Tag: Better Than Average Bear

Review: Best Wishes to All [Japan Cuts 2023]

What does it mean to be happy? The last few years of global crises, lockdowns, and ubiquitous connectivity has seen our social algorithms serve us answers to that on a daily basis. Some might argue that happiness is not so much a destination as one part of the journey. Director Yuta Shimotsu really wants to know, “Are you happy now?”

In this film, commercial filmmaker Shimotsu stylistically and (somewhat) thematically follows their 2020 short film Dreaming to Accept Reality. Like that previous short, it sees a young woman (Kotone Furukawa) visit her grandparents. Their seemingly endless supply of happiness is punctuated by some odd behaviour, and a house that appears to hold more than one secret.

Saying anything else about the plot at this point may be criminal and, given that it’s filled with seemingly non sequitur turns, complete folly. From the start, there’s something unnerving about the doors in the grandparent’s house. Everybody in town seems to be in on something that the unnamed granddaughter doesn’t know yet. She’s forbidden from hanging out with an old friend. The grandparents oink loudly at the dinner table. Plus, there’s a strange noise coming from upstairs.

It would be tempting to call the events of BEST WISHES TO ALL (みなに幸あれ) unhinged, but there’s a controlled chaos at play here. On some level, it kept reminding me a bit of Kim Jee-woon’s The Quiet Family (remade in Japan by Takashi Miike as The Happiness of the Katakuris). This was not so much in plotting, but in the general tone of its gleefully dark comedy vignettes, the kind where you were increasingly horrified – but you still want to keep peeking inside the box.

As the walls of reality start to close in on our nameless protagonist, and the very nature of existence is questioned, the mystery gives way to desperation on her part. The truly bizarre seems commonplace to everyone but Furukawa’s character, and even as an audience member you start to question whether you’re seeing what everybody else can clearly see. Furukawa is terrific, especially in the back half of the film where her frustration is tangible.

Which brings us back to the original question of finding one’s path to happiness. In Shimotsu’s own strange way, this confident debut film shows someone who ultimately finds their bliss in the most unlikely of places. Just don’t expect any social media influencers to be taking the Yuta Shimotsu happiness challenge anytime soon.

2023 | Japan | DIRECTOR: Yuta Shimotsu | WRITERS: Yuta Shimotsu, Rumi Kakuta | CAST: Kotone Furukawa | DISTRIBUTOR: JAPAN CUTS | RUNNING TIME: 89 minutes | RELEASE DATE: 26 July-6 August 2023 (JAPAN CUTS)

July 28, 2023
Review: Mayhem Girls [NYAFF 2023]

Remember when we were all stuck inside on and off for a couple of years there? As difficult as it was for us adults, while we found new ways of working and communicating, the weirdness was tenfold for school kids. An already uncertain future seemed even more so, and there was now yet another way for their young lives to be oppressed by those in power.

Which is where Shinichi Fujita’s MAYHEM GIRLS (メイヘムガールズ) plonks us down, in a Japan that’s slowly coming out of the pandemic. Nevertheless, teachers are clamping down on mask wearing, festivals are being cancelled, and there are sanitation stations at the entrance to school.

So, in a wonderful bit of magic realism, a group of girls is suddenly given a short-lived set of powers. It’s a fun but obvious analogy for this particular time in one’s life. The four girls, who gather around the de facto leader Mizuho, are initially confused by their powers. From telepathy to more direct mind control, they eventually literally break free and fly when working as a set.

Naturally, the path isn’t a smooth one. When Mizuho becomes interested in a boy, they are convinced to use their newfound talents for less altruistic reasons. From robbing banks to going full Carrie, the mayhem of the title goes into full effect in the back half of the film.

Fujita does a lot with an evidently small budget. The effects for the various abilities are incredibly restrained: objects rattle or fly across the room. When the girls begin to fly, some of this looks a little dodgy around the edges, but it all just adds to the charm of this small-scale character study.

