Tag: Wait For the DVD/Blu-ray

Review: Another Simple Favor

With its mixture of dark comedy and noirish leanings, Paul Feig’s A Simple Favor earned a cult following. Its awkward epilogue hinted at further stories to tell, but none of them exactly screamed for a sequel.

Which is where ANOTHER SIMPLE FAVOR finds itself boxed in from the start, unsure how to justify its own existence. Stephanie Smothers (Anna Kendrick) is now a successful content creator and amateur sleuth. While on a book tour, Stephanie is surprised when Emily Nelson—aka Hope McLanden (Blake Lively)—unexpectedly emerges from prison and invites her to a wedding in Capri as maid of honour. Given the groom is a mysterious, mobbed-up Dante Versano (Michele Morrone), murder and mayhem are sure to follow.

This sequel could have gone in one of two directions: repeating the formula that made the first film a success, or leaning heavily into the cosy crime angle. Feig and screenwriters Jessica Sharzer and Laeta Kalogridis veer off in an awkward third direction, abandoning both the original’s noir homage and the potential of a lighter genre exercise. In their place is a tonally chaotic caper—one that wants to be a whodunnit, but lands closer to Mamma Mia.

Without spoiling the murder itself, or the minor twists and turns that follow, the core problem this time is that the mystery just lacks the intrigue needed to sustain the plot. Elizabeth Perkins (replacing Jean Smart) and Allison Janney, as Emily’s mother and aunt respectively, add very little other than broad comedy until the climax. Supporting cast from the original are largely sidelined. Instead, most of the film becomes an excuse for Kendrick and Lively to cavort around the island, changing into increasingly large hats in every scene.

Which is entirely fair, given the location. Veteran cinematographer John Schwartzman beautifully captures the Capri backdrops. So, on a technical level at least, it’s slickly shot and makes excellent use of the setting.

ANOTHER SIMPLE FAVOR hints at more to come—and who can blame them, when actors playing dual roles (The Alto Knights, Sinners, Mickey 17) are so hot right now. But if this series is to survive on its new streaming home of Prime, it’ll need to decide whether it’s content to be stylish fluff or lean right into the cosy comforts of reliable formula.

2025 | USA | DIRECTOR: Paul Feig | WRITERS: Jessica Sharzer, Laeta Kalogridis | CAST: Anna Kendrick, Blake Lively, Andrew Rannells, Bashir Salahuddin, Elizabeth Perkins, Michele Morrone, Elena Sofia Ricci, Alex Newell, Henry Golding, Allison Janney | DISTRIBUTOR: Amazon MGM Studios | RUNNING TIME: 108 minutes | RELEASE DATE: 1 May 2025

May 2, 2025
Review: A Minecraft Movie

The lesson we should have taken from Barbie—beyond its critique of societal expectations and perfectionism—is that big-budget films about female empowerment resonate with audiences. Yet the counters of beans have instead fixated on the value of co-branding a film with an existing product, sidestepping the messy business of having to explain a new concept to prospective viewers.

Which brings us to A MINECRAFT MOVIE. By the time the story proper kicks off, we’ve already had two expository voiceovers laying out the rules of the world we’re about to enter. Taking a leaf from the Jumanji playbook, we see Steve (Jack Black) pulled into the cube-shaped Overworld after discovering a mysterious glowing orb. He builds a wonderland of his own imagination—until the evil Malgosha (voiced by Rachel House) sets her sights on the orb for her own devious purposes.

Where the five (count ’em) credited writers take this next is fairly predictable. After introducing us to a quirky town built around a chip factory—about the only place where Napoleon Dynamite director Jared Hess gets to showcase his offbeat humour—we follow creative kid Henry (Sebastian Hansen) through the portal to the Overworld. Along for the ride are his guardian and sister Natalie (Emma Myers), Dawn (Danielle Brooks), and Garrett “The Garbage Man” Garrison (Jason Momoa), a former ’80s video game champion hopelessly stuck in the past.

