Tag: fraud

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Features Live Action Movies

Twilight Cinema Blues
(Ginpei-cho Cinema Blues,
銀平町シネマブルース)

Director – Hideo Jojo – 2022 – Japan – 99m

*****

Two homeless men find a new spiritual home at a run-down, local cinema which, like them, is struggling to survive – plays UK cinemas in the Japan Foundation Touring Film Programme 2024 between Friday, 2nd February and Sunday, 31st March

Down on his luck in his home town of Ginpei-cho, Takeshi Kondo (Keisuke Koide fromShin Godzilla, Hideaki Anno, Shinji Higuchi, 2016) is napping by the riverside in daylight. Along comes another tramp Sato (Shohei Uno from A Far Shore, Masaaki Kudo, 2022; 37 Seconds, Hikari, 2019) to sell him a flier for money and, when Kondo is distracted by the arrival of his old friend Kumika, to steal his bag. After Kondo tracks Sato down and retrieves his bag – “sorry, it’s a habit”, says Sato – the two tramps respond to an ad claiming it can help them play the system and receive welfare payments. Sadly, the people behind the scheme will turn out to be, as a fellow tramp vocally suspects, crooks with a whole other moneymaking agenda.

Kondo attends welfare-claiming training sessions with Sato, but his heart isn’t in it.… Read the rest

Categories
Features Live Action Movies

The Goldfinger
(Jin Shouzhi,
金手指)

Director – Felix Chong – 2023 – Hong Kong – Cert. 15 – 126m

*****

Director Felix Chong reunites his two Infernal Affairs stars for a lavish, if frequently incomprehensible, 1980s tale of cops and robbers, corruption and fraud – out in cinemas in the UK on Friday, January 5th 2024.

The experience of watching The Goldfinger is a lot like watching the classic Hollywood private eye movie The Big Sleep (Howard Hawks, 1946). There, you know that the hero is investigating a string of murders, and the narrative is completely engrossing, even for the viewer watching the film for the umpteenth time, yet it’s also impenetrable and incomprehensible. And so it is with The Goldfinger, which is based not on a novel but on a real life financial scandal.

Real life Hong Kong conglomerate The Carrian Group, founded in 1977 by one George Tan, expanded rapidly and made huge profits until it was declared bankrupt in 1983. The whole operation turned out to be mired in fraud. In the film, set in the late 1970s / early 1980s, the central character Ching (Tony Leung Chiu-wai) is modelled on Tan, starting off penniless but wearing suits that look like a million dollars and blessed with an understanding of what’s required to gain people’s confidence, secure deals and make money.… Read the rest

Categories
Features Live Action Movies

No More Bets
(孤注一掷,
Gu Zhu Yi Zhi)

Director – Shen Ao – 2022 – China – Cert. 15 – 129m

***

A rising star computer programmer and a dropped model are lured into working as forced labour for a fraudulent, foreign online gambling operation – out in UK cinemas on Friday, September 8th

Zhao Dongran (Yong Mei), the knowledgeable head of a well-equipped Chinese police team fighting internet fraud, gives a lecture in which she outlines the story of a top flight programmer lured into the shady world of gambling beyond China’s borders.

The talented Pan Sheng (Lay Zhang), after being passed over for a promotion in favour of a not-especially talented young relative of the boss, opts for his safety net – a job offer from a company in Singapore. Along with a number of other recruits, he boards the plane with company rep Cui (Sunny Sun from The Crossing, Bai Xue, 2018), who is in charge of them, but in Singapore the deal rapidly turns sour when in an alleyway the group are rounded up by thugs with baseball bats to be transported to the corporate compound which amounts to a slave labour camp from which Lu (Eric Wang) runs an online gambling company which is in fact a scam defrauding millions of people, many of them in China.… Read the rest

Categories
Features Live Action Movies

Three Floors
(Tre Piani)

Director – Nanni Moretti – 2021 – Italy – Cert. 18 – 117m

***1/2

Various personal crises beset three families occupying the separate floors of a three storeyapartment block – out in cinemas on Friday, March 18th

This drama is based around the lives of three families, the occupants of three floors of a three storey residential block in Rome. On the ground floor is a couple with a young daughter, on the first is a woman whose husband is frequently away on business, on the top are are married couple who are also judges.

In the course of its narrative it runs through in greater or lesser detail the subjects of birth, drink-driving, dementia, child sex abuse, seduction, jealousy, financial fraud, and flight from the law. It divides neatly into three sections, each five years apart, by means of two ‘Five Years Later’ titles. Most of the story’s surprises occur in the first section, with the two later sections providing time for the consequences of these events to be explored in the long run.

It adapts a novel that was originally set in Tel Aviv, here moving the action to Rome.

Frames from “Tre Piani” . Director Nanni Moretti DOP Michele D’Attanasio

It is (to say the least) a challenging film to review – or for that matter to sell – without ruining it in advance for audiences, containing, as it does, a number of major plot twists which completely redefine what happens afterwards, one of them occurring in the opening minutes.… Read the rest

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Animation Movies Shorts

The Story
Of Mr. Nanguo
(Nan Guo
Xian Shen,
南郭先生)

Directors – Qian Jiaxin, Wang Borong – 1981 – China – Cert. N/C U – 18m

*****

A man pretends to be a musician in order to profit from the high wages paid to the king’s court pipe players in the Qi period – available to rent online in the UK & Ireland as part of the Shanghai Animation Film Studio Retro in the Chinese Cinema Season 2021 from Friday, February 12th to Wednesday, May 12th

Two thousand years ago in the Qi period, the King of Qi is dissatisfied with the court entertainment and demands a grand ensemble of 300 pipe players. Invitations go out throughout the land and one finds its way to hustler Mr. Nanguo who dumps his current cockfighting venture to muscle in on the well paid musicians’ gig. 

At an audition, he impresses with impromptu juggling and claims he can play the pipe. Playing before the king, he is the one person unable to play the tune with the others. First he covers for himself by shooing away some cranes for making the wrong noise, then he stuff beans into his pipes so that no sound will come out when he plays. 

Alas, a bean dislodges and goes down the neck of the player in front.… Read the rest

Categories
Features Live Action Movies

The Cheaters

Director – Paulette McDonagh – 1930 – Australia – 95m
***1/2

A criminal gang leader’s lifelong vow for revenge threatens the future happiness of his daughter in this beautifully restored and presented Australian silent -– free to watch on BFI Player as part of the BFI London Film Festival 2020 from 13.00 hrs Sunday, October 11th to 13.00 hrs Wednesday, October 14th

The first thing to say about this film is that it looks in remarkably good nick by any standards. Judging by the restoration trailer, this is an amazing testimony to today’s technology. Much of the footage before had deteriorated to near unwatchable. After the process, it looks fantastic.

As for the silent side of things, the current presentation on BFI Player shows the film windowboxed as you’d expect but then also the keyboard accompanist in locked off shot, keyboards and hands only, also windowboxed in a comparatively tiny image at the bottom left. This proves extremely effective and provides an excellent model for both future online screenings of silents and presentation on home video media such as Blu-ray or DVD.

The film medium has come a long way since 1929, so this film begs the question, is it any good?… Read the rest