Tag: syringe

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

Alone in the Night
(Yoru ga Mata Kuru,
夜がまた来る)

Post author By Jeremy Clarke
Post date October 17 2025
No Comments on Alone in the Night
(Yoru ga Mata Kuru,
夜がまた来る)

Director – Takashi Ishii – 1994 – Japan – Cert. 18 – 108m

****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

Tags 4 Tales of Nami, attack, ballroom, bed, bedroom, boss, broken china, clan, clan leader, cold turkey, condolences, cop, curtains, cut off your finger, dance, dream, dreamlike, drugs, drunk, early morning, everyone knows, fight, fix, flashbulbs, floating corpse, gambling, gang leader, gang rape, gangster, guard, gun, gun instruction, gunplay, handgun, hospital, hostess club, hotel; room, injecting, innocence, Japan, Jinpachi Nezu, junkie, Junko Miyashita, keepsake, Kimiko Yo, Kippei Shina, knife, lift, Limbo, locket, Madam, Mah Jong, media circus, Minori Terada, mist, necklace, night, Noriko Hayami, Norimichi Kasamatsu, nudity, overdose, paparazzi, paper, pink marker pen, pistol, police raid, press, psychology, pyjamas, rain, reporters, rescue, revenge, rock, rooftop, scissors, sea, sex, sex scene, sleaze, slit your wrist, snitch, snow, snow falling, speed, stab, stolen drugs, sword, syringe, Takashi Ishii, thug, torment, torture, Toshiyuki Nagashima, undercover cop, urn of remains, waltz, water, water bed, water surfaces, waterfront, wind, Yasushi Sasakibara, Yui Natsukawa

Features Live Action Movies

Jurassic World Rebirth

Director – Gareth Edwards – 2025 – US – Cert. – 134m

***

A group of mercenary hunters and a traumatised family find themselves on an equatorial island populated by mutant dinosaurs – out in UK cinemas on Wednesday, July 2nd

The difficult seventh movie, made on a shorter production schedule than its predecessors – according to the production notes – and probably made too quickly for its own good. First there were three Jurassic Park movies, then there were three Jurassic World movies, and now there’s a seventh Jurassic. What to call it? Jurassic Beyond? Jurassic Outside? Jurassic Environment? Jurassic Habitat? Jurassic Equator? Jurassic Island? Jurassic Laboratory? Jurassic Lab? Jurassic Experiment? Jurassic Mutation? (Those took me a mere five minutes.) No: unable to think of a word to replace Park or World, this one is saddled with the marketing-led Jurassic World Rebirth. Which no doubt will do the job, but when Michael Crichton coined Jurassic Park for his novel’s title and Spielberg ran with it, no-one outside of palaeontologists and dinosaur-geeks (I number myself among the latter) knew what ‘Jurassic’ was. It didn’t matter: it was Spielberg and dinosaurs, that sold it, and the film more than lived up to the lure and the promise.… Read the rest

Tags Academy Award, Academy Awards, Academy Awards 2025-26, Academy Awards 2026, adventure, airborne, Audrina Miranda, bar, Bechir Sylvian, boat, boyfriend, climate, company, containment chamber, containment system, corporate, crew, cross-breeding, cures for heart disease, David Iacono, David Koepp, developing, dino DNA, dinosaur, dinosaurs, distress call, DNA, Ed Skein, equator, escape, extract, fathers and daughters, franchise, Gareth Edwards, in the wild, island, isolated island, Jonathan Bailey, Jurassic, Jurassic Park, Jurassic World, Jurassic World Rebirth, land, Luna Blaise, Mahershala Ali, Manuel Garcia-Rulfo, mayhem, mercenary Scarlett Johansson, Michael Crichton, Mosasaurus, museum, mutant, mutant dinosaur, nuclear family, Oscar, Oscar nominations, Oscar nominations 2025-26, Oscar nominations 2026, Oscars, Oscars 2025-26, Oscars 2026, palaeontologists, parachute, Philippine Velge, Quetzalcoatlus, R&D, radiation-clad, reboot, Rupert Friend, sailing trip, San Francisco, sauropod, sea, Snickers, South America, Steven Spielberg, syringe, technician, three biggest prehistoric creatures, Titanosaurus, traffic jam, US, vent, yacht