The Assassin (2015)
★★★☆☆
A quiet, elliptic take on 8th century China combining arthouse and wuxia, Hou Hsiao-Hsien’s The Assassin screams style and accomplishment.
Asia
Festival Review: Office (2015)
★★★☆☆
An exuberant musical extravaganza about the financial crisis, Johnnie To’s Office offers an energetic, occasionally brash, satire on capitalism.
Festival Review: An (2015)
★★★☆☆
With cherry blossom, sweet red bean paste and lovable pensioners, Naomi Kawase’s An is a light, soft-centred Japanese fancy.
Festival Review: Our Little Sister (2015)
★★★☆☆
When three sisters become four, Hirokazu Koreeda’s Our Little Sister is a homely rumination on family and female friendship.
Festival Review: A Guy From Fenyang (2014)
★★★☆☆
Uncovering the life and works of Jia Zhangke in his home city, Walter Salles’ A Guy From Fenyang reveals the metropolis behind the man.
Festival Review: Mountains May Depart (2015)
★★☆☆☆
A triptych of melancholy Chinese stories, Jia Zhangke’sMountains May Depart builds an awkward narrative of nostalgia – past, present and future.
A Girl At My Door (2014)
★★★☆☆
Combining gay rights with all the tropes of a horror movie, July Jung’s A Girl At My Door is strangely haunting, but struggles with a split personality.
A Girl Walks Home Alone At Night (2014)
★★★☆☆
An Iranian skateboarding vampire movie, Ana Lily Amirpour’s A Girl Walks Home Alone At Night is a quirky, stylish addition to the genre.
Kumiko, The Treasure Hunter (2014)
★★★★☆
With a delicate, mesmerising performance from Rinko Kikuchi, Kumiko, The Treasure Hunter is a darkly comic tale of misadventure – tragic, odd and uplifting.
Festival Review: Chasuke’s Journey (2015)
★★★☆☆
Despite a promising concept of heavenly screenwriters, Sabu’s Chasuke’s Journey ends in an occasionally visually arresting but hare-brained disappointment.
Festival Review: Big Father, Small Father And Other Stories / Cha và con và (2015)
★★★☆☆
An atmospheric evocation of life on the banks of the Saigon River, Dang Di Phan’s Big Father, Small Father And Other Stories is a gently haunting muddle.
Festival Review: Gone With The Bullets (2014)
★☆☆☆☆
A carnival of singing, dancing, car chases and bullets, Wen Jiang’s Gone With The Bullets gets lost in an amorphous hall of mirrors.
Festival Review: Taxi Tehran (2015)
★★★★☆
Turning the camera upon himself for the third time, Jafar Panahi’s Taxi is a moving portrait of the politics of filming and the filming of politics.
Festival Review: Court
★★★★★
Exposing India’s labyrinthine judicial system, Chaitanya Tamhane’s debut feature Court brings a slow dread to the impossibility of justice.