Kiss of the Spider Woman (1985) ☆☆☆1/2(3.5/4): Between two different prisoners

Posted on August 10, 2026 by kaist455

Brazilian filmmaker Héctor Babenco’s 1985 film “Kiss of the Spider Woman” is a hauntingly complex prison drama between two very different figures. Although there are not many common things between them, they cannot help but connect more with each other under their grim life condition, and then the movie becomes all the more compelling when their developing relationship turns out to be more complicated later in the story.

The story is mainly set inside a stuffy prison cell shared by Luis Molina (William Hurt) and Valentine Arregui (Raul Julia). While Valentine is a journalist imprisoned for his left-wing political activity, Luis is a flamboyant gay dude who happens to share his prison cell with Valentine, and the movie opens with Luis describing to Valentine about some old Nazi German propaganda film he watched some years ago. While he does not like Luis that much, Valentine listens to Luis’s story anyway, just because that makes his seemingly endless time in the prison a bit less boring.  

Even though he knows that old Nazi German propaganda film is an inherently bad flick, Luis has been mesmerized by the love story inside it, and he really wants to share with Valentine for showing more of his sensitive side. It is about a beautiful French entertainer who feels quite conflicted about her loyalty to her country and her love toward a high-ranking Nazi German officer, and Luis is particularly touched by how the heroine eventually follows her heart to the end. 

While he throws some sardonic comments on the movie story presented by Luis, Valentine gradually opens himself a bit more to Luis, and the story becomes more interesting as his personal story resonates with Luis’s personal story as well as that movie story described by him. Under the dictatorship of their mostly unspecified South American society, both of them struggled in one way or another, and they also had to choose between love and integrity not long before they got imprisoned. 

Around the narrative point where the relationship between Luis and Valentine becomes more solidified, we come to learn that there is something Luis did not reveal to Valentine from the beginning. This certainly adds some tension to their ongoing drama, but the screenplay by Leonard Schrader, which is based on the 1976 novel of the same name by Argentine writer Manuel Puig, takes its time as usual for more character development. While there is still some distance between its two main characters, we come to sense more of human connection developed between them, and that makes their ongoing drama all the more intriguing and poignant than before. 

The movie was incidentally the first English language film by Babenco, who rose to considerable prominence thanks to the critical success of his previous film “Pixote” (1980) at that time. After the critical considerable success of “Kiss of the Spider Woman” (The movie garnered four Oscar nominations including the ones for Best Picture and Best Director, by the way), he made “Ironweed” (1987) in US, but he eventually went back to his home ground and then made several notable films including “Carandiru” (2003).

 Besides making a fairly smooth transition to English language movie, Babenco also did a commendable job of generating a striking contrast between gritty realism and beguiling romanticism. The more the movie focuses on its two main characters’ relationship, the more we get immersed into their grim life condition from which both of them desperately want to escape. Luis’s movie story, which is often shown to us in soft sepia tone, comes to function more as an emotional relief for both Luis and Valentine, and we are not so surprised when they come to share a lot more between them than expected.

The movie is constantly supported by the powerful performances from its two different lead actors. Although he may look a bit awkward in the South American background, William Hurt, who won the Best Actor award at the Cannes Film Festival and then a Best Actor Oscar for this film, subtly brings human nuances to his seemingly theatrical character, and he also deftly illustrates his character’s inner conflict along the story without overplaying that at all. On the opposite, Raul Julia, whom I have always fondly remembered for his enthusiastic comic performance in Barry Sonnenfeld’s “The Addams Family” (1991) and its 1993 sequel, steadily holds the ground for his co-star with considerable intensity and gravitas, and he and Hurt never make any misstep as their characters pull or push throughout the story.

Although a number of supporting performers around Hurt and Julia simply come and then go, the special mention must go to Sônia Braga, who is simply unforgettable in her multiple roles. Besides playing Valentine’s girlfriend, she plays not only the heroine of that Nazi German propaganda film but also the titular character of the movie, who is the heroine of some another old movie described by Luis later in the story. While imbuing her three different roles with each own personality, Braga does more than holding her own place around Hurt and Julia, and the movie led her to a number of many various films ranging from Robert Redford’s “The Milagro Beanfield War” (1988) to Kleber Mendonça Filho’s “Bacurau” (2019).

Overall, “Kiss of the Spider Woman” remains as an interesting film to watch even though more than 40 years passed since it came out. Although I only watched it once around the 2000s before revisiting it yesterday via a Criterion 4K blu-ray copy, I found impressed again by its mood, storytelling, and performance during my viewing, and I guess that says a lot about its considerable dramatic power.

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Last Summer (2023) ☆☆☆(3/4): As a country summer passes…

Posted on August 9, 2026 by kaist455

It may take some time for you to sense and then process what and how South Korean independent film “Last Summer” is about. Leisurely establishing its vividly realistic rural atmosphere across the screen, the movie gradually blurs the line between fiction and nonfiction for intriguing and then engaging us more, and you will feel more of the underlying sense of ongoing life around the people and locations shown in the film.

The movie, which follows several months in a little real-life rural village, begins with the opening shot showing the beginning of one hot summer day, and then we see several villagers who are about to work on their rice paddies. While the sun is shining, the temperature is pretty hot, and, as reflected by the title of the first chapter (“Drought”), there has not been much rain during last several weeks. Needless to say, the villagers are quite concerned about their rice paddies, but they can only hope that they will have some rain before they eventually run out of water supply. 

Meanwhile, we get to know a bit about one of these villagers. He is a middle-aged widower living with his aging mother and his adult son, who has incidentally worked as a local public servant for a while. When we later see his son at his workplace, it is apparent that he does not like working there much, and we are not so surprised when he subsequently quits his job and then begins to help his father’s farming work instead.

