2022/09/15 |
‘Mama Boy’ Is an Excellent Film With the Wrong Tone
A talented cast with an intriguing story of a sex worker and her client is undermined by a rmismatched tone of romantic fantasy.
2022/08/19 |
‘Formosa Betrayed’ Barely Scratches the Surface of Taiwan’s History
‘Formosa Betrayed’ tries to build a political thriller around a mystery in an unknown land ruled with an iron fist. It’s empty didacticism — and less than thrilling.
2022/07/29 |
‘Shalom Taiwan’ Is Cloying, Superficial, — And Thought-Provoking
‘Shalom Taiwan’ doesn’t amount to much. But it is, amid its unrelenting mediocrity, thought-provoking.
2022/07/19 |
I Have Some Questions about ‘What To Do with the Dead Kaiju?’
What does a reviewer do with a film like ‘Dead Kaiju’?
2022/06/22 |
‘After Yang’ Is Infused With Asian Americanness
‘After Yang’ is a sci-fi grounded in a plausible future history, conveying an uncanny sense of frisson familiar to Asian Americans, American Asians, or indeed anyone caught between two cultures in hard-to-delineate ways. The film is part of the 2022 Taipei Film Festival.
2022/05/26 |
‘Ink & Linda’ Celebrates Artistic Kismet
Two completely dissimilar people bond over a common project. The result is a radical story of artistic creation.
2022/04/27 |
‘Everything Everywhere All at Once’ Is the Only Valid Title for This Galaxy-Brained Film
‘Everything Everywhere All at Once’ fully lives up to its title.
2022/04/23 |
Zhang Yimou Crafts an Unusual Propaganda Film with ‘Snipers’
‘Snipers’ is an unapologetic Chinese patriotic melodrama. It’s not for everyone, but there were times that it was able to hint at a more multifaceted story.
2022/03/29 |
What’s in a Slap?
Smith was wrong to slap Rock, in public or in private. And Rock and ABC were wrong for approving the joke. But commentators are also wrong for treating this incident the same as they would had all three people involved been White.
2022/03/28 |
‘Microhabitat’ Is an Ozu Adaptation in Both Story and Heart
No matter how desperate Mi-so’s situation is, she’s always more concerned for those around her. Our view of her suggests that the critique is not just of modernity, but of contemporary capitalism.
2022/03/21 |
‘The Dawn of Everything’ Is a (Qualified) Masterpiece
‘The Dawn of Everything’ not only shows that there are alternatives to neoliberal patriarchal settler capitalism. It tells a compelling story of how we “got stuck” where we are now.
2022/02/19 |
Boredom Gives Rise to Experimentation in ‘The Cloud in Her Room’
Films in the quarter-life crisis genre often treat the drifting ennui of young adulthood as an aberration, or at most a regrettable rite of passage. But what if the ennui itself is what gets you through?
2022/01/31 |
‘Moonlight Shadow’ Is the Film Edmund Yeo Was Born To Make
Edmund Yeo’s Japanese-language debut ‘Moonlight Shadow’ is a life-affirming fantasy.
2022/01/24 |
The Relationships in ‘Heart’ Are Authentically Messy
‘Heart’ is an enthralling exploration of filmmaker intimacy, desire, and ethics.
2022/01/04 |
‘Being the Ricardos’ Turns ‘I Love Lucy’ into the Nicole Kidman Show
‘Being the Ricardos’ has divided critics on everything but one point: Nicole Kidman is a revelation.
2021/12/09 |
‘Wheel of Fortune and Fantasy’ Encapsulates the Odd Vicissitudes of Life
Winner of the Silver Bear Grand Jury Prize at this year’s Berlin International Film Festival, ‘Wheel of Fortune and Fantasy’ is a three-part anthology film full of incident, confidently walking a fine line between realism in acting and melodrama in plot.
2021/08/30 |
The Unexplored Existential Angst of ‘Night Drive’
Between the trendy conceits of time travel and taxi drivers taken hostage, ‘Night Drive’ is an original and weird tale.
2021/07/06 |
‘Longing for the Rain’ Makes You Long for a Shorter Film
Shot in Beijing and Changchun, Longing for the Rain’s explicit treatment of female desire clearly distinguishes it as a Hong Kong film.