The traditional problem with these kinds of films is that they have to play within the specific parameters of the brand’s world. Minecraft, much like LEGO, has the minor advantage of encouraging open play and imaginative exploration. Yet with that comes the challenge, as director Hess once put it, of how to “adapt something that doesn’t have a story.”

Hess’ film has a story—it’s just wholly subservient to the form. Where The LEGO Movie gleefully broke as many rules as it laid out, here he’s forced to tick off familiar totems rather than develop the characters: the fried chicken, the zombies, the stash, the diamond mines, and so on. Other elements are simply abandoned, perhaps assuming the target audience wouldn’t notice or care.

Natalie and Dawn are sidelined for long stretches, seemingly just to make room for Black’s comedy dance routines or his double-act with Momoa. Meanwhile, an entire romantic subplot between Henry’s vice principal and a cube-shaped villager who wandered into the real world serves no purpose—except to remind us that Jennifer Coolidge is a precious natural resource that shouldn’t be squandered on a throwaway role.

All other characters are computer generated, keeping with the blocky source material. The brightly coloured background gives some visual appeal, and stays authentic to the game’s origins, even if the tactile nature of the textured mapped pig flesh is somewhat unnerving. As such, the voice acting is key, and while it’s always great to see Rachel House’s name in the credits, here it just feels like a first pass recording.

A MINECRAFT MOVIE is a frustrating enterprise because it’s so close to being something more. There are genuinely funny moments, especially when the film plays with the quirks of the real world (which, honestly, could have been a whole movie on its own). At the screening event, one young fan, surrounded by McHappy Meals and giant recreations of blocks, was heard to remark, “I think I’ve died and gone to heaven.” And maybe that’s the lesson Hollywood really took from Barbie—that brand loyalty will always win out in the end.

2025 | USA | DIRECTOR: Jared Hess | WRITERS: Chris Bowman, Hubbel Palmer, Neil Widener, Gavin James, Chris Galletta | CAST: Jason Momoa, Jack Black, Danielle Brooks, Emma Myers, Sebastian Hansen | DISTRIBUTOR: Warner Bros. Pictures | RUNNING TIME: 100 minutes | RELEASE DATE: 3 April 2025 (Australia), 4 April 2025 (USA)

April 3, 2025
Review: O’Dessa

There’s no mistaking director Geremy Jasper’s intent as a psychedelic storm of logos gives way to a throwback set of ’80s-inspired titles and a sweeping purple landscape. O’DESSA is a dystopian rock opera, blending aesthetics that range from 2000 AD to Liquid Sky. So when the first of many folk-country ballads begins, the tonal whiplash is immediate.

Jasper’s script layers in a multitude of monomythic elements, but at its core, it follows the titular O’Dessa (Sadie Sink), the last in a long line of guitar-totin’ troubadours called ramblers. We know this because the first three or four songs are all about ramblin’. It is prophesied that she, as the Seventh Son, will bring an end to the machinations of Plutonovich (Murray Bartlett), who controls Onderworld through mind control embedded in a game show called The One.

So, following the death of her dirt-farmer mother, this rambler gets ramblin’ toward Satylite City, armed only with a guitar. Along the way, she encounters Euri Dervish (Kelvin Harrison Jr.), a gender-fluid performer who is equal parts Prince, the Biblical Salome, and Lil Nas X. They almost immediately fall hopelessly in love, but fate has other ideas. To save the soul of her star-crossed lover, O’Dessa must face her destiny.

Jasper, who previously directed the comparatively lo-fi Patti Cake$, certainly takes a big swing with O’DESSA. Held together by the loose fibres of a broader mythology, the film has the moment-to-moment logic of a music video, confronting its hero with a mix of cultural influences, bright neon, and LED stripping. This is particularly effective when O’Dessa first enters the big city, the screen enveloped in a perpetual red glow.