While this naturally causes some tension in the family later in the story, the movie does not overplay this at all, and it simply observes the son’s uncertain situation at present. He surely knows that he must make a decision sooner or later, but he still does not know what to do next for his life, and his father patiently hopes for the best for the son. 

The son sometimes hangs around with a close friend of his, who seems to be quite content with his current status in contrast. Besides running a pet shop along with his wife, the son’s friend also works at a local cattle farm belonging to his father, and we often see him diligently working at his father’s farm. It looks like he genuinely cares about the cows in his father’s farm, but, as reflected by one sobering scene later in the story, the movie sharply recognizes that all these cows are bound to be sold or slaughtered someday.

As slowly building up its story and few main characters, the movie also pays attention to not only their little world but also its many other residents at times. Usually sticking to its calm and static position, the camera simply observes the people and places in the village, but then we gradually find ourselves immersed more in its mood and background. While appreciating a series of crisp landscape shots, we come to focus more on whatever can be glimpsed from the occasional individual moments from the villagers, which often approach to the considerable level of verisimilitude observed from good documentary film.

Not so surprisingly, director/writer/co-producer/editor Choi Seung-woo, who incidentally made a feature film debut here, actually had a bunch of real-life villagers play the minor supporting characters in his movie. As far as I could observe from the film, they all look natural and spontaneous while just playing more or less than themselves on the screen, and they are also mixed fairly well with several professional performers in the film playing the main characters in the film, who are not showy at all in their low-key acting.  

Around the end of the second chapter (“Rainy Season”), the movie takes a little unexpected turn, but it still sticks to its phlegmatic tone even at this point while showing more sensitivity and thoughtfulness than before. At one point, the camera just looks at the son merely cutting his toenails inside his family house for a while, but then we somehow sense some change inside him, and the movie did a splendid job of conveying that to us via a rather simple but undeniably effective visual touch.

And we observe more of how life keeps going in the village as usual. When the movie eventually arrives at its final chapter (“Harvest”), we cannot help but notice how the village looks different with its rice paddies turning yellow day by day, and you will also reflect more on what one farmer says around the end of the movie. Sure, it is one of those familiar words on farming, but we cannot possibly agree to that more.

In conclusion, “Last Summer” is commendable for its subtle storytelling and sublime mood and details to be admired and appreciated. Although it was premiered in the Busan International Film Festival in 2023, the movie had to wait for no less than three years before it is eventually shown to me and other South Korean audiences in this year, and Choi already showed his next feature film at the Busan International Film Festival in last year (He also made a short documentary about revisiting the village and its residents shown in “Last Summer”, by the way). I have seen neither of his next two works yet, but I can tell you at least that he is another new promising South Korean filmmaker to watch, and I will certainly have some expectation on his burgeoning filmmaking career.

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The Odyssey (2026) ☆☆☆1/2(3.5/4): Nolan’s stark and gritty spectacle

Posted on August 6, 2026 by kaist455

Christopher Nolan’s new film “The Odyssey” is a stark and gritty spectacle quite determined to overpower and then exhaust you. Based on the ancient Greek work of the same name by Homer, the movie may disappoint you for not having much awe or wonder or fun on the whole, but it is often quite intense and visceral under Nolan’s confident direction, and my eyes and mind were constantly engaged for its long running time (173 minutes) despite some reservation.

While mostly following the plot of Homer’s work, the movie will probably remind you more of some of Nolan’s previous works such as “Inception” (2010) and “Oppenheimer” (2023). Dexterously juggling multiple narrative lines which will surely converge later in the movie, the movie stays focused on the agony and conflict of its white male hero, and, as many of you know, that has been Nolan’s usual subject for many years.

Needless to say, Odysseus in the movie, played by Matt Damon, is not your average clean-cut hero at all. He is a weary and conflicted man who has to face the consequences of his morally questionable choices and actions in and after the Trojan War, and Damon did a good job of conveying to us his character’s inner struggle and conflict along the story. During the early part of the story, Odysseus has been stuck in some remote island along with a mysterious woman named Calypso (Charlize Theron), and, though his old memories have been faded for a while under her care, he gradually begins to remember what happened during the war – and how he got lost as desperately trying to go back to his small island kingdom.

And what he slowly begins to remember again is not so pretty to say the least. As many of you know, Odysseus concocted that famous scheme for ending the Trojan War at last, and we see the considerable amount of sacrifice behind that. He and many others have to be locked inside that big wooden horse for several days at least before it is eventually taken inside Troy, and, needless to say, that is not so fun for them at all.

After the war was finally over, Odysseus unwisely decided to sail his ship along an independent course, and that is the beginning of many different dangers and plights for him and his soldiers. Rather than going for wonder and fun, the movie goes all the way for horror and bitterness, and that is particularly exemplified by a sequence involved with a one-eyed giant figure played by Bill Irwin. While we are horrified by the savage sides of this entity, we also observe that his daily life is irrevocably disrupted by the unwelcomed invasion of Odyssey and his crew, and we find ourselves feeling more of both horror and disgust.

Later in the story, Odysseus is told about his destiny which is probably determined by those Greek gods or whatever. He becomes determined to defy against that as much as possible, but his and his crew’s struggles only seem to lead them to their pre-determined fate, and that makes him all the more agonized than before. In fact, he sometimes cannot help but talk a bit with a Greek goddess played by Zendaya, though the movie is rather ambiguous about whether he actually imagines this or not.

