Knightfall (2026)

When bad guys want to get their hands on a dangerous bioweapon a scientist returns home to ask for her father’s help in remaining safe. Her dad is retired spy hunter who still has some tricks in his book.

This is a solid little action thriller. Not seeking to reinvent the wheel of do anything outside of its budget, this action thriller works from top to bottom. In an age where so many big budget action film stumble somewhere along the way, it is so nice to see a film that gets it right. Is it perfect? Absolutely not but it is so well acted and perfectly paced that you won’t mind sitting on the couch munching popcorn and waiting to see how it all comes out.

Honestly, I had an absolute blast and when it was done, I was telling a few friends that they will want to track this down when it hit VOD on Friday.

Get some friends and some snacks and watch.

Hope (2026) opens today

Went to the NYAFF centerpiece screening of Na Hong-jin's latest film HOPE and I am left wondering why everyone is so madly in love with it. 

The film has a couple of cops trying to stop the monsters that are laying waste to their town

There are moments that make you go "WHOA!" but much of the film was a tough slog that had me pulling out my notebook and simply write a series of questions punctuated by statements of all the things that made no sense (I won't list them, but its pretty much everything).  The worst offender is that destruction doesn't look monster made but looks like just decaying places. I kept wondering if there are ghost towns in Korea because they look terrible and there were no signs of anyone of really being there for years. I always pick on zombie films about that, but this film has them beat in illogic.

The tone of the film is comedy action horror film. There are endless jokes, the sheriff (and we) don't see the monsters for the better part of the first hour and it becomes a running joke. Also there is a running joke about everyone having all these high end weapons. Everything has a humorous edge-even the violence that makes you wince. I smiled at all the attempts at humor.

I never felt suspense. Blame the fact that the pacing is terrible. As I said, we don't see the monsters for almost an hour....and then a great deal of it early on is in the clips and trailers (the film promised in the trailer is not really here- and someone please explain why they are showing so much in the clips). Yes there is more, but I kept waiting for stuff that we hadn't seen before and by the time we got it I was not connected to the film. I simply didn't care because on top of everything there really aren't characters just cut outs that are moved around.

This feels like it was put together in a series of conversations where everyone threw out these great idea for pieces but never came up with a way to connect them up logically. For me it is Na Hong-jin's least film because everything feels completely random and not fully thought out. (This is supposed to be the first of a trilogy so I hope the next films are better plotted and end better because this one just stops)

Yea, I know its a giant monster film, there is no need for complete logic, but all films must work on their own logic and HOPE doesn't. Things just happen, people just show up  and then disappear. There is no real sense of the characters moving through the story, just people being dropped into places so they can be at the next set piece, despite there being no clue how they (say the monster) got there.

To be fair this might have worked, and I might have bought this more if the CGI was better, but most of the effects are not that good. I heard they supposedly tweaked them, but if they did, I don't want to know what they looked like before. What we see are great pieces of action committed by poorly animated computer creations.

To be fair I love some of the batshit crazy stuff that happens, but at the same time I was bored by everything that happens around them. My question is what is this almost three hours? I wanted to get out clippers and cut this down by 45 minutes to an hour.

Maybe it was the fact that I had a bad day up until I got to the theater, or maybe it's the huge push social media mavens and Neon are giving it, but HOPE disappointed  me.  While I know I will revisit, as I said I love moments, over all I'm left scratching my head as to what people see in it.

No Paradise If You Are Killed By A Woman (2026) Venice 2026

One of the greatest characters in any film.

NO PARADISE IF YOU ARE KILLED BY A WOMAN is quite simply one of the greatest films of 2026. Period, full stop.

The film is the story of Vyan, a Kurdish woman who is acting as a sniper  fighting the Islamic State in the Mosul of 2016. When she gets word that her younger sister might still be alive, she begins a deadly hunt through the city to find her.

I have left a huge amount of details out. I have done that on purpose because you will want to see how this unfolds for yourself.

