Tag: assassination

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Documentary Features Live Action Movies

Cyborg
A Documentary

Director – Carey Born – 2023 – Germany, Spain, UK – Cert. 12a – 87m

***1/2

Cyborg artist Neil Harbisson, unable to see in colour, has had an antenna implanted in his head to hear colours instead – out in UK cinemas on Friday, September 20th

This opens with a title sequence of weird, psychedelic images of what appears to be moving coloured liquids forming strange, never to be repeated natural patterns. If that implies a striking visual sensibility, that’s deceptive, since this documentary follows a fairly straightforward structure of following people around with cameras and talking to them as it introduces us to cyber artist Neil Harbisson and his artist partner Moon Ribas.

Neil stands out from other people because he has an antenna protruding from the back of his head to dangle in front of his forehead. He was born with the unusual condition of achromatism, which means that he sees not in colour but in monochrome. (Less severe, more common forms of colour blindness include the inability to differentiate between green and red.) This came to light in his childhood when the family got a new colour TV, and he and his sister would watch cartoons. At this point, the film throws in a clip of the children’s sci-fi cartoon series Robotrix (John Gibbs, Terry Lennon, 1985).… Read the rest

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Features Live Action Movies

Cadejo Blanco

Director – Justin Lerner – 2023 – Guatemala, US, Mexico – Cert. 15 – 125m

*****

A young woman infiltrates a drugs gang in order to find out what happened to her elder sister, who never came back from a night out – out in UK cinemas on and on demand Friday, August 23rd

This opens with a deceptively simple sequence of two young women getting ready to go out for an evening. The older one, who apparently goes out a lot, and we’ll later learn is called Bea (newcomer Pamela Martínez), is pressurising the younger one Sarita (Karen Martínez from The Golden Dream, Diego Quemada-Diez, 2014), who has never been out to a club before. They might be flatmates, but as the scene plays out, it emerges that they are sisters. Bea helps Sarita dress up.

While this may sound banal, it’s shot in a long take, and there’s something utterly compelling about it. Perhaps it’s the script, which appears to do everything it needs to with no flab or wastage. Perhaps it’s the casting: you absolutely come to believe these two are sisters (as far as I can tell, despite having the same surname and looking quite similar, the two actresses are not real life sisters).… Read the rest

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Features Live Action Movies

Lust, Caution
(Se, Jie,
色, 戒)

Director – Ang Lee – 2007 – China, Taiwan, US – Cert. 18 – 158m

*****

A Chinese student joins an assassination plot against a high-up Japanese collaborator, for which she must sleep with him – originally published in Third Way, to coincide with 4th January 2008 UK cinema release.

Some will consider this erotic espionage thriller a no-go area, while others will want to see it for its director. Mandarin Chinese language outing Lust, Caution is based on a short story which highly regarded Chinese author Eileen Chang spent decades honing. Taiwanese-American director Ang Lee (award winner for both Brokeback Mountain, 2005, and Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon, 2000) claims he hasn’t so much adapted Chang’s tale as, in collaboration with his cast, re-enacted it. Given her story concerns the activity of a troupe of actors, perhaps this isn’t so surprising.

Shanghai 1942. Mrs Mak, waiting for a rendezvous in a café, is not who she appears. She recalls how in China 1938 she was shy Wong Chia Chi (Tang Wei) who as a university student got involved with a drama group to encourage patriotism under Kuang Yu Min (Wang Leehom). Acting before an enraptured audience, she realises she has found her métier.… Read the rest

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Features Live Action Movies

Ashes And Diamonds
(Popiół I Diament)

Director – Andrzej Wajda – 1958 – Poland – Cert. 12 – 103m

*****

Two resistance fighters attempt to assassinate a Communist Party official on the last day of the Second World War – plays at the Phoenix Cinema East Finchley in conjunction with the Kinoteka Polish Film Festival at 18:00 on Sunday, March 19th, also on Blu-ray as part of Wajda’s War Trilogy

Made over a decade after not only the historical setting for the events it depicts in 1945 but also the Jerzy Andrzejewski novel on which it is based which was written in 1947 and published in 1948, this condenses that novel’s two weeks into a mere – 24 hours the last day of the Second World War and the evening and night of the victory celebrations that follow plus the subsequent early dawn.