At times, the shopfront is The Illuminatus! Trilogy, with an all-seeing eye and looming monoliths dominating the landscape. Elsewhere, a computerized ’80s grid and a tortured version of Max Headroom serve as totemic symbols of oppression. During Feelin’ Free, the most joyful number in the piece, a horn section blending Eastern and Western aesthetics injects a liveliness into all the oppressive darkness.

It’s just that Jasper never quite brings all these elements together successfully. If this is The Wizard of Oz, then it never follows a straight line down the yellow brick road. His version of a Kansas farm girl has her equivalent of the ruby slippers in the form of a musical inheritance, but it’s hard to tell whether the film’s final acts of rebellion reveal the man behind the curtain or if Dorothy simply surrenders.

It’s almost fitting that this arrives around the same time as The Electric State, a film with ten times the budget but a similarly thin exploration of rebellion against technological dependence. Neither quite gets beyond the surface, but at least Jasper’s looks gorgeous while trying.

2025 | USA | DIRECTOR: Geremy Jasper | WRITER: Geremy Jasper | CAST: Sadie Sink, Kelvin Harrison Jr., Murray Bartlett, Regina Hall | DISTRIBUTOR: Searchlight Pictures/Hulu | RUNNING TIME: 106 minutes | RELEASE DATE: 20 March 2025 (Hulu/Disney+)

March 21, 2025
Review: Snow White

In recent years, watching Disney’s live-action remakes has felt like gazing into the Magic Mirror and asking, “Who’s the fairest of them all?” Their inescapable ties to beloved classics ensure constant comparison to the originals, and Snow White is no exception. With her legacy as the first lady of Disney’s animation empire, the challenge of reimagining her story in the 21st century might be like bobbing for poisoned apples.

As hard as it is to believe now, in a time when you can stream an animated original film from your phone, many believed in 1937 that nobody would sit still for 90 minutes of a feature cartoon. This is why the original Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs was dubbed “Walt’s Folly.” Yet today, its success laid the foundation for Disney’s animation empire, influencing everything from hand-drawn classics to billion-dollar franchises like Frozen. The challenge for any remake, then, is not just to pay homage but to justify its own existence.

Marc Webb’s remake retains the opening storybook motif that evoked a “European storybook feel” in the original, but the visual similarities end there. Where original director David Hand and his animation team used the then-revolutionary multiplane camera to push us through the forest, Webb’s book is pried open by anthropomorphic CG animals.

The story follows many of the same beats we know but sets itself apart from the original almost immediately with a song-and-dance number showing how Snow White (Rachel Zegler) became the orphaned stepchild of the vain and selfish Queen (Gal Gadot). As the kingdom rapidly transforms from a place of joy to one of poverty, the arrival of a handsome young thief, Jonathan (Andrew Burnap), sparks Snow White’s desire to explore the outside world.

From here, the story swings between the familiar—the Mirror on the wall, the Queen’s jealousy, the huntsman, and Snow White’s exile—but is stylistically filtered through a myriad of influences. The dark forest glows with a heightened red hue, its trees grasping at Snow like a Sam Raimi entity. Jonathan has a band of merry men, evoking a cross between Robin Hood and Tangled’s Flynn Rider. Meanwhile, the animals are both photorealistic and imbued with wide-eyed, expressive faces.

One of the more contentious aspects is the portrayal of the seven dwarfs, given concerns about perpetuating negative stereotypes of people with dwarfism. Disney sidesteps this by making them entirely computer generated and referring to them as ‘magical’ creatures. Yet no sooner can you say ‘Heigh Ho’ than we find ourselves deep in the uncanny valley, cavorting with beings that are neither human nor cartoon. Worse still, they serve little purpose to the story, their function having now largely been replaced by Jonathan’s gang.

Where SNOW WHITE truly distinguishes itself is in its songbook, featuring an original set of tunes by composers Benj Pasek and Justin Paul (Dear Evan Hansen, La La Land, The Greatest Showman). While few stand out as distinctive bops or prove as catchy as more recent Disney fare—save perhaps the amusing Princess Problems—all serve the story through song. This is also where Zegler shines as a performer, belting out big numbers like her signature character tune, Waiting on a Wish.

