01. Black Widow (2021): 2/5
This is the film with the most number of Russia/Soviet stereotypes that I have had the "pleasure" to watch since "Rambo - First Blood" - a Cold War film, that must be a record for this film in a Hollywood with a long and glorious history of anti-Russia sentiment. Shitty English accent? Check (despite the fact that Soviet/Russian spies [as the ones portrayed in this film] are of course excellent English speakers - that's why they are so good at their job!). Drinking vodka instead of water? Check (despite the fact that such drinking scenes contributed nothing to the film in general). Stupid and arrogant Russians without a single decent one? Check (despite the fact that Russians are famous for not showing their emotions [hence NOT arrogant] and equally famous for their intelligence and depth of emotions with unparalleled tradition of philosophy and literature - traits that are nowhere to be found in this film). The funny thing is that one of the most stereotypical "things" about Russian/Soviet villains in Hollywood films - a master plan to "enslave" the "free world" with communism/authoritarianism was almost forgotten in this film, aside from few passing dialogues of "free will" and such - why the main villain has his whole plan to dominate the world? Maybe this is a "negligence" from the film makers' part, or simply because Marvel has never been good with creating a decent villain for its "cinematic universe" (one of the reasons why Loki - a half-hearted villain spending more time on bantering than destroying is still the face of Marvel super-villainess). The CGI in this film is also surprisingly terrible for a Marvel blockbuster, especially during the explosive sequences by the end (probably due to the constraints in film-making caused by COVID-19). Of course, the film is still up to the Marvel standard - very concise, easy to digest (like a Big Mac), engaging until the very end (with a bait to a TV series [!] coming up). But all in all, 2-stars is the most that I can give this terrible film.
02. Pig (2021): 3/5
So it turns out that this film is not a "John Wick with pig" but rather a "First Reformed for chefs". Perhaps a long drought of good films at the cinema for almost two years has made people desperate enough to hype for any seemingly-good film, but this film really does not deserve the overhype (à la "best film of the decade", "surefire Oscar contender") from Internet fora like Reddit, since this low-budget film is much closer to the B-movie genre that Nick Cage has "enjoyed" over the past two decades, rather than an arthouse independent like Cage's earlier films like "Raising Arizona" or "Leaving Las Vegas". And to those who praise Nick Cage's performance in this film as "best of his career", have you even watched "Leaving Las Vegas" yet? In any case, this is a neat film with a good "fault" premise and decent acting from Cage (the rest of the cast? not really - "the Son" and "the famous Chef" are pretty awful even) but never rose beyond that "decent" demarcation line with too many wasted plot-points, bizarre nihilist yet irrelevant dialogues, and slower-than-necessary pacing. The pig plot is cute though, and a much better one than the pig plot of "Black Widow", which was ironically launched at the same time with this one.
03. The Suicide Squad (2021): 1.5/5
What a terrible film! I thought this film would be at least an upgrade from the disaster that is "Suicide Squad", especially since it has a cast with bigger names, as well as a decent director in James Gunn. It turns out that my expectation is wrong, since the whole cast, including such major actors like Idris Elba, Viola Davis ("the Oscar-winning Viola Davis") or Peter Capaldi, are all terrible at their job with no "quality assurance" or correction from Gunn. It seems that they were just there for the paycheck without any effort to "act". On this aspect, this film fared even more poorly than David Ayer's version, since at least Cara Delevingne was trying (but failed anyway) in that one. Maybe the nonchalant tone of a B-movie set by Gunn for this film affected the way big names like Elba or Davis approached their roles, but really nothing can explain for their wooden and forced acting except for their very own lack of effort. The "happy-go-lucky" tone is also the biggest issue with this film, since nothing matters, neither the deaths (this film has a lot), nor the villain (such a waste of original concept with potential for a unique "protagonist" that no superhero film has actually succeeded in creating). The gratuitous amount of ultra-violent scenes and throw-away characters in this film reminded me of "The Boys" - another "anti-superhero superhero film" that is actually boring and without originality (and yet, "The Boys" even has better acting!). It appears that the directors of both the film and the TV series tried too hard to be stylish with blood and gore, to take advantage of the R-rating with deaths and boobs ("The Suicide Squad" has two very meaningless scenes of boobs) without spending time to make sense of such gratuitous and explicit nature to their audience. "Why?" - I asked myself again and again watching the extreme violence in these two film/TV series. I am not at all adverse of violence on screen, but I want those scenes to make sense, the way Kinji Fukasaku's "Battle Royale" makes sense, or more recently Matthew Vaughn's "Kick-Ass" makes sense. It seems that James Gunn also tried to make an edgy film with underlying messages criticizing various aspects of life - from the nefarious and hypocritical foreign policy of the United States, the superficiality of the current superhero genre, and perhaps several others that I could not recall. But those "messages" are very insubstantial and deserve no attention at all from the audience. No one in the audience wants to invest his/her emotions and thoughts for a meaningless film, even if the aforementioned film is super fun. And this film, despite having some glimmer of funs and originality, has nothing worthwhile the attention or investment of the audience.
04. The Third Man (1949): 3.5/5
Indeed a nice film, but "best British ever" nice? No, not even close. The funny thing is that this film was praised to no end for its acting, yet to a modern perspective like mine, the classic over-exaggerating style of acting in this film, which was perhaps closer to a theatrical performance than a cinematic one, felt like a thorn in the eye really. As both films have Orson Welles, it is hard to avoid any comparison between this film and "Citizen Kane". Yet, despite being 8 years "older", "Citizen Kane" felt much more modern, not only in terms of filmmaking but also in terms of performance. Ironically enough, Welles's portray of the main villain of "The Third Man" is one of its highlights, as his coolness and charisma really elevated the dark tone of the film. Still, I have no idea for the ridiculous focal switch near the end of the film during the sewer chase, when "the Third Man" suddenly became the "main character" before yet another sudden focus switch (and tonal switch) to the original protagonist. I understand the filmmaker's intention in doing so - as after casting a heavy shadow over most of the film's length he has to be put upfront for a final showdown at the film's climax, and "the Third Man" was indeed my favorite of this film, but the change is too little, and too late as the main protagonists (who are both pretty boring and very one-sided in my opinion) were already solidly set at the center of the plot (and of the audience's attention) by then. Nevertheless, this is still a pretty refreshing film (given its age) and also a very thoughtful and informative look at the lovely city of Wien at both its worst (the rubbles and misery post-World War II) and its best (its eternally beautiful palaces, alleys, and general spaces).
05. Enola Holmes (2020): 2.5/5
Such a disappointing film and a total waste of cool and intriguing settings! Selecting this film to watch, I thought that I would be able to see another adaptation/re-imagination of the classic Sherlock Holmes sub-genre of detective cinema with a clever "whodunit" plot set in the modernized yet dirty and crowded London of the late 19th and early 20th centuries and Sherlock himself or a Sherlock-like detective. Instead I got a throw-away Sherlock Holmes with superficial emotions (which was the basis for a lawsuit by the Conan Doyle estate - such a ridiculous lawsuit it was, who cares whether or not Sherlock has emotions?!), an extremely negative and jarring depiction of Mycroft Holmes (why in the world did the filmmakers want to portray Mycroft as such a misogynistic, ignorant, and all-around idiotic character, I have no idea!), some other underdeveloped characters, and a simply silly "whodunit" plot with so many plot-holes and discrepancies I simply don't want to recount for the sake of my sanity. The "character swap" of making Enola a "male protagonist"-like figure, whereas her companion the Viscount Tewkesbury a rather "flower vase" supporting character (normally the roles would be male for the former and female for the latter) is an interesting concept but was not fully laid out as in some scenes Enola appeared to be the true protagonist with independence spirit, but in some others - especially during the scene leading to Enola's temporary confinement in the "Lady Boardhouse" she appeared to a just another helpless child without any will for self-preservation. The difference is simply jarring, especially since the protagonist Enola breaks the fourth wall much too often to either simply engage the audience or try to "help" the audience to understand such a simple and silly plots with lengthy and totally unnecessary dialogues. Another uninspiring film by Netflix, which seems to have too much money to spend on bad films like this instead of investing in some original and decently-made ones.
06. The Nice Guys (2016): 2.5/5
What a coincidence! I have tried to find good detective/whodunit films to watch and stumbled on two consecutive flawed films with similar issues, first "Enola Holmes", and then this. This film has such an intriguing premise of the crazy lives in Hollywood during the 1970s (which was taken advantage completely with great results by films like "Boogie Nights" or "Once Upon a Time in Hollywood") and was able to set its interesting and engaging tone very early on - a funny action/detective film that does not take itself too seriously (and NOT a neo-noir as its Wikipedia page credited it to be). Yet, the director failed to maintain the consistency of its tone - sometimes too serious, sometimes too ridiculous, and thus made the film's climax and finale to have no emotional impact at all on the audience - when they found the film funny, it suddenly turned depressingly serious, and vice versa. As a result, even the sudden and very unfortunate death of a major character by the end very likely could not elicit any reaction from the viewers aside from the thought that this film, despite being a detective film (with logics being normally its most important value), has way too many illogical details that either make no sense or totally contradict each other. The two leads are also awful. If Russell Crowe's phone-in performance could be partly due to the fact that his character totally lacks background details and any depth of emotion, Ryan Gosling again proves that he is really just an average actor who has somehow lucked in so many good-to-great films with shoe-in characters for him to shine and to be overrated. Gosling's character is really annoying in this film as his behaviors make no sense at all. No grieving husband acts like that. No half-decent father interacts with his daughter like that. And whether he is a brilliantly clumsy detective, or a half-hearted one with a lot of luck (see, another shoe-in character for him!) must be an unanswered question given by the director to his audience, who would be surely too tired to even care to answer by the end of the film. Still, the film has its charm with a witty supporting character in Angourie Rice's Holly March (I love her in "Mare of Easttown"!) and the organic and genuinely funny back-and-forth between Crowe and Gosling. Had the director only cared a little bit more about his script, especially the last one third, and Crowe and Gosling invested a little bit more in their characters, things could have been different.
07. The Guilty (2018): 3.5/5
The simple format of this film - not only in terms of settings and characters but also plot is refreshing and intriguing from the very beginning. Despite such simplicity, the film still contains at least two smart and some may even call shocking twists that touch on different emotional notes. The ending, however, is a little bit underwhelming as the director seemed to try too hard to tide all the loosen knots and thus betrayed the core value of this film - simplicity and suggestive (instead of definitive) details that give the audience a lot of freedom for thoughts and imaginations. Still a very entertaining film nonetheless.
08. Wonder Woman 1984 (2020): 2/5
This film is such a mess. Low-quality choreography and CGI (the action sequences in this film all seem choppy, dizzy, and poorly made), equally low-quality script with hilariously corny dialogues (especially by the end), and exceptionally poor performance of the lead (Gal Gadot). I really don't know why WB is still trying to push Gadot as the face of its DC Universe despite the fact that she can barely act with wooden facial expression, very limited range of emotions, and totally unimpressive voice for an almost-A-list actress. The redeem quality of this film is actually its villain with a standing-out performance from Pedro Pascal (at least he tried to be competent in this film instead of Gadot's inability to act or Pine's phoning-in presence) and an interesting "Monkey's Paw" twist that was unfortunately destroyed by the corniness of the film's ending (which is, in my opinion, even worse than Anne Hathaway's "love" monologue by the end of "Interstellar"). Such a "Monkey's Paw" superpower really is enough for any supervillain to turn the world upside down, too bad the filmmakers seem to have no idea how to take advantage of such premise, despite the film over-long runtime, and thus turned to some very chaotic, illogical, and poorly-written "solution".
09. Space Jam: A New Legacy (2021): 1.5/5
Such an awful film. If the original one is a really fun trip where Michael Jordan was confident enough to make fun of himself and let others do the same, this one is just a glorified advertisement for LeBron James and WarnerBros' assets (and thus indirectly HBO Max). As a cherry on top, James' acting is really, really bad, whereas his supporting cast fared no better with next-to-none effort to make the film a little bit more fun, more engaging. Such a waste of time.
10. Riders of Justice (2020): 3.5/5
Despite its mix of stereotypical comedy and over-violent action, this is actually a very smart film that was able to blend different themes while also introduce a refreshing twist-and-turn behind its veil of, again, very stereotypical stories and characters in order to create a lot of emotions and thoughts. I already repeat the stereotypical aspect of this film twice because it was too obvious to not notice the fact that the director introduced a slew of such characters right from the beginning of the film - theft-loving Eastern Europeans, poor and passive Ukrainians, aggressive and/or suspicious Arabs, muscled and dumb soldiers, fat and emotionally-unstable "nerds", and on, and on, and on. One or two decades ago, such approach might be okay but nowaday, in the era of political correctness, the director would have been easily "cancelled" by the watchful audience had the film were made in Hollywood. Thankfully it was not a Hollywood production, thus the director was able to lean on such stereotypical foundation to build up a lot of emotions, surprises, and meaningful interactions and character development. Of course, this film is nowhere perfect on that sense either, as the character development was often abrupt, whereas the action sequences contain too many illogical details to the point that it appears to be more like a PTSD dream than a true struggle of traumatic characters with the harsh reality and hostile environment (including the, again, very stereotypical Riders of Justice). Nonetheless, this is still a very entertaining and somewhat meaningful film thanks to very strong performance of the whole cast, and well-choreographed action sequences that mirror the recent trend of "reality and gritty action" sub-genre that includes films like John Wick or Taken.
