The James Marsh film review archive

James Marsh

  • 7 Days Report

    High schooler Ryota (Shirahama Aran) is a week from graduating when he discovers that he is really a clone. In fact his entire school is part of an experiment designed… Read More

  • El Shuriken Vs. Evil Intention

    “Deru-cine” is a special filmmaking project helmed by writer Goto Hirohito, which discards the traditional notion of audiences watching films (“miru cinema”), in favour of appearing in the film themselves… Read More

  • The Complex

    The Okinawa International Film Festival kicked off in earnest with the Asian premiere of Nakata Hideo’s latest dose of J-Horror, The Complex. The film stars former AKB48 member Maeda Atsuko… Read More

  • The Deflowering of Eva van End

    Playing like a Dutch version of Wes Anderson or Todd Solondz, Michiel ten Horn’s deliciously black comedy sees a high-strung middle class suburban family hrown into meltdown when a German… Read More

  • After Lucia

    Superb character drama from Mexico that follows a father and daughter battling to put their lives back on track following the death of their wife and mother. Alejandra (Tessa Ia)… Read More

  • The One

    For some reason I had been under the impression that this sci-fi actioner, teaming Jet Li with Jason Statham, was good. But it isn’t, not at all. It’s cheap, uninteresting,… Read More

  • Drug War

    Johnnie To heads to the mainland for this tense, absorbing thriller starring the excellent Sun Hong Lei as a dedicated cop trying to take down a complex drug operation that… Read More

  • Library Wars

    From the director of Gantz comes the big screen live action adaptation of the popular novels. In a Bradbury/Orwell future where books are burned as subversive, a young woman joins… Read More

  • Talk To The Dead

    This low budget Japanese horror flick from The Ring and The Grudge producer Ichise Takashige is the story of Yuri, who is forced to work as a call girl to… Read More

  • Ip Man: The Final Fight

    Opening this year’s HK International Film Festival is Herman Yau’s follow up to The Legend Is Born. Anthony Wong stars as an aging Ip Man, forced to abandon his wing… Read More

  • Mama

    Guillermo del Toro dons his executive producer hat once again, helping first-time writer-director Andres Muschetti adapt his 2008 short film into a feature. Shot in Canada, Mama tells the story… Read More

  • The Croods

    From the creative team behind How To Train Your Dragon comes this prehistoric animated comedy, originally conceived as a project for Aardman Animation, with an original script by John Cleese. Read More

  • Quadrophenia

    My March entry in Twitch’s Full Disclosure feature is Franc Roddam’s big screen adaptation of The Who’s classic album. Phil Daniels plays a pill-popping young Mod, who tires of his… Read More

  • REVIEW: The Life and Death of Colonel Blimp

    Until now the only time I had seen this film was at university, where our Film Studies lecturer insisted that we included it during the opening semester programme of the… Read More

  • A Case of Eggs

    Set in South Korea, this short film is the story of Ji-hye, a beautiful woman whose job as a translator dominates her life. When her 30th birthday comes round and… Read More

  • Oz the Great and Powerful

    Sam Raimi (The Evil Dead, Spider-man) re-teams with James Franco for this big budget prequel to the classic MGM musical, dispensing with the songs but layering on the lurid 3D… Read More

  • REVIEW: Oz the Great and Powerful

    Sam Raimi’s spiritual prequel to MGM’s 1939 evergreen classic, The Wizard of Oz, is an incredibly mixed bag, that shows a degree of visual flourish and fun for younger viewers,… Read More

  • Saving General Yang

    Ronny Yu, the director of The Bride With White Hair and Freddy Vs. Jason, tries his hand at the large-scale period Chinese epic, recounting the famous story of General Yang… Read More