Tag: kidnap

One Piece Film: Red
(One Piece Film: Red)

Post author By Jeremy Clarke
Post date 1 November 2022
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(One Piece Film: Red)
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Director – Goro Taniguchi – 2022 – Japan – Cert. 12a – 115m

***1/2

A girl who wants to sing to the world and usher in an era of happiness has been possessed by a dark power which has other plans – out in UK cinemas on Friday, November 4th (IMAX, subbed), Saturday, November 5th (dubbed)

A female voice promises “a great genesis of happiness for all”. There is great anticipation at the prospect of the beloved singer Uta performing live for the first time. Like her “genesis of happiness” sound bite, this teenager’s songs are full of phrases that sound superficially attractive but, for anyone pausing for a moment to think about them, are pure, contentless fluff. As she belts out phrases like, “you can’t stop magic” to adoring multitudes that revere all this like some utopian manifesto (which perhaps is already implied by the name Uta) and the rather more cynical pirate section of the audience (for this is a world in which pirates operate) plan to kidnap her and make a pile of money, a teenager throws an organic looking rope-like extension which attaches itself to a spot near her as if it were as grappling hook and allows it to pull within a few feet of her, to the annoyance of the pirates whose plan it disrupts.… Read the rest

Tags 2D animation, animation, anime, childhood friends, demon, friends, Goro Taniguchi, Japan, kidnap, manifesto, music, musical score, occult, One Piece, performance, pirates, singer, utopia

Features Live Action Movies

Detective Chinatown 3
(Tang Ren
Jie Tan An 3,
唐人街探案3)

Post author By Jeremy Clarke
Post date 24 January 2022
No Comments on Detective Chinatown 3
(Tang Ren
Jie Tan An 3,
唐人街探案3)

Director – Chen Sicheng – 2021 – China – Cert. 15 – 136m

****

The Chinese franchise’s super-sleuth and bumbling sidekick join forces with their Japanese and Thai counterparts in Japan – out in cinemas on Tuesday, January 25th and 26th only

No sooner have the brilliant crime-solving sleuth Qin Feng (Liu Haoran) and his likeable if barely competent sidekick Tang Ren (Wang Baoqiang) flown in to Tokyo and met their contact there, the sharp and colourful Hiroshi Noda (Satoshi Tsumabuki), than they find themselves embroiled in one of the most seriously bonkers action sequences in the movies in recent years when members of (at least) two gangs suddenly attack in the airport to the inspired accompaniment of the pop song ‘Welcome To Tokyo’ (which gets rolled out again for a cheerful, cast of thousands, song and dance routine accompanying the end credits). Extensive mayhem ensures. A man rolls down a long flight of steps in an oil drum. Two groups of smartly uniformed and skirted women do battle (one group in red, one in blue – stewardesses from rival airlines, perhaps?). Workmen in hard hats and overalls descend from scaffolding to join the melee.

Knowing this will be an impossible act to follow, the film then throws in a pursuer Jack Jaa (Thai martial arts sensation Tony Jaa from Ong-bak, Prachya Pinkaew, 2003) on the Tokyo subway before having the trio flee him on go-karts while he comes unstoppably and hilariously after them by stealing a child’s bicycle with tiny wheels.… Read the rest

Features Live Action Movies

Black Medicine

Director – Colum Eastwood – 2021 – Ireland – Cert. 15 – 90m

*****

A black market Belfast anaesthetist finds herself crossing people it would be unwise to cross – this edge-of-the-seat thriller is out on digital platforms on Monday, July 12th

Jo (Antonia Campbell-Hughes from Bright Star, Jane Campion, 2009; Albert Nobbs, Roderigo Garcia, 2011; Kelly + Victor, Kieran Evans, 2012; Storage 24, Johannes Roberts, 2012; The Canal, Ivan Cavanagh, 2014;) drives her car up the levels of a Belfast multi-storey car park. At the top, she gets out and contemplates the drop to the street below. She smokes to calm her nerves. She drops the cigarette, watching it fall the several storeys. She contemplates climbing the railings. A woman and child come out of a door and walk along a wall. Jo backs off.

By this point, I’m completely hooked. Who is this woman? What is going on? The genius of this movie is that having gripped the viewer from the get-go, it never relaxes for the rest of its entire 90 minute running length. (Also, a minor carp: why is the car number plate PIA 1? That’s a wee bit too showy.)

Then Stevie (Lalor Roddy from Robot Overlords, Jon Wright, 2014) phones.… Read the rest

Features Live Action Movies

Voice Of Silence
(Sorido Eopsi,
소리도 없이)

Post author By Jeremy Clarke
Post date 8 July 2021
No Comments on Voice Of Silence
(Sorido Eopsi,
소리도 없이)

Director – Hong Eui-jung – 2020 – South Korea – Cert. 15 – 99m

****

Things go from bad to worse for a mute forced to look after an 11-year-old girl for her kidnapper when the latter disappears in this ostensible crime drama – screened as a teaser screening for the London Korean Film Festival

From its opening this appears a crime film, but somewhere along the line, while remaining a crime film about two men involved in executing a kidnap who are increasingly out of their depth, it turns into…well, it’s hard to say. A drama? A comedy? One of those films like The House Of Us (Yoon Ge-eun, 2019) where the children seem far more important than the adults?

Chang-bok (Yoo Jae-myung) and Tae-in (Yoo Ah-in from Burning, Lee Chang-dong, 2018; Default, Choi Kook-Hee, 2018) drive their lorry into town to sell their eggs to anyone who’ll buy. Then the pair dress for their other job. In cagoules. To project their clothing from the blood. They work as a clean-up crew for gangsters – putting protective sheeting on the floor, cleaning up the mess afterwards. Not, however, the actual dirty work of killing, of which they keep well clear.… Read the rest

Documentary Features Live Action Movies

The Lovers
And The Despot

Post author By Jeremy Clarke
Post date 2 September 2016
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And The Despot

Directors – Ross Adam, Robert Cannan – 2016 – UK – Cert. PG – 98m

Jeremy Clarke on a story too crazy to be anything but true…

This documentary concerns a South Korean film director and his leading actress, kidnapped by North Korean leader Kim Jong-Il for the purpose of beefing up that country’s film industry – an incredible story that may be familiar from the earlier book on the subject, A Kim Jong-Il Production.

Actress Choi Eun-hee met director Shin Sang-ok on his 1955 film Dream. They became a celebrity couple working together on numerous films and raising a family until she discovered he had fathered two more children with a younger actress. The couple’s seeming fairytale romance disintegrated into divorce. Shin’s production company was in financial trouble and his wife began looking elsewhere for film projects.

In 1978, Choi took a trip from South Korea to Hong Kong to meet a producer and discuss a possible production. She never returned. A few months later, ex-husband Shin followed her trail. He too disappeared…