****1/2

After her undercover cop husband is killed by a gang, Nami infiltrates the gang and suffers much abuse as she attempts to identify and take her revenge on his killer – out on Blu-ray as part of the Takashi Ishii: 4 Tales of Nami limited edition digipack set (2000 copies) 

A compelling yet initially indecipherable image is slowly revealed, as we pull out, to be a pink marker pen colouring the handle of a black pistol in the hands of a girl wearing the pyjama top of the man against the side of whose bed she is sitting. He, it turns out, is Mitsuru (Toshiyuki Nagashima from Godzilla Against Mechagodzilla, Miyagawa, 2002; Godzilla vs. Biollante, Seiichi Yamamoto, 1989; Mishima: A Life in Four Chapters, Paul Schrader, 1985), an undercover cop; she is Nami (Yui Natsukawa from I Wish, Hirokazu Kore-eda, 2011; Still Walking, Hirokazu Kore-eda, 2008; Zatoichi: The Blind Swordsman, Takeshi Kitano, 2003), and she’s fed up with his lack of contact while he’s on the job. As they embrace, she pleads with him, “Don’t do it!… Read the rest

2019 Korean Film Archive (KOFA) Restoration (two reels missing)

****

Goryeojang is the concept of taking your elders up a mountain when they reach 70 so that they can face death – 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

Over fifty years old, Goryeojang is sadly available as only a print with two reels (three and six) missing. The LKFF screened the version where the missing scenes are explained by a brief series of intertitles so that the rest of the film can make sense. It’s a tough film to pigeonhole. A description like period drama, which genre it absolutely fits, proves woefully inadequate. To a Western viewer, it plays out like a classic fairy tale, with archetypal characters and considerable amounts of cruelty. The art direction is light years away from any sort of social realism with its rural sets obviously artificially constructed in a studio, recalling (to name but one obvious example) The Singing Ringing Tree (Francesco Stefani, 1957), especially for all those British people who saw that latter film in black and white on BBC children’s television in the 1960s.… Read the rest

*

In a remote, Southern Chinese mountain village, a 14-year-old needs the money for the dowry to buy his 12-year-old sweetheart as a wife – premieres in the Critics’ Picks Competition of the 28th Tallinn Black Nights Film Festival

Credited on the Festival’s website as a Canadian production in the Burmese and Chinese languages, this is a Chinese-made film not sanctioned by the Chinese authorities dealing with subject matter which the filmmakers fear would not be passed by the Chinese censor. The caption review suggests that a number of the film’s cast and crew have used pseudonyms to avoid prosecution. The narrative takes place in the mountainous, Southern region of China close to the border with Myanmar, where people are known by their Burmese names, but occasionally refer to other people by their Chinese names. You get the feeling that this area of China has been largely forgotten by the distant Beijing authorities.

The central characters are young teenagers or pre-teenagers, Hani (14; Gao Xiaokang) and his friend Apao (Qian Long), who seems to be frequently seeking advice from others on his mobile phone, and Hani’s longtime sweetheart Pushiha (12; Pu Juan).… Read the rest

*****

An extreme film even by Korean enfant terrible Kim Ki-duk’s own standards, Moebius is an oedipal cocktail of sex and violence shot without dialogue. Traversing (among other things) castration and gang rape, it’s a character study involving a family: an adulterous father, a jealous mother and (from early in the first reel) a castrated son with the father and son becoming involved with the former’s otherwise unattached lover. An essay employing psychological archetype to great effect, it holds the viewer in its vice-like grip from start to finish. A key work from a master, highly recommended, although definitely not for the faint-hearted.

Capsule review for Film Review Annual.

Trailer:

*****

A 17th Century nun subject to religious visions embarks on a lesbian relationship with a novice – exclusively on MUBI from Friday, July 1st

Christianity. The Church. Religion. Treat them the wrong way, and you can get into trouble. Horror The Exorcist (William Friedkin, 1973), drama The Devils (Ken Russell, 1971) and comedy Life Of Brian (Terry Jones, 1971) remain controversial. Lesbian nun relationship drama Benedetta may be about to join their ranks. Or perhaps times have moved on. The film is apparently based on a real 17th Century case.

As a young girl, Benedetta (Elena Plonka) claims to commune with the Divine – convincingly so, too, enough to suggest to a bandit gang about to rob her parents and her that a chirping bird is God’s voice, especially when said bird deposits excrement in the eye of the bandit leader who promptly returns a gold necklace to Benedetta’s mother.

On arrival at the convent in Pescia, Benedetta’s father (David Clavel) must pay the Reverend Mother (Charlotte Rampling who seems to have cornered the market in Reverend Mothers judging by Dune, Denis Villeneuve, 2021) a dowry to enable his daughter to become a novice, which suggests that the institution, like the wealthy Catholic Church under whose umbrella it exists, may have ignored Jesus’ injunction to sell all you have and give to the poor.… Read the rest

*****

A family stands together when their daughter kills the local police chief’s son who is both a rapist and blackmailer – available to rent online in the new Chinese Cinema Season 2021 in the UK & Ireland.

This opens with a prison break in which the escapee ends up interred in a coffin next to the corpse of the man who was trying to get him out. That turns out to be a story told by Li Wiejie or Jie for short (Xiao Yang), an insatiable watcher of detective and crime thrillers. The film lays its cinematic cards on the table almost immediately by referencing Hitchcock, montage, sound effects, excitement and The Shawshank Redemption (Frank Darabont, 1994). Sheep Without A Shepherd is in thrall to the West’s suspense movies and plays out like one while at the same time retaining its distinctive Chinese character with its emphasis on the importance of family ties and loyalty.

Jie and his wife (Tan Zhuo) run a small store in Thailand. Their daughter Ping known in the family as PingPing (Audrey Hui) persuades dad to fund her to go to summer camp where she is drugged and videoed being gang-raped by privileged brat Su Cha (Beety) and his pals.… Read the rest