Ryuichi Sakamoto: Diaries (2025) ☆☆☆(3/4): His last few years

Posted on April 4, 2026 by kaist455

Documentary film “Ryuichi Sakamoto: Dairies” presents the last few years of Ryuichi Sakamoto, a prominent Japanese composer/musician who died on March 28th, 2023. Considering the two other recent documentaries “Ryuichi Sakamoto: Coda” (2017) and “Ryuichi Sakamoto: Opus” (2023), the documentary feels rather redundant at times, but it is at least poignant to observe how Sakamoto tried to go on for his life and art before his inevitable death.

The early part of the documentary shows Sakamoto beginning his little personal project in his residence in New York City early in 2020. He simply had a big piano placed on the porch outside his residence, and he was going to observe and record how it would “return” to nature as being deliberately left unkept during next several years.

However, not long after the beginning of this personal project of his, there came a bad news. Sakamoto had throat cancer in 2014, and he supposedly recovered from that, but the cancer returned in a more aggressive form. He was notified that he did not have many years to live even under the best situation, and he naturally became conflicted about whether he really should try his best for living a bit longer. In the end, he decided to go through a series of difficult medical treatments because he still wanted to live and do more before his time eventually came.

Sakamoto’s personal feelings and thoughts are succinctly conveyed to us via the excerpts from his personal dairies, which are read by Tanaka Min in the documentary. While he tried to be optimistic about his following medical treatments, he also could not help but have doubt and anxiety as his physical condition got gradually deteriorated, and a number of his personal video clips show us how he looked more ill as time went by.

Nevertheless, his artistic spirit was not deterred at all. We see him closely working with the members of the Tohoku Youth Orchestra, and we also observe him working on what was supposed to be his last work before his death. Although this was unfortunately left unfinished after his death, the documentary presents a bit of this unfinished work of his, and we can only imagine how he could have done more from that.

The most poignant moment in the documentary actually overlaps a bit with “Ryuichi Sakamoto: Coda”. In 2022, Sakamoto decided to record his piano solo performance of a number of his notable works such as the main theme for Nagisa Ōshima’s 1983 film “Merry Christmas, Mr. Lawrence”, and “Ryuichi Sakamoto: Coda” elegantly and poignantly presents his piano solo performance with a lot of care and respect.

The documentary shows us a bit of how Sakamoto and those technicians around him prepared for this recording project, and then we see his performance of the main theme for Bernardo Bertolucci’s “The Sheltering Sky” (1990). I must say that I have not seen that film yet, but Sakamoto’s main theme sounds fairly gorgeous as before, and I guess I will soon have to check out that film for checking on how much his score actually works on the screen.

While he had a bit more joy and pleasure from his last artistic activities, Sakamoto’s medical condition got worse and worse, and there finally came a point when he had to prepare more for his impending death. At one point later in the documentary, he went back to his residence in New York City, and he observed that there were still a lot of stuffs left in his residence – including that unkempt piano which remained to be decayed at the porch.

Around early 2023, Sakamoto was taken to a hospital as his medical condition got far worse than usual, but he still tried to keep going nonetheless. A few days before his eventual death, he watched another performance of the Tohoku Youth Orchestra from his hospital bed, and we see how much he was moved by that. He also spent what would be his last family time with his four children (One of them is Neo Sora, who is incidentally the director of “Ryuichi Sakamoto: Opus”, by the way), and each of them reminisces a bit about their respective last times with their dear father.

While being quite sincere and respectful on the whole, the documentary is not wholly without weak aspects. Its narrative structure is a bit scattershot without delving that much into several notable things in Sakamoto’s life and artistic career including his anti-nuclear activities in Japan after the Fukushima accident in 2011, but I guess director Kensho Omori did not feel much need to do that because “Ryuichi Sakamoto: Coda” and “Ryuichi Sakamoto: Opus” already did most of that job.

In conclusion, “Ryuichi Sakamoto: Dairies” is relatively less impressive than those two recent documentaries about Sakamoto, but it is still worthwhile to watch for those intimate personal moments from his last few years. He is not with us anymore, but his works continue to be admired and cherished as usual, and maybe you want to check out some of his works after watching this modest but solid documentary.

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Christy (2025) ☆☆1/2(2.5/4): One messy real-life female boxer

Posted on April 3, 2026 by kaist455

What a messy life Christy Salters had before being true to herself. As trying to distinguish herself as a female professional boxer, she also tried to distance herself from her homosexuality, and then she only ended up being stuck with a toxic relationship for many years, though she was really fortunate considering how that could have costed her life.  

David Michôd’s latest film “Christy” attempts to present many ups and downs during several decades of Salter’s life and professional boxing career, but the overall result is rather disappointing for me. While there are some strong moments mainly thanks to its lead actress’ considerable commitment, these good moments are often undermined by a number of weak aspects including its uneven storytelling and weak characterization, and I was distracted more than once during my viewing.

Salters is played here by Sydney Sweeney, who has been more prominent since her Emmy-nominated supporting turn in HBO TV series “Euphoria”. I must confess that I became more aware of her only after watching “Immaculate” (2024) and “The Housemaid” (2025), but I can tell you at least that she has enough talent and presence on the whole, and her solid performance diligently carries the movie to the end.

The early part of the film is about how Salters began her professional boxing career in 1989. While she played for her high school basketball team in her hometown in West Virginia, she came to show more potential as a female boxer instead as shown from the opening scene, and this came to draw the attention from a promoter in Tennessee. While she hesitates at first, she eventually accepts this promoter’s proposal because she needs the money to gain more independence from her conservative parents, who are not so pleased about what has been going on between her and a certain close friend of hers.

