Author: Wanggo Gallaga

MOVIE REVIEW: ‘The Woman King’ and how it reimagines Africa’s past for a new global cinematic audience

As a person who grew up in the 80s and 90s watching Hollywood movies, there’s something magical and powerful about watching a film set in Africa, whose lead characters are African women, who command so much respect and admiration. Growing up, my idea of Africa had been shaped by the news and by Hollywood and it wasn’t until ‘Black Panther’ that I began to allow myself to think of Africa in a different light. The fact that it took producers Maria Bello, Cathy Schulman, and Viola Davis five years to get the movie greenlit by a major studio and only after the success of the MCU movie changed the way Hollywood would tell stories about Africa in a mainstream setting.

The story, about a general of an elite army of women warriors, is based on true accounts. The Agojie served as the inspiration for the women warriors the Dora Milaje of ‘Black Panther’ and were the elite forces of the king of the kingdom of Dahomey, which really existed for around 300 years. The fictional general, Nanisca (played by Viola Davis) must train a new generation of Agojie warriors while observing how the war between African kingdoms was fueled by the slave trade brought in by the Europeans. As Nanisca discusses geopolitics with her king, King Ghezo (a real-life figure and played with great charisma by John Boyega), Nawi (a new recruit and played with great depth and power by Thuso Mbedu) learns the ways of the Agojie.

Photo: Columbia Pictures

If anything, ‘The Woman King’ is a straight-up epic action film, which many critics have likened to films like ‘Gladiator’ or ‘The Last of the Mohicans’ except with black women. There is ample time spent to establish the setting of this story – West Africa in 1823 – and impressing upon us the complex relationships between Nanisca and King Ghezo and Nanisca and the Agojie, most notably her closest friend Amenza (played by Sheila Atim). Nawi befriends her other new recruits as well as the veteran warrior Izogie (played by a scene-stealing Lashana Lynch) as they prepare for war with the Oyo Empire, who has been capturing the Dahomey people to sell as slaves to the Europeans.

Photo: Columbia Pictures

There’s a good mix of story, action sequences, and just a general feast of the visual imagery of a prosperous African kingdom and a band of highly respected and feared warrior women. Honestly, I’ve never seen anything like it before on the big screen and I was just sitting in my seat in the movie theater transfixed to the screen and enjoying every minute of it.

The film never strays away from the issues of women – sexual assault, oppression, forced marriages – and it’s great to see the women fight back in such a ruthless and brutal manner that was so befitting of its time period. Director Gina Prince-Bythewood, who had directed ‘Old Guard,’ does an amazing job at balancing both the emotional elements of the story (that Davis, Mbedu, and Lynch have moments that can really pull at the heartstrings even if this is an action film through and through) and does splendid coverage of the battle sequences. You see the power and the speed of the movements. It’s beautiful in its ferocity.

Photo: Columbia Pictures

What it also manages to put into perspective is how the Europeans and the Americans have pit the African nations against each other by trading guns and wealth in exchange for African lives in the form of slaves. While there are historical inaccuracies depicted in the film regarding King Ghezo’s thoughts about slavery, what the film positions is that what has happened in the past was a travesty with unimaginable consequences. It resonates even until the present day as we see the sort of racial discrimination that is still happening in the US and for the mere fact that depictions of Africans like it has in the films ‘Black Panther’ and ‘The Woman King’ are very few and far between (and if there are, not as commercially available).

Photo: Columbia Pictures

Representation matters because what we see in the cinema (or on the news) really becomes our only window to imagine what the rest of the world would look like or feel like. Without films like this, we’d always think of Africa as a struggling continent that needs “the white man’s help” even though history has told us that the west came and turned the continent over its head for its resources. While ‘Black Panther’ can help us imagine what an Africa undisturbed by Western imperialism could look like, ‘The Woman King’ can help us imagine what Africa may have been like before France colonized the Dahomey kingdom in 1863.

There are no white saviours in this story. And while this is a story about slavery, it’s not finding entertainment in the victimization of the African people but celebrating their fight against it. This is Africa – and African women – put front and center and if this is the trend of the kind of movies we will have moving forward then I’m so excited to see what other films we will get to see after this.

My Rating:

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The Woman King is now showing in cinemas nationwide. Buy your tickets here.

October 6, 2022
Surprising at every turn, ‘Decision to Leave’ masterfully merges the genres of the crime thriller and romance

The way that director Park Chan-wook plays around with genre conventions in his latest movie, ‘Decision to Leave’ shows off his mastery of the medium of film. The film is equal parts a crime thriller as it is also a stunning romantic drama but is also loaded with a certain dead-pan, dry sense of humour that is filled with irony and even cynicism. With great use of brisk and flashy editing techniques that makes the 138-minute running time fly by unnoticed, stunning cinematography that plays with your head with its unusual framing and gorgeous lighting, and a script never fails to twist and turn in surprising ways, Park Chan-wook delivers another mind-blowing experience at the cinema.

While other critics have said this is not on the same level as his previous works like ‘The Handmaiden’ or ‘Oldboy’ and while I can see where they are coming from, even his lesser work is better than most filmmakers at their best.

‘Decision to Leave’ is a crime thriller about a police detective who falls in love with the widow of a man who fell off a mountain while mountain climbing. As Hae-joon (Park Hae Il), the police detective, investigates the cause of death, he begins to obsess over Seo-rae (Tang Wei), the Chinese widow of the fallen mountain climber as he discovers that she was a victim of domestic abuse and her marriage to the victim may have been one of convenience. From widow to prime suspect, Hae-joon finds himself attracted to Seo-rae, even though he’s married.