While the film is a large part a thriller, the truth is this is a film that is really a look at war, what it does to soldiers and more importantly what war and religious fundamentalism does to women and non-believers. What is so stunning about the film is that the film keeps things tense and the audience on the edge of its seat by giving us things to think about while making us wonder who is going to live and who is going to die.

The first 20 minutes of this film is one of the most arresting openings of any film this year. The film opens with Vyan moving through some ruins on the hunt for a target. Its a perfectly constructed series of set pieces that pull us in and drag us along. Its at this point the film changes into something else, before changing again. Its a film that never does what we expect. No turn is exactly as we thought.  Most importantly the film never loses track of the woman at the center of the film. As she goes through the ringer so do we. I wanted to look away but I couldn't leave Vyan at any point in her journey. Vyan is one of the greatest heroes ever to grace the screen and we want her to compete her mission and go home

When the end came I was exhausted and broken because of what I witnessed because the tension was so high.

Based on the stories of several women who fought against the Islamic State and inspired by Nobel Peace Prize laureate Nadia Murad, the film is more real than pretty much every other war film. Perhaps it helps that it was filmed in Mosul so what we see is what we get.

I was rocked.  When it ended I jumped on line and sent out emails to people putting the film on their radar.

I can't express just how magnificent this film is. Its an action film that says volumes about warfare and what it does to everyone it touches. Its a film that makes us feel pain as much as suspense.

You absolutely must see this.

This will be one of the best films you will see this year.

Addendum: This film was picked as Iraq's entry for the Oscars

Skyscraper (1996)

Skyscraper is Die Hard with boobs. That’s it. Bye.

…Okay, fine. There’s a little more to it than that. Anna Nicole Smith stars as a helicopter pilot who finds herself trapped in a tower overrun by terrorists, forcing her into the role of an unlikely action hero. That’s it. Bye.

Yeah, yeah, joke’s over. Where do I even begin? Perhaps with the film’s star herself, Anna Nicole Smith. An early-’90s Playboy phenomenon, successful model, and by the mid-’90s, a tabloid punchline. Most infamously, she married a near-death oil tycoon. While embroiled in legal battles over his estate, she also landed her first leading movie role in To the Limit, with Skyscraper arriving the following year. So she certainly had her hands full from ’95 onward.

Before jumping into the movie itself, it’s worth taking a look at the production company behind both of those titles. PM Entertainment Group was a staple of ’90s mid-budget direct-to-video action films.

They certainly had a formula, following the famous “7-minute rule.” A stunt, fight, car crash, explosion—something had to be on the screen every seven minutes to keep the pace moving.

Essentially, that’s what Skyscraper is doing, albeit in a budget friendly way. The reason you’re watching this, is for the dumb action. And obviously, to see Anna Nicole’s breasts. It certainly delivers on both counts. Mission accomplished. 

The opening scene takes place in a back alley, and everything is very stock. Exchanging of technology or whatever between bad guys. All ends in a shootout, a rocket launcher, and a car being launched into a semi-truck. Again, cliché? Sure, but who cares. It looks awesome. You even get one of the guys from American Gladiators. Malibu, for the record. 

From there, you are introduced to Anna’s character, Carrie, along with her husband, who will be the other lead we follow. And cue the extended sex scene. For all the things you could say about this movie, you know exactly what they were going for. Same director as To the Limit, btw. We’ll circle back to him in a bit. 

We have to talk about Anna Nicole Smith as an actress. She’s bad. Like, really bad. You know why she’s in the movie. A blind man could see it. But her line delivery is something that truly needs to be witnessed. Therefore, I put together this short clip. How convenient. 

Btw, we never really know why she’s a helicopter pilot. It’s basically just a way to set up an ending with the main bad guy on the roof. Because, of course, this movie ends there. It’s called Skyscraper. Now roll the footage. 

When the terrorists finally arrive at the non-Nakatomi Plaza—but we’ll call it Nakatomi Plaza anyway—this really does turn into Great Value Die Hard. Quite literally. So many of the characters are legit carbon copies of those in the original. Anna Nicole even does the jump-off-the-building bit. The main villain goes completely over the top, as you should in a movie like this. It’s so ridiculously stupid, yet you can’t turn away. Well, maybe you can. Depends on your tolerance for trash. 