The same cannot be said for Gadot, who fails to bring any gravitas to the Queen. The role demands high camp, and while Gadot may pass the Susan Sontag test of being failed seriousness, her attempts at anger generate unintentional laughs rather than menace. Her performance in All Is Fair strains her vocal limits, though a later sequence while poisoning apples lands more effectively.

When Disney first released this story in the 1930s, it was to an audience who didn’t know they needed it. SNOW WHITE arrives without a clear audience. While it deserves credit for necessary updates to the narrative—including a neat nod to the infamous non-consensual kiss at the end—this reboot struggles to balance broad branding with a desire to modernise the story, ultimately feeling stuck between obligation and reinvention.

2025 | USA | DIRECTOR: Marc Webb | WRITER: Erin Cressida Wilson (Based on Disney’s Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs) | CAST: Rachel Zegler, Andrew Burnap, Gal Gadot | DISTRIBUTOR: Disney | RUNNING TIME: 109 minutes | RELEASE DATE: 20 March 2025 (Australia), 21 March 2025 (USA)

March 20, 2025
Review: The Electric State

Since the box office behemoth of Avengers: Endgame, brothers Joe and Anthony Russo have largely focused on streaming projects like Extraction, Cherry, and The Gray Man. THE ELECTRIC STATE, loosely based on Simon Stålenhag’s illustrated novel, aims to bring a Marvel-like scope—and a record-breaking $320 million budget—to Netflix audiences.

From the opening frames, there’s a lot to take in. Set in a retro-futuristic version of the 1990s, where the decade never ended but technology advanced unchecked, orphaned teen Michelle (Millie Bobby Brown) navigates a world reshaped by a failed robot uprising—one that left its once-colourful mascots exiled.

When Michelle learns that her brother Christopher (Woody Norman) may still be alive—his consciousness uploaded into a cutesy robot—she ventures into the forbidden Exclusion Zone with reluctant smuggler Keats (Chris Pratt). Hot on their trail is a relentless bounty hunter (Giancarlo Esposito), while tech mogul Ethan Skate (Stanley Tucci) has his own reasons for standing in their way. The fate of the world just might hang in the balance.

Adapting existing material is always a challenge, but screenwriters Christopher Markus and Stephen McFeely—longtime Russo collaborators since Captain America: The Winter Soldier—use the novel more as inspiration than blueprint. The worldbuilding is painted in broad strokes, hurtling from an all-out robot war, complete with some properly impressive large-scale visuals, to a dystopian wasteland of techno-junkies in mere minutes.

On the surface, this has all the makings of a throwback adventure, the kind of high-concept spectacle that dominated the big screen in the ’80s and ’90s. Yet it never fully embraces that tone, caught between heavy-handed moral lessons on acceptance and light commentary on technology. In fact, it’s never quite clear whether the film is warning of tech’s dangers or revelling in its possibilities.

One imagines much of the non-effects budget went to the cast, a fairly impressive collection of actors both on-screen and voicing robotic characters. Brown, however, feels miscast, already aging out of high school roles yet not quite bringing the gravitas of a lead. Pratt stays firmly in his wheelhouse. Criminally, Esposito is relegated to a tiny black-and-white screen slapped onto a robot’s head.

But this is an event picture, and the effects are the real stars. Some, as mentioned earlier, are magnificent, and the robot companions are seamlessly integrated. The soundtrack leans on familiar choices—Danzig, Journey, Wagner—rarely straying from the expected beats. (The one exception: a killer Flaming Lips needle drop over the closing credits.) Still, you’re telling me $320 million couldn’t buy a single decent wig for the entire cast?

THE ELECTRIC STATE is an entertaining ride, but one that never digs beyond the surface of its concept. You may not see all that budget on-screen or feel compelled to revisit it anytime soon. More frustratingly, that same price tag could have funded half a dozen mid-budget genre films for the platform. But this is the world we live in now, and I, for one, welcome our robot overlords.