11. Nobody (2021): 3.5/5
This film has a refreshing script treatment with a lot of fun infused instead of the overtly serious tone in other films of this "reality and gritty action" sub-genre like "John Wick" or "Taken". The nuanced depiction of characters, protagonists and villains alike, is also a very nice touch from the filmmakers, as both sides have its unique traits that are both very dramatic and also realistic. Surprisingly enough, the lesser aspect of this film is the repetitiveness of the action sequences, the overlook of the supposedly most grandiose action sequence (at the "Obtshak bank"), and the underwhelmed climax with a poorly-made ending for the main villain. Hopefully for its sequel (as I am sure that there will be one), the filmmakers can address these issues to make this a new fun and violent action franchise.
12. Free Guy (2021): 4/5
What a pleasant surprise! Coming to this film thinking of another two-cent cheap slapstick action comedy starring Ryan Reynolds, I was caught off guard that, despite the presence of Reynolds with his unchanged facial expression and persona since Deadpool, the film is a really good representation of the current state of online gaming and gaming culture in general, while still grasps with a decent depth the existential aspect of AI based off the groundwork done by The Truman Show (I know The Truman Show is really not about AI, but the existentialist and postmodernist depiction of modern lives by the end of the 20th century and early 21st century is a common theme of both films). Above all that, this is also a really fun film to watch with very capable CGI, fast pace, decently logical plot (despite its mixed setting of virtual and real lives - a potential ground for plot-holes), and very good leading female at Jodie Comer (she will get big, as many other British actresses transiting from BBC TV series to Hollywood blockbusters). It is a pity that the film still focuses too much on Ryan Reynolds' character - a pretty conventional one depicted by an actor with a very limited acting range and a bizarre fixation to his Deadpool persona, which was kind-of refreshing at first but has gotten old and tiring very fast with an annoying tendency of frequently breaking the 4th wall, way more slapstick monologues than necessary, and wooden facial expression. Hopefully the sequel of this film (seemingly already greenlit by Disney) will be able to smooth out this over-reliance on a less-than-impressive actor/character, since this film already has much more potential and room for a sequel than another pleasant surprise of a video-game film that is Jumanji: Welcome to the Jungle.
13. Demon Slayer: Kimetsu no Yaiba the Movie: Mugen Train (2020): 3.5/5
I jumped into this film without knowing anything about either the manga or its first anime season. And it might not be a very good idea since it took me awhile to get accustomed to the world building of Demon Slayer and its vast cast of heroes and villains since the events of this film happen right in the middle of the manga and as a sequel of the first anime season and anyone having not read any manga chapter or watched any episode naturally has no idea why the characters behave in certain ways, some of which appear to be even "cheap" for a cinematic animation film due to its seemingly slapstick appearance. Speaking about appearance, this film's look is really solid but the animation style, which lean heavily on CGI (instead of traditional hand-drawing), is not really outstanding by any mean (for a film that smacked every single box-office records set in Japan by the marvellous animations of Ghibli). Despite such issues, the more I watched, the more I found this film fascinating with very fast pace, interesting characters (despite me having no knowledge of their background), and very, very good action sequences during the film's climax. The ending of this film is really commendable with catchy music, satisfying ending (despite itself being an open one as a middle part of the manga), and breath-taking actions. Very nice animation film indeed, not really suitable for children, or even adults with depression, though, as the film has a lot of gore, violence, and even some not-so-carefully crafted scenes on suicide.
14. Ted Lasso - Season 1 (2020): 3/5
Very fun TV series with digestible length but not as good as the overhype - especially from the American audience over it. Firstly, the series is still a traditional comedy-drama American TV series surrounding a character with positive spirit and his/her entourage in time of crisis instead of a sport series with engaging script on football. The "sport content" of this film is really shallow and heavily influenced by the US' own American football in terms of sport practice (Ted Lasso is rather an American football GM than an English football coach, despite being called "a coach" since he mostly focuses on people management instead of technical management, which was delegated to his timid assistant and exaggeratedly shy ball-boy), action sequences (which were all very poorly choreographed and shot for a film about football), and character depiction and development. The acting is also nothing to envy about, with poor performance across the board aside from Jason Sudeikis's Ted Lasso and Juno Temple's Keeley Jones. Nonetheless, a very positive and optimistic series with a surprisingly effective "villain" and some good laughs that have been in much need since the beginning of the pandemic.
15. Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse (2018): 4.5/5
This is easily the best superhero film of at least the last ten years and the best Marvel superhero film, period with a very strong script with almost all characters being well developed, including a lovely coming-of-age character arc for the main protagonist Miles Morales, fast pacing and well-placed climax with no weak notes, and a three-dimensional villain (their "ending" in this film, though, could be better - a common weakness of the Marvel universe, where extremities [of characters and their "lives"] are sacrificed for light-hearted entertainment values). Even the tension of this film was done well by a combination of good script, excellent pacing, menacing visual, and timely music that gave me some actual scary moments during the chase of The Prowler. Same thing can be said about the emotional sequences (deaths, failures, heart-breaking moments), which were equally done well and have actual impact on the audience. The emotional impact of this film is also thanks to the fact that, unlike any other Marvel superhero films, this film has absolutely no cheap jokes or banters - there are funny moments and tickling dialogues (that even refer to all kinds of internet memes related to Spider-man) but they are always well placed and used at a moderated and calculated dose. But the best thing about this film must be its incredible visual that blends so many drawing styles it feels dizzy at first, only so that the audience can take even more information and feelings from the film's characters and situations by simply focusing on how the drawing style and the color palettes change from one frame to another. And beautiful and cinematic frames they really are - all over this film. The mixed visual style of this film reminds me of the wonderful "Summer Wars" but with a much, much more advanced technique, if only the hand-drawing style had been included a little bit more, the film would have been even more glorious (but of course that also means a lot more money and time would be required, so we have to be realistic and not too demanding of the filmmakers on this aspect of an animation film). The cheerful tone of this film, despite several surprisingly sad notes - a bold move for a Marvel film, and an American animation, is another highlight of this film, which is accompanied by wonderful soundtrack that reminds me of The Amazing Spider-Man 2 (I was and still am an advocate for that film, despite its pretty mediocre critical and box-office results). All in all, a wonderful film.
16. Atomic Blonde (2017): 3/5
A decent action film with a very well-acted protagonist thanks to the ever gorgeous and skillful Charlize Theron, and an even better setting in Berlin on the eve of the fall of the Berlin Wall. The action sequences are another great part of this film thanks to a very realistic approach to action choreography with a clearly vulnerable leading female (instead of an almost-invincible leading male as usual) and very practical and gritty "fighting"/"shooting" style (except for the unfeasible "one shot" assassination of Spyglass at the end of the film). The vulnerability of the protagonist in this film is such a fresh take on this subgenre of gritty action films since "Taken" since it is clear that Theron's character has to fight for her life in every corner instead of taking on a huge amount of "goons" without so much of a skin scratch. The weak point of this film is that the director tried so hard to twist the spy-counter-spy-double-spy plot of this film to the point that the audience could hardly care anymore about a new twist, since such a twist is just expected by the viewers after way too many twist-and-turns from the very beginning of the film. Still a very entertaining film nonetheless.
17. Another Round (2020): 4.5/5
Such a heart-warming film with a simply ridiculous premise. As an alcohol-hater, I could not care less for a film seemingly trying to glorify alcoholism (via its trailer and Wikipedia synopsis) and thus decided to forgo this film during last year's award season. It turns out that I was totally wrong, as the aforementioned premise of "humans are born with a blood alcohol content (BAC) deficiency of 0.05%, and that attempting to maintain such a BAC makes one more creative and relaxed" (per Wikipedia) was utilized in a very clever and delicate way, and shed immediately when it is no longer important to the plot and character development. This is categorized as a black comedy film but in my opinion this is rather a full-on drama of the midlife crisis that almost everyone has to encounter in their life, when their family seemingly falls apart due to the lack of mental attachment or common interest, when their professional goal is nowhere to be found due to the rigid way of life that they happened to choose for themselves years ago and now simply cannot leave, when personal issues once considered negligible become unresolvable to the point of desperation. This crisis forgets no one, and forgoes no one, even the most ordinary and kind-hearted people like the protagonists of this film. Alcoholism is one way to "escape" such a crisis, only to lead you to another more inescapable and depressing end as this film shows during its extremely memorable and heart-breaking climax near the end. This film does offer another solution - a rosier and happier one but also suspiciously too optimistic and too unrealistic for this fantastic film. Probably the director feels bad for his audience and just wanted to give them something more positive, more "the world is a fine place and worth fighting for - I agree with the second part" (per "Seven") but this direction of the ending is a little bit too comfortable in my opinion after spending almost two hours experiencing the protagonists' midlife crises, agonizing their personal and metal struggles that I might very probably have to face in the years to come. Nonetheless, this film is really an incredible yet relatable tale of the midlife crises of the very ordinary people - not really an attractive subject these days with excellent performance across the board from Mads Mikkelsen and co. Funnily enough, Mikkelsen's superb performance in this film also reminds me of his appearance in "Riders of Justice" (coming out on the cinema in the same year with "Another Round") - another tale of midlife crisis dealt with by a totally different, pessimistic, and much more violent and gritty approach.
18. Uncut Gems (2019): 3.5/5
This is a very well-made film but also an extremely anxiety-inducing one. Of course everyone can agree that the hypertension of this film comes from its super fast pacing, heightened tension from the beginning until the very end, confusingly overlapped dialogues, on-the-edge and ugly characters, and a plot full of twists and confrontations. But on the downside, such focus on maximizing the tension also makes this film a suffocating experience for the audience since there is absolutely no "intermission" or calmer period for the viewers to take a deep breath or regain their composure, and the peaceful moments, which are of much need for any viewer to understand what is going on and to reflect on what has happened to the characters, are very few and far between. Therefore, I can admit that this is a well-made film but cannot find it a truly entertaining one - either as an entertainment piece or a cinematic work.
19. Titane (2021): 3.5/5
Such a bizarre film with a plot progression reminding me of "Tetsuo: The Iron Man" and character development reminiscing of David Cronenberg's 80s and 90s works. The director was very skillful in blending some funny moments, some heart-warming moments into an otherwise brutal, extremely tensed, and heart-wrenching story full of villains, hates, and violence. And I understand the symbolic meaning of several seemingly over-the-top violent and/or strange scenes - that might refer to loneliness, the descent to madness, or the desperate search for some humanity in a very cold and disconnected modern world. But how this film could win the Palme d'Or I have no idea. Probably simply because this film is not really of my taste. The soundtrack is always lovely from the beginning to the end, though.
20. Dune (2021): 4/5
A very impressive sci-fi epic with unique setting, characters, and background stories (thanks to an acclaimed novel by an author who, ironically enough, did not know that Vladimir Harkonnen is NOT a Soviet name), original and creative visual that still bears the trademarked reddish tone and inspired by desert landscapes that Denis Villeneuve has brought with him through many films - from "Incendies" to "Sicaro" and most recently "Blade Runner 2049", impeccable production values and costume design, much better pacing than the awfully slow "Blade Runner 2049", and very entertaining and meaningful despite being just the first part of a supposedly two-part film, of which the second part has not even been greenlighted yet. What impressed me the most about this film probably is the inspiration that the director got for this film from history and cinema in terms of character development (for example Skarsgård's Harkonnen has a lot of Marlon Brando's Colonel Kurtz elements in him in terms of mannerism) and scene setting (many scenes remind me of the awe-inspiring - in a bad way of course "Triumph of the Will", whereas the final [nude] moment of Oscar Isaac's Duke Leto Atreides is an immediate reminiscence of paintings like "The Death of Marat" or other Greek tragedy-inspired portrays). The lesser side of this film probably is the not-really-outstanding performance of the cast, which includes many stellar names, aside from a surprisingly decent effort from Jason Momoa. Still, a very good film and just enough for its audience to crave already for its sequel, whenever it comes out, if ever.
