Review: The Beast and It’s Not Me

Posted on April 25, 2025 by philipbrasor

Though Bertrand Bonello only borrows part of the title and the basic dramatic premise of Henry James’ 1903 novella The Beast in the Jungle, in which many literary experts believe the author was describing his own personal fear of intimacy, it’s impossible not to keep thinking of James’ story as Bonello’s two-and-a-half hour fantasy unfolds since anyone who has read it will be constantly on the lookout for the titular, metaphorical monster the protagonist thinks will someday lay him low with tragic finality. The director has even switched up the gender, turning James’ John Marcher into three French women named Gabrielle Monnier (Léa Seydoux), each of whom inhabits a separate era in time. The earliest coincides most closely with James’, Paris in 1910, when the French capital was visited by a catastrophic flood. Is this natural disaster the “beast” that will bring down Gabrielle? In the first scene, during a visit to an art salon with her husband, Georges (Martin Scali), an industrial dollmaker, Gabrielle is approached by a man named Louis (George MacKay), who says he met her some years earlier in Italy where she, unprompted, told him of her lifelong fear of unspecified doom. Apparently, it is a secret she has shared with no one else, not even Georges. The secret makes these two co-conspirators and would-be lovers in the mind of the viewer as they continue to meet clandestinely until the flood tears their world apart.

Bonello intersperses episodes of Gabrielle and Louis meeting with scenes from 2044, where Paris and, presumably, the world is now inundated by AI, which has rendered most of humanity its servants. Here Gabrielle is trying to secure a better sort of job, but needs to undergo a “purifying” process wherein she is cleansed of her emotional detritus so as to make her a more efficient worker according to the machine logic of her digital overlords. Bonello plays up the irony of this socioeconomic milieu rather than its inherent terror, and reintroduces another incarnation of Louis, who is undergoing a similar process in order to get a civil servant job. Like their namesakes in 1910, these two play out a nascently erotic game shaped by Gabrielle’s still incipient fear of the future. In both ages, Louis takes the stereotypically male position that female trepidation can be conquered by romantic illusion. “Anxiety inspires,” he says to her, thus pointing up something fundamental in Bonello’s narrative methodology, since I can’t tell from my notes if it was 1910 Louis who said this or 2044 Louis. But there’s more. After the 1910 story is concluded, and as the 2044 one continues, a third tale taking place in 2014 Los Angeles unfolds. This time Gabrielle is a wannabe French actress house-sitting an enormous split-level mansion for an architect as she tries to gain a foothold in Hollywood. Louis is now an American incel YouTuber who carries a deadly grudge against all female pulchritude, and starts stalking Gabrielle after he spots her leaving a late night disco by herself. Is he the beast? Or is it the earthquake that suddenly pushes them into a weird confrontation?

Though Bonello’s situations and the arch dialogue delivered in both French and English (British and American, no less) keep the drama at arm’s length for much of the movie, there’s a cumulative power to the interactions between the principals of the three pairs of would-be lovers that finally comes to a head in suitably devastating fashion. In some ways, the repetition of images and motifs from one era to the next—dolls become models and then robots, a 1910 clairvoyant turns into an online fortune teller in 2014—feels cheap at first, but Bonello uses them to maintain a focus on the inevitable terrible outcome while distracting us from the most obvious source of that unease: Gabrielle’s snowballing insecurity. Bonello’s philosophical gamesmanship does not in any way diminish the power of her desolating realization, which, given how calculated it is, proves the director’s real talent as a storyteller; perhaps not the equal of James, but one who has learned his literary lessons very well. 

The noted French director Leos Carax is compelled to confront his own future, as an artist no less, in the 42-minute curiosity It’s Not Me. Asked by a museum what he’s up to these days and where he’s going, Carax says in voiceover right at the beginning of his film collage, “I don’t know,” and then endeavors to prove it. Obviously cribbing from the work of late-career Godard, Carax fashions a wry, often cynical visual essay on the value of creative self-examination that uses a lot of found footage; scenes from movies that mean something to him, including his own; documentary and news clips; and a few original things he came up with just for this project. 

Though there’s a lot of commentary on the meaning of cinematic form, what gives the movie its unique allure is its humor. Carax has a grand old time pulling the viewer’s leg, as when he keeps throwing old shots of men in public places onto the screen, trying to remember which of them is his father, and you soon realize none of them are; or when he starts talking about Roman Polanski as someone who might “be like me” because he is also a filmmaker, but one who survived the Holocaust and eventually “raped a child.” Carax’s muse, Denis Levant, shows up as Monsieur Merde, a purposefully offensive character who we’re encouraged to believe represents Carax’s values, though as the film reaches its apotheosis those values curdle into rage at the basic indecency of the world, punctuated by a title card that exclaims definitively, “Fuck God!” The compositions are better than Godard’s, the writing funnier than Mel Brooks, the sentiments more infuriating (and thus more inspiring) than The Essential David Bowie, which Carax also samples. And it’s got one of the best end-credit sequences ever conceived. 

