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Dec 2, 2024 | 
screendaily.com | John Berra
Fang Li explores the 1942 sinking of a Japanese cargo ship in this Chinese awards hopeful
Dir. Fang Li. China. 2024. 122mins
In September 1942, a total of 1,816 Allied prisoners of war were aboard the Japanese cargo ship Lisbon Maru as it travelled from Hong Kong to Japan. After three days at sea, the ship was struck by a torpedo fired by the USS Grouper within the proximity of Dongji Island in China’s eastern Zhejiang province.
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Oct 12, 2024 | 
screendaily.com | John Berra
Immersive docu-fiction from the director of ‘Island Of The Hungry Ghosts’ charts climate change in Mongolia
Source: London Film Festival
Dir. Gabrielle Brady. Australia/Mongolia/Germany. 2024. 96 mins
What is a herder without his animals? This question of identity permeates Gabrielle Brady’s docudrama The Wolves Always Come at Night, which follows a Mongolian family grappling with the seismic impacts of climate change.
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Oct 5, 2024 | 
screendaily.com | John Berra
Debut from China tracks the ripples of the past into present-day life in a small town
Source: Busan International Film Festival
Dir/scr. Charles Hu. China. 2024. 99mins
Early on in As The River Goes By, writer-director Charles Hu signals that his debut feature, about a train driver confronting his past after a school reunion, is a meditation on traumatic memory. “Can aftershocks last for decades?
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Oct 3, 2024 | 
screendaily.com | John Berra
Super Eight’s Ryuhei Maruyama stars in this ‘plodding’ prison drama from Japan
Source: Busan International Film Festival
Dir. Go Furukawa. Japan. 2024.
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Sep 24, 2024 | 
screendaily.com | John Berra
Veteran screenwriter Huo Xin makes her directorial debut with a genre-infused drama about domestic abuse
Source: San Sebastian International Film Festival
Dir/scr: Huo Xin. China. 2024. 109 mins
Domestic violence, terminal illness and the pursuit of freedom are topics explored in Bound In Heaven, which finds veteran screenwriter Huo Xin making her directorial debut.
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Sep 6, 2024 | 
bfi.org.uk | Sam Wigley |Rory Doherty |Josh Slater-Williams |John Berra
Where’s it on? Cinemas nationwideFans of the queasy, stomach-knot cinema of filmmakers like Michael Haneke or David Cronenberg would do well to pay attention to this new Canadian chiller. Be warned though: it’s not for the faint-hearted, even if you never actually see the horrific crimes at its centre. Pascal Plante’s film revolves around the trial of a man accused of killing a succession of teenage girls during live-streams for paying customers on the dark web.
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Sep 5, 2024 | 
bfi.org.uk | Rory Doherty |Josh Slater-Williams |John Berra |Sam Wigley
Our eternal crisis with technology – will it liberate humankind or confine us? – has exploded in the digital age. Issues such as digital security, artificial intelligence and dark web economies all invite a moral ambiguity that filmmakers have eagerly jumped at.
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Sep 2, 2024 | 
screendaily.com | John Berra
A ‘mistress dispeller’ seeks to break up an extramarital affair in this intimate Chinese documentary
Dir. Elizabeth Lo. China/US. 2024. 94 mins
Times have changed in China in more ways than one: the rate of marital infidelity is now as high as that of developed countries. Indeed, the 2020 Chinese Private Life Survey found that 26% of married Chinese (35% of married men and 23% of married women) had cheated on their spouse.
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Aug 29, 2024 | 
bfi.org.uk | John Berra |Sam Wigley |Matthew Thrift |Anton Bitel
Maggie Cheung is often introduced as the muse of such arthouse favourites as Wong Kar Wai, Stanley Kwan and Olivier Assayas. But she is very much the author of her remarkable career. A true global citizen and polyglot, Cheung’s life and screen identity are defined by rootlessness. Born in Hong Kong in 1964, she was raised in the UK and returned to Hong Kong to pursue modelling before transitioning to acting, then lived in Paris.
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Aug 3, 2024 | 
screendaily.com | John Berra
Lee Myung-Se joins this South Korean portmanteau in which four directors put their spin on Ernest Hemingway’s assassin story
Dirs. Kim Jong-kwan, Roh Deaok, Chang Hang-jun, Lee Myung-Se. South Korea. 2024. 119mins
Ernest Hemingway’s much-reprinted 1927 short story ‘The Killers’ begins with a pair of hitmen walking into a restaurant to kill an ex-boxer who is expected to arrive shortly.