Ironically, Skyscraper made it to video in July ‘96, just two months after Anna’s oft-compared counterpart, Pamela Anderson, headlined Barb Wire. I’d much rather watch the latter, but they both kind of exist in the same lane. It’s just one of them swerves a bit, while the other hits a telephone pole.

Oh, and as for its director, Raymond Martino, he once played a gang member in Pee-wee’s Big Adventure. No, not during the famous tequila dance sequence—he appears earlier, before Pee-wee visits Madam Ruby.

Hm. Turns out there wasn’t much more to it after all. There’s no basement at the Alamo, and Anna Nicole isn’t John McClane.

Match Monde (2026) Big Bad Film Festival

High schooler  gets rescued by a guy on the street when he is attacked and beaten up as part of the use of an app that sets up street fights. The idea is that if you win you get money. Soon things begin to spiral out of control.

Based on a manga this is a film you are going to love ot hate. Put me in the middle. While I like the characters, a lot of this didn't work for me. Don't get me wrong what is here is good, the trouble is that it's good the first time.... and maybe the second time. The problem is there is a samesness to what is happening here. The set ups feel similar as do the fights. If you look at how they are choreographed they seem to follow a similar flow. That may have worked if the way the sequences were staged was better. You can feel how the sequences were put together.

To be fair, I know part of the reason I wasn't as high on this film as I should have been except that I had watched all of the Big Bad Film Festival shorts and several of the shorts echoed the fights in this film.  Some of the shorts played better for me.

Is the film bad? No, but it just didn't work for me.

Fight Against Evil 3 (2026) Big Bad Film Festival

I have not seen either of the earlier films thats not that problem since the film is basically just the story of a cop returning home for his wedding ending up trying to protect a girl he met on the flight from humnan traffickers.

Shifting from comedy to an escalating series of action sequences FIGHT AGAINST EVIL 3 delivers. Beginning with a fight around a van the sequences amp up until its the final fight involing broken glass. I was delighted. In ana age where many fights seem like retreads, this film doesn't copy. Its also a film where you don't feel the fights are being assembled in the editing room, the sequences feel organic and happening right in front of us. (I say that because I recently saw one film from Japan where the sequences were great if you ignored the editing made it clear it was a series of shot and something happened before us.

I loved this film. While I am usually wary of series I don't know, it's always a delight when I discover one that makes me want to track down the other films. This film made me wants me to go find the first two. (for the record the this is the first film in the series that was released to theaters, and I can understand why.

While the film is not high art, it is truly entertaining. 

If you can get a ticket to see the film at the Big Bad Film Festival, do so.

Recommended.

Brief thoughts on Wings of Dread (2026) Big Bad Film Festival

Cop on the way home ends up in the middle of  a highjacking.

In a word where action films out of China have been overwhelmed by the need to include propaganda it's nice to see one that isn't crushed by it. It's a nice film with good characters, solid action and a hard edge that remains to the end.

I'm not going to say a great deal on the film. A large part of the reason is that I simply enjoyed the hell out of the film. I liked it so much that when it was done  I didn't want review it. Instead I just wanted to watch it again. 

Is this high art? No but it is something that just delighted me. Some time just being able to say that about a film is more important than saying clever things.

The truth of the matter, this is exactly the sort of film that I return to The Big Bad FIlm Festival to see. I say that because every year they run great films that become te sort of friend that you put on over and over just because they fit like a glove. WINGS OF DREAD fits.

See this film this weekend.

Tokyo Burst: Crime City (2026) plays the Big Bad FIlm Festival this weekend

Loosely connected to the Korean Round Up Series it follow a Japanese cop who gets hooked up with a Korean cop in order to take down some bad guys.

I'm sorry if that is really vague but the truth is there are way too many characters and way too much going on to worry about the details of the plot. In other words, yes, I got lost. 

What matters here is the action, and there are copious amounts of it, all of it incredibly brutal and ugly. Body parts drop to the floor and blood flies. People get hurt badly. The fights are such that they make you verbally react.  Watching the film I was wided eyed and slack jawed.

