Unstoppable (2024) ☆☆☆(3/4): Predictable but indomitable

Posted on March 20, 2026 by kaist455

I exactly knew what I was going to get from “Unstoppable”, which is currently available on Amazon Prime Video. This is your average underdog sports drama film, and you will not be surprised that much by its predictable narrative arc if you are a seasoned moviegoer like me. Nevertheless, its earnest efforts somehow won my heart in the end, and I will not deny at all that I got really engaged in its predictable but undeniably uplifting climactic part.

Jharrel Jerome, who has been one of the most promising actors working in Hollywood since his breakthrough supporting turn in Barry Jenkins’ Oscar-winning film “Moonlight” (2016), plays Anthony Robles, who drew a lot of attention as a wrestler with considerable disability during his high school and college years. Robles was born without one leg, but he went all the way as dedicating himself a lot to wrestling, and the movie is about how he overcame one obstacle after another before eventually having a big triumphant moment for his life and career (Is this a spoiler?).

The first half of the movie focuses on when Robles is about to make an important decision for himself. After distinguishing himself a lot at the national high school championship, he expects to be approached by several major state universities including the University of Iowa, which has been famous for its renowned wrestling team. However, it turns out that the University of Iowa and many other universities are not particularly interested in recruiting him, and it looks like his only option is Drexel University in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, which is actually quite willing to provide him a full scholarship.

In the end, Robles decides to enroll in Arizona State University (ASU) just because he wants to stay closer to his family living in Mesa, Arizona. Thanks to his caring high school coach, he has a meeting with the wrestling team coach of ASU, who gives Robles some tough advice while recognizing Robles’ talent and dedication. As he warned Robles in advance, the following tryout session is pretty grueling to say the least, but this only motivates Robles more than before, and he eventually earns some respect from not only the coach but also many of his fellow candidate players.

Of course, there come a series of obstacles popping up here and there around Robles. In case of his mother, her recent spouse turns out to be much less reliable than expected, and this affects her as well as her children including Robles, who surely cares a lot about his mother just like his several younger siblings. While his mother comes upon one trouble after another mainly due to her lousy spouse, he keeps trying to focus on his games as before, but then there come some other troubles including the unexpected budget cut on his wrestling team.

The movie sometimes becomes a bit too melodramatic in my humble opinion, but the screenplay by Eric Champnella, Alex Harris, and John Hindman, which is based on the memoir of the same name which Robles wrote with Austin Murphy, keeps things rolling along its many ups and downs. While it is touching to see Robles’ mother eventually shows more resilience and resourcefulness than expected, we are also moved by when Robles’ teammates show him some solidarity at one point later in the story.

In case of all those wrestling match scenes in the film, they are competently handled under the solid direction of director William Goldenberg, an Oscar-winning editor who incidentally made a feature film debut here. He and his editor Brett M. Reed did a good job of generating enough intensity and excitement to engage us, and we come to care more about Robles’ strenuous quest for triumph even though we all know where he will arrive in the end.

The movie also depends a lot on Jerome’s admirable commitment on the screen. While his appearance on the screen is certainly assisted a lot by special effects from the beginning to the end, he ably embodies his character’s indomitable spirit and determination, and he is also quite convincing as willingly throwing himself into many intense physical moments during the wrestling match scenes in the film.

Jerome is also supported well by several notable main cast members. While Michael Peña and Don Cheadle have each own moment to shine as the two important coaches of Robles, Bobby Cannavale brings some extra intensity as the crummy spouse of Robles’ mother, and Mykelti Williamson is also effective in his small but crucial supporting part. In case of Jennifer Lopez, she may be a little too glamorous as Robles’ mother at first, but her undeniable star quality, which was already proven in Lorene Scafaria’s “Hustlers” (2019), is utilized well during one particular key scene between her and Jerome. This moment feels rather clichéd at first, but Jerome and Lopez bring real poignancy to it, and the result is more powerful than expected.

In conclusion, “Unstoppable” does not go beyond the conventions of its genre, but it still works inside its genre conventions. As I said at the beginning of this review, there is nothing particularly new or fresh here, but it follows its playbook well on the whole despite some blatant touches such as the reference to John G. Avildsen’s Oscar-winning sport film “Rocky” (1976), so I will not grumble at least for now.

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Crooklyn (1994) ☆☆☆(3/4): A childhood in Brooklyn in the 1970s

Posted on March 20, 2026 by kaist455

Spike Lee’s 1994 film “Crooklyn” is a little but charming family drama which is often interesting for its semi-autobiographic elements. Written by Lee and his two siblings Joie Susannah Lee and Cinqué Lee, the movie certainly feels quite personal in many of its intimate human moments, and we observe these lovely moments with some amusement and interest as appreciating more of the tender and sensitive sides of Lee’s storytelling skill.

Although the movie does not specify much of its period background, it does not take much time for us to see that the story is set in the Bedford–Stuyvesant neighborhood of Brooklyn, New York City around the early 1970s. During the opening scene, the movie gives us a series of cheerful moments showing kids playing here and there in the neighborhood, and the lightweight spirit of this scene will probably make you reflect a bit on how things became worse there during the next several decades due to poverty, crime, and drug.

