3670 (2025) ☆☆☆1/2(3.5/4): A double minority

Posted on September 4, 2025 by kaist455

Good movies can be a vivid window to the lives of others different from us in one way or another, and South Korean independent film “3670” is one of such excellent examples. Closely and sensitively following the personal drama of one young North Korean gay defector, the movie lets us have more understanding and empathy on him, and it is often touching to observe how he gradually becomes more honest about his homosexuality along the story.

At the beginning, we get to know about how Cheol-joon (Cho You-hyun) has tried to settle in the South Korean society since he came over to South Korea several years ago. Along with his two fellow North Korean defectors, he has been preparing for the university scholarship for promising young North Korean defectors like him, and they also have been closely associated with a local church community willing to support them as much as possible.

However, Cheol-joon has something to hide even from his fellow North Korean defectors. After coming to South Korea, he came to realize more that he is gay, and he has tried to search for any possibility of romance or friendship for a while via a certain local online application quite familiar to me (Full Disclosure: I have been using it during last several months). However, most of those gay men on that online application only want sexual fun without much interest in him, and that makes him more isolated and frustrated.

And there comes an opportunity. When he comes across an online notice on a group meeting for blind date and drinking, Cheol-joon decides to take a chance with that, and he soon becomes a bit relieved and happy to be surrounded by a bunch of gay people around his age, though nobody seems to pay much attention to him even after he reveals that he is a North Korean defector. He later sets his eyes on a handsome lad named Hyeon-taek (Cho Dea-hee), but Hyeong-taek turns out to be quite popular around many others, and, to Cheol-joon’s disappointment, he also does not seem to be much interested in Cheol-joon.

However, another possibility of relationship comes to Cheol-joon on the very next day. A guy comes into a local convenient store where Cheol-joon has worked as a part-time employee, and, what do you know, the guy instantly recognizes Cheol-joon as both of them were at that meeting. Although Cheol-joon naturally feels quite awkward to say the least, Yeong-joon (Kim Hyun-mok), who happens to live in the same neighborhood where Cheol-joon lives, suggests that they should spend some time together after Cheol-joon’s worktime is over, and Cheol-joon cannot possibly say no as a lonely person in the desperate need of someone to understand and accept his homosexuality. 

As he spends more time with his unexpected friend, we get to know a bit about Yeong-joon. It is apparent that he does not reveal anything about his homosexuality to his devoted Christian mother, but Yeong-joon wants to enjoy his youthful gay life as much as he can, and Cheol-joon soon goes along with that while coming to befriend more gay friends including Hyeong-taek. At one point, they all go to an underground night club full of young gay people, and Cheol-joon cannot help but feel quite exalted for more freedom and excitement.

Nevertheless, Cheol-joon remains quiet about his homosexuality in front of his fellow North Korean defectors simply because of his fear of repulsion and rejection. Having no idea on Cheol-joon’s homosexuality at all, one of his North Korean defectors tries a bit of matchmaking at one point later in the story, and that leads to a little amusing moment between Cheol-joon and one female North Korean defector.

And he also misses his parents a lot, who are probably still in his North Korean hometown if they are not dead yet. His aunt, who also managed to come over to South Korean just like him, has already given up any hope about them, but Cheol-joon still holds onto any possibility of the reunion with his parents, and there is a brief but poignant moment when he and his aunt have some honest private conversation between them.

 Steadily balancing itself among several different human issues of its specific hero, the movie stays focused on his gradual emotional maturation along the narrative, and Cho You-hyun is often compelling in his nuanced low-key performance. Besides subtly illustrating his character’s inner struggles, Cho is touching whenever his character advances further from his emotional shell, and he is also supported well by several supporting performers who have each own moment to shine. While Kim Hyun-mok is effective as his character comes to show more insecurity and vulnerability later in the movie, Cho Dea-hee has a good moment when his character turns out to be more considerate than expected, and Bae Han-sol, Lim Ji-hyung, and Cha Mi-kyung are also well-cast in their respective supporting roles.

Overall, “3670”, which incidentally comes from a sort of numeral code used among its hero and his gay friends, is another notable South Korean queer film which deserves more attention in my humble opinion, and director/writer Park Joon-ho makes a commendable feature film debut here. As far as I can see from his film, he is a good filmmaker with considerable potential, and it will be interesting to see whether he will impress us more in the future as another interesting South Korean filmmaker to watch.

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The Final Semester (2024) ☆☆☆1/2(3.5/4): Before he graduates

Posted on September 4, 2025 by kaist455

South Korean film “The Final Semester” follows a plain teenager boy about to enter what may define the rest of his life. Still not knowing well what he really wants for his life, he simply follows what he is expected to do, and you will probably brace for yourself at times as observing how risky and hazardous his surrounding environment can be.

At first, we get to know how things are not so promising for Chang-woo (Yoo Yi-ha). He will graduate once his final semester at some vocational high school is over, but he is not so sure about what he is going to do next, and the people surrounding him do not help him much on the whole. While his widow mother is mostly busy with supporting Chang-woo and his two younger brothers, his best friend Woo-jae (Yang Ji-woon) does not have much plan either, and he and Chang-woo eventually accept the suggestion from a teacher in their school, who recommends a sort of apprenticeship at a small local company factory.

After visiting that factory, Chang-woo still hesitates, but he cannot possibly say no considering his current status. Although not having been a very good student in the school, he still wants to go to a college, and the company will support his college study once he gets officially employed later. In addition, he may also get exempted from the military service in exchange for working there during next several years.

