October 17, 2013
Shield of Straw My first film at Fantasia in 2013 was Takashi Miike’s Shield of Straw, one of the director’s contribution to the festival. Miike is a known workhorse, directing sometimes three films per year, in a myriad of genres and styles. Yet, there seems to be a connecting thread through his films, which feels harder to ascertain for me […]
October 22, 2013
Drug War's writing is sharp and gripping, surprising us at every turn, setting up great action scenes, brilliantly directed by Johnny To.
March 22, 2010
A reviewer compared City of God to Goodfellas (Martin Scorsese, 1990) and many parallels could be made between the two. As they both fall into the genre of gangster films, they depict violence in a raw, uninhibited way, in a realist fashion. City of God, with its documentary-style aesthetic—camera shakes, voice-over narration, etc., uses that realism to emphasize its story’s […]
April 20, 2010
Funny People is funny, touching and rings true, even through all its comic exaggeration. Apatow's direction is poised and appropriate to the subject matter.
September 21, 2011
The most interesting feature of The Unjust is its main actor and star, Jeong-min Hwang. I discovered him in Private Detective (2009) at Fantasia.