Photo: Decision to Leave trailer

At every turn, the film jumps back and forth between a murder mystery and a dark love story. Director Park Chan-wook masterfully uses match cuts and jump cuts to play with time as Hae-joon’s affections for her builds up and gets stronger through the investigation. There’s a terrific scene where the detective is watching the widow with a pair of binoculars as she is working and in a sudden cut, he is in the room with her, unseen, and is close enough to touch. Through Park’s direction, Hae-joon is present in Seo-rae’s day-to-day affairs through his imagination, or maybe it’s Seo-rae who is present in all of Hae-joon’s thoughts.

What’s interesting about this film is that, while mixing the genre of crime thriller and romance, the film never attempts to pass judgment on its characters. Yes, Hae-joon is committing some level of infidelity, though they never consummate it. In fact, his wife Jung-an (Lee Jung-hyun) is aware that they are not in love but she’s committed to the marriage nonetheless.

Photo: Decision to Leave trailer

What it paints is a picture of a policeman who is only passionate about his work – he has a wall filled with photos of the cases he has yet to solve, which may be the cause of his insomnia – and maybe that’s also the reason why he seems infatuated with Seo-rae. She’s the job. Is she a killer or is she a victim herself? And what will happen now that Seo-rae seems very much open to the affections of the detective?

As the story unfolds, we become witnesses to a dark and dangerous aspect of love – of its capacity to blur the lines between what is right and wrong and to muddle our priorities and our own well-being – and that when framed within the context of crime and murder, love leaves no space for justice. Like this movie and story beats that push it forward, love is merciless in how it makes demands from us all.

Photo: Decision to Leave trailer

The film’s tone is dark and foreboding – there’s very little joy in this love story – but it is also oddly comedic when taken as a whole. The ending is ironic, which is the natural state of the world, according to screenwriting guru Robert McKee, and it’s why I find that there’s a dark humour to this film. The way with which Seo-rae (through the wonderfully layered and nuanced performance by Tang Wei) is so resolute in her choices, her total dedication to the decisions that she makes and the way by which Park Hae-il embodies the stoic Hae-joon, where he almost seems like an involuntary agent in this farce, that I couldn’t help but smile at the end of the film. I didn’t like these characters and it was such a sordid and strange situation to dramatize but I couldn’t stop watching. The acting was impeccable, the direction was so masterful, and by the end of it, I was just swept away by all these thoughts about how merciless and demanding love can be.

It’s not as explosive as ‘The Handmaiden’ nor is it as shocking as ‘Oldboy’ but ‘Decision to Leave’ will stay in my head for a very long time.

My Rating:

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Decision to Leave is now in cinemas nationwide. Buy your tickets here.
Homestream image from the TIFF website.

September 29, 2022
Frightening by Overindulgence: a review of ‘Smile’

Everything scary about director Parker Finn’s ‘Smile’ is in excess: the camera work, the musical score, and sound design, the jump scares, the slow-burn exposition. Considering this is Finn’s directorial debut, he shows a lot of promise in his understanding of how to frame a sequence and how to create tension and to elicit dread and fear but what he now needs to learn is restraint.

‘Smile’ is about a psychiatrist, Dr. Rose Cotter, who meets a patient suffering from a paranoid delusion about a sinister entity that plays tricks on her mind and threatens her with her own death. During their first session, Rose witnesses the patient kill herself, and what she diagnosed as a paranoid delusion turns out to be very true and now this being is haunting her. In the midst of determining what’s real and what’s fantasy, Rose begins to unravel and her own past traumas return.

Photo courtesy of Paramount Pictures

The film is long, running at almost two hours, and while there’s a lot of story to cover – Rose’s past traumas and how it has affected her present-day life, how the hauntings of this entity are affecting her relationships, the formulaic story point of her uncovering the history of this malevolent spirit – it still could have been shorter if the director, who also wrote the screenplay, didn’t draw out all the scary moments of the film.

Oftentimes, the point has been made but instead of moving further into the story, he’ll add another scary moment, as if he’s trying to reach a quota. It’s relentless and it gets exhausting at some point as it starts to feel repetitive.

Photo courtesy of Paramount Pictures

And it’s a shame because there’s a lot of good filmmaking involved in ‘Smile.’ There’s a really good use of extreme close-ups on the face of Sosie Bacon, who plays Rose, and we get a very intimate view of her character’s unraveling. It creates a sense of claustrophobia, where, as the audience, you want the medium shot or a long shot just so that you can see the extent of the danger that she’s in. There’s a good interplay of silence and sudden loud noises, of a vibrant musical score that really amps up the tension of the scenes. If these elements were used sparingly, it would have a stronger effect on the movie as it paces us along with the narrative.

Photo courtesy of Paramount Pictures

Instead, as it keeps coming over and over again, we stop focusing on the story and just psych ourselves up for another scary moment.

Interestingly enough, the film uses trauma and mental health as the fulcrum by which the whole story operates on. While a lot of psychological thrillers or even psychological horror films used mental health as a reason for the death and destruction, in ‘Smile’ it becomes both a weapon and, maybe, a path to salvation. Discussions about mental health are always welcomed, especially when it’s done correctly, but to use it in this horror film, and in such a blatant way, somehow reduces the supernatural aspect of the film by quite a bit.

