Things go terribly awry after a jewellery store heist in this visceral and gritty film that is a serious contender for the zeitgeist-iest HK crime-actioner of the ‘80s, made with the kind of masculine gusto that seems rare today.
Although its overlong slow-cinema style may alienate some audiences, the filmmakers’ control of mise-en-scene feels assured and reassuring as undocumented migrants face moral questions and exploitation eking out a painful existence in the mountains of Taiwan.
Michel Piccoli and Anouk Aimee deliver Cannes award-winning performances in one of Bellocchio’s finest films, as severe psychological problems afflict a brother and sister who detest but need each other.
Raw and intimate, Lou’s latest is a meta-filmic, time-travelling chronicle back to the COVID-19 pandemic as he reflects on the angst and helplessness of not being able to complete a film, yet it is also surprisingly an emotional work of gratitude.
An ambitious but overdrawn affair, Yang’s debut feature attempts to make meaningful non-linear connections across decades of a person’s life, as a woman reconnects with a friend from the past.
Hong’s finest film in a while tackles work, life, art, love, past and future with effortless ease, as an art lecturer asks his famous but blacklisted uncle to help her students mount a skit.
A beautifully animated French drama that focuses on the nuts and bolts of mountain scaling as a Japanese photojournalist hopes to find historical and existential clarity about the exploits of several mountain climbers.
Blending concert scenes, comedy and thriller modes, this is a largely rapturous dramatisation of the rise of the Belfast-based hip-hop group as they seek to reclaim the Irish language from the oppressive British authorities.
Structured around the Chinese wedding, baby shower and funeral, Yang’s final masterpiece dissects the relationships surrounding one extended middle-class family as life’s endless wisdoms grace and elude them.
Yang’s penultimate film could be his bleakest and most pointed attack on the corrupted soul of Taiwanese society—an angry, rough-hewn and surly escapade featuring lowly gangsters, prostitutes, scammers and rich exploiters of the common man.