This promoter in question subsequently introduces Salters to a coach named James V. Martin (Ben Foster). Although her first meeting with Martin is not that agreeable to say the least, Salters decides to prove herself more after being persuaded by her mother. Once she demonstrates her skill and pluck, Martin agrees to be her coach, and then he gets more involved with Salters mainly due to her ongoing sexual confusion.

In the end, Salters marries Martin, and he seems to give her everything he promised to her. Besides providing her a supposedly stable domestic life, he also gets her a number of good opportunities to advance her professional boxing career, and she does not disappoint him at all as becoming an almost undefeated athlete in her field during next several years. 

However, Martin also becomes quite abusive to Salters in one way or another, and this virulent tendency of his becomes all the worse when things do not go that well for both of them after she gets defeated by Laila Ali in 2003. He is willing to do anything for keeping Salters around him as long as possible, and we accordingly get several uncomfortable moments as Salters lets herself abused more by Martin.

Needless to say, Salters struggles to reach for any kind of help, but she only gets more frustrated and despaired instead. At one point, she confides to her mother on what she has to endure everyday due to Martin, but her mother, who has always disapproved of her daughter’s homosexuality, simply refuses to listen to her at all.

Fortunately, there comes unexpected support from Lisa Holewyne (Katy O’Brian), who was incidentally one of many adversaries in Salters’ professional boxing careers. Thanks to Holewyne’s positive influence, Salters eventually finds the determination for walking away from Martin once for all, though that turns out to be much more difficult than expected.

The screenplay by Michôd and his co-writer Mirrah Foulkes, which is based on the story by Katherine Fugate, comes to lose its narrative momentum around that point, and we become more aware of its rote plot and superficial characters, but Sweeney’s committed acting continues to hold our attention. Besides looking convincing during those mandatory boxing scenes, she also embodies well her character’s many messy emotional issues, and it is a shame that her good efforts are not served well by the movie itself.

In case of several notable main cast members around Sweeney, most of them are under-utilized due to their thankless supporting roles. Ben Foster, who has been one of the most dependable character actors working in Hollywood for many years, is merely required to look sleazy or menacing during most of his scenes, and Ethan Embry and Merritt Wever are limited by their thin characters from the very beginning. Katy O’Brian, who recently drew our attention thanks to her breakout turn in “Love Lies Bleeding” (2024), manages to bring some warmth to her few key scenes with Sweeney, and Chad L. Coleman, whom some of you remember for his memorable supporting turn in HBO TV series “The Wire”, briefly steals the show as that well-known real-life boxing promoter.   

In conclusion, “Christy” throws some strong jabs, but it is not good enough for recommendation. Needless to say, it can automatically be compared to Oscar-winning film “Million Dollar Baby” (2004), but it does not have the considerable emotional depth shown from that sublime sports drama film, and it is also considerably deficient compared to “Catch the Fair One” (2021) or “The Fire Inside” (2024). Although it is not a total waste of time, I still think you will have a better time with any of these three other movies.

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Mike & Nick & Nick & Alice (2026) ☆☆☆(3/4): A bumpy night for all of them…

Posted on March 31, 2026 by kaist455

“Mike & Nick & Nick & Alice”, which was released on Disney+ in South Korea on last Friday, is a fairly entertaining mix of comedy, action, and a bit of time travel. While its science fiction element turns out to be a mere story premise to my little disappointment, the movie compensates for that weak aspect with a number of good moments to amuse or excite you, and I will not deny that I chuckled more than once during my viewing.

At the beginning, we are introduced to several main characters in the story one by one. Nick (Vince Vaughan) is a member of some powerful criminal organization, and we see him and his wife Alice (Eiza González) attending a party celebrating the recent release of Jimmy Boy (Jimmy Tatro), who is the only son of Nick’s boss and was incarcerated in prison during last several years. It is apparent to us right from the beginning that there is not much affection between Nick and his wife, and we also sense that something is going on between Alice and Quick Draw Mike (James Marsden), who is incidentally a close colleague of Nick.

Not so surprisingly, it eventually turns out that Alice and Mike have been deeply involved with each other for a while, but then there comes a very unexpected surprise. Nick suddenly appears when Mike is waiting for his rendezvous with Alice, and, what do you know, it is eventually revealed that this Nick is not actually that Nick whom Mike and Alice saw at that party. This Nick is actually from 6 months later, and he comes for preventing something bad for not only himself but also Alice and Mike.

As already shown from the prologue part of the film, Future Nick uses a time machine which was incidentally made by an inventor friend of Alice, who borrowed a lot of money from Present Nick for financing this private science project of his. Unfortunately, Future Nick accidentally destroyed that time machine shortly after his arrival in the past, so there is only one chance for preventing what is going to happen sooner or later.

What Future Nick wants to prevent right now is this: the death of Mike. Their boss is very angry at whoever is responsible for his son’s six-year incarceration, and he becomes quite certain that Mike is the one who informed the police on his son. As a matter of fact, he already hired a certain notorious killer, and it is Present Nick’s job to deliver Mike to that killer in question.

While it does take some time for Mike and Alice to believe Future Nick, they and Future Nick eventually work together on persuading Present Nick to assist Future Nick’s plan, and that turns out to be a bit more difficult than expected due to the complicated situation among these four characters. For example, Present Nick and Future Nick do not trust each other that much, and the former still feels rather sour about Mike and Alice’s relationship, though he and Alice have stopped caring about each other for a while.

