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Animation Art Immersive Movies Shorts

Water Body

Water Body

Artists / Directors – Barney Steel, Ersin Han Ersin, Robin McNicholas – 2026 – UK – 25m

*****

A sensory experience centred around a moving image of the Thames as part of the global water network based on data sets – installation at St. Martin-in-the-Fields crypt 12:30-21:00 hours from Saturday, October 3rd to Sunday, October 18th as part of the London Film Festival’s LFF Expanded strand

A little waiting area shows a series of hand-crafted hangings by artist Elena Landinez showing various river tributaries before you enter the experience space proper. Before entering that space, you are alerted to the fact that the experience includes a total blackout section, also that there are pottery vessels handmade by ceramicist Ludmilla Balkis inside the space for you to take containing water that was cloud some two weeks ago, from which you can drink. Seating is mostly bean bags on the floor, and a single row of conventional seating at the back.

So I’m sitting on a seat at the back – or is it the back? – not really knowing what to expect. The lights go down: total blackout. All around me, sounds. (These started, I think, before the blackout, as if little rivulets of water were running somewhere.)… Read the rest

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Dance Features Live Action Movies Music

Take It or Leave It
starring Madness

Take It or Leave It, starring Madness

Director – Dave Robinson – 1981 – UK – Cert. 12a – 86m

*****

Struggling with their day jobs, some friends get together and form a band, which becomes the ascendant ska / dance band Madness – previews on Wednesday, September 30th, out in cinemas in the UK on Thursday, October 1st, and on Blu-ray from Monday, October 19th

The band Madness occupy a unique place in British pop music history. They first appeared In the brief space following the punk and new wave movements of the late 1970s which embodied the idea that anyone could learn to play a musical instrument from scratch and any group of people could put together a band. It was very much a DIY aesthetic.

What Madness had is different, however. Like the title of their debut album One Step Beyond and its iconic cover photograph capturing the seven band members one pressed behind the other walking forward in a synchronised movement, they embodied, as their promotional catchphrase would have it, “that nutty sound”.

Very much a dance band, albeit one unlike any previous combo that had coined that term, they built their songs on ska rhythms and incorporated saxophones into the overall sound.… Read the rest

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Features Live Action Movies

A Better Tomorrow II
(Yingxiong Bense 2,
英雄本色2)

A Better Tomorrow II (Yingxiong Bense 2, 英雄本色2)

Director – John Woo – 1987 – Hong Kong – Cert. 18 – 105m – Workprint cut 140m

The first half **

The second half *****

Workprint cut *****

To continue the franchise, Chow Yun-fat returns playing the brother of his character in the first film, a New York restaurateur – 4K Restoration is out on 4K UHD and Blu-ray from Monday, 28th September

There’s something hugely endearing when Chow Yun-fat appears here, playing the brother of his character in the first film, insisting his name is not Mark but Ken. Nevertheless, he has on hand his late brother’s coat, with a few holes from bullets, to don in the closing scenes. Mark can’t possibly return having died at the end of the first film, and yet, to all intents and purposes, he’s back for this sequel!

The film as it appeared in release prints feels like little more than an excuse to have another big shoot out with Chow Yun-fat and others at the end, and you can feel Woo struggling as he tries to find a way of getting there without completely losing interest.

(Update: for struggling read; struggling with the editing required to get the film down to 105 minutes for cinema release.… Read the rest

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Features Live Action Movies

A Better Tomorrow
(Yingxiong Bense,
英雄本色)

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 is out on 4K UHD and Blu-ray from Monday, 28th September

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

Categories
Features Live Action Movies

Colony
(Gunche,
군체)

Colony

Director – Yeon Sang-ho – 2026 – South Korea – Cert. 15 – 123m

*****

A scientist wreaks revenge on his former corporation in a bioterrorist attack which turns its victims into zombies – out on 4K UHD, Blu-ray and Digital on Monday, 28th September

Inside the Doongwoori building, CEO of the Chains Bio corporation Kang Woo-chul (Kim Jong Tae) gives a speech about mass communication via networks. Her ex-husband Professor Han Kyu-seong (Go Soo) urges Professor Kwon Se-jeong (Gianna Jun) to speak to CEO Kang following his speech, but Kang is called away for a phone call regarding one Suh Young-chul and a possible bioterrorist attack.

Encouraged to find Kang and leave her card, Kwon witnesses him assault another man behind the frosted glass walls of his office. That other man is the aforementioned Suh Young-chul (Koo Kyo-hwan), who fights back, injecting Kang with a serum which makes him vomit, writhe and turn into a zombie. Pretty soon, Kang is biting others, giving rise to a local zombie outbreak.

Despite witnessing the initial stages of the assault, Kwon is unaware of the injection and everything that follows, stopping at a cafe with her ex to quiz him as to why he left her.… Read the rest

Categories
Features Live Action Movies

Hope
(Hopeu,
호프)

Hope (Hopeu, 호프)

Director – Na Hong-jin – 2026 – South Korea – Cert. 15 – 160m

*****

A cop and various groups of hunters track then confront a monster wreaking havoc in a small town and the woodlands nearby – out in UK cinemas on Friday, September 25th

Patrolling local cop Bum-seok (Hwang Jung-min from Deliver Us From Evil, Hong Won-chan, 2020; The Wailing, Na Hong-jin, 2016; New World, Park Hoon-jung, 2013; Shiri, Kang Je-Gyu, 1999) and his second cousin Sung-ki (Zo In-sung from Escape From Mogadishu, Ryu Seung-wan, 2021; A Dirty Carnival, Yoo Ha, 2006) arrive at the scene of a tragedy where four men are waiting. Further down the road, initially in the distance and later seen in close up like so much in this film, lies the slaughtered bull, huge slashes on its flank.

