For good measure, Woo throws in therising, young gangster killing the old leader to take over the mob from A Better Tomorrow (John Woo, 1986) (here played by Anthony Wong and Kwan Hui-sang respectively).

Hard Boiled opens with a spectacular tea house shoot out where Insp. ‘Tequila’ Yuen (Chow) accidentally shoots his partner (just as Leung, who turns out to be an undercover cop, mistakenly shoots a fellow officer during the later hospital shoot out).… Read the rest