However, as he and Woo-jae try to start their first days in the factory, we come to see more of how woefully they are unprepared in many aspects. Although they learned a bit of how to handle machines and tools at their school, they are quite inexperienced to say the least, and many of the employees in the factory do not welcome them much from the beginning. In the end, Woo-jae and Chang-woo are stuck with doing one menial job after another, and they become more frustrated as days go by.

 And we become more aware of how their work environment is not so safe here and there. While many of the employees in the factory are well-experienced professionals, they do not often seem to care a lot about the safety of their work environment, and their rather unorganized workplace is often full of the possibility of accidents. Chang-woo and Woo-jae certainly know that they should be careful, but they do not know very much about how they should be careful, and that is why it is often unnerving to see them slogging through another working day full of possible hazards. 

In the end, Woo-jae quits without any hesitation, but Chang-woo keeps working in contrast, and there actually comes some progress for him. Thanks to one generous adult employee, he begins to learn welding bit by bit, and, what do you know, he begins to like working there – especially after receiving a bit of monthly salary as promised to him from the beginning. Furthermore, he also befriends two fellow teenage trainees working there, and his two new friends are willing to support him as much as they can.

However, of course, they are still reminded again of the harsh reality they have to deal with in one way or another. Woo-jae comes to learn later that the company will hire only one of its adolescent trainees, and he also finds himself frequently doing overtime work even though that is not permitted by the labor law at all. He cannot possibly complain about this to his employer, and he and his fellow trainees are not even allowed to be honest about their work environment when they have a private interview with a visiting civil servant at one point.

Thankfully not resorting to unnecessary melodrama, the movie phlegmatically lets us to sense how the system works unfairly against Chang-woo and many others in the factory. They all need to stay employed, and clashing with their employer is definitely the last thing they want. Later in the story, there comes the breaking point of one of Chang-woo’s fellow trainees for an understandable personal, but nothing is changed at all even after that, and Chang-woo and many other employees keep working as usual.

It is often frustrating to observe how passive and indecisive Chang-woo is at times, but Yoo Yi-ha’s earnest lead performance did a subtle job of conveying to us his character’s growing conflict along the story. Even when he does not seem to signify anything at all on the surface, the thoughts and feelings churning behind Chang-woo’s quiet appearance are quite palpable to us, and that is why we come to sense a lot of bitterness from the final scene of the film. Around Yoo, Kim Sung-gook, Kim So-wan, and Yang Ji-woon hold each own place well as the crucial supporting characters in the story, and Yang provides a bit of humor to the story during his several key scenes with Yoo.              

On the whole, “The Final Semester” is a dry but undeniable powerful coming-of-age tale reflecting another unpleasant side of the South Korean society, and director/writer Lee Ran-hee, who previously drew my attention for her debut feature film “A Leave” (2020), demonstrates again her considerable filmmaking talent as advancing further from her previous achievement. I knew what the movie is about in advance, but I found myself much more engaged in the story and characters with more care and worry, and that is what a good movie can do in my inconsequential opinion.

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Fight or Flight (2024) ☆☆1/2(2.5/4): A flight full of killers

Posted on September 2, 2025 by kaist455

“Fight or Flight” is one of those goofy action thriller films which do not take themselves seriously while having some outrageous fun with their utterly silly story premise. Although it is rather deficient in terms of story and character, the movie is willing to go for a lot of absurdity and violence just for laugh and amusement at least, and it is also held together fairly well by the engaging efforts from its lead actor.

Josh Hartnett, who has recharged his acting career as recently appearing in a series of notable films ranging from Christopher Nolan’s “Oppenheimer” (2023) to M. Night Shyamalan’s “Trap” (2024), plays Lucas Reyes, a broken man who finds himself called back to action just because of his particular set of skills. As explained later in the story, Reyes was once a top-notch government agent, but he has been hiding away from the world since one particularly unpleasant incident, and we see him waking up somewhere in Bangkok, Thailand after another drinking night.

When he is approached by his ex-girlfriend who is incidentally now the head of some secret agency, Reyes is not so amused to say the least, but he cannot possibly refuse an offer from her, so he reluctantly agrees to do one dirty job for her and her agency right now. All he has to do is getting on an airplane going to San Francisco, and then he must find and then escort a certain mysterious figure who has been targeted by many organizations and agencies around the world for good reasons.

Needless to say, the first act of the film revolves around the mystery of that hidden figure on the airplane, but I must tell you that the movie gives out the answer a bit too easily. Folks, if you are familiar with the law of the economy of characters, you will instantly have a pretty good idea on the identity of this hidden figure within the first 30 minutes of the film, and it is likely that you will not be surprised that much when the movie eventually reveals this hidden figure around the beginning of its middle act.

Meanwhile, the real twist in the story is that Reyes belatedly comes to learn that there are a lot more things to handle besides his target. The information about his target happened to be leaked all around the world shortly before he and his target got on the airplane, and, as already shown to us during the opening scene of the film, many of the passengers are actually assassins hired to eliminate Reyes’ target.

In short, this is sort of a cross between “Bullet Train” (2022) and those John Wick movies on airplane, and director James Madigan, who has been mainly known for his special effects technician career before making a feature film debut here (He won an Emmy for HBO TV series “Rome”, by the way), adds some absurd touches to this preposterous circumstance along the story. For example, there is a humorous moment involved with someone who happens to be sitting right next to Reyes, and we get extra laugh from how this moment leads to another twist in the story.