After all, this is a coming of age film, and minor crime sprees, rebellious activities, and doing uncharacteristic things for temporary love interests could happily fit into any other school-based drama. When asked to explain why she is doing what she’s doing, Mizuho is incredibly self-aware: “We’re high school girls, we never know what we want.”

MAYHEM GIRLS takes on a different spin now that we are a little bit further away from the restrictions of the pandemic, even if they lasted a little longer in Japan than some other countries. So, when the events of the film fade as fast as their adolescent powers, all that’s left is the inevitability of what comes after this bubble in their lives. Soon, they too will become like the people who they rebelled against for so many years. Or, as one of the titular girls puts it, “We’ll be normal. The world will be normal.”

2022 | Japan | DIRECTOR: Shinichi Fujita | WRITERS: Shinichi Fujita, Erika Nakayama | CAST: Mizuki Yoshida, Manami Igashira, Amane Kamiya, Hina Kikuchi | DISTRIBUTOR: New York Asian Film Festival (NYAFF) | RUNNING TIME: 99 minutes | RELEASE DATE: 14-30 July 2023 (NYAFF)

July 23, 2023
Review: Barbie

The road to the Barbie movie, at least for most punters, has taken us on a range of reactions as diverse as the titular doll’s career. What began as a curiosity, thanks largely to the presence of indie monarchs Greta Gerwig and Noah Baumbach, rapidly gave way to mega hype, followed by acknowledgement of the perfect casting, then some fatigue at the bombardment of marketing, and ultimately back to genuine curiosity again.

As BARBIE is finally launched on very suspecting audiences, there was still a sense that we didn’t know precisely what to expect in the way of a story. After all, even with the mammoth advertising budget, the trailers told us very little beyond it being a spin on The LEGO Movie’s basic premise — with a splash of the good old-fashioned fish-out-of-water motif.

Which is exactly where Gerwig’s film kicks off. When we meet the Stereotypical Barbie (Margot Robbie), the Narrator (Helen Mirren) reliably tells us Barbieland is a place where all the women have come together to make life better for each other. People have their lots in life, and everything is awesome every day. Except Stereotypical Barbie can’t escape impending thoughts of mortality and (shock horror) cellulite.

So begins her journey to the Real World, to heal the rift by meeting the mother and daughter (America Ferrera and Ariana Greenblatt respectively) whose emotions may be impacting Barbie’s psyche. Ken (Ryan Gosling) hitches a ride in the back seat, learning about the patriarchy and horses in the process. Meanwhile, the CEO of Mattel (Will Ferrell) tries to contain the escape of their fictional dolls into the real world.

BARBIE the movie is like the doll of the same name. It takes a scattergun approach to its themes, trying them on like so many outfits. As an audience member, it’s almost like watching the storyboarding process in real time. As a visual feast, Gerwig’s film works best when it skewers the plastic world, emulating the effortless imagination of play, and replicating details right down to the decals in the fridges. Here it has broad appeal to younger viewers while allowing knowing audiences in on the joke.

Of course, we saw all that in the trailer, and it takes a while for the film to really get beyond that schtick. Indeed, there’s a whole section in the middle where it feels like it’s just people going back and forth between the Real World and Barbieland. Ferrell’s character feels most superfluous at this point, almost as if he’s only there because Mattel corporate wanted to flex control with a literal representation on screen.

When the film shifts gears late in the third act, centered on an electrifying speech from Ferrera about the impossible standards women are held to, we finally get to the heart of Gerwig and Baumbach’s pitch. It’s a lightning rod moment, and that it came from a major studio picture sponsored by a toy company makes it all the more powerful. Yet this too is almost immediately enveloped by the (admittedly impressive) dance sequences, warring Kens, and last wave of cameos. Like the Kens and Barbies, here is a film tonally at war with itself in its last minutes. This is, after all, still a branding exercise.