Photo courtesy of Paramount Pictures

What makes the supernatural so scary is how mysterious and unscientific it is and can be, and by framing this creature’s motives and processes through mental health makes it feel less believable and more made up than it already is.

There are a lot of good things in the film – use of close-ups, use of crazy camera angles to show the growing deterioration of Rose’s mental health, excellent mix of quiet moments and loud scoring and sound design to amplify a mood – but all these individual elements don’t really add up to a strong horror film. It’s fun to watch with friends for a laugh but it’s not going to stay with you like other horror movies.

My Rating:

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Smile is now in cinemas nationwide. Buy your tickets here.

September 28, 2022
MOVIE REVIEW: ‘Don’t Worry Darling’ is telling us to worry and that nothing is what it seems

From its opening scene, Don’t Worry Darling is already telling you something is wrong with this picture. And it’s a happy moment: the film begins with a wild, drunken revelry between three couples in what seems to be an image of the ideal 60s American life. They are drinking, dancing, teasing each other. They are young and beautiful and seemingly madly in love with their respective partners. In fact, our leads Alice and Jack (Florence Pugh and Harry Styles) can’t seem to get enough of each other, kissing and having sex at every opportunity. But something is off and Alice is beginning to take notice.

The filmmaking, with Olivia Wilde in the director’s chair, is visceral and luscious – from its cinematography, blocking, choice of musical score, and the performances of the majority of the cast – and gives you a building momentum of dread. Something is very wrong in this picture-perfect representation of the American dream. Every so often, there’s an earthquake and the women react almost by reflex in ensuring their drinks stay stable and nothing falls to the floor. The men leave for work in an almost synchronised exit in their shiny Cadillacs or whatever fancy car model they have in that era. The musical score of John Powell is intricate as it is eerie. Its haunting melodies are created by vocals and even rhythmic breaths, sometimes a drone sound of fuzzed bass or a sudden explosion of violent strings. It’s intrusive. It punctures the visuals and it really gets you going. Oftentimes, the score is designed so that you think it’s diegetic, that it is part of the scene and then you realise it isn’t and it adds to the atmosphere.

Courtesy of Warner Bros. Pictures

Wilde does an amazing job at instilling a sense of dread and danger in every moment of ‘Don’t Worry Darling,’ subverting the whole idea of the ideal 60s concept of Americana – the white picket fences, suburbia, the glamorous 60s – but Wilde ends up showing how hollow it really was; that it is nothing more than a frightening veneer covering up something dark and twisted and horrible.

Courtesy of Warner Bros. Pictures

The narrative unfolds like a slow-burn horror film, with moments of genuine weirdness that remind you something is amiss. From the get-go, you know this film is centered around the issues of women. This time frame positions women as the support system of the men as they go through their daily work. We know this is sexist, that this world is sexist, and just like Alice, we start to question the very fabric of this world’s reality. What is this Victory Project that the men are working on? Who is Frank (played by Chris Pine), this charming figure who leads this community and everyone seems to be so enamored with? What will happen to this couple as Alice becomes more and more certain something is wrong as Jack seems to be climbing the ladder to success?

Courtesy of Warner Bros. Pictures

The feminist themes are apparent. The film explores and dramatizes the idea of control, of gaslighting, and questioning the role of women in a marriage and in society. It can feel heavy-handed as the film is centered mainly through Alice’s point-of-view and this is all that she sees but it’s interwoven so intricately into the entire concept of the movie that I don’t mind it. These are issues that are still relevant to this very day and age.

Courtesy of Warner Bros. Pictures

Florence Pugh channels her character from ‘Midsommar’ and then takes it to a different level in ‘Don’t Worry Darling.’ She’s a wonderful anchor for this movie as she can make this sense of paranoia into something so palpable and it makes her reactions so believable. In a way, she plays off so well with Olivia Wilde, who plays an exuberant neighbour, someone who is completely sold into this world; and also with Gemma Chan, who plays the wife of Frank, who contrasts the two women through stillness and silence. These three women show off a range of layers in various ways that it’s great to see them work. It layers the movie wonderfully by showing off a dynamic range of women characters.

Courtesy of Warner Bros. Pictures

And for the men, it’s Chris Pine who steals the show. As mentioned above, he’s magnetic and charming, maintaining a hint of the sinister behind an easy smile while expertly delivering stirring monologues that, when you really think about it, says nothing specific or substantial at all. This adds to the mystery that the film is working towards.

Courtesy of Warner Bros. Pictures

And the big reveal is my only real gripe in ‘Don’t Worry Darling.’ Once uncovered, there’s an element of it not being equivalent to the build-up that happened. It’s a bit mundane, maybe even a little cliche. The big revelation is not as clever as it could have been. The experience that you get through only to find out that it’s that is a bit of a letdown for me. There’s so much creativity and imagination in the first hour and a half that the ending feels like they ran out of steam.

But it’s a tiny gripe since the overall experience of watching this film is so good that I can forgive the banality of its ending.

My Rating:

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Don’t Worry Darling arrives in cinemas nationwide this September 28. Buy your tickets here.

September 27, 2022
The Surprising Tender Heart of ‘Three Thousand Years of Longing’

Based on the trailer, ‘Three Thousand Years of Longing’ looks like a crazy, out-of-the-box fantasy tale involving two incredible actors – Tilda Swinton and Idris Elba – and the out of this world imagination of director George Miller.