21 & 22. Mindhunter Season 1 (2017) and Season 2 (2019): 4/5
Very neat TV series of the true crime genre produced by one of my favorite directors - David Fincher. This series about serial killers and psychopaths reminded me of the fact that Fincher has spent almost his whole cinema career to depict psychopaths in various forms, from a real-life serial killer ("Zodiac") to fictional ones ("Se7en", "The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo"), from seemingly normal people with psychopathic traits ("The Social Network", "Gone Girl") to actual normal people descending into the psychopathic road ("Fight Club"). With such a portfolio, it is not really a surprise to see that Fincher has succeeded again in creating a whole TV series about his favorite subject matter, in which not only the serial killers are psychopaths, but even the "normal" ones like Special Agent Ford is also either a psychopath with his aloofness, aka. antipathy of normal social interactions, or is becoming one through his quest to identify the predictive traits of a serial killer (and thus gradually look life and people through the lens of a true serial killer). Even the side "stories" of the series like the struggle in raising a troublesome child by Special Agent Tench and his wife are equally thought-provoking as they really push the audience to try to answer for themselves questions like "Are serial killers born evil or grown into one by the surrounding environment and people?", or "Are there any denominators among serial killers?". The fact that the series is pretty short - 2 seasons with 18 episodes is another "plus" of this one in my opinion, since the filmmakers don't have to stretch out the series as much as possible (they couldn't either, since it was really really expensive to make this series due to Fincher's meticulousness and thirst for CGI to perfect any scene, the film's period setting, and Fincher's paycheck and busy schedule himself) and thus the whole series seems to be very focused, very easy to follow with consistent pacing and no lackluster episodes (I'm looking at you, "Ted Lasso"). Thus, I don't mind if the series would not have a third season - the more the merrier of course, but even without another season, the two seasons are already excellent enough for any fan of the true crime genre like me.
23. Shazam! (2019): 3/5
A fun, light-hearted, and pretty entertaining take on the superhero genre by the usually-dark and moody WB/DC "incubator". Although the gritty and reality-TV style focusing on adolescent characters of this film is not actually unique, as "Chronicle" already explored this theme before with a much better outcome (and "Hancock" to a lesser extent), this film is still a pleasant watching experience for me as I was able to even laugh out loud by the silliness of the two main adorable leads. The acting quality of this film is extremely terrible, though, with both the adult and teenage actors performed so shockingly poorly throughout the film to the point that I wondered whether it was intentional (in a "deadpan" style of "bad") or the director simply did not care to direct his cast. Had the acting been better, this film would have been easily among the best of the superhero genre for the past few years.
24. My Cousin Vinny (1992): 3.5/5
Aside from Marisa Tomei, who was particularly excellent and gorgeous and totally deserved her Oscar for her role in this, this film is pretty mediocre performance-wise as the director seemed to focus too much on making this film just another ordinary slapstick comedy full of stereotypes (of American South) and cheap jokes instead of taking advantage of a very original courtroom drama full of potential twist-and-turn and legal storylines. It really is a pity since this film has been praised since forever for its authentic portray of courtroom process and customs, and also a waste of talent for Ms. Tomei (despite her winning an Oscar for this role), who is coincidentally enough daughter of an actual trial lawyer but was in this film placed under the shadow of a more famous but much less talented (at least in this film) Joe Pesci. Pesci's acting range appeared to be really limited in this film (he barely acted at all, just read out the script and made some half-hearted effort in showing emotions through his wooden face) - a disadvantage made even worse by poor character development, which disregarded the picture of a moron lawyer in the first half, and turned him, in a heartbeat, in a courtroom mastermind in the last one third. Still a very fun film to watch, hence I gave it a generous 3.5 stars instead of a medium 3 or even a mediocre 2.5.
25. Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings (2021): 3.5/5
As a longtime fan of the wuxia genre and Chinese/oriental culture in general, I was very skeptical coming into this film but it turned out to be a pretty okay film. Of course many tropes of the superhero genre in general and Disney/Marvel superhero films are still very prominent in this film, especially the bantering - I really really hate the bantering anytime, anywhere in Marvel films that more often than not destroys the audience's emotional build-up during dramatic sequences - and this film has not only one, but TWO actors specifically cast for the bantering role namely Awkwafina's Katy (how the hell does she still want to stick with that awful stage name being known now more as an actress than a rapper) and Ben Kingsley's Trevor Slattery (rich Sir Ben for getting money from these piss poor appearances, and poor Mr. Kingsley for accepting to be just a comic relief in these purely commercial films despite having an richly illustrated career in stage and cinema). Thankfully, their screen time is very limited and thanks to the neat script, they were even transformed into decent characters by the end of this film. Aside from Awkwafina and Kingsley, the acting in this film is nothing special either, including the lead Simu Liu's Xu Shang-Chi, who was clearly cast for having a good body and can do some action sequences by himself instead of fully relying on CGI rather than any acting capability and thus had various types of wooden expression throughout the film, and EVEN the legendary Tony Leung Chiu-wai, whom the uninformed Western audience might think to be always excellent in any role and never participated in bad films but has been actually proven to be also capable of having mediocre performance in horrible films. Aside from that, though, this film should be commended for being very sensible to all things Chinese culture - from a magnificent depiction of various mythical Chinese creatures like Qilin, Dragon, nine-tailed fox, Pixiu, Hundun, which I have never ever seen before in any Chinese/Hong Kong films (any adaptation of the everlasting "Fengshen Yanyi" in the future MUST learn from this excellent work done by Disney/Marvel), a nice representation of the forms and some simple philosophical ideas of Tai chi (Michelle Yeoh might be cast for her Tai chi master Ying Nan role in this film because she has been the go-to actress for any film that requires an Asian + female + martial art fluent + relatively known among the Western audience, but she WAS one of the main lead - alongside with Jet Li and Chin Siu-ho in the 1993 epic "Tai Chi Master" - the best depiction of Tai chi on big screen - and that fact really moved my heart as a big big fan of "Tai Chi Master"), and a surprisingly good ending thanks to the reliance on Chinese mythics-inspired plotlines and characters instead of reverting to the formulaic heroes suddenly turning superheroes to save the world by the end of any Marvel film. Some "subtle" nods to the American Asian community and the East Asian audience generally might make me somewhat irritated (I don't need to be reminded of the "fact" that one has to take off shoes at the door before entering the living room of any Asian family - it's not true anymore, I don't need to be reminded of the subtle "American Asians have been bullied in schools" message at the beginning of the film - only the be mocked later by a not-so-subtle dialogues about the competitive, make-believe, and work-hard Asian/East Asian attitude - it's not true anymore either. One can easily watch and learn from Ang Lee's "Pushing Hand" for a better film about the Asian American community - a film that needs not to hold the audience's hand and point to things that the audience has to pay attention instead of just leaving viewers alone, soaking in the film's context, and letting them building a different ending for each among the audience. This Marvel film is, however, pretty disappointed on that aspects due to many "on-the-face" tips/messages. Finally, the action sequences in this film (except for the awful bus hijack at the beginning of the film) are also well choreographed, well acted, and supplied with just enough CGI for a more glossy look. A surprise indeed.
26. No Time to Die (2021): 3/5
This film is so pointless with convoluted plot, cheesy and very unnecessary dialogues, totally underdeveloped characters with so many (again) pointless motives, and poor performance across the cast. Yet, I still find it pretty entertaining thanks to its slick settings (the blend of Soviet - Japanese details for the final "showdown" location is definitely bland, but inventive nonetheless), meticulous production value, and above all amazing set pieces and action sequences. Due to "True Detective", I know that Cary Joji Fukunaga can do action sequences, and this film really proves that he does have an eye for that. From the beginning to the end, all action sequences are well choreographed, sophisticatedly filmed with crispy editing - I can't complain at all. What I can complain is the poor effort by the filmmakers to prop this as "the last bow" of Daniel Craig's James Bond without actually trying. I generally do not find Craig's Bond or just James Bond in general iconic - Jason Bourne is, in my opinion, a much more interesting and creative character for this type of spy/action hero, but I do know that the legacy of Craig's very successful portray of 007 deserves a better treatment for its ending - at least similar to how Hugh Jackman was able to get a pretty satisfying goodbye to his Wolverine in the albeit imperfect yet refreshing "Logan". It seems that Fukunaga paid so much attention to his action sequences to the detriment of plot connectedness as the film was pretty much defined by several very disconnected set pieces (in Matera, Italy - why Bond and Madeleine drive right-steering-wheel cars in right-hand traffic countries in this film? I was driven almost crazy by this question; in Cuba; in Norway; in Russia) and all supporting characters were just placed in their places to support such set pieces, which should have been used for proper character development for these characters. All in all, an entertaining film with subpart script and direction.
27. Shadow (2018): 4/5
It's been awhile since the last time I watched such a monochromatic wuxia film from Zhang Yimou (the last of his colorful wuxia trilogy - "Curse of the Golden Flower" was 15 fricking years ago). After the atrocious "The Great Wall", it seems that Zhang still "got it" with this one - a cerebral wuxia with a script that is both clear, easy to follow and full of twist-and-turns at the same time, a very distinctive "Yimou-esque" aesthetics, and a perverse sense of human nature, especially of men (how Zhang can master both the humanistic approach to ordinary people's life and the repressive look at the dark desires and calculations of outstanding people is beyond me). Although already mentioned above, I still want to say again that this film really has a strong script reminding me of the clarity and witty treatment of unreliable characters in Kurosawa's works (like "Rashomon" or "Kagemusha") with crispy-defined and memorable characters, an interesting and creative take of the historical genre by blending elements of the masterful "Chronicles of the Eastern Zhou Kingdoms" and characters and stories from "Romance of the Three Kingdoms", a well-defined structure and very reasonable running time, and an open ending that leaves a lot of space for the audience to reflect (even though some philosophical allusions in this film are still very much "too obvious" and forceful somehow). This film, however, is still a notch below "Hero" or "House of Flying Daggers" because the choreography in this film is pretty strange and underwhelmed - for a wuxia film (the Tai chi-inspired fighting style invented for this film looks really odd and inelegant) and Zhang's gimmick "machines" are still as ridiculous and useless as his creations for "The Great Wall". Still, such weaknesses could not mask the fact that this is really a Zhang-returning-to-form film with a lot of things worthy appreciation. I am not so sure about the future of Zhang's films, though, since he is getting old (70 already, time really flies) and the pressure for a more-and-more competitive Chinese market and a censorship system that is growing more and more severe and suspicious under Xi Jinping. Let us hope that Zhang can still "find a way around" (the way he did at the beginning of his illustrated career) and gives us some more good films like this one.
28. Venom: Let There Be Carnage (2021): 3/5
A pretty decent superhero film (except for the terrible editing at the end) and definitely a better film than its predecessor. Normally I hate bantering but the back-and-forth between Venom and Eddie Brock in this film feels pretty organic and natural, probably due to the absurdity of such a duality within one single body, as well as the fact that the director thankfully did not take his film too seriously with too many "save-the-world" plotlines and instead focused on very personal stories of Brock and Cletus Kasady/Frances Barrison. The fact that this film is very short - just over 90 minutes and jam-packed with fast-paced and rather violent action sequences also makes this film a better experience as the audience does not have to suffer through lengthy and as-a-consequence boring monologues or be confused by overly complicated twist-and-turn. Bam bam bam, this film is just a straightforward crime/revenge story with some superhero elements without forcing any unnecessary "social commentary" into the audience. The worst part of this film is its ending, when jump cuts, disjointed editing, and nonsensical details made it difficult for the audience to follow and distracted them from the should-have-been thrilling showdown between Venom and Carnage. It seems that by the end, the film was rushed as much as possible so that the filmmakers could show their audience the after-credit scene that represents another effort by Sony to link Venom and Spider-man, as well as create a "movie-verse" that can compete with Marvel (especially since it is obvious that after the success of the two most recent Spider-man films, as well as the surprisingly positive response of the audience to Venom - a very non-Marvel Marvel superhero film, Sony is trying to decouple these franchises that the company owns from the rest of the Marvel superhero universe - beginning with the troublesome contract negotiation with Disney awhile ago). Still, a totally enjoyable superhero film for adults with dope soundtrack as well (especially the magnificent "Last One Standing" by Eminem) - true to its status as one of the "Big Three" record labels, Sony has been able to pump out earworm soundtracks for both good ("Skyfall") and less-than-good films ("The Amazing Spider-Man 2", "Venom 2").
29. Alita: Battle Angel (2019): 3.5/5
Despite being marred by a pretty poor script, this is, in my opinion, still an amazing film with one of the best world building I have seen recently and easily the superior cyberpunk setting to other recent entertainment pieces like "Cyberpunk 2077" or "Ready Player One". Probably due to its rich source materials, and also thanks to very nice CGI and production design (which surprisingly did not win any major visual effect or production design award), this film has a very distinctive look that is both familiar (a very important feature of a dystopia/post-apocalyptic world) and unique (with a nice blend of Western steampunk and Japanese mecha flavours). It is really a pity that the whole cast of this film has either forgettable performances despite their true acting prowess (like Christoph Waltz or Jennifer Connelly) or is simply laughably bad - including not only the "pretty boy" newbie Keean Johnson in the worst character of this film Hugo and even the dependable Mahershala Ali (who is nowhere near talented as his two Supporting Actor Oscars but still far superior than his weak appearance in this film). The fact that this film is basically a setting-the-scene "prologue" and should have been followed right away with a full-fledged action-packed sequel also limited the filmmakers from jampacking this film with more amazing fighting scenes (and fighting cyborgs) that might take advantage of the amazing visual and character creations laid out by the film's opening sequence. Instead, the audience was treated with some awkward dialogues between Alita and Hugo, who had absolutely no chemistry thanks to an uninspiring performance by Keanan Johnson, especially the most hilariously awkward and nonsensical "sharing the heart" scene by Alita that could bring nothing but a headache to the audience. Still, this film is highly entertaining and totally deserves a proper sequel that, sadly enough, probably never comes.
