Category: Features

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Features Live Action Movies

The Marines
Who Never Returned
(Doraoji
Anneun Haebyong,
돌아오지 않는 해병)

Director – Lee Man-hee – 1963 – South Korea – 110m

***1/2

A small unit of Korean soldiers pushing North in the Korean War adopt an orphaned girl as a mascot before being all but wiped out – plays in Echoes In Time | Korean Films of the Golden Age and New Cinema which runs from Monday, October 28th until the end of 2024 at BFI Southbank

This opens impressively with what looks like stock footage of armoured cars and infantry coming up a beach. Soldiers race across open ground to a safe shooting position, briefly going back a couple of dozen or so feet to drag two of their wounded comrades forward into comparative safety.

They move on to a derelict, war-torn town. Burning buildings, half-collapsed sections of walls (one of which partially topples as they wait momentarily beside it). One soldier advances across a patch of open ground, gun in hands, grenade at the ready, watched by his expectant comrades from their positions of cover. Time seems to stand still. Eventually he lobs the grenade and the others move up behind him. He drops into a ditch. Ahead of him, a civilian woman comes onto the waste ground with her small daughter.… Read the rest

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Features Live Action Movies

Nowhere to Hide
(Injeong Sajeong
Bol Geot Eobtda,
인정사정 볼 것 없다)

Director – Lee Myung-se – 1999 – South Korea – Cert. 15 – 100m, 113m

***1/2

A cop determinedly pursues a gangland killer in a city where, since he committed the murder for which he is bing hunted, it always appears to be heavily raining – plays in Echoes In Time | Korean Films of the Golden Age and New Cinema which runs from Monday, October 28th until the end of 2024 at BFI Southbank

Effectively a four-hander – an impulsive detective, his partner on the force, a ruthless killer gangster and his long-suffering girlfriend. Like a slobbish, South Korean version of Chow Yun-fat without the charm, Park Joong-Hung is the Oriental action movie homage-named Inspector Woo, who before the titles have rolled has pursued a black-clad gang into an underground train for a machete fight, shot in stylish, bleached black and white for no apparent reason.

The ground is covered in Autumn leaves, recalling The Conformist (Bernardo Bertolucci, 1970). The downtown location of public stairway 40 Steps has a schoolgirl look up and see it begin to rain, the torrential downpour continuing for the two months and more of the remainder of the narrative. A man leaves his car to ascend the steps; halfway up, he approaches another man (Song Young-chang) and kills him, even as the victim stretches out his hand in a futile attempt to keep his murderer’s knife at bay.… Read the rest

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Features Live Action Movies

A Woman Judge
(Yeopansa,
여판사)

Director – Hong Eun-won – 1962 – South Korea – 87m

***

A woman becomes a judge at a time when the idea of women in such professions is unheard of – plays in Echoes In Time | Korean Films of the Golden Age and New Cinema which runs from Monday, October 28th until the end of 2024 at BFI Southbank – from the London Korean Film Festival 2019

Heo Jin-suk (Moon Jeong-suk from Aimless Bullet, Yu Hyun-mok, 1961; The Devil’s Stairway, Lee Man-hee, 1964) wants to be a judge, traditionally a male profession. Her childhood sweetheart Wan Dong-hoon (Park Am from Promise of the Flesh, Kim Ki-young, 1975; The March of Fools, Ha Gil-jong, 1975) always assumed they were destined to be married. He too has entered the professions, in his case as a doctor. That’s okay for him, being a man, but for her, he thinks it will conflict with her duties as a wife and mother. So she dumps him. 

