Tag: gangster

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Features Live Action Movies

The Killer
(Dip Huet
Seung Hung,
喋血雙雄)

Director – John Woo – 1989 – Hong Kong – Cert. 18 – 110m

*****

Having accidentally blinded a nightclub singer in a hit, a gunman takes on one last job to fund the operation to restore her eyesight – 4K Restoration plays as part of Bullets and Brotherhood: the Films of John Woo at BFI Southbank from Friday, 3rd July to Friday, 31st July

Following the success of A Better Tomorrow (1986), this secured John Woo the international interest that would eventually bring Hollywood offers. Woo further distils A Better Tomorrow’s themes of brotherhood, loyalty and betrayal through the device of a cop first facing off against and subsequently bonding with the assassin he’s pursuing; many consider The Killer Woo’s finest achievement.

Professional assassin Ah Jong (Chow Yun-fat) accidentally blinds nightclub singer Jennie (Sally Yeh) with a stray bullet in a hit to become the focus of his guilt. Detective Li Ying (Danny Lee) is trying to catch him.

The backdrop is already familiar Woo and Hong Kong gangster genre territory – triad hits and betrayals, working cops misunderstood by their superiors. The action set pieces rank among the director’s finest: the opening night club slaying, the Dragon Boat Festival hit followed by the fight on the beach, car chases and multi-storey car park shoot outs, all topped by the brilliantly choreographed and seemingly endless final shoot out wherein killer and cop join forces in a church surrounded by unfriendly gangsters.… Read the rest

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Features Live Action Movies

A Better Tomorrow
(Yingxiong Bense,
英雄本色)

Director – John Woo – 1986 – Hong Kong – Cert. 18 – 94m

*****

The seminal gangster movie that crystallised John Woo’s now-trademark style of brotherhood, bullets and blood and catapulted Chow Yun Fat to Oriental, big screen stardom – 4K Restoration plays as part of Bullets and Brotherhood: The Films of John Woo at BFI Southbank from Friday, 3rd July to Friday, 31st July 2026

After a decade directing comedies and kung fu movies (many for Golden Harvest), Woo’s last two films had been box office flops when producer Tsui Hark gave him the opportunity to make A Better Tomorrow, loosely based at least in plot and character terms on the gritty The Story of a Discharged Prisoner / Yingxiong Bense (Kong Lung, 1967).

Hong Kong’s cinema owners had no problems with two of the three proposed leading men – Ti Lung (from Drunken Master II, Liu Chia-Liang, 1994; Shaolin Temple, Chang Cheh, Wu Ma, 1976) had achieved great success in director Chang Cheh’s martial arts epics at Shaw Brothers (Woo had worked as assistant to Chang early in his career) and Leslie Cheung (from Happy Together, Wong Kar-wai, 1997; Once a Thief, John Woo, 1991; A Chinese Ghost Story, Tsui Hark, 1987) was a successful singer – but Tsui and Woo had to fight hard for third lead Chow Yun Fat, a big TV star lacking any box office clout.… Read the rest

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Animation Features Movies Music

The Obsessed
(Toritsukare Otoko,
トリツカレ男,
lit. Obsessed Man)

Director – Wataru Takahashi – 2025 – Japan – Cert. PG tbc – 90m

*****

An obsessive becomes fixated on a woman he sees in a park – sweet, romantic drama plays in the Annecy International Animation Festival 2026 which runs from Sunday, 21st June to Saturday 27th June

Giuseppe (voice: Masaya Sano) becomes obsessed with things. It’s just the way he is. His current obsession is singing. So obsessed that he messes up at work. His restaurant boss is basically a good guy who has tried over the years to look out for his employee as he has become obsessed with, in turn, insects, or ice hockey, or sunglasses. Sometimes his patience is stretched to the limit.

One day, he meets a mouse,(voice: Hayato Kakizawa), befriends him, names him Cielo, and invites the little guy into his home. One past obsession was learning languages – Giuseppe chalked up about 15 and picks up mouse language fairly easily. The mouse worries about Giuseppe, whose flights of fancy mean he’s not a particularly grounded individual.

