Tag: military

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Features Live Action Movies

Blades of the Guardians
Wind Rises in the Desert
(Biao Ren
Feng Qi Da Mo,
镖人
风起大漠)

Director – Yuen Woo-Ping – 2026 – China – Cert. 15 – 126m

*****

In ancient China, a bounty hunter with his small nephew in tow must transport a man across a desert to Chang’an – out in UK and Ireland cinemas on Friday, April 17th

The synopsis opening this review might make it sound like a bad film. It’s not. Humour me.

China’s Sui Dynasty (581 to 618 AD). Bounty hunter Dau Ma (Wu Jing from Ride On, Larry Yang, 2023; The Battle at Lake Changjin, Chen Kaige, Dante Lam, Tsui Hark, 2021; The Wandering Earth, Frant Gwo, 2019; Wolf Warrior, Wu Jing, 2015) travels with his small nephew Xiao Qi (Qianlang Ju) in tow. At an incident at a village inn he demonstrates his considerable fighting skill against a mark and his thugs to force the man to pay Dau Ma triple the price on his head to leave him alone.

Dau Ma is summoned before the town’s Governor Chang (Jet Li from Hero, Zhang Yimou, 2002; Black Mask, Daniel Lee, 1996); Once Upon a Time in China, Tsui Hark, 1991), who wants him to sign on to train Chang’s cavalry – an offer Dau refuses because as an ex-cavalry officer he has long since decided he is better off outside than inside the military system.… Read the rest

Categories
Animation Features Movies

Akira
(アキラ)
4K
(IMAX)

Director – Katsuhiro Otomo – 1988 – Japan – Cert. 15 – 124m

*****

Manga artist turned director Katsuhiro Otomo’s cyberpunk classic returns to the big screen – back in over 350+ UK and Ireland cinemas, plus every IMAX screen from Friday, April 17th!

When Akira first appeared in the UK at the start of the nineties, Disney was busy reinventing the animated cartoon as a platform for the Broadway musical (Beauty And The Beast, Gary Trousdale, Kirk Wise, 1991; The Lion King, Rob Minkoff, Roger Allers, 1994) and there were debates about whether comics (or ‘graphic novels’) could be created for adults as well as kids.

As so often in technology and media, Japan was ahead of the game. Otomo had published his long-running comic book or manga Akira in 1982 and turned it into a feature six years later, challenging widely held Western notions of what animation was. You could make SF in movies (Voyage To The Moon, Georges Méliès, 1902) and you could make serious SF (2001, Stanley Kubrick, 1968), but animation was strictly for kids, at least in the English-speaking mainstream, and that as what Disney did.… Read the rest

Categories
Animation Features Movies

All You Need is Kill
(Oru Yu Nido izu Kiru)

Directors – Kenichiro Akimoto, Yukinori Yakamura – 2025 – Japan – Cert. 15 – 86m

***1/2

A woman trapped in a repeating time loop dies fighting alien plant monsters, joins forces with a man in a similar time loop – animated science fiction tale is out in UK cinemas on Friday, February 27th

This began as a science fiction novel first published in Japan in 2004. Ten years later, as is the way of things in Japan, it appeared as a manga. It also formed the basis of the Tom Cruise / Emily Blunt vehicle Edge of Tomorrow (Doug Liman, 2014). The novel is about a cowardly military man killed in a skirmish with unexpected invading aliens who wakes up and realises he’s reliving that first day of the alien invasion. He gets killed over and over again, and wakes up and relives the same day over and over again. Similarly trapped in a time loop is a brave military woman fighting the aliens. It’s a military hardware alien action movie using the looped repeating day structure of Groundhog Day (Harold Ramis, 1993).

While I recommend the 2014 movie, and have no issue mentioning it in terms of contextualising the new film, I also recommend you put it firmly to one side and don’t try and base whatever expectations you might have about the new film on it.… Read the rest

Categories
Features Live Action Movies

Silver Apricot
(Eunbitsalgu,
서울독립영화제)

Director – Jang Man-min – 2024 – South Korea – Cert. 12 – 121m

***1/2

A Seoul woman in need of funds to buy a condo returns to her childhood coastal town to get the alimony payments her estranged father never stumped up – from LKFF, the London Korean Film Festival 2025 which runs in cinemas from Wednesday, November 5th to Tuesday, November 18th

Tormented by dreams set at night in which sometimes she herself and sometimes people she knows are vampires preying on others, which inspires her to draw a webtoon series, 32-year-old Kim Jung-seo (Na Ae-jin) has moved to Seoul and bought into the corporate dream, agreeing to split the cost of a condo, the right to buy for which she won on a lottery, with her fiancé Park Gyeong-hyun (Kang Bong-seong).