Miller, who has shown great depth and versatility having directed both ‘Mad Max: Fury Road’ and the penguin musical ‘Happy Feet’ as well as directing the delightful 80s women-centric supernatural comedy ‘The Witches of Eastwick’ and then dramatic biopic ‘Lorenzon’s Oil.’ His filmography is such that it can bring a rush of excitement over whatever project he conjures up next and what aspect of the human condition he plans to turn into some cinematic spectacle.

Photo courtesy of Go Asia Entertainment

Tilda Swinton plays Alithea Binnie, a narratologist, who discovers a djinn (genie) in a bottle during an academic conference in Turkey. As a narratologist, Alithea is vastly knowledgeable about stories of all kinds, and is an expert in mythology and ancient lore. During her conference, she exhibits hallucinations of mystical beings that engage with her but no one else can see. Are they all in her mind or are they really happening?

So when the djinn (played by Idris Elba) is freed, it doesn’t take much for Alithea to understand what is happening and what is at stake when the djinn tells her that he is obliged to grant her three wishes. But as someone who is well-versed in the stories of man, of different cultures and different eras of human civilization, Alithea is not one to be so hasty and what unravels is a story within a story, akin to The Tales of the Arabian Nights and the story of Scheherezade.

Photo courtesy of Go Asia Entertainment

What begins in a hotel room in Turkey, with Alithea in a bathrobe and the djinn eventually following suit, discussing the parameters of their arrangement, the story shifts into the many tales of both Alithea and the djinn and the scenes shift to the stories they weave.

Each story is set in a lush, extravagantly production designed wonder of that era. A story about the Queen of Sheba or a story about a prince of the Ottoman empire brings us to these moments with a casting that befits these characters and while a lot of the story is told through the narration of Elba or Swinton, when the characters do speak, it is of the language of that land and of that era. On paper, the narrative is a lonely narratologist and djinn talking in a hotel room exchanging stories but what you see are foreign lands in a different time. Miller’s playful use of the camera allows us to go into the heart of these stories, and as the title of the film suggests, they are stories about longing and love and desire.

Photo courtesy of Go Asia Entertainment

I was expecting a riotous, frenetic film filled with bombastic visuals as the trailer suggests but instead, I found myself marveling at the tender heart that is beating at the center of this film. It is visually stunning but it was unexpectedly warm and poignant. The film doesn’t only highlight the power of stories in our lives – how we use it everyday in the way with which we see ourselves and the world – but it also explores the various nature of our wishes and desires.

Swinton and Elba take this eccentric, whimsical little fairy tale and manage to infuse their characters with so much humanity, Swinton playing a caricature of the intelligent, introverted master of stories with such precision that when her character makes a sudden realisation later in the film about what it is she truly desires, the caricature almosts fades immediately and she suddenly becomes human in an instant. It’s something that happens without a cut, a sudden epiphany that happens in a sparkle of her eyes. Playing off of this is Elba, who is at home playing an otherworldly being, who possesses great power but also a sad history. It’s there in his posture, in the way he plays with his voice.

Photo courtesy of Go Asia Entertainment

‘Three Thousand Years of Longing’ is an unexpected visual feast that is more a love story than it is a supernatural, mythical adventure. It’s a modern fairytale about love and desire and the cost of such an emotion in this world, whether human or djinn. It is not afraid to be unconventional or weird. It is not afraid to be steeped into the world of its own stories and then to push back into the modernity of the narrative framework of its own film. It’s refreshing, surprising in how bold and daring it is and, as he always does, George Miller has surprised me once again.

My Rating:

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Distributed by Go Asia Entertainment, Three Thousand Years of Longing is now showing in cinemas nationwide. Buy your tickets here.

September 14, 2022
The documentary ‘Fanny: The Right to Rock” is a big middle finger to sexism, racism, homophobia, and ageism

The band Fanny is marketed as “one of the most important rock bands you’ve never heard of,” and the hour-and-a-half documentary ‘Fanny: The Right to Rock’ by Bobbi Jo Hart manages to trace the all-women rock band’s rise and unfortunate fall into obscurity during the rock music scene of America during the early 70s. Needless to say, in the 60s and 70s, rock music was the territory of men. There were women who fronted bands but there were no rock music groups where all the members were women, playing instruments, and proving they were just as good with their instruments as any man. But Fanny did not just have to come head-to-head with sexism, they had to go against racism and homophobia as well as two members were Filipina Americans and some were lesbians.

But the documentary is not just a historical review of the band’s beginnings and struggles to be taken seriously, it also examines their talents and their impact in the industry – Fanny paved the way for women in rock – through interviews with rock luminaries to contextualise what it was they were able to accomplish amidst all the criticisms and pushback against an all-women rock band.

But writer and director Bobbi Jo Hart doesn’t stop there. The power of this documentary is how the historical review of their struggles to change the industry is used to frame the present-day narrative of how three of the original members have reunited to try and pick up where they left off as women in their 60s.

In a way, the documentary is operating within two timelines – the past and the present – and how both are interacting to underscore that their story as a band has not yet ended. There is still a future that is hinted at through this documentary and it makes for a riveting watch.

