Blu-Ray Review: Angela Mao: Hapkido and Lady Whirlwind
Although Martial arts films played an important role in Asian cinema since the end of World War II, it wasn’t until the golden age of the late 1970s that they became such big business across the world. While the West started to fall in love with the likes of Bruce Lee and Jackie Chan, it …
VIFF Review: A Piece of Sky
Relationships are hard. You can meet someone, be swept off your feet, have a whirlwind romance and then look forward to the rest of your lives together. No one gets married expecting it not to work, but divorce is common. Sometimes people simply grow apart. Change and develop in different directions. An event can act …
Fantastic Fest Review: The Antares Paradox
Is there anybody out there? It’s a question which has tasked human minds for millennia. While we have looked to the stars for thousands of years, the need for something or someone to believe in has resulted in a procession of old and new gods. However, it goes without saying that there is extra-terrestrial life …
Film Review: The Last Out
Sport have always been seen as a way out. A way for young adults from poor backgrounds to escape a lifetime of poverty or crime. A way to earn money when there are a few other prospects. A means of escaping a relatively poor country and moving to a much more affluent one. In much …
GFF Review: No Looking Back
As the arguments over nurture versus nature rumble on, the likely ‘correct’ answer seems to be somewhere in the middle. We inherit the genes of our parents which influence many elements of our development and lives. However, we also make individual decisions and whilst they are heavily influenced by the people around us, our choices …
GFF Review: The Execution
There’s something intrinsically fascinating about serial killers which drives people to fixate on them, read magazines and books about their killing sprees and become obsessed with getting inside their heads. It’s not so much the fact they’re inherently evil or corrupted, but more their ability to get away with it for so long that seems …
Film Review: Far Eastern Golgotha
I think it’s almost impossible for anyone living on the outside to really understand Russia. It’s such an immensely large country, populated with disparate and incongruous peoples. Scattered miles and miles apart over vast swathes of land. Generations who grew up within a communist autocracy, now abandoned to fend for themselves. Children born into the …
Film Review: Tiger 24
When people talk about global warming and the climate crisis the focus is normally on extreme weather events, the melting of the ice caps or rising sea levels. However, our environmental vandalism has countless dangerous and potentially disastrous impacts on our way of life. While we in the West may not witness them regularly first …
Film Review: Sissy
While novels, film and TV often paint a utopian picture of childhood, in reality this is usually very far from the truth. Life is very far from the kind of idyllic playground depicted in much of classic literature. The same can be said for schooldays. Education is an experience which you either enjoy or hate, …
Film Review: Inu-Oh
It’s really hard to understand Japanese society’s relationship with Manga and anime from the outside. While, in the West, animation is largely reserved for Disney and similar children’s movies, in the land of the rising sun it permeates every element of popular culture. However, it’s not just a medium reserved for edgy pulp fiction or …