While watching this film I was struck by how much more powerful the fights are short sequences  then in something like the recent THE FURIOUS where the battle goes on for two hours. Watching the frightening beauty of the fights here I was struck by the power of the fights. Not because of the brutality but because the filmmakers wrapped them up in plot and characters that give them weight.  People get hurt, even the main characters. While things are sided so we know they will ultimately come out on top, we also know they will get their asses kicked and have to stop for a bit. The use of short sequences  keeps us on our toes since we don't know what is going to happen. With a long sequence or a film that is all action, we know that nothing bad can happen  for X amount of time. Here that isn't the case. They get hurt and they feel it. This may sound like a digression, but the truth is its an explanation of why this film resonates so strongly and stays in our heads.

TOKYO BURST is full of great action and funny one liners. It is very recommended.

The CRIME HUNTER films: BULLETS OF RAGE, BULLETS OF BETRAYAL, and KILLING BULLET are playing The Big Bad Film Festval

If you want a sure-fire night at the big Bad Film Festival go to the screening of CRIME HUNTER  BULLETS OF RAGE, BRIME HUNTER BULLETS OF BETRAYAL and CRIME HUNTER KILLING BULLET. Three direct to video films from Japan, but set in America, specifically Little Tokyo, they are as bat shit crazy as they come. They are gritty, ugly, over the top funny both intentionally and unintentionally, and jaw droppingly WTF.  

If you miss the 1980’s grindhouse these films are for you

Actually, if you just want balls to the wall insane crime drama with lots of killing this is for you.

These films demand to be seen- and seen with a rowdy audience. If you are going to Big Bad you will love these films 50 times more.

And don’t worry each film runs just over an hour so the whole evening will be about four hours. (I did it in that amount of time including pottie breaks)

You’ll notice I’m not talking about the plot. That’s partly intentional (and partly because I had to wait a week to write the films up) The truth is the plots don’t matter. The films are all about hitting bad guys, shooting guns, and cracking wise.  The plots are largely disposable and are simply there to push the action forward. There is a certain amount of repetetion. Not that you’ll care. Everything is basic.

What you will care about is how much fun these films are. They are blood soaked and bruising. They are incredibly WTF with a weird mix of English and Japanese wandering though them. The films are set in America, but no America that ever existed. It’s a crime ridden hell hole full of eternally wet streets and neon. It’s wild to see how the filmmakers saw America. They are films you talk to and about. You won’t riff the films but you will have a one-sided conversation asking the films what they are doing and why.

I can only imagine what these films will be like at the Big Bad screening because I’m guessing there will be running commentary and conversation.  If you want a passive cinema experience go see something else. I say that because it is simply impossible to watch these films and keep your mouth shut.

I love these films.

This is old school grindhouse cinema at it’s finest.

I can not recommend these films enough to lovers of action and exploitation cinema. These films are like manna from heaven

If you can get to the Big Bad Film Festival- you must go.

Universal Soldier Day of Reckoning (2012) plays Big Bad Film Festival this weekend

With this film playing THE BIG BAD FILM FESTIVAL this weekend here is a repost of my review from when the film was originally released 14 years ago:

Okay- why the hell isn't this getting talked up? I knew the film was out there but it wasn't until Peter Gutierrez talked it up on Twitter that I really sat up and took notice. With an opening that is disturbing and disorienting and a sense of real danger with every violent act, people die horribly and even the good guys have terrible things happen to them, this is a kick ass horror/action/science fiction film that is one of the better films of 2012.

The plot of the film has John waking up from a coma, the result of a home invasion that has left his wife and daughter dead. As John tries to piece together what happened he runs into the now rogue Universal Soldiers who are being lead by a now Messianic like Luc Deveraux, Jean Claude Van Damme, the man who killed his family.