The only problem is, she has just been refused a permanent position at the graphic design company which employs her, so doesn’t have the money. So she resolves to visit her estranged father and pick up the alimony he never paid her mother Choi Mi-yeong (Park Hyun-sook) after their divorce. Jung-seo regularly visits the latter, who also lives in Seoul, whereas it’s been years since she was in the coastal town where her father lives with his new family.… Read the rest

Categories
Documentary Features Live Action Movies

2000 Meters to Andriivka

Director – Mstyslav Chernov – 2025 – Ukraine – Cert. 15 – 107m

****

A small Ukrainian Army unit advances through a narrow strip of war-scarred forest to recapture a village from the occupying Russians – documentary from the makers of 20 Days in Mariupol is out in UK and Irish cinemas on Friday, August 1st

Set in the 2023 Ukrainain offensive to take back land occupied by the Russians in the East of Ukraine, this covers the advance of a small, Ukrainian army unit, the 3rd Assault Brigade, on the country’s Russian-occupied village of Adriivka, located on the outskirts of the town of Bahkmut. Given that the latter is two hours away from Kharkiv, the hometown of director Mstyslav Chernov (20 Days in Mariupol, 2023), the location has a clear personal significance for him. He and his Associated Press colleague Alex Babenko take their camera with the unit on their mission.

The soldiers are all equipped with helmet cams, giving the filmmakers additional material to play with. Such technology is unimaginable as recently as 25 years ago. One might argue that war has changed little, that it’s still much the same, horrible phenomenon it always has been. The advent of the cam, however, means that an audience can watch the viewpoint of a war participant up close and personal.… Read the rest

Categories
Animation Features Movies

Chang’an
(Chang’an San Wan Li,
长安三万里,
lit. 3 000 Miles from Chang’an)

Directors – Xie Junwei, Zou Jing – 2023 – China – Cert. 12a – 168m

****

General Gao Shi of the Tang dynasty recounts his life, his struggle to become a poet and his friendship with Li Bai, a more renowned poet – animated epic is out in UK cinemas on Friday, February 28th

Set roughly halfway through the Tang dynasty (618-907 A.D.), this lengthy, animated epic starts off like an historical war movie in the vein of the live action Red Cliff (John Woo, 2008, 2009) but swiftly morphs into something else entirely as this initial narrative about the capture and interrogation of an enemy soldier turns into a frame story – which is rather more than that, popping up repeatedly throughout the narrative with the frame story’s resolution taking centre stage towards the end of the proceedings. Even this is deceptive; while military strategy and conflict is covered, the narrative is far less interested in that than in the overall life of main protagonist and minor poet Gao Shi, his meetings and friendship through the years with secondary character and major poet Li Bai, and the wider poetry of the period.

Believing himself about to be punished for the failure of his well planned and fought military campaign against the Tubos (the Tibetans, their ethnic identity never clarified within the film itself – at least, not in the English subtitles, presumably because the film is aimed at a Chinese audience who would already know this ethnic, historical; background), the ageing General Gao Shi (voice: Wu Junquan) falls neck first on his spear before receiving the Emperor’s emissary who wants to question him, it turns out, about not his military campaign but, rather, Li Bai.… Read the rest

Categories
Features Live Action Movies

Broken Arrow
(1996)

Director – John Woo – 1996 – US – Cert. 15 – 108m

***

Woo’s second US outing pits Christian Slater against nuclear stealth bomber co-pilot turned bad John Travolta in the Arizona desert – part of Art of Action, a major UK-wide season celebrating the artistry of real action choreography at cinemas across the UK October-November 2024

The first project to see the light of day from WCG Entertainment, whose initials stand for Woo Chang Godsick. This triumvirate of names belongs to respectively the director of A Better Tomorrow (1986), The Killer (1989), and Hard Boiled (1992), his longstanding Hong Kong producer Terence Chang, and former agent Christopher Godsick – whose William Morris client list had included Woo himself and the director’s onscreen alter-ego Chow Yun‑fat.