And the movie continues to serve darkly intense moments worthwhile to watch from big movie theater screen. There is a horrifying scene involved with a witch lady named Circe (Samatha Morton), and you will wince a lot even though you already know what she is going to do to Odysseus’s hungry crew. In case of Charybdis and Scylla, I was rather disappointed to see that these two monstrous entities are not shown that much on the screen, but I still admire how deftly Nolan presents his hero’s utterly impossible situation with considerable intensity and gravitas.

Meanwhile, the movie also pays attention to the struggle of Penelope (Anne Hathaway) and Telemachus (Tom Holland), Odysseus’s wife and their young son. As waiting for Odysseus for almost 10 years, they have had to tolerate the insolence of Penelope’s numerous suitors including Antinous (Robert Pattison) in their palace, and Telemachus comes to feel more need to do anything under their increasingly daunting situation. After all, if his mother ever decides to marry one of those despicable suitors, his position will be quite unstable to say least.

It is not much of a spoiler to tell you that 1) Telemachus eventually meets his father and 2) the story inevitably culminates to an intensely brutal climax sequence where Odysseus returns at last and shows everyone who the boss is. Nevertheless, the movie continues to hold our attention to the end as its multiple narrative lines converge and then powerfully resonate with each other, and its bitterly overwhelming catharsis, which is driven by what has haunted Odysseus for years as well as his emerging desire for vengeance, makes us care enough to reflect more on the ending.

And I admired the top-notch technical achievement from Nolan and his crew members, some of whom incidentally worked with Nolan in “Oppenheimer”. I will not be surprised if cinematographer Hoyte van Hoytema, editor Jennifer Lame, and composer Ludwig Göransson, who all won their respective Oscars for “Oppenheimer”, get Oscar-nominated again along with Nolan in next year, and the movie is indubitably another highpoint for their respectable filmmaking careers.

However, I also observed that the spectacles in the film sometimes overshadow the human qualities glimpsed from the story and characters. While Nolan places various recognizable performers here and there around Damon, their characters are more or less than background details except several notable cases, and that is a bit of letdown for me. Again, Nolan falters more than once in the depiction of female characters, and that is particularly evident from the two different characters played by Lupita Nyong’o. There has been a lot of ridiculous controversy surrounding Nolan’s casting choice, but, what do you know, Nyong’o simply comes and then go in her very brief appearance, and that is disappointing in my humble opinion.

Anyway, many of the main cast members in the film are thankfully strong enough to leave some impression on us. Anne Hathaway, Charlize Theron, Samatha Morton, Mia Goth, and Zendaya manage to overcome their rather under-written roles, and Morton is simply uncanny as a sort of dark twin to her memorable psychic character in Steven Spielberg’s “Minority Report” (2002). While Tom Holland, who is having quite a year thanks to this movie and Destin Daniel Cretton’s “Spider-Man: Bran New Year” (2026), carries his part well, Robert Pattison has some juicy fun with his unpleasant villain character, and several other performers including Benny Safdie, Elliot Page, Jon Bernthal (It is a bit weird for me to see him sharing the screen with Holland again after I watched “Spider-Man: Brand New Day” in last week, you know), Corey Hawkins, Himesh Patel, and John Leguizamo are also solid in their respective supporting roles.

In conclusion, “Odyssey” is frequently stupendous for its spectacular mood and visual, and that is more than enough for compensate for several glaring weak points in terms of story and character. I am not so sure about whether this is one of Nolan’s best works, but, considering its enormous critical/commercial success at present, it will solidify Nolan’s status more, and I can only hope that this may lead him to trying something other than your typical conflicted white hero. Yes, it is difficult for any good filmmaker to come outside his usual artistic territory, but haven’t we had already seen enough of him doing same things during last two decades?

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The Truth vs. Alex Jones (2024) ☆☆☆1/2(3.5/4): The judgment on a vile purveyor of lies

Posted on August 2, 2026 by kaist455

As far as I heard from many others during last several years, Alex Jones is a truly vile piece of sh*t, and 2024 HBO documentary film “The Truth vs. Alex Jones” confirms me on that more. It is often infuriating to observe how mean and vicious he was to the families of the victims of the Sandy Hook Elementary School shooting for many years just for getting more money and popularity for himself, but the documentary calmly and thoughtfully follows their long and painful struggle for truth and justice, and you will be certainly relieved to see this despicable bastard getting what he really deserved from the very beginning.

After the brief summary on how Jone rose to a considerable degree of prominence along with his online media website Infowars around the 2000s, the documentary moves onto that what happened at the Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown, Connecticut on December 14th, 2012. A deeply disturbed man suddenly broke into that elementary school and then killed a number of teachers and young students with his guns within a few minutes, and the whole town was certainly shocked and devastated a lot by this atrocious incident.

While coping with their immense loss and grief, the families of the victims tried to hold themselves in front of the media and the public as much as possible, but that unfortunately did not go well. Robbie Parker, who lost one of his kids at that time, simply tried to deliver a sincere joint statement from him and many others who also lost their loved ones because of the incident, but then Jones deliberately spread an outrageous lie about Parker just because Parker nervously smiled a bit before reading the statement in front of reporters, and that was when all hell broke loose for not only Parker but also many other families of the victims of the Sandy Hook Elementary School shooting. As Jones and InfoWars continued to claim that the incident was a hoax and the victims’ families were actually hired performers, Parker and his family as well as many other victims’ families were harassed a lot in one way or another, and this certainly exacerbated their pain and grief a lot.