For a documentary to really stand out, one needs access; access to the subject of the documentary and the people around them. Hart has this in droves. All the members, past and present, are available for interviews except for one. Industry insiders include musical legends Todd Rundgren, Bonnie Raitt, The B-52s Kate Pierson, The Go Go’s Kathy Valentine, Def Leppard’s Joe Elliot, and David Bowie’s guitarist and bassist, Earl Slick and Gail Ann Dorsey. In fact, though he had passed away already, David Bowie’s presence is strongly felt as he was a champion for Fanny and constantly rallied for their recognition for their artistry. The documentary has various accounts of their beginnings, home footage of their performances in gigs and television shows, and photographs of their lives in LA when they just signed their record deal. Very little is left to the imagination and what is built is an image of a band that could have been, who paved the way for women in an industry that was not forgiving, who were not recognised for their talents and creativity, and how they eventually vanished and erased until recently.

Filled with songs from the five albums they released before they disbanded, it really highlights how good they were and with footage of them aging beautifully and still as sharp and as skilled as ever, it creates an energy and an excitement with this whole idea of them coming back together, recording an album, and adding ageism to the many barriers they’ve taken down in their journey to reclaim what could very well be their destiny.

The documentary manages to highlight how Fanny, and their resurgence in popularity is a testament to this need to battle and fight all forms of erasure, whether it’s sexist, homophobic, racist, or ageist. These women have stood against it and almost overcame it over 40 years ago but just missed out on success as they were on the brink. But this documentary chronicles their second chance and lays the foundation for a new future for the band.

It’s eye-opening and inspiring. It’s funny and daring and touching. It’s a great, good-ol’ rock and roll story and I do hope people get to see it.

My Rating:

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Fanny: The Right to Rock is now showing in cinemas nationwide. Buy your tickets here.

September 7, 2022
A Risky Return to Middle-Earth: a review of the first two episodes of Amazon Prime’s ‘The Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power’

Peter Jackson’s ‘The Lord of the Rings’ trilogy is probably a benchmark of what fantasy films could be and it paved the way for fantasy adventure movies and television series for years to come. It was a global phenomenon that brought the works of J.R.R. Tolkien into the mainstream and gave us so many memorable cinematic moments that will forever be etched into our minds (and memes). It is so beloved that the new Amazon Prime Video show ‘The Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power’ is such a risky move.

How does one produce a prequel to the well-loved trilogy without inviting comparison?

The first two episodes of ‘The Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power’ brings us back to Middle Earth, thousands of years before the events of ‘The Hobbit’ and ‘The Lord of the Rings’ take place. In this show, the only two familiar characters (so far) are the elves Galadriel and Elrond, much younger versions of the characters portrayed in the films by Cate Blanchett and Hugo Weaving. The elves have left their home to face an evil entity known as Morgoth, who has wreaked havoc upon Middle Earth and whose reach has made it to even the home of the elves. In the ensuing battle, Morgoth is defeated but his successor, a powerful sorcerer known as Sauron has become the leader of the orcs but has disappeared without a trace.

The elvish commander Galadriel seeks to find where Sauron and his orc army have disappeared to but faces opposition from the elf king Gil-Galad and his right-hand man, Elrond. The elves are in a rush to end this war that has lasted for centuries and they want to declare a time of peace.

But this show is much larger than that of just the concern of elves. There are humans and dwarves and a race called Harfoots, who I suspect might be the ancestors of the Hobbits.

There are multiple stories unfolding simultaneously in the first two episodes of ‘The Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power’ and the pacing of the show is actually quite good. There is a steady build-up of events that promises that the supposed “time of peace” that Gil-Galad wants to declare is a foolish mistake and that Galadriel’s obsession to find Sauron and his army should have been heeded more carefully.

If anything, ‘The Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power’ is an expensive show: happening at multiple locations, following several different stories, each with fully realised sets and costumes and each with their own special effects needed to make everything feel like a fully-realised fantasy series. It’s massive in scale and scope.

The trick, though, is to give us a Middle Earth that looks like what the world of Peter Jackson’s ‘The Lord of the Rings’ would have looked like and felt like a thousand years before and this is where things get muddled.

In what is familiar to us, the elves were such elegant and graceful beings. They lived for thousands of years and there was such a mystical way about them as they were presented in the movies. This texture and nuance is completely missing from the show. The first twenty minutes are steeped into the affairs of the elves and they talk and behave just like humans do, sometimes even worse. Their politics, their system, and culture – it feels so alien from the elves that we are familiar with from the film. Morfydd Clark and Robert Aramayo, who play Galadriel and Elrond, respectively, have the unenviable task of bringing to life characters that were played by Blanchett and Weaving. They have to make us believe that these versions of the characters will grow up to be the Galadriel and Elrond that we know and from these two episodes, it’s night and day.

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Here, Galadriel is a warrior and proud. She’s obsessed with finding Sauron and seeking revenge. Elrond, on the other hand, is a stereotypical politician with an easy, rehearsed smile and always bargaining at every turn. Both characters are not easy to like.

With the constant reminder of Jackson’s Trilogy, it is quite difficult to get into this world that’s presented no matter how big its budget is. What it does have going for it is that the title itself leads us to suspect that the show will be about the forging of the titular “Rings of Power,” including Sauron’s ring, the one ring to rule them all and that is something I would want to see. Among the plentiful characters this show offers us, the one that I’m most attached to is the Harfoot Nori, played by Markella Kavanagh. Unlike the others of her race, she longs for adventure and curious about the world outside the safe ways of the Harfoot. Kavanagh has an innocence and a spirited way about how she plays Nori that fits so well into this genre. It’s her story I’m most eager to see unfold.

