Festival Review: Inside The Chinese Closet (2015)
★★★☆☆
With fake marriage markets and illegal babies, Sophia Luvara’s intimate documentary Inside The Chinese Closet reveals gay men and women shouldering their parents’ burden.
★★★☆☆
With fake marriage markets and illegal babies, Sophia Luvara’s intimate documentary Inside The Chinese Closet reveals gay men and women shouldering their parents’ burden.
★★★★☆
A multilayered blast of mysterious occurrences in the desert, Mani Haghighi’s A Dragon Arrives! is an enjoyable bafflement.
★★☆☆☆
An ambitious portrait of modern China, Yang Chao’s Crosscurrent is a poetic knot of yearning, mourning and the shifting sands of time.
★★★☆☆
A quiet, elliptic take on 8th century China combining arthouse and wuxia, Hou Hsiao-Hsien’s The Assassin screams style and accomplishment.
★★★☆☆
An exuberant musical extravaganza about the financial crisis, Johnnie To’s Office offers an energetic, occasionally brash, satire on capitalism.
★★★☆☆
With cherry blossom, sweet red bean paste and lovable pensioners, Naomi Kawase’s An is a light, soft-centred Japanese fancy.
★★★☆☆
When three sisters become four, Hirokazu Koreeda’s Our Little Sister is a homely rumination on family and female friendship.
★★★☆☆
Uncovering the life and works of Jia Zhangke in his home city, Walter Salles’ A Guy From Fenyang reveals the metropolis behind the man.
★★☆☆☆
A triptych of melancholy Chinese stories, Jia Zhangke’sMountains May Depart builds an awkward narrative of nostalgia – past, present and future.
★★★☆☆
Combining gay rights with all the tropes of a horror movie, July Jung’s A Girl At My Door is strangely haunting, but struggles with a split personality.
★★★☆☆
An Iranian skateboarding vampire movie, Ana Lily Amirpour’s A Girl Walks Home Alone At Night is a quirky, stylish addition to the genre.
★★★★☆
With a delicate, mesmerising performance from Rinko Kikuchi, Kumiko, The Treasure Hunter is a darkly comic tale of misadventure – tragic, odd and uplifting.
★★★☆☆
Despite a promising concept of heavenly screenwriters, Sabu’s Chasuke’s Journey ends in an occasionally visually arresting but hare-brained disappointment.
★★★☆☆
An atmospheric evocation of life on the banks of the Saigon River, Dang Di Phan’s Big Father, Small Father And Other Stories is a gently haunting muddle.