Mean, nasty, ugly in it's violence, the film very much reminded me of the cold distant and deeply disturbing early films of David Cronenberg. It also had tinges of Beyond the Black Rainbow and other head trip films...including one about a trip up a river in Vietnam

And that I think is the problem with the film, at least in the mind of most people who are seeing it (I believe the IMDB rating is around 5), the film is nominally set up, and marketed as a revenge story, about a man trying to find out what happened to his family, instead the film is a long trip down a rabbit hole where reality is completely questioned and the nature of the entire film series that lead up to it is called (wonderfully) into question. I know it doesn't help that top billed Jean Claude Van Damme and Dolph Lundgren have essentially supporting roles (though ones that require their force of personality for the film to work)

I really like this film. It's desire to change the rules and upset the apple cart of everything that went before impressed the hell out of me... as did the stunning action sequences and it's refuse not to shy away from the violence and it's cost.

Assuming you are willing to take the film on it's own terms I highly recommend this film.

God Skin (2026) Fantasia 2026

The film is looks nowhere near as cool as this poster

A young man gets pulled into fighting matches in order to win the money he needs. He fightsin a tournament  using God's Skin, a nano device that gives him and the other fighters, superpowers.

This a perfectly okay martial arts action film. I say that because the film doesn't do anything special nor does it try to spice things up out side of the nano technology. If you've seen any number of action films you are going to write the story in your head.

The big problem with the film is that fight scenes, while perfectly fine, are anemic.  Most are set in the arena whoch is just and empty room with a pacing that seems like a half a beat too slow. They aren't bad but at the same time they aren't anything to write home about.

Worth  look on a rainy night on the couch, but not something to see at festival prices.

Tokyo Burst: Crime City (Titled on the film Tokyo Burst The Roundup) Fantasia 2026 BIg Bad FIlm Festival 2026

Loosely connected to the Korean Round Up Series it follow a Japanese cop who gets hooked up with a Korean cop in order to take down some bad guys.

I'm sorry if that is really vague but the truth is there are way too many characters and way too much going on to worry about the details of the plot. In other words, yes, I got lost. 

What matters here is the action, and there are copious amounts of it, all of it incredibly brutal and ugly. Body parts drop to the floor and blood flies. People get hurt badly. The fights are such that they make you verbally react.  Watching the film I was wided eyed and slack jawed.

While watching this film I was struck by how much more powerful the fights are in short sequences rather then in something like the recent THE FURIOUS where the battle goes on for two hours. Watching the frightening beauty of the fights here I was struck by the power of the fights. Not because of the brutality but because the filmmakers wrapped them up in plot and characters that give them weight.  People get hurt, even the main characters. While things are sided so we know they will ultimately come out on top, we also know they will get their asses kicked and have to stop for a bit. The use of short sequences  keeps us on our toes since we don't know what is going to happen. With a long sequence or a film that is all action, we know that nothing bad can happen  for X amount of time. Here that isn't the case. They get hurt and they feel it. This may sound like a digression, but the truth is its an explanation of why this film resonates so strongly and stays in our heads.

TOKYO BURST is full of great action and funny one liners. It is very recommended.

Brief thoughts on Wind Breaker (2026) Fantasia 2026

Manga based action film has an outsider high school kid going to a new school. He wants to be the number one guy, even if it means fighting everyone. He ends up joinging the other local kids to be part of a group o who are fighting gang of outsiders who want to take over the town.

Good but not particularly remakable action film isn't anything we haven't seen in any number of films over the years. Well told and well made with some great one lines and characters, the film suffer doesn't rise  as high as the pieces because the narrative is much too run of the mill we have been here before.

At the same time this is the perfect sort of film for a rainy Saturday on the couch.

Worth a look

Brief rambling thoughts on MOTOR CITY (2025)

 

Shotgun to the face or see this movie again? Shotgun please

I was looking forward to seeing MOTOR CITY. I was intrigued by the idea of a film driven by needle drops. When I finally saw it I was extremely disappointed.

The plot of the film has an ex-con being set up by a crime boss who wants his girl. The ex-con breaks out of prison to get revenge.

