Short Reviews
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I’m a sucker for restored classics at a film festival. What better way to catch up on an unearthed masterpiece from yesteryear than in a boffed up print on the… Read More
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A true masterpiece of American Cinema, accompanied by one of the greatest screen performances of all time, Marlon Brando would never be better than he is here, as boxer turned… Read More
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The first G.I. Joe film proved a shamelessly enjoyable piece of throwaway action nonsense, in large part thanks to the playful team dynamic and the fact nobody was expecting anything… Read More
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I first became aware of Chilean director Pablo Larrain and his regular leading man Alfredo Castro from their startling 2008 collaboration, Tony Manero. I was less enamoured, but no less… Read More
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How does one even begin to describe Anurag Kashyap’s incredible crime epic that spans three generations of a gangster family in the Eastern state of Bihar. The film essentially charts… Read More
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Lenny Abrahamson’s low budget but nicely pitched Irish drama does a great job of creating believable, likable characters who then fall foul of a second’s intervention from fate, luck or… Read More
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Taiwanese director Arvin Chen follows up his hugely entertaining debut, Au Revoir Taipei, with a perhaps even better second effort. Richie Jen is excellent as an unassuming family man who… Read More
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Much derided at the time of its original release, Roberto Rossellini’s 1950 drama has been restored by Martin Scorsese’s film preservation initiative and is ripe for reassessment. I had never… Read More
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No sooner had I got off the plane from Japan, it was time to dive right back into HKIFF. And what better way to do it than with this fantastic… Read More
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My last film at Okinawa was actually this Swedish comedy drama that picked up the AMD Next Wave award at Last year’s Fantastic Fest. Somehow I had failed to watch… Read More
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Going into this Okinawa World Premiere completely blind I could not have been more surprised by the film I saw. I had somehow failed to notice that Kaneto Shusuke’s film… Read More
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An unusual inclusion in the Local Origination Project section was this Hong Kong-set short from Horie Kei. Filmed in a combination of Cantonese, Mandarin and Japanese, it nevertheless proved an… Read More
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I was really keen to check out some of the homegrown offerings from Okinawan filmmakers while I was on the island, and this one in particular caught my eye, not… Read More
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Another tale in which food plays a prominent role, Nakajima Ryo’s film from Kadokawa-cho in Miyazaki prefecture is the story of two brothers who run the local bento restaurant. When… Read More
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While the title doesn’t offer much of a clue, Taniguchi Hitonori’s film is a loving homage to the work of directors like Quentin Tarantino, Tobe Hooper and Iguchi Noboru. Centring… Read More
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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
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“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
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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 James Marsh film review archive 