The plot thickens a bit as Reyes’s ex-girlfriend calmly and coldly handles the increasingly tricky situation for her and her agency, but the movie thankfully keeps focusing on Reyes’ ongoing plight. While he is cornered by his numerous opponents in one way or another, he also manages to have a few people willing to help him, and there is a very outrageous moment when he encounters a trio of unexpected allies coming to help him later in the story.

Anyway, the movie surely unleashes a lot of violence and mayhem as expected during its last act, and you will probably be tickled by when it suddenly throws extra goofiness into this violent mix of comedy and action. You may wince more than once, but it may be difficult for you not to chuckle as observing how willing the movie is to try anything just for fun and thrill.

Everything in the film certainly depends a lot on Hartnett’s solid lead performance, which did a good job of balancing itself between humor and action. Never trying too hard for laughs, Hartnett simply plays his character as straight as possible, and this effectively accentuates the absurd circumstance surrounding his archetype character. In addition, he ably fills his role with enough life and personality, and we somehow come to root for his character even though he kills or maims a lot of people along the story.

In contrast, the supporting performers surrounding Hartnett are simply required to fill their respective spots. Considering that the movie is also basically another variation of those Airport flicks, I was a little disappointed that it merely fills its main background with all those assassins ready to go for Reyes and his target, though I was a bit amused when the pilots of the airplane jokingly mention “Sully” (2016) at one point in the middle of the story.

Overall, “Fight or Flight” is not exactly satisfying enough for recommendation, but I appreciate more of Hartnett’s matured presence and talent. Yes, there was a time when he just seemed to be another handsome young actor to be forgotten sooner or later, but he has risen again during last few years as becoming more interesting than before, and I am sure that we will see him moving onto better things to come.

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The Thursday Murder Club (2025) ☆☆☆(3/4): A little cozy murder mystery

Posted on September 1, 2025 by kaist455

Netflix film “The Thursday Murder Club”, which was released on last Thursday, is a little cozy murder mystery revolving around a small group of old amateur sleuths. While this is another your average Netflix product, it has enough wit and personality thanks to its solid storytelling and dependable cast, and the overall result is more entertaining than I expected.

The main background of the story is the home for old retirees somewhere in UK, and the opening part introduces the four members of “The Thursday Murder Club”: Elizabeth Best (Helen Mirren), Ron Ritchie (Pierce Brosnan), Ibrahim Arif (Ben Kingsley), and Joyce Meadowcroft (Celia Imrie), who joins the group after a former member of the group was recently sent to the hospice section due to her worsening illness. The main focus of their interest has been old unsolved cases in the past, and the latest one happens to be about the very suspicious death of one young woman, who was probably killed by her boyfriend shortly before he was vanished.

Anyway, things get more interesting for the members of the Thursday Murder Club as the cozy life in the facility becomes seriously threatened. The facility has been partially owned by a local businessman named Ivan Ventham (David Tennant), and Ventham has been quite eager to change the facility into something else for more profit. However, his plan is vehemently objected by his main business partner, a tough local dude who really cares about the facility for a personal reason.

Now you already have a pretty good idea about what will occur next. A murder happens not long after Elizabeth and her three colleagues witness an argument between Ventham and his business partner, and the police soon embark on searching for any possible suspect. As observing how sloppy a local detective assigned to the case is, the members of the Thursday Murder Club decide to handle the matter for themselves, especially after coming to learn that the future of their facility becomes more uncertain due to that murder.

Fortunately, each of them turns out to be fairly resourceful in each own way. As someone who once worked in MI6, Elizabeth surely knows how to sidestep a number of obstacles in front of them, and she soon recruits Donna De Freitas (Naomi Ackie), a smart young policewoman who has been often disregarded by her boss and colleagues due to sexism. While Ibrahim can provide some psychological insight as an ex-psychiatrist, Ron is ready for some action as an ex-union activist, and Joyce was asked to join the group because she was an ex-nurse with considerable medical knowledge.

In front of these four people, there are certainly several possible suspects to be investigated. For example, as they delve more into the business partnership involved with Ventham, it turns out that he has the other business partner who may be involved with the case considering a lot of notoriety surrounding this shady figure. In addition, the situation becomes more complicated when Elizabeth discovers an old hidden secret hidden somewhere around the facility thanks to a little help from a Polish lad who is incidentally one of Ventham’s employees.

The screenplay by Katy Brand and Suzanne Heathcote, which is based on the mystery novel of the same name by Richard Osman, does not hurry itself even though things become more serious and urgent for its main characters. After all, despite their irrepressible eagerness, the members of the Thursday Murder Club have been getting older day by day, and they are often reminded of their approaching mortality via many of their fellow retirees. In case of Elizabeth, she has happily lived with her husband Stephen (Jonathan Pryce) in their comfortable room, but he has unfortunately been suffering from Alzheimer’s disease, and she is afraid of when her husband will not remember her anymore.

Steadily focusing on character development, the movie eventually arrives at the narrative point where everything is resolved and explained to our little satisfaction. Of course, I do not dare to spoil any of your entertainment, but I can tell you instead that the story neatly pulls out the answer with some poignancy, and I was also quite delighted by how a certain figure unexpectedly functions as your typical armchair detective later in the story.

