Tag: secondary school

Deadline
(自殺通告)
(2025)

Deadline (自殺通告) (2025)

Director – Kiwi Chow – 2025 – Hong Kong, Taiwan, UK – Cert. 15 tbc – 118m

****

A secondary school focused on maximising exam results is upset by pending suicide and use of performance-enhancing drugs – plays as part of the UK’s Hong Kong Film Festival which runs from Friday, September 25th to Sunday, 4th October at various venues

The students of En-Shan Secondary School, clad in distinctive uniforms of purple shirt with militaristic shoulder boards and dark grey tie, perform aggressive workout moves as they chant their school litany extolling hard work leading to success. Principal Kung (Anthony Wong Chau Sang from Infernal Affairs, Andrew Lau, Alan Mak,2002; Hard Boiled, John Woo, 1992; My Name Ain’t Suzie, Angie Chen, 1985 – this latter showing in this year’s HKFF) encourages them in the idea that present suffering leads to later success.

The ubiquitous iSmart system contains a database of vocabulary the students must master to game the exam system; its latest 2.3 iteration uses eye-tracking software to record how much time the pupil is taking in direct eye contact with the teacher. It makes the surveillance technology of Happyend (Neo Sora, 2024) sound amateurish by comparison, even if, overall, Deadline is the more satisfying viewing experience.… Read the rest

Tags A4 flier, ADHD, Allison Lin, Anthony Wong Chau Sang, anti-depressants, bully, bullying, checking in, countdown, deadline, drug test, education, education system, exam, exam results, eye-tracking software, flier, game the system, garden, hard work, head boy, head teacher, high school, Hong Kong, Hong Kong Film Festival, Hong Kong Film Festival 2026, iSmart system, IT, Jimmy Lia, Kiwi Chow, lavatory cubicle, Meng Syun, Michael Chang, mystery, No Student Suicide Contract, performance-enhancing drug, present suffering, principal, pupil, rally, RD Huang, regimented, school, school building, school garden, school uniform, science lab, secondary school, security camera, self harm, Shao YI Mei, smart cards, smartphones, student, success, suicide, surveillance, surveillance technology, syringe, Tai Ting-wei, Tai Ya Zhi, Taiwan, teacher, textbook, threat, UK, uniform, upset, Wang Tzu Tiang, Zoom

Features Live Action Movies

Next Sohee
(Da-eum So-hee,
다음 소희)

Post author By Jeremy Clarke
Post date June 14 2024
1 Comment on Next Sohee
(Da-eum So-hee,
다음 소희)

Director – July Jung – 2022 – South Korea – Cert. 18 – 134m

*****

A schoolgirl on an internship is appallingly exploited by her employers, and a police detective is called in to investigate – out in UK cinemas on Friday, June 14th

Here’s a film which presents a real problem for reviewers. Something monumental happens in the middle of the film which entirely changes it. It’s a little bit like the shift from the traumatic drama to the police manhunt in High and Low (Akira Kurosawa, 1963) and a bit like the infamous shower scene in the middle of Psycho (Alfred Hitchcock, 1960). And yet, the film is like neither of those classics in any other way (except, perhaps, the fact that it’s a remarkable film that will leave you with an indelible impression afterwards). Still, how much can a reviewer give away without ruining the film for audiences?

It’s very much a film of two halves. The first half centres around Sohee (Kim Se-eun), a star pupil at an average secondary school. She is obsessed with dancing, specifically the kind of dance moves associated with K-pop girl- and boy-bands. Among her friends are another former intern from her school who dropped out of her intern position and now spends her evenings getting paralytically drunk.… Read the rest

Tags alcohol abuse, alcohol poisoning, apologise, bonus, boy band, bullying, call centre, capitalism, car park, class tutor, company profits, competition, contracts, customer queries, customer scripts, customers, dance studio too, dancing, dead, depression, detective, difficult customer, Doona Bae, drinking, drunk, education inspection board, employee, employer, ethics, exploitation, factory, friends, girl-band, government agencies, harassment, heavy drinking, high school, hospitalisation, illegal, internet, internship, investigate, investigation, job, July Jung, justice, K-pop, Kim Se-eun, Korea, Korean Telecom, manager, manipulation, meet targets, mind control, neoliberalism, not quit, open and shut case, overwork, parents, parents and children, police, police procedural, pressure, real life case, reservoir, right-wing society, routine assignment, school, schoolgirl, secondary school, sign, Sim Hee-seop, South Korea, speakerphone, subcontractor, suicide, targets, terminate contract, visit from head office, vulnerable workers, walk, work pressures, workers' rights, workforce, workplace

Features Live Action Movies

The Personal History
Of David Copperfield

Post author By Jeremy Clarke
Post date January 21 2020
No Comments on The Personal History
Of David Copperfield

Director – Armando Ianucci – 2019 – UK – Cert. PG – 119m

***

What the Dickens? A Victorian recalls his life from birth to middle age and the many people he encountered along the way – on VoD in June

The mid-19th century novel The Personal History Of David Copperfield is considered Charles Dickens’ masterpiece. Narrated in the first person by the eponymous David, it tells of one man’s life from birth through a series of adventures and encounters with a motley crew of relatives, friends and associates that seem to span the social breadth of Victorian England.

To cut the novel’s tale down to a manageable movie length, director Ianucci and his co-writer Simon Blackwell have dumped certain characters and subplots to focus on others. As with the director’s previous outing The Death Of Stalin (2017), the final film half works yet is beset by strange casting choices – actors playing Russians sporting a variety of English dialects in Stalin, various BAME actors playing roles that aren’t always entirely believable in terms of their ethnicity in Copperfield. That includes the film’s lead Dev Patel, who plays David convincingly as a wide-eyed innocent… [Read more]

The Personal History Of David Copperfield is out in the UK on Friday, January 24th.… Read the rest

Features Live Action Movies

Wet Season
(Redai Yu,
热带雨)

Post author By Jeremy Clarke
Post date October 11 2019
No Comments on Wet Season
(Redai Yu,
热带雨)

Director – Anthony Chen – 2019 – Singapore – 103m

****1/2

A Singaporean schoolboy becomes obsessed with his Mandarin language teacher – from the BFI London Film Festival and the London East Asia Film Festival (LEAFF) 2019.

It seems to be constantly raining in urban Singapore. Ling (Yeo Yann Yann) is forever sitting in her parked car injecting insulin. She has a job teaching Mandarin to a class in a local boys secondary school. Half a dozen of them are such poor students that she sets up a remedial class after hours to get them up to speed, but while they’re made to attend, they really aren’t interested. With one exception.

Wei-lun (Koh Jia Ler) will be in trouble with his parents if he doesn’t do well in Mandarin. As the other boys bunk off the remedial class with the slightest excuse, it pretty quickly develops into Ling teaching Wei-lun on a one-on-one basis. He doesn’t live that far from her home, so she often gives him a ride home in the car afterwards, unaware that behind her back he has for a long time been taking pictures of her with his mobile phone in class.

Ling has been trying to have a baby with her husband Andrew (Christopher Lee Ming-Shun) for some eight years.… Read the rest