Zatoichi’s use of violence to right wrongs is called into question in this well-made 13th installment.
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Zatoichi’s Vengeance (1966)
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Author / Eternality Tan
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Pom Poko (1994)
A tad long and sometimes incoherent in its thematic direction, but this eco-tale of shape-shifting raccoons could be Takahata’s most creative and fantastical effort.
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Germany Year Zero (1948)
The third film of Rossellini’s heartbreaking neorealist ‘War’ trilogy tackles postwar Germany through the eyes of a boy suffering from material and moral poverty.
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Tiong Bahru Social Club (2020)
As a wacky satire on Singaporeans’ pursuit of (a regulated kind of) happiness, this genial comedy might just as well be science-fiction—or not.
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Under the Hawthorn Tree (2010)
A beautiful love story, directed and acted with such artful simplicity that it is difficult not to fall in love with its purity.
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Woman, a Gun and a Noodle Shop, A (2009)
Possibly the worst film in Zhang Yimou’s career, this remake of the Coens’ ‘Blood Simple’ is a travesty on every count.
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Wife of a Spy (2020)
Kiyoshi Kurosawa’s polished if emotionally inert period film (his first!) is an anti-war espionage tale set in WWII Japan, featuring a standout lead performance by Yu Aoi.
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Darkness and Light (1999)
This is a superb early work from Chang Tso-chi, focusing on a family whose members are mostly visually-impaired, and shot in a poetic, dreamy style that accumulates emotional power by the end.
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Flowers of St. Francis, The (1950)
Rossellini’s work here is masterful, shot in a neorealist if also painterly style, that captures the purity and spirituality of ascetic Roman Catholicism in the early 13th century.
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Rome Open City (1945)
Rossellini’s breakthrough film is not just a defining work of Italian neorealism, but a powerful anti-war statement.
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