2025 | USA | DIRECTOR: Anthony Russo and Joe Russo | WRITERS: Christopher Markus and Stephen McFeely | CAST: Millie Bobby Brown, Chris Pratt, Ke Huy Quan, Jason Alexander, Woody Harrelson, Anthony Mackie, Brian Cox, Jenny Slate, Giancarlo Esposito, Stanley Tucci | DISTRIBUTOR: Netflix | RUNNING TIME: 128 minutes | RELEASE DATE: 14 March 2025

March 15, 2025
Review: The Last Showgirl

Gia Coppola opens her third feature with a close-up of Pamela Anderson in the middle of an audition. The moment sees her character of Shelly, a 57-year-old showgirl who has spent her entire career in the Las Vegas show Le Razzle Dazzle, nervous and unsure of what she’s doing. Yet this is the most intimate and raw moment in a film that fails to ever get beneath the skin of its character.

Like The Wrestler before it, Coppola and screenwriter Kate Gersten attempt to frame Shelly’s journey in a naturalistic light. Eschewing the bright lights of the Vegas Strip, the film follows Shelly largely backstage as she struggles to keep pace with younger dancers Jodie (Kiernan Shipka) and Marianne (Brenda Song). Though she treats them like daughters, her own daughter Hannah (Billie Lourd) remains distant, a dynamic the film hints at but never fully explores.

Shelly’s world unravels when the softly-spoken Eddie, the producer of the revue, tells her that the show she has been in for over three decades will be closing in a few weeks. Having wrapped her identity so completely in the show, self-deluding that she’s carrying on a French stage tradition, she is unable to move on.

There are moments where Coppola seems to grasp the weight of Shelly’s predicament, but too often, the execution undermines the intent. Shelly’s best friend, former showgirl Annette (Jamie Lee Curtis)—embittered, addicted to gambling, and now working as a waitress—serves as both Shelly’s antithesis and her only model for a possible future. Yet the film never lingers on her for long, just as it struggles to focus on anything else, as Coppola and Gersten continue introducing new threads without ever weaving them together.

Nowhere is this more evident than in a key sequence where Annette dances her heart out to Bonnie Tyler’s Total Eclipse of the Heart on the casino floor. What should be a defining moment instead becomes an awkwardly edited montage, cutting rapidly between Annette and other characters as if unsure what emotion to convey. In another film, it might have played as parody—here, it simply falls flat.

The choice to cast Anderson as Shelly is somewhat inspired, and there are moments where it feels like she’s speaking through her avatar. Yet for all the praise she will deservedly receive for tackling this role, she ultimately struggles with the same creative limitations as her character. Her breathy vagueness recalls Monroe, but without the ironic winking, only emphasising how meagre the script’s offerings are.

Of course, it’s hard to shine when Curtis is delivering a powerhouse supporting performance right next to you. Like Anderson, she too has been pigeonholed at points in her career, but here she lays it all bare with triumphant conviction. Bautista also surprises in a low-key role that suggests more depth than we ever truly get to explore. Lourd, however, simply feels miscast.

On a technical level, there are fleeting glimpses of beauty. Cinematographer Autumn Durald Arkapaw frequently employs a wide-angle lens, capturing the Vegas Strip as a hazy, fading remnant of its former fantasy. Even in close-ups, figures at the edge of the frame blur into obscurity. While this visual approach could align with Shelly’s unravelling perspective, it more often feels like an unintentional distraction, muddying rather than enhancing key character beats.

THE LAST SHOWGIRL offers no conclusive ending for Shelly, its dreamlike denouement suggesting she has yet to accept her fate. Ultimately, it’s a shame, as there’s a strong story at the heart of this—one that would have benefitted from a serialised format. In a way, that might have also brought Anderson full circle, back to the medium that made her a household name.

