Drama

Les Cousins

Claude Chabrol immediately followed up his debut, Le beau Serge, with this altogether more cynical and scathing depiction of city life in the late 1950s. Again he uses lead actors… Read More
Le beau Serge

Claude Chabrol launches the Nouvelle Vague with this sombre tale of a young man from the city returning to the village where he grew up and attempting to rebuild his… Read More
Nobody’s Child

Newly restored by the HK Film Archive, this 1960 adaptation of Hector Malot’s novel Without Family, stars a young Josephine Siao Fong Fong as a young girl in search of… Read More
Heaven’s Gate

Another of the grand restored classics to play at this year’s HKIFF was the fully restored 216-minute version of Michael Cimino’s calamitous Western. This was not the first time I… Read More
Blancanieves

Director Pablo Berger re-locates the Brothers Grimm classic Snow White in the world of Spanish bullfighters, while also harking back to Silent Cinema. Read More
Something In The Air

The latest from Olivier Assayas follows a group of teenage activists immediately after the famous May 1968 riots in Paris, as they must contend with politics, school, friendship, romance and… Read More
After the Curfew

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
On The Waterfront

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
No

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
Gangs of Wasseypur

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
What Richard Did

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
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
Stromboli

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
A Hijacking

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
Jellyfish

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
After Lucia

Superb character drama from Mexico that follows a father and daughter battling to put their lives back on track following the death of their wife and mother. Alejandra (Tessa Ia)… Read More
Ip Man: The Final Fight

Opening this year’s HK International Film Festival is Herman Yau’s follow up to The Legend Is Born. Anthony Wong stars as an aging Ip Man, forced to abandon his wing… Read More
Quadrophenia

My March entry in Twitch’s Full Disclosure feature is Franc Roddam’s big screen adaptation of The Who’s classic album. Phil Daniels plays a pill-popping young Mod, who tires of his… Read More