30. Belfast (2021): 4/5
A film with a lot of hearts. Not sure whether or not Kenneth Branagh was inspired or encouraged by Alfonso Cuarón's "Roma" to make this personal film but it is clear that there are a lot of similarities between the two: Both films were set in the birthplace of their directors - two cities with profound history, traditions, as well as troubles during the 1960s and 1970s and thus naturally become main characters in the films by themselves; the time period of both films was in 1970, when both directors (who are only one year apart) spent the best part of their childhood in and around their homes, alongside their close friends and neighbours, with many childhood dreams and wishes; both films were shot in black and white as these semi autobiographies not only draw the audience nearer to their directors with their very personal stories, but also explain why the directors grew to become such inspiring filmmakers, with a lot of sensibility, and personality. "Belfast" is 30-minutes shorter, with a much closer look at its characters (as in both close-up shots, and in its focus on personal stories instead of landscape and symbols like "Roma"), though, and thus appears to be slightly weaker in terms of storytelling and acting. Such a "closer" choice of storytelling perspective made this weakness unavoidable, though, since it is very difficult to dramatize a semi autobiography of a very successful, and living filmmaker (his life simply personifies success, not tragedy), thus to make the film a little bit "weightier", it seems that Branagh has to inject some dramatic elements in the film, especially by the end, which unfortunately are not really effective and only created a disjoint aspect to an otherwise thoughtful yet generally cheerful look at his childhood (like the Easter egg of his liking "Thor" since childhood - really, of all the great Shakespearean films that he has made, Branagh chose this not-too-bad-but-not-too-good "Thor" to talk about his "future" career in this film?). Yes, I know that this film's setting is The Troubles - a very dark period in Northern Ireland's modern history and the film, despite its main character being a cute and innocent little boy made every effort to make sure that the audience understand the many tragedies and dilemmas that ideological and religious conflicts brought to the director's hometown and homeland. Yet, such tragic aspect is not the focus of this film (for that, one can read novels like the pretty good "Milkman" or watch the excellent "In the Name of the Father") and only serves as the gritty background that for the very personal stories that Kenneth Branagh wanted to tell about a boy with a lot of loves for other and for cinema, and about his dearests who love him back and care for him as much as they can and shelter him from any adverse effect of The Troubles. Here, it should be mentioned that the acting in this film is okay, but not too outstanding as the leading child actor Jude "Buddy" Hill is not that impressive (in comparison with notable child performances in recent films like "Jojo Rabbit" or "Moonrise Kingdom"), and Jamie Dornan will not be able to wash himself from his Fifty Shades' connection either with his rather limited appearance in this film. On the other hand, Judy Dench and Ciarán Hinds are really fantastic in their roles as Buddy's grandparents, and Caitríona Balfe is equally outstanding as Buddy's mother and somehow reminds me of another lovely and talented freckled actress - Kelly Reilly. I am not sure that this film could win any major award in the coming award season, but I believe that Kenneth Branagh must feel great that such a personal story of his own childhood can be told in a very effective and moving cinematic tale like "Belfast".
31. The Power of the Dog (2021): 4.5/5
Despite its heavy and moody trailer, this film is actually way more interesting with an actual "whodunit" mystery, a refreshing look at the discrimination against minority groups (be it homosexual, dirt poor, or native American) in the States at the turn of the last century, and a very fine mixture of contrast elements - brutality versus humanism, intelligence versus ignorance, love versus hate, and natural beauty versus cold, dark human nature. Although the film does contain a lot of heavy themes and even ends with a dark and uncertain note, it is still a very easy film to follow for the audience thanks to the masterfully streamlined script by Jane Campion herself, and a set of very well-defined characters with opaque past and fragile future. Since it is adapted from a novel, Campion had every chance to put subtle details into the film for symbolic values or simply as clues for the aforementioned opaqueness pasts of the characters and she did exactly just that. Every sequence or gesture of this film have some meanings, tell you something that you might easily miss without taking notice despite its significance to the plot and character development. For example, thanks to reading to the discussion on the review thread of this film on Reddit that I realized that the sound from Pete's toying with his comb, which is deeply unsettling and understandably feared by Pete's mother, is very similar to the sound made by a rope squeezed under weight of, says, a body - and it was no one else but Pete who found his father hanging himself to escape alcoholism. One might watch the film for the ten times and still could not find such a connection - exactly the way Phil told his men about their forever inability to appreciate the beauty of Montana mountainous wilderness (question "What is it you see up there, Phil? Are animals up there? Has anyone else seen what you've seen, Phil?" - answer "Not if you can't see it [the dog shape of the cloud shadow over the magnificent mountain ranges in Montana], there ain't."). Another reason for the audience's ease watching this film is its absolutely beautiful Montana setting and the equally beautiful performance by the whole cast. Of course Benedict Cumberbatch rightfully receives a lot of praises for his excellent appearance, but his character has actually many repeated traits that one might find after watching countless films or TV series with Cumberbatch in them - a sense of superiority thanks to intelligence and sensibility (to details and to human nature), and an equal sense of inferiority due to the self-perceived strangeness/abnormality (in comparison with other "normal" people) and self-imposed outcast status in everyday life, as well as the hidden charm that could not be hidden despite the character's rudeness and aloofness - actually Phil in the book is, as far as I learn from the aforementioned Reddit discussion, much more brutal and "deserved to rot in hell" but Jane Campion somehow toned such cruel characteristics a note down and thus made Phil, while still menacing, a little bit more human, a little bit more easy to be listened to and forgiven by the audience and by other characters - a feature again very familiar to Cumberbatch's characters in other films and TV series. In this sense, one can even say that Cumberbatch was somewhat typecast for the role of Phil, and so did Jesse Plemons who already "had" to play stoic and/or idiotic characters in numerous films and TV series before receiving the stoic and simple-minded George role in this film. On the other hand, Kirsten Dunst was really, really impressive in this film and easily the best among the talented cast of this one with an actual transformative performance as an approaching-middle-age woman already losing many things and always fearful of losing the last possessions that she had. At the age of 39, Dunst played perfectly as a mid-40s character with apparent damages of time on her physics and mental. Her vulnerability serves as not only to contrast the brutality of the machismo "cowboy" mindset of people at the ranch heralded by Phil (who at the same time suffered privately from such perverseness as a closet "flower") but also as the cornerstone for the script to move on, and the reason for everything that happened in this film. I really hope that Dunst can gain some momentum in the upcoming award season thanks to this amazing role, since it is not easy to have such a director deeply sensible about the tragic fate of women all over the world like Jane Campion tailoring such beautiful yet devastating woman-character like Rose for her (Dunst) as Hollywood always prefer fresh faces when it comes to actresses. My admiration for Dunst in this film is also the reason why I gives this one a 4.5 instead of a 4 like I intended to.
32. Drive My Car (2021): 5/5
I got emotional watching this film, really. As a die-hard Haruki Murakami fan, I have longed for a "proper" cinematic adaptation of his books since forever. Tran Anh Hung's "Norwegian Wood" is not bad, but too "Tran Anh Hung" with a strong Westernized flavor while lack the deep Japanese sensibility permeating from any page written by Murakami. And Lee Chang-dong's "Burning" is just too different, too deviated from the original "Barn Burning" that it is difficult to compare between the two. And I cannot comment on "Toni Takitani" having not watched it yet although I heard that it is a really good one. As a result, I did not have high hope for "Drive My Car" since I was not really impressed by the original homonymous short story, albeit a good one, and in general Murakami's short story writing style (often lack a clear "story") is really difficult to be translated into a full-length film. It turned out that I am totally wrong. "Drive My Car" - the film is a marvellous one, in part because it is rather inspired by the short story than its faithful adaptation. The film has so many more interesting characters, several wonderful storylines, many good lines that could not be found in the original short story, and above all a fulfilling cinematic experience with a beginning, an end, and still a lot of space for the audience to reflect (at 179 minutes, this is a really really long film, yet it does not feel that long thanks to all the lovely characteristics mentioned above). At the same time, this film really amazed me for how much it is close to a "Murakami's adaptation" with the distinct sensibility oozing from its characters and dialogues that is extremely similar to Murakami's sensibility. The characters in this film were also carefully revealed (rather than developed) not by "layers" of background stories or hidden aspects but by "slices" of feelings and thoughts in a very Murakami's way thanks to the abundance of dialogues - as yes, Murakami's characters tend to talk, and think "through words", a lot. The heavy influence of Chekhov's "Uncle Vanya" - the play that served as the backbone of this film's main storyline is another contributor to the strong dialogues (and script) of this film (no wonder why it won the Best Screenplay prize at the Cannes Film Festival) since Ryusuke Hamaguchi was extremely clever in layering and mixing the film dialogues and the play dialogues, and introducing different ways to deliver such dialogues - from everyday communications, to literary writing (recited by Oto during her "climaxes"), to theatrical dialogues via different languages, including sign language (of a Korean actress who does not even speak Japanese). Such a mix-match of languages and contexts for language makes this film a super interesting experience of observing how the same feeling, the same concept are expressed by different languages, and how people of different backgrounds, different origins can connect to each other, understand each other without understanding the other's speaking. On this aspect, this film reminds me of "Inglourious Basterds" - another fascinating "language" film that I love a lot, but rather than using languages to turn up the tension to eleven like Quentin Tarantino, it seems that Hamaguchi used the language richness of this film to demonstrate the universality of love, of sensibility in the way that Haruki Murakami has done again and again through his pages. Talking about Oto, I really like this character thanks to her obvious intelligence, sensual fragility, yet fierceful independence, and many secrets and untold thoughts (borrowing from ... "Detective Conan": "A secret makes woman, woman"). Oto reminds me of the tragically beautiful and strong-willed Reiko in "Norwegian Wood", who I really admired reading the book that ignited my love for Murakami years ago. Guess what? Amazingly enough, Reiko in Tran Anh Hung's "Norwegian Wood" was played by Reika Kirishima - the beautiful actress who was chosen by Ryusuke Hamaguchi for the role of Oto in "Drive My Car" and really excelled in this role despite her limited onscreen time. And Kirishima is not the only one with excellent performance in this film, as many others also have their memorable moments in this film, not only Hidetoshi Nishijima who played the protagonist Kafuku but also the supporting cast, in particular Park Yoo-rim who played the mute Yoona and Sonia Yuan who played the Taiwanese novice Janice (the film does have some hilariously bad performance by actors/actresses in minor roles like the lady organizing the play whose name I even forgot but those are few and far between with no impact to the acting quality of the film in general). Perhaps a major contributor to their great performance is the fact that they act naturally, normally without any need for "over-acting" or bearing too much emotions thanks to a great script and directing style that reminds me of the European "cinéma vérité" filmmaking style emphasizing ordinary lives, ordinary people, ordinary stories with universal feelings instead of theatrical dramas or fabricated emotions (no wonder why this film got a lot of loves and praises during its showing at the Cannes Film Festival - the last bastion of "cinéma vérité" in an era of Hollywood commercial films relying on CGI and overdramatic scripts). This film does not lack of tragedies - the goldmine for fabricated emotions, but similar to Murakami's calmness and "drifting with the flow of life" stillness, Hamaguchi did not rely on those tragedies to develop his characters and instead let them continue to live as naturally, as stoically as possible and only reveal their thoughts, their struggles to others and to the audience one by one through each dialogue, each silent moment cleverly constructed and alternated throughout the film. With that many good things about it, this film is really a joy to watch for any filmgoer, and even more so for Haruki Murakami fans like me. Let us hope that more will come, especially "Kafka on the Shore" (which, in my opinion, is the best Murakami novel so far).
33. The Journalist (2019): 3.5/5
Having a very good "All The President's Men"-type script, this film, however, was not able to maximize its potential due to poor time management with a long and confusing opening, a very good but short climax, and an open ending that is not as impactful as its stake. I understand the director's open-endedness choice for the film's ending as Japanese politics in reality is well-known for being obtuse, marred by corruption, conservatism, and secrecy, and held back by traditions, unresolved historical issues, and lack of public transparency. Such nature of Japanese politics makes it impossible for the journalist and whistleblower protagonist duo in this film come up with a real impactful outcome for their quest for the truth. But since the director already gave the film a very very high stake with international consequences even for Japan itself, the audience do deserve a better ending where at least something happens instead of some unintelligible dialogues by the leads à-la-"Lost in Translation" and even more unknown outcomes for their fates. If only the confusing opening sequence chock-full of on-screen "tweets" (which are incredibly hard to follow for non-Japanese-speaking viewers) were fifteen minutes shorter (many nonconsequential shots of the dark operating room of the manipulative Cabinet Intelligence and Research Office could be easily cut without affecting the film's flow - everyone already understands that this is an evil organization without showing back and forth the same setting and character compositions), and the film were at least 2 hours (instead of just over 110 minutes - a pretty short running time for an investigating drama film), the ending of this film would have benefited greatly with some pay off. The acting in this film, similar to many Japanese films, is also not as heavy-weight as its script, except for the exceptionally talented Shim Eun-kyung, who, at just 25 years old, outshined every other Japanese actors and actresses with her compelling performance as a lonely lady searching for the truth while trying to settling down mentally and physically in a half-foreign land (to a Japanese-Korean girl spending most of her life in the U.S. up to that point) in the wake of her father's mysterious suicide and under the pressure of a male-dominant society that is extremely suspicious of "foreigners" and of women with professional determination and success. Hopefully Shim can continue to thrive in Japanese films instead of wasting time in Korean comedies since her acting capability in this film really proves that she can easily become a top Korean star with the right scripts (it is pretty funny to realize that she was in the crazily popular "Dae Jang Geum" at the age of 10 is also pretty hilarious).
