Tag: cast of thousands

Wildwood

Wildwood

Director – Travis Knight – 2026 – US – Cert. 12a – 132m

*****

Portland, Oregon teenager Prue must rescue her little brother from Wildwood, a forest she’s forbidden to enter, following his abduction by a murder of crows – out in UK cinemas from Friday, October 23rd

Somewhere in a town within Wildwood, a teenage boy kills himself by throwing himself off the balcony of the family mansion immediately after revealing that his body, when he tears the flesh of his chest apart, is not flesh and blood but a mechanical construct of cog wheels and other metal parts.

His ‘mother’, the Dowager Governess Alexandra (voice: Carey Mulligan) built this robot boy as a substitute for her son, from whose tragic loss she has never recovered.

Outside Wildwood, in neighbouring Portland, Oregon, for years the parents of teenager Prue (voice: Peyton Elizabeth Lee) have regaled their daughter with stories about why she must never enter the Wildwood on the edge of Portland Oregon where the family live: father (voice: Jake Johnson), mother (voice: Maya Erskin), and her little toddler brother Mac (voice: Arthur Knight, the director’s son).

Rebellious as are all teenagers, on an afternoon where her parents are out and have left her babysitting Mac, on strict instructions that she not go out of the house with him, Prue bicycles out taking Mac with her in her trailer cart on a journey through Portland.… Read the rest

Tags abduction, Angela Bassett, army, Arthur Knight, babysitting, bandit, battle, battle scene, bereavement, bicycle, bird, bureaucracy, Carey Mulligan, cast of thousands, chase, childless couple, climbing frame, cog wheels, coyote, deal, dire warnings, eagle, epic, family mansion, farmer, forbidden, forest, imprisoned, ivy, Jacob Tremblay, Jake Johnson, Laika, LFF, LFF 2026, little brother, London Film Festival, London Film Festival 2026, loss, Mahershala Ali, Maya Erskin, mechanical body, murder of crows, Oregon, owl, paperwork, parents and children, particle systems, Peyton Elizabeth Lee, playground, Portland, rebel, rebellious, rescue, Richard E. Grant, robot boy, role-playing games, RPG, sacrifice, siblings, slide, soldier, sorcery, stop-frame, stop-frame animation, stop-motion, stop-motion animation, studios, substitute child, suicide, teenager, trailer cart, Travis Knight, violence, Wildwood

Movies Features Live Action

Red Cliff
(Chì Bì,
赤壁);
Red Cliff II
(Chì Bì
Jue Zhan Tian Xia,
赤壁（下）)

Post author By Jeremy Clarke
Post date November 2 2024
No Comments on Red Cliff
(Chì Bì,
赤壁);
Red Cliff II
(Chì Bì
Jue Zhan Tian Xia,
赤壁（下）)

Red Cliff (Chì Bì, 赤壁);

Red Cliff II (Chì Bì Jue Zhan Tian Xia, 赤壁（下）)

Director – John Woo – 2008, 2009 – China, Hong Kong – Cert. 15 – 139m + 135m

*****

As a warlord seeks to crush opposition in Southern China, its two kingdoms join forces to defeat him, with the deciding battle taking place at Red Cliff – plays as part of Bullets and Brotherhood: the Films of John Woo at BFI Southbank from Friday, 3rd July to Friday, 31st July 2026

China, 208 A.D., around the end of the Han Dynasty. With the puppet Emperor more interested in talking to birds than the nitty-gritty of ruling his kingdom, his Prime Minister Cao Cao (Zhang Fengyi) talks him into a commission to subdue the rival Southern warlords Liu Bei (You Yong) and Sun Quan (Chang Chen).

After a battle against the former’s forces in which his a loyal soldier is unable to prevent Liu’s wife getting killed but manages to get their baby to safety by strapping it on his back prior to single-handed combat, Liu’s advisor Zhuge Liang (Takeshi Kaneshiro) sets out to persuade Sun Qian to join them in an alliance against the aggressor.… Read the rest