What is also interesting about this show is how it portrays the elves as some imperialist colonizers – coming to Middle Earth, setting up their own cities and kingdoms – and this has angered much of the human race. The humans were caught in a war, first with Morgoth and then the elves, and are disgruntled and prejudiced against the elves. This plays out in little moments throughout the first two episodes, which I hope they show us a lot more of in future episodes.

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This might even be explored as two characters, an elvish soldier and a human healer, may have a love story brewing. Even the way Elrond deals with the Dwarves resonates with similar dealings in our modern times. The stark differences between the races and how it is played out is when the show really begins to show its promise; that it can be more than just another high fantasy adventure series.

While I’m not happy with the way the elves are portrayed here – I still have to adjust and shift my perspective from Jackson’s film trilogy – nor am I attached to any of the many characters presented to us in the first two episodes (save Nori), I am intrigued by how good the pacing is and how quick the build-up of the narrative tension appears to be. Checking the internet, the first season only runs for eight episodes, so they have a lot of ground to cover. The biggest challenge for this show is how to carve out its own niche that is separated from Jackson’s trilogy and be a show entirely of its own and yet still be able to connect itself to that trilogy and to ‘The Hobbit’ trilogy at the end of its run.

The potential is there. I feel that production-wise, it can capture the massive feel and tone of the movies but it is still grasping at the tone and characterization. Maybe in the next few episodes?

My Rating:

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The Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power premieres on Amazon Prime this September 2.

ALSO READ:
WATCH: Amazon Prime’s ‘The Lord of the Rings’ Series Unveils Title Trailer

September 1, 2022
Fun and easy, ‘Seoul Vibe’ is rich with fast car chases and 80s nostalgia

Amidst the fast car chases through, what looked like, a digitally-remade Seoul in the 80s, the nostalgic 80s throwback via style or music or pop culture reference, the charm of its wonderful cast, and all the swagger and bravado of these characters, ‘Seoul Vibe’ also seems to hint or imply at some level of social commentary that I’m not privy to, as I’m not that versed in Korean history.

‘Seoul Vibe’ is a hyper-real, highly stylized action film with a lot of elements of a caper or heist movie. Director Moon Hyung-sung seems more focused on celebrating the 80s nostalgia and the frenetic energy of its story than it is in digging into his character’s inner being. Things are happening so fast and without much of a grounded narrative set-up that a lot of plot points just passed me by.

Photo: Song Kyungsub/Netflix

Set during the 1988 Seoul Olympic Games, ‘Seoul Vibe’ follows an ex-convict, Dong-wook (Yoo Ah In), who returns to Seoul after a stint in Saudi Arabia driving for an arms dealer. He’s an excellent race car driver with dreams of racing in the US but his return to South Korea returns him to his troubled past. He discovers that his old neighborhood had been demolished in preparation for the Olympics. From the get-go, we know that Dong-wook and his team are people on the fringes of society and people the government had forgotten.

This social commentary just remains under the surface but is never fully explored. Instead, we are quickly thrust into the plot of the movie. Upon his arrival, a prosecutor (Oh Jung-se) is ready to slap Dong-wook and his friends with arrests if they don’t cooperate and go undercover to gather intel on Chairwoman Kang In-sook (Moon So-ri), a woman involved in drugs and corruption in the highest levels of government.

Photo: Song Kyungsub/Netflix

We don’t know much about Dong-wook except what is said nor how deep his relationships with his friends are but the story goes straight into the caper/heist aspect of the film and through it we see a version of Seoul that is riddled with corruption that has left the underprivileged struggling while being in enamored with American capitalist tendencies (McDonald’s, American hiphop, and American television shows like ‘Knight Rider’).

The story is quite thin as it is more focused on the heist itself, the style, and the thrills and laughs that the film has to offer. Yoo Ah In is joined by an equally charming cast that includes Ong Seong-wu, who plays his mechanic and engineer; Lee Kyu-hyung, who plays his friend who knows the streets of Seoul; Park Ju-hyun, who plays his sister, who is a leader of an all-woman bike gang; and Go Kyung-pyo, a DJ. Their relationships are never really fully explored but you can see that the chemistry of this group is so tight that you can imagine the antics these characters must’ve gone through in their youths.

Photo: Song Kyungsub/Netflix

A lot of the narrative elements of ‘Seoul Vibe’ are just hinted at or implied and you just have to ride along and not question too much or you’ll miss out on all of the fun. I easily let go of the need to understand why this was all happening and just enjoyed the hows and the whats of it all. I relished in the film’s indulgences. Everything is hyper-real, all the actors hamming it up that it creates a tone and atmosphere where you just take it as it is and have fun with it.

It wasn’t after the movie that I did some digging and discovered that 1988 was an important year for South Korea’s history as the country was shifting from a military rule to a democratic one after several huge protests were staged a year before.

Photo: Song Kyungsub/Netflix

While it is easy to watch ‘Seoul Vibe’ as a thin-narrative of a group of outsiders getting a chance to go legitimate by helping the government, there’s a lot more in the way the setting and the references that gives me the impression it has a lot more to say than “just have fun.”