Robbie and Gosling are unquestionably perfectly cast as the visual representations of Stereotypical Barbie and Ken, but with the knowing sense of humour to make the self-referential material work. Everyone from Simu Liu to Kate McKinnon, Rob Brydon, Issa Rae, and even Rhea Perlman make for some fun Easter egg spotting. While Michael Cera might play to type as Ken’s buddy Allan, he gets some of the best one-liners as well.

Which cannot be emphasised enough: BARBIE is smart and funny. It’s a sharp take down of the binary paradigm, referencing everything from the Snyder Cut to men who make their partners watch The Godfather. It’s as though Gerwig and Baumbach have quietly absorbed all of the toxic internet behaviours and reflected them back to us. If it’s not clear enough, there’s literally a scene where Mattel executives try to put Barbie back in her box.

Still, it’s really hard to say exactly who the audience for BARBIE might be. If you’re looking for a brightly coloured version of the character coming to life in the real world, you’ll get that – for a time. If you want a timely exploration of toxic masculinity, that’s there too. Younger audiences will enjoy some of the humour, but may tune out for the speeches. Older audiences will wait through two acts of capering before they get to the meat of the piece.

The messaging might ultimately be a positive one, that anyone can be either anything they want, or nothing at all – and that it’s okay either way. Yet in trying to be everything to everyone, it’s a lesson the film itself might have failed to learn. Nevertheless, it’s very vivid acknowledgement that we’re all human, trying to get through this thing called life one day at a time.

2023 | USA | DIRECTOR: Greta Gerwig | WRITERS: Greta Gerwig, Noah Baumbach | CAST: Margot Robbie, Ryan Gosling, America Ferrera, Kate McKinnon, Issa Rae, Rhea Perlman, Will Ferrell | DISTRIBUTOR: Universal Pictures (AUS), Warner Bros. Pictures (US) | RUNNING TIME: 114 minutes | RELEASE DATE: 20 July 2023 (AUS), 21 July 2023 (US)

July 19, 2023
Review: Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny

When Disney acquired Lucasfilm back in 2012, it was with the clear intention to commercially exploit existing properties. While it only took three year to bring us more Star Wars, and another five to strip mine it for all its worth, Indiana Jones had peacefully remained in retirement since 2008’s Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull.

Thanks to some rapid advancements in de-aging technology and deep fakery, we quite literally don’t notice the passing of time in the opening sequence of INDIANA JONES AND THE DIAL OF DESTINY. James Mangold, the first person not named Steven Spielberg to helm a theatrical Indy film, immediately creates a traintop set-piece that feels both classic and fresh at the same time.

During that opening, set in the closing days of the Second World War, Indiana (Harrison Ford) and colleague Basil Shaw (Toby Jones) are on a mission to save antiquities from the Nazis. They also discover that German scientist Jürgen Voller (Mads Mikkelsen) has half of the titular dial, said to contain immense power. In a daring escape, both Voller and the dial appear to be lost.

Cut to 1969: man is landing on the Moon, and a much older Dr. Jones is quite literally that guy asking you to turn down your music. Out of the blue, Shaw’s daughter Helena (Phoebe Waller-Bridge) turns up on a quest for the dial. Yet not all is as it appears – especially when a group of Nazis led by the very much alive Voller are also after the same McGuffin.

From Copland to the 3:10 to Yuma remake, Mangold is known for some darker visions on classic archetypes. Like his Logan, another swan song for a franchise character, this is a film that acknowledges ageing. He’s certainly not the first to do this: Star Trek based most of their film franchise around it, and Ford himself tipped a hat to it in Star Wars: The Force Awakens. Hell, there’s scarcely an 80s blockbuster that hasn’t been dragged out, dusted off, and repackaged in the last few years. Yet here is an Indiana Jones who feels world weary, and is now contemplating his place in the world.

Which is why this was never going to quite be the physical ride that Raiders of the Lost Ark or even The Last Crusade were. Tension comes from stand-offs, puzzle solving, and an underwater set-piece where everyone is masked so it scarcely matters what anybody is doing. Some of this does serve to elongate the second act, and at worst it drags a little in the middle. At 154 minutes, this is the longest Indy film by a good half hour or so. Still, it also means we get to spend a little longer with these people, and that’s definitely a good thing.