The documentary gives us a clear and lucid picture on why Jones committed such a cruel and loathsome thing like that to the families of the victims of the Sandy Hook Elementary School shooting. He frequently spread sensational lies and conspiracy theories for years just because that would financially benefit him a lot, and he simply found another big profitable opportunity for him from the incident. No matter how much the victims’ families protested, he went further with more lies, and those millions of subscribers out there willingly consumed his virulent lies without any second thought, just because 1) he is an entertaining bully to watch just like that orange-faced prick currently residing in the White House and 2) most of what he said instantly appealed to their worse sides. The more lies he told, the more they believed in these total bullsh*t from him, while also purchasing a lot of whatever was heavily advertised on InfoWars.

Needless to say, the families of the victims of the Sandy Hook Elementary School Shooting started to take some actions for stopping Jones from spreading more lies about them, though their road to justice turned out to be quite hard and difficult for them. At first, some of them attempted to take care of their matter for themselves, but it did not take much time for them and others to realize that they must confront Jones together at the court.

In the end, Jone was sued by the two different groups of the victims’ families, but he kept spreading more lies as usual, and that reminded them more of what was being at stake for not only them but also many others in the American society. Jones was indubitably guilty as charged, and he needed to be punished really hard for setting a big example to alarm many detestable purveyors of lies just like him.

Fortunately for the victims’ families, Jones and his legal defense team were catastrophically sloppy while also willfully (or incompetently) disregarding the court orders during the two following trials. As a consequence, the main point in both of these two trials became how much Jones must actually pay as the damages for the victims’ families, and the attorneys representing them already had plenty of evidences against Jones. In fact, his legal defense team in one of these two trials inadvertently sent their opponent an email containing a heap of incriminating inside information associated with him, and this certainly contributed to the eventual verdict on the amounts of damages to be paid by him.

Director/co-producer Dan Reed, who previously made that controversial HBO documentary film “Leaving Neverland” (2019), and his crew could receive the exclusive access to these two trials, and the second half of the documentary is quite compelling as steadily focusing both on Jones and the victims’ families. While seldom recognizing his faults, Jones pathetically and impertinently attempted to manipulate the trials to his advantage, and that makes a glaring contrast with the quiet sorrow and dignity of the victims’ families. Despite a lot of suffering inflicted upon them by Jones, they stood up to him without hesitation as delivering their respective testimonies during the trials, and that led to some consolation and peace for them in the end.

Overall, “The Truth vs. Alex Jones” is difficult to watch at times for good reasons, but it is another important documentary which will make you reflect more on the importance of truth in our increasingly confusing era, which has been strewn with millions of online fake news during last several years. While justice was indeed delivered to Jones, that toxic media trend enabling him and many others including that orange-faced prick is still going pretty well even at this point, and, as many of us know too well, we still need to fight and protest more against that.

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The Gorals (2025) ☆☆☆(3/4): A modest but charming coming-of-age tale

Posted on August 2, 2026 by kaist455

South Korean independent film “The Gorals” is a modest but likable coming-of-age tale about four different high school girls banding together for their little mission to accomplish. As they bounce from one point to another along the story, the movie cheerfully swings between comedy and drama, and we are amused more while also rooting for them more than before.

At the beginning, we are introduced to the four main characters of the story one by one: In-hye (Park Hye-jin), Seo-hee (Lee Seung-yeon), Jeong-ae (Park Hyo-eun), and Soo-min (Choi Soo-in). Although they do not have anything particularly common among them, they happen to be gathered together by the head of the college admissions office in their high school due to their rather underachieving school score records, and they are soon demanded to prepare together more for the upcoming college entrance examination and the following admission interview.

However, unlike many of their other schoolmates, these four girls do not have much plan or wish about whatever they want to do next after their eventual graduation. In case of In-hye, all she cares about for now is taking care of those ducks and rabbits in a little kennel of the school, and she even named each of them already.

When she subsequently joins In-hye as a punishment on a little minor transgression of hers, Seo-hee is not so interested in handling those animals in the kennel at first, but then she comes to care about them more than expected when she and In-hye are notified later that the kennel and its inhabitants will be eliminated sooner or later. Once they find a remote spot inside a nearby forest, they begin to plan on taking all those animals in the kennel to the new one to be built on that spot by them, and Jeong-ae and Soon-min later join them just because they also need something to lighten them up a bit as tediously preparing for their college entrance.

Although they are rather clumsy at the beginning, these four girls, whose group is incidentally named “The Gorals” later, gradually improve their private kennel bit by bit. Mainly thanks to Jeong-ae’s farmer father, they can easily get a number of materials for building the kennel, and everything goes fairly well for them as they willingly and harmoniously work together, though they need to be really careful about handling all those animals to be saved by them (The movie assures us at the beginning that no animal was harmed or injured during the shooting, by the way).

Once the kennel is completed, the girls come to bond with each other more as spending more time together in their little shelter, but, not so surprisingly, there come several troubles from the world outside. In-hye has been in a relationship with a very selfish boy who does not have much consideration for her, and we are not so surprised when he threatens to expose her and her friends’ shelter at one point. In addition, their private kennel later becomes a very serious matter due to an unexpected epidemic of a certain animal disease in their area, and they eventually take a lot more risk just for doing what should be done in their viewpoint.

Instead of hurrying its story and characters more, screenplay by director/writer Yoo Jaa-wook, who previously co-directed “Limecrime” (2020) before making a solo debut here in this movie, leisurely doles out a series of small moments for more character development. While In-hye functions as the center of the story, her three friends come to show more life and personality via their respective personal moments, and we come to care more about them when they attempt something not so legal around the end of the story. Despite a few narrative hiccups, the story balances itself fairly well between humor and gravitas, and it is touching to see how its four main characters become more matured and confident in the end. Yes, things remain mostly uncertain for them as before, but they are quite ready to step forward and face whatever may come next for them, respectively.