2024 | USA | DIRECTOR: Gia Coppola | WRITERS: Kate Gersten | CAST: Pamela Anderson, Jamie Lee Curtis, Billie Lourd, Dave Bautista, Brenda Song, Kiernan Shipka | DISTRIBUTOR: Madman Films (Australia), Roadside Attractions (USA) | RUNNING TIME: 89 minutes | RELEASE DATE: 20 February 2025 (Australia), 13 December 2024 (USA)

February 5, 2025
Review: Alien: Romulus

Fede Álvarez’s Evil Dead stands out for its stylish and moody reimagining of a cult classic, managing to innovate while honouring what fans loved about the original. In stark contrast, Disney’s post-acquisition strategy often appears to focus on leveraging beloved properties, sometimes recycling them to the point where they risk becoming hollow imitations of their former selves.

So, the ninth Alien film, the first of the Disney era, appropriately opens on a mining colony. Rain Carradine (Cailee Spaeny) tirelessly works in the Weyland Yutani facility with her adopted brother Andy (David Jonsson), a malfunctioning synthetic lifeform that once belonged to the company.

For a brief time, this setting promises to be one of the more original premises for the franchise, shifting the focus away from scientists and soldiers in favour of a group of characters living on the fringes. Like the ‘truckers in space’ outlook of Ridley Scott’s original, perhaps aimed at younger audiences dealing with a cost of living crisis.

The ragtag group in question (Archie Renaux, Isabela Merced, Spike Fearn and Aileen Wu) convince Rain to use Andy to help them break into a Company station orbiting the planet. Yet things go awry when they get aboard, soon discovering there’s a whole bunch of critters that want to hug faces and burst out of chests.

You don’t have to have seen a previous Alien film to know where it goes from here, although Fox/Disney are most definitely counting on audience whoops of recognition. While Álvarez had previously said that his film was intended to be unconnected to the previous entries, you can almost feel the moment the real-life Company stepped in and changed the course of his script (co-written with regular collaborator Rodo Sayagues) in favour of franchise continuity.

Like an ouroboros chasing its own tail, modern franchise films can’t seem to exist without constantly tipping their hat to the past. This begins subtly enough with the opening credits, but by the time the film digs up the digital corpse of Ian Holm—who passed away four years ago—any lingering sense of unease is made disturbingly real. While it’s an impressive technical achievement, the ethics of using a deceased actor’s likeness remain dodgy.

From this point forward, the film simply becomes a dark ride in a theme park. The audience straps into their doom buggy and watches the animatronic totems reenact reworked moments from the entire franchise. It’s an indiscriminate collage, picking moments from Scott’s Alien, James Cameron’s Aliens and even Prometheus. This culminates in a final act that doesn’t simply riff on the previous films, but wholesale lifts entire scenes and dialogue from earlier entries, undercutting any tension or sense of originality.

To the credit of Álvarez and cinematographer Galo Olivares, this is unquestionably one of the most beautiful and slickly shot films in the franchise to date. His emphasis on the body horror is tangible, and you can feel every sticky and slimy moment dripping out of the bio-industrial landscape of the station.

Likewise, the cast work valiantly against the material at every turn. Spaeny continues a strong run in the wake of Priscilla and Civil War, even if the film runs her through the Ripley mill. Jonsson, however, emerges as the standout, delivering a nuanced performance as an “articial life form” whose behaviour subtly echoes neurodivergence. His portrayal is a masterclass in controlled intensity.

ALIEN: ROMULUS will no doubt please fans who wanted a straighter Alien film after Ridley Scott’s more meditative take with Prometheus or the middle ground of Alien: Covenant. While it might have a solid setup, it’s ultimately left adrift in space without enough original material to fill the void.