As the screenplay by director/writer BenDavid Grabinski, who previously made a feature film debut with “Happily” (2021), expectedly goes through several ups and downs along with its main characters, we are served with a series of humorous moments which inject more comic momentum into the story. Thanks to the game efforts from its three main cast members, many of the key scenes among their characters are presented with smooth and precise coming timing, and this is especially exemplified well by the increasingly ridiculous conversation scene in the middle of the story. Believe me, even if you have not watched a certain classic American TV comedy series (Full Disclosure: Neither have I), you will still get enough laughs from this wry comic moment.

During the last act, the movie shifts its gear onto action mode, and that is where it becomes less fun than before. At least, we get a well-executed action sequence which often shows some sense of humor amid lots of brutal physical actions. A certain frequent stylistic touch reminiscent of the works of Wong Kar-wai feels rather redundant, but this surely shows that Grabinski and his crew are willing to try anything for more fun and amusement.

The three main cast members of the film are solid as ably balancing their characters between humor and sincerity. Vince Vaughn deftly goes back and forth between his two roles with some subtle nuances to notice, and that is the main reason why the respective character arcs of his two characters work with some unexpected poignancy later in the story. Around Vaughn, James Marden and Eiza González have each own comic moment to shine, and we actually come to care about their characters more than expected.

In case of several other notable cast members, they bring some extra humor to the movie. While Keith David delightfully chews every moment of his as the jolly but ruthless criminal boss, Jimmy Tatro, Emily Hampshire, Arturo Castro, Lewis Tan, Ben Schwartz, and Stephen Root are well-cast in their respective supporting parts, and you will also be amused a little by a brief surprise appearance by a recognizable performer during one particular key scene. In addition, there is also a very cute little cat, and, if you like cats as much as I do, I sincerely recommend you to wait till the end credits are over.

On the whole, “Mike & Nick & Nick & Alice” is a typical genre mix which may not surprise you that much, but it is still an enjoyable genre exercise to be savored for several good reasons including the game efforts from the main cast members. It does not exceed my expectation, but it succeeds as much as intended, so I will not complain for now.

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The Rise of the Red Hot Chili Peppers: Our Brother, Hillel (2026) ☆☆☆(3/4): The early years of the Red Hot Chili Peppers

Posted on March 31, 2026 by kaist455

Netflix documentary “The Rise of the Red Hot Chilli Peppers: Our Brother, Hillel”, which was released a few weeks ago, focuses on the early years of the Red Hot Chili Peppers. Because I only know a bit about the Red Hot Chili Peppers, I wish the documentary could delve more into the long and bumpy career of the band, but its works as a sincere tribute to one of its key members at least. 

That key member of the band in question is Hillel Slovak (1962 –1988), and the early part of the documentary shows and tells us how he and his two bandmates Anthony Kiedis and Flea became close friends during the late 1970s in LA. As they frankly admit during their respective interviews, both Kiedis and Flea were your typical young and wild adolescent troublemakers during that time, and then they were drawn to music more when they saw a performance by Slovak and his modest rock band at their high school. Not long after that, they came across Slovak by sheer coincidence, and they and Slovak came to spend more time together after that accidental encounter.

Around the time when they all managed to graduate from their high school, these three young dudes aspired to earn their living as rock musicians, and Slovak came to help Kiedis and Flea to considerable degree. Slovak suggested that Flea should join his band as a new bassist, and, though he did not know much about how to play a bass from the beginning, Flea managed to rise to the occasion in the end, and that was one of the early career highlights for him, though he later left the band for a while to Slovak’s disappointment.

In case of Kiedis, he subsequently joined as the lyricist/singer for Flea and Slovak when Flea and Slovak came to work together again some time later, and, what do you know, he turned out to be a lot better than they expected. Once these three dudes clicked together on the stage, they all felt something special created among them, and this eventually led to the formation of the Red Hot Chili Peppers in 1982.

The band were luckily at the right time and the right place. Besides being influenced a lot by the flux of many different music genres including rock and hip hop during that time, the band was also boosted to a considerable degree by those music popular music videos on MTV, and they also received considerable influences from the bold and striking works of their performance artist friend Gary Allen, who encouraged them not to be afraid of expressing themselves more on the stage.

However, Slovak remained loyal to his old band, and both Flea and Kiedis understood that, but they all came to realize that their collaboration is the key to the success of the Red Hot Chili Peppers. While Flea and Kiedis were dissatisfied as trying to go on with their band without Slovak, Slovak also came to miss working with them, and he eventually returned to the band to his two close friends’ delight.

After that point, their band went up and up during next several years, but there was a big problem they had overlooked for years. They often abused drugs just for extra fun and excitement, and Kiedis and Slovak came to experience many bottoms of addiction. At one point, Kiedis became so drugged that he did not prepare at all when he came to a recording studio where others were waiting for him, and that was the first time when he realized that he did have a problem to deal with right now.

 While Kiedis subsequently began his difficult journey toward sobriety, Slovak thought he could get things under control, but, of course, that did not work well at all for others around him as well as himself. While His girlfriend started to notice more and more of his worsening addiction problem, his other band members also became more alarmed about what was happening to him, and there eventually came a very embarrassing moment when his addiction problem seriously jeopardized their band career.