The movie is steadily supported by the good chemistry among its four principal cast members. While Park Hye-jin, who previously appeared in “The Slug” (2020) and “Gyeong-ah’s Daughter” (2022), dutifully holds the center as required, Lee Seung-yoen, Park Hyo-eun, and Choi Soo-in, who was simply unforgettable as the little young heroine of “The World of Us” (2016), have each own moments to shine, and they always click well together as their characters push or pull each other along the story. In case of a group of several animal performers in the movie, they instantly steal the show from time to time, and the special mention goes to a duck named “Hee-seon”, which turns out to have a little surprise for our girls later in the story.

On the whole, “The Gorals” does not aim that high, but it accomplishes its goals as much as intended at least. Although it could be improved a bit more in my humble opinion, its several minor weak aspects are mostly compensated by the youthful charm and spirit generated among its four lovable main characters, who have sort of grown on me after I watched it yesterday. In short, this is one of more interesting South Korean films of this year, and I certainly recommend you to give it a chance someday.

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What Should We Have Done? (2023) ☆☆☆(3/4): The memories of his schizophrenic sister

Posted on August 2, 2026 by kaist455

Japanese documentary filmmaker Tomoaki Fujino’s 2023 documentary film “What Should We Have Done?” is often difficult to watch for good reasons. Mainly consisting of old video clips showing a number of personal moments from Fujino’s deeply troubled older sister and their parents, the documentary looks back on how things got worse and worse for not only her but also her family for many years, and it does not flinch at all from some of the most despairing moments in her very unhappy life.

At the beginning, we get some background information on Fujino’s family. Both of his parents were well-educated academics, and his older sister Masako was certainly expected to follow her parents’ footsteps as showing more potential and intelligence under her parent’s care and attention. In fact, she could have been a promising young researcher if she had not suddenly developed symptoms of schizophrenia at the age of 24 in 1983.

As someone who had been quite close to her since his childhood, Fujino was certainly concerned a lot about his older sister, but there was nothing he could do as her mental illness got worse during next several years. While simply hoping for any sign of recovery, her parents eventually confined her to their house, and she became more distant to Fujino as he subsequently left their family house for his college study.

Nevertheless, he still cared about his older sister, so, not long after starting his filmmaking education, he began to record his private moments with his family in 2001. Around that time, Masako’s mental condition got much worsened than before, and she did not respond much to her younger brother or her parents even when they were together in the living room of their family house.

And we see more of her miserable life condition during that time. She usually looks distant and disheveled, and her room is filled with a lot of various things including some rather expensive research equipments for whatever she is studying on. In addition, she is quite fascinated with fortunetelling and astrology, and that often created another headache for her parents besides her many other eccentric behaviors. For example, she suddenly went to New York City by airplane without telling anything to her parents, who instantly took her back to their home after she called them from New York City.

Still wishing to understand his older sister more, Fujino tried for more communication with her, but all he could get was a series of babblings which did not make sense at all. Both saddened and frustrated with her worsening mental illness, he certainly reminds his mother at one point that she and her husband really have to do more than merely confining her to their house, but they remain adamant about their decision on her.

It must be pointed out that Fujino and Masako’s parents are not bad people at all, though it is undeniable that their decision on their daughter was misguided at best and abusive at worst. Like many other old Japanese people of their generation, they regarded mental illness as a stigma which they must cover up from others around them as much as possible, and that is the main reason why they chose to believe that their daughter’s mental illness was just a mere personal issue to overcome sooner or later. In their rather conservative viewpoint, all she will have to do is pulling herself together with more focus and will, and this surely made her feel much worse about herself without helping her at all. 

And her parents went further when things continued to get out of control for both them and her. After Masako tried to go outside for no apparent reason on one day, they decided to put a heavy lock on the front door of their house just for preventing another transgression of hers. Fujino was certainly alarmed by this extreme measure, but, again, his parents firmly believed that this was really the best they could do for their daughter – even when they had to endure another painful moment due to another disturbing emotional outburst from her.  

There is a bitter irony in how Masako was eventually allowed to have some peace and freedom several years later, but it is also poignant to observe the considerable change in her appearance. Although still looking quite awkward and introverted as before, her face is far less sullen and distant than before, and she also responds to her younger brother much more than before. Yes, she irreversibly lost a lot as struggling with her mental illness during all those years, and we cannot help but notice some deep melancholy from her aged face. Nevertheless, we are also quite touched by how she tried to live more than before despite all those pains and sufferings of hers.  

In conclusion, “What Should We Have Done?” is an earnest documentary which holds our attention with a number of deeply personal moments tinged with raw emotions to observe and then feel, and Fujino, who also served as the co-editor and co-cinematographer of his documentary, did a commendable job of handling his family story with enough sincerity and honesty. According to his respectful personal wish, it is shown only in movie theaters without any subsequent streaming service release here in South Korea just like it was in Japan, and I think you should check it out as soon as possible before it leaves movie theaters.

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Spider-Man: Brand New Day (2026) ☆☆☆(3/4): Brand Old Familiar Day

Posted on July 29, 2026 by kaist455

“Spider-Man: Brand New Day” works best whenever it is just about its earnest superhero character. As a matter of fact, it could just try less on connecting itself with those other notable characters of Marvel Cinematic Universe (MCU) and then go its own way. However, not so surprisingly, it eventually becomes another chapter belonging to the current stage of MCU instead, and that is a bit of disappointment to me although I was entertained enough during my viewing. 

Anyway, Tom Holland is still likable and engaging as Peter Parker / Spider-Man. In “Spider-Man: Homecoming” (2017) and “Spider-Man: Far from Home” (2019), his character was often like the lap dog of Tony Stark / Iron Man played by Robert Downey Jr., but Holland and his character finally began to grow on us more in “Spider-Man: No Way Home” (2021), and, to my little delight, now Holland comes to show more of his talent and presence here in “Spider-Man: Brand New Day”.

