Tag: death

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Features Live Action Movies

The Dead
And The Deadly
(Ren Xia Ren,
人嚇人)

Director – Wu Ma – 1982 – Hong Kong – Cert. 12 – 99m

*****

A couple planning an inheritance swindle convince their victim to play along then kill him, after which he comes back as a ghost to take revenge – classic and seminal HK kung fu comedy is out on UK Blu-ray in a 2K restoration.

Made three years ahead of Mr. Vampire (Ricky Lau, 1985), this puts all the elements of that film in place, apart from the vampires. Actually, they’re not so much vampires as hopping ghosts (jiangshi). There’s no hopping in The Dead And The Deadly, but there are ghosts.

Chu (Sammo Hung) becomes suspicious when best friend Ma Lucho (Wu Ma) dies, suspecting Mrs. Ma (Leung Mei Hei) and her priest companion (Chung Fat) of poisoning him. As becomes clear from an early scene in a brothel, Ma is not gifted with women, so Chu is surprised that his surviving wife is pregnant. What he hasn’t realised is that Ma is actually in on the scam and is only pretending to be dead.

But that changes about an hour in when Ma’s two co-conspirators kill him for real to get his money, as Mrs.… Read the rest

Categories
Features Live Action Movies

Three Colours: Blue
(Trois Couleurs: Bleu)

Director – Krzysztof Kieślowski – 1993 – France – Cert. 15 – 94m

*****

A woman who survives the car crash which kills both her composer husband and their young daughter finds herself financially secure and free to do…nothing – 4K restoration is out in UK cinemas on Friday, March 31st

This represents the first part of a trilogy based on the three colours of the French national flag, with each film representing one of that nation’s three values of liberté, égalité, fraternité (liberty, equality, brotherhood). I first saw the film on its UK release back in 1993, for which I interviewed Kieślowski. It’s possible I’ve seen it again in the interim. These days, the trilogy is elevated to the status of a cinematic masterwork. As a young thirtysomething, I remember feeling quite mixed about it. But your perception of these things can change with time, and watching the film again in 2023, in full, restored 4k glory prior to reissue on Blu-ray, I was far more impressed with it than when I first saw it.

For one thing, on this occasion I’m not seeing it for the first time, so the brief appearance (in the courtroom sequence) of Karol Karol (Zbigniew Zamachowski) and Dominique (Julie Delpy) immediately conjures the second film Three Colours: White (1994) in which those characters are the two main protagonists, which wasn’t the case on first viewing when no-one knew what was coming in the second and third films, the third being Three Colours: Red (1994).… Read the rest

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Features Live Action Movies

Krzysztof Kieślowski
talks about
Three Colours: Blue

Transcript of interview from 1993 when Kieślowski was promoting Three Colours: Blue. At the time, the other two films in the trilogy had yet to be screened to press.

How far do you consider Three Colours: Blue a separate entity in its own right, and how far the first part of a planned trilogy? “I think it’s a film in its own right.”

Did the initial inspiration come as this film, or rather as the three films? “Well, we started from ideas, from scripts – and since the original idea was such as it was, that included three films. So then we had to answer three questions because there were obviously three problems. We decided fairly early on in our working to make the three separate films, which of course have certain common elements to them. But these are quite carefully camouflaged links, representing my playing around with games for the viewer who also indulges in such games. If the viewer doesn’t like such games, then he’ll just see three entirely different stories. If the viewer likes these, then the films become something more.”

These’ll be something to look forward to later on. “Yes, a few of those feature in Blue, but there aren’t all that many of them.… Read the rest

Categories
Features Live Action Movies

The Middle Man

Director – Bent Hamer – 2021 – Norway, Denmark, Canada, UK, Germany, Switzerland – Cert. 15 – 95m

****

I hate to be the bearer of bad news, but… A man in a heartland American town becomes a middle man, whose job it is to convey bad news to local people – out in UK cinemas on Friday, March 10th

Curiously for an English language film set in a small American town, this one was funded by a variety of European countries and Canada. While its visuals clearly owe much to the films of David Lynch, particularly Blue Velvet (1986) and Lost Highway (1997) with their heavy night time interiors filled with dark, impenetrable black spaces, it eschews the over the top moments of sex and violence with which Lynch peppers these films with something much less jocular and more deadpan. Like Lynch it feels distinctly odd, yet in a completely different way. Unlike those films, it’s adapted from (part of) a novel.