2024 | USA | DIRECTOR: Fede Álvarez | WRITERS: Fede Álvarez, Rodo Sayagues | CAST: Cailee Spaeny, David Jonsson, Archie Renaux, Isabela Merced, Spike Fearn | DISTRIBUTOR: 20th Century Studios/Disney | RUNNING TIME: 119 minutes | RELEASE DATE: 15 August 2024 (AUS), 16 August 2024 (USA)

August 17, 2024
Review: As Long as We Both Shall Live [Fantasia 2023]

Director Ayuko Tsukahara is certainly no stranger to fantasy films or romances, having worked extensively on dramas like Dearest, Why I Dress Up for Love, and Meet Me After School. With AS LONG AS WE BOTH SHALL LIVE (わたしの幸せな結婚), based on Akumi Agitogi’s light novel series My Happy Marriage, here Tsukahara combines both.

Set in an alternate 19th century Japan, Miyo (Mio Imada) is the eldest daughter of the respected Saimori clan. Born without the supernatural powers that have protected the clans for generations, she shares the fate of Cinderella by being mistreated by her stepmother and universally beloved stepsister for years.

At least, that is, until she is arranged to be marriage to Kiyoka (Ren Miguro), heir of the fearsome Kudo family. With a reputation for being cruel, each of his previous would-be brides have fled within days of arriving at his place. Yet Miyo is different, and she not only discovers that he is capable of kindness, but that she is capable of much more than she ever believed as well.

There’s a very particular Venn diagram of fandom that this slips into: fantasy romances that begin with a toxic relationship and end with literal magic. There’s a scene early on where Miyo takes the initiative to cook for Kiyoka, but is dismissed and rebuffed by him. She ultimately takes it as a sign to try and crack through that gruff exterior. So yes, it’s not just Cinderella but Beauty and the Beast, the ultimate Stockholm Syndrome tale.

In the plus column, it sure is a pretty film to look at. As it’s ostensibly a period piece set in the Meiji Restoration era, some gorgeous set and costume designs convincingly immerse us in another time and place. At various times, powers would manifest in simple but effective light displays that neither clashed with nor overwhelmed the period setting.

Yet given that these fantasy elements are sparingly used, they may not feel stylistically out of place but they certainly don’t always work in the narrative. At times it feels they are only remembered when the plot calls for it, especially during the climactic scenes. Swinging between tortured sequences and randomly manifesting powers, there were honestly just points where I simply had no idea what was going on.

A post-credits scene, one that probably means more to fans of the original novels than it did to this viewer, suggests that there is more to come. Which makes sense, but given the presence of serial director Tsukahara, one can’t help but feel this would ultimately work much better as an anime series (which commenced in July 2023 on Netflix) than as films.

2023 | Japan | DIRECTOR: Ayuko Tsukahara | WRITERS: Tomoe Kanno | CAST: Ren Meguro, Mio Imada, Keisuke Watanabe, Ryusei Onishi | DISTRIBUTOR: Fantasia Film Festival | RUNNING TIME: 115 minutes | RELEASE DATE: 20 July – 9 August 2022 (Fantasia)

August 10, 2023
Review: #Manhole [NYAFF 2023]

Some of the best thrillers tap into our base fears. Taphophobia, or the fear of being buried alive, has been the subject of Edgar Allan Poe’s The Premature Burial through to Kill Bill and Buried. Similarly, Cleithrophobia – the fear of being trapped in confined spaces – has a rich dramatic history. While we’re not aware of any specific term for being stuck in a disused manhole, it does form the basis of Kazuyoshi Kumakiri’s film.

Salaryman Shunsuke Kawamura (Yuto Nakajima) is one of the most respected and successful workers at his real estate firm. On the eve of his wedding, his co-workers throw him a surprise party. Sometime after the event, he inexplicably finds himself trapped at the bottom of a shaft connected to the titular manhole.

Shunsuke can’t reach the top, and a series of injuries and internal threats make his situation more desperate. Unable to convince his fiancée or the police of his plight, he turns to Twitter (or Pecker as it’s called here) to create a faux online persona of the ‘Manhole Girl.’ As a group of dedicate netizens attempt to find him, he soon realises he may not be in the hole by accident. In fact, there may be an enemy from his past out to get him.