Well, things can often be bad for a young black girl named Troy (Zelda Harris ) and her four boisterous brothers due to their rather poor domestic environment, but their parents try their best for their children. While Woody (Delroy Lindo) is a musician struggling for any chance for career breakthrough, Carolyn (Alfre Woodard) works as a schoolteacher, and it is apparent to us from the beginning that she is the one taking care of almost everything in their house including paying all those bills. In fact, she often finds herself over-exhausted throughout the story, and there are a couple of intense moments when she reaches to a sort of breaking point.

Nevertheless, she and her husband have taken care of their children fairly well on the whole. While Woody is more or less like a jolly big brother for their children, Carolyn alternates between loving care and some tough love, and she also loves her husband dearly even though she often finds herself quite frustrated with him usually paying more attention to his career than earning enough for paying the bills.      

Meanwhile, we see more of how Troy and her four brothers spend their ongoing summer days in one way or another. While her four brothers often hang out with other local boys, she mostly spends time with other local girls, and there is a little amusing moment when the boys clash with the girls a bit due to a little mean prank committed by the former. In their house, they usually get together for watching TV in the evening, and that is certainly not approved much by their parents.

Although the movie does not make any direct point, these and many other little comic moments in the story indirectly remind us more of how the American society has become quite harsh and dangerous for black people and their kids during last 40 years. For example, when Troy attempts a bit of shoplifting at a local bodega at one point, we cannot help but become a bit nervous, but she only gets mildly reprimanded when she soon gets caught by the bodega owner. If you are familiar with the killing of Latasha Harlins in 1991 and many other similar tragic cases out there, you will certainly observe this rather humorous moment with some bitterness.

And there is also a subplot involved with a rather disagreeable white neighbor living right next to Troy and her family. Although this dude often clashes with not only the kids but also their parents, this conflict fortunately does not lead to any serious outcome in the end. There are some arguments between Troy’s parents and him, but, to my little relief, he does not commit any physical violence at least. If you watched recent Oscar-nominated Netflix documentary “The Perfect Neighbor” (2025), you know how such a situation like this can become a lot worse in our time.   

Later in the story, the movie stumbles a bit when Troy comes to spend several days in the house of her affluent relatives living outside New York City. Just for emphasizing her sense of disorientation caused by their luxurious environment, Lee uses a deliberate visual distortion which may make you check your TV or projector right from the beginning. I understand his intention to some degree, but this often distracted me more than once during my viewing, and that is where my level of interest was decreased.

Nevertheless, the good performances from the main cast members of the film kept holding my attention. As Alfre Woodard and Delroy Lindo diligently hold the ground as required, Zelda Harris and several other young performers are natural in their interactions, and we instantly accept them as siblings who have closely been living together for years. Woodard, who has seldom disappointed us for more than 40 years, is particularly good as subtly suggesting her character’s frequent exhaustion and frustration, and Lindo, who recently got some belated recognition at last as shown from his Best Supporting Actor Oscar nomination for Ryan Coogler’s “Sinners” (2025), is also wonderful as ably handling his own little but crucial moments around the end of the story.        

 Overall, “Crooklyn” is not on a par with Lee’s best works such as, yes, “Do the Right Thing” (1989), and it is still worthwhile to watch for its funny and touching individual moments. Although I have no idea on how much the movie actually overlaps with Lee and his other siblings’ childhood, I think I came to learn a bit about their early years, and that was a pretty interesting experience in my humble opinion.

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El Sur (1983) ☆☆☆1/2(3.5/4): Remembering her father

Posted on March 15, 2026 by kaist455

Víctor Erice’s 1983 film “El Sur”, whose 4k remastered version was recently released in South Korean theaters, is a simple but undeniably powerful coming-of-age drama to admire and savor. While it is relatively more forthright in terms of storytelling compared to Erice’s previous film “The Spirit of the Beehives” (1972), the movie is also filled with delicate mood and touches to be cherished from the beginning to the end, and the result is often poignant as we come to sense more of its heroine’s attempt to have more understanding on the adamantly elusive sides of her dear father.

 After the opening scene where the young heroine of the story comes to learn about the tragic end of her father, the movie, which is set in Spain during the 1950s, moves backward to 7 years ago, and its narrator, who is the older heroine recollecting about all those memories between her and her father during that period, gives us some background information on her family. As left-wing intellectuals, both of her parents were scarred in one way or another by the Spanish Civil War during the 1930s, but they eventually settled in a northern area of Spain as your average middle-class family not long after their daughter was born, and their daughter, Estrella (Sonsoles Aranguren), grew up happily under their loving care and attention.

However, Estrella began to notice something odd about her father despite being only 8 years old, and the movie freely flows from one personal memory of hers from another. Whenever he comes back from his medical job, her father usually spends a lot of time in his little private place in the attic of the family house, and her mother emphasizes to Estrella that she should not disrupt whatever he is doing inside that place. While this surely baffles her a lot, Estrella still looks up to her father as watching him a bit of dowsing for local farmers via a supposedly special talent of his, and he gladly shows her a bit of how he can do that with a little pendulum belonging to him.