The four principal main cast members are constantly engaging as bringing some touch of class to the film. While Helen Mirren, Ben Kingsley, and Pierce Brosnan ably fill their archetype characters with enough presence and personality, Celia Imrie holds her own place well among her more prominent co-stars, and these wonderful four performers are surrounded by a bunch of various performers including David Tennant, Naomi Ackie, Daniel Mays, Henry Lloyd-Hughes, Tom Ellis, Ingrid Oliver, and Richard E. Grant, who is enjoyable as usual during his brief appearance later in the movie.

Overall, “The Thursday Murder Club”, directed by Chris Columbus, is often fun to watch thanks to the game efforts of its main cast members. Considering that Osman wrote several sequels and already finished writing the fifth book, I will not be surprised if the movie is followed by at least one sequel, and I will not complain as long as they maintain the level of charm and fun shown from this modest but entertaining movie.

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The War of the Roses (1989) ☆☆☆1/2(3.5/4): A divorce war with no compromise

Posted on August 31, 2025 by kaist455

Is there any divorce comedy film as dark, cynical, and vicious as Danny DeVito’s 1989 film “The War of the Roses”? The main pleasure of this particularly nasty classic comedy movie is how uncompromising it is with a number of hilariously extreme moments to make us both laugh and cringe, and you will be amused more to observe it firmly sticking to its edgy comic spirit to the end along with its two rather unlikable main characters.

After the inspired main title designed by Saul and Elaine Bass, the movie proceeds to a private meeting between a lawyer named Gavin D’Amato, played by DeVito himself, and one of his clients (He is played by Dan Castellaneta, who has provided the voice of Homer Simpson in the TV animation series “The Simpsons”). What Gavin is going to tell his client is a cautionary tale involved with his close colleague Oliver Rose (Michael Douglas) and Oliver’s wife Barbara (Kathleeen Turne), and it does not take much time for us to guess from the sardonic tone of Gavin’s storytelling that things did not end that well for Oliver and Barbara.

Their marriage story was started with your average Meet Cute moment. When Oliver and Barbara came across each other at a little auction held in some beach town, something instantly clicked between them as they competed with each other over a certain china figurine, and, what do you know, they married not long after having quite a passionate time between them (“If we end up together, then this is the most romantic evening of my life. And if we don’t, then I’m the world’s biggest slut.”). Although they struggled a bit during the first several years of their married life, Oliver subsequently began to advance more in his lawyer career, and Barbara mostly focused on taking care of those domestic matters including decorating a big house recently purchased by them.

However, around the time when their two kids are going to leave them for studying in Harvard University, Barbara becomes more aware of the distance and friction between her and her husband – especially after she becomes more financially independent as beginning her own catering business. When Oliver is suddenly sent to a hospital due to what turns out to be a rather minor medical problem, she comes to realize that she is not only sick of her husband but also not in love with him anymore, and she eventually tells him that she wants to divorce him right now.   

While naturally quite confused and exasperated, Oliver eventually agrees on their divorce, but there is one big problem between them. Although she is willing to give up almost everything to her husband, Barbara demands that she should get the house because she thinks she deserves it for all the diligent efforts of hers in making the house look much better than before. In contrast, Oliver believes that the house should remain with him as the house was purchased with the money earned by him, and he is certainly willing to fight against his wife to the end.

What follows next is a series of truly mean and vicious clashes which can still raise your eyebrows even at present. Regardless of whether there is really any affection left between them, both Oliver and Barbara become quite determined to go for total war, and their house is consequently turned into a sort of battleground for their ongoing divorce war. Thanks to a bit of legal advice from Gavin, Oliver keeps staying in their house despite Barbara’s demand, and he soon embarks on trying to outmatch his wife by any means necessary, while ignoring the sincere words of caution from Gavin (“Oliver, my father used to say that a man can never outdo a woman when it comes to love and revenge.”).    

The screenplay by Michael J. Leeson, which is based on the novel of the same name by Warren Adler, often delights in the increasingly malicious behaviors of its two main characters. When Barbara holds a party for the clients of her catering business, Oliver deliberately sabotages the party in a certain definite way to make your eyes roll (“I would never humiliate you like this!” – “You’re not equipped to, honey.”), and then Barbara surely shows him that Hell hath no fury like a woman scorned. In case of another conflict of theirs involved with their respective pet animals, the movie steps back a bit to my little disappointment at the last minute, but we still get some dark laugh despite that.

The comic chemistry between the two lead performers of the film is flawless to say the least. As many of you know, Michael Douglas and Kathleen Turner were successfully paired together in Robert Zemeckis’ romantic comedy adventure film “Romancing the Stone” (1984) and its 1985 sequel, and that is why it is quite amazing to see how they effortlessly interact with each other in a totally different comic mode here in this film. Under DeVito’s confident direction, both Douglas and Turner are utterly fearless in their thoroughly uncompromising comic acting, which steadily keeps us engaged to the very end even though we wince more and more as watching the conflict between their spiteful characters from the distance.

 In conclusion, “The War of the Roses” is still quite viciously funny due to its numerous biting comic moments including its starkly cynical ending true to its nasty black comic heart, and it is definitely one of the highlights in the respective careers of DeVito, Douglas, and Turner. Yes, this is surely not something you can casually watch on Sunday afternoon, but you will find yourself tickled more and more by its morbidly cutthroat sense of humor after watching it, and, like me, you may wholeheartedly agree to the advice given at the end of the story.

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Together (2025) ☆☆☆(3/4): A couple’s sticky issue

Posted on August 31, 2025 by kaist455

I enjoyed “Together” more than expected. I already knew a bit about what it is about, so there is not much surprise for me, but this modest horror film turns out to have more wit, style, and substance for handling its story and characters. In addition, it is willing to push itself along with its two committed lead performers, and you will appreciate how these two talented performers are ready to go all the way for its logical conclusion.