Via a number of drawings and writings from Slovak during that time, the documentary lets us sense a bit of how much he was troubled by his addiction problem. He knew well what was eating him, but he kept struggling without any improvement, and he unfortunately died in 1988. His friends and family members were certainly devastated by his early death, and Flea and Kiedis cannot help but become emotional as remembering that sad moment of theirs. 

Both Kiedis and Flea tried to fill the empty spot left by their friend as much as possible, and, fortunately, they got a man talented enough to do the job. Although he soon came to see that he would never replace Slovak, John Frusciante did his best while also doing his own stuffs, and he remains active with Kiedis and Flea in the band even at his point.  

On the whole, “The Rise of the Red Hot Chili Peppers: Our Brother, Hillel”, directed by Ben Feldman, is no more than a standard musician documentary, but it handles its main subject with enough care and respect at least. Although it falters a bit during the last 10 minutes (Frusciante’s interview clips feel like an afterthought at the last minute, for example), the documentary entertained me in addition to informing me enough on its main subject, and I guess that is enough for recommendation.

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The Hand That Rocks the Cradle (2025) ☆☆1/2(2.5/4): A subpar remake with some interesting variations

Posted on March 30, 2026 by kaist455

“The Hand That Rocks the Cradle”, which is the remake of the 1992 film of the same name and currently available on Disney+ in South Korea, tries some interesting variations, but the result is uneven and superficial on the whole. Yes, this is also about one insidious nanny, and we surely get a number of creepy moments as expected, but the movie comes to stumble more than once due to plot contrivance and thin characterization.

The story begins with one accidental encounter between its two main characters. Caitlyn Morales (Mary Elizabeth Winstead) is a successful lawyer living in LA, and she happens to give some free legal advice to a young woman named Polly Murphy (Maika Monroe), who can be homeless at any point due to her greedy landlord. Not long after this meeting, Caitlyn, who has been pregnant during last several months, has to go to a hospital due to her imminent delivery, and we subsequently see her focusing on raising her baby daughter several months later.

However, Caitlyn cannot help but become exhausted and frustrated a lot with handling many other things besides raising her little daughter, so she and her husband Miguel (Raúl Castillo) begin to consider hiring a part-time nanny. Fortunately, Caitlyn comes across Polly again on one day, and Polly, who seems to be well-qualified for the job, gladly accepts Caitlyn’s offer because of her current poor economic status.

As Polly begins to work as a nanny for Caitlyn’s baby daughter, things seem to get much better for Caityln and her family during next several days. Both her husband and her first daughter Emma (Mileiah Vega, who did a good job of holding her own place around the story) are quite satisfied with Polly’s work, and it does not take much time for her to become another part of Caitlyn and her family’s life. In fact, Caitlyn eventually lets Polly stay in her house for getting the full-time service from her.

However, we already saw the trouble right from the beginning. While she is quite nice and courteous on the surface, we cannot help but sense something odd and creepy about Polly, and we are not so surprised as watching how she methodically insinuates herself into Caitlyn’s family. At one point, she deliberately violates one particular rule just for getting closer to Emma, and Emma does not mind this at all due to being rather tired of her mother’s frequent control over her.

And we become more aware of the gap of class and wealth between Polly and Caitlyn. It turns out that Polly had been living in her shabby car before moving into Caitlyn’s big and comfortable house, and we come to sense that she is jealous of Caitlyn’s luxurious domestic environment – especially when she quietly looks around here and there inside Caitlyn’s house without anyone around her except Caitlyn’s baby daughter.

Meanwhile, Caitlyn turns out to be much messier than her seemingly confident façade suggests. As reflected by her daily medication, she has struggled with some mental issues for years, and she also had a sort of mental breakdown not long after giving birth to Emma. She assures to her husband that she is all right in this time, but then she finds herself gradually agitated and neurotic for some unknown reason.

The screenplay by Micah Bloomberg later tries to inject more emotional complexity into the increasingly tense relationship between its two main characters, but it only ends up scratching the surface instead. We are intrigued a bit as observing some sexual tension between Caitlyn and Polly, but the movie eventually discards this interesting aspect without much consideration. While there is some surprise from the hidden past between Caitlyn and Polly, it feels quite artificial as the movie already fails to bring more depth and personality to its two main characters.

In addition, a number of substantial supporting characters around Caitlyn and Polly are more or less than plot elements to be manipulated, and it is disappointing to see good actors like Raúl Castillo and Martin Starr stuck in their thankless roles. In case of Starr, he has to handle a rather unconvincing scene where his character chooses to do an utterly unwise thing instead of immediately notifying what he has just discovered to Caitlyn, and that is just one of many clumsy moments of plot contrivance in the film.

At least, the two actresses at the center of the film try their best. While Mary Elizabeth Winstead is believable as her character gets cornered in one way or another along the story, Maika Monroe ably exudes a subtle aura of menace behind her seemingly benign appearance, and it is a shame that their good efforts are not served well by the movie.

Overall, “The Hand That Rocks the Cradle” does not surpass its senior at all despite its interesting variation attempts. It is one or two steps down from director Michelle Garza Cervera’s first feature film “Huesera: The Bone Woman” (2022), but she shows here that she can make a fairly competent mainstream genre product, and I can only hope that she will soon move onto better things to come.

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Time of Cinema (2025) ☆☆☆(3/4): Three little tales of cinema

Posted on March 29, 2026 by kaist455

South Korean film “Time of Cinema” presents three little tales associated with cinema in one way or another. While the level of achievement is different in each case, all of them have each own charm and strength as you can expect from three talented filmmakers behind them, and they will all make you reflect more on why many of us are often drawn to cinema.