When her father’s mother and nanny visit for her First Communion, Estrella comes to learn a bit more about her father’s past. He and his family lived in a southern region of Spain around the time of the Spanish Civil War (The title of the movie means “the South” in Spanish, by the way), and he and his father, who incidentally passed away some time ago, were not so close to each other due to the difference in their respective political views. In the end, Estella’s father left his hometown once for all, and he still does not want to go back there even though he is clearly pleased to see his mother and nanny again after so many years.   

As becoming all the more curious about her father’s past, Estrella comes to learn that there is actually something more behind his back. It seems that her father has some old feelings toward someone in his past, and it does not take much time for Estrella to sense that this figure in question remains as an inconvenient fact beneath her parents’ married life, though she does not dare to ask any question to either of her parents.

Even after she grows up a bit more to become a teenager, Estrella, who is now played by Icíar Bollaín, often feels frustrated about the remaining gap between her and her father, who is quite caring as before but is also still not so willing to talk about his past. At one point later in the story, there comes a moment when he and his daughter can have a more honest conversation, but then he steps back at the last minute, and he eventually becomes more elusive to his daughter to her sad disappointment.

The movie, which is based on the novella of the same name by Adelaida García Morales, is actually the first half of what Erice envisioned at first. Although Erice was reportedly not very satisfied with the result, the movie is still often captivating for its sensitive handling of mood, story, and character, and it is interesting to observe that how much it is connected with “The Spirit of the Beehives” in many aspects. Although it is relatively less magical and ambiguous than “The Spirit of the Beehives”, the movie distinguishes itself a lot with its somberly poetic atmosphere just like that film, and cinematographer José Luis Alcaine provides a number of lovely visual moments which will instantly remind you of that striking chiaroscuro of the paintings of Johannes Vermeer.

As the unadorned emotional center of the film, young performers Sonsoles Aranguren and Icíar Bollaín are flawlessly connected along the story. While Aranguren carries the first two acts with her fetching presence, Bollaín is equally effective in several key scenes of hers during the last part of the film, and they are also supported well by several adult performers including Lola Cardona, Rafaela Aparicio, and Omero Antonutti, who fills his rather elusive character with enough human quality to observe and interpret.    

On the whole, “El Sur” is inherently imperfect, but it is still worthwhile to watch for many good reasons besides being one of the only three feature films in Erice’s long but sparse filmmaking career. Compared to the greatness of “The Spirit of the Beehive” or “Close Your Eyes” (2023), it feels like a minor work at times, but there is a clear thematic connection between the movie and a group of subsequent films ranging from Kasi Lemmons’ “Eve’s Bayou” (1997) to Charlotte Wells’ “Aftersun” (2022), and I am sure that its status will grow more in the future as getting more discovered and then recognized.

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Ghost Elephants (2025) ☆☆☆1/2(3.5/4): Searching for mystic elephants

Posted on March 15, 2026 by kaist455

Needless to say, Werner Herzog is one of the most interesting filmmakers of our time. Besides making a number of unforgettable feature films ranging from “Aguirre, the Wrath of God” (1972) to “Bad Lieutenant: Port of Call New Orleans” (2009), this legendary German filmmaker also gave us a bunch of equally fascinating documentary films such as “Little Dieter Needs to Fly” (1997) and “Encounters at the End of the World” (2007), and he certainly does not disappoint us at all in his latest documentary film “Ghost Elephants”, which is currently available on Disney+ in South Korea.

The main human focus of the documentary is Steve Boyes, a South African naturalist in the search for any opportunity to prove the existence of an undiscovered species of African elephant on the highland plateau of Angola. According to several testimonies from those elephant trackers in the past, this African elephant species in question may be considerably bigger than the biggest one ever to be hunted on the record, but these “Ghost Elephants” are not so easy to be spotted as supposedly living somewhere in their vast and remote habitat, and that was certainly a big challenge for Boyes from the very beginning.

Ironically, the meticulous records on the biggest African Elephant ever to be hunted provides considerable help to Boyes. We see Boyes beholding the dead body of “Henry” exhibited at the Smithsonian Institution in Washington D.C., and then we have a close look on Henry’s big tusks and skeleton thanks to the generous corporation from the staff members of the institution. Because Henry was hunted at a spot not so far from what is assumed to be the main habitat of Ghost Elephants, it is possible that Henry can actually be genetically related to Ghost Elephants, and all Boyes needs to do is getting any suitable biological sample to be examined along with the ones from Henry.

And then the documentary observes how Boyes prepares for his latest search. First, he hires a trio of San tribe trackers in Namibia, who surely interest Herzog a lot for their interesting human qualities. Instead of watching them from the distance, Herzog regards their cultural background with thoughtful curiosity and respect, and they willingly show some of their old but valuable knowledge in front of the camera. In case of a certain kind of deadly poison which they have usually used for hunting animals, it is actually from the larvae of a certain insect species, and it is fascinating to watch how they carefully prepare the poison from those tiny insect larvae dug up from the ground.