The opening part of the movie covers what happened during several years after the grand finale of “Spider-Man: No Way Home”. As many of you remember, Peter chose to get himself erased from the memories of everyone around the world for not only saving the world but also protecting two close friends of his: Michelle “MJ” Jones-Watson (Zendaya) and Ned Leeds (Jacob Batalon). In the end, both MJ and Ned came to forget Peter just like everyone else, and they subsequently left New York City for going to Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) for their college education.

However, after graduating from MIT four years later, MJ and Ned are back in New York City, and that surely hurts Peter a lot, who has steadily followed MJ and Ned’s college life via Ned’s social media account. He even wrote a personal letter for MJ, but he is reluctant to send the letter to her because 1) she still does not remember him at all just like everyone else including Ned and 2) getting involved with him again may lead to another danger for her.

In addition, Peter has often been quite busy as doing a lot more than being your average friendly neighbor to the citizens of New York City. Day by day, there are always incidents to be handled by Spider-Man, and his valiant efforts have been appreciated a lot by not only millions of citizens but also the New York Police Department, which is mainly represented by Detective Jean DeWolff (Liza Colón-Zayas, who has been more recognizable to us thanks to her Emmy-winning supporting turn in American TV comedy series “The Bear”).

And then there comes a very big and serious case on one day. Somebody attempts to attack one of the facilities of the Department of Damage Control (DODC), and Peter surely comes to the spot as soon as possible, but he soon faces an opponent who may be more than an equal match to him due to a certain kind of superpower. As he tries to get more information about this opponent in question, we come to sense that there is something fishy about DODC and its director Bill Metzger (Tramell Tillman, who effectively generates an aura of shady assurance as he recently did in his Emmy-winning supporting turn in Apple TV+ drama series “Severance”).

In the meantime, Peter also struggles to deal with several personal issues. His physical condition begins to show considerable change due to his genetic background (You all know that his genome is mixed a bit with that of spider, right?), and this sudden biological change puts a lot of strain on both his mind and body. In addition, he gets a chance to get close a bit to both MJ and Ned, and we get some small humorous moments during his reunion with MJ and Ned, who still do not remember him as before. 

While it is not much of a spoiler to tell you that MJ eventually gets involved more in Peter’s ongoing adventure, the movie surprises us a bit as generating a substantial amount of gravitas from their very awkward situation later in the story, and Holland and Zendaya ably handle several key moments between their characters. While Zendaya brings considerable warmth and thoughtfulness to her character, Holland is simply terrific when his character is reminded again of the irreversible consequence of his sacrificial choice, and Jacob Batalon expectedly provides some comic relief as your average nerdy fanboy.

In contrast, the movie becomes more generic whenever it presents several familiar superhero characters from those MCU products. Jon Bernthal, who is incidentally another Emmy-winning performer from “The Bear”, Florence Pugh, and Mark Ruffalo put some game efforts, but their characters do not have much surprise for us on the whole, and so does a certain substantial character played by Sadie Sink, who is clearly destined to open the door for more familiar superhero figures to come next.

Moreover, the action scenes in the film are not particularly impressive to me. Thanks to the competent direction of director Destin Daniel Cretton, who should be more remembered for his remarkable second feature film “Short Term 12” (2013) than being a merely hired director in “Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings” (2021), these action scenes are mostly slick and efficient, but they do not have much style or personality on the whole. In my inconsequential opinion, the only fresh thing is how the climactic sequence is eventually resolved via a simple but sincere moment of real empathy, understanding, and communication instead of resorting to more bangs and crashes to numb us.  

In conclusion, “Spider-Man: Brand New Day”, which is incidentally the 38th feature film for MCU, lives up to its very subtitle to some degree even though it is limited a little too much by the ongoing phase of MCU. It does not lift me up that much from the accumulating superhero movie fatigue, but it succeeds fairly well at least, so I will not grumble for now.

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Serpent’s Path (2024) ☆☆1/2(2.5/4): A passable French remake by Kiyoshi Kurosawa

Posted on July 29, 2026 by kaist455

Kiyoshi Kurosawa’s 2024 film “Serpent’s Path”, which is the remake of his 1998 film of the same name, is an interesting attempt which does not always work in my humble opinion. While mostly not so different from the original version in terms of story and characters, the movie occasionally feels rather strained in its new background, and it eventually does not surprise me a lot compared to the original version.

This time, the story is set in France instead of Japan, and the opening scene shows the beginning of a criminal plan executed by a man named Albert Bacheret (Damien Bonnard) and a Japanese psychiatrist named Sayoko Mijima (Ko Shibasaki). They kidnap a guy named Laval (Mathieu Amalric), and, after putting him in the trunk of their car, they quickly take him to an abandoned building where they are going to torment him for extracting any confession from him.

The motive seems very simple at first. Some time ago, Albert’s little young daughter was murdered in quite an atrocious way, and this poor little young girl’s death is involved with some shady organization with which Laval was associated. Quite convinced that Laval is the one responsible for his daughter’s death, Albert begins to corner Laval in one way or another with some assistance from Mijima, who remains mostly calm and detached in contrast to her accomplice.

However, their plan becomes complicated after Laval desperately claims that the killer of Albert’s daughter is actually some other member of that organization. Albert and Mijima subsequently decide to kidnap that figure in question too, and that figure in question soon ends up being chained to a wall along with Laval, who is certainly not so amused to be stuck along with that dude.

