SOUTH CHINA MORNING POST
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Based on the exploits of South Korean secret agent “Black Venus”, Yoon Jong-bin’s The Spy Gone North details how army general Park Suk-young (played by Hwang Jung-min) brokered a bogus… Read More
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Saket Chaudhary’s Bollywood comedy Hindi Medium arrives in Hong Kong following successful runs at both the Indian and Chinese box office, and its tackling of education-related themes is sure to… Read More
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Johnnie To Kei-fung’s Drug War (2012) was an unflinching exposé of China’s drug trade. Often considered the Hong Kong director’s best feature of the past decade, the gritty film details every aspect… Read More
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Veteran Japanese actress Sayuri Yoshinaga completes her thematically connected “Northern Trilogy” with a sweeping and at times experimental melodrama in which an ageing war widow wrestles with senility and reconnects… Read More
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“Beneath this glassy surface, a world of gliding monsters,” goes a line in the 1999 film Deep Blue Sea. Our fascination with the ocean has long struck a balance between… Read More
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Although barely six months have passed since his adaptation of Joo Ho-min’s webtoon Along with the Gods: The Two Worlds became a box-office sensation, writer-director Kim Yong-hwa has delivered a… Read More
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Joaquin Phoenix was named best actor at last year’s Cannes Film Festival for his portrayal of a suicidal war veteran who tracks down runaways in Lynne Ramsay’s brutal yet occasionally… Read More
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Adapted from a novel by Japanese porn star Mana Sakura, ironically titled The Lowlife unfolds over a single weekend and follows a trio of women through their experiences in Tokyo’s… Read More
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Fronted by a clutch of international award winners from some of the year’s most prestigious festivals, this year’s Summer International Film Festival (Summer IFF), hosted by Hong Kong Cine Fan,… Read More
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Ma Dong-seok, the towering man mountain best known for his supporting turn in zombie thriller Train to Busan , is given a rare opportunity to flex his acting muscles –… Read More
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Gender roles within the Hirata household are the subject of the third instalment in Yoji Yamada’s surprisingly durable family comedy series. What a Wonderful Family! 3: My Wife, My Life… Read More
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Taiwanese horror comedy Secrets in the Hot Spring proves an invigorating summer treat, thanks to lively direction from first-timer Lin Kuan-hui and winning chemistry between the film’s trio of heartthrob… Read More
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Set in the aftermath of the Lebanese civil war in 1982, Beirut follows a former US diplomat as he is persuaded to return to Beirut and negotiate the release of… Read More
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Winner of the Palme D’Or at this year’s Cannes Film Festival, Shoplifters sees Hirokazu Koreeda pool his favourite themes into a heartbreaking drama that ranks among his very best. The… Read More
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A twisting, tragic romance involving magicians and their doppelgängers, Colors of Wind appears, on paper at least, to suggest a Japanese reimagining of Christopher Nolan’s The Prestige. Allusions are also… Read More
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Primarily known for her controversial documentary SOS Tehran (2002), Iranian filmmaker Sou Abadi’s first narrative feature is not the hard-hitting drama one might have expected. Instead, Some Like It Veiled… Read More
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Fuminori Nakamura’s 2014 novel Last Winter, We Parted was a big hit in Japan. It was hailed as the author’s greatest work, but was also deemed unfilmable because of its… Read More
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Sylvester Stallone reprises his role from Escape Plan (2013) as security expert Ray Breslin, who specialises in breaking out of maximum security prisons. While he shared top billing with long-time… Read More
The James Marsh film review archive 