The Beast, in French and English, now playing in Tokyo at Human Trust Cinema Yurakucho (03-6259-8608), Shinjuku Cinema Qualite (03-3352-5645), Human Trust Cinema Shibuya (03-5468-5551).

It’s Not Me, in French and English, opens April 26 in Tokyo at Euro Space Shibuya (03-3461-0211), Kadokawa Cinema Yurakucho (03-6268-0015), Shinjuku Musashinokan (03-3354-5670).

The Beast home page in Japanese

It’s Not Me home page in Japanese

The Beast photo (c) Carole Bethuel

It’s Not Me photo (c) 2024 CG Cinema-Theo Films-Arte France Cinema

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Review: Heretic

Posted on April 24, 2025 by philipbrasor

Hugh Grant further solidifies his post-rom-com resurgence as the extremely creepy Mr. Reed in this fairly intellectual horror movie that puts religious belief on trial. Though not particularly scary as modern-day horror movies go, there’s enough substance in the elaborate buildup of murderous pretense in the opening hour that the requisite reveals feel more earned than they probably would upon closer scrutiny. God knows the premise is half-baked. Mr. Reed lives in a dark, old house set back from the street in an unnamed American town, and he purposely invites representatives of the Church of Latter-day Saints to his lair to hear their proselytizing spiel. The church dispatches two fairly young women, Sister Barnes (Sophie Thatcher) and Sister Paxton (Chloe East), whose own relationship is going to be tested once things get hairy, but for the time being they are innocent enough to believe they might have a chance of bringing Mr. Reed around to Mormonism. But, seriously, girls, who proactively calls a religious organization to request a bid for being converted?

Predictably, it’s a dark and stormy afternoon when the women arrive at Mr. Reed’s door, where they confirm that his wife is around, since they’re not allowed to be alone with a man. He politely assures them that his spouse is in the kitchen baking blueberry pies, a ruse they believe because they can smell them. It’s not a spoiler to say that the wife never shows up because the writer-directors, Scott Beck and Bryan Woods, count on the viewer having more insight into human nature than the two Mormons do. The question thus becomes: What is Reed up to? Some stone horror buffs will likely become impatient with the debate that follows, since it’s predicated on Reed’s advantage in terms of having done his homework about the history of religious philosophy, as well as a solid grounding in logical argumentation, pursuits the two women, who are only grounded in dogma, have trouble keeping up with. Reed’s main thesis is that there are many “iterations” of monotheism, so why should one have more value than another if all have the same purpose, which is to lash the human mind to God’s will? Reed’s strongest assertion is that organized religion is simply a panicked reaction to the fear of death, which is hardly original, but Grant puts it across with fresh determination owing to his natural charm, which is undergirded by Mr. Reed’s increasingly convincing allusions, especially with regard to Mormonism’s built-in moral hypocrisy. According to interviews, Beck and Woods wanted Reed to represent the kind of confident atheism that has emerged on the left in the past few decades and then make it malevolent, and the idea works quite well. The initial smug liberal reaction is that these women, though naive, are getting righteously schooled, but as soon as Reed’s profusions turn harrowing—he clearly isn’t going to make it easy for the two women to leave the house—the viewer’s sympathies shift 180 degrees. 

And once that happens and Reed’s real intentions come to light, Barnes and Paxton have to work out for themselves how they’re going to get out of the house alive. The changing emotional dynamic between the two is more stimulating than the elaborate horror contrivances that the directors set in motion. Reed’s malevolence is never explained as anything more than the usual God-like prerogatives of the lonely, self-important male ego, and Grant can’t quite sell the character as the monster he’s meant to be. The two women are more interesting for the kinds of mental resources they have to tap in order to survive, and while that kind of difference may not be enough to satisfy a genuine horror buff, it’s compelling enough for a two-hour thriller that’s more brain than blood. 

Opens April 25 in Tokyo at Toho Cinemas Nihonbashi (050-6868-5060), Toho Cinemas Hibiya (050-6868-5068), Marunouchi Piccadilly (050-6875-0075), 109 Cinemas Premium Shinjuku (0570-060-109), Shinjuku Piccadilly (050-6861-3011), Toho Cinemas Shinjuku (050-6868-5063), Shibuya Humax Cinema (03-3462-2539), Toho Cinemas Roppongi Hills (050-6868-5024).

