gate Archives - Jeremy C. Processing

Director – Chris Andrews – 2024 – Ireland – Cert. 15 – 105m

A feud between two neighbouring, Irish sheep farmers is made worse by toxic masculinity on both sides– out in UK and Ireland cinemas on Friday, February 7th

Two women in a car are being driven down an isolated country road. The older one, Peggy (Susan Lynch), is in the passenger seat talking to the unseen driver about why she’s finally leaving his father. The younger one Catherine (Nora-Jane Noone) sits horrified in the back seat as the driver reacts to the conversation by going faster and faster. The older one repeatedly and with increasing urgency shouts at the driver, “Mikey, slow down.” Eventually, there is a crash. Catherine’s face is disfigured. Peggy doesn’t survive.

The car crash opening is hardly new to the movies, gracing films as diverse as thrillers Dead Calm (Philip Noyce, 1989) and The Descent (Neil Marshall, 2005), and children’s drama Fly Away Home (Carroll Ballard, 1996). The scene is used differently here, with the crash caused by wilfully bad driving, in turn caused by the driver’s emotional immaturity, which signals the intention of the piece, most of the narrative of which takes place some years later.… Read the rest

Breakout Brothers
(To Yuk Hing Dai,
逃獄兄弟)

Director – Mak Ho-pong – 2020 – Hong Kong – 12 (Camden Council) – 90m

****

Three prison inmates attempt to escape so that they can attend to various pressing, personal issues– online in the UK as part of Focus Hong Kong 2022 Making Waves from Friday, July 8th to Sunday, July 10^th

The generic side of Hong Kong movies (kung fu, supernatural, swordplay, gangster, horror, comedy) has long been one of the strengths of that territory’s film production. This one has already spawned two sequels (Breakout Brothers 2, 2021 and Breakout Brothers 3, 2022, both Mak Ho-pong). In essence, it’s deceptively simple: three inmates in prison attempt to break out. This is hardly an original concept, however two elements makes it different.

One, it’s conceived and shot as a caper movie. It’s not really a comedy, but it most definitely has a lightweight feel. This is brilliantly established from the get-go with the introduction of the score by Pong Chow and Noel Li, which follows a long tradition of themes in caper movies and TV series typified by Mission: Impossible (composed by Lalo Schifrin, 1966) with its driving yet off-kilter bass-line. In Breakout Brothers, this is accompanied by a striking, graphic,opening title sequence as good as that for Collectors (Park Jung Bae, 2020), the difference here being that Breakout Brothers lives up to the promise of its superlative title sequence whereas Collectors doesn’t.… Read the rest