The war is over and the Nazis defeated, but Poland still finds itself the subject of conflict as opposing factions vie for power. On the one hand is the official Party trying to get everything working again and on the other members of the resistance determined to stop them.

The older Andrzej (Adam Pawlikowski) and the younger Maciek (Zbigniew Cybulski) carry out an ordered assassination on Szczuka (Waclaw Zastrzeżyński).… Read the rest

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Hunt
(Heon-teu,
헌트)

Director – Lee Jung-jae – 2022 – South Korea – Cert. – 121m

****1/2

Two top KCIA operatives, each heading up his own department, both come to believe that the North Korean mole they are hunting is the other – out in cinemas Friday, November 4th; opened the London East Asia Film Festival (LEAFF) as part of a strand of films celebrating actor Lee Jung-jae (Squid Game) which ran in cinemas from Wednesday, October 19th to Sunday, October 30th

Two Korean intelligence men are sitting in a car. One asks the other riddles.

What’s a war in space? Star Wars.

What’s a war in winter? Cold War.

What’s a neverending war? Korean War.

A little background history will add to your enjoyment of this fictional thriller set against the backdrop of actual historical events.

In 1979, a South Korean coup d’état established the country’s fourth dictatorship since WW2. In 1980, with martial law declared, the Gwangju Uprising saw a battle between the military and ordinary citizens in the town of Gwangju in which at least 200 civilians were killed. In 1987, student protests lead to the overthrow of the Fifth Republic Of South Korea (1981-87) and free elections.… Read the rest

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Features Live Action Movies

Fantastic Beasts:
The Secrets
Of Dumbledore

Director – David Yates – 2022 – UK – Cert. 12a – 142m

***

In the 1930s, Newt Scamander, Albus Dumbledore and others attempt to prevent the despotic wizard Grindlewald from seizing power in a wizard’s election in J.K. Rowling’s third Fantastic Beasts movie – out in cinemas on Friday, April 8th

It’s difficult to know where to start with the third of J.K. Rowling’s self-penned Fantastic Beasts productions. A plethora of characters who apart from a few main ones quickly get confusing, some genuinely fantastic beasts as you would hope and some truly great underlying ideas poorly served by a narrative that doesn’t seem to understand basic storytelling in cinema. Perhaps if I’d immersed myself in all the books and films and whatever else is out there, it would make more sense (and no doubt this is what much of the dedicated fan audience will do), but as a standalone film, even one that’s a part of an ongoing saga, it makes little sense, although certain sequences are terrific.

The big ideas here are built around a creature called a Qilin (pronounced chillin) – a beast borrowed from Chinese and Far Eastern mythology – specifically an orphaned newborn Qilin that looks a lot like a golden version of Bambi, a resemblance underscored by the fate meted out to its mother in the opening reel.… Read the rest

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Features Live Action Movies

Get The Hell Out
(Tao Chu Li
Fa Yuan,
逃出立法院)

Director – Wang I-Fan – 2020 – Taiwan – 96m

**1/2

The Taiwanese Parliament must contain a zombie outbreak caused by a rabies outbreak at a chemical plant (!) – playing in the UK as part of the Chinese Visual Festival which runs until Sunday, July 25th

Hsiung Ying Ying (Megan Lai) got into the Taiwanese Parliament as an MP to fight gangster politician Li Kuo-Chung (Chung-Huang Wang) over an environmentally unfriendly chemical plant where she lives which she wants to shut down. And now it’s spawned a rabies outbreak which infected the President on an official visit. Things are already pretty heated in the Parliament building when the President goes full zombie and the infection spreads rapidly throughout the large meeting room which is promptly sealed with those people inside.