Tags 208 A.D., a man without friends, ablaze, action, admiral, advance party, advisor Takeshi Kaneshiro, aggressor, alliance, anchored ships, ankles, arguments, Art of Action, bagua, battlefield, bolted together, Bullets and Brotherhood: The Films of John Woo, burning ships, Cao Cao, carrier pigeon, cast of thousands, casualties, CG, chains, Chang Chen, China, Chinese history, combat, commander, conquer, corpse, crush opposition, cujo, deciding battle, disguise, draw enemy fire, encampment, enemy camp, enlist, fleet promotion, foot level, forecasted wind, fortress, game, Han Dynasty, history, Hong Kong, impale, infection, intel, join forces, keep the peace, kingdom, kingdoms, Liu Bei, loyalty, mauled, mayhem, messages, military formation, military tactics, minister, plague, planning, pregnant, prime minister, princess, protection, prows ablaze, puppet Emperor, pyrotechnics, Red Cliff, romance of three kingdoms, shields, soccer, Southern China, spears, spiked cylinders, spy, straw men, stunts, Sun Quan, Sun Shangxian, surrender, talking to birds, tiger hunt, Tong Dawei, Tony Leung Chiu-wai, tortoise, tragedy, troop formation, Typhoid, warlord, water, wind, wind direction, You Yong, Zhang Fengyi, Zhao Wei

Movies Animation Features

The Lord
of the Rings
The War
of the Rohirrim

Post author By Jeremy Clarke
Post date December 12 2024
No Comments on The Lord
of the Rings
The War
of the Rohirrim

The Lord of the Rings: The War of the Rohirrim

Director – Kenji Kamiyama – 2024 – US – Cert. 12a – 134m

****

A story of J.R.R. Tolkien’s Middle-earth, set around 200 years before The Lord of the Rings – English language anime is out in UK cinemas on Friday, December 13th

This narrative is based on one of the appendices in J.R.R. Tolkien’s The Lord of the Rings, (although checking my copy of the 1979 Unwin paperback edition, it’s not there, so it’s unclear when this appendix first appeared). The Kingdom of Rohan and the Battle of Helm’s Deep are familiar from Peter Jackson’s LOTR trilogy, as is the character of Éowyn (voice: Miranda Otto, reprising her role) who serves here as a narrator, the tale taking place around 200 years before the events in LOTR.

Wulf (voice: Elijah Tamati) and Hèra (voice: Bea Dooley) are childhood friends, sweethearts even. She is something of a tomboy, riding out of the small fiefdom – from where her father Helm Hammerhand (voice: Brian Cox) rules his Kingdom of Rohan – to feed a giant eagle, or engage in friendly, hand-to-hand, sword and shield combat with Wulf, at which task she bests him.… Read the rest

Tags 2D animation, animation, animation background, anime, appendix, battle, Bea Dooley, betrayal, bow, Brian Cox, cast of thousands, cavalry, CG, CG animation, childhood friends, cultural slippage, culture, East and West, elephant, Elijah Tamati, fiefdom, footnote, fortress, Fran Walsh, Gaia Wise, giant eagle, hand-to-hand combat, Helm’s Deep, hordes, Hornburg, horseback, injuries, Japanese animation, Kenji Kamiyama, kingdom, Luca Pasqualino, maw, Michael Wildman, Middle-earth, military strategist, Miranda Otto, mountainside, myth, mythology, narrator, no plans to marry, Oriental and Western, overweight, Peter Jackson, Phillippa Boyens, retreat, retribution, riders, riding, Rohan, Shaun Dooley, shield, siege, Silmarrillion, skirmish, story outline, sweethearts, sword, tentacle, The Lord of the Rings, The War of the Rohirrim, Tolkien, tomboy, two kingdoms at war, underwater, unite, Warner Bros. Animation, Wingnut Films, wraith

Movies Features Live Action

Babylon

Babylon

Director – Damien Chazelle – 2022 – US – Cert. 18 – 188m

***1/2

The rise and fall of stars and other talents navigating the excessive lifestyle and work ethic of the silent era US movie business – out on Digital on Tuesday, March 21st and on 4K Ultra HD™, Blu-ray™ & DVD on Monday, April 3rd, following its release in UK cinemas on Friday, January 20th 2023

Having established himself as a top A-list Hollywood director with the likes of Whiplash (2014) and La La Land (2016), Chazelle delivers a cast of thousands epic about Hollywood in the silent era and beyond, a project that’s apparently been gestating in his head for some 15 years. With its name referencing a city that grew to great heights and considerable excess before crumbling into dust, Babylon starts with Manny Torres (Mexican actor Diego Calva in his first US role) and compatriots attempting to deliver an elephant to a Hollywood party at a desert mansion in the middle of nowhere. The tone for the whole is set – or perhaps set free from audience preconception about what is to follow – when one of Calva’s compadres, walking behind the trailer containing the creature pushing it up a hill, is unexpectedly covered in elephant excrement.… Read the rest

Movies Features Live Action

The Battle
at Lake Changjin II
aka
Water Gate Bridge
(Zhang Jin Hu,
长津湖之水门桥)