This looks like being a mistake since, on some level, his motives are pure. Instead, she ends up married to Chae Gye-sik (Kim Seok-hun) – not so much because of the man but because his social climber father, CEO of Sangyeon Construction Chae Sung-jin (Kim Seung-ho) thinks marrying off his son to one of the first female judges would be a really good idea, not least since it might put him in a useful position to be able easily bribe a member of the judiciary. … Read the rest

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Features Live Action Movies

Stuntman
(Mou Tai Do,
武替道)

Directors – Albert & Herbart Leung – 2024 – Hong Kong – Cert. 15 – 114m

****

20 years after a stuntman on his team was hospitalisedwhen a stunt went wrong, an action choreographer takes on his first stunt job since the tragic incident – plays in Competition at the 2024 London East Asia Film Festival (LEAFF) which runs from Wednesday, October 23rd to Sunday, November 3rd

This opens with a terrific cops and robbers fight in a shopping mall at the top of an escalator bearing remarkable resemblance to (and just as exciting as) the one towards the end of Police Story (Jackie Chan, 1985). However, while this might be an obvious homage to that film specifically and 1980s Hong Kong action cinema generally, it’s far from a mere attempt to retread the same ground: we suddenly cut from the cops and robbers scenario to reveal a film crew of that period shooting an action movie.

There is a particularly dangerous stunt coming up. A (stunt)man must jump off a bridge onto a lorry as it passes below, with a car immediately behind. (Again, this is remarkably similar to the stunt in Police Story II (Jackie Chan, 1988) where Chan leaps off a balcony onto a lorry passing in the street.)… Read the rest

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Features Live Action Movies

Terminator 2
Judgement Day

Director – James Cameron – 1991 – US – Cert. 15 – 127m

*****

A second Terminator is sent from the future to kill the future leader of the war against the machines – 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

In the 1984 original, a Terminator robot (Arnold Schwarznegger) is sent back in time to kill Sarah Connor (Linda Hamilton), the mother-to-be of the leader of the war in the future against the machines, who are exterminating humanity.

This sequel sees a more advanced T-1000 robot (Robert Patrick) sent back in time to kill Sarah’s now-ten-year-old son John (Ed Furlong). Another Terminator (Schwarzengger) is also running around in the present (i.e. 1991).

Sarah’s recurring nightmare pictures the coming apocalypse when the machines unleash nuclear missiles on humanity. That aside, this is basically an essay on mothers and sons – and fathers and sons – wrapped up in the best chase movie you’ve ever seen.

What makes the film work is the mother and son element. Sarah is a believer in Terminators, the coming war against the machines, and humanity’s fightback in a world where such beliefs are dismissed as delusions.… Read the rest

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Features Live Action Movies

Terminator 2
Judgement Day
3D

Director – James Cameron – 1991 (3D version 2017) – US – Cert. 15 – 127m

*****

A second Terminator is sent from the future to kill the future leader of the war against the machines – remastered 3D version of James Cameron’s classic is out in UK cinemas from Tuesday, August 29th 2017

Painstakingly remastered in 3D, this plays as well in its current rerelease as it did back in 1991. In the 1984 original, a Terminator robot (Arnold Schwarznegger) is sent back in time to kill Sarah Connor (Linda Hamilton), the mother-to-be of the leader of the war in the future against the machines, who are exterminating humanity.

This sequel sees a more advanced T-1000 robot (Robert Patrick) sent back in time to kill Sarah’s now-ten-year-old son John (Ed Furlong). Another Terminator (Schwarzengger) is also running around in the present (i.e. 1991).

Sarah’s recurring nightmare pictures the coming apocalypse when the machines unleash nuclear missiles on humanity. That aside, this is basically an essay on mothers and sons – and fathers and sons – wrapped up in the best chase movie you’ve ever seen.

Unlike the 3D conversion of the same director’s Titanic (1997) which proved 3D to be a greatly improved, astonishing revelation, the improvements afforded T2 by 3D are comparatively minor (though they’re peerlessly executed).… Read the rest

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Animation Features Movies

Watership Down
(new 4K restoration)

Directed by Martin Rosen
Certificate PG
92 minutes
Released 25 October

Reviewed for Reform magazine.

Now fully restored in a new 4K restoration, this 1978 tale of rabbits on the run proved that an animated film need be neither made by Disney nor sugar-coated for children. Watership Down, although a children’s film, came from the producer of the Oscar-winning DH Lawrence adaptation Women in Love (1969), Martin Rosen. He ended up directing it too.