This isn’t to say Ford ever looks bored either, as might have been the case in Kingdom of the Crystal Skull. He genuinely seems to be having a blast here. Playing wonderfully off Mikkelsen and Waller-Bridge — who gets the lion share of the amazing wardrobe budget — Ford embodies Indiana Jones in and out of the hat. It is a joy to see the actor, who turned 80 as the film was being released, having so much fun.

Mangold’s film can’t help but tip its fedora to past entries either. There are, of course, plenty of Easter eggs, cameos, and more overt references. Still, there are entire sequences that feel like they are there just to push a nostalgia button. At one point, Helena and Indy are in a tight corridor covered in bugs, and it’s hard not to think of Temple of Doom. Without spoiling the climactic finale – which some could argue tries to have its cake and eat it too – there’s certainly shades of The Last Crusade in there.

If this is the end of the road for Dr. Jones, it’s a bittersweet finale. Regardless of your feelings on the contentious Kingdom of the Crystal Skull, this fifth and allegedly final film certainly goes a long way to servicing the fans. Nevertheless, as someone who grew up on Indiana Jones, it’s always going to be hard seeing our heroes get old, mostly because we know that time hasn’t stood still for us either.

2023 | USA | DIRECTOR: James Mangold | WRITERS: Jez Butterworth, John-Henry Butterworth, David Koepp, James Mangold | CAST: Harrison Ford, Phoebe Waller-Bridge, Antonio Banderas, John Rhys-Davies, Toby Jones, Boyd Holbrook, Ethann Isidore, Mads Mikkelsen | DISTRIBUTOR: Disney | RUNNING TIME: 154 minutes | RELEASE DATE: 28 June 2023 (US)

July 9, 2023
Review: Scarygirl

SCARYGIRL is a film, according to its producers, that has been fifteen years in the making. Based on the line of toys and original graphic novel by Nathan Jurevicius, it has been adapted into a side-scrolling video game and now a feature film. It joins a continuum of Australian animation from Dot and the Kangaroo to Happy Feet, bringing these characters to life and having a joyful time doing it.

Directed by Ricard Cussó and Tania Vincent, the first woman to helm an animated feature in Australia, we’re introduced to a sci-fi world where capturing an octopus is the ultimate reward. This is thanks to the bounty evil scientist, Dr Maybee (voiced by Sam Neill) has put on such creatures. Bunniguru (Remy Hii) and his companion Egg hope to capture one to pay off their substantial debts.

Meanwhile, Arkie (Jillian Nguyen), a small girl with a tentacle for an arm, lives with her octopus father, Blister (Rob Collins) on an idyllic world. When Blister is captured by Maybee’s henchmen, Arkie must team up with Bunniguru to save him from having his lifeforce drained.

SCARYGIRL is a breezy affair that wears its influences on its sleeve. It’s the kind of high concept adventure story we’ve seen many times before, with several key beats very clearly influenced by Star Wars and other similar films from a certain era. Yet there’s an unabashed earnestness to these characters and a kinetic energy that propels this feature, touching on climate change,

Directors Cussó and Vincent have previously delivered very Australian tales of possums, quokkas, and wombats in their feature animation. Here they up the scale of the production. The sort of 3D/CG/hand-made hybrid look-and-feel comes with a detailed use of light and shadow not always seen in local productions. At times, it’s startling beautiful to behold, especially on the big screen.

The look and feel of the characters are partly determined by the source material, but it’s the backgrounds that make all the difference for this feature. Arkie’s home life has all the colour and pop of a Nintendo backdrop, perhaps a nod to the video game origins. There’s a wonderful sequence in a forest filled with organic movement, glowing plants and eyes in the trees. It culminates in a ‘tempest of leaves’ forming a giant monster in a wonderful piece of imaginative modelling. Maybee’s City of Light contrasts with Arkie’s world, filled with electronic lights, domes, and mecha – or “overlord chic” as one character puts it.