The slashes are too big to have been made by a bear. One of the men suggests it’s the tiger that comes down from Siberia every few years. The men head to the woods where the tiger has been spotted. The cop’s route takes him into a nearby town of Hope Harbor, where huge holes in shop fronts suggest the presence of a creature much bigger than a tiger.… Read the rest

Categories
Documentary Features Live Action Movies

Palimpsest
The story of a name
(隱蹟之書：重寫自我)

Palimpsest: The story of a name (隱蹟之書：重寫自我)

Director – Mary Stephen – 2025 – France – Cert. – 108m

*****

Exploring her family history, Hong Kong-born Mary Stephen delves into the mystery behind her surname being British rather than Chinese – plays at the Barbican as is the opening film of the UK’s Hong Kong Film Festival which runs from Friday, September 25th to Sunday, 4th October at various venues

The director narrates her film in the first person, talking about the fact of her father’s name being Henry Stephen on his birth certificate, while her mother retained her Chinese name on the document. Mary Stephen herself was born in Hong Kong in 1953, the same year as Queen Elizabeth II’s coronation in Britain. Archive images of Hong Kong from that year show a strange dislocation, with images of the new English monarch jostling side by side with Chinese words on buildings. A British built clock tower looks strangely out of place.

She worked for years with celebrated New Wave director Eric Rohmer as his editor. His name, too, was a palimpsest.

Her father died and was buried in Canada in 1979, alongside her mother. When the family first moved there, she was a teenager.… Read the rest

Categories
Features Live Action Movies

Heart of the Beast

Heart of the Beast

Director – David Ayer – 2026 – US – Cert. 12a – 100m

*****

A heart attack and his plane’s crash landing force a pilot and his dog to cross the Alaskan wilderness on foot – out in UK cinemas on Wednesday, September 23rd

In a framing device that opens and closes the narrative, a woman (Anna Lambe) is driving her car along a road in Alaska in the middle of nowhere. She is forced to stop by a dog standing facing towards her in the middle of the road. As if it were trying to tell her something…

Some days earlier, retired, special forces soldier James Belmont (Brad Pitt) and his former combat dog Odin are travelling around Alaska by Cessna seaplane. They land on an unspoiled lake. Odin has a prosthetic leg. They pitch tent on the beach, then go exploring in the nearby woods where they are surprised to run across another human being.

There shouldn’t be anyone else around these parts, and the suspicious James reverts to combat mode, deploying his gun in readiness. However, the stranger (J.K. Simmons) turns out to be friendly, simply another person enjoying the solitude of the place, who tells them he’s pitched his own tent next to theirs.… Read the rest

Categories
Features Live Action Movies

Babystar
(Babystar)

Babystar (Babystar)

Director – Joscha Bongard – 2025 – Germany – Cert. 12a – 98m

*****

A social media influencer family suffers upset when the teenage daughter discovers her parents plan a second child – out in UK cinemas on Friday, September 25th

Parents and teenagers. Fraught at the best of times. More so than most for 16-year old Luca (Maja Bons) whose social media influencer mother Stella (Bea Brocks) and father Chris (Liliom Lewald) have exploited their family life on various social media channels and done very well out of it financially. Materially, the family has it all – a stylish house with a swimming pool and all and any goods they could possibly want. This applies to Luca too, but where her mother climbed up to this high social position from poverty, Luca has lived the lifestyle of the rich and famous ever since she was born. She has never known anything else. And as well as the family’s our_bright_life online channel, she herself has her own channel.

As if this situation wasn’t already a potential powder keg waiting to blow sky high in her teenage years, her parents drop a bombshell on her. How would she like a new brother or sister?… Read the rest

Categories
Features Live Action Movies

Deadline
(自殺通告)
(2025)

Deadline (自殺通告) (2025)

Director – Kiwi Chow – 2025 – Hong Kong, Taiwan, UK – Cert. 15 tbc – 118m

****

A secondary school focused on maximising exam results is upset by pending suicide and use of performance-enhancing drugs – plays as part of the UK’s Hong Kong Film Festival which runs from Friday, September 25th to Sunday, 4th October at various venues

The students of En-Shan Secondary School, clad in distinctive uniforms of purple shirt with militaristic shoulder boards and dark grey tie, perform aggressive workout moves as they chant their school litany extolling hard work leading to success. Principal Kung (Anthony Wong Chau Sang from Infernal Affairs, Andrew Lau, Alan Mak,2002; Hard Boiled, John Woo, 1992; My Name Ain’t Suzie, Angie Chen, 1985 – this latter showing in this year’s HKFF) encourages them in the idea that present suffering leads to later success.

The ubiquitous iSmart system contains a database of vocabulary the students must master to game the exam system; its latest 2.3 iteration uses eye-tracking software to record how much time the pupil is taking in direct eye contact with the teacher. It makes the surveillance technology of Happyend (Neo Sora, 2024) sound amateurish by comparison, even if, overall, Deadline is the more satisfying viewing experience.… Read the rest