Opening images. Factories in a town belch smoke. A small, industrial town on a river. This is Karmack, USA.

Frank Farrelli (Pål Sverre Hagen) is the second interviewee by the three person panel (the local sheriff, pastor and doctor played respectively by Paul Gross, Nicholas Bro and Canadian regular Don McKellar) for the town’s job of middle man, the person who has to deliver bad news, e.g.… Read the rest

Categories
Features Live Action Movies

Decision To Leave
(Heojil Kyolshim,
헤어질 결심)

Director – Park Chan-wook – 2022 – South Korea – Cert. 15 – 138m

*****

A married detective investigating the death of a climber becomes obsessed with the victim’s wife, who looks increasingly like the murderer – back in cinemas for one night only Monday, 13th February, on MUBI since Friday, 9th December

Any sexual or romantic energy that once existed between city-based detective Hae-joon (Park Hae-il from Heaven: To The Land Of Happiness, Im Sang-soo, 2021, The Fortress, Hwang Dong-hyuk, 2017, The Host, 2006, Memories Of Murder, 2003, both Bong Joon ho) and seaside town-based wife (Jung Yi-seo, bit parts in Samjin Company English Class, Lee Jong-pil, 2020; Parasite, Bong Joon ho, 2019) has long since evaporated.

Investigating the fatal fall of skilled amateur climber Ki Do-soo (Yoo Seung-mok from The Gangster, The Cop, The Devil, Lee Won-Tae, 2019, also The Host, Memories Of Murder) where the man’s Chinese-born wife Seo-rye (Tang Wei, from Lust, Caution, Ang Lee, 2007) is a murder suspect, he falls for her…
[Read the full review at Dmovies.org]

Trailer:

Decision To Leave is back in cinemas for one night only Monday, 13th February, on MUBI from Friday, 9th December.

Categories
Animation Features Movies

Puss In Boots:
The Last Wish

Directors – Joel Crawford, Januel Mercado – 2022 – US – Cert. PG – 102m

***

As he and others search for the legendary Wishing Star, the eponymous fairy tale character fears for his own mortality after losing eight of his nine lives – out in UK cinemas on Friday, February 5th

It’s been almost two decades since Dreamworks’ Shrek (Andrew Adamson, Vicky Jensen, 2001) turned the animated fairy tale on its head, upending convention to hilarious effect. However, this trick is near impossible to repeat and in animated Hollywood, the success of such a film inevitably engenders a demand for more. Shrek 2 (Andrew Adamson, Kelly Asbury, Conrad Vernon, 2004) introduced Puss In Boots (voice: Antonio Banderas) and the character was given its own spin-off Puss In Boots (Chris Miller, 2011). Over a decade later, here’s the Puss In Boots sequel.

It starts off promisingly enough with Puss In Boots, voiced once again by Banderas, hosting a party for local townsfolk at his mansion. Only it isn’t his: in a nod to Robin Hood by way of Anti-Capitalism, he’s co-opted the lavish home of the local landowner for the people, and when the landowner turns up, he’s understandably annoyed – cue an hilarious dialogue exchange about “Su casa, mi casa”) – but no match for Puss’ skill with a rapier.… Read the rest

Categories
Animation Features Movies

Guillermo del Toro’s
Pinocchio

Directors – Guillermo del Toro, Mark Gustafson – 2022 – US – Cert. PG – 114m

*****

Created as a puppet by a bereaved, religious woodcarver father, a little wooden boy must make his way in a world of ruthless show business, Fascism and war – stop-frame puppet movie is out on Netflix on Friday, December 9th

Co-helmed by Will Vinton alumnus Gustafson, del Toro’s Carlo Collodi adaptation sees him return to the theme of the Catholic Church collaborating with Fascism that he previously explored in Pan’s Labyrinth (2006). The story roughly follows the familiar template of Disney’s Pinocchio (1940), even down to punctuating the action with songs, but with the loosely defined place and time of a fairytale shifted to a very specific Italy before (briefly) and during World War II, with Pleasure Island replaced by a boys’ military training camp. The emphasis has shifted, too, from the notion of the narrator cricket character as conscience to coming to terms with mortality, although the idea that just because things appear to be fun they may not necessarily be good is knocking around in there too.