Nguyen, perhaps best known for TV work on Barons and Hungry Ghosts, leads the voice cast. At the Sydney Film Festival screening, she described Arkie as a “bad bitch,” although she imbues the character with believability and youthful enthusiasm. Of course it’s Sam Neill as a misguided villain who has let personal tragedy dictate his life. That’s Tim Minchin as Chihoohoo, a hybrid Chihuahua. Deborah Mailman rounds out the star-studded cast with a fun cameo as the witchy Treedweller, a character who we hope makes appearances in future outings.

In fact, SCARYGIRL has all the potential in the world to be an ongoing enterprise, something uniquely Australian and universal at the same time. The characters have already proven they have the legs (and tentacles) to go the distance through merchandising and extended media, and it would be wonderful to spend some more time with these characters.

2023 | Australia | DIRECTOR: Ricard Cussó, Tania Vincent | WRITER: Polly Watkins, Matt Everitt, Les Turner, Craig Behenna (based on the story by Nathan Jurevicius) | CAST: Jillian Nguyen, Sam Neill, Deborah Mailman, Tim Minchin, Rob Collins, Remy Hii | DISTRIBUTOR: Sydney Film Festival 2023 | RUNNING TIME: 134 minutes | RELEASE DATE: 7-18 June 2023 (SFF 2023)

June 20, 2023
Review: Cobweb

Beginning with The Quiet Family in 1998, Kim Jee-Woon’s remarkably dark comic streak and refined sense of cinema has earned him a legion of fans. It’s continued through crossover hits like A Tale of Two Sisters (2003), The Good, The Bad, The Weird (2008) and I Saw the Devil (2010). Now, with COBWEB (거미집), Kim combines that love of cinema and black comedy by taking us through a rarely seen slice of South Korean cinema history.

During the 1970s, where Kim and co-writer Shin Youn-Shick lays our scene, South Korean cinema censorship reaches its peak under President Park Chung-hee’s authoritarian “Yusin System.” Films were laden with party policy (that is, government propaganda), and anyone who attempted to circumvent these rules would be blacklisted by the government.

In Kim’s film, director Kim Ki-yeol (Song Kang-ho) is plagued. He has just finished shooting his latest project, but a recurring dream convinces him that reshoots will turn it into a masterpiece. Taunted by critics and haunted by the shadow of deceased mentor Director Shin, he goes against studio boss Baek’s (Jang Young-nam) express wishes and calls back the cast for secret reshoots. It all has to be done in less than 2 days.

Enlisting the help of Mido (Jeon Yeo-been), heir apparent to the studio with no obvious qualification but her passion, he soon finds that the drama is happening all around him. Philandering star Ho-se (Oh Jung-se) is overwrought with emotion due to the pregnancy of Yu-rim (Krystal Jung), the apparent result of their on-set affair. The latter is being a diva, making unreasonable demands. In fact, all of them are hiding secrets, something a method actor playing a detective begins to deduce.

Highly self-referential and filled with inky dark humour, COBWEB is as tangled a lattice as its title would imply. The real-life Kim plays it all out in duelling narratives. There are the events of the set, ones that involve everything from plying officials with alcohol to internal squabbling. Both Kim Ki-yeol and Mido fancy themselves as actors at various points, and the results are deliberately terrible and hilarious.

Then there’s the film within a film, a black and white piece shot on lavish sets with soap opera plotting. The faux film is overwrought, a real melodrama of the highest order. Yet it’s done with such loving and knowing references that you’ll want to go back and check out the films of Kim Ho-Sun or Shin Sang-ok, the latter of whom was kidnapped by North Korea following the revocation of his South Korean filmmaking license.

At times it’s chaos on wheels, running at a frenetic energy that fills all 135 minutes of this intense bubble. This is especially true of the big finale, built around a single-shot climax that the fictional Kim is determined to complete. From the moment he yells action, it’s a flurry of movement. As an audience, we desperately want to see it work but are waiting for the penny to drop.

