Thriller
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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
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Ambition conquers aesthetics in Sono Sion’s epic Tokyo Gagaga experiment from 1995, which is only now seeing the light of day. 160mins of gang fights & gay love shot of… Read More
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The great thing about attending a large international film festival like HKIFF is the element of discovery. There is always plenty of variety on offer, much of which even someone… Read More
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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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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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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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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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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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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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For some reason I had been under the impression that this sci-fi actioner, teaming Jet Li with Jason Statham, was good. But it isn’t, not at all. It’s cheap, uninteresting,… Read More
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Johnnie To heads to the mainland for this tense, absorbing thriller starring the excellent Sun Hong Lei as a dedicated cop trying to take down a complex drug operation that… Read More
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I first came to this film during my university days, in the wake of John Boorman’s Deliverance – a film I love to this day. I knew Walter Hill from… Read More
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The final film in the Hong Kong Film Archive’s short series honouring the cinematic collaboration between Billy Wilder and Marlene Dietrich, is this masterclass in courtroom drama and wry British… Read More
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South Korean director Park Chan-wook’s English language debut is a sultry and languid noir set in the American Deep South. At the funeral of her father, who died on her… Read More
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Lee Young-ae stars as a convicted child murderer, released from prison after 13 years, who heads out on a trail of revenge against the man she believes really committed the… Read More
The James Marsh film review archive 