A narrator who will later identify himself as Sebastian J. Cricket (voice: Ewan McGregor) introduces us to churchgoing woodcarver Gepetto (voice: David Bradley), who is working on a statue of Jesus Christ crucified for the local church, raising dutiful son Carlo (voice: Gregory Mann), an equally religious child with a true sense of wonder at the world around him, including planes in the sky.… Read the rest

Categories
Animation Art Features Live Action Movies

Hilma

Director – Lasse Hallström – 2022 – Sweden – Cert. 12a – 119m

****

Late in her life, Swedish artist Hilma af Klint, today considered the world’s first abstract painter, remembers her life – out in UK cinemas on Friday, October 28th

As Swedish artist Hilma af Klint (Lena Olin) takes a tram journey, she remembers key events and moments within it: she is haunted by the memory of her little sister Hermina (Emmi Tjernström), who tragically died when Hilma (Tora Hallström) was 18 and with whom she often played hide and seek.

Interested in drawing and painting from nature as a form of scientific inquiry – at her art school interview panel she lists mathematics, geometry, biology and astronomy as interests other than flowers – she meets up with other women studying technical painting and drawing in Stockholm, among them the wealthy Anna Cassel (Catherine Chalk) who becomes her lover and finances her as an artist – and becomes part of their group of five women artists interested in spiritism. She also studies the Theosophical writings of Madame Blavatsky and makes a particular connection to the Anthroposophist ideas of Rudolf Steiner.

Acknowledging these interests, the film infuriatingly refuses to explore them at any great depth, perhaps because it fears such ideas might prove controversial and perhaps because they might prove boring to a contemporary audience, it’s impossible to tell.… Read the rest

Categories
Features Live Action Movies

Emergency Declaration
(Bisang Seoneon,
비상선언)

Director – Han Jae-rim – 2021 – South Korea – 147m

*****

A rogue biochemist smuggles a deadly virus onto a commerical flight and releases it, leaving those on board fighting for survival– from the London East Asia Film Festival (LEAFF) which runs in cinemas from Wednesday, October 19th to Sunday, October 30th

At the same time as his wife has had enough and decides to fly off to Hawaii on her own for a break, Police Sgt. Koo (Song Kang-ho from Parasite, 1019; Snowpiercer, 2013; Memories Of Murder, 2003; all Bong Joon ho) finds himself investigating an upload to the internet which is probably a hoax in which a man threatens a terrorist attack on a plane. He tracks this man to his apartment from which the open door emits the smell of putrefaction. A search of the premises reveals a corpse sealed in polythene who has died of burst blood vessels caused by a virus.

Meanwhile at Incheon Airport, the man, Ryu Jin-seok (Yim Si-wan, singer of huge K-pop band KZ-A) has a run in with a booking agent who won’t tell him what the busiest route is, insulting her. Next, he enters the toilets to open and insert a phal into his armpit but is spotted from a cubicle by young girl Soo-min (Kim Bo-min) using the wrong toilets.… Read the rest

Categories
Animation Features Movies

Inu-Oh
(Inu-Oh,
犬王)

Director – Masaaki Yuasa – 2021 – Japan – Cert. – 98m

***1/2

In fourteenth century Japan, a blind musician and a deformed, masked dancer shake up the culturally staid world of Noh theatre by forming a hugely popular rock band – out in UK cinemas on Wednesday, September 28th

You never quite know what you’re going to get with an animated feature by Masaaki Yuasa (Ride Your Wave,2019; Lu Over the Wall, 2017; Mind Game, 2004) as he has a tendency to break with tradition. Here, he takes on periods of Japanese history but rather than go with power struggles as to who rules Japan, he focuses on two outcasts, an orphaned musician and a deformed dancer, who join together to form a rock band with an emphasis on theatrical showmanship to upend the artistic conventions of the day and become an overnight sensation until the ascendant ruler, determined to control the historical narrative, has the musician killed, and the dancer emasculated, forbidden to perform anything but state-approved material, and that only in the Imperial court.

It’s a triptych, one long story split into three sections. In the first section, after a prologue detailing the decisive Battle of Dan-No-Ura towards the end of the twelfth century, in which the Heiji clan were defeated by the Genji and the formers warriors threw themselves into the sea and perished, two centuries later in the period of the Northern and Southern Courts, Northern would be Kyoto-based, shogunate emperor Ashitaka decides that the power to rule demands he acquire three sacred treasures, one of which is a sword buried in the lake at Dan-No-Ura.… Read the rest