Without hurrying itself at all, the documentary sometimes takes time as Herzog reflects more on Boyes’ search and the terrible old history associated with it. After all, Henry was just one of those countless elephants killed by those greedy and heartless European colonist hunters during the 19-20th century, and, considering how African Elephant remains to be an endangered species even at this point due to the frequent poaching in Africa, the confirmation on the existence of Ghost Elephants may lead to more harm on the nature despite expanding our knowledge on it (Believe or not, more than 100 new animal species were discovered and then reported by Boyes and his search team as they searched for Ghost Elephants here and there in the highland plateau of Angola).

And there is also some serious personal question for Boyes. While quite excited by the growing possibility of attaining his longtime goal at last, he also confronts that big question on what may be next for his life and career after that point. As he frankly admits, Ghost Elephants are more or less than his own Moby Dick, and Herzog surely understands well Boyes’ rather obsessive dedication. After all, many of his notable films and documentaries such as “Fitzcarraldo” (1982) and “Grizzly Man” (2005) are about the guys relentlessly driven by their seemingly unattainable goals, and Boyes is just relatively less extreme compared to many of these rather nutty dudes.

Anyway, Boyes eventually enters the highland plateau of Angola along with his hired trackers, Herzog, and his small crew members, and the documentary closely observes their following journey with some amusing reflection on nature and people from Herzog. At one point, the documentary suddenly focuses on a female spider carrying a lot of its spawns on its back, but, mainly thanks to Herzog’s distinctive narration, this seemingly trivial moment becomes a bit more interesting than it seemed at first.

For not ruining any of your entertainment, I do not dare to tell you anything about how Boyes’ latest search will end. However, I can tell you at least that 1) it is not as bleak as the finale of “Aguirre, the Wrath of God” and 2) the following moments of academic research intrigued me to some degree due to my inconsequential academic background (Yes, I have a doctoral degree in biological science, though, as spending too much time on watching and then reviewing movies, I was a disastrously lazy graduate student who was a real pain in the ass for my long-suffering adviser professor).

In conclusion, “Ghost Elephants” is another compelling documentary from Herzog, and many of its reflective moments will linger on your mind for a long time. Although he is going to be 84 several months later, Herzog remains active as usual (He is currently working on his new feature film starring Kate and Rooney Mara, by the way), and the documentary surely demonstrates that he can still keep going at least for now. Yes, he may leave us forever at any moment, but he will never bore us to the end at least, right?

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Chime (2024) ☆☆☆(3/4): A typically disturbing short film by Kiyoshi Kurosawa

Posted on March 14, 2026 by kaist455

Kiyoshi Kurosawa’s 2024 short film “Chime”, which was released in South Korean theaters in last week, as baffling and disturbing as you can expect from him. Just like many of his works such as “Cure” (1997) and “Creepy” (2016), it catches us off guard with a sudden shocking disruption of mundane reality, and then we find ourselves constantly confounded and then chilled about what is exactly going on.

At the beginning, we are introduced to Takuji Matsuoka (Mutsuo Yoshioka), a cooking teacher working in Tokyo. When he is teaching a group of students as usual, one of them, a young man named Ichiro (Seiichi Kohinata), begins to look rather disturbed for no apparent reason. This lad later asks Matsuoka whether Matsuoka can also hear a sound of chime from somewhere, but, just because he cannot hear anything at all, Matsuoka simply ignores him without much care.

However, this turns out to be the mere prelude to an incident much more disturbing. When Matsuoka is doing another cooking class some time later, Ichiro looks all the more disturbed than before. He believes that sound of chime is sort of message sent to his brain under some mysterious mind control, and he eventually commits a shocking act of violence, which certainly horrifies Matsuoka and his other students a lot. 

After this point, we observe how Matsuoka’s reality is gradually smeared with the insidious sense of madness. For some unknown reason, that horrible incident ignites something inside him, and we sense more of how much he has been frustrated and dissatisfied with his current status of life. We see him spending some domestic time with his wife and their only son, but there is not much interaction among them. We also see him trying to get hired as the new chef of some prestigious French restaurant, but it is apparent to us that he is not going to be hired at any chance.

In the end, Matsuoka reaches to his own breaking point just like that disturbed student of his did at that time. I will not go into details here, but I can tell you at least that Kurosawa will not disappoint you at all if you admire his works as much as I have. As he sets the stage for what will happen sooner or later on the screen, we become more unsettled step by step, and we are all the more chilled by the clinical attitude of the cinematography by Koichi Furuya, who did a commendable job of imbuing the screen with the gray moodiness reminiscent of the texture of stainless steel kitchen utensils.

Later in the film, things get all the weirder around Matsuoka, and we naturally come to have more doubt on his increasingly unhinged viewpoint. He constantly feels cornered more and more for not only what he committed but also several other reasons, and he cannot feel safe or comfortable at all even when he is inside his residence. His wife and son become all the more distant from him than before, and the mood becomes a bit more tense when he seems to consider doing something drastic before opening the door of his son’s room at one point later in the story.

