Tag: cage

Categories
Animation Features Movies

Watership Down
(new 4K restoration)

Director – Martin Rosen – 1978 – UK – Cert. PG – 92m

*****

When a young rabbit visionary foresees doom for those who remain, some of the rabbits leave their warren in search of a safer home, encountering many life-threatening perils along the way – new 4K restoration of animated feature is out in UK cinemas on Friday, October 25th, following its World Premiere in the London Film Festival on Saturday, October 12th

LFF: Sat 12 Oct 12:20 World Premiere, Tues 15 Oct 12:15,
both BFI Southbank NFT1.

This opens with a mythological segment involving a powerful God, represented as the sun, and rabbitkind, specifically the archetypal rabbit El-ahrairah. It’s drawn and painted in an arresting, non-naturalistic style involving coloured lines animated against a white background to create the impression of moving, primitive drawings, due in large part to uncredited director John Hubley, whose vision for the film was at odds with that of producer Martin Rosen. The latter ended up firing the former as he wanted something grittier and less lightweight.

It’s arguable this has worked to the film’s advantage: the fable sequence works as otherworldly rabbit mythology, suggesting a race of intelligent creatures capable of constructing creation myths about their species much as human beings do.… Read the rest

Categories
Animation Features Movies

Dragonkeeper
(Gardiana de Dragones)

Director – Li Jianping, Salvador Simó – 2023 – Spain, China – Cert. PG – 98m

****

Faced by powerful forces of empire and a ruthless traitor, a girl must accompany an old dragon to ensure the survival of its egg – out in UK cinemas on Friday, September 27th

Ancient China. As revealed in a voice-over and an ancient, panoramic, wall-hanging scroll, the empire of the humans united with the dragons to successfully defeat necromancy. But then, the Emperor turned on the dragons, hunting them.

A long time after these events have occurred, a hard-nosed trader Master Lan (voice in the English language version: Tony Jayawardena) and his wallas are receiving some goods at a trading post when they stumble upon an abandoned baby girl. One of the wallas notices strange, blue-lit rocks floating near the baby. The group take the girl back across mountain ranges and vast plains to their small town.

Around eight years later, Ping (voice: Mayalinee Griffith) is living in that town, in the care of an old lady Lao Ma (voice: Sarah Lam), and feeding her pet rat Hua Hua (non-dialogue voice: Jonathan David Mellors) who lives in a hole in a storehouse and often goes with her in her jacket or any container or bag she might be carrying.… Read the rest

Categories
Features Live Action Movies

Black Dog
(Gou Zhen,
狗阵)

Director – Guan Hu – 2023 – China – Cert. 12a – 106m

***1/2

An ex-con returns to his home town, which is infested with wild dogs, and befriends a stray – out in UK and Ireland cinemas on Friday, August 30th

Looking down from the edge of a slope towards Gobi Desert scrubland. In the distance, a coach moving along a road. Suddenly, a large pack of wild dogs come out of nowhere and charge down the slope. The startled bus topples over. The dogs are gone, the driver is getting everyone out of the bus. A man complains that his money, his life savings, have gone. He needs that money. Who has taken it? They are about ten miles from Chixia. One of those on the bus is Lang’s son. The police are called, they arrive and help get the bus back upright. Lang Yonghui (Eddie Peng), as required, shows an officer his parole ID. Lang walks behind the slow moving bus as the police escort the coach to Chixia.

As an announcement warns of a black dog seen around the town that may well be carrying rabies, Lang is strip searched at the station while the other passengers wait to be interviewed.… Read the rest

Categories
Features Live Action Movies

No More Bets
(孤注一掷,
Gu Zhu Yi Zhi)

Director – Shen Ao – 2022 – China – Cert. 15 – 129m

***

A rising star computer programmer and a dropped model are lured into working as forced labour for a fraudulent, foreign online gambling operation – out in UK cinemas on Friday, September 8th

Zhao Dongran (Yong Mei), the knowledgeable head of a well-equipped Chinese police team fighting internet fraud, gives a lecture in which she outlines the story of a top flight programmer lured into the shady world of gambling beyond China’s borders.

The talented Pan Sheng (Lay Zhang), after being passed over for a promotion in favour of a not-especially talented young relative of the boss, opts for his safety net – a job offer from a company in Singapore. Along with a number of other recruits, he boards the plane with company rep Cui (Sunny Sun from The Crossing, Bai Xue, 2018), who is in charge of them, but in Singapore the deal rapidly turns sour when in an alleyway the group are rounded up by thugs with baseball bats to be transported to the corporate compound which amounts to a slave labour camp from which Lu (Eric Wang) runs an online gambling company which is in fact a scam defrauding millions of people, many of them in China.… Read the rest