Heretic home page in Japanese

photo (c) 2024 Blueberry Pie LLC

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Review: All Ears and Joika

Posted on April 23, 2025 by philipbrasor

For a communist country, the Peoples’ Republic of China produces relatively few non-documentary feature films that focus on work. The theme that has dominated post-Sixth Generation cinema is the personal and psychological costs of a social system that has been in turbulent flux since the economy was liberalized in the 1980s. Director Liu Jiayin’s bittersweet comedy All Ears follows this trend but seems more concerned with how a career defines one’s worth, and since reports claim that the movie is at least partially autobiographical, I paid close attention to how the protagonist approached the idea of creativity. Apparently, Liu, a respected filmmaker in China, hasn’t made a movie in some time, and it’s easy to glean from the spiritual self-examination that the central character, wannabe screenwriter Wen Shan (Hu Ge), undergoes over the course of the story that Liu has been questioning her purpose as an artist. 

Wen, who will turn 40 soon, has yet to have any of his scripts produced, though his old writing professor says he was his most promising student, even if the style and topics that matter most to Wen are not the kind of things that will interest TV producers. “You are good at realistic subjects,” says his teacher admiringly after lamenting how incurious his current crop of pupils are. The implication is that realism doesn’t sell. Nevertheless, Wen makes a pretty good living as a writer. He pens eulogies on a freelance basis, and through an established Beijing funeral home has garnered a reputation for moving, effective tributes. The recently bereaved seek him out. Wen’s methodology, however, often has an unsettling effect on his clients. A successful businessman hires Wen to write a eulogy for his father, and Wen spends an inordinate amount of time interviewing family members, including the client’s elementary school-age son, who is obviously neglected by his very busy parents. Wen’s eulogy tacitly contrasts this neglect with the how the client himself never really knew his father. If it seems a bridge too far for what Wen is being paid for, Liu suggests that this is how Wen justifies himself as a writer-for-hire. However, when this dedication to “truth,” as he calls it, is applied to another client, a restaurant owner whose brother has just died, a preliminary draft is read by the brothers’ sister who disagrees strongly with Wen’s assessment. The writer then finds himself in the middle of a family drama that has been simmering for years. Wen’s own life is ascetic and undramatic. His parents, who live far away, think he’s a successful TV writer, and he spends most of his free time tinkering with a script that he knows will never be seen by anyone. It takes the viewer a while to realize that his roommate, the affectless, seemingly unemployed Xiaoyin (We Lei), is one of Wen’s characters, a figure constantly in the process of being rewritten.

Liu’s humanistic bent can sometimes feel precious, especially when Wen is called upon to elaborate on his philosophy of life, which he does rather awkwardly with a woman who travels a great distance to argue about his depiction of a man she knew who committed suicide, even though they never met in person. But Liu also avoids the kind of sticky sentiments that this kind of material usually yields, particularly in Asian cinema. Nothing is solved in All Ears, but everything is laid out for easy inspection. 

The creative work of the titular character in Joika (titled The American in some markets) is exclusively physical, often brutal, and therein lies the drama. Based on the experiences of ballet dancer Joy Womack, the first American to ever be accepted at the Bolshoi Academy in Russia, the movie interprets the school’s infamous work ethic as xenophobia, though the way this conflict is framed by the director, James Napier Robertson, it’s often difficult to determine if Womack, as played by Talia Ryder, is a victim of the school’s anti-Yankee prejudices or her own self-doubt. The cruelty is at large in the academy but mainly personified by the fiercely sibilant chief instructor, Tatiyana Volkova (Diane Kruger). Womack claims that the persecution she receives is “not about ballet, but about politics,” as her obvious talent is considered second-rate to her Russian classmates’; the implication being that Volkova has to bend over backwards, literally, to deny that talent. In the end, of course, Womack makes it into the Bolshoi company, practically killing herself in the process, and even gets a chance to solo, which, if you know anything about the world of professional ballet, is almost impossible to achieve in any world class ballet company.

Joika romanticizes the physical and emotional struggle that’s expected of a great ballerina while neglecting whatever happiness the dancer might derive from that struggle. The name of the main character, who left the Bolshoi some time ago and was a consultant for the film, is sadly ironic since the movie exhibits almost no joy in its depiction of artistic endeavor. 

All Ears, in Mandarin, opens April 25 in Tokyo at Shinjukuu Musashinokan (03-3354-5670), Cine Switch Ginza (03-3561-0707).

Joika, in English and Russian, opens April 25 in Tokyo at Toho Cinemas Chanter Hibiya (050-6868-5001), Kino Cinema Shinjuku (03-5315-0978), Human Trust Cinema Shibuya (03-5468-5551).