Even during the very last scene of the film, Kurosawa does not resort to any easy answer or resolution for his hero, and the film continues to confound us more. He and Furuya deliberately shot this scene on 16mm film, and the resulting grainy texture makes a striking atmosphere contrast with the rest of the film. While this can be interpreted as another shock to the system for its hero, the film remains adamantly ambiguous about whatever he is going to do next after its very last shot, and I was amused a bit to learn later that Kurosawa regards this as a sort of optimistic ending. In the interview clip shown right after the end of the film, he says that Matsuoka eventually becomes much less anxious than before, and that is certainly a lot more optimistic than what I imagined after watching the last shot of the film.

Kurosawa draws effective performances from his cast members. While Mutsuo Yoshioka, who previously played minor roles in some of Kurosawa’s works such as “Cloud” (2024), is subtly disturbing as his character’s reality is slowly imploded with more madness along the story, several other cast members including Hana Amano and Ikkei Watanabe are also solid in their respective supporting parts, and Seiichi Kohinata contributes a lot to the overall tone of the film during his brief but striking appearance.

In conclusion, “Chime” is another typical work from its director, but it will surely satisfy any of his fans and admirers within its short running time (45 minutes). As watching him talking a lot about his work during the following interview clip, I came to appreciate his considerable filmmaking skill more than before, and I also became more interested in watching “Serpent’s Path” (2024), which is another work from him in 2024 and is incidentally the remake of his own 1998 film of the same name.   

By the way, after having a very productive year with “Chime”, “Cloud”, and “Serpent’s Path” in 2024, Kurosawa already moved onto making his next film, which is currently going through the post-production period and will be released in Japan around this year. According to him, it is a period drama film filled with samurais, and he will probably surprise us again as he did many times before. After all, how can we possibly expect less than that from him?

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My Prediction on the 98th Academy Awards

Posted on March 12, 2026 by kaist455

So here we arrive again. Another Oscar season is almost over, and I and many of you are still guessing again and again on which movie will eventually win at the upcoming ceremony to be held in LA on March 15th. Last year, I thought the Oscar race became more unpredictable than before, but, what do you know, this year turns out to be much more chaotic compared to last year.

So far, the Best Picture race has been narrowed down to the competition between two favorite films of mine in 2025. As sweeping a number of major American film critics associations and then several substantial industrial awards including PGA, DGA, and WGA, Paul Thomas Anderon’s “One Battle After Another” seems to be the front runner, but it has been steadily threatened by Ryan Coogler’s “Sinners”, which incidentally garnered the recording-breaking 16 nominations and has gained more momentum as an underdog to defeat the former – especially after winning the Best Ensemble award at the Actors Award ceremony (It is formerly the SAG award, you know).

And then there are many possibilities of upset here and there among many other categories. Except Best Actress Oscar, things have been going up and down to our confusion in the acting categories, and even some of the technical categories turn out to be less predictable than before, though you should not bet anything against “KPop Demon Hunters”. As far as I remember, I have been usually wrong in around 5 or 6 categories during last 20 years, but I have a growing feeling that my prediction can be a bit more inaccurate than before.

Anyway, here is my Oscar prediction of this year, and we will see how much I am actually wrong in my inconsequential guessing. As balancing it between common sense and some gut feeling, I have been often more accurate than many of my friends and acquaintances, but this winning streak of mine will be finally stopped in this year.

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Caught by the Tides (2024) ☆☆☆1/2(3.5/4): Along the tides of time

Posted on March 11, 2026 by kaist455

Jia Zhangke’s latest film “Caught by the Tides” is a modest but precious time capsule to be appreciated for many good reasons. Mainly consisting of what he shot for around 20 years, the movie works as a dry but fascinating collage vividly oscillating between fiction and nonfiction, and I was often captivated by that during my viewing, though I also often felt that I did not fully grasp the efforts and skills behind the screen.

Around the 2000s, I was just a young movie fan learning about many different master filmmakers of past and present, and I must confess that Jia was a rather distant figure to me during that time. Sure, I heard about his several notable works such as “Still Life” (2006), but I never got the chance to watch his films during that time, and I only became more aware of him when I watched “A Touch of Sin” (2013) in early 2014. I merely admired that film and his next film “Mountains May Depart” (2015), but then I was impressed more by “Ash Is the Purest White” (2018), which was definitely one of the best films I watched in 2019.

As all of you know too well, the COVID-19 pandemic followed early in the very next year, and that was one of the main factors to motivate Jia to make “Caught by the Tides”. He had already considered making a feature film out of what he had shot with his digital cameras for more than 10 years, but, as getting isolated due to the ongoing pandemic, he eventually embarked on the production of the movie, and he and his three editors, Yang Chao, Xudong Lin, and Matthieu Laclau, went through an extensive process to assemble something coherent from a heap of raw materials stored by him.

A considerable portion of the movie comes from what Jia shot here and there in a northern Chinese city which was the main background of “Unknown Pleasures” (2002) and “Ash Is Purest White” (2018). At the beginning, we see a footage clip of a group of middle-aged ladies having a pleasant private conversation together, and the mood is brightened up a bit when some of them sing later.