Told with almost almost no dialog, not because no one speaks, but because the director has music cover over everything, this is a film you just have to go with. You just have to watch the action and watch and pick up clues until something is spelled out. Unfortunately by the time we're told anything we've sorted it out already. What isn't songs you know, like The Chain by Fleetwood Mac or Lovely Day by Bill Withers or I Feel Love by Donna Summer, is a an electronic heavy one that was all the rage in the ealry 80's. I would have thought that the film would have been designed, like John Woo's SILENT NIGHT, to tell its story without dialog, while keeping all the background sounds that give a sense of life to a film, but no, music is everything so the dounds that help make a modern movie sound real and a live have been stripped out of a lot of the film. 

The film uses lots of stylized shots and way way too much slow motion. This is not a film that wants to tell a (very very cliched) story but instead wants to look cool and be hip and happening in a prentious sort of way. Sadly, it never looks hip and happening because everything looks like bad 1970's TV cop show dress up cliche.

Yea, the action sequences are fine for what they are, but at the same time we really don't give a shit about anyone on screen because we never got to know them as characters. I saw Alan Ritchson not as his character Miller but as Reacher because it gave me something to hang on to.

The biggest problem is that the script, despite coming from the Black List, is terrible (then again most Black List films end up disappointing because of changes by the time they arrive as films). The plot requires plot turns that make zero sense, starting with our hero leaving his car unlocked with the windows open, in what appears to be the ghetto of Detroit - if he didn't do it they could steal the car and set him up. No information is given on anyone or anything until way after we should have been told. Not having a clue, our hero watches his car get stolen and then essentially returned and he doesn't think its weird.  Or more to the point the film never lets us in on what he thinks because there is no dialog or rational action. Were they firguring that giving us a stupidly cliche script that they wouldn't have to give us characters because it was all cliche?

Why did anyone sign to do this? What was in the script that got lost?

I know the filmmakers can make good films- the director make the truly great OLD HENRY, I just want to know what happened? I'm hoping that this is purely a moment where all these great pieces got together and it just didn't work. I mean, it happens, right?

As it stands now MOTOR CITY was a physically painful viewing experience I wouldn't wish on my enemies.

Turgaud (2026) NYAFF 2026

A man is hired to gaurd a boss who is being hunted by an assassin with a boy in tow 

 This ius a great looking film with excellent action sequence that very well may put you to sleep. This is a film full of silences and meaning  where the form is way more imporant than the content. It's not  really bad but it is instead very much too slow and meandering the fact that stripped of the artifice and the excellent moments, we've been here before and this neo noir western set in central Asia can't escape that.

Worth a look for what works, just have a cup of coffee ready to keep you awake.

The Chaser is playing the NYAFF on July 26

With THE CHASER playing this year's NYAFF here is a repost of an earlier review

A film that changed the Korean film industry when it came out to the point that every film seems to be compared to it.

The plot of the film has a dirty cop turned pimp, trying to figure out where all his girls have gone. He thinks they have run away or were sold to someone else. The reality of the film is much worse, they have all gone out with the same guy and he's a serial killer...and our hero has just sent the last of his girls into his clutches.

Brutal violent and darkly funny this is a film that opened the door for a good number of similar films (I don't know if we would have gotten I Saw the Devil with out it.). It's a modern classic of a sort. It's also the kind of film that really should be seen on a big screen with it's rich compositions and frenetic style crying out to be seen on a big screen (Yea I know you may have seen this on DVD but you haven't experienced it until you see it on the big screen)

For me there is very little to HOPE (2026) NYAFF 2026

Went to the NYAFF centerpiece screening of Na Hong-jin's latest film HOPE and I am left wondering why everyone is so madly in love with it. 

The film has a couple of cops trying to stop the monsters that are laying waste to their town

There are moments that make you go "WHOA!" but much of the film was a tough slog that had me pulling out my note book and simply write a series of questions punctuated by  statements of all the things that made no sense (I won't list them, but its pretty much everything).  The worst offender is that destruction doesn't look monster made but looks like just a decaying places. I kept wondering if there are ghost towns in Korea because they look terrible and there was no signs of anyone of really being there for years. I always pick on zombie films about that, but this film has them beat in illogic.