Dave Franco and Alison Brie, who also participated in the production of the film as co-producers, play Tim Brassington and Millie Wilson, a young couple who happen to move to a small town because of Millie’s new teaching job. On the surface, they look fine and happy when they are having a party along with their friends before their moving day, but we gradually feel the conflicts beneath their supposedly stable relationship. While he seems willing to support Millie’s school teacher career, Tim has actually felt more like a burden to his partner’s life and career, and he also wants to continue to pursue his modest musician career more, even though nothing much looks promising in his career for now. In case of Millie, she is willing to go further with more commitment in their relationship, but then she is quite disappointed when her partner hesitates in front of what is going to be a very important moment for their relationship.

Anyway, it seems that things will go fairly well for them as they begin to settle in their new residence, a nice little house located near a big forest outside the town. While Tim works on a new piece of music in their house, Millie starts her first days at a local school, and she also befriends one of her new colleagues, who happens to live not so far from her house and is quite willing to get to know her and Tim as a good neighbor.

One day, Millie and Tim decide to go inside that big forest for a brief walk, but then they get lost in the middle of the forest before encountering a mysterious cave hidden below the ground. After getting tumbled together into this strange cave, they find themselves helplessly stuck there during next several hours, and they cannot help but notice how odd and disturbing this cave looks with an ominous pool inside it.

Although the opening part of the movie already shows a bit of what this cave can do, I will not go into detail on what happens next, but I can tell you instead that Tim and Millie begin to face a serious imminent issue not long after managing to get out of the cave and then go back to their house. As they gradually grasp whatever is happening to them, the old issues in their relationship are resurfaced, and this makes their ongoing situation all the more complicated. While reminded again of how they have been rather distant to each other, they also find themselves more entangled with each other along with the story, and this naturally comes to test their love and relationship to an extreme degree.    

The screenplay by director/writer Michael Shanks, who incidentally made a feature film debut here after making several short films, takes its time as the situation of its two lead characters becomes more alarming with a series of ups and downs. While they become more disturbed by their increasingly sticky circumstance, they also come to sense more of the irresistible force driving them toward each other more and more, and the movie has some nasty fun with that from time to time.  

During the last act, the story comes to lose some of its narrative momentum as revealing more information about the cave, but Shanks and his crew members including cinematographer Germain McMicking steadily maintain considerable intensity and realism on the screen. Thanks to the judicious utilization of special effects, several key moments between its two lead characters look believable enough for us to overlook their many preposterous aspects, and you may wince a bit for a good reason when Millie decides to do something quite drastic for her and her partner with something equivalent to Chekhov’s gun. 

 The movie surely depends a lot on the good chemistry between Franco and Brie, who have actually been a married couple during last several years. Besides looking effortless with considerable intimacy right from the very beginning, they also did a splendid job of conveying to us the underlying emotional issues between their characters, and it is compelling to observe how their performances boldly go further from that along with the film. While Franco, who has been mainly known for his comic performances including his recent Emmy-nominated guest performance in Apple TV+ comedy series “The Studio”, demonstrates a more serious side of his acting talent, Brie, who has been known well for a number of works including Netflix drama series “GLOW”, is equally terrific as ably complementing her co-star throughout the film, and they remain quite convincing even while the story eventually reaches to its utterly outrageous but inevitable finale.  

On the whole, “Together” is an effective genre film which also works as a morbid relationship drama thanks to Shanks’ competent direction as well as the commendable efforts from his two lead performers. In my humble opinion, it is one of more interesting horror flicks of this year, and I assure you that you will not forget it easily after watching it.

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Huesera: The Bone Woman (2022) ☆☆☆(3/4): Does she really want this?

Posted on August 28, 2025 by kaist455

“Huesera: The Bone Woman” is a creepy supernatural horror film about a young pregnant woman under one sinister influence. Quite reminiscent of a number of recent female body horror films associated with pregnancy, the movie distinguishes itself via its distinctive mood and details to observe, and it becomes more interesting as delving more into its heroine’s increasingly conflicted state of mind later in the story.

At the beginning, we see how everything looks happy and fine for Valeria Hernandez (Natalia Solián) and her husband Raúl (Alfonso Dosal). Living fairly well together in their nice residence incidentally owned by her husband’s affluent mother, they have been trying hard for having a baby as shown from their first scene in the movie, and Valeria soon comes to bring her husband the good news they have eagerly waited for.

However, as she and her husband prepare for the birth of their baby, Valeria cannot help but sense something odd around her. At first, it was just a minor hallucination, but then she finds herself gradually disturbed by one strange happening after another. To her husband, she is simply having a sort of anxiety problem associated with her first pregnancy experience, but those weird happenings of hers feel so real to her nonetheless.

And her family do not help her that much. While her husband’s mother is delighted by her daughter-in-law’s pregnancy, she sometimes annoys Valeria, and so do Valeria’s parents and older sister, who reminds her of an unfortunate old incident in the past. At least, her spinster aunt shows some care and understanding, and Valeria later comes to one of her aunt’s old friends for getting some help on handling whatever is happening to her.

Thanks to that friend of her aunt, everything seems to become all right again for Valeria for a while, but, of course, she soon finds herself terrorized more and more by that sinister entity she felt from the very beginning. As she is thrown into more anxiety and dread, her relationship with her husband gets more deteriorated, and then there comes a point where the situation becomes quite serious for both of them.