All Ears home page in Japanese

Joika home page in Japanese

All Ears photo (c) Beijing Benchmark Pictures Co., Ltd.

Joika photo (c) Joika NZ Limited/Madants Sp. z o.o. 2023

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Media watch: Archive named for Korean independence fighter not appreciated by anyone

Posted on April 21, 2025 by philipbrasor
Yun Bong-gil

Movie distributor Kadokawa just announced that the Korean movie Harbin, which topped the South Korean box office for several weeks after it opened on Christmas Day, will be released theatrically in Japan on July 4, which is great news for the many fans of the movie’s star, Hyun Bin, who became an international heartthrob when he starred in the hit Netflix drama Crash Landing on You some years ago. It will not come as great news to Japan’s right wing stalwarts—or, then again, it might very well be great news since they seem to like nothing better than to drive their big Hinomaru-festooned trucks to the lairs of perceived enemies they can heckle with loudspeakers and patriotic war songs. In Harbin, Hyun Bin plays Ahn Jung-geun, an historically significant figure as a member of the anti-Japanese resistance just prior to Japan’s annexation of the Korean peninsula in 1910. The year before, Ahn assasinated Prime Minister and former Resident General of Korea Hirobumi Ito in the titular Chinese city, where Ito was meeting with the Russian finance minister to discuss the future of Korea. Ahn was captured and executed by the Japanese before being tried (he apparently had a way of evincing considerable sympathy from his jailers and thus had to be disposed of as quickly as possible). Consequently, Ahn is one of Korea’s national heroes, a status the movie plays up, while being described in Japan as a despicable terrorist, so you can be sure that when the film opens here those trucks will be out in force making it as difficult as possible for Hyun Bin’s fans to enjoy their idol’s performance. 

Coincidentally, another Korean independence martyr has been in the news lately, though you could be forgiven if you missed it. Yun Bong-gil was a resistance fighter during the colonial period who carried out a bombing at a park in Shanghai on the Japanese emperor’s birthday in 1932 that killed two Japanese officials and several civilians. Scholars say that Yun’s intention was to spark a war between Japan and China, a situation that came true later, though it’s difficult to blame or credit Yun for it. He was arrested almost immediately after the bombing, tried by a military court, and sentenced to death. Later that year he was executed in Kanazawa, Ishikawa Prefecture, because it was the Ishikawa Division of the Imperial Army that occupied Shanghai at the time. In 1992, a group of Japan-resident Koreans erected a monument to Yun on the spot where his remains were supposedly buried, so, like Ahn, he is considered a hero in Korea and a terrorist in Japan, which still refuses, officially at least, to acknowledge that its colonial rule of the peninsula was improper or brutal. 

Earlier this year, residents of Kanazawa learned that a “memorial archive” dedicated to Yun would open in their city. The organizer of the archive has no links to the city or to any Korean groups who operate in the vicinity. The man behind the archive is Kim Gwang-man, a former documentarian for KBS, one of South Korea’s public broadcasters, who lives in South Korea. In interviews with Korean media he says that the facility is not so much a memorial to Yun as it is a resource center for information about the Hokuriku region’s connections to Korea. However, the Yun name guarantees that it will attract attention from anyone who knows who he is, and so far none of those parties, regardless of which side of the political divide they stand on, want the archive to open on its scheduled launch date of April 29, which happens to be the 93rd anniversary of the Shanghai bombing, meaning it’s also the late Showa Emperor’s birthday. If Kim really didn’t want people to associate his project with Yun, then he couldn’t have picked a worse day to start it.

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Review: The Maiden

Posted on April 18, 2025 by philipbrasor

This debut by Canadian director Graham Foy has been compared to the work of David Lynch, though it lacks Lynch’s sense of the absurd. The script, however, does feature metaphysical situations that may throw some viewers off since they are presented so matter-of-factly. The action centers on three high school students who mostly wander around the edges of their nascent suburban development. One of them, Kyle (Jackson Sluiter), leaves graffiti on train underpasses and the like—the title refers to his tag, which is never explained. Most of the time he’s accompanied by his quieter friend Colton (Marcel T. Jimenez). Their exploits don’t amount to much—skating, rummaging through houses under construction, swimming. At one point they find a dead cat and send it down the river on a small makeshift raft. Their conversations are naturalistic to the point of meaninglessness. They sound like things adolescent boys really say to each other.

Eventually, Kyle is removed from the proceedings, leaving Colton bereft, as if Kyle were the only person he knew. His mood turns caustic before leveling out with the passage of time, at which point Foy picks up the story with the third character, a very nervous girl named Whitney (Hayley Ness), who herself is left bereft when her own inseparable friend, June (Siena Yee), breaks up with her in a sudden way. Like Colton without Kyle, Hayley feels abandoned and, to a certain extent, betrayed. She works off her anger and fear by exploring the same landscapes we saw Colton and Kyle visiting in the first half of the movie. At one point we see a search party and posters on trees stating that Hayley is missing. As far as we’re concerned she isn’t, and then she stumbles upon Kyle and they form an alliance of the dispossessed.

The Maiden works best when you don’t think too carefully about it. Shot on grainy 16mm, it has a timeless quality that’s reinforced by the vintage cassette recorder that figures prominently in the exposition, not to mention the old songs that occasionally waft through the soundtrack. A second viewing might reveal more of Foy’s intentions—the typical teenage ennui on display seems to have a deeper meaning as the movie progresses, and when Kyle says to Whitney that “everyone thinks they’re lonely,” he sounds practically philosophical, whereas when he was talking to Colton in the first half of the film he sounded merely incoherent. What the three characters have in common is an artistic side that they mostly hide from their peers. Kyle’s tagging is a form of self-amusement, while Colton’s drawings and Hayley’s notebooks are the only means they have of coming to terms with feelings they don’t yet understand. The Maiden does a good job of expressing the inchoate longing of youth without presenting anything concrete. As you watch it you can’t help but recall your own wasted high school days. It evokes emotions that are so familiar they’re scary.  

Opens April 19 in Tokyo at Theater Image Forum Aoyama (03-5766-0114).

The Maiden home page in Japanese

photo (c) 2022 FF Films and Medium Density Fibreboard Films

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Review: My Dearest Fu Bao

Posted on April 17, 2025 by philipbrasor

You have to hand it to China for its so-called panda diplomacy. Because everything about the animal is “rare and difficult,” according to a zookeeper quoted in this sentimental South Korean documentary, a certain delicacy is built into its process of loaning the animal to countries throughout the world. In 2016, China sent one male and one female panda to a Korean zoo for the purposes of mating, under the condition that any cub produced would be “sent back” to China when the offspring turned 4. This is the situation for all pandas loaned to foreign countries, and it’s been an exceptional PR boon for the People’s Republic because it suggests that the country does its best to prevent pandas from being exploited while also allowing the world to enjoy the unique charms of the animal, which are all tied into its uniformly adorable appearance and awkward behavior. A less remarked upon trait is the panda’s seeming ability to adapt readily to the conditions of confinement without manifesting outward signs of stress, something that other zoo animals tend to exhibit more obviously, even though, as the “rare and difficult” attribute implies, pandas are notoriously difficult to breed in captivity.

So when the two Korean loan pandas had a cub in 2020, it was huge news in Korea, since it was the first time in the country’s history that pandas in their care had produced a cub “naturally,” meaning without assisted reproductive procedures. Moreover, the female panda, named Fu Bao, arrived right in the middle of the COVID epidemic and thus provided palliative relief for the Korean public, who flocked to the Everland zoo in droves to observe the cub. This documentary thus has a built-in dramatic hook, because Fu Bao’s popularity just continued to grow as her time in Korea dwindled: Everyone knew that once she was 4 years old, she would go back to China. Everland’s breeder, Kang Chul-won, and keeper-in-charge, Song Yong-kuan, do most of the talking in the film, and the viewer only understands Fu Bao through their experience of tending to her as part of their jobs. In the end, we know a lot about these two men, including their family lives and personality tics, and very little about Fu Bao, or even pandas in general, which is odd because the two loan pandas subsequently give birth to twins, thus extending the miracle; though, for some reason, these two new additions aren’t half as beloved as Fu Bao, a fact that is mentioned but never explained. Maybe it’s because the movie was made for a specific cross-section of Koreans who would automatically understand the social dynamics at work, but in any event it isn’t interested in explaining panda behavior beyond the observation that the two loan pandas were “good parents,” whatever than means in panda lore. The animals’ special appeal to humans is taken for granted without the merest sop to empirical curiosity. “They are so much like a family,” says Kang at one point about Fu Bao, her parents, and her siblings, “because they all look alike.” Well…yeah.

The last third of the documentary is a slow, ponderous descent into maudlin anticipation as the date of Fu Bao’s departure approaches. In an especially cruel twist of serendipity, Kang’s 88-year-old mother dies two days before the removal, and the breeder decides to accompany the animal back to Sichuan while in full mourning. “Do what you have to do,” says his brother. From there it’s just one weepy montage after another, though through it all Fu Bao maintains her composure in typical panda fashion. Maybe that’s what really makes them so attractive: Nothing fazes them, even the over-zealous attention of smitten, well-meaning humans. 

In Korean. Opens April 18 in Tokyo at Toho Cinemas Nihonbashi (050-6868-5060), Human Trust Cinema Yurakucho (03-6259-8608), Shinjuku Musashinokan (03-3354-5670).

My Dearest Fu Bao home page in Japanese

photo (c) 2024 ACOMMZ and Everland Resort

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Review: Sing Sing

Posted on April 11, 2025 by philipbrasor

Certainly the most daring thing that director Greg Kwedar did in adapting an old magazine article about the titular prison’s Rehabilitation Through the Arts (RTA) program, which allows inmates to stage plays, is the way he disregards the crimes of his characters. Though we eventually learn that one of the protagonists, John “Divine G” Whitfield (Colman Domingo), is in for a murder his didn’t commit, it’s because he goes before a cynical parole board that seems to have already decided to refuse his bid. The other protagonist, Clarence “Divine Eye” Maclin, is in the slammer for dealing drugs and the kinds of mischief that comes with that occupation, but we know that mainly because in an early scene we watch him intimidate a fellow prisoner using methods he obviously cultivated in his business career. Maclin, like all the other RTA inmates depicted except Whitfield, plays himself, and is obviously much older than the figure described in the article, which was published in 2005; and because Kwedar wants us to understand these men’s situations primarily from the inside, he downplays that aspect of their lives that’s usually uppermost in the viewer’s mind when it comes to characters in a prison drama—what are they in for?

This decision is admirable since it helps remove stigma that would likely affect our appreciation of other qualities, but except for the two Divines, Kwedar doesn’t get as deeply into these characters as he should, so all we see is their attempts to make something of whatever thespian skills they’ve acquired. Whitfield, we also learn, is the only inmate with experience in theater and the literary arts in his background, and he relishes the chance to show off those skills every chance he gets in service to the program, which he practically runs. Maclin, an unabashed gangsta who happens to know lines from King Lear, eventually joins the troupe and challenges Whitfield’s prima donna status by auditioning for the lead in the next production, a science fiction musical written by the troupe’s outside director, Brent Buell (Paul Raci), at Maclin’s urging, since Maclin thinks the troupe should do a comedy for a change, thus subtly commandeering the RTA from under Whitfield’s nose. He even lands the part with the Hamlet soliloquy, which Whitfield has been rehearsing for ages in the hope that Shakespeare’s most famous tragedy would cycle in to the troupe’s repertoire (apparently, they just did A Midsummer Night’s Dream). Most of the film focuses on Whitfield swallowing his pride and helping Maclin with his role in Buell’s production and, along the way, coaching Maclin in preparation for his own parole hearing, which Whitfield rightly describes as being a performance. That Whitfield is using his own recollections of failure in this regard to help a fellow incarcerated individual gain his freedom is another admirable aspect that feels slightly off. Both Divines are men whose sentences have much to do with the fact that they are Black, even if one is innocent and the other self-admittedly guilty of the crimes they were sent up for, a salient matter that Kwedar doesn’t seem to want to address.

But the movie’s authenticity of spirit is quite moving and never short-changes the viewer’s intelligence. It’s often difficult to make sense of the two Divines’ motivations, not to mention the shambolic script of the play-within-the-movie. It’s enough that we can guess at what makes these men act, as well as “act,” the way they do through interactions whose main purpose is to expose their vulnerabilities. It’s often said that art will set you free, a platitude that has a starker meaning when applied to people in prison, and if Kwedar’s smart, frustrating movie proves anything, it’s that the impulse to be creative is foundationally human. 

Now playing in Tokyo at Toho Cinemas Chanter Hibiya (050-6868-5001), Shibuya Cine Quinto (03-3477-5905), Toho Cinemas Roppongi Hills (050-6868-5024), Kino Cinema Shinjuku (03-5315-0978), Toho Cinemas Nihonbashi (050-6868-5060).

Sing Sing home page in Japanese

photo (c) 2023 Divine Film, LLC

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Review: Bridget Jones: Mad About the Boy

Posted on April 10, 2025 by philipbrasor

Though not my cup of tea, the first three installments of the Bridget Jones series made for pleasantly unforced entertainment, probably because the British have developed a better understanding than Hollywood has of what’s charming about romantic comedies, namely a playfully cynical approach to the sentiments involved. This attitude is compromised by the newest installment’s descent into sentiment for sentiment’s sake. I hope it’s not a spoiler to say that Mark Darcy (Colin Firth), who married our Bridget (Renee Zellweger) in the last movie, has died in the meantime, thus casting an undispellable pall over the proceedings, even when Hugh Grant, who himself returns from the dead as Darcy’s one-time rival for Bridget’s affections, does his insufferable but irresistible stupid cad thing to general hilarity in his brief scenes. Grant’s built-in cynicism is counteracted by the purport of his opening reintroduction, when his playboy character, Daniel Cleaver, breaks a date with a hot model so that he can babysit Bridget’s two young children, thus allowing her to enjoy a rare night out with her friends.

The dilemma posed by the movie is how Bridget can still act like the horny, frustrated, wise-cracking diarist everyone loves from Helen Fielding’s books when she’s a widowed mom with more “important” things to do, and the makers of this very careful franchise product seem to think they can have their cake and shag it, too. The movie’s through line is Bridget going back to work as a TV producer after a period of mourning and seeing her children grow to school age. Naturally, once the work angle is settled—she slides naturally back into her old bumblingly effective methods—love is next on the rebound menu, and the requisite meet-cute moment takes place in a London park when a hunky park attendant (Leo Woodall), who’s much younger than Bridget, rescues her and her two kids from a tree. The age gap is fodder for the bulk of the jokes in the middle part of the movie while Bridget’s guilt over whether she can afford a lively fling with this kid, who is definitely crazy about her, at the expense of any attention she should be directing toward her children. The title seems purposely ambiguous, since the “boy” could either refer to her son, Billy (Casper Knopf), who still misses his father terribly, and her new beau, who eventually “ghosts” her out of a sense of being inadequate to her needs. In the meantime, a more traditional rom-com relationship is forming between Bridget and one of Billy’s teachers, the flustered and over-serious Mr. Wallaker (Chiwetel Ejiofor), who in principle objects to Bridget’s parenting decisions, thus causing much comic friction between them.

In addition to Grant, other familiar faces make return trips to the series—Emma Thompson, Shirley Henderson, Sally Phillips, Gemma Jones, Jim Broadbent—to guarantee that the sentimental hogwash has a foundation in a community, which is not necessarily a blessing. It’s always been difficult to accept Bridget’s lack of self-esteem when she’s surrounded by so many people who love her deeply, including the men she sleeps with. I don’t have half as many friends as Bridget does and you don’t see me bitching to my diary about how inadequate my social life is.

Opens April 11 in Tokyo at Toho Cinemas Nihonbashi (050-6868-5060), Toho Cinemas Hibiya (050-6868-5068), Toho Cinemas Shinjuku (050-6868-5063), Toho Cinemas Roppongi Hills (050-6868-5024).

Bridget Jones: Mad About the Boy home page in Japanese

photo (c) 2024 Universal Studios, Studiocanal and Miramax/Jay Maidment

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Review: I, the Executioner and In the Land of Saints and Sinners

Posted on April 9, 2025 by philipbrasor

Though I see a lot of Korean movies, I don’t know much about the situation surrounding Korean cinema outside of South Korea or Japan, but I think I understand why this successful sequel to the 2015 cop-action comedy Veteran did not retain its Korean title, Veteran 2, for overseas distribution, opting instead for I, the Executioner. Non-Korean audiences, even those who saw the original Veteran 10 years ago, may not be drawn to the idea of a sequel, though they may be attracted by the name of the director of both, Ryoo Seung-wan, one of Korea’s most reliable action filmmakers; so I, the Executioner could possibly entice a few people who have a passing interest in Korean action and are intrigued by the awkward title. But that’s not the only nationally contextual aspect of the movie that foreign audiences could miss. Like Veteran, the sequel features a popular Korean heartthrob cast counter-intuitively as the heavy, thus guaranteeting the huge box office that Veteran 2 achieved easily, sitting at the top of the Korean money-making list for 5 weeks last year. Besides those points, the movie offers little that’s distinctive.

Including lead actor Hwang Jung-min, who returns as detective Seo Do-cheol, a hotheaded old school cop with a core of moral fortitude, meaning, in the Korean sense, that he isn’t averse to beating up bad guys for information but it’s all in the service of saving innocent people. That core is challenged by a vigilante killer dubbed Haechi, who is dispatching criminals, usually murderers, who’ve been released from prison early due to lax judiciary standards or loopholes. As with many recent Korean genre blockbusters, internet culture is heavily represented in I, the Executioner by hordes of social media users cheering on Haechi’s fatal exploits while Seo and his crack team of goofballs, including new MMA-savvy recruit Sun-woo (Jung Hae-in), hunt him down. Much of the initial tension is derived from Seo being charged with preventing a particularly nasty parolee from getting lynched by the public or eliminated by Haechi, and you can pretty much predict the outcome of that assignment. Ryoo injects the requisite measure of social commentary regarding irresponsible social influencers and Korea’s notoriously cruel bullying culture into the mix, but his main concern is navigating a script that shifts drastically from one dangerous scenario to another without derailing the viewer’s train of comprehension.