Another day, walking in the park, Giuseppe sees a pretty girl selling balloons, and she becomes his new object of obsession. He spends days in despair as he can’t find her anywhere.… Read the rest

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Features Live Action Movies

Kung Fu Hustle
(Kung Fu,
功夫)

Director – Stephen Chow Sing Chi – 2004 – China – Cert. 15 – 99m

*****

Set in the 1940s, this is at once a comedy, a romance, an effects fest, an action movie, a violent gangster thriller and a treatise on Buddhist values – out in UK cinemas on Friday, June 24th, 2005

An hilarious treat from start to finish, Kung Fu Hustle foregrounds Hong Kong’s ability to bend genres. At once a comedy, a romance, an effects fest, an action movie, a violent gangster thriller and a treatise on Buddhist values, it also manages to throw in a hugely enjoyable, first reel dance sequence and a speeded up chase sequence reminiscent of Warner Bros. classic Roadrunner cartoon shorts (Chuck Jones, 1949-1962) and The Wizard Of Speed And Time (Mike Jittlov, 1988). Which summary doesn’t even begin to do it justice.

Columbia gave director/star Stephen Chow Sing Chi a mega-budget for Kung Fu Hustle but have commendably neither pruned nor dubbed as Miramax (Disney) did on his previous outing Shaolin Soccer (Stephen Chow, 2001). Chow’s extraordinary vision is thus allowed full rein in his native Cantonese tongue to side-splitting effect.

The 1940’s plot involves landlord, landlady and tenants of down and out Pig Sty Alley confronted by the fearsome Axe Gang after low life hustler and loose cannon Sing (Chow) turns up there and throws his weight around pretending to be a Gang member.… Read the rest

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Features Live Action Movies

Resurrection
(Kuangye Shidai,
狂野时代,
lit. Wild Times)

Director – Bi Gan – 2025 – China – Cert. 15 – 160m

****

An authority figure pursues a Deliriant – a man who escapes the authorities and his own social responsibilities by dreaming – through a period of a hundred years – out in UK cinemas on Friday, March 13th

This opens with a long series of intertitles about people discovering that the secret to eternal life is to stop dreaming. Rebels who refuse to do this are known as Deliriants, and they cause all manner of disruption to wider society. Then, the celluloid image catches fire…

revealing people watching stupified from the cinema stalls only to be rushed out by a truncheon-wielding policeman as music plays in the manner of a silent film. A lady photographer (Shu Qi from The Assassin, Hou Hsaio-hsien, 2015; The Transporter, Louis LeTerrier, Corey Yuen, 2002; Millennium Mambo, Hou Hsaio-Hsien, 2001) appears to take a picture of the unseen projector (where we, the audience, are sitting).

The intertitles continue. One Deliriant (Jackson Yee from The Battle at Lake Changjin II: Water Gate Bridge, Tsui Hark, 2022; The Battle at Lake Changjin, Chen Kaige, Dante Lam, Tsui Hark, 2021) has been forgotten because he’s hiding in an ancient, distant past – that is film.… Read the rest

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Features Live Action Movies

The Bride!

Director – Maggie Gyllenhaal – 2026 – US – Cert. 15 – 126m

**

In 1930s Chicago, Frankenstein’s monster seeks love and companionship, so a dead girl, possessed by the spirit of Mary Shelley, is reanimated as his Bride – out in UK cinemas on Friday, March 6th

Stuck for eons in a black and white limbo, having died of brain cancer after writing the novel Frankenstein – perhaps the novel was part of a brain tumour – and feeling that she’d not managed to say within it what she needed to say, the departed spirit of Mary Shelley (Jessie Buckley from Hamnet, Chloe Zhao, 2025; The Lost Daughter, Maggie Gyllenhaal, 2021; Misbehaviour, Phillippa Lowthorpe, 2020) observes the world of the living, in colour, and enters it to take possession of a living woman in 1930s Chicago through whom she intends to say what still needs to be said. She picks the fearless and vivacious Ida (Buckley again) in the orbit of ruthless gangster Lupino (Zlatko Burić from Superman, James Gunn, 2025; Triangle of Sadness, Ruben Östlund, 2022; Pusher, Nicolas Winding Refn, 1996).

Being fed one oyster too many in a nightclub, Ida wilfully throws up over one of Lupino’s men.… Read the rest

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Features Live Action Movies

China Sea
(Kinų Jūra)

Director – Jurgis Matulevičius – 2025 – Lithuania, Taiwan, Poland, Czechia – 96m

*****

A former champion kickboxer whose career has been destroyed by his poor anger management attempts to find direction in life – premieres in the Critics’ Picks Competition of the 29th Tallinn Black Nights Film Festival

World champion kickboxer Osvald Gurevicious (Marius Rapsys) has it all, but unfortunately is a bit too full of himself, accidentally clobbering a woman who is standing in the wrong place during a bar room brawl. We see him at the height of his success, playing an opponent in a tournament in Japan, but we never see the incident which destroys his career. Instead, he goes on TV back in Lithuania explaining that it was all a terrible accident which he regrets, but sadly that doesn’t seem to cut any ice.