At first, we are served with the opening sequence set in a certain well-known arthouse movie theater in Seoul, which functions as a key location for all of the three stories. We meet a middle-aged projectionist working there, and we closely observe how he works. Thanks to a digital projector, things seem to be more convenient for him, but, as he points out to his young successor, digital projectors also need to be checked as much as film projectors, and some of you may feel a bit nostalgic when he later uses an old film projector.

The first story, which is titled “Chimpanzee”, is directed by Lee Jong-pil, who also directed the opening and closing part of the film. This part opens with the screening of a small film based on an old memory of its director, and this fairly modest work revolves around three different young people, one of whom turns out to be a younger self of the director. As these young people roll from one humorous moment to another, Lee has some stylish fun as deliberately changing the screen ratio at times, and things get a bit more amusing as the narrative structure of the story becomes a little more complex than expected.

I think “Chimpanzee” is the least engaging one of the trio, but it still holds our attention thanks to its three likable leading performers. Wonstein, Lee Soo-kyung, and Hong Xa-bin are effortless in their playful interactions throughout this part, and Kim Dae-myung, who plays the director, provides a bit of extra amusement later. In addition, you will certainly smile in the end because of the rough but earnest homage to Jean-Luc Godard’s “Band of Outsiders” (1964).

The second story, which is simply titled “Naturally”, is directed by Yoon Ga-eun, who has steadily impressed us since her first feature film “The World of Us” (2016). At first, it looks like the movie is simply watching a bunch of young girls having a good time together in their neighborhood, but, what do you know, they soon turn out to be actually performing in front of their director and a small group of film crew.

The main source of fun and humor during this part is how the director, played by Go Ah-sung, instructs and encourages her child performers. As reflected by the very title of the story, she simply wants to make their acting look as naturally as possible in front of her camera. Fortunately for her young performers as well as her crew members, she does know how to draw what she exactly wants from her young performers, all of whom are quite game under her warm and considerate direction.

Considering how Yoon has drawn excellent performances from many child performers in “The World of Us” and several other works, you may wonder about how much “Naturally” overlaps with how she actually worked with her child performers on the set. To be frank with you, I have no idea at all, but I somehow sensed that Yoon is willing to show us a bit of her filmmaking process, and I appreciated that more as observing by the very last shot of this part. Now I am reminded of what François Truffaut once said: “The most beautiful thing I have ever seen in a movie theatre is to go down to the front and turn around, and look at all the uplifted faces, the light from the screen reflected upon them.”

The third story, which is titled “Time of the Movie”, is directed by Jang Kun-jae, who has been mainly known for “Sleepless Night” (2012) and “A Midsummer’s Fantasia” (2014). At the start of this story, we are introduced to several different employees of the aforementioned movie theater, and then one of them, who is incidentally a cleaning lady, happens to encounter an old schoolmate of hers. Because they have not met each other for years, the mood between them is rather awkward, but the cleaning lady is still glad to meet her friend again, and then she gives her friend a free movie ticket.

What follows next is not so easy to describe. After walking into the screening room, the cleaning lady’s friend soon gets asleep, and then we are served with a brief free-flowing meditation on cinema as a sort of dream machine. Although nothing seems to happen to the cleaning lady’s friend during the screening, something in the film somehow touches upon those old memories inside her mind, and then we arrive at the faintly optimistic last scene between her and her friend. While Yang Mal-bok and Jang Hye-jin are convincing in their key moments, Kwon Hae-hyo and Kim Yeon-kyo fill their respective small spots around the story, and Kim has a little funny scene involved with a young man too late for the screening of a movie he really wants to watch right now.

On the whole, “Time of Cinema” is a solid omnibus movie, and I enjoyed its three stories to various degrees. Although I will instantly put “Naturally” above the two other parts if I have to choose, both “Chimpanzee” and “Time of the Cinema” also have each own good moments to be savored, and all of them are certainly worthwhile to watch for any cinephiles out there.

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Oh, Valentine (2025) ☆1/2(1.5/4): Messy and distracting from the beginning to the end

Posted on March 29, 2026 by kaist455

Some bad documentaries simply bore me, but South Korean independent documentary “Oh, Valentine” is alternatively excruciating and frustrating for many regrettable reasons. While its main subject itself is fairly interesting, the utterly clumsy presentation of its main subject is disastrously distracting in my trivial opinion, and I must tell you that this is one of the rare cases which made me check out the remaining running time almost every 10 minutes.

The main subject of the documentary is the democratic labor union movement in South Korea during the early 2000s, and it begins with the tragic death of a subcontracted worker named Park Il-su on February 14th, 2004. After getting so despaired and frustrated with the harsh status of his labor environment, Park eventually committed suicide on that day, and Cho Seong-woong, who was one of Parks’s close colleagues and is incidentally one of the two interviewees of the documentary, reminisces about how difficult things were for them and many other subcontracted workers. Unlike those workers under contract, most of those subcontracted workers did not have much of labor rights from the very beginning, and I must tell you that this unfair trend is being continued in the South Korean labor market even at this point in the name of efficiency and, yes, profit.

As Cho talks more about all the disappointment and disillusionment he and many other subcontracted workers experienced during their desperate labor movement at that time, the documentary often shows a bunch of various archival photographs and footage clips, but how it presents these archival materials along with Cho’s interview is very disorienting to say the least. Director Hong Jin-hown frequently uses split screen for presenting these two different elements together on the screen of 2.35 ratio, and the result may look cool and interesting for a while, but it only comes to disorient us more instead of engaging us more. Whenever we try to focus more on the words from Cho, our eyes are often distracted by whatever is shown right next to his interview clip, and that is not a pleasant experience at all.

