Despite its conspicuous melodrama and emotional manipulation, this highly popular Teochew film transcends its shortcomings through the deeply resonating power of qiaopi, diaspora, and the enduring historical pull of Nanyang.
A transcendent, mosaic-like interpretation of an age-old myth, Nolan’s staggering spectacle finds new meaning in fragments of memory, imagination, and legend—an accessible epic whose audience extends well beyond self-declared Homerists.
Cruise remains committed as ever as Hollywood’s death-defying action star par excellence, but this is such a slog and bogged down by the need to justify the knotty, plotty ideas of the earlier movie.
To some degree an anti-blockbuster par excellence, this much maligned sequel sees the infamous villain navigating a new and treacherous psychological terrain, packaged as an unorthodox if imaginative musical-cum-courtroom drama.
It may be mid-tier Ridley Scott with standard-fare storytelling, but this sequel is boosted by Denzel Washington’s scene-stealing supporting role and a gleefully gorier treatment of violent spectacle.
Humans and bugs are out to exterminate each other in Verhoeven’s much-maligned ‘fascist’ blockbuster that has enjoyed a cult resurgence, with its nonchalance and irreverence towards the pleasures of gory violence and media brainwashing satirically relevant.
With generous doses of horror and comedy, though with some way-too-sappy scenes of melodrama, this ‘zombies-on-a-train’ flick is no doubt a crowd-pleasing marker of Asian blockbuster success.
There is enough time-ticking tension to make the age-old formula work to some extent, though it can also feel emptily spectacular but still somewhat entertaining in this half-decent entry to the ‘Alien’ franchise.
While its plotting might seem too ‘neat’ to really satisfy, this deliberately-paced serial killer flick balances well the ‘procedural’ and ‘occult’ aspects as a greenhorn FBI special agent must solve a series of decades-long murders.
Although a tad plodding in its early stretches, this new Godzilla film combines thrilling spectacle with a grounding in narrative storytelling, as it psychoanalyses and indicts Japanese wartime militarism in hopes of a pacifist change in mentality.
Eternality Tan 