34. The Last Duel (2021): 4/5
As a historical piece, this is actually just another solid film in Ridley Scott's career and even a knot below his best in this genre that are "Kingdom of Heaven" (the "Director's Cut" of course) and "Gladiator" (coincidentally enough, events in "Kingdom of Heaven" took place right after what happened in "The Last Duel"). But as a retrospective of Scott's long, illustrious, and somewhat uneven career, this really is a fantastic film, very thought-provoking, full of nuances, and sentimental even. In this film, the audience has a chance to observe Scott's total deconstruction of the hero/heroin archetype that he brought to the world of cinema via "Alien", "Gladiator", or even more recently "The Martian". There is no extraordinary hero in Ridley Scott's films - they are rather "ordinary" people gifted with strong will, power of their brain and muscles, and opportunities (or bad lucks). But in "The Last Duel", even ordinary heroes do not exist, and instead the audience is presented with three very flawed characters, who would tell viewers the same story in three distinctly different, and equally flawed perspectives à-la-"Rashomon". Perfectly blending in the dirty, gritty, and cruel even world of Medieval France, where ignorance reigned but food was scarce and so were humanity, optimism, and true companionship, the three main characters of this film, despite their noble and comfortable upbringing, had to survive by any way possible - by blood, by cunning calculations betraying one's best friendship, or by beauty and seduction. Nothing in this film is either glamorous or heroic, neither the decadent life of the arrogant and ignorant nobles (including King Charles VI), nor the "real" battles or the eponymous fight between Jean de Carrouges and Jacques Le Gris. The latter is indeed the climax of this film (too bad I mistakenly read about the fight beforehand and already knew its outcome before watching the film, otherwise its rawness and unpredictability would be even more impactful) and also demonstrated a new look by Ridley Scott on the nonsensical nature of violence and masculine arrogance - a far cry from his portrayal of the heroic and noble Maximus and his comrades versus the Roman Empire in "Gladiator". It is amazing to realize that Ridley Scott is already 84 and this year alone he gives us two very fine films, including this epic full of detailed reconstruction of Medieval societies and major battlefields. Equally fines is the cast of "The Last Duel", who took on their multifaceted roles convincingly and impressively - Matt Damon's seemingly dimwit and arrogant but actually cunning and rather coward Jean de Carrouges, Adam Driver's smartass and charming yet equally arrogant and stupidly simple-minded Jacques Le Gris, and Jodie Comer's stunningly beautiful, fragile, but always with her head held high Marguerite de Carrouges (Adam Driver might be the weakest link among this trio, since his trademarked hesitance made his character even less likeable and memorable than even Ben Affleck's small but very animated Count Pierre d'Alençon). Comer in particular is amazingly beautiful with impressive on-screen charisma and very competent acting capability even in difficult scenes like Le Gris' sexual assault of Marguerite. With this performance (and the one in "Free Guy"), as well as her well-established presence on TV via "Killing Eve", I am sure that she, just like many other young and talented English actresses, will go far and dominate Hollywood very soon. On a different note, I happened to watch the aforementioned uncomfortable scene between Le Gris and Marguerite right after reading the depiction of a similar scene in Ha Jin's "Waiting". Both are traumatic in their own ways, and made their readers/viewers uncomfortable differently. Back to the film, my major complaint is probably its rather tedious length despite its "Rashomon" style (which requires the director to repeat a single story several times, from different perspectives), since there are way too many overlapped scenes between the three Chapters (or the three protagonists' different views of the same events). Such overlap can easily distract even the most attentive audience (who would be eager to find any nook and cranny of differences between the three telling of a same story in order to identify clues that might lead to the real "culprit" of the central crime of this film, but instead had to settle down with pretty-much-the-same scene after scene with very few clues in between. If such overlap were trimmed down or replaced with more-detailed (and more different) reconstruction of the events leading to the crime and the crime itself, the film would have been much better. Still, this is an amazing film nonetheless and deserves a viewing by any history buff, any Ridley Scott's fan, or anyone who would like to explore the many disadvantages and prejudices that any woman had to face during the Medieval.
35. The French Dispatch (2021): 3.5/5
As a film for Wes Anderson's fans (like me, who already pre-ordered the book about this film right after finishing watching it), this is a perfect gift as nothing can be more Wes Anderson than this. Wes really deserves to be considered the single auteur in Hollywood nowaday as right from the very first title screen of this film, one can already tell that this is indeed a Wes Anderson film. Colourful with a pastel flavour, symmetrical in almost every scene, quirky in every single character, and nostalgic, very nostalgic, this film is all of that. But as a one-off anthology film, The French Dispatch is really not that impressive in comparison with "Grand Budapest Hotel" or "Moonrise Kingdom", the coherent script of which this film does not have. Clearly a homage to The New Yorker (the magazine) and Paris, the five parts of this film (introduction, the three main "longform articles", and the conclusion) are pretty fragmented, or at least lack a mainline story to connect everything together. Thus, the audience could easily get confused by the extremely fast pace of the film right from the very beginning, or the barrage of characters, most of whom played by well-known actors/actresses, or the incessant setting switch, or the magazine-like chapter-structure of the script, or a combination of all these factors, and more. It feels like Wes makes this film just for himself, to share his homage to The New Yorker and Paris or simply to demonstrate to Hollywood that he is the single auteur that can make a very distinctive film with his unique and unmixable style and still earn big bucks and awards. He has indeed succeeded with this one, but I do hope that in the next ones he can restrain at least a little bit his quirkiness and instead bring to the table a more coherent and concrete piece of art (this one is of course such a piece, but I just expect more from a director with full creative freedom like Wes).
36. Project Gutenberg (2018): 3/5
It took me less than ten minutes to realize that this is a Hong Kong/Chinese copy of "The Usual Suspects". And indeed Felix Chong - famous for being the writer of the "Infernal Affairs" trilogy unashamedly re-used most of the important elements of Bryan Singer's masterpiece for this film - a coward unreliable narrator (Aaron Kwok), an elusive yet omnipotent and omnipresent "superbad" (Chow Yun-fat), the amusing formation and utterly tragic downfall of a band of colourful criminals, and a criminal plot full of greed, violence, betrayals, and twist-and-turn. True to his Hong Kong sentimentalism, Chong also infused some love stories (and additional twist-and-turn) for this film, which turned out to be not really effective but pretty hilarious instead. Both films have numerous plot holes (the unreliable narrative style is very difficult to pull off without a hitch in terms of logics and continuity - "The Usual Suspects" prevails thanks to its fine mixture of smart plot, memorable characters, funny dialogues, and excellent performances) but "Project Gutenberg" feels much worse due to the very subpart performance by the whole cast and the unsatisfying editing with incoherent sequences, lack of scene transition. I understand that those weak points might be intentional - meaning Chow Yun-fat is not bad in his role, instead his "Painter" character is intended to be a slightly-poor representation of reality since it is a product of the imagination of Aaron Kwok's Lee Man. Similarly, different sequences seem to be mismatched and out-of-sync could probably be due to their nature as imagined by Lee Man. If the action sequences had been convincing, the audience would have forgiven such poor scripting and directing, but they are simply not good either despite obviously trying to imitate Chow Yun-fat's awe-inspiring action sequences in his peaks like in "The Killer", "Hard Boiled", or "A Better Tomorrow". In spite of being a part of the lame effort to introduce romances to such a hardcore action-detective piece, Zhang Jingchu's acting (and her ageless beauty) is easily the best element of this film. I am pretty surprise to know that this film won most of the important prizes during the 2019 Hong Kong Film Awards. Do not know whether it was just a bad crop of Hong Kong cinema or another epitome of its decline since the reintegration with China in 1997 (and later gradual cannibalization by the Chinese cinema and companies), but watching this film really made me crave for some good old action/detective films by Johnnie To or Andrew Law.
37. The Hand of God (2021): 3.5/5
The first half of this film is absolutely delightful with a magnificent depiction of Napoli, a down-to-earth yet deeply moving portray of an Italian-style family full of colourful characters, swearing, quirky dialogues, and love, lots of love. I am particularly moved by Paolo Sorrentino's long sequence of a family banquet that reminded me of the sentimental feeling of "The Son's Room" (another Italian film about family love and loss) and at the same time made me feel deeply satisfying with its cinematic charm - a signature of Sorrentino that has perhaps peaked with "The Great Beauty". The second part - or the tragedy part of this film is not as impressive, though, since it felt pretty long with numerous strange sequences (another trademark of Sorrentino) that were built to lesser the impact of the deaths that defined the film's structure and the actual life of its creator - Sorrentino himself. Too bad that I had known that this is a semi-biography about Sorrentino, who lost both of his parents due to a tragic mono carbon dioxide accident back when he was only 16, thus the deaths of the parents in this film are already foreseeable and consequently could not create the emotional impact on the audience as heavy as it was intended to. Still, I like this film very much just as I like every other films by Paolo Sorrentino. He really has the talent to light up the audience's heavy heart and mind with his natural charm, witty dialogues, and memorable characters.
38. The Assassin (2015): 4/5
I find it hilarious to call this film a "wuxia" one, since the "action" sequences in this film were choreographed perhaps even worse than the "dance" sequences. But does it matter? It does not, in my opinion. Because this is a Hou Hsiao-hsien film through and through with the "still life" style of cinematography that reminds any cinephile of Yasujiro Ozu, whose influence Hou has shown through almost all of his career. Such a lack of moving frames, except for some very slow and deliberate panning, is of course unsuitable for the hyperactive nature of the wuxia genre, but at the same time extremely suitable for Hou's storytelling method that relies on slow pacing, simple depiction of characters, and natural flow of narrative that rather shows the audience how the film's characters were placed in and interacted with the environment or society surrounding them. It sounds easy (there is no need for fabricated climax or over-dramatic plots) but actually very difficult to pull off without making the audience bored. And Hou has rarely made his fans ("fans" since the general audience might be much less appreciative of Hou's calmness in an era of faster, stronger, flashier superhero films, or ready-to-eat films full of stars but lack of any true story to tell) disappointed, including this one as almost every single characters in this film were magically given enough space on screen and running time to show their complex personalities and calculations, as well as their feelings, desires, happiness, sadness. As a bonus to the already tightly-created piece of cinema, and despite its seemingly simplified look, this is actually a superbly-filmed one with frame after frame of beautiful Chinese landscapes that could not be found anywhere else in the world, or authentically-recreated Tang scenes and costumes that really represented the cultural peak of the Tang Dynasty in particular and old Chinese culture in general. In short, this is a very nice period piece without wuxia but with a lot of hearts, cares, and unforgettable characters.
39. Don't Look Up (2021): 3.5/5
I am very surprised that this film is already down to 56%/6.2 on Rotten Tomatoes as most film critics are left-leaning and so is this film. Very long and very political, yet I found this film very entertaining and moving in parts with good performance from the whole cast. I understand that McKay often selects a lot of big names for his film in form or an "assemble cast" but it seems a little bit too many in this film - probably due to the fact that Netflix has so much money that it can throw away to satisfy the wishes, no matter how crazy they are, of the directors who are willing to put their film on its platform (except for Leo, though, he would probably be willing to do this film for free since it is about exactly what he has campaigned for years - the desperate fight against climate change and human stubbornness). Too many because some have really minor/cameo roles and thus could not really shine sans dialogue, sans on-screen time. The biggest names, namely Leo, JLaw et al., are very solid, though, as they all lean on their strength (Leo's outburst and extreme-emotion expression, JLaw's quirkiness and "I don't give a damn" attitude, Jonah Hill's dumb and/or gross comedy-relief typecast but with some depth and twists, Melanie Lynskey's often suffering and passive image) to excel and make their marks in the film. But the biggest achievement is probably Mark Rylance's against-typecasting role as the seemingly inhumane tech billionaire with nothing but cost versus benefit calculations in his psychopathic mind. Imitating Steve Jobs, Mark Zuckerberg, and other tech magnates or Evangelical pastors, yet Rylance still made his marks as a totally unpredictable "robot" prophesying the cataclysmic fate of human due to its ignorance and arrogance when facing force majeure processes (like climate change, or deep impacts by asteroids). Timothée Chalamet - the actual comedy relief of this film is also pretty good in another against-typecasting role. Of course, everyone already knows McKay's weakness in pushing his own left-leaning agenda to criticize conservative administrations and politics by very on-the-nose symbolism, dialogues, and parody characters - and maybe that is one of the reason why this film is not well-liked by critics, who must be already tired by McKay's heavy political themes and one-sided commentaries. But at least this film - due to its pretty long running length remains very interesting from the beginning until the very end with numerous tone shifts, speed changes, and realistic and scary scenarios. Despite its being shown in the middle of the 4th (or 5th, I am already too tired to keep track of this terrible situation) wave of COVID infections, I still believe that this film is about the ignorance and inevitable doom of man when facing climate change. And McKay is really good at push this issue, and the divisive opinions of ordinary people, driven by the greed of the elite, in this film really reflect the actual situation in real life with regards to people's radically different opinions on climate change. The biggest issue with this film, though, is that McKay could not really balance the seriousness of the situation and the comedic factor. This film is categorized as a satirical comedy, but is definitely not fun enough with too much tensions that no witty dialogues or funny characters could lessen it to a comedy. On the other hand, the funny elements here and there really affected the consistent tone of the film and somehow only made the serious scenes and thoughts of the film less impactful. This is the same situation with "Vice" and shows that McKay probably needs to trim down the runtime of his future films (in order to have a stronger structure) and moderate his comedic tendency (since he is already too good for political films with no real need to get back to his comedic style from his earlier career).
