The James Marsh film review archive

  • Manila In The Claws Of Light

    Restored classic of 70s Filipino cinema tells the story of an innocent village lad (Bembel Roco) who comes to Manila in search of his sweetheart (Hilda Koronel), who was conned… Read More

  • Manakamana

    Captivating documentary in which a motionless, unobtrusive camera captures 11 separate journeys on the cable car up to the holy Manakamana mountain in Nepal. Through these brief episodes within the… Read More

  • Dial M For Murder 3D

    A wonderful opportunity to Hitchcock’s only 3D movie restored and on the big screen, but it’s plain to see the director shot his film this way reluctantly and with huge… Read More

  • The Midnight After

    Fruit Chan returns with a rare foray for Hong Kong cinema into the realms of science fiction. Adapted from a popular novel, the film sees a minibus-load of strangers thrown… Read More

  • Three Charmed Lives

    Disappointing anthology of shorts, each directed by a prominent Asian actor. Francis Ng begins proceedings badly with The Tangerine, following a vagrant fugitive on the run in a Southern Chinese… Read More

  • Aberdeen

    Pang Ho Cheung’s latest opened this year’s HKIFF. You can read my review here. Read More

  • Naked Ambition

    Naked Ambition

    Brimming with colloquial Hong Kong humour and plenty of bare flesh, Lee Kung-lok’s jolly romp through the Japanese AV (adult film) scene is slight yet entertaining fare, and likely to… Read More

  • REVIEW: Only Lovers Left Alive

    Jim Jarmusch’s laid-back vampire drama is indelibly, effortlessly cool as it charts the long distance romance (both in time and geography) between two immortal hipsters, struggling to survive in the… Read More

  • Only Lovers Left Alive

    Only Lovers Left Alive

    Jim Jarmusch’s laid-back vampire drama is indelibly, effortlessly cool as it charts the long distance romance (both in time and geography) between two immortal hipsters, struggling to survive in the… Read More

  • Saving Mr. Banks

    Saving Mr. Banks

    Arguably the greatest of Walt Disney’s live-action productions, 1964’s Mary Poppins almost never made it to the screen, as Australian author P.L. Travers was passionately against a film adaptation of… Read More

  • RoboCop

    For many, myself included, Paul Verhoeven’s RoboCop is something of a sacred text in the world of 80s action and intelligent science-fiction cinema. It’s one of those films I saw… Read More

  • REVIEW: RoboCop

    For many, myself included, Paul Verhoeven’s RoboCop is something of a sacred text in the world of 80s action and intelligent science-fiction cinema. It’s one of those films I saw… Read More

  • REVIEW: The Wolf Of Wall Street

    In their fifth screen collaboration, Martin Scorsese and Leonardo DiCaprio produce the funniest work of their careers in this debauched and riotously indulgent black comedy depicting the rise and fall… Read More

  • The Wolf Of Wall Street

    The Wolf Of Wall Street

    In their fifth screen collaboration, Martin Scorsese and Leonardo DiCaprio produce the funniest work of their careers in this debauched and riotously indulgent black comedy depicting the rise and fall… Read More

  • The White Storm

    This year’s HK Asian Film Festival opened with Benny Chan’s epic throwback to the Hong Kong heroic bloodshed thrillers of the 1980s, with Lau Ching Wan, Louis Koo and Nick… Read More

  • The Spy Who Loved Me

    Because it’s my favourite Bond film, and aafter listening back to my discussion of the film with Rudie Obias and West Anthony on The Auteur Cast I just had to… Read More

  • The Big City

    Madhabi Mukherjee is luminous in Satyajit Ray’s film about a Bengali housewife who experiences her first taste of freedom and financial independence when her husband (reluctantly) allows her to get… Read More

  • The Man In The White Suit

    Beautifully highlights the contradictions by which industry controls & impedes innovation for its own survival, and is also a delightful comedy about Alec Guinness’ penniless visionary fighting the system in… Read More