Around this point, the screenplay by director Michelle Garza Cervera and her co-writer Abia Castillo reveals a bit about its heroine via a flashback scene. As implied by the contents of a box hidden in the closet of the baby room, there was a time when Valeria was young and wild, but she later decided to become an exemplary daughter for her parents just because of a tragic incident in the family, and this disappoints her best friend Octavia (Mayra Batalla) a lot, who wanted to get away from their neighborhood along with her someday.

When she came across Octavia early in the story, Octavia felt to her like a mere figure from the past, but Valeria comes to lean more on her former lover, and this consequently puts more conflict on Valeria. So far, she has been doing what she is expected to do as a good daughter, wife, and mother, but she cannot help but think more about her wild moments of freedom in the past, and this eventually culminates into an unexpected dramatic moment unfolded in the middle of a loud and crowded punk rock performance.

Still remaining troubled and conflicted as before, Valeria gets cornered more by that sinister entity, and we get one truly frightening moment when she finds herself driven to do something quite terrible. She comes to realize that she really needs a certain measure suggested by her aunt’s friend, but, as her aunt’s friend warned to her in advance, this can be quite risky for her for good reasons.

What follows next is a series of spooky moments experienced by our heroine as she goes through an old ritual executed by her aunt’s friend and several other old ladies. This may look a bit silly at first, but we are gradually captivated by the utterly serious mood surrounding them, and then we are caught off guard by when our heroine is suddenly thrown into what can be regarded as a realm of spirits. What happens to her next is alternatively frightening and baffling to say the least, and then the movie delivers a truly scary climax reminding us more of its very title, which reflects more than that disturbing habit of our heroine.

The performances of the main cast members are effective on the whole. As the center of the story, Natalia Solián is believable in her character’s gradual mental implosion along the narrative, and her solid performance is the main reason why we do not need much explanation on her character’s eventual decision right after that climactic part. In case of several supporting performers surrounding Solián, Alfonso Dosal, Mercedes Hernández, Martha Claudia Moreno, and Mayra Batalla are well-cast in their respective parts, and Batalla is particularly good during her several scenes with Solián.

Overall, “Huesera: The Bone Woman” is a competent genre piece to be admired by mood, storytelling, and performance. Although this is her first feature film, Garza Cervera, who won the Best New Narrative Director and Nora Ephron awards when it was shown at the Tribeca Festival in 2022, demonstrates a considerable amount of skill and confidence here, and it will be interesting to see what may come next from her next.

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The Limey (1999) ☆☆☆(3/4): A personal issue of one old Cockney dude

Posted on August 19, 2025 by kaist455

Steven Soderbergh’s 1999 film “The Limey” is a modest but slick genre flick about a little violent quest of one old British dude quite determined to find out what really happened to his dear daughter. While this is basically your typical revenge action thriller movie, it takes time in building up style and personality along the story instead of being merely driven by action, and it is also supported a lot by the considerable charisma and presence of its lead actor.

At the beginning, the movie does not show or tell much about Wilson (Terence Stamp), but we gradually gather bits of information about his criminal past in UK. He is one of those professional criminals, but he was imprisoned in jail during last several years since getting arrested due to the betrayal of his criminal associates, and now he is coming to LA for his little private investigation on his estranged daughter’s rather suspicious death.

Not long after he arrives in LA, Wilson encounters two different persons who were close to his daughter before her death. One is a local Latino guy named Eduardo Roel (Luis Guzmán), and he is the one who notified Wilson of his daughter’s death via a letter written by him. Although their first encounter is a bit awkward mainly due to Wilson’s Cockney accent (The title of the film is an American slang referring to Britons, by the way), Roel soon begins to assist Wilson’s private investigation, and so does Elaine (Lesley Ann Warren), a middle-aged actress who was the acting teacher of Wilson’s daughter.

Along with Wilson, we get to know more about the rather questionable circumstance surrounding her daughter’s death. On the surface, she died due to an unfortunate vehicle accident, but there were several shady figures in her life, and they are associated with some local drug dealing. One of these people is an old but wealthy record producer named Peter Valentine (Peter Fonda), and Wilson’s daughter was quite close to him around the time of her death.

As Wilson subsequently embarks on his quest toward Valentine, Soderbergh takes a curiously restrained but undeniably effective approach during a few moments of action early in the film. When Wilson goes to a certain warehouse for getting the address of Valentine’s residence at one point, the mood naturally becomes a little intense as Wilson clashes a bit of his opponents, but then the movie holds itself as observing the following payoff moment from the distance. You may be baffled at first, but it becomes apparent that the movie tries something different with its genre conventions, and we get more interested in Wilson’s personal drama.

Mainly to his two accidental new friends, Wilson comes to reveal a bit of himself and his life along the story, and one of Soderbergh’s masterstrokes in the film comes from the occasional brief flashback scenes which are actually excerpts from Ken Loach’s directorial debut film “Poor Cow” (1967), one of the early films in Terence Stamp’s acting career. As Wilson talks more about his past, his phlegmatic words certainly resonate a lot with the image of the younger Stamp in Loach’s film, and that brings some genuine poignancy to the story.

Soderbergh and his editor Sarah Flack also did an interesting job of bringing some offbeat quality to the film. Mainly via the frequent non-chronological jump cuts throughout the film, the movie sometimes seems to flow freely along with the stream of consciousness inside its hero’s mind, and this makes us focus more on his feelings and thoughts.