40. The Matrix Resurrections (2021): 2/5
This film is so bad I can hardly believe that it really exists in a world that was mesmerized by the original "Matrix" 22 years ago. The acting is super bad - Keenu Reeves has always been a bad actor, but his wooden, emotionless and clueless performance in this one really is his new low, Carrie-Anne Moss, after years of almost absence in tent-pole films, should not be blamed for her equally bad appearance in this, but the casting director of course deserves all the blame, not less for Moss and Reeves (they have to be in the film) but for all the other non-descriptive and charismaless actors hired for secondary roles (you tried to replace Laurence Fishburne with a "doppelganger" of much inferior acting and screen presence really is an insult to the original film and to Fishburne himself). The action is extremely bad - Reeves and Moss are so bad now that it hurts to think that they were once epic in their fights against the agents in the original "Matrix", but the piss-poor choreography and the dizzy fast-cut editing are the actual cherry-on-top that make this film look like a film made by fans of the original rather than its actual sequel (or reboot, whatever you want to call it, since there will most definitely no more spinoff of "The Matrix" in this direction). The script, which is full of self-referencing and "almost" breaking-the-4th-wall and totally unfunny despite the director/writer trying to inject many lifeless jokes into the robotic dialogues, is as bad as one could expect after witnessing the downfall of the Wachowskis after the "Matrix" trilogy with "Jupiter Ascending" being so bad that everyone already lost their hope for a proper sequel to "The Matrix". The cool CGI might be considered the film's saving grace but even that one is nothing special, different, or improved from the original, which was made more than two decades ago. All in all, I had no expectation coming into this film, but finishing this utter disappointment still saddened me a lot for unfulfilled potential of a decent follow-up to "The Matrix", to the unsaveable career of the Wachowskis, and to the boring state-of-play of Hollywood that can only pump out unoriginal sequels and reboots in order to maximize the profit and the audience reach (which is even more important nowadays given the rise of the streaming platform war) without any thought about actually producing a respectful product to the epic originals.
41. C'mon C'mon (2021): 3/5
I did not like this film as much as I had thought I would. Probably due to the lack of a "flow" of stories in the film (I do like films about nothingness - when nothing over-dramatic or significant occurs like Ozu's - this film is nothing like an Ozu, though). I do understand that the film was built around the growing relationship between Joaquin Phoenix's Johnny and Woody Norman's Jesse, but Johnny is too passive while Jesse is too "mature" (for his age) to make the growth of their relationship an organic one. Rather, the audience is "told" by Johnny and the director that the relationship has become better, that Johnny has got a better understanding of Jesse, that the small tantrums here and there of Jesse (which are quite adult-like for his age and thus appear to be annoying rather than charming) are necessary to open Johnny's eyes of his nephew. Yes, the film appears to be naturally shot and directed. Yet, from the storytelling perspective, everything seems to be pretty forced without making the audience satisfied by the dynamics between Johnny and Jesse (there is hardly any such dynamics). Or I found this film rather lacklustre due to its using black-and-white without actually taking advantage of this medium with heighten contrasts and heighten emotions. Instead of using close-up or wide-angle shots, which would benefit the most from the black-and-white medium, this film has way too many medium shots that are quite boring without colours and do not signify anything about the film's characters and their emotions. Or the film is not interesting to me simply because the interlayering the film with segments of various interviews with ordinary American kids about their life and their future is just not effective and do not reinforce the otherwise quite interesting lives of the three leads. Although not at all a bad film - its charm is not deniable, this film is still a let down given the subject matter and the participation of a Joaquin Phoenix currently at the top of his game (even his performance could not save the film as he stays quite laid back throughout the film).
42. Raging Fire (2021): 3/5
Action-wise, this is a very entertaining and well-made film (although Donnie Yen's MMA-style choreography has become more and more predictable and thus less enjoyable). Plot-wise, though, this film makes no sense at all, as the villains' heist (or "evil plan" - whatever you want to call it) is really, really pointless without any foreseeable positive outcomes for them and can only serve as the pretext and background for the "Heat"-inspired shootout and of course another Donnie Yen vs. final boss showdown. Sharing numerous similarities (masked team of "supervillains", middle-aged policemen struggling with the raison-d'être of being a true policeman, "necklace tickling bomb",...), this film, however, is still a lesser version of "New Police Story" - one of the last true Hong Kong action pieces of Jackie Chan directed by Benny Chan himself almost twenty years ago as the latter still has an acrobatic yet complex Jackie Chan (Donnie Yen, despite his numerous efforts, stays a very one-dimensional action-first actor until now) and a more interesting plot (albeit cringy due to its heavy reliance on millennials' culture and taste). Funnily enough, I believe that "Raging Fire" will be more successful in term of box office (it has already earned a boatload of money in China despite COVID) and critics (the standard nowadays for Hong Kong films has been much lower, and thus this one already stands out among the rest, whereas "New Police Story" was widely considered a failure to reboot the "Police Story" franchise). At least to me it is an interesting Hong Kong film. It is really hard to find such a good one these days, sadly.
43. Weathering with You (2019): 4/5
I am so very thankful that Makoto Shinkai was able to amend his weakness that is the monotony due to the lack of any significant story progress as in his debut "The Place Promised in Our Early Days". Thankful because I LOVE sentimental and romantic films, and Shinkai has always been the king of this subgenre of Japanese animation. And "Weathering with You" is no different. Similar to the spectacularly successful "Your Name", this is a deeply moving film about young people, their hope and despair, and the warm and cozy feeling they have toward and for each other. The fantastical element of this film (which is at least equally prominent like "Your Name") might put off some viewers, but to compensate for that (a compensation is indeed needed, because otherwise the film would have become too unbelievable and consequently monotonous and unrelatable), Makoto Shinkai introduced to this film a surprisingly fast pace (in total contrast with his earlier works like "The Place Promised" or "5 Centimeters per Second") that is rammed up to the max near the end of the film. Such a breath-taking pace makes this film exciting to watch, and also push the audience to follow the quest for companionship of the two lonely souls Hodaka and Hina. Also similar to "Your Name", this film has amazing soundtrack that goes very well with the fast pacing of the film - an irresistible combination to the audience despite the fact that the story of this film is actually pretty thinner than what Shinkai wrote for "Your Name". Hopefully in the upcoming "Suzume's Locking-Up", Makoto Shinkai will be able to retain this sensitivity and sentimentalism that I always love of him.
44. Red Rocket (2021): 3.5/5
Somehow this film reminds me of the tragic "The Broken Circle Breakdown", which is also about a doomed couple of lovers living on a thin line between hope and hopelessness. Thankfully, "Red Rocket" is not a pure tragedy like "The Broken Circle" thanks to its overall ambiguous tone and tiny and pretty charming jokes planted throughout the film. However, the former looks (and indeed is) a much cheaper production on the borderline of an amateur film (it is not, though, since its creator Sean Baker is already an established independent filmmaker). Of course, the small Texan rural town setting of this film does not requires anything extravaganza, but some parts are definitely rough on the edge, as in a documentary instead of a fiction as it really is. The (truly) amateur cast does not help either, since their performance are frankly quite (woodenly) mediocre and could only be partly saved thanks to their authentic look and sincere expressions. Of course, sincerity could not be attached to the main character "Mikey Saber", who is an extraordinarily vapid, shallow, cunning yet hilariously clueless "former pornstar". My impression of him was so bad that by the end of the film, I really wanted to punch him on the face for his ungratefulness and all-around pettiness. Such effect on the audience (like me) really shows that Simon Rex (who played "Mikey") was really terrific in this film and if luck allows, could even get a nomination earlier next year at the Oscars. His two female "companions" Bree Elrod (Lexi) and Suzanna Son (Strawberry) were also very decent. Could this film be better (with a higher budget and a more professional cast)? I do not know, but at least I had a very good time watching this two-hour film, that is already a big achievement for a tiny film done during the peak of the COVID pandemic.
45. Irréversible (2002): 3.5/5
Calling this film intense would be an understatement. Really, I had read about this film's infamous sexual assault scene, but was not prepared at all for the second "segment" of dizziness, ultra-violence (that I had never ever seen on mainstream and non-horror films before, despite having watched countless), and a lot of claustrophobic and homophobic tension. In fact, I did consider this section way too extreme for its own good, not only because it was way too violent, but more so because it was very disorienting due to its intentionally chaotic and extraordinarily psychedelic cinematography - a trademark of Gaspar Noé in his later films. But the more I watched, the more I found such a head-first extremity totally make sense (I did know about the film's reversibility à-la-"Memento") as the later "segments" became calmer and calmer, and ended up with a totally peaceful scene. Normally, action and/or mystery films are often rammed up in terms of tensions and other dramatic elements throughout their running time leading to a final showdown or a climax (an explosive opening is often used, but would be followed by introductory sequences of much slower pace in order to help the audience to catch a breath). Therefore, the fact that this film runs in a total reverse - intense pacing at first, followed by gradually calmer tone was really a surprise to me, and thus distinguished itself from any other action/mystery films (probably because no one aside from Noé would dare to poke the mainstream audience with such an experimental approach to storytelling and film editing). In terms of storytelling, such reversibility is also extremely useful, since it effectively puts the audience on hot seat without having to return to such extremity at the opening to deliver its experimental message of life's vulnerability against tiny little fluctuations in time and fate, as well as the devastating impact of drug-filled emotional stupidity, short-sightedness, and personal pains on the lives of the direct and indirect victims of such a horrendous crime like sexual assaults. Such a skillful and smart storytelling by Noé was accentuated by the excellent performance of the leads, especially Albert Dupontel (as Bellucci, even at her prime of beauty and sensuality like in this film, was only an average actress, whereas Vincent Cassel seemed to be a little bit too "all-in" for this role). Despite all those good things about this film, I could not give it a 4/5 mostly because I feel that Noé's chaotic filming style at the beginning really did not benefit the film and could have been totally toned down a notch, whereas the long overexposed scene at the end (that of course mimics the ending of "2001: A Space Odyssey") is really not justifiable given its visual risks to the audience (as the film has no warning at the beginning about such an intense scene) and even health risks to people with epilepsy.
46. Hai Phượng (2019): 3/5
A surprisingly decent action flick from Vietnam. Although the script could definitely use some more refinement instead of wasting several story details and minor characters (how about a connection between the kidnapping and the mysterious and almost non-existent father? how about a better utilization of the pretty interesting motor mechanic - played by the scandal-embroidered Phạm Anh Khoa? how about a greater role for the estranged brother that is very likely adept in martial arts?), but probably the short running time (of just one and a half hour) does not allow that, or simply because Ngô Thanh Vân et al. wanted to focus more on the action side of this flick. Even the action sequences could also be improved greatly with fewer cuts, more modest (and thus less headache-inducing) camera movement, and more clearly-defined fighting style for each villain. But all in all, this is still a very entertaining action film (if one can suspend his or her scrutiny of the rather mediocre plot) with good acting efforts from Ngô Thanh Vân and the cute child actress Mai Cát Vy.
47. Wind River (2017): 3.5/5
A pretty nice crime/mystery film that focuses less on the crime/mystery (that the director basically gave it all up for the audience near the end of the film) but more on the depressing lives of native and other Americans living in Indian Reservations. Thus, the film felt a little bit short as a whodunit film (I stumbled upon this good but unlucky film why trying to find a good whodunit to watch - unlucky because this is a (Bob) Weinstein film, which is a big no no these days in Hollywood in terms of marketability, thus this film was almost dropped into a void despite being very entertaining and marketable), but as as a neo-Western, this is a pretty good one with solid action sequences, beautiful shots of Colorado's nature, well streamlined script (except for the pretty awkward ending that tries too hard to deliver the film's message instead of helping the film to have a neat conclusion), and interesting characters. Elizabeth Olsen is pretty good in this one, so good that I hope that she would soon escape her lucrative but very monotonous role in the Marvel Cinematic Universe in order to pursuit proper roles in the near future. Her character - an FBI agent possesses both the feminine sensibility and vulnerability - especially when facing the unfamiliar and utterly harsh coldness of the reservation, as well as the determination, intelligence, and a strong will to live. Olsen's very good appearance in this film, however, only provides another proof that Jeremy Renner remains probably the most uncharismatic A-lister these days. Of course I understand that his character - a wildlife tracker is supposed to be timid, standing in the background, possessing a demented soul due to his personal loss. But Renner's interpretation of his character is really not memorable at all due to his totally lack of charisma or emotional acting. Renner aside, this is a very entertaining and meaningful film even, not a good whodunit though.