The tone of the film is comedy action horror film. There are endless jokes, the sheriff (and we) don't see the monsters for the better part of the first hour and it becomes a running joke. Also there is a running joke about everyone having all these high end weapons. Everything has a humorous edge-even the violence that makes you wince. I smiled at all the attempts at humor.

I never felt suspense. Blame the fact that the pacing is terrible. As I said, we don't see the monsters for almost an hour....and then a great deal of it early on is in the clips and trailers (the film promised in the trailer is not really here- and someone please explain why they are showing so much in the clips). Yes there is more, but I kept waiting for stuff that we hadn't seen before and by the time we got it I was not connected to the film. I simply didn't care because on top of everything there really aren't characters just cut outs that are moved around.

This feels like it was put together in a series of conversations where everyone threw out these great idea for pieces but never came up with a way to connect them up logically. For me it is Na Hong-jin's least film because everything feels completely random and not fully thought out. (This is supposed to be the first of a trilogy so I hope the next films are better plotted)

Yea, I know its a giant monster film, there is no need for complete logic, but all films must work on their own logic and HOPE doesn't. Things just happen, people just show up  and then disappear. There is no real sense of the characters moving through the story, just people being dropped into places so they can be at the next set piece, despite there being no clue how they (say the monster) got there.

To be fair this might have worked, and I might have bought this more if the CGI was better, but they and a lot of the effects are not that good. I heard they supposedly tweaked them, but if they did, I don't want to know what they looked like before. What we see are great pieces of action committed by poorly animated computer creations.

To be fair I love some of the batshit crazy stuff that happens, but at the same time I was bored by everything that happens around them. My question is what is this almost three hours? I wanted to get out clippers and cut this down by 45 minutes to an hour.

Maybe it was the fact that I had a bad day up until I got to the theater, or maybe it's the huge push social media mavens and Neon are giving it, but HOPE disappointed  me.  While I know I will revisit, as I said I love moments, over all I'm left scratching my head as to what people see in it.

ATTACK ON PARADISE (2026) Fantasia 2026

A man comes home from prison and just wants to be left alone and take care of his mom. Unfortunately the aprtment block has been over run by gangs and the cops are looking to take them out. What is a man who just wants to make sure his mom is okay to do.

Buy a ticket and bring a seatbelt because this film is wild.   A perfect balance of motion and character ATTACK ON PARADISE made my jaw drop open.  Its not so much there are these incredible action sequences, but rather there are these incredible action sequences that are full of great characters that drive the plot.  This is one of the rare action films of recent vintage where we are interested in what is going on just because we like the characters. In a weird way this is a drama with gun shots.

I loved this film.

This is one of the great films at Fantasia and an absolute must see.

Highly recommended.

Brief thoughts on Cold War 1994 (2026) NYAFF 2026

First of two prequels  to the COLD WAR films from 2012 and 2017. The film is told in flashback as a case from 1994 is echoing in a current case.

Another complicated tale with lots of characters, played by great actors, trying to get to the bottom of a case involving a kidnap ring.  Its a film that fits perfectly with the previous two films. And as with the previous films I think the best thing in the film is the action sequences. There are some incredible fights here. This doesn't mean there is a problem with the rest,  rather it's simply that the plot is needlessly complicated.

I like this film a great deal. 

This is definitely one to see on the big screen if you can.

4 Tigers(2025) NYAFF 2026

 

Three men and a woman with special talents try to get their hands on Japanese gold.

If you like off Hollywood films then buy a ticket and take a ride because this is as off Hollywood as you can get. A mix of action, war time intrigue, comedy, Thai Nationalism, musical, spaghetti western, a behind the scenes of the making of a movie tale and like 15 other genres. This is a film that just does whatever it thinks will work at that moment. The result is a film that will leave you staring and slack jawed at the insanity on the screen.

Is it perfect?

Probably not. It is however unlike anything you’re likely to see anywhere outside of Thailand.

This film is most definitely a blast – and a throw back to the early days of the New York Asian Film Festival.

As I said above- buy a ticket and take a ride.