Post author By Jeremy Clarke
Post date February 11 2022
No Comments on The Battle
at Lake Changjin II
aka
Water Gate Bridge
(Zhang Jin Hu,
长津湖之水门桥)

The Battle at Lake Changjin II aka Water Gate Bridge
(Zhang Jin Hu, 长津湖之水门桥)

Director – Tsui Hark – 2022 – China – Cert. 15 – 153m

Ill-considered sequel to box office barnstorming, Chinese war movie fails to match the emotional engagement and excitement of the original – out in cinemas on Friday, February 11th

After the exciting and energetic original, this sequel is a disappointment. It has the same expertise of CG special effects as its predecessor. However the cast is cut down, many of the memorable characters having died heroically in the first film, and there’s no attempt to replace them. Similarly, the spectacular locations are fewer in number because there’s no journey from home through different regions, so this has a smaller geographical palette to play with.

The cast of characters issue would be easy enough to fix within the war genre: members of a military unit die, others come to the fore to replace them in the vacuum created. But no, here all we get are People’s Volunteer Army (PVA) 7th Company commander Wu Qianli (Wu Jing from The Wandering Earth, Frant Gwo, 2019, and sequels) and his younger brother Wu Wanli (Jackson Lee) and no real attempt to further develop their relationship under fire.… Read the rest

Tags 1950, air power, battle, battlefield, blood, border, bridge, cast of thousands, CG, CGI, China, combat, Douglas MacArthur, effects, fireball, General Douglas MacArthur, gore, guts, heroism, invasion, Korea, Korean War, Lake Changjin, MacArthur, mountain, North Korea, notebook, People's Volunteer Army, People’s Liberation Army, pipeline, PLA, plane, PVA, rural, sequel, South Korea, tank, Tsui Hark, UN, US, war

Movies Features Live Action

Detective Chinatown 3
(Tang Ren
Jie Tan An 3,
唐人街探案3)

Post author By Jeremy Clarke
Post date January 24 2022
No Comments on Detective Chinatown 3
(Tang Ren
Jie Tan An 3,
唐人街探案3)

Detective Chinatown 3 (Tang Ren Jie Tan An 3, 唐人街探案3)

Director – Chen Sicheng – 2021 – China – Cert. 15 – 136m

****

The Chinese franchise’s super-sleuth and bumbling sidekick join forces with their Japanese and Thai counterparts in Japan – out in cinemas on Tuesday, January 25th and 26th only

No sooner have the brilliant crime-solving sleuth Qin Feng (Liu Haoran) and his likeable if barely competent sidekick Tang Ren (Wang Baoqiang) flown in to Tokyo and met their contact there, the sharp and colourful Hiroshi Noda (Satoshi Tsumabuki), than they find themselves embroiled in one of the most seriously bonkers action sequences in the movies in recent years when members of (at least) two gangs suddenly attack in the airport to the inspired accompaniment of the pop song ‘Welcome To Tokyo’ (which gets rolled out again for a cheerful, cast of thousands, song and dance routine accompanying the end credits). Extensive mayhem ensures. A man rolls down a long flight of steps in an oil drum. Two groups of smartly uniformed and skirted women do battle (one group in red, one in blue – stewardesses from rival airlines, perhaps?). Workmen in hard hats and overalls descend from scaffolding to join the melee.… Read the rest

Movies Features Live Action

The Battle
At Lake Changjin
(Zhang Jin Hu,
长津湖)

Post author By Jeremy Clarke
Post date November 19 2021
3 Comments on The Battle
At Lake Changjin
(Zhang Jin Hu,
长津湖)

Directors – Chen Kaige, Dante Lam, Tsui Hark – 2021 – China – Cert. 15 – 176m

*****

Chinese war movie which has barnstormed the global box office does exactly what it says on the tin – out in cinemas on Friday, November 19th

There is a history of war films with a cast of thousands being directed by several (usually three) directors in an attempt to portray campaigns with huge military logistics on the screen. Probably the best known are The Longest Day (Ken Annakin, Andrew Marton, Bernard Wicki, 1962) about the World War Two Allied invasion of Normandy and Tora! Tora! Tora! (Richard Fleischer, Toshio Matsuda, Kinji Fukasaku, 1970) about the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbour. Both of those Western (and, as it happens, Twentieth Century Fox) movies presented both sides of the conflict by hiring directors from the different countries concerned.

The big difference between them and Chinese global box office phenomenon The Battle At Lake Changjin is that although the latter film deals with a conflict in which the Chinese are pitted against the Americans, all three directors are Chinese. Tsui (Zu Warriors, 1983; Once Upon A Time In China, 1991) at least has some working knowledge of America, having studied film in Texas.… Read the rest