A prologue details the relationship between the creator-god Frith – represented as the sun – and rabbitkind. As with most creation myths outside the Judeo-Christian, there’s quite a bit of sex and violence. The rabbits breed furiously; hitherto non-carnivorous animals are given teeth to keep the rabbit numbers down. The rabbits are given powerful hind legs to outrun their predators.

Having established rabbits as intelligent creatures possessing a mythology and a world view, the main story… [Read the rest at Reform magazine]

[Read my alternative, longer review for this site.]

Trailer:

Categories
Animation Features Movies

Rebellious

Director – Alex Tsitsilin – 2023 – UK, Cyprus – Cert. PG – 94m

***

Her true love must rescue the princess before three rival princes after a dragon abducts her on behalf of an evil wizard – fairy tale animation is out in UK cinemas on Friday, October 25th

A dad reads his small daughter a bedtime story, a fairytale about a kingdom where an evil dragon carries off innocent princesses, sometimes as they are about to be married. I’d never stand for that, intones young Mina (voice: Alyson Leigh Rosenfeld), who is herself a princess, and her father a king (voice: David Wills).

Jump forward to her as a young woman hanging out with architecture graduate boyfriend Ronan (voice: Dan Edwards), despite the fact that her more traditional father thinks she ought to marry a foreign prince for political reasons. As Ronan points out, he can handle all the design stuff like strategy, construction and weaponry while she is better at hands on combat, so they make a good pair to rule the kingdom.

There are three princely candidates in the offing: strong but brutish Eastern European Rogdai (voice: Matt Giroveanu), vain Indian ladies’ man Kezabor (voice: Pete Zarustica), and overeating, obese, Oriental Fa Chan (voice: Brian Kim) who is in thrall to his Mommy Dearest (voice: Jennifer Sun Bell).… Read the rest

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Features Live Action Movies

Escape
(Talju,
탈주)

Director – Lee Jong-Pil – 2024 – South Korea – LEAFF Cert. 18 – 94m

*****

An army sergeant is caught attempting to escape from North to South Korea, but then a second chance presents itself – played as the Opening Gala at the 2024 London East Asia Film Festival (LEAFF) which runs from Wednesday, October 23rd to Sunday, November 3rd

North Korea. Sgt. Lim Kyu-nam (Lee Je-hoon) is stationed at the edge of the Korean Demilitarized Zone (DMZ) separating North from South Korea, a smart but frustrated soldier who knows he’s never going to rise up the chain of command riddled as it is with nepotism and privilege. Nights, when the rest of his unit is asleep, and inspired by his treasured book of the explorer Edmund Amundsen, he sneaks out of the barracks to map a section of the minefield in the DMZ.

His plan is to escape through that minefield and reach South Korea to defect before the monsoon arrives in four days time and the water moves all the mines around, making his map useless. Then he learns that the bad weather is coming two days earlier than expected. So he must move the date of his escape forward.… Read the rest

Categories
Features Live Action Movies

Yes, Madam!
(Huang Jia Shi Jie,
皇家师姐)

Director – Corey Yuen – 1985 – Hong Kong – Cert. 18 – 93m

***1/2

Michelle Yeoh and Cynthia Rothrock’s star debut, in which they play two plain-clothes, kickboxing Hong Kong cops – on Blu-ray from Monday, December 12th 2002 and now part of Art of Action, a major UK-wide season celebrating the artistry of real action choreography at cinemas across the UK from Monday, October 21st through November 2024

Michelle Yeoh, here credited as Michelle Kheng (in her early Hong Kong films she was often credited as Michelle Khan, and her birth nameis Yeoh Choo Kheng) plays Inspector Ng, a no-nonsense police officer who always gets her man (and, interestingly, all the criminals here are men), as illustrated in the opening scene when a flasher accosts her in a convenience store, and she promptly arrests him.

Her mentor Richard Nornen (Michael Harry, later seen in An Angel at my Table, Jane Campion, 1990) is visited in his hotel room by professional assassin Mr. Dik (Dick Wei) who shoots him point-blank through an apple in Nornen’s mouth in order to obtain a two-frame film clip of a legal contract for his gangster boss Tin Wai-keung (James Tien).… Read the rest