Tag: prize money

Karate Kid
Legends

Post author By Jeremy Clarke
Post date 29 May 2025
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Legends
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Director – Jonathan Entwhistle – 2025 – US – Cert. 12a – 94m

*****

Latest franchise entry plays by all the rules that you would expect, yet somehow manages to completely break the mould and come up with something fresh and original – out in UK cinemas on Wednesday, May 28th

All a Karate Kid movie has to do is put a boy in peril from a bully or similar, then have him schooled in martial arts by a trainer to discover his inner strength and ultimately overcome the bully in combat. This is facilitated by a fight competition at the end, in which the two come face to face with one another. While the original The Karate Kid (John G. Avildsen, 1984) clearly struck enough of a chord to spawn more films, some entries, such as The Karate Kid Part III (John G. Avildsen, 1989), have felt worn, tired and clichéd.

That changed with the genuinely brilliant idea of introducing Hong Kong’s clown prince of kung fu Jackie Chan as the trainer in the two decades later remake The Karate Kid (Harold Zwart, 2010), which breathed new life into the big screen franchise (there have also been live action and animated spin-offs made for television).… Read the rest

Tags about to kiss, Aramis Knight, Ben Wang, bereavement, Big Apple, boxing, bruised eye make-up, bull, cameo., champion boxer, combat, competition, cram for exams, debt, exploring, failure, fathers and daughters, fight competition, Five Boroughs, former boyfriend, franchise, from whom he had learned the rudiments of kung fu. Doctor, girlfriend, guilt, Hong Kong, hospital, inner strength, interrupted kiss, Jackie Chan, Japan, Jonathan Entwhistle, Karate Kid: Legends, karate school, kiss, knockabout, kung fu, kung fu school, martial arts, martial arts training, memory, Ming-Na Wen, moneylenders, mothers and sons, New York, Okinawa, older brother’s death, overcome the bully, personal tutor, physical comedy, pigeons, pizza parlour, prize money, Ralph Macchio, remake, romance, rooftop training space, Sadie Stanley, star pupil, store owner Joshua Jackson, teabag, teenage romance, teenager, torment, tournament, trainer, US, violence, Wyatt Oleff

Art Documentary Features Live Action Movies

Fashion Reimagined

Post author By Jeremy Clarke
Post date 3 March 2023
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Director – Becky Hutner – 2022 – UK – Cert. 12a – 100m

*****

A fledgling designer appalled by her industry’s environmental record attempts to do fashion sustainably – out in UK cinemas on Friday, March 3rd

The title put me off before I even knew anything about this documentary. On further investigation, however, its subject is up-and-coming fashion designer Amy Powney who decided, in the interests of sustainability, not to do fashion as fashion industry wisdom has always done it, but rather to find out if it was possible to do fashion in an environmentally sustainable way.

We are told that if the fashion industry were a country, it would be the world’s third biggest polluter, preceded only by the US and China. So clearly, this is an industry with a problem.

Amy had always wanted to design clothes. At Kingston University, studying fashion, she got hold of and read Naomi Klein’s anti-capitalist tract No Logo then felt herself increasingly at odds with the ethos of the course. Her background was a little different from most of the students: she grew up in the Lancashire countryside, off grid, on a farm with her sister and parents.

After college, she got a job sweeping the floor at small, indie UK fashion house Mother Of Pearl where she slowly but surely worked her way up to become first studio manager then the company’s creative director, clearly a very determined and driven young woman.… Read the rest

Features Live Action Movies

The Good Boss
(El Buen Patrón)

Post author By Jeremy Clarke
Post date 14 July 2022
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(El Buen Patrón)
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Director – Fernando León de Aranoa – 2021 – Spain – Cert. 15 – 116m

***1/2

With a prestigious business competition coming up, a factory boss must keep the judges from stumbling upon his personal and corporate dirty laundry – out in cinemas on Curzon Home Cinema on Friday, July 15th

Any day now, the local committee will descend upon the Blanco Scales factory to see if the business should receive the prize money for an upcoming good business award. No-one knows exactly when they are likely to turn up, though, least of all Blanco (Javier Bardem) himself. So, clearly everything needs to be in good order to impress the judges when they turn up. Which should be fine, because Blanco prides himself in looking out for his work force and the company is one big, benevolent, happy family.

Except that it isn’t, because although Blanco sees it that way, the reality is that he only cares for his workforce insofar as doing so will enhance their productivity. He fires dissatisfied employee Jose (Óscar de la Fuente) who promptly sets up camp outside the factory gates – on land Blanco doesn’t own so he can’t evict him – and proceeds to chant anti-Blanco slogans on a daily basis.… Read the rest