Meanwhile, we get to know a bit more about Mijima and Albert. He met her at a local hospital where she has worked as one of its staff members, and she was quite willing to help him as observing how troubled he looked in grief and guilt after his daughter’s death. While she does not tell that much about her motive, Albert gladly accepted her help, and we observe how he comes to depend more on her – especially when both of their two captives claim that they did not kill his daughter.

The adapted screenplay by Kurosawa and his co-adapter Aurélien Ferenczi remains rather elusive about Mijima, who looks quite ready to go further than her accomplice but still does not reveal much on the surface. There are a few little private moments which show a bit more of the feelings and thoughts behind her phlegmatic façade, and there is also a subplot involved with a Japanese patient of hers. Nonetheless, she remains cold and distant as before, and we come to wonder more about her ulterior motive.

We become more uncomfortable as Albert and Mijima approach closer to whatever may lie at the end of their plan. That shady organization associated with their captives turns out to be much more horrendous than expected, and they also have to confront more bad guys on their way. In the end, there comes a climatic sequence where they face someone at the center of that organization, and then it turns out that Albert is no better than their captives from the very beginning.

However, the overall result of the remake version is relatively dissatisfying compared to the original version, which handles the story and characters more effectively and succinctly within its shorter running time (85 minutes). The remake version, which is around 30 minutes longer than the original version, somehow lags from time to time, and it also does not surpass that grim and disturbing quality of the original version even though mostly sticking close to the plot and characters of the original version. While the original version often distinguishes itself with the murky sense of anxiety behind its clinical attitude, the remake version feels rather flat and sterile with its slick texture and mood, and it also falters more than once during the finale, which is a bit too contrived due to some modification for a little surprise for us.

Anyway, it is a bit intriguing to see how Kurosawa shows some competence in a foreign territory. As a matter of fact, he already tried on French language film in “Daguerrotype” (2016), and, just like Hirokazu Kore-eda in “The Truth” (2019), he does not have much problem in handling his mostly French cast members. While being not so awkward in her French speaking, Ko Shibasaki gradually takes the center of the story as required, and Damien Bonnard is effective as the other crucial part of the story, and several other cast members including Mathieu Amalric, Grégoire Colin, and Slimane Dazi are also solid in their respective supporting parts.

In conclusion, “Serpent’s Path” is fairly watchable as Kurosawa tries a little variation experiment on one of this notable works, but I would rather recommend the original version instead. Nevertheless, with this film and two other films “Chime” (2024) and “Cloud” (2024), Kurosawa had a very productive year in 2024, and he already made his next film “The Samurai and the Prisoner” (2026), which was incidentally shown at the Cannes Film Festival early in this year and will probably be shown here several months later. I am certainly looking forward to watching that new film of his, and I sincerely hope that I will be more interested and engaged.

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Serpent’s Path (1998) ☆☆☆(3/4): A darkly twisty revenge thriller

Posted on July 27, 2026 by kaist455

Kiyoshi Kurosawa’s 1998 film “Serpent’s Path”, which happened to be released in South Korean theaters in last week, is darkly twisty and compelling as gradually revealing its disturbing big picture of remorselessly cold-blooded revenge. At first, the situation surrounding its two different main characters looks rather simple on the surface, but then we slowly begin to sense something more than that, and then we get quite chilled by how coldly and mercilessly the movie delivers its inevitable finale. 

When we are introduced to Nijima (Show Aikawa) and Miyashita (Teruyuki Kagawa) during the opening scene of the film, these two main characters are about to embark on something quite criminal. They are going to kidnap a certain person targeted by them, and we soon see them taking this figure into an empty abandoned factory after their successful kidnapping. 

As Nijima and Miyashita torment their captive in one way or another, we slowly gather a personal motive behind their criminal plan. Some time ago, Miyashita’s little young daughter was horrendously murdered by someone associated with a local criminal organization, and Miyashita, who turns out to have been connected with that criminal organization, believes that their captive killed his dear daughter’s death as a punishment for him. 

It seems that all Miyashita and Nijima will have to do is extracting any kind of confession from their captive, but, not so surprisingly, the story soon takes an unexpected turn as their captive desperately claims that some other member of that criminal organization is actually the killer of Miyashita’s daughter. Although they do not trust much of what their captive said, Nijima and Miyashita eventually decide to kidnap that other guy too, and that surely makes their situation all the more complicated than before.

While Miyashita understandably becomes more nervous and agitated than before, Nijima does not seem daunted at all by their increasingly messy circumstance, and we are not so surprised when he later turns out to be a high-level mathematics teacher. Constantly calm and phlegmatic, he methodically observes and then handles the ongoing situation of him and Miyashita just like he does on those complex mathematic problems in his class, and Miyashita naturally depends more and more on his rather elusive but undeniably dependable accomplice. After all, he simply wants the revenge for his dead daughter by any means necessary, and he is sincerely grateful to the considerable help and assistance from Nijima, who seems only interested in whether he and Miyashita can actually succeed in their criminal plan.    

Meanwhile, the plot thickens a bit more during the second half of the film as Nijima and Miyashita get themselves into more complication along the story. Needless to say, the members of that criminal organization begin to realize that they have a very serious trouble to be handled sooner or later, and one of them is particularly ruthless even though being mostly silent throughout the film.

Just like many of Kurosawa’s films such as “The Cure” (1997), there are several shocking moments of violence in the film, and many of them are clinically presented on the screen with a wry sense of dark humor. While we get some nasty laugh whenever things do not go that well for Nijima and Miyashita, we often wince more than once as observing more of their remorseless violence against their targets and opponents, and we become all the more uncomfortable as the movie continues to stick to its distant attitude – even during the climactic sequence which is incidentally filled with a lot of chaos and mayhem.