Around the narrative point where Wilson approaches closer to Valentine, the screenplay by Lem Dobbs still maintains its rather leisurely narrative pacing as usual without hurrying itself at all. While Valentine simply wants to avoid any possibility of annoyance or disturbance as much as possible, his right-hand guy Jim Avery (Barry Newman) is already quite ready to take care of the latest headache in their criminal business, and that leads to more complication in the conflict between Wilson and Valentine. What is eventually unfolded during the expected climactic part is not that loud or bombastic, Soderbergh deftly handles this part with considerable efficiency and impact, and we sense more of the inevitability in the circumstance surrounding Wilson and several other main characters.

Stamp, who sadly passed way two days ago, brings his own quiet but distinctive intensity to the film as ably embodying his character’s gritty human qualities, and he is also surrounded by a number of colorful performers to remember. While Luis Guzmán, who has always been ready to play your average street-smart Latino dude during last four decades, provides some humor to the story, Lesley Ann Warren has a few tender scenes with Stamp as their characters come to befriend each other more, and Bill Duke briefly appears as a DEA agent willing to ignore Wilson’s ongoing private investigation. As the main villains of the story, Barry Newman and Peter Fonda are well-cast in their respective supporting parts, and Fonda surely brings a lot of his own image to his character just like Stamp. After all, both of these two legendary actors were once quite popular in the 1960s, and their considerably aged status in the later 1990s brings extra human dimension to the story.

Overall, “The Limey” may look less impressive as sandwiched between “Out of Sight” (1998) and “Erin Brockovich” (2000), but it is worthwhile to watch just like many other small but solid films in Soderbergh’s productive filmmaking career during last 25 years. Yes, he simply had a little fun along with his lead actor here, but the result is still entertaining, and that surely says a lot about his undeniable talent.

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Heart Eyes (2025) ☆☆1/2(2.5/4): A murderous “date night”

Posted on August 18, 2025 by kaist455

“Heart Eyes” is another typical hybrid between horror and comedy. This time, we get a mix between slasher horror and romantic comedy, and the resulting mix is often enjoyable mainly thanks to the good chemistry between its two lead performers, though it is also often a bit too predictable to overcome many genre clichés and conventions popping up here and there in the story.

Like any other slasher horror films, the movie starts with a strikingly bloody and violent opening sequence, which shows another unfortunate couple killed by a mysterious serial killer aptly nicknamed “Heart Eye Killer” (HEK). Whenever Valentine’s Day comes, this killer brutally murders a number of young couples in one city after another, and the local police in Seattle, Washington certainly gets alerted when it is quite apparent that HEK comes to their town in this time.

However, that is just a trivial matter to Ally McCabe (Olivia Holt) now, a young woman working as a pitch designer for some prestigious jewelry company in Seattle. While she still does not recover that much from the recent breakup with her ex-boyfriend, she has to face the disastrous public reactions to her company advertisement which is clearly influenced by the current status of her private life, and she must take care of this mess within one day along with a handsome consulting advertiser named Jay Simmons (Mason Gooding).

Needless to say, Ally does not welcome Jay much, though they already had a Meet Cute moment between them before officially introduced to each other. Simply for discussing more about their work, Jay suggests that they should have a dinner together at some posh local restaurant, but she and Jay only come to see more of how much they are different from each other. While he is your average romantic, she is your typical realist, but it goes without saying that there is something being sparked between them as they argue more and more with each other across the table.

Eventually, they decide that they cannot work along with each other that well, but there comes an unexpected moment between them when they are about to leave the restaurant. They come across Ally’s ex-boyfriend and his recent girlfriend who are about to have a date night at the same restaurant, and, to show that she is fine and all right, Ally and Jay end up kissing each other right in front of Ally’s ex-boyfriend and his girlfriend.

While this looks like a simple act of pretension to both of them, this moment is unfortunately caught by the eyes of HEK, who happens to be lurking somewhere around the restaurant. Not long after when Jay kindly takes Ally to her house, HEK suddenly appears in front of them, and Jay and Ally soon find themselves running for their life.

As HEK goes all the way for another bloody rampage while pursuing Ally and Jay, the movie has a lot of nasty fun decorated with a lot of violence and blood. Just like those killer figures of those countless slasher horror flicks out there, HEK seems quite invincible to say the least, and the movie also toys with a certain possibility which has been mainly associated with “Scream” (1996) and its several sequels.

Meanwhile, as cornered more and more by their murderous opponent, Ally and Jay get to know more about each other as helping each other more, and, not so surprisingly, they come to care a lot more about each other than expected. Despite their contrasting view on love and relationship, both of them actually turn out to have yearned for the same things, and there is a little sweet moment when they get a chance to open themselves a little more to each other while a certain famous classic screwball comedy film is being shown in the background.

During the last act where everything is revealed and then explained, the screenplay by Phillip Murphy, Michael Kennedy, and Christopher Landon (He previous directed and wrote “Happy Death Day” (2017) and the 2019 sequel, and he also wrote the screenplay for “Freaky” (2020) with Kennedy, by the way) comes to lose some of its comic momentum. In case of the true identity of HEK, this is too contrived in my humble opinion (You can easily guess it to some degree if you consider the law of the economy of characters, for instance), and the same thing can be said about the obligatory climax sequence.