Discussing the situation with his coach (Marius Misiūnas), he resolves to make the best of the situation by opening his own gym; his coach, however, isn’t sure that Osvald has what it takes and suggests he work at the gym as an assistant to see if he has a feel for coaching. Among Osvald’s new kickboxing charges is the promising Angelika (Samantha Drilingate), who he helps to learn how to defend herself in the ring when she comes in one day with a massive torso bruise from a bar fight that got out of hand.… Read the rest

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Features Live Action Movies

Break Up The Chain
(Soesaseul-euld
Kkeunh-eola,
쇠사슬을 끊어라)

Director – Lee Man Hee – 1971 – South Korea – Cert. tbc – 98m

***1/2

Three Koreans each with dubious motiveshunt for a small statue of Buddha containing the names of anti-Japanese resistance fighters – from LKFF, the London Korean Film Festival 2025 which runs in cinemas from Wednesday, November 5th to Tuesday, November 18th

Much like the statue containing the microfilm sought by the characters of North by Northwest (Alfred Hitchcock, 1959), a small statue of Buddha holds the names of anti-Japanese resistance fighters and is similarly desired by Break Up The Chain’s protagonists. Not that this Lee Man Hee late career offering is in quite the same league as Hitch’s espionage romp, even if its dialogue does from time to time refer to drama and performance in much the same way, particularly in the opening ten minutes.

Otherwise, though, it’s a very different animal: essentially, three male protagonists chasing a MacGuffin. Cheol Su (Namkoong Won from Cheongnyeo, Lee Man Hee, 1975; Insect Woman, Kim Ki-young, 1972), is an outlaw, Tae Ho (Huh Jang-gang from Eunuch, Shin Sang-ok, 1968), a gangster and Dal Gun (Jang Dong-hwi from The Marines Who Never Returned, Lee Man Hee, 1963), a spy for the Japanese.… Read the rest

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Features Live Action Movies

Alone in the Night
(Yoru ga Mata Kuru,
夜がまた来る)

Director – Takashi Ishii – 1994 – Japan – Cert. 18 – 108m

****1/2

After her undercover cop husband is killed by a gang, Nami infiltrates the gang and suffers much abuse as she attempts to identify and take her revenge on his killer – out on Blu-ray as part of the Takashi Ishii: 4 Tales of Nami limited edition digipack set (2000 copies) 

A compelling yet initially indecipherable image is slowly revealed, as we pull out, to be a pink marker pen colouring the handle of a black pistol in the hands of a girl wearing the pyjama top of the man against the side of whose bed she is sitting. He, it turns out, is Mitsuru (Toshiyuki Nagashima from Godzilla Against Mechagodzilla, Miyagawa, 2002; Godzilla vs. Biollante, Seiichi Yamamoto, 1989; Mishima: A Life in Four Chapters, Paul Schrader, 1985), an undercover cop; she is Nami (Yui Natsukawa from I Wish, Hirokazu Kore-eda, 2011; Still Walking, Hirokazu Kore-eda, 2008; Zatoichi: The Blind Swordsman, Takeshi Kitano, 2003), and she’s fed up with his lack of contact while he’s on the job. As they embrace, she pleads with him, “Don’t do it!… Read the rest

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Animation Features Movies

The Bad Guys 2

Director – Pierre Perifel Co-Director JP Sans – 2025 – US – Cert. PG – 104m

****

A criminal gang of animals led by a wolf mastermind attempts to go straight but are extorted into doing one last job – animated feature sequel is out in UK cinemas on Friday, July 25th

Like its predecessor, The Bad Guys 2 manages to successfully parody the meanness and violence of the gangster movie genre in a children’s animated film without any of the meanness and violence normally associated with that genre. You might wonder where you could go with what is essentially a sequel to five bad guys turning from bad to good. This skilfully implements its answer: introduce a rival gang, as bad as the original protagonists, who force our reformed heroes into that old gangster movie trope: they want to go straight, but before they can get there they have to do one last job. 

Here’s the twist. The Bad Guys, like most gangsters, are (mostly) male.  Their new rivals, The Bad Girls, are all female.

Thus, the eponymous, anthropomorphised animal gang Mr Wolf (voice: Sam Rockwell from (Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri, Martin McDonagh, 2017; Seven Psychopaths, Martin McDonagh, 2012; Lawn Dogs, John Duigan, 1997) the leader of the pack, Mr.… Read the rest