It’s only after reading just a bit of history that I realised that, while ‘Seoul Vibe’ is thin on plot, it is loaded with so much historical context. The film is not just some crazy, stylized action film, but also an attack on corrupt governments that have made life so difficult for some that they have to resort to a life of crime to survive. The irony, in the film, is that these same criminals are now being tasked by a hidden arm of the government to try and bring down the corrupt elements within.

Photo: Song Kyungsub/Netflix

The closest thing to an internal struggle for Dong-wook is the question of whether any of this means anything to him? Because, really, what has the country done for him? It is an interesting question that is posed but never really answered directly.

I’m sure there’s a lot more in ‘Seoul Vibe’ just underneath the layers that I might uncover in the future once I know more about Korea’s history but I still enjoyed it for its crazy filmmaking and its unapologetic love for that era. Yoo Ah In and the rest of the cast are having a blast playing these characters and it is infectious.

My Rating:

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Seoul Vibe premieres on Netflix this Friday, August 26.

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August 23, 2022
On the Shoulders of Dragons: a review HBO’s ‘House of the Dragon’ Pilot Episode

There’s no question about the impact that ‘Game of Thrones’ has made globally. It can be argued that it was one of the most impactful and most successful television series of its time with many publications saying it is one of the most ambitious and probably one of the best series ever made for the medium. Despite the backlash it had received over its final season, there are still a lot of people who are searching for the next series that they can invest in as much as they did with ‘Game of Thrones.’

HBO hopes to deliver this was the spin-off ‘House of the Dragon,’ which is set almost two hundred years before the events of ‘Game of Thrones’ during a time when the Targaryens sat on the Iron Throne of Westeros, dragons were not an uncommon sight, and there was a reign of peace over the land. Fans of the world that ‘Game of Thrones’ built may want to return and see its history. The events of this series dramatize what is referred to in ‘Game of Thrones’ when they talk about that world’s past. It promises the same level of intrigue and violence that the first series delivered in droves.

But the expectations are high. After 8 seasons of ‘Game of Thrones,’ the show is now going to ask its viewers to fall in love with a whole new set of characters and reacclimate themselves to a different Westeros. As prefaced in the pilot episode’s opening, the Targaryens have ruled the land with the power of their mighty dragons (I believed ten was mentioned) and peace had reigned over their kingdom.

From the production design alone, everything looks different. While, in the ‘Game of Thrones,’ Westeros just came from a civil war, in ‘House of the Dragon’ it is peacetime. While the architecture looks less refined, it’s brighter and cleaner and there’s less debris. It’s that significant little textures that make this show visually appealing.

And within the first fifteen minutes of the show, you already get to see a dragon or two, which is always going to be a highlight of this show. So that’s crossing out some important items off of the checklist. The hour and fifteen-minute pilot goes straight into the action, comfortable that we already are aware of this setting and the milieu that it seldom slows down for us to really get to know the characters. In a way, the pilot feels more like a movie than an immersive fantasy show and that worries me.

^{Photo Courtesy of HBO}

We are introduced to the royal family – King Viserys (played by Paddy Considine), his daughter Princess Rhaenyra (played by Emma D’Arcy), the king’s brother Prince Daemon (played by Matt Smith), and the King’s cousin Princess Rhaenys (played by Eve Best) – and the dynamics of their relationships with each other. Through a prologue, the politics are already a play and the show takes no time to set things in motion. The Iron Throne is still the prize but as the first episode unfolds, it seems this one is fighting for the legitimacy of rulership.

This is a family affair and all signs point to a bloody and messy business in the succeeding episodes.

And while all the elements are there – production design, a strong cast, stunning visuals, and a healthy dose of politics and dragons – the pilot never really stops to settle down and allows us to get to know these characters well. Unfortunately, ‘House of the Dragon’ will be compared to its predecessor and because the first season of ‘Game of Thrones’ didn’t have the budget it did in later seasons, it really focused on character development and world-building. By the time Sean Bean’s Ned Stark brought his wife and children to King’s Landing, we had our favourites and we knew and felt the world fully that the surprise violence (and even deaths) had a powerful effect on us.

^{Photo Courtesy of HBO}

By the end of the episode, I’m still unsure of how I feel about these characters. No matter how good the acting is – and I love the casting of Emma D’Arcy as Princess Rhaenyra – I don’t feel attached yet to anyone. I’m following the plot more than I am the characters and, for a television series, that’s a dangerous thing. It’s the characters that get you through to the next episode and the next season.

There are some things that stand out. In a negative way, there’s the gratuitous nudity and objectification of women (and men as well, and while the misogyny is part of the world and it is addressed narratively) it just feels like it’s there because it’s a ‘Game of Thrones’ spin-off. At the same time, one of the lords of the court, Lord Corlys (played by Steve Toussaint), is a black man with white hair. Is he a Targaryen? I’m not sure.

It’s so glaring because in ‘Game of Thrones’ there were no people of color in Westeros (though Dorn was inhabited primarily by Hispanic actors) though there were many in Mereen and Pentos and the lands East of Westeros. While I’m all for diversity, it just stood out so much in the first episode. Maybe it will be addressed? Maybe I’ll just let it go after a few episodes? I don’t know but it’s there.

^{Photo Courtesy of HBO}

On the other hand, the ‘House of the Dragon’ pilot episode reaches a fever pitch in a wonderfully edited scene during a jousting match and a birth – these two simultaneous events are the catalyst for the main conflict that is hinted at in the preview of the season at the end of the episode – there’s cinematic genius here as the juxtaposing images of violence and childbirth underscores the dangers of this world and that this period of peace is hanging by a thread.