Curiously, the movie remains cold and distant to Miyashita’s psychological struggle along the story. Sure, he is really angry and devastated about his personal tragedy, but he is actually no better than those several figures targeted by him and Nijima, and you will agree that he richly deserves what he gets in the end. I will not go into detail here on that, but I can tell you instead that what happens around the end of the story can be regarded as a chilling case of poetic justice and revenge, and the following ending will probably make you re-examine the rest of the film. Is it possible that Miyashita has already been condemned to a sort of perpetual personal hell?

The main cast members of the film are effective in their respective parts. Show Aikawa and Teruyuki Kagawa ably complement each other with their contrasting acting methods, and I particularly enjoyed how Aikawa’s low-key performance functions as the hidden heart of darkness later in the story. Yûrei Yanagi, Shirō Shimomoto, Kaiei Okina, and Kaoru Sunada have each own moment along the story, and young performer Hana Sato, who plays Nijima’s little but prodigious young student, holds her own small place well during a few key scenes of hers in the movie. 

On the whole, “Serpent’s Path” is as unnerving and interesting as you can expect from its director, who incidentally directed the remake version of his movie a few years ago. I have not watched the remake version yet, but, considering that he was quite productive as making not only the remake version but also two other works “Chime” (2024) and “Cloud” (2024) in the same year, I surely have some expectation on the remake version, and I will soon duly report on whether it is as good as the original version.

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The Fin (2025) ☆☆☆(3/4): An odd and strange South Korean dystopian film

Posted on July 27, 2026 by kaist455

I could not help but become mesmerized more and more by the dystopian world of South Korean independent film “The Fin”. Although I found its supposedly futuristic background a little outrageous at times, the movie is filled with a considerable amount of vivid mood and detail from the beginning to the end, and I gladly went along with that even though I often observed its story and characters from the distance.

During the first half of the film, we gradually get to know a bit about its dystopian background. Although South and North Korea were unified some years ago, things have become quite bad for everyone in the unified Korea due to some serious environment disaster. While the land is almost completely blocked from the polluted surrounding sea by the massive wall, mutant humans called “Omegas” are forced to clean the beach beyond the wall, and, not so surprisingly, these people are also forbidden to go over the wall.

At first, the story follows Sujin (Kim Pu-reum), a young civil servant tasked with supervising several Omegas working in her assigned area. At one point early in the film, we see her attending a lecture on Omegas along with many other civil servants, and we get to know a bit about how much Omegas are different from “normal” humans. For example, their feet are quite different from normal human feet, and they also have a small “fin” on their back besides being capable of making sounds which can be harmful to normal humans.

On one day, Sujin and her colleagues handle the dead body of one recently diseased Omega, and then she notices that one of the other Omegas under their supervision is disappeared. It soon turns out that this Omega escapes beyond the wall without being noticed by anyone, and we gradually gather that he is looking for someone living beyond the wall.

That person in question is Mi-ah (Yeon Ye-ji), a young woman working at a small indoor fishing center. On the surface, she looks like one of numerous plain citizens going through their shabby daily life day by day in their grim neighborhood, but, of course, she is actually one of those Omegas illegally residing beyond the wall. While she is certainly careful about hiding who she really is, she has a few local people willing to help her in one way or another, and there is a little poignant scene between her and a generous old shoemaker who willingly provides her a little prosthetic for hiding a certain noticeable physical part of hers.

Meanwhile, we also get to know a bit about how things are also miserable for Sujin. She has lived with a close family member who is mentally unstable, and it is apparent to us that she has been quite exhausted as struggling to support herself as well as that close family members of hers, who is usually stuck in her own world without showing much care or attention to Su-jin.

It is not much of a spoiler to tell you that the two narrative lines of the movie eventually converge at a later point of the story. Not along after his arrival at Mi-ah’s workplace, the aforementioned Omega is tracked down and then arrested by Su-jin and her several colleagues, and Su-jin begins to wonder about why their arrested Omega came there. In the end, she comes to pay more attention to Mi-ah, and the mood becomes a bit tense as Su-jin spies more on Mi-ah.

Without hurrying itself at all, the movie takes its time as before, and you will come to admire more of its indelible mood and details. Needless to say, the production design of the film is fairly modest due to its small budget, but it is still quite impressive as constantly imbued with an ample amount of style and atmosphere. As a matter of fact, these locations in the movie feel so palpably real on the screen that I became all the more curious about how director/writer Park Sye-young, who also served as the co-producer/co-editor/cinematographer of the film, and his crew found and then utilized several locations shown in the film. Trust me, you will instantly believe that the characters are really living and struggling in its modestly futuristic background, which often looks like the gloomy cross between all the worst sides from both South and North Korea.

And you will be also impressed by a number of small but precious moments of visual beauty along the story. For instance, movie often makes its main locations look alien and strange via moody and desaturated color tones, and that makes an interesting visual contrast to several unexpected dreamy colorful moments presented later in the story. As the camera closely focuses on the faces of its several main cast members at times, the movie somehow establishes a bit of emotional ground for its story and characters, and Yeon Ye-Ji and Kim Pu-reum deserve to be commended for ably filling their respective broad roles with enough sense of life.

Overall, “The Fin” is another distinctive work from Park, who previously made a feature film debut with “The Fifth Thoracic Vertebra” (2022). Although I struggled a bit to follow what and how it is about, I admired the bold and fresh cinematic style of “The Fifth Thoracic Vertebra” nonetheless, and I did not hesitate to choose it as one of the best South Korean films of 2023. With “The Fin”, Park surely makes more advance in his promising filmmaking career, and we can all agree that he is one of the most interesting new South Korean filmmakers at this point.

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