Davin Arul

1 week ago | thestar.com.my | Davin Arul

Whenever South Korean beat-'em-up extravaganzas are mentioned, one would think Ma Dong-seok aka Don Lee has all the other stars ... er, beat. Not so fast. We can now add rapper-actor So Ji-sub (Doctor Lawyer, Sophie's Revenge, Be With You) to the pantheon of screen bruiser demigods.

2 weeks ago | thestar.com.my | Davin Arul

When people go through life habitually inflicting verbal, mental, or emotional (and occasionally physical) blunt force trauma on others, it's tough to get a handle on them, let alone begin to like them.Ironically, while we quickly write off such types in our personal spheres without considering their "backstory" (and sometimes suffer that fate ourselves), fictional characters have an easier go of things in our estimation as readers or viewers.

4 weeks ago | thestar.com.my | Davin Arul

If that snarky, cynical fan-favourite K-2SO from Rogue One and Andor had a human face, it could very well belong to Alexander Skarsgard. One thing, though: this is not exactly the droid you're looking for. And all his snark is internalised, not spewed. Also, this isn't anywhere near theStar Wars universe but in a ruthlessly capitalist section of a (presumably) vast galactic realm more directly "descended" from our own society.

1 month ago | thestar.com.my | Davin Arul

Come for the apocalypse, stay for the allegory. The Eternaut, Netflix's latest science fiction series, is an adaptation of a late 1950s Argentinian comic by the writer Hector German Oesterheld and artist Francisco Solano Lopez. The initially apolitical Oesterheld "rebooted" the story in 1969 with artist Alberto Breccia at a time of rising political tension in his home country and inserted stronger allegorical themes into the story.

1 month ago | thestar.com.my | Davin Arul

The world has certainly come a long way from the days when entertainment involving cannibalism was made on ultra-low budgets, shot in some "exotic" Asian locale (our own rainforests being a location choice for one notorious example with a certain ex-Bond girl), and drew hordes of the curious to cinemas. All of them looking kind of sheepish or guilty as they lined up for tickets, to be sure. If we lived in cooler climes, most of us would have been queueing in trenchcoats with upturned collars.