Review Roundup - Public Relations

BREAKING NEWS (2004)

Time for one more cops versus robbers thriller on the streets of Hong Kong. Not exactly imaginative stuff, at least on the surface, but this is another Johnnie To feature so things are always a little out of left field. Particularly when it comes to the music... which I will get to in due course. It's also a tale of media manipulation and reality versus narrative, promising to add another dimension to so many familiar character tropes and action beats. But what makes this one stand out from the crowd is the smaller flourishes sprinkled throughout. 

Review Roundup - A Dish Served Cold

VENGEANCE (2009)

While some of Johnnie To's films have a fresh take on old themes and tropes, or a new perspective, others feel more like ideas he wanted to revisit. Such is the case with Vengeance, a story that feels like another take on the ideas from Exiled. So it's back to Macau for another tale of brotherhood and bloodshed with yet another crime boss played by To regular Simon Yam. However, it's not just a series of familiar faces and situations, there are plenty of original and creative moments. More importantly the execution still feels fresh in plenty of sequences.

HCF Review - The Apartments

FUKUCHAN OF FUKUFUKU FLATS (2014)

Writer and director Yosuke Fujita’s Fukuchan of Fukufuku Flats is ostensibly just a rom-com about lonely outcasts. An offbeat and quirky drama in which characters try (some more successfully than others) to navigate their mundane lives or move from various states of arrested development. But under the typical trappings of the genre (including toilet humour and random moments of slapstick) is a darker story about bullies and abusers that has a something to say beyond the plot about finding love and friendship

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HCF Review - Time Warrior

A SAMURAI IN TIME (2023)

The idea of yet another time travel movie with a fish out of water protagonist isn’t exactly the most exciting prospect. Even the electricity which sends the hero from the past to the present is a very familiar visual trope. However, Junichi Yasuda's A Samurai in Time isn’t another action movie like The Iceman Cometh. The biggest surprise is that it’s not really a straight up comedy either. It’s still a silly premise, and there are indeed sword fight sequences, as well as plenty of laughs. But there’s a subtle touch at work that means that it’s often more of a drama than the synopsis would suggest.

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HCF Review - Collaboration

HONG KONG 1941 (1984)

In the early 1980s Sammo Hung and Dickson Poon formed the company D&B Films. It’s another one of those names and logos that will be well known to action movie fans. But the first of their projects to be released would be a period drama about the Japanese occupation of Hong Kong, with some romance and class conflict for good measure. In 1984 the UK government began the process of the territory’s handover, and so perhaps the last time it left British control was on the minds of screenwriters. It’s also the breakout role of rising star Chow Yun-Fat; though it’s not his first movie part it was his first awards win. Let’s take a look at how all of these enticing elements hold up today.

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