Category: Foreign
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Parade somehow loses the plot after intermission. Given the plot is just a night at the circus, usually showcasing director Tati’s pantomiming, it shouldn’t be possible to lose such a thing. But Parade does. Maybe intermission not coming halfway through the film should be a sign. And at least the post-intermission material sails by relatively…
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For the first hour, Trafic has a lot of gems. The film opens with a car manufacturing plant with a lot of nice, precise composition and editing, and director Tati maintains an interest in the goings-on of cars and their drivers. The action centers around an auto show in Amsterdam (presumably filmed at a real…
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The Match Factory Girl is a hyper-focused character study. It opens with the visually fascinating process of a match factory before introducing lead Kati Outinen. Technically protagonist, obviously more subject. She quite noticeably doesn’t talk for the first twenty minutes or so, which says more about her situation than her character—no one’s interested in what…
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I spent much of Take Care of Your Scarf, Tatjana waiting for the character, played by Kati Outinen, to forget her scarf because I thought the title was Don’t Forget Your Scarf, Tatjana. I knew the film only ran sixty-two minutes and so assumed there’d be some scarf-forgetting. Oops. Is there scarf-forgetting? No spoilers. But…
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L’Atalante begins with a wedding procession; village girl Dita Parlo has married commercial barge captain Jean Dasté and is going off to live with him on the barge. The wedding guests drop all these details through exposition—we’re not privy to the newlyweds’ conversations as they walk through the village to the barge. Juxtaposed, first mate…
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It’s unclear for a while but what The Call needs more than anything else is a great villain. It’s got its villains, starting with very bad mom Lee El, but she’s not great. She’s kind of one note too, with writer and director Lee cutting away from her when she’s going to be establishing the…
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When The Killer introduces second-billed Danny Lee, it certainly seems like Lee’s arc is going to be the most important in the film. He’s a Hong Kong cop who starts chasing professional hitman Chow Yun-fat and gets in the middle of Chow’s fight with crime lord Shing Fui-on, with tragic results for everyone involved. And…
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I Lost My Body is the profoundly vapid tale of a man (Hakim Faris) and his hand. The hand has been chopped off and as it travels through a computer animated Paris, the film flashes back to Faris’s tale and, presumably, how he lost his hand. Along the way, the hand kills a young mother…
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Peninsula is the sequel to Train to Busan but more like it just takes place in the same universe. It’s part of the Train to Busan Extended Universe, much like Land of the Dead would’ve been part of the Night of the Living Dead Extended Universe. And watching Peninsula, you realize just how much it…
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Eun-hee (Park Ji-hu) is an average Seoul eighth grader circa 1994, which would be fine if being average weren’t a one-way ticket to nowhere. Park’s the youngest of three children; while presumably eldest sister Park Soo-yeon has already screwed up and is going to a crappy school across the bridge, son Son Sang-yeon is doing…
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Samurai Marathon has some strange epilogue problems; all of a sudden the movie’s about marathons, when it turns out the marathon isn’t a particularly big deal in the story. It’s central to the story, but as a narrative tool. It provides the right stage for these characters. Though, with a title like Samurai Marathon, you’re…
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Enter the Fat Dragon is about Hong Kong super-cop Donnie Yen (already in a pound of makeup before he puts on the fat suit, presumably to look more age appropriate for love interest Niki Chow) who goes too far one too many times and finds himself busted down to the evidence room. After Chow dumps…
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I don’t know how long it would’ve taken me to see Ashfall if it hadn’t been for a blogathon. Maybe never. While I’m a Ma Dong-seok fan because how can you not be, I’ve always been lukewarm on top-billed Lee Byung-hun. Lee’s not actually the lead; the lead is Ha Jung-woo, who I don’t follow.…
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For the first forty-five minutes or so, The Raid is able to keep going on the idea lead Iko Uwais is going to be the most kick ass fighter in the movie. There a handful of short expository scenes throughout the film, plus a prologue, where Uwais prays, does some martial arts workouts (it’s all…
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Elite Squad is about how hard it is to be a fascist stormtrooper in Rio de Janeiro, because not only do you have to deal with militarized criminals, corrupt cops, smooth-talking (and sexy) liberals, you also might have a wife who doesn’t like you being a fascist stormtrooper or some dead kid’s mom come ask…