Like his earlier successful action blockbuster Speed (Jan de Bont, 1991), Graham Yost’s script was initially written for producer Mark Gordon. After Woo’s more modestly budgeted US debut Hard Target (1993) was followed by disappointing setbacks on other American projects; Yost’s screenplay was exactly the entry into the US blockbuster market Woo needed. While the resultant film may be ultimately less satisfying than Woo’s best work, it quickly established him as a top Hollywood A-list director.… Read the rest

Categories
Art Features Live Action Movies

Nobody Likes Me
(Nikdo Mne Nemá Rád)

Directors – Petr Kazda, Tomáš Weinreb – 2024 – Czechia, Slovakia, France – 105m
*****

The female gaze. An introvert woman finds love in an unlikely place where, it turns out, there are catches – premieres in the Critics’ Picks Competition of the 28th Tallinn Black Nights Film Festival

A figure stands in interior darkness. Watching. She moves forward. She lies down on the bed. She sits up. She makes and eats a simple breakfast. She stands on a moving tram; the brown autumn leaves behind her. At her desk, wearing her military uniform, Sarah (Rebeka Poláková) details to the Commander his itinerary for the day, and fields requests from others for his attention. She seems content in her work.

One evening, Sarah sees a woman across the street in physical difficulty. Perhaps she should help but, frozen on the spot, she stares. The woman starts to throw up – presumably she’s had too much to drink. A man appears from nowhere and comes to the woman’s aid. Sarah can’t take her eyes off him. The female gaze. He looks back at her. She looks back at him.

She gets on well with her dad, a doctor, who she regularly visits at his surgery for health check-ups.… Read the rest

Categories
Features Live Action Movies

Dreaming of Lions
(Sonhar com Leões)

Director – Paolo Marinou-Blanco – 2024 – Portugal, Brazil, Spain – 85m

****

A woman diagnosed with terminal cancer signs up with a corporate programme allegedly aimed at helping people in her situation to humanely end their own lives – premieres in the Critics’ Picks Competition of the 28th Tallinn Black Nights Film Festival

“Chemo never worked. So I decided to beat the fucker to the punch.” Thus says Gilda (Denise Fraga) at the start of this tale about voluntary euthanasia. Gilda has cancer and a year and a half left to live. She exasperates her husband when he hilariously stumbles into the bathroom as she’s trying to shoot herself in the head, both of them winding up in hospital as a result.

She is determined to kill herself. If she does nothing, the condition will take its course and the end of the process won’t be pleasant. In the hospital, she picks up a leaflet of a company which might provide some help for those considering voluntary euthanasia. So Gildagoes for an interview with Joy Transition International and finds herself facing a panel of three: Isa (Joana Rebeiro), Eva (Sandra Faleiro), and Bruno (Alexander Tuji Nam).

Isa has her mouth fixed in a somewhat ingratiating, permanently lipstick-painted smile.… Read the rest

Categories
Features Live Action Movies

The Woman King

Director – Gina Prince-Bythewood – 2022 – US – Cert. 15 – 135m

****

The warrior women of Dahomey defend their people against capture by neighbouring nations for the white foreigners’ slave trade – plays as part of Art of Action, a major UK-wide season celebrating the artistry of real action choreography at cinemas across the UK October-November 2024

Outside of the Greek myth of the Amazons, we don’t really think of armies as being made up of women rather than men prior to the last few decades, yet historically this actually occurred in a West African country, the Kingdom of Dahomey (further info: National Geographic; wikipedia) between the middle of the seventeenth and the end of the nineteenth centuries. These warrior women are the subject of this film which takes place in 1823.

A prologue shows a small unit of the women in action under their General Nansica (an unforgettable Viola Davis) as they attack and slaughter a unit of (male) soldiers from the neighbouring Oyo kingdom who have invaded one of their villages. These women are fearsome indeed and fly in the face of the representational norms of female or military.

After this compelling, action-packed opening, the narrative shifts to follow rebellious, young Dahomey girl Nawi (Thusu Mbedo) whose traditionalist father attempts to marry her off to an older man.… Read the rest