48. The Maltese Falcon (1941): 3/5
In my quest for good whodunit films to watch, I have to turn back the clock and look for films of the yesteryears, meaning the 60s, 50s, or even 40s. I have known the reputation of "The Maltese Falcon" being among the best Hollywood whodunits ever, but was really not impressed after watching it. The film is solid with an entertaining plot (although not as good as its contemporaries "Double Indemnity", "The Third Man", or "Witness for the Prosecution", which are all better films noir and have more clever twist-and-turn) but the cast is only average at best, including Humphrey Bogart. I totally understand that Bogart belongs to another era of acting style that does not emphasize the authenticity of the characters (and instead focused on bringing the unique traits of the actors upon their characters), but Bogart in this film is really unimpressive, especially in comparison with his iconic role in "Casablanca", which came out just one year after "The Maltese Falcon". Under the scrutiny of modern standard in acting, Bogart's performance in this film could be even considered "wooden" or subpart with the worst culprit being his forced laughs and smirks throughout the film, which were not at all convincing and consequently could not translate the unique quirkiness of his character Sam Spade from literature into big picture. Bogart's Sam is just a daring womanizer (even approaching the level of sexual harasser by our modern society's standard) with a loud mouth without any depth of character or any other good qualities so that the audience could really consider him the hero of this film. Being an unfaithful womanizer with not much skills for investigation or deduction, he could not be seen as an anti-hero typical for a film noir either. All in all, a good whodunit but a legendary one? Not so much.
49. Brick (2005): 3.5/5
Another one of the whodunit genre - a cult favorite of many Redditors it seems. As the directorial debut of Rian Johnson, who has been famed for yet another whodunit - "Knives Out" that I like but also think that it is a little bit overhyped (and overestimated, given the huge amount of money that Netflix has already paid Johnson for the future sequels, this film is definitely low budget in terms of production value and scores. However, there is nothing "low budget" about Johnson's ingenious script (although it hides too many details from the audience under high-schoolers' slangs - a trick that is, in my opinion, a little bit annoying since it would limit the reach of the dialogues - how could someone who already graduated from high school years, even decades ago understand these up-to-date "encrypted" words to fully enjoy the plot and deduct the characters' conspiracies?). The acting is another strong point as Joseph Gordon-Levitt really excelled as the protagonist, whereas his co-performers, many among whom are, I believe, just amateur thespians, also acted their roles convincingly and engagingly. The "final showdown" of this film is also very well-written and "plotted", a little bit too plotted and full of coincidences for its own good. After watching this film, I realized a sad fact that there have not been many high profile, high budget whodunits recently simply because without grandiose settings (majestic-looked whodunits like the new "Murder on the Orient Express" are exceptions, not the norm here) or some elements of actions and/or sci-fi, it is very difficult to attract the general public to glue one and a half or two hours on the seat of the cinema to read through the plot and deduct the "final culprit" of the film. All those things could be done with much lower budgets and small cast - the reason why most whodunits have been "migrated" to the streaming or television media. I just hope that Branagh's success with "Murder on the Orient Express" or Johnson's with "Knives Out" could somehow change this mindset of Hollywood producers and give the whodunit genre and its fans like me another chance for middle-to-high films (I could not ask for a blockbuster, of course) so that we - the fan can devise the whodunit plot with an extravagant setting and marvellous production values.
50. Prisoners (2013): 4/5
Oh, this film is so good. Of all action films about serial killers in recent decades, this film is probably among the best with an excellent script, amazing characters on all three sides - police, victims and their families, and perpetrators, exhilarating pacing and editing, unforgettable cinematography (thanks to the ever-dependable Roger Deakins), and an almost perfect ending that is both thoughtful and satisfying. The main weakness of this film is probably its leaning too much on the character act of Hugh Jackman's Keller Dover since the character's pretty one-dimensional aggressiveness and Jackman's over-acting got tired by the end (he is really not impressive in this film, especially in comparison with Jake Gyllenhaal). Although I understand that this character is central to the Catholic theme of sins, fall, and redemption of this film, but Villeneuve could have easily spent more time on other equally impressive characters, especially Melissa Leo's Holly Jones, Paul Dano's Alex Jones, or even Jake Gyllenhaal's Detective Loki (who obviously has a lot of screen time already but still deserves even more for Jake Gyllenhaal's exceptional performance) to deliver and emphasize his message. For this reason, I could not give this film a higher score despite enjoying it a whole lot. But 5 stars or not, this is still an exciting film to watch (I know, "exciting" might not be an appropriate for such a dark film, but the ending totally justifies it - such a good ending).
51. Gone Baby Gone (2007): 5/5
This might not be a true perfect "5-star" film, but at least a damn close one with an exceptionally entertaining yet thoughtful plot, so 5-star it is. The wooden Ben Affleck might be a average-to-mediocre actor, but his writing really is top-notch with outcomes like "Good Will Hunting" or this one being masterfully neat without wasteful details, often thought-provoking thanks to a very humanistic approach to character development (no wonder why he is, despite being a relapsed alcoholic, very prominent in progressive politics, activism, and environmentalism), and always entertaining due to frequent injection of smart twist-and-turn. This directorial debut of Affleck really is exemplary for all of the above qualities. Oh, how can I list all those good things about this film? How about a magnificent setting that is colourful, live-in, and so "real" that it really is a main character of this film (not really a difficult feat for Affleck, though, since this Bostonian LOVES his hometown and always sets his films in Boston in a most caring, meticulous, and ingenious way possible just to show his love for his hometown)? How about an extremely impressive cast led by the stoic yet never-cease-to-amaze Casey Affleck (it is funny, though, that after watching this film, I was slightly less impressed by his role in one of my favourite films "Manchester by the Sea", which has obviously more depth and won him an Oscar yet shares many similarities in terms of being "a man of principles" or simply a true Bostonian) and the equally amazing Ed Harris (some were a little bit subpar, though, such as Morgan Freeman - he is iconic, I admit, but has rarely been good since forever due to being typecast, and most likely loving to be typecast)? How about the funny-as-hell dialogues full of Bostonian bitterness and abrasiveness that made me miss so much this damn cold city that is actually full of hearts? How about the masterful pacing that changes speed not two, not three, but four time (fast, slow, fast, slow) - a technic I have rarely seen from Hollywood scripts as it is very difficult to have such many different paces in one single film without making the audience tired and dizzy - every "curve" of this film, either up or down, has its own meaning to the film's core theme of the thin line of distinction between good and evil, between doing the right thing and doing the good thing, between being "a cop" and being a protector of livelihood? This film really is a full package and I can only hope that Affleck could spend less time on those half-hearted superhero projects and instead focus on these contemporary drama action that has always been his forte.
52. Headhunters (2011): 3.5/5
A very fun film to watch (despite being pretty gory for a film obviously targeting the larger audience) with clever twist-and-turn and exhilarating pacing. There is nothing really innovative about this film, as the accidental hero/anti-hero motive has been used in many films, even in recent decades. But sometimes you do not have to reinvent the wheel but should rather focus on delivering a neat script with well-defined characters and coupling it with more entertaining action sequences and fewer melodramatic boring dialogues. This film does have some "melo" moments, but the protagonists, despite being very flawed, and their relationship are interesting enough for the audience to accept such slow minutes in exchange for another one and almost half hour of pure funs and pleasant surprises. It amazed me that this film has not been remade by Hollywood as it is very much in line with what Hollywood considers a recipe for a commercially successful action blockbuster. Probably because the stake in this film ("just some old paintings") is not high enough to guarantee attention from the American audience. Or simply because Hollywood just forgets that this film exists. Hopefully they can remember this hidden treasure from Norway, since, in my opinion, it is not too difficult for decent Hollywood filmmakers to remake this one into another successful film targeting the American audience.
53. Eternals (2021): 1.5/5
This film is hilariously bad, almost to the point of "so bad it's good" (but not quite, as I do not want to ever watch it again). It really amazed me that this film was written and directed by such a director at the height of her creativity and talent like Chloé Zhao, simply because this film is bad all around - the writing is bad, the acting is bad, the directing is bad, the editing is bad, the CGI is mediocre but still better than the aforementioned. Okay, let us slow down a little bit. The writing is bad because, despite the low bar of a Marvel film, this film just makes no sense at all with way too many illogical and even conflicting details. For example, why Phastos has a machine that could hold Ikaris down and did not use that to prevent him to approach "the good Eternals" while they were began to try stopping the rise of Tiamut instead of using it in a very "whatever" moment? There are just too many details like that for me to even bother to cite here. Nothing makes sense in this film. Relationship between Eternals are cool, but why? and for what purpose? The Deviants are cool, but why let them died off before the climax without much explanation? The love for humans of Eternals is cool, but why have they gotten that? and for what purpose? Nothing makes sense! Now move to acting, the cast of this film is just uninspiring and was totally underused either with poorly-written dialogues and scenes (it seems that the beautiful Gemma Chan can act, but she showed no range of emotions at all in this film as she did not have a chance with a script forcing her character to be pseudo-inspiring but actually passive and useless most of the time), or with little screen time despite their star power and actual acting capability (Angelina Jolie can obviously act, but somehow was shoed in for another poorly-written character that is more like a cheap copy of DC's Wonder Woman but with even less strong will or charisma). Yes, I know that the characters in this film are from long-running Marvel comic series, but here they only appear as a cheap copy of DC's Justice League and even Marvel's own Avengers with an uncharismatic and forgettable "Superman" in Ikaris, a heavily-underused (to the point of incomprehensible) "Flash" in Makkari, a political correct but only superficially-developed black-gay-scientist "Iron-Man" in Phastos, and some other superheroes with superpowers so undistinguishable and forgettable that they should never be included in either "Dream Teams" of DC and Marvel. Talking about political correctness. It seems that Disney, in making and showing this film, has tried its best to appeal to the general public in the era of political correctness with many politically-correct characters - a leading Asian lady, a deaf lady of minorities, a gay black scientist with a gay Arab partner. But such effort feels so half-hearted as these traits were not developed at all throughout the very-long film, and appears to be just another token effort of Disney to "prove" that they are indeed politically correct instead of really trying to introduce to the audience a truly diverse set of characters with distinctive manners, thoughts, dreams, and other traits. In terms of editing, this film has way so many unnecessary jump cuts that it is just too difficult to immerge in the film's (poorly written) story as the audience would easily be distracted by the film's plethora of illogical and unexplained details. Again, I was really amazed that Zhao, despite just winning a bunch of Oscars with her excellent "Nomadland" could "sell herself" for this poorly-written, poorly-edited, poorly-directed film. By the end of its running time, the film proudly talked about the return of the Eternals (probably in a sequel). But with such a poor quality like this, it is not easy, not easty at all I suppose.
54. The Worst Person in the World (2021): 3.5/5
I tried my best to love this film, given its reputation being one of the best-reviewed of 2021, but ended up with only appreciating its very streamlined script and smart cinematography and editing and not being able to love its characters. True to its name, this film has many characters who are, in my opinion, not really likable - even the three leads. Being flawed is one thing - everyone loves a down-to-earth and relatable character, but this film's characters are just not my cup of tea - too individualistic ("me first" in any life decision) yet too indecisive ("don't know what to do, what to like" when time comes for their decisions), Maybe that is part of the charm of this film to some (or many even), but I was really frustrated by the characters' shortsighted thirst for instant happiness and self-gratification without knowing, or even wanting to know what would be their personal "way to go" in life. I really could not enjoy that despite the fact that the film really is a charming piece of cinema with charming characters (especially the main protagonist Julie). Hopefully "Drive My Car" could win over this one at the Oscars, otherwise I would be disappointed.