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The middle of Train to Busan is excellent. The first act is iffy, the ending is forced, but the middle is where the film excels. It’s where director Yeon just gets to do action, not getting slowed down with the humanity of it all (which he’s uneven on), and just executes these breathtaking action suspense…
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About halfway through The Witch: Part 1. Subversion, I wondered why they’d opened with a flashback showing presumably chid witch Kim Ha-na escaping from her government “doctors.” The prologue introduces evil scientist lady Jo Min-soo and her chief fixer Park Hee-soon, it introduces the secret castle-like laboratory fortress, it has a lot of blood. The…
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About halfway through The Witch: Subversion, I wondered why they’d opened with a flashback showing presumably chid witch Kim Ha-na escaping from her government “doctors.” The prologue introduces evil scientist lady Jo Min-soo and her chief fixer Park Hee-soon, it introduces the secret castle-like laboratory fortress, it has a lot of blood. The opening titles…
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Cronos opens with an English-narrated prologue about a sixteenth century alchemist making a device to prolong his life. The uncredited narrator is wanting, the music isn’t good—it doesn’t seem like the rest of Javier Álvarez’s score, but who knows (well, the distributor would); it’s a change for the U.S. theaters and a bad one. So…
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I’m curious enough about The Battle of Jangsari I think I’m going to read War in Korea: The Report of a Woman Combat Correspondent by Marguerite Higgins, which might have some information about the actual battle of Jangsa-ri because there’s nothing on the Google not about the movie. The big details, which you assume the…
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Pale Flower opens with lead Ikebe Ryô narrating his first day out of prison. Not what he does—we get to see what he does—but how he feels about being out, what he notices. He’s killed a man, been in prison for three years, and nothing has changed in Tokyo. The dead man’s absence doesn’t matter,…
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Until the third act, Super Inframan at least keeps a brisk pace. The movie’s got almost nothing going for it—other than Chen Yung—yu frankly courageous very seventies score and even it’s a small blip of goodness, not a positive feature—but at least it moves. It doesn’t drag through the entire third act, there are a…
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Haunted cop Chang Chen gets a chance to avenge his dead partner Li Guangjie and play hero for the woman (Ni Ni) he loves but doesn’t think he deserves because he’s a haunted cop when the villains who killed Li return. Further adversity comes in the form of a blizzard, which they’re all stranded in…
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Boring Catholic propaganda pretending to be a cross-genre action horror picture. Park Seo-joon is an MMA fighter who has renounced God, Ahn Sung-ki is an exorcist who can’t find young priests willing to partner up. But then Park gets stigmata–a magical kind able to zap demons and they team up to take on demons. Not…
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Vibrant retelling of the Orpheus myth during Rio de Janeiro’s Carnaval. Great looking and sounding, with a really likable cast–director Camus and co-writer Jacques Viot don’t have the adapting the legend part cracked. They’ve got the Brazil during Rio part; maybe it’s the same problem in Vinicius de Moraes’s source play. Leads Breno Mello and…
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Outstanding black comedy about a poor family insinuating themselves into the lives (but mostly house) of a wealthy one. Director Bong and cowriter Han Jin-won don’t overtly emphasize the clash, rather focus on how the everyone’s relative naïveté exacerbates the clash (and rift) between classes. Great performances–especially Jo Yeo-jeong as the rich mom and Song…
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Outstanding, sometimes comedic, often tragic look at the lives of a group of laid off Spanish ship-builders, four years after the yard closes, as they contend with economic depression, alcoholic depression, unemployment, and the resulting martial strife. Truly great script (co-written by director de Aranoa and Ignacio del Moral), excellent performances from principals Javier Bardem,…
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Engaging, if questionably executed, thriller about cop Kim Mu-yeol teaming up with gangster Ma Dong-seok to take down a serial killer, who none of the other cops believe exists but tried to kill Ma only Ma’s a badass gangster who now wants revenge. If the script were, if the direction were better, it’d be a…
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De facto physical comedy showcase for Michel Simon, something director Renoir isn’t anywhere near as interested in as trying for a social commentary. Based on the René Fauchois play, the limited cast (four principals) and location (a book shop and attached apartment), it is stagy without necessarily feeling stagy, a success for Renoir. Unfortunately, it’s…
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Well-paced, emphasis on fun fun con movie with corrupt DA Yu Ji-tae and his team of blackmailed con artists trying to take down the perpetrator of the biggest Ponzi scheme in South Korean history. Everyone’s got their own agendas, their own secrets, which complicates the already arduous task. Especially newest team member Bin Hyun, who…
The Stop Button 