Prophecy (Japan, 2015) [JFF2015AU]
Yoshihiro Nakamura is a filmmaker that always surprises me. The stories he tells are never what they seem to be on the surface and his...
K.O. (China, 2015)
The city of Ordos was catapulted to international attention in November 2009 when an Al Jazeera report depicted this subdivision of Inner Mongolia as a...
La La La at Rock Bottom (Japan, 2015) [JFF2015AU]
Nobuhiro Yamashita is a filmmaker who always gets fantastic performances from his female stars. Think of Bae Doona in Linda Linda Linda (2005), Kaho in...
The Room (Japan, 1992)
Navigating the rental property market in a major city can be a patience testing experience, but Sion Sono turns the search for the right apartment into...
The Case of Hana and Alice (Japan, 2015)
When I first got into film and was immersed by the beauty of it all, I began to realise that I was only into English-language...
Princess Jellyfish (Japan, 2014) [JFF2015AU]
I’m not usually a fan of romantic comedies, especially the increasingly formulaic ones coming out of Hollywood. So when I hear of romantic comedies revolving around...
Assassination Classroom (Japan, 2015) [JFF2015AU]
To be perfectly honest, I’m surprised that this type of narrative even exists, but with all the true stories (especially from America), there are now films...
SPL 2: A Time for Consequences (China/Hong Kong, 2015) [TIFF 2015]
10 years ago I was lucky enough to see SPL at the Toronto International Film Festival with Sammo Hung, Wilson Yip and Wong Jing in...