In the next crucial scene in the film, we see a big town hall where young women often sing in front of many workers for earning their meager living. A man explains a bit about how he has managed this public place, and then the movie moves onto the scenes from “Unknown Pleasures”, which are clearly based on what Jia learned and observed during the preparation process for that film.

And we cannot help but notice how young the leading actress Zhao Tao, who is incidentally married to Jia, was at that time. Her character in that film gradually becomes the human center of “Caught by the Tides”, and then the movie continues this character’s story via the excerpts from “Still Life” and “Ash Is the Purest White”. Even though she certainly got older along the passage of time, Zhao ably exudes her own grace and dignity without showing off herself at all, and you will understand why she has been an important professional partner to her husband for many years, as much as Gina Rowlands to her legendary filmmaker husband John Cassavetes.

Meanwhile, those raw archival footage clips from Jia in the film remind us of how things have changed in the Chinese society during last two decades. As the Chinese society went through a lot of development and advance, this caused a lot of social gap and inequality, and that is particularly exemplified well by the construction of the Three Gorges Dam and the following environmental changes upon many local communities. Jia simply presents this rather alarming reality without signifying anything on the surface, but you may sense a bit of his concern behind that.

During its last act, the movie leans more toward fiction as mainly driven by what Jia and his crew shot during the pandemic, but this part is effortlessly connected with what has been steadily built up during the rest of the film. Whenever the movie shows some contemporary elements such as an AI robot, the passage of time feels all the more palpable to us, and Zhao steadily carries the film as usual.

At one point, Zhao’s character happens to come across one of the main characters from “Unknown Pleasures”, who is incidentally played the same actor who played that character. Although nothing much is exchanged between these two characters at first, but the following moment between them is quite poignant to say the least, and I will let you see for yourself how the movie touches you more with a sublime finishing touch to behold.

In conclusion, “Caught by the Tides” may require you to do some homework in advance for fully appreciating what Jia attempts to achieve and then succeeds, but it is surely another interesting work to be added to his long and illustrious filmmaking career. Even after 20 years, many of his works remain to be a sort of an acquired taste to me, but some of them have actually grown on me since I watched them, and I wholly agree with many other reviewers and critics that he is one of the best filmmakers in our time. Yes, it will demand you to have some patience just like all of his previous films, but I assure you that it will be a rewarding experience to linger on your mind for a long time.

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War Machine (2026) ☆☆(2/4): Selected and then hunted

Posted on March 11, 2026 by kaist455

Netflix film “War Machine”, which was released in last week, is a bland and disappointing military action thriller which does not have much surprise for me. While its first act is no more than your average military training sequence not so far from those countless military drama films out there such as “Full Metal Jacket” (1987), the rest of the film is pretty much like the mechanical version of “Predator” (1987) mixed with a lot of rote American jingoism, which is not a very pretty sight especially when you consider what is happening in our world at present. 

At the beginning, we are introduced to its anonymous military hero, about whom we do not know much except that 1) he is a staff sergeant and 2) he has a soldier brother who was also doing his tour in Afghanistan just like our hero as shown from the prologue scene. Unfortunately, not long after another hearty moment between them, the hero’s brother got killed due to a sudden ambush, and this certainly devastated the hero a lot.

Two years later, the hero applies for the Ranger Assessment and Selection Program (RASP) just because that is what his brother always wanted to do along with him. Although he is a bit too old compared to many other applicants coming to a regiment staying at somewhere in Colorado, it does not take much time for him to distinguish himself among the candidates during next several weeks of grueling training and assessment process, though he still suffers post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) due to what happened to him in Afghanistan.

Nevertheless, he eventually remains along with a small group of other applicants, and all of them are quite prepared for the final stage of the program. They soon sent to a remote spot outside the regiment, and they must accomplish a rather tricky simulated mission and then return to the regiment within a short period of time.

Needless to say, they are well aware of any kind of surprise to be unleashed by their military instructors, but what they subsequently come across turns out to be much more than they expected. At first, it looks like a crashed military aircraft they are supposed to search for, but, what do you know, it is actually a lethal alien robot ready to eliminate them right from the beginning.

This was probably intended as a surprise plot turn, but I guess I do not spoil anything at all, considering that the trailer of the movie does not hide that much of its story development. As a matter of fact, there are a series of TV reports about a mysterious asteroid approaching to the Earth during its first act, and that is surely more than enough for you to sense a big trouble coming for the hero and several other characters.

However, do we actually care about any of these soldier characters? In case of me, I did not give much damn as observing more of how bland and colorless they are even if you try to accept them as your typical military archetypes. While the hero of the film is simply defined by his stoic attitude accompanied with the occasional moments of PTSD, the substantial supporting characters around him are so devoid of personality that they only remain as cardboard figures to get killed in one way or another along the story.

Above all, their mighty opponent does not look particularly impressive on the whole. Sure, it can shoot a lot here and there throughout the film, but it is a rather boring killing machine without much interest or surprise, even though we can clearly see that the movie attempts to present it as a sort of cross between “Predator” and “RoboCop” (1987).     