And with regards to the misogyny, it seems that Princess Rhaenyra’s story would center around her own battle for independence and liberation. There’s talk about a woman’s place in the kingdom and she will have none of that. If the show pursues this and even begins to subvert the gratuitous nudity and sex in the succeeding episodes, then it will start to really veer away from the shadow of its predecessor.

Because ‘Game of Thrones’ has left a big impact upon the world, everyone will be critical of ‘House of the Dragon.’ It’s got tough shoes to fill and can’t afford any mistakes in its first season. The promise is there and it’s off to a shaky start. But if ‘House of the Dragon’ manages to give us characters we can invest in, then it will probably help fill the ‘Game of Thrones’ shaped hole in our regular television viewing habits.

My Rating:

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House of the Dragon premieres on HBO GO this August 22.

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August 22, 2022
Seeing Is Believing: a review of ‘Nope’ by Jordan Peele

If anything, Jordan Peele’s ‘Nope’ is a love letter to the origins of cinema and how important seeing – and the gaze – is to the experience of life. The film is a contemporary take on the science fiction creature feature. It is a dissection of modern civilization’s fascination and obsession with spectacles and the capitalist instinct to monetize these spectacles, no matter how traumatic they may be for the people involved. Conceptually, it’s not as refined as Peele’s earlier work like ‘Get Out’ or ‘Us’ but ‘Nope’ is executed wonderfully, with breathtaking filmmaking that truly maximizes the medium of cinema for some striking moments of pure movie magic.

Set primarily in a horse ranch and the neighboring Western-themed theme park, the movie follows two siblings, who are struggling to keep their ranch from going bankrupt. Otis Jr. (called OJ and played by Daniel Kaluuya) and his sister Emerald (called Em and played by Keke Palmer) are polar opposites. OJ is stoic, more at home dealing with horses than with people, while the vivacious and exuberant Em is loud and boisterous but she feels less connected to the ranch than her brother. Stalling for time, they sell their horses to Ricky “Jupe” Park (played by Steven Yeun), who runs Star Lasso ranch and is a former child star who has survived a traumatic encounter on a television show in his youth.

All of these narrative pieces come together when OJ and Em have a frightening experience one evening when one of their horses disappears in the dead night in the most frightening way and they suspect it was taken by something that is not of this planet. The pair then get the help of Angel (played by Brandon Perea), a technician at an appliance store, to set up cameras to try and capture the UFO.

What unfolds is a rather terrifying exploration of the unknown. This film works completely at its own pace and rhythm. It opens with a scene of violence, though completely hidden by furniture, and all we get are impressions of the brutality before jumping into an extended first act that establishes all the characters and sets up the lore of this movie. It’s a long exposition that sets up the emotional ties of the characters to the dangers of this extraterrestrial encounter later on and while nothing exciting is happening yet, it’s filmed with so much dread and doom just under the surface. You know something is up but you don’t know what it is exactly.

And then when the first sighting happens, the film’s second act moves into full gear and Jordan Peele gives us a full master class in setting up tension and anxiety through sound design and expert camerawork. By playing with what we can see and a proper establishing shot to understand the geography of each scene, we feel fear because we know something is up but we don’t see anything.

This is best experienced in a barn scene that midway through the film it’s really the highlight of this movie. Peele understands that oftentimes it is what we imagine that is far scarier than seeing anything that is CGI-created or even done through prosthetics.

Seeing is such an important aspect of this movie, both within the narrative and in the filmmaking. Story-wise, the need to capture evidence of this extraterrestrial horse-thief brings the whole idea of cameras, of different kinds, into the narrative. Later, we discover that the ranch is also connected and when that is uncovered and what we get is a commentary on our relationship with our cameras and the media and how we treat these spectacles in our lives. ‘Nope’ opens a discussion on how our society treats these moments captured on film and how almost instinctive it is to monetize this first before even treating them with any sense of consideration or sensitivity.

At the same time, it’s also a love letter to filmmaking, referencing the first-ever motion picture of a man, a black jockey riding a horse, and this imagery is so strong within this film. ‘Nope’ pushes back against the erasure of black people’s contributions to the origins of film by reminding us that the first ever “actor” on film was a black man. In fact, it’s quite striking that the four leads of this film are people of color.

Kaluuya and Palmer are fantastic as the energy of their characters are totally opposite of each other and while Palmer’s exuberance can fill the screen, Kaluuya manages to fill the screen with his silence. Perea is a standout as his Angel balances out OJ’s and Em’s opposing energies with his mix of panic and wonder. Yeun is absolutely oozing with charisma, creating a believable former child actor, who is hiding a history of trauma through his practiced showbiz smile.

Though the film isn’t as conceptually strong as Peele’s first two films, ‘Nope’ is such a thrilling experience in the cinema. If you can, watch it on IMAX, as the film was shot on IMAX cameras and the visuals are stunning in that format. In ‘Get Out’ and ‘Us,’ he really digs in and dwells in the concepts that he proposes in both films whereas ‘Nope’ dramatizes it but doesn’t linger there. More experiential than thought-provoking, this film is a fun ride but won’t really mess with your head as much.

My Rating:

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Nope is now showing in cinemas nationwide. Buy your tickets here.

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August 18, 2022