December 5, 2010
The Housemaid (Ki-young Kim, 1960) is one of the oldest films known to have survived South Korea’s evolution from Third-World country to G20 powerhouse. The print shown at Fantasia this year was restored by Martin Scorsese’s World film Restoration Foundation in tandem with the South Korean government and follows The Housemaid (Sang-soo Im, 2010) remake’s stellar performance this year at […]
April 24, 2011
Black Swan is marked by Nathalie Portman's grandiose performance, but Aronofsky’s regresive aesthetic hinders the movie’s themes and narrative.
March 11, 2013
Warriors of the Rainbow: Seediq Bale is an epic tale about the indigenous people of Taiwan before the encroachment of the Japanese.
December 16, 2013
The Lady Assassin, a martial arts blockbuster, is my first Vietnamese film. A light Sunday night screening at this year’s Fantasia Festival, it was attended by a notable number of people from Montreal’s Vietnamese community. Billed as a Vietnamese wu xia, in the film, a princess sold in marriage is taken in by a team of high-flying, ass—kicking, thieving assassins […]
March 29, 2010
Michael Clayton suffers from its intellectualism, just as Syriana (Stephen Gaghan, 2005) did, and never lets you connect to the stakes emotionally.