In case of the action scenes in the film, director/co-producer/co-writer Patrick Hughes, who wrote the screenplay with James Beaufort, and his crew surely unleash a lot of crashes and bangs upon the screen whenever that is necessary. However, without any character we can actually care about, these competent action scenes feel hollow and uninteresting amid lots of sound and fury, and we remain distant to the movie even when its hero expectedly makes his last stand against his opponent (Is this a spoiler?)

Anyway, Alan Ritchson, who has been more notable thanks to Amazon Prime Video series “Reacher”, demonstrates that he is a solid action movie actor with enough presence and talent to hold our attention, though he is often limited by his flat character throughout the film. In case of several notable supporting cast members, Dennis Quaid, Jai Courtney, and Esai Morales simply come and then go without much to do, and Stephen James is sadly wasted a lot – especially after his character happens to depend a lot on his comrades later in the story.   

In conclusion, “War Machine” is another bland Netflix product which will probably not last that long in your memory once you move onto whatever you are going to watch next. To be frank with you, this is very mediocre compared to some other recent Netflix action films such as, yes, “Extraction” (2020), and now I must tell you that there have actually been much better things from Netflix during last several months. I particularly recommend Guillermo del Toro’s “Frankenstein” (2025) and Clint Bentley’s “Train Dreams” (2025), and, believe me, you will have a much meaningful experience with either of them and thank me for that later.

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Becoming Led Zeppelin (2025) ☆☆☆(3/4): How they became famous

Posted on March 10, 2026 by kaist455

Documentary film “Becoming Led Zeppelin”, which is currently available on Netflix in South Korea, works best whenever it simply takes time on focusing on the music of Led Zeppelin, which was one of the most popular English rock bands during the 1960s. While the success story of the band is not particularly fresh or deep in my humble opinion, the documentary thankfully provides a bunch of vivid and impressive musical moments to remember, and you may willingly overlook some shortcomings in the documentary.

The early part of the documentary is pretty typical as presenting the formative years of the four band members of Led Zeppelin: Jimmy Page, John Paul Jones, Robert Plant, and John Bonham, who cannot be interviewed in contrast to his colleagues due to his early death in 1980 and is mainly represented by the excerpts from his interview recordings. Just like many other young men in UK during the post-World War II period, these four young men were ready for something new and exciting as showing each own considerable musical talent, and they gladly tell us about how much they were influenced by the rapid rise of American pop music during the 1950s.

Needless to say, their respective early careers were a series of small and big struggles, but it did not take much time for each of them to distinguish themselves in one way or another. For example, Page and Jones came to earn their meager living as session players to be hired by local recording studios such as, yes, Abbey Road Studios, and, though they actually never met the Beatles, they instead participated in the recording session for the theme song for “Goldfinger” (1964). In case of Bonham, he came to build considerable reputation as a fairly good drummer, and he and Plant became close friends as frequently performing together, though Bonham’s wife did not approve much of this at first just because she thought Plant was not a good friend for her husband.

How these four duded founded their band was pretty accidental to say the least. Not long after Page joined a local rock band named the Yardbirds in 1966, he became the lead guitarist due to the sudden exit of his predecessor, and he decided to take the band toward a new direction. While Jones gladly joined him as a bassist, Plant was subsequently recruited as the new vocalist for the band, and then he recommended Bonham to Page as the new drummer for their band.

Once they came to horn their skills together under the new name of their band, something began to click among them, though things did not go as well as they hoped at first. After the fairly successful result from their concert tour in Scandinavian countries, the band tried on the East coast areas of US, but this did not generate much popularity on the whole.

However, after it had a big successful night in California, Led Zeppelin came to have its first forward step toward bigger successes to come. Thanks to their resourceful manager Peter Grant, they could make a very advantageous deal on their very first album with one of the most prominent recording companies in US, and they were certainly willing to push their talents further than before.

Unfortunately, the initial reviews on the first album of Led Zeppelin were quite harsh to say the least, but that did not deter its members much at all. Besides enjoying receiving much more attention than before, they were just happy to have a fun time together via their shared passion toward music, and they soon moved onto producing the next album to be released while also doing more concerts here and there in US.

As the members of the band talk more about those early years of their band, the documentary doles out their concert footage clips from that period, which give us a close and vivid look into their undeniable artistry. In case of one particular archival clip, it is quite damaged due to a technical problem, but this thankfully remains as a minor distraction as our ears come to pay more attention to the musical performance inside this flawed archival clip.

While it did not receive much recognition in UK at the time of its first album release, Led Zeppelin became gradually popular in both US and UK around the time when it was going to release its second album in 1969, which became one of the most successful albums in US during that year. Naturally, their immense success in US led to them having much more popularity in UK than before, and they eventually had one of the biggest moments for their band around the end of 1969.

Around that point, the documentary focuses more on music rather than letting itself merely driven by the interviews from the three surviving members of Led Zeppelin. Thanks to its dexterous collage of archival footage clips, we do not need much explanation on how much the band excited and galvanized audiences, and you may enjoy some psychedelic touches shown from this part (Well, this is the 1960s, isn’t it?).

