International: Asia
Playback: Park Chan-wook, Pushed to the Limit, from JOINT SECURITY AREA to NO OTHER CHOICE
Park Chan-wook studies how vengeance and obsession can narrow the mind, reducing problems to a single, violent answer. The Korean director returns to characters consumed by the promise of moral clarity. Park is perhaps best known for his exacting compositions...
NO OTHER CHOICE Review: It's Murderously Hard to Find a Good Job Nowadays
Park Chan-wook's new film stars Lee Byung Hun and Son Yejin in a delightfully dark comedy.
Opening This Week: ANACONDA Bites, NO OTHER CHOICE Hunts Jobs, THE PLAGUE Plunges Into Terror
Plus: 'The Testament of Ann Lee,' 'Marty Supreme,' 'Song Sung Blue,' 'The Choral.'
Screen Anarchy Last Minute Gift Guide 2025 Episode 3: Severin, Criterion Collection, Mutant Records, Collectibles and Collectible Packaging
Welcome to episode three of the Screen Anarchy Last Minute Gift Guide for 2025. This episode highlights homes entertainment releases from Severin and The Criterion Collection. I like to think that the difference between this and other gift guides is...
Screen Anarchy Last Minute Gift Guide 2025 Episode 2: Shout Factory, Warner, Neon Eagle and Cauldron
Welcome to Episode two of the Screen Anarchy Last Minute Gift Guide for 2025. The first episode highlighted releases from Kino. This episode covers stuff that was sent by Shout Factory, Warner Brothers, Neon Eagle and Cauldron. I...
Criterion in March 2026: Tsui Hark's THE BLADE, Martin Scorsese's KILLERS OF THE FLOWER MOON, More
Springtime -- specifically, March 2026 -- brings many good gifts for home video enthusiasts from The Criterion Collection, beginning with Tsui Hark's superlative action epic The Blade (1995) in 4K (?!). I love the official description, so allow me to...
SCARLET Review: If Hamlet Was a Sword-Wielding Warrior Princess Having a Boss Fight in the Afterlife
A young woman finds herself in a horrifying afterlife, where many things look like our familiar reality, but with a few macabre twists. A brief flashback interlude informs us that the heroine is Scarlet, a medieval-era princess who tried to...
RESURRECTION Review: Fashioning an Alternate History of Cinema
Jackson Yee and Shu Qi star in Bi Gan's new film.
ALL YOU NEED IS KILL Official Trailer: Big, Animated Sci-fi Action in Canadian Cinemas This January
Warner Bros. and Cineplex Pictures here in Canada are releasing the animated sci-fi action film, All You Need is Kill, in theaters on January 16th. The official trailer came out today, you can check it out below. Set in...
LONE SAMURAI Review: A Mythic Promise Gets Washed Ashore
Legend says Japan was saved twice by a miracle. In 1274 and again in 1281, as Kublai Khan's Mongol forces advanced to conquer the archipelago, samurai mounted a desperate coastal defense, only for brutal typhoons to surge in and tear...
A USEFUL GHOST Poster and Trailer: A Very Queer Ghost Story
Earlier this year, our own Dustin Chang reported on a very queer tale, A Useful Ghost, that enjoyed its world premiere at the Cannes Film Festival. Its official synopsis describes it like this: "March is mourning his wife Nat who...
Tokyo 2025 Interview: THE CHATTERBOXES Director Ken Kawai Discusses Crafting Humor From Language Barriers
A rising CODA director discusses his charming dramedy of communication errors.
LEFT-HANDED GIRL Review: Vibrant Slice of Taipei Night Market Life
Shih-Ching Tsou directed and co-wrote Taiwan's official Oscar submission for Best International Feature Film; Sean Baker co-wrote.
Now Streaming: BLOSSOMS SHANGHAI Starts Flat
Wong Kar-Wai's first television series, now on The Criterion Channel.
Golden Horse 2025 Interview: DEAR STRANGER Director Tetsuya Mariko Talks Transnational Filmmaking, New York, and Puppet Theater
The director of Toei's first English-language feature talks puppets, New York, and transnational dialogues.
Friday One Sheet: MAGELLAN
The majestic ode to the age of exploration and sail show in today's key art belies the revisionist historical film from slow cinema maestro Lav Diaz. With its hazy sunrise and high grain, and jaunty tilt (note the waterline, and...
Exclusive: HYPERNORMALIZED, New Horror Thriller From Justin McConnell Wraps Production
You read it here first. Our friend, Justin McConnell (Lifechanger, Clapboard Jungle), has wrapped production on a new horror thriller called Hypernormalized. Plagued by intense nightmares and a relentless otherworldly entity, one isolated man’s sanity begins to slip. As...
THE RED SPECTACLES Review: Mamoru Oshii's Absurdist Take on Authoritarianism Gets a Second Life
Memory hardens around those who experience violence, turning guilt or pain into an armor they must carry long after the wounds close. That burden is the doorway into Mamoru Oshii's The Red Spectacles, a film where guilt materializes as a...
RENTAL FAMILY Review: Brendan Fraser Delivers Another Unimpeachably Winning Performance
Sometime in the 1990s, rental agencies in Japan spontaneously formed around the singular idea of renting people — or to be more exact, renting their time — to act as stand-ins, role-players, and/or performers in everyday events, from marriages to funerals...
KOKUHO Review: The Splendor of Kabuki
A hit in Japan, where it was selected to represent the country at the Academy Awards, Kokuho is a tougher sell elsewhere. Focusing on two kabuki rivals over a 50-year period, the film is nothing if not ambitious. Viewers unfamiliar with its...
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