My 2024 Watchlist Obsession!

I'd reckon that you're probably not the one who inspired me to watch Her Smell - I like Moss as well though. It's really fun to watch "The Evolution of Elisabeth Moss - Her entire TV and Film Career in short clips" (below) - since she started at such a young age.

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The universe beckons, but it's size is beyond human comprehension. Light travels at 186,000 miles per second, but even at that incomprehensible speed, it would take four and a half years to reach the closest star to Earth (discounting our sun.) But Alpha Centauri (one of a triple-star system) is only one of 100 billion stars in our own Milky Way Galaxy. The Aniara isn't heading there - it's simply a gigantic space liner transporting passengers from a dying Earth to a colony on Mars, a journey that takes only three weeks thanks to great leaps forward in technology. This ship has a Mimarobe (Emelie Garbers), who takes care of the ship's Mima - an artificial intelligence who can help humans cope with space travel by entering their consciousness, recalling specific memories, and in turn giving them the impression they're back on an unspoiled, idyllic Earth. It's something most passengers seem bored with, and there's not much demand on the Mimarobe's services until disaster strikes, and the Aniara is knocked off course. The estimated time of arrival has been pushed out from 3 weeks to 2 years, and the sudden influx of unhappy, worried passengers begins to overwhelm the Mima's own consciousness - but that's only the beginning of a gradual collapse that will spread through the ship as conditions deteriorate and discipline breaks down. The Aniara is about to become a distant outpost of humanity - travelling further into the black void of space than we have ever gone before.

If we don't destroy ourselves within the next one or two centuries, then our future is out there amongst the stars. Of course, I don't think humans will physically travel out there in the sense we generally assume - our bodies kept alive in ships that recreate and preserve Earth's environment. It's much more probable our minds will be free from our delicate physical form by then, and it will be possible for probes to sleep during journeys through interstellar space - what's 100,000 years for our self-replicating, galaxy-exploring probe will seem but a moment to our consciousness. In the meantime, we'll intercept messages from our other probes. It'll be a network that is us - a journey that began on Earth as life evolved. This film is set at a time when we're quite advanced, but not beyond the scope of troubles (the environmental collapse of Earth - which the film shows us in many inventive ways, such as the number of passengers suffering from serious burns) and vulnerability. Space disasters will occur, and Aniara constructs a real Titanic-level calamity which comes about simply because of some space debris instead of an iceberg. Although this is only a €2 million Swedish film, the effects are fine and the production design was good enough to make this a pretty worthwhile watch. I was fascinated.

Aniara's biggest win though, is in regards to how it explores our psyche, and the way the passengers of the Aniara react to their new circumstances. The ship has around 2 months of decent food aboard, after which everyone can survive pretty much indefinitely on the algae being farmed - but it doesn't taste too great. As parts of the ship break down, so does the order and morale - something which could have easily become tiresome to watch if it weren't for Pella Kågerman and Hugo Lilja's ability to focus on what's really interesting. The ship's captain (Arvin Kananian) maintains control, but in doing so during such discontent he becomes something of a dictator - dishing out draconian punishments at his own whim. Sex and sexuality mutate, as does belief when various cults start to spring up. Madness becomes contagious. Suicides skyrocket. The Aniara itself becomes a petri dish full of people and as such the movie gives us a glimpse of the limits society faces when you strip various needs away, and as such I found this a very interesting exploration of us. I love science fiction related to space travel/exploration when done well, and this was. What I also liked was the fact that Aniara was so far removed from the Hollywood version of this (seen in the likes of Passengers), getting it's hands dirty and acknowledging how messy we are - in every way. It's limited by it's budget, but I liked it very much all the same.

Glad to catch this one - it won the Asteroid Prize for Best International Film at the Trieste Science+Fiction Festