London East Asia Film Festival: Before We Vanish (2017)
★★★★☆
Before We Vanish by Kiyoshi Kurosawa is a genre-bending Japanese bodysnatchers movie that provokes an alien apocalypse on Earth.
Asia
BFI LFF: Angels Wear White (Jia Nian Hua) (2017)
★★★☆☆
Director Vivian Qu exposes control, coercion and casual violence towards women in modern China in the surprising drama Angels Wear White.
BFI LFF: 24 Frames (2017)
★★★★☆
Abbas Kiarostami’s experimental, posthumous 24 Frames is a meditative insight into a great filmmaker’s creative process.
BFI LFF: The Hungry (2017)
★★☆☆☆
The Hungry updates Shakespeare’s Titus Andronicus to India’s modern-day elite.
BFI LFF: Wrath of Silence (Bao Lie Wu Sheng) (2017)
★★★★☆
Doling out as many bare-knuckle blows to its characters as it does to China’s corrupt political system, Wrath of Silence is A Touch of Sin that’s not afraid to be dramatic.
Your Name (2016)
In Makoto Shinkai’s haunting Japanese anime, two teenagers swap bodies and lives.
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Okja (2017)
★★★★☆
Netflix’s Okja is Bong Joon-ho’s and Jon Ronson’s satire-cum-expose of the genetically modified food industry through the adventures of a delightful Korean girl and an outsize giant pig.
Cannes review: Before We Vanish (2017)
★★★★☆
Before We Vanish by Kiyoshi Kurosaw is a genre-bending Japanese bodysnatchers movie that provokes an alien apocalypse on Earth.
Cannes review: A Man of Integrity (Lerd) (2017)
★★★★☆
Mohammad Rasoulof laments institutional corruption in Iranian society in A Man of Integrity (Lerd).
Cannes review: 24 Frames (2017)
★★★★☆
Abbas Kiarostami’s experimental, posthumous 24 Frames is a meditative insight into a great filmmaker’s creative process.
Cannes review: Okja (2017)
★★★★☆
Netflix’s Okja is Bong Joon-ho’s and Jon Ronson’s satire-cum-expose of the genetically modified food industry through the adventures of a delightful Korean girl and an outsize giant pig.
Harmonium (2016)
★★★★★☆
In Koji Fukada’s Harmonium, the fragile harmony of a Japanese family is shattered by the arrival of a mysterious stranger.
The Handmaiden (2016)
★★★★☆
A sumptuous new adaptation of Sarah Waters’ Fingersmith, Park Chan-wook’s The Handmaiden is a dazzling tale of duplicity and deception.
The Salesman (2016)
★★★★☆
Asghar Farhardi’s The Salesman illuminates universal moral arguments about masculinity by presenting them in parallel with a production of Arthur Miller’s stage play in contemporary Iran.