If you’ve been to Japan, you’ll know that the ornate manholes dotting the various cities are Instagram favourites. So, one can only assume Michitaka Okada’s script, which combines both manholes and social media, is a knowing wink on some level. Yes, this might be one of those critical reaches, but you’ll have to forgive me. That’s because where this thing goes in the second half may leave you pondering whether you’ve stumbled into another film entirely.

The first act of the film is legitimately tense, the kind of thriller where audiences can immediately imagine ourselves in Shunsuke’s place and wonder what we would do in his situation. After all, there’s only so long we can watch him text people, rendered entirely as bubbles on screen.

So, when Okada’s screenplay necessarily adds in some new information in the back half of the film – a whopper of a nugget I won’t spoil for you here – it’s a double-edged sword. It pushes the narrative forward, but it fills the manhole with sharks and spends the rest of the film gleefully jumping over them. It’s an impressive feat for a film that’s stuck in a hole.

#MANHOLE (#マンホール) is a solid first draft concept that ultimately gets swallowed up by the feature-length format. The initial concept is too thin for a whole film, and it just sags under the weight of the additional and unlikely exposition. At the very least, it makes a convincing argument for keeping your phone battery charged at all times. Just remember that the next time you’re planning on being stuck in a hole.

2023 | Japan | DIRECTOR: Kazuyoshi Kumakiri | WRITERS: Michitaka Okada | CAST: Yuto Nakajima, Nao, Kento Nagayama, Haru Kuroki | DISTRIBUTOR: New York Asian Film Festival (NYAFF) | RUNNING TIME: 99 minutes | RELEASE DATE: 14-30 July 2023 (NYAFF)

July 26, 2023
Review: Vital Signs [NYAFF 2023]

It’s fair to say that the multi-hyphenated director, comedian, writer and media personality Cheuk Wan-chi (aka GC Goo-Bi) has had an eclectic career. With VITAL SIGNS (送院途中), they’ve gone into what seems like fairly safe thriller territory, although this one comes with a more observational approach to the traditional tropes.

In the film, Ma (Louis Koo) has a reputation for being a bit of a maverick paramedic. He’s held back his career by never following the rules, saving lives regardless of whether it follows protocol. This is set up fairly early in the piece when Ma is called to an industrial work site accident, one where he adopts the unconventional use of a power saw to free the patient.

The stark contrast is the by-the-rules young superstar Wong Wai (Yau Hawk-sau), who’s meteoric rise in the organisation has earned him the nickname ‘Speedy Legend.’ The clash in style between the two men serves as the basis for the majority of the running time, as Cheuk’s screenplay spends its time simply observing these two frontline workers doing what they do best.

This is where Cheuk’s screenplay derives most of its tension, but there’s a secondary plot that halfheartedly adds some social commentary as well. Acknowledging the sheer amount of emigration happening out of Hong Kong, certainly in the last few years, Ma desperately tries to get permission to take off despite his poor back and over 35 status making it increasingly difficult.

While Koo gives a reliable lead performance, and Yau is a strong presence as well, it’s hard to shake the pervasive feeling that all of the pieces lack cohesive glue, as if it’s just medical tape holding them together. The observational approach gives the sense of perpetual motion, but it also tends to be a series of scenes that follow each other. As a result, it’s difficult to really hook onto any of the emotion or urgency of Ma’s plight.

Ultimately, there’s both too little development and too many threads going on in VITAL SIGNS for it to stick to any kind of emotional landing. That Cheuk chooses to eschew any major catharsis for a conclusion that points to it all just continuing probably speaks to the state of civil servants in Hong Kong. Like the rest of the issues raised here, the rest remains unresolved.

2023 | Hong Kong | DIRECTOR: Cheuk Wan-chi | WRITERS: Cheuk Wan-chi | CAST: Louis Koo, Yau Hawk-sau, Angela Yuen | DISTRIBUTOR: New York Asian Film Festival (NYAFF) | RUNNING TIME: 100 minutes | RELEASE DATE: 14-30 July 2023 (NYAFF)

July 19, 2023