This split screen approach could actually work during several scenes where Cho’s interview clip is accompanied with the archival footage materials showing him and others during that time, but the documentary utterly fails in its juxtaposition of words and images. It never seems to know how to generate a coherent narrative from that, and we are just left with messy and confusing impressions in the end.

Moreover, I was often distracted a lot by the relentlessly blatant score of the documentary. I guess it tries to inject more tension into its narrative, but it is very overbearing instead as frequently overshadowing what we are supposed to listen to. At one point later in the documentary, several labor movement songs are overlapped with each other just for emphasizing many different voices of labor movement, but this cacophonous mix of sounds only adds more disorientation without any sense of insight or enlightenment.

By the way, the other interviewee of the documentary is a musician named Woo Chang-soo. As a guy who wrote several labor movement songs during that time, he does also have a number of things to talk about, but I am not so sure about whether his part in the documentary is really necessary. From time to time, we see him performing some of his original songs in public, but that does not help us much in getting to know him more. He also talks about the democratization movement in Myanmar at times, but, folks, this feels rather unnecessary in addition to not serving the documentary much on the whole.

In case of Cho, the documentary does not show much of his life or personality either. Needless to say, he is admirable for carrying his hardcore left-wing belief for many years, but, unfortunately, the documentary often lets him down in its scattershot presentation of his life and political activity. When he talks about how those guys supposed to lead and supervise their labor movement let themselves compromised and corrupted, this moment simply moves from one thing after another without much sense of direction, and I was especially disappointed with how the documentary merely passes by a chance to focus on the struggles of the female participants in the labor movement at that time.

Above all, we also never get to know enough about Park. Yes, this man deserves to be known more along with many other South Korean laborers sincerely and passionately fighting for their lives and labor rights during last several decades, but he is only presented as a distant figure to be remembered by the two interviewees of the documentary. We only come to learn that he was a failed musician who later became a subcontracted worker for supporting his family, and the documentary does not provide any other particular personal moment which can give us more glimpse on his life and humanity.

In conclusion, “Oh, Valentine”, whose title incidentally comes from one of those labor movement songs written by Woo, is certainly well-intentioned, but it may be remembered as one of the worst movie theater experiences I had during this year. I was ready to learn and then get enlightened a bit more about the history of the South Korean labor movement, but I only found myself miserably enduring numerous glaring flaws of this very disappointing documentary during its 92-minute running time, and now my mind is reminded of a number of other similar South Korean documentaries I saw during last several years. I really want to recommend “1980 Sabuk” (2025) right now, and, believe me, you will have a much more compelling and enlightening time with it.

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Roofman (2025) ☆☆1/2(2.5/4): The story of a nice bad man

Posted on March 27, 2026 by kaist455

Jeffrey Manchester is someone who can be described as a “nice bad man”. While he was a pretty resourceful armed robber who robbed a bunch of franchise stores without much remorse, he was also actually quite nice and considerate to those unfortunate people held at his gunpoint. As a matter of fact, everyone who ever encountered him does not say anything bad about him, even though they probably all agree that he deserves his eventual prison sentence.

His absurd real-life story is certainly a rich comedy material, but I don’t think Derek Cianfrance’s latest film “Roofman” succeeds in its rather mild mix of comedy and drama. As a drama, it does not have much depth in terms of storytelling and characterization, and we only come to observe it from the distance with some amusement. As a comedy, it is occasionally funny mainly thanks to the natural charm of its leading actor, but its attempts on absurdity are often dulled by several weak aspects including its leisurely narrative pacing.

The early part of “Roofman” succinctly establishes how Manchester, played by Channing Tatum, begins his criminal career in 1998. When he needs some money for buying a real nice birthday gift for his dear daughter currently living with his ex-wife, he decides to rob a local McDonald’s fast food restaurant, and, what do you know, he turns out to have all the right stuffs for being an armed robber. As a former US Army non-commissioned officer, he has a particular set of skills including a very keen ability of observation, and these skills certainly help his following criminal spree a lot, which incidentally earns him that silly nickname from his usual method of breaking and entering.

Needless to say, there comes an inevitable point where he is arrested by the local police after robbing around 40 fast food restaurants, but Manchester is not so daunted even when he gets sentenced to 45-year imprisonment. While keeping himself on the line in the prison, he slowly and carefully plans an escape just because he wants to see his daughter again, and the movie has some fun with how he prepares for his wily escape plan step by step without any suspicion from others.

While he succeeds in escaping from the prison in the end, Manchester soon comes to see that approaching to his daughter or his ex-wife is not a wise thing to do to say the least. He decides to evade the following police search for a while before finding a possible way to get out of the country, and he comes upon a fairy suitable place for his hiding: a local Toys “R” Us store.

The screenplay by Cianfrance and his co-writer Kirt Gunn works best when its hero comes to show more resourcefulness as beginning to live inside this local toy store without being noticed by anyone. At first, he just hides above the ceiling, but then he discovers a hidden space in the middle of the story, which becomes his secret shelter. While he has to be very careful about those security cameras, he soon finds a way to turn off their recording mode, and he even sets up his own little security cameras for his own safety.