At least, the movie is often buoyed by the likable presence of its two lead performers. While Olivia Holt brings some charm and pluck to her character, Mason Gooding, who is hunky enough for his role even though he may not be as perky as his Oscar winner father, clicks well with his co-star during several key scenes of theirs in the film, and that is the main reason we come to root more for their characters. In case of several supporting performers in the movie, they are sadly under-utilized in comparison, but Michaela Watkins gleefully chews every moment of her rather brief appearance, and Devon Sawa and Jordana Brewster bring a bit of extra humor to the story as the two local cops assigned to the case.

Overall, “Heart Eyes”, directed by Josh Ruben, is a fairly nice comic variation on slasher horror film, but it does not go further than the standards set by “Happy Death Day” and many other recent similar horror comedy films. Because its several entertaining moments are not enough to compensate for its weak aspects, I cannot recommend it, but I will not stop you if you simply want to kill your spare time on anything watchable.

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Night Always Comes (2025) ☆☆☆(3/4): Desperate hours

Posted on August 17, 2025 by kaist455

Netflix film “Night Always Comes”, which was released a few days ago, is a relentlessly bleak mix between character drama and noir thriller, which is mainly driven by the sheer human desperation of its flawed heroine. You may not like her that much even in the end, but the movie understands her growing desperation without making any excuse on her choices and actions along the story, and that keeps us engaged in her increasingly urgent circumstance before the story eventually arrives at its expected ending.

The movie opens with its heroine beginning another hard day of her difficult daily life. Lynette (Vanessa Kirby) has lived with her mother Doreen (Jennifer Jason Leigh) and her handicapped older brother Kenny (Zack Gottsagen) in their old family house for a while since she left behind her wild and problematic past, but they are now on the verge on losing their house due to their ongoing financial difficulty, and Lynette hopes that she can buy back the house from a local real estate businessman via the money saved by her mother for years.

Unfortunately, there comes an unexpected trouble for Lynette at the last minute. Dorren suddenly decides to spend all of that money for buying a new car for herself, and, to Lynette’s frustration and exasperation, she is quite adamant about this impulsive decision of hers. As a consequence, Lynette must find any possible way to get no less than $25,000 before that real estate businessman eventually changes his mind in the next morning.

Needless to say, there is not anyone around her who will willingly borrow such a substantial amount of money to her, so Lynette has no choice but to resort to her old ways of earning money in the past. Besides doing the two jobs, she has also earned some extra money via working as a private prostitute for some affluent dude just for making ends meet for her family, so she naturally pleads to him when they meet later in the evening, but, not so surprisingly, he is mostly interested in getting a moment of pleasure from her.

Lynette subsequently goes to an old colleague of hers who owed her a lot in their past, but her old colleague does not care much about her desperate circumstance from the very beginning, mainly because, well, she is mostly occupied with how she earns and lives day by day. Sure, she is having a much better life compared to Lynette at present, but her current status can be easily lost at any chance as depending on the generosity of her No.1 client who incidentally lets her live in his luxurious apartment, and it goes without saying that helping Lynette is the last thing she wants to do right now.

Becoming all the more desperate than before, Lynette is more determined to get the money by any means necessary, and that is where the story goes into darker territories. She later recruits a young black man who is one of her co-workers at one of her two workplaces, just because she assumes that he has a particular set of skills she needs right now. Although he turns out to be not much of help, he suggests that they should go to someone who can actually help them, and she has no choice but to follow his suggestion.

As Lynette tumbles into the seedy and dangerous world of criminals along with her unlikely accomplice, we get to know a bit more about her and her past. It is apparent that she was once quite a messy walking trouble to herself as well as many others around her including her family, but she really wants to do the right thing for her family, and that makes her keep going even while she finds herself driven to do a number of bad things for her ultimate goal.

In the meantime, we also come to sense more of the grim economic desperation of her and her family and many others in the city. While the local radio programs frequently talk about how things are really bad for many people out there, the movie often shows numerous homeless people here and there in the city, and we come to feel more of how easily Lynette and her family life can tumble into such a gloomy living condition like that at any chance.

The movie, which is based on the novel of the same name by Willy Vlautin, is constantly depressing to watch, but it remains engaging thanks to not only the competent direction of director/co-producer Benhamin Caron (He has been mainly known for directing several episodes of the acclaimed Netflix drama series “The Crown”, by the way) but also the strong lead performance of Vanessa Kirby, who has been quite prominent since her Emmy-nominated supporting turn in “The Crown”. Never overlooking many human flaws of her character, Kirby also conveys well to us her character’s accumulating anxiety and conflict along the narrative, and we come to care more about whatever may happen next, even while observing her character from the distance.

The supporting performers around Kirby are mostly solid on the whole. While Jennifer Jason Leigh is allowed to show her edgy character’s human sides later in the story, Zack Gottsagen, who was unforgettable in “The Peanut Butter Falcon” (2019), holds his own small place well as Lynette’s older brother afflicted with Down syndrome, and Stephan James is also effective in his substantial supporting part. In case of Julia Fox, Randall Park, Michael Kelly, and Eli Roth, they look and feel as sleazy as required by their respective supporting roles, and Kelly is particularly good during his single scene with Kirby. Although their characters do not say a lot about their unpleasant past, they ably express it via their strained interactions on the screen, and that is more than enough for us.

On the whole, “Night Always Comes” can be regarded as your average poverty thriller flick, but it is a competent genre piece which distinguishes itself to some degree via good mood and performance. Although I must point out that what eventually occurs in the end did not surprise me a lot, the movie held my attention up to that point, and I guess I should not grumble for now.

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