55. The Town (2010): 4/5
The more I watch films directed and/or written by Ben Affleck, the more I like his style of filmmaking. Really, nothing truly innovative or rebellious, but his scripts are always very polished without unnecessary details, smart in terms of dialogues and twist-and-turn, and humanist in portraying characters to the point of being slightly naive. His love for his hometown Boston, which permeates from every single page of the script and shows that this still-pretty-young filmmaker has always cared about "his people", always stayed awake and conscious of his surrounding environment, alleys, red-brick houses, Charles River, or Bunker Hill, is another aspect that I really like about Affleck's films, since I myself love this city and its people very much after having the chance to stay there for awhile. And of course, Affleck-the-director is no slouch either, as his films have very good pacing, easy-to-follow editing, well-thought-out action sequences, effective use of the cast no matter how big or small names they have to make every character memorable and have the limelight to stay in the mind of the audience after watching them. "The Town" is no different on all those aspects in comparison to Affleck's debut "Gone Baby Gone" and thus I love every minute of this long film. However, I still found "The Town" not as "tight" as "Gone Baby Bone" but more relaxing with action sequences and not one but two melodramatic and pretty cheesy storyline. Make no mistake, I LOVE melodrama and cheese love stories, but Affleck's spending a little bit too much time on these two relations between Doug and Claire and Kris made the film a little bit "soft", when considering the tough subject matter of the film - bank robberies. I also found that the happy ending of this film, including the final redemption act of Doug a little bit unrealistic and too much out-of-tone in view of the rest of the film, especially the final showdown between Doug et al. versus the FBI and Boston police. Thus, I was very happy finding out that Affleck himself had another alternative ending for this film, in which Doug was killed after the Fenway Park heist by the very Dominican (or someone from around) drug-dealer that had verbally harassed Claire and been beaten by Doug as well as shot at by Jem for that very same reason. Although I love the melodramatic and pretty bright original ending, this alternative ending clearly fits more to the rest of the film and would elevates "The Town" even more with an allegory about the depressingly neverending vicious circle of violence and greed. Nonetheless, this film is still an amazing viewing watching experience that I do not regret even for a single minute. Also, the stoic and uncharismatic Jeremy Renner is excellent in this film, as a stoic, uncharismatic yet very nuanced and highly volatile Jem, no wonder why he was nominated for an Oscar as easily the best of the cast (to be fair to others, his role is also best written with few words but lots of stories to tell). So it seems that the issue with Renner is the fact that good films, and excellent roles customized for actors with very specific acting style like him are few and far between, and thus he "has" to stuck with all those lucrative contracts as a Marvel superhero (who is, obviously, much much less interesting than his Jem in "The Town").
56. Collateral (2004): 3.5/5
I do not know why Michael Mann has such a passion with digital cinematography as his films like "Public Enemies", "Miami Vice", or this one simply look terrible. Funnily enough, David Fincher used exactly the same camera (Thomson Viper FilmStream Camera) for his "Zodiac" and "Benjamin Button", which somehow look much better, probably due to the much better shading and Fincher's generally having upper hand in everything else. The ultrasharp, cold colour tone digital look thanks to this type of HD digital camera makes this film feel like a documentary instead of an dramatic action film, and it is not at all a good thing because the documentary look might elevate the film's authenticity and "cinéma vérité" style somewhat, but at the same time destroy the immersion of the film as a persistent distraction to the audience throughout the film ("it does not look like a cinematic film, does it?, that kind of people). Aside from the look, this is a typical Mann's action film with very strong start but growing boredness until the very end due to the often convoluted and sometimes even silly plot (especially the "last act") and various illogical details of the action sequences. As usual, Tom Cruise is very solid with this kind of action films (his performance, especially his gun-handling capability, in this one has even been cited as so accurate that it can be used to teach gun handling safety) but Mann's overtly emphasis on nihilism in this film (another trademark of Mann) really makes Cruise's character a little bit too complicated for his own good. A psychopath in having poker face against everything, a nihilistic guy who can only talk of doom and gloom, probably due to his own experiences with a checked past, a superior marksman with nothing to do in life but completing his contracts in a perfect way - Cruise's character is all of the above and thus none of those. Probably this is also the reason why Cruise's character was overshadowed by the smart but rather naive Max Durocher played by Jamie Foxx, who was, in my opinion, not as good as Tom Cruise yet somehow got much more accolades out of this film in comparison with Tom. The silly climax does not help either, as it is not compelling at all for the completion of the dramatic act, but also not good enough as an action sequence due to disappointing showdowns and illogical or uninteresting details throughout this final chapter of the film. Of course this is an interesting film, but not really an excellent one and only reinforces my conviction about my lack of enthusiasm when talking about Michael Mann's films (and yes, I do not like "Heat" as much as it has been praised for two decades) that much.
57. Petite Maman (2021): 3.5/5
After watching this film, I was really surprised that this one has got such high praises from American film critics. Probably because they have not watched a lot of French films, since this is a very typical French drama with a realistic script that tries its best to replicate lives instead of dramatizing them, a simple setting and equally minimalistic camera movement, an ordinary-looking cast who act naturally like they breathe without any thought about over-acting or self-promoting with emotions, and a slow, excruciatingly slow even, pacing. These characteristics might sound off to many viewers, but actually if the small little precious details of an ordinary life could be distilled thanks to such an approach to film-making, the outcomes would be magnificent, or at least memorable. Just like Maurice Pialat with his marvelous "À nos amours" or Nanni Moretti's "The Son's Room" (yes, I know that is an Italian film, but still), the cream-of-crop films of this filmmaking style are really lovely watching experience for anyone who can withstand their slow pacing. Of course, "Petite Maman" is different with a very moving story about various ways that one might use to cope with grief with two vivacious and charming protagonists whom were performed by a twin (there is no way such a small film like this can have enough budget for CGI to "clone" the protagonist into a twin). But still, one have to overcome the seemingly-tedious pacing of the film before being able to submerge oneself in the land of reality and dream, of happiness and grief, of love for life and longing for forgotten past in this small little film.
58. Mirai (2018): 4/5
Mamoru Hosoda's films are always delightful to watch, and this one is no different. The film is very well crafted with the distinctive visual of Mamoru Hosoda that is inspired by objects and sceneries of everyday life but enhanced ten times by Hosoda's imagination and creativity. Of course, the level of visual complexity in this film could not be compared to the amazing world building in "Summer Wars" (I could not wait for "Belle", which is seemingly a semi-sequel to "Summer Wars"), but the former might have an upper hand to the latter in terms of diversity as the film has a variety of landscape and sceneries that are distinctively different yet well connected to each other and to the central theme of the film - a child's imagination during his first period of "identity crisis" in his life. But the thing I admire and appreciate the most from this film is Hosoda's careful and heartwarming approach to a seemingly mundane and incomprehensible "job" that is being parents to a small kid. As a father of two small kids at almost the same ages as the two tiny protagonists of "Mirai", I absolutely understand and appreciate the authenticity and realism that Hosoda brought in the film with regards to the dynamics between the Ota family. I could not give this wonderful film a full five stars, however, since the film feels a little bit fragmented due to the frequent interlayering between Kun's dreams and Kun's perception and/or experience of reality.
59. A Simple Life (2011): 5/5
This film is definitely a slow burn and an actually difficult film to watch for one who often thinks about, and is afraid of, his very own post-retirement demise as well as the responsibilities to take care of his parents in their twilight. The heavy front-end of the film is also due to Ann Hui's naturalistic approach to film making, which made this film (and other films in Ann Hui's career as well) look simple yet, production value-wise, yet deeply realistic and relatable to the mass audience. One look at the dilapidated situation of Hong Kong community housing system and its crowded nursing homes, any viewer can think of the life that is going on around them, as well as the time of joy, of strength, of happiness that can simply disappear in a flash of light in the twilight of any person's life. Hui's non-sophisticated approach also extends to the performance of her cast, since both Deanie Ip and the famous-for-limited-emotion-range Andy Lau seemed to be always at ease in their roles, and thus could act as sincerely as they want, as naturally as they can. There is no need for drama in this film, since its premise - basically the tragic and lonely background story of Sister Peach and the drastic contrast between her life and "her Master cum Godson" Roger are already more than enough to help the audience understand the setting of the film, as well as the way of life of its two leads. It might sound simple, but actually this approach to storytelling is a masterful stroke by Ann Hui since she at the same time gives the audience enough information and emotional preparation to follow what to come in the film, as well as her characters plenty of space to explore their own thinking, their perspective of life without the need to even utter a word. On this aspect, this film reminds me so much of "Tokyo Story", which has a seemingly excruciatingly slow pacing and no "story" at all but could nonetheless breaks the audience's heart and easily induce tears by its unforgettable ending. "A Simple Life" also has a wonderful ending that really touches the heart of its audience, who by the end must already develop a lot of feeling for Sister Peach, Roger and their symbiotic relationship that had grown as Sister Peach's life withered. Of course, this is not a perfect film by any mean, since the supporting cast really is ... a supporting cast only with pretty mediocre acting aside from Qin Hailu's Ms. Choi the nursing house master (I love her name), and of course Paul Chun's Uncle Kin, whose final simple yet profoundly moving act really concludes the film in the best way possible. But other than that, and the fact that this film could make people afraid of getting old, and of the twilight of anyone's life, get even more worried about the dark future ahead, this is really a pinnacle of Hong Kong cinema in the new century, which has been underperforming since forever. Oh my, what can cinephiles like me can do to get back a Hong Kong cinema at its height during the 1980s and early 1990s, when good films blossomed plenty every year like peach flowers and when "A Simple Life" would have real competition coming into any film award competition instead being alone on top like in the current poorly-performanced with more and more forgettable films like the Hong Kong cinema of the present day? As a side note, I just learned that during the late 1980s, Deanie Ip was indeed nicknamed "Andy Lau's mother" thanks to the success of the trial trilogy "The Truth", in which Ip played the loving mother of Lau's character.
60. Call of Heroes (2016): 3.5/5
A surprisingly decent wuxia film given the miserable state of Hong Kong cinema in recent years. The first thing to be admired about this film is actually not its action sequences, but its plot. At first I thought this would just be another adaptation of Akira Kurosawa's "Seven Samurai" but it turns out that such inspiration only becomes apparent very late at the last third of the film. Rather, this film borrows some elements from Western epics like "Rio Bravo" (probably also the reason why horses are featured very prominently in this film, despite their usual minor role in Hong Kong wuxia films, which were often made in the limited and horse-unfriendly land of Hong Kong) with the usual flavour of a traditional wuxia - very clear distinction between good and evil, extremely streamlined (aka. straightforward) plot that gives Sammo Hung plenty of space to show off his choreography in action sequences, as well as necessary conditions for the leading characters like Sean Lau or Eddie Peng to shine throughout the film. Yes, Louis Koo could be illogically hysterical at points throughout the film to prove that his character is the definition of evil. Yes, the supporting cast can look pretty subpart, including Yuan Quan who was pretty disappointing in such a role with potential like Captain Yeung's wife. But Sean Lau and Eddie Peng are very solid in their roles, which are totally different from one another. If the talented Peng looks a little bit young for his role, which definitely requires outward maturity and even a weather appearance (he was still able to surprise the audience with his manliness and charisma, though - a far cry from the equally talented but totally uncharismatic Wu Jing), Sean Lau is simply a perfect fit for his role of Captain Yang with stoicity, subtle charisma, and a strong sense of responsibility and leadership. The surprising (and shocking) deaths at the beginning of the film, as well as Benny Chan's masterful use of that premise to highlight the nuance of every single decision by the film's characters are also much appreciated in an era of Big Mac action films that have been trying to get rid of any nuance and to hold the audience's hand close from the start to the end. The action sequences, thanks to the ever dependable Sammo Hung, are also easy enough to follow yet sophisticated enough for the audience to appreciate its well-choreographed actions full of fluidity and creativity. Of course, the jump cuts are still annoyingly there to disrupt such flow and again shows that a treasure trove of very skillful and daring wuxia stars like the legendary generation of Jackie Chan, Jet Li, Donnie Yen (when he was still a rising star), Vincent Zhao, and even Wu Jing (when he was a noname in Hong Kong), who might need strings and tricks to fly but not jump cuts to appear decent, will never happen again... All in all, a very nice watch.
61. The Big Sleep (1946): 3.5/5
A very entertaining thriller with not much depth (and thus should not be considered a true film noir). Still badly wooden and overacting (by modern standard of acting), Humphrey Bogart was at least engaging, charismatic with even a charming note in his performance in this film. Probably also because he was paired with his sweetheart Lauren Bacall, who was unsurprisingly as bad as her longtime husband (this film had been shot before they got married but released after that) in terms of performance but at least definitely had very good chemistry with Bogart throughout the film, especially the last one-third. Other than the famous Bogart-Bacall chemistry, this film is just another okay thriller with an utterly confusing script that was both too fast for the audience to follow and to shallow in terms of character development for them to appreciate any of the supporting cast, despite some of them having true potential like Martha Vickers's Carmen (who rumours had it that was edited out from the original 1944 version in favour of Bacall so that the film could take advantage of the Bogart-Bacall fame for higher box office), Sonia Darrin's Agnes (who was hilariously not even credited due to some conflicts between her agent and the film's producers), Elisha Cook's Harry Jones, or even Dorothy Malone with her tiny role the book keeper. Here, I would like to note that this film is surprisingly sexist or at least leans hard on Bogart's "macho" image (he was like that in other films, including "The Maltese Falcon" or even "Casablanca" despite the fact that he was actually not an actor of small frame and not great look - even "The Big Sleep" had a joke on that right at the beginning) and thus could not fly at all if produced in modern-day Hollywood. The suggestive dialogues and images between Bogart and Bacall, Bogart and Vickers are also hilariously funny and somehow refreshing (given the tight grip of the Hays Code). But in terms of depth, this film has none and thus could not be compared to another true "film noire" contemporary of much higher quality that is "Double Indemnity". Still, a film that has stayed entertaining 8 decades after its first release is no small feat.