The closing moments of COBWEB play out the crucial scene in full, bringing the fictional film to a close inside the one we are watching. In one of the more meta moments, the festival audience I watched this with started applauding just as the credits rolled, only to see a vision of a faux audience doing the same. So, this is either a clever commentary on the participatory nature of film, or Kim just having some fun with us. Either way, it’s a wickedly joyful way to spend a few hours.

2023 | South Korea | DIRECTOR: Kim Jee-Woon | WRITER: Shin Yeon-shick | CAST: Song Kang-ho, Lim Soo-jung, Oh Jung-se, Krystal Jung | DISTRIBUTOR: Sydney Film Festival 2023 | RUNNING TIME: 134 minutes | RELEASE DATE: 7-18 June 2023 (SFF 2023)

June 20, 2023
Review: Art College 1994

Liu Jian’s animated film opens with a quote from James Joyce’s The Portrait of an Artist as a Young Man. “To live, to err, to fall, to triumph, to recreate life out of life.” Like one of his leads Xiaojun (voiced here by Dong Zijian), Jian studied Chinese painting in the ‘90s. So, from the start ART COLLEGE 1994 is arguably his attempt at an autobiographical look back at art college days in China during the 1990s.

China was undergoing some major social change during this time, with western influences intersecting with traditional culture. We see this in the painful and hilarious lectures the students have to attend with titles like ‘Western Philosophy and Chinese Culture.’ Still, there’s a universality to much of the film.

Along with art school colleague Rabbit, and music students and potential love interests Lili and Hong, Xiaojun attempts to navigate their day-to-day existence while asking all the big questions. Much of this is done through long takes of the various characters pondering the meaning of art. Can anything be art? Does that make anyone an artist? If so, why are they all in art school? Is that person interested in me? What the hell will they do when we leave college?

It’s a simple affair. At times, it’s disarmingly wry and insightfully funny. At others, it feels almost documentary in nature. There are minor fights, sure, but most conflicts and dramas come about through moments of indecision or life’s turning points. Hong dates a lot, deciding between a cash job and a singing career, while Lili finds herself drifting towards the stability of an unexciting marriage.

Liu Jian’s film has a firm sense of place. The highly detailed backgrounds are clearly taken from reference photos during this wistful look back at days spent in the Chinese Southern Academy of Arts during the 1990s. The textures on the wall, and the structures of buildings and bridges, are all meticulously detailed.

Yet it’s the little details that make all the difference to every scene. Nirvana tape covers, movie posters, and t-shirts add to the period setting. Given that Jian spends so long on each scene, and the line art of the main characters is fairly straightforward, we get time to appreciate how much texture is put into the walls, trees, or even piles of bowls left lying around the dorm room.

ART COLLEGE 1994 is ultimately too long for its subject matter. At close to two hours, it pushes past a natural stopping point on more than one occasion in the last act. Yet life in college or university is a bit like that. It’s a lot of the same thing over and over again, it feels like it will never end, and then it’s over.

2023 | China | DIRECTOR: Liu Jian | WRITER: Lin Shan, Liu Jian | CAST: Dong Zijian, Zhou Dongyu, Jia Zhangke | DISTRIBUTOR: Sydney Film Festival 2023 | RUNNING TIME: 118 minutes | RELEASE DATE: 7-18 June 2023 (SFF 2023)

June 17, 2023
Review: Thorns of Beauty [Nippon Connection 2023]

If you look through the posters for Hideo Jojo’s filmography, you’ll get a definite first impression of his body of work. In fact, the mixture of so-called pink films and blood splattered one-sheets might just keep you away from THORNS OF BEAUTY (恋のいばら), which would be a shame. It’s definitely not what one might expect.

Known variously as Thorns of Love (or even Thorns in Love depending on where you’re seeing this), Jojo and co-writer Kaori Sawai introduce us to photographer Kentaro (Keisuke Watanabe) and his girlfriend, the fashionable aspiring dancer Riko (Tina Tamashiro). The latter is approached by Momo (Honoka Matsumoto), a shy library worker who is worried about the explicit photos that Kentaro has of her.