Meanwhile, Manchester begins to pay attention to Leigh Wainscott (Kirsten Dunst), one of those store employees who is also a single mother with two daughters. As watching how she struggles to balance herself between work and raising her daughters, Manchester comes to care about her, and then he eventually approaches to her as “John Zorn”, a supposedly new neighbor who happens to attend a nearby church associated with her. Although he does not say much about himself or his job, it does not take much time for him to charm her, and he soon gets more involved with not only her but also her two daughters.

There are several humorous moments including the one when Manchester comes to have a very pleasant meeting with Wainscott and several other female churchgoers, but the story is often hampered by its uneven mix of comedy and drama. When things expectedly become more serious during the last act, the movie comes to lose its remaining comic momentum, and the following dramatic moments feel contrived without enough gravitas in advance.

Furthermore, the movie somehow lacks the chemistry between Tatum and his co-star. While Kirsten Dunst is certainly a talented actress, she and Tatum seem to be on autopilot without generating much sense of mutual attraction, and her efforts are often undermined by her under-developed character. In case of Tatum, he ably wields his natural comic talent at times, but he is also frequently limited by the weak screenplay just like he was in “Fly Me to the Moon” (2024).

I am also quite dissatisfied with how many recognizable performers in the film are wasted in one way or another. LaKeith Stanfield, Juno Temple, Peter Dinklage, Ben Mendelsohn, Uzo Aduba, Emory Cohen, and Tony Revolori are just demanded to fill their respective spots around Tatum and Dunst, and Dinklage, who usually steals the show in many movies during last several years, is particularly under-utilized as Wainscott’s cranky boss.

On the whole, “Roofman” is not entirely humorless, but it is not entertaining enough for me to recommend it. I appreciate that Cianfrance goes for something lighter after making “Blue Valetine” (2010) and “The Light Between Oceans” (2016), but he stumbles a bit too much here, and I still think it could be funnier and edgier in many aspects. Yes, Manchester is indeed an interesting guy with a pathologic criminal tendency, and this dude’s truly preposterous real-life story deserves something better than this in my inconsequential opinion.

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Blink Twice (2024) ☆☆1/2(2.5/4): Aren’t they having a fun?

Posted on March 26, 2026 by kaist455

There are a number of truly disturbing moments in Zoë Kravitz’s 2024 feature debut film “Blink Twice”, but I am not so sure about whether they work as well as intended. I understand that the movie attempts to explore toxic masculinity and female exploitation via its increasingly nasty thriller plot, but it stumbles more than once due to its superficial narrative and weak characterization, and I was left with mixed feelings even though I admire some good efforts shown from the screen.

Naomi Ackie, a promising young British actress who has been more notable thanks to her recent supporting roles in Bong Joon-ho’s “Mickey 17” (2025) and Eva Victor’s “Sorry, Baby” (2025), plays Frida, a young nail artist who also works as a cocktail waitress. For some unspecified reason, she has been quite obsessed with a famous billionaire teach mogul named Slater King (Channing Tatum), and we soon see how she and her best friend Jess (Alia Shawkat) try to approach to this wealthy dude at an exclusive gala via a bit of disguise.

To their surprise, not long after the accidental encounter between them and him, Slater willingly invites them to a little remote private island he has owned for years, and both Frida and Jess cannot possibly be more excited about this unbelievable big opportunity. Along with several other guests and Slater, they go to that island by a private jet of his, and they and the others begin to have some luxurious fun together at a big manor located in the middle of his island.

Of course, it does not take much time for Frida to notice odd things here and there as she and the others casually go through one supposedly fun day after another. For example, her sense of time becomes increasingly blurry as she and the others frequently drink or have some drug day by day, and she cannot often remember whatever happened after their dinner time. In addition, there is also something weird about those local employees working in the manor, and one of them disturbs Frida a bit as repeatedly saying something which seems to touch somewhere in her mind.

As Frida becomes more unnerved about whatever may be happening around her, Slater naturally begins to look all the more sinister than before. He remains charming and charismatic as before, but, as shown from the very beginning of the story, he recently had to resign from the CEO position of his influential technology company due to some public scandal involved with abuse. He subsequently made a public statement of apology, and he claimed that he is trying to be a better person through some personal therapy, but we cannot help but have more doubt on his fairly generous attitude to his guests – especially when he asks others whether they are really having a fun.

It is not much of a spoiler to tell you that everything on the island is not what they seem to be on the surface, and the screenplay by Kravitz and her co-writer E,T. Feigenbaum expectedly gets darker as its heroine comes to face the hidden sides of Slater’s island. All the more horrified than before, she tries to escape from this horrible situation of hers, but there is not much chance for help out there and the mood naturally becomes more tense as she desperately struggles more for any opportunity for escape.

However, the screenplay does not bring much depth to the story and characters from the very beginning. Not only its heroine but also many other main characters are more or less than plot elements to move from one narrative point to another, and that is the main reason why a sudden moment of revelation during the last act is not so impactful as intended. In addition, Slater’s male guests, who turn out to be much more unpleasant than expected, are just annoying cardboard stereotypes, and they merely exemplify how lousy men can be as drunken with their toxic masculinity.

Nevertheless, Ackie’s diligent efforts keep things rolling at least. While her character looks rather pathetic at first, Ackie’s strong acting holds our attention to the end, and it is a shame that her good performance is not supported that well by the movie itself. Anyway, she has already moved onto the next step of her advancing career as shown from the two aforementioned films, and I am glad for that.

