Comedy

REVIEW: The Cannonball Run

Screening as part of the Hong Kong Film Archive’s grand retrospective on the output of Golden Harvest, I jumped at the chance to see this on the big screen. I… Read More
Finding Mr. Right

The surprise champ at the Chinese Box Office, Tang Wei appears to be back in the mainland’s good books with this decent, but truth be told, fairly unexceptional comedy drama… Read More
Woody Allen: A Documentary

While there is a 113-minute theatrical version of Robert B. Weide’s film available, all discerning fans of Woody Allen should do their upmost to seek out the full fascinating 195-minute… Read More
La Poison

Delightfully pitch-black comedy from French satirist Sacha Guitry, who is something of a new discovery for me. Michel Simon plays the woefully unhappy Broconnier who plots to murder his wife… Read More
This is 40

The latest comedy from Judd Apatow is a “sort-of” sequel to Knocked Up, discarding Seth Rogen and Kathering Heigl’s characters in favour of supporting couple, Pete (Paul Rudd) and Debbie… Read More
The Way We Dance

Very much cut from the same cloth as the Step Up series, Adam Wong’s Hong Kong dance comedy sees plucky young wannabe Fleur (Cherry Ngan in what will surely prove… Read More
Lesson of the Evil

Prolific Japanese director Miike Takashi returns to his exploitation roots with this darkly comic story of a murderous high school teacher, who takes dead aim at his own students. Read More
Jackie Brown

I recently discovered that my girlfriend hadn’t seen any Quentin Tarantino films (with the exception of Pulp Fiction, which I’m pretty sure everyone of our generation has seen) and so… Read More
The Incredibles

It’s not just the superhero angle that makes Brad Bird’s Oscar-winning Pixar hit of 2004 so eminently re-watchable, it’s just a damn well written and animated film. From the character… Read More
Will You Still Love Me Tomorrow?

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
Flicker

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
Duty Cyborg Itoman

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
Umisuzu Meshi

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
MG-2416

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
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 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
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