What begins as a kind of mini-heist, with Riko and Momo conspiring to break into Kentaro’s computer and secure the photos, rapidly becomes something unexpected. On the one hand, the film is ostensibly about toxic relationships, secrets and lies, and more broadly the notion of trust. Yet it very smoothly becomes a story about a different kind of relationship, namely the (not wholly unexpected) one emerging between Riko and Momo.

Much of this works thanks to the earnest character interpretations of Tamashiro and Matsumoto. It builds subtly at first, with the pair sitting around telling stories of their exes. Later in the film, there is a scene where Riko and Momo have dinner with one of their family units, one that’s so natural that it stands out as a distinct turning point for their characters. By contrast, there’s an equally impactful scene where Momo must watch Riko and Kentaro being intimate while hidden in a closet.

Jojo’s film has a distinctive look and feel as well. The opening shot is of a feather gently floating down onto a sleeping face, a moment that comes full circle with the final shot. At other times, Jojo takes us inside the neon lighting of a strip club. There’s one scene in particular where Riko and Momo are bathed in green, as striking and obvious a visual metaphor as any you’ll find.

By the time we get to the final act, there’s a certain sense of inevitability to the film. The fragile relationship that Riko and Momo have built fundamentally comes from a place where trust has been eroded, so Jojo and Sawai have an in-built fatalism to their narrative. Yet the final kicker will hit home for many viewers, proving at least one of the women right from the very beginning.

2023 | Japan | DIRECTOR: Hideo Jojo | WRITERS: Hideo Jojo and Kaori Sawai | CAST: Tina Tamashiro, Honoka Matsumoto, Keisuke Watanabe | DISTRIBUTOR: Nippon Connection 2023 | RUNNING TIME: 98 minutes | RELEASE DATE: 6-11 June 2023 (Nippon Connection)

June 13, 2023
Review: Gold Kingdom and Water Kingdom [Nippon Connection 2023]

Director Kotono Watanabe is known largely for his television work on titles like Chihayafuru, Puella Magi Madoka Magica, and many more. For his feature directorial debut, he turns to Nao Iawamoto’s Kin no Kuni Mizu no Kuni manga, which ran in Flowers magazine between 2014 and 2016.

The basic premise of the film is rooted in familiar narrative tropes of star-crossed lovers and warring kingdoms. Here screenwriter Fumi Tsubota (My Beautiful Man) does a tidy job of introducing us to the ancient rift between the neighbouring lands of Alhamit and Baikari, which ultimately resulted in war due to untidied dog poop.

Resolution seems near when an old agreement sees Alhamit bequeath its most beautiful woman to Baikari as a bride to the latter’s wisest man. Alhamit’s princess Sara (voiced by Minami Hamabe) is confused when a puppy arrives on the fated day, while unemployed Baikari engineer Naranbayar (Kento Kaku) receives a kitten. By chance, the pair meet and slowly work out that something bigger is going on in their respective kingdoms.

For a fairly classic take Romeo and Juliet, with a little bit of geopolitics thrown in for good measure, GOLD KINGDOM AND WATER KINGDOM (金の国水の国) is quite entertaining. Characters Sara and Naranbayar are well written, and while we don’t get too deep into their characters in the necessarily compressed storytelling of cinema, we get enough to hook onto them for a while. It’s not so much laugh-out-loud funny, but there are some solid anime moments of cutaways and sight gags that amuse as well.

Visually, the film is lively, defined by the simple dichotomy of the desert-like Alhamit and the lush greens of Baikari. There are shots where the latter’s green seems to go on forever. The finale is largely set in a CG boosted series of stairs and bridges that are inspired by the architecture of Alhamit. The blend of animation styles doesn’t always sit easily, but it looks a treat at times.

Evan Call (Violet Evergarden) provides an engaging score, with several songs provided by Kotone including the theme ‘Brand New World.’