On the opposite, Channing Tatum, who also participated in the production along with Kravitz, demonstrates more of his rather underrated acting range. While he can be very funny as shown from several notable comedy films such as Steven Soderbergh’s “Logan Lucky” (2017), Tatum also can be surprisingly serious as shown from Bennett Miller’s “Foxcatcher” (2014), and he deftly swings back and forth between charm and menace without any misstep during his several key scenes in the film.

In case of several notable main cast members of the movie, they are unfortunately under-utilized to my big disappointment. While Simon Rex, Christian Slater, Haley Joel Osment, and Kyle MacLachlan are simply required to fill their respective spots, Alia Shawkat, Adria Arjona, and Geena Davis are totally wasted due to their shallow supporting roles, and Davis is especially disappointing as being rather strained in her deliberate overacting.

In conclusion, “Blink Twice” tries to tackle several themes and subjects surely resonant with the #MeToo era, but its overall result often feels uneven and dissatisfying in my humble opinion. At least, considering some good elements including the admirable efforts from Ackie and Tatum, it is not a total dud, and I can only hope that Kravits will show more improvement in whatever she is going to direct next in the future.

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Rouge (1987) ☆☆☆(3/4): A ghost looking for her old love

Posted on March 26, 2026 by kaist455

Stanley Kwan’s 1987 film “Rouge”, whose 4K remastered version was released in South Korean theaters yesterday, is a haunting melodrama about a ghost looking for her old love in the past. As following the desperate situation of this sad ghost along with her two unexpected companions, the movie comes to us as a modest but touching tale about love, loss, and memory, and we are moved more as it eventually culminates to a powerful moment of acceptance and resignation.

At first, the movie seems to be about the star-crossed romance between one courtesan and a wealthy playboy in Hong Kong during the 1930s. When Chan Chen-pang (Leslie Cheung) meets her for the first time in her brothel, Fleur (Anita Mui) instantly draws his attention with her lovely singing, and she soon becomes more special to him than any other courtesan around him. As they spend more time with each other with the growing mutual affection between them, he seriously considers marrying her someday, and she encourages him to become more interested in becoming an actor.

To our little surprise, the movie soon moves forward to 1987, and we come to gather that things did not go well for Fleur and her lover in the end. Her ghost suddenly appears in front of a plain newspaper employee named Yuen (Alex Man), and he is certainly flabbergasted by her odd request. She just wants to put an advertisement on the newspaper for locating her lover, but it does not take much for Yuen to realize that she is actually a ghost. 

While understandably quite frightened at first, Yuen eventually lets Fleur into his residence. When he subsequently notifies this to his girlfriend Shu-Hsien (Irene Wan), she is not so amused to say the least, but then she comes to find that Fleur is indeed a ghost, and she also comes to have some pity on Fleur just like her boyfriend.

According to Fleur, who came from the realm of the dead, her lover is probably reincarnated to become someone else but still remembers where they are going to meet, and that is the main purpose of that odd advertisement of hers. However, not so surprisingly, her lover does not come to that place in question no matter how long she waits along with Yuen and Shu-Hsien, who become all the more curious about what happened to Fleur and her lover – and where the hell he is now. 

Their search is often intercut with the flashback scenes showing more of the doomed romance between Fleur and her lover, and there are a number of lovely visual moments to remember thanks to cinematographer Bill Wong. Because I recently happened to watch Hou Hsiao-hsien’s “Flowers of Shanghai” (1998), which is incidentally about the brothels in Shanghai during the 19th century, many scenes of “Rouge” were compared with those similar scenes in “Flowers of Shanghai” in my mind, and I can assure you that “Rouge” often shines with its own sense of beauty.

Along with the desperate love between Fleur and her lover, these gorgeous moments make an interesting contrast with the modern background of Hong Kong in the 1980s and the seemingly less idealistic relationship between Yuen and Shu-Hsien. As observing how much her old neighborhood is changed in one way or another, Fleur comes to have more doubt and despair, but she does not give up her hope at all, and this makes both Yuen and Shu-Hsien reflect more on their relationship at present. While they admit to each other that they cannot possibly love each other as intensely as Fleur loved her lover, they also come to love and understand each other more than before, and there is a bittersweet moment when Fleur glimpses a bit of the sincere intimacy between them at one point later in the story.

I will not reveal anything on where our ghost heroine will arrive in the end, except telling you instead that the movie sets a rather ironic background for the end of her journey. Anita Mui, who was regarded as “Queen of Cantopop” before she died too early in 2003, is simply magnificent as her character eventually realizes the futility of her longtime yearning, and her strong performance here in the film will leave a lasting impression on your mind for a while.

Around Mui, several other cast members dutifully support her without overshadowing her at all. Leslie Cheung, who also died early not long before his co-star’s death, is well-cast as a handsome lad helplessly stuck with his beautiful lover in their doomed romance, and you may be amused a bit by one particular scene which may take you back to his unforgettable performance in Chen Kaige’s “Farewell My Concubine” (1993). Although their characters are more or less than the observers of Fleur’s story, Alex Man and Irene Wan have their own moments along the story, and we sense that their characters come to have some valuable lesson about love and relationship as helping their unlikely guest much more than expected.

Overall, “Rouge” is engaging in its earnest handling of story and characters, and its wistful qualities remind me of Somerset Maugham’s short story “Red”, which is also about a doomed young romance lost and then forgotten via that unbeatable passage of time. As we all know too well, we always have to accept what can never be regained as things keep changing, and the movie surely makes a poignant point of that.

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