Ryoo’s skills as an action director make all the difference. The first Veteran was famous for its elaborate fight scenes, especially the climax where Seo and his nemesis battle it out in the middle of a Seoul intersection after a spirited and extremely violent car chase. Here there are several set pieces that defy description, but the result is less satisfying because they seem divorced from the story. The initially interesting vigilante theme is replaced by a standard psycho-killer setup that seems designed to justify the mayhem for its own sake. Moreover, the very bankable Hwang, who has recently ventured outside his comfort zone into more challenging, complicated roles, falls back on his usual comic everyman persona with mixed results. The real veterans of I, the Executioner, Ryoo and Hwang, merely cruise on their reputations. 

Liam Neeson’s fruitful second-wind career as an action star would seem to be the reverse of Hwang’s, since Neeson made his name initially as a “serious” actor in “serious” movies. Since then he’s been defined by the overdrawn Taken series (and its replicas), in which he played a former American intelligence maven using extreme methods to protect his family from evil internationalists. In the Land of Saints and Sinners carries this image back to Neeson’s native Ireland. He plays Finbar Murphy, a part-time executioner for a Donegal mobster (Colm Meany) in the early 70s. The story takes place as Murphy contemplates getting out of the whacking business to become a simple farmer (His cover is that of a second-hand book dealer, a conceit director Robert Lorenz plays for comic effect), plans that are put on hold by the Troubles going on in neighboring Northern Ireland, which spill over into Murphy’s bailiwick when IRA fugitives from a Belfast bombing-gone-wrong hide out on the property of a friend. 

The cast is a who’s who of Irish character actor royalty—Kerry Condon as the vicious leader of the IRA crew, Ciaran Hands as the clueless local Garda and Murphy’s best friend, Niamh Cusack as the middle aged neighbor on whom Murphy is sweet, and Jack Gleeson as Murphy’s over-enthusiastic wannabe replacement—and Lorenz gives them plenty to do within the rather narrow scope of the movie’s purview. In the end, he settles for standard action movie stuff, with shootouts in crowded places and ridiculously contrived standoffs. Since Neeson doesn’t have to contend with an American accent, he seems more relaxed than usual, but Murphy is pretty bland porridge compared to the more anxious characters he portrayed in previous action movies, which, granted, were often terrible, but not because of him. 

I, the Executioner, in Korean, opens April 11 in Tokyo at Kadokawa Cinemas Yurakucho (03-6268-0015), Shinjuku Piccadilly (050-6861-3011), Shibuya Cine Quinto (03-3477-5905).

In the Land of Saints and Sinners opens April 11 in Tokyo at Toho Cinemas Hibiya (050-6868-5068), Toho Cinemas Shinjuku (050-6868-5063), Toho Cinemas Nihonbashi (050-6868-5060).

I, the Executioner home page in Japanese

In the Land of Saints and Sinners home page in Japanese

I, the Executioner photo (c) 2024 CJ ENM Co., Ltd., Filmmakers R&K 

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Media watch: Inmate testimony describes execution day horror show

Posted on April 7, 2025 by philipbrasor
Osaka Detention Center

Given the air of secrecy that has always surrounded Japan’s system of capital punishment, it’s still likely that many Japanese people are not aware of the methodology used to carry out an execution, even though it’s been revealed time and again by the media. The Asahi Shimbun reiterated the cold cruelty of the procedure with an exceptionally disturbing piece that appeared March 29, in which an inmate of the Osaka Detention Center described in detail what he saw and heard when guards came to collect a death row prisoner for his hanging. For those who are unaware, inmates awaiting capital punishment are not made aware of the date and time of their execution until the exact moment when detention center personnel open their cell doors to take them to the gallows. The kind of terror these prisoners live with on a day-to-day basis is difficult to imagine, and the testimony of this 36-year-old inmate, Takahiro Imanishi, whose cell was across the corridor from that of a condemned man, puts it into perspective without making it any less horrifying.

The narrative, as written down in Imanishi’s diary, gets very specific. At 7:30 am on Dec. 21, 2021, the wake-up chime sounded in the detention center. Imanishi dutifully got up, folded his futon, tidied his cell, washed his face, and waited for breakfast to be delivered. However, he noticed that the corridor outside his cell was “quieter than it usually was” at this hour of the morning. The silence was suddenly and violently shattered by the sound of the doors to the exercise yard being opened. Several guards entered, their footsteps echoing down the corridor. Looking out the small window of his cell, Imanishi fixed his gaze on a small plaque on the wall next to the door of a cell saying, “Do not open door while unaccompanied.” This plaque was next to all the cells that housed death row inmates, which numbered 7 or 8 at the time. 

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