While the ending pushes the comic misunderstanding premise a little past believability, it also ups its own scale in terms of visuals and SFX, landing us on a positive note. It’s possible a series would have been a better fit for the material, but it’s ultimately a satisfying case of one and done.

2022 | Japan | DIRECTOR: Kotono Watanabe | WRITERS: Fumi Tsubota (Based on a manga by Nao Iwamoto) | CAST: Kento Kaku, Minami Hamabe, Hiroshi Kamiya, Miyuki Sawashiro, Subaru Kimura | DISTRIBUTOR: Nippon Connection 2023 | RUNNING TIME: 117 minutes | RELEASE DATE: 6-11 June 2023 (Nippon Connection)

June 9, 2023
Review: The Boogeyman

If there are two certainties in life, it’s death and Stephen King adaptations. While the former has been fairly consistent in its finality, the latter hasn’t always been as successful as the master’s prose.

THE BOOGEYMAN, based on a 1973 short story that appeared in the Night Shift collection, uses the source material as a jumping off point to do its own thing. In the original story, King uses a simple structure of an unreliable witness relating his terrible tale to a psychologist before we get the devilish twist. It’s as much modern Gothic as it is Twilight Zone.

In Rob Savage’s film version it is the therapist’s family who are in the midst of tragedy. After the loss of his wife to an accident, Will (Chris Messina), his children Sadie (Sophie Thatcher) and Sawyer (Vivien Lyra Blair) all exhibit their own signs of trauma. When Will opens the door to unexpected walk-in client Lester Billings (David Dastmalchian), he inadvertently lets in a presence that wants to attack his kids when they are most vulnerable.

Adapted to the screen by Scott Beck, Bryan Woods, and Mark Heyman, one of the uphill battles was translating this slender story to a feature-length scarefest. The expansion of the lore is quite well done, and it was a wise move making someone other than the unhinged Billings the centre of the story. The beauty of the film’s structure is that the entirety of the short story could have still happened off screen.

Like many films in this specific sub-genre of horror, the principal weapon for fear is the jump scare. This works here thanks to a phenomenal use of the soundscape. The titular character, with all of its requisite grunts and growls, can be heard coming from all directions, as if to immerse us in darkness just outside the closet door. If King has spent his career sharing tangible fears with us, then this is a film that trades on our primal fear of the dark.

As such, photographer Eli Born (who shot the most recent Hellraiser) relies on those lights and shadows. There’s a creepy house that Sadie visits several times, one that is illuminated only by a sporadically flashing bulb and corridors full of candles. In another scene, a slowly pulsing red light draws us into darkness with terrifying results. There’s a recurring motif of Sawyer’s circular night light, one which the audience might also want to desperately cling to, as Savage and Born take us down certain corridors.

Messina seems to sleepwalk through his scenes, partly appropriate for the distance his character has created from his kids. Indeed, he’s completely absent for long stretches of the film – whether intentionally or through the edit. So, it’s up to the two very capable young stars Thatcher (Yellowjackets) and Blair (Obi-Wan Kenobi) to carry this off. Which they do spectacularly. Through their eyes, it’s a nightmarish Monsters Inc.

THE BOOGEYMAN is probably never destined to reach the iconic heights of some of Stephen King’s other works. Yet the moment to moment scares are effective, especially in the environment of a darkened cinema. Indeed, it was King who suggested to Savage that they’d be “fucking stupid to release this on streaming and not in cinemas.” It’s a good thing they listened. Now, if you don’t mind I’m just going to close that closet door.

2023 | USA | DIRECTOR: Rob Savage | WRITERS: Scott Beck, Bryan Woods and Mark Heyman (based on a story by Stephen King) | CAST: Sophie Thatcher, Chris Messina, Vivien Lyra Blair, David Dastmalchian | DISTRIBUTOR: 20th Century Studios | RUNNING TIME: 99 minutes | RELEASE DATE: 1 June 2023 (AUS), 2 June 2023 (USA)

May 31, 2023