Review
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A young man crippled by debt learns the obvious lesson that money can’t buy happiness in Keishi Ohtomo’s laborious cautionary tale. Adapted by Genki Kawamura from his own novel, Million… Read More
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Adapted from Lynda La Plante’s 1980s TV show, Steve McQueen delivers a riveting crime thriller propelled by a quartet of ferocious female leads, who go toe-to-toe with Chicago’s gangland impresarios… Read More
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Peter Jackson writes and produces this ambitious adaptation of Philip Reeve’s popular Post-apocalyptic steampunk novel, but the results leave a lot to be desired. Download the podcast Read More
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Presented as a fantastical mystery with stand-out visual effects, Homestay is at its heart more a conventional drama about the struggles of adolescence. The supernatural presence in Thai filmmaker Parkpoom… Read More
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“Life will always be unpredictable and surprising” is the flimsy observation at the centre of writer-director Dan Fogelman’s self-important opus. Blissfully unaware of its own triteness, Life Itself examines the… Read More
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Daisuke Miura is no stranger to Japan’s prolific soft core pornographic film industry. In 2014, the writer-director adapted his own play Love’s Whirlpool into a critically acclaimed film about lonely… Read More
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Inspired by Ten Years , the controversial Hong Kong anthology speculating on the city’s future a decade hence, the Ten Years international Project has produced a trio of spin-offs. Ten… Read More
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Lasse Hallström and Joe Johnston both try to make sense out of this poorly conceived adaptation of the classic E.T.A. Hoffmann short story and Tchaikovsky ballet. The results are occasionally… Read More
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For his first Chinese-language film, Japanese director Shunji Iwai collaborates with producer Peter Chan Ho-sun to revisit themes from his 1995 hit Love Letter with a film that champions the… Read More
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While it is a faithful remake of the 2009 South Korean hit of the same name, More Than Blue from Taiwanese director Gavin Lin Hsiao-chien is also yet another frustrating… Read More
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The swashbuckling exploits of Robin Hood and his Merry Men have percolated through British folklore since the mid-14th century, from ballads and poems to numerous film and TV adaptations. In… Read More
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Veteran character actor Philip Keung lands his first leading role as a middle-aged family man with a long-buried secret. Download the podcast Read More
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Claire Foy inherits the role of Lisbeth Salander in a new thriller adapted from the novel by replacement author David Lagercrantz. But how will this new film fare compared to… Read More
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The Coen Brothers return with a six-part Wild West anthology, available exclusively on Netflix. The tales vary wildly in tone and style, and feature a plethora of big-name stars. But… Read More
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Many people have experienced that pang of inexplicable guilt upon recognising something in a current partner that reminds one of a former flame. Often it underscores nothing more than our… Read More
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Nothing triggers a reunion faster than a debilitating illness, and once crowded around a fading loved one’s death bed, what better to do than indulge in nostalgic flashbacks to simpler… Read More
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Part of the Ten Years International Project, born of the success of the controversial Hong Kong film from 2015, Ten Years Japan presents five distinct visions of the country a… Read More
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J. K. Rowling delivers the second of her Potterverse prequels, upping the ante and layering on the allegory. But does it balance the light with the dark sufficiently for younger… Read More
The James Marsh film review archive 