Overall, “Becoming Led Zeppelin”, directed by Bernard MacMahon, does not go that deep into the personal aspects of its main subject, but it does not disappoint us at all in case of presenting the artistry and excitement observed from the members of Red Zeppelin during that time. Yes, it could show and tell more in my trivial opinion, but the documentary did its main job well during a fairly ample amount of running time (122 minutes), so I will not grumble for now.

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Cloud (2024) ☆☆☆(3/4): No easy money for young men

Posted on March 10, 2026 by kaist455

There is usually a creeping sense of uneasiness in the works of Japanese filmmaker Kiyoshi Kurosawa, and “Cloud”, one of the three works from him in 2024, is no exception. At first, you may feel quite frustrated with its rather glacial narrative pacing (Full Disclosure: I did during my viewing), but the movie draws our attention as subtly establishing its uneasy mood, and then things get more interesting once it throws some unexpected plot turns to catch you off guard.

The first half of the story clinically observes the daily life of Ryosuke Yoshii (Masaki Suda), a young factory worker who has gotten some extra cash as an online reseller. The opening scene shows Ryosuke purchasing a bunch of stuffs at a rather cheap price and then selling at a much higher price on the Internet, and, because of this latest big profit of his, he begins to consider leaving his fairly stable factory job even though his supervisor tells him that he can be actually promoted sooner or later.

Once he eventually quits his factory job, Ryosuke prepares for the next step for his online reselling business. He moves to a big house located in some remote place outside the city, and he also hires a local lad to work as his assistant. In addition, his girlfriend also moves into the house along with him, and she is certainly delighted to live in a less stuffy environment, while not asking too much about how he comes to have enough money for renting the house.

However, we gradually sense trouble along the story. The more money Ryosuke gets, the more paranoid he becomes for understanding reasons, and there are also a series of disturbing incidents which make him all the uneasier than before. In the end, there comes a point where he cannot trust not only his assistant but also his girlfriend, who becomes quite disturbed when their current staying place turns out to be not so cozy or safe at all.

Nevertheless, Ryosuke does not stop at all – even when he comes to learn later that he can be arrested at any point for his shady online business. When there comes another opportunity for big profit, he does not hesitate at all, and we cannot help but notice how many people will spend a lot more money than they planned just because of his petty greed.

And then Kurosawa’s screenplay takes an unexpected narrative turn to our little surprise. I will not go into details here for not spoiling your entertainment, but I can tell you instead that 1) the mood becomes more tense as Ryosuke fatefully faces the consequence of his selfish action and 2) Kurosawa does not disappoint you at all if you are an admirer of his notable works such as “Cure” (1997) and “Tokyo Sonata” (2008), which is incidentally my personal favorite film in Kurosawa’s fascinating filmmaking career.

Although its hero remains quite unlikable to say the least, the second half of the story holds our attention more via its deft mix of suspense and black humor. There are several striking moments of violence, and we come to stay focused on whatever may happen next even though we still observe Ryosuke’s plight from the distance. Furthermore, you will get amused a bit as Ryosuke’s assistant turns out to be much more resourceful than expected, and you may also appreciate a wry sense of dark humor behind the ambiguous last scene between him and Ryosuke, which will make you reflect more on the rest of the story.

Is this actually a fable on moral corruption and the consequential descent into, well, hell? I am not totally sure about that even at this point, but I enjoy how Kurosawa deftly rolls the story and characters from one unexpected moment to another, and his main cast members firmly stick to the dry overtone of his movie. While Masaki Suda diligently holds the center as required, Kotone Furukawa and Daiken Okudaira are effective as the two crucial supporting characters in the story, and Okudaira is particularly good as his character gradually reveals himself as someone much more cynical and amoral than Ryosuke later in the story.

I must admit that I admire “Cloud” instead of loving it, but I come to reflect more on how Kurosawa, who is incidentally not related to Akira Kurosawa, has been one of the most interesting filmmakers in our time for many years. Although I belatedly came to know about him via “Tokyo Sonata” in 2009, I began to admire him more after watching his subsequent films such as “Creepy” (2016) and “Wife of a Spy” (2020). In case of “Cure”, I am still scratching my head about what actually makes it feel so uneasy and disturbing, but I am also quite impressed by how dexterously Kurosawa sets and then develops the insidious tone along its increasingly baffling narrative. In fact, I can somehow understand how this disturbing masterwork has influenced so many notable filmmakers out there including Bong Joon-ho, who surely learned a lot about mood and storytelling from the works of Kurosawa as shown from his notable films such as “Memories of Murder” (2003) and, yes, “Parasite” (2019).

In conclusion, “Cloud” is a quintessential work from Kurosawa, and now I have some expectation on “Chime” (2024), a short film which is another work from him in 2024 and is currently being shown in South Korean theaters now. After these two works and “Serpent’s Path” (2024), Kurosawa has already moved onto working on his next film to be released in this year, and he will probably strike and impress us again as usual.

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