In a six months earlier flashback, the hot-tempered Ying Ying gets into a fight with a security guard Wang You-wei (Bruce Ho) on the premises while the media’s cameras are present. As a result, she is forced to resign and a by-election held. Wishing to retain the power of an MP, she persuades the basically honest but naive Wang who is secretly in love with her to stand as her ‘puppet’ to support her fight against the plant.… Read the rest

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The Man Standing Next
(Namsanui Bujangdeul,
남산의 부장들)

Director – Woo Min-ho – 2020 – South Korea – Cert. 15 – 113m

****

The head of the Korean CIA becomes increasingly sidelined by President Park and decides to assassinate him – in Virtual Cinemas including Curzon Home Cinema from Friday, 25th June and on Digital Download from Monday, July 5th

Adapted from a novel, part historical truth, part guesswork and invented fiction, this is the story of Kim Gyu-Peong (Lee Byung-hun from The Fortress, Hwang Dong-hyuk, 2017; The Age Of Shadows, 2016; I Saw The Devil, 2010; The Good, The Bad And The Weird, 2008; A Bittersweet Life, 2005, all by Kim Jee-woon, and Joint Security Area, Park Chan-wook, 2000), the last director of the Korean Central Intelligence Agency (KCIA) under President Park Chung-hee ( Lee Sung-min from The Good, The Bad And The Weird, 2008) who was in power in South Korea between leading a coup and winning the subsequent elections in 1963 and his assassination by Kim in 1979. Confusingly, a second character bears the same surname as the President, Kim’s predecessor at the KCIA Park Yong-gak (Kwak Do-won from The Wailing, Na Hng-jin, 2016).

It starts off in 1979 with Kim entering the presidential safe house and vowing to the gate security detail that the president “dies tonight”.… Read the rest

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Documentary Features Live Action Movies

The Dissident

Jamal Khashoggi and Hatice Cengiz

Spiritual wickedness

The Dissident
Directed by Bryan Fogel
Certificate 12 (Amazon advisory), 119 minutes
Released on Amazon Prime Video in the UK and Ireland from April 1st 2021

On 2 October 2018, the Washington Post journalist Jamal Khashoggi entered the Saudi consulate in Turkey to obtain a marriage licence. He never came out. It later transpired that Khashoggi had been murdered on the premises by Saudi officials and his body dismembered, taken away and disposed of.

This fast-paced and frankly mind-boggling documentary examines a good deal more than the murder…[read more]

Full review in Reform magazine.

See my alternate, longer review on this site.

Trailer:

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Animation Documentary Features Live Action Movies

The Dissident

Jamal Khashoggi

Director – Bryan Fogel – 2020 – UK – Cert. 15 – 119m

*****

An investigation into the state-sanctioned killing of Washington Post journalist Jamal Khashoggi in the Saudi Consulate in Turkey in 2018 – on Amazon Prime from Thursday, April 1st

If you had to use a single phrase to describe this documentary, it would be “jaw-dropping”. The central subject here is the disappearance of Saudi-born Washington Post journalist Jamal Khashoggi who on October 2nd 2018 entered the Saudi consulate in Turkey to obtain a document and was never seen again.

There are a number of narrative strands: the career of a Saudi exile Omar Abdulaziz Alzahrani in Montreal, Canada who Khashoggi befriended, a brief history of the Saudi regime focusing in particular on the last decade, Khashoggi’s ongoing romance with young Turkish political researcher Hadice Cengiz who he planned to marry and the story of what actually went on inside the consulate recounted by the Turkish prosecutor Irfan Fidan.

Jamal Khashoggi and Hatice Cengiz

It’s jaw-dropping because it delivers one devastating revelation after another. The idea of entering your country’s consulate to collect a document and not leaving alive is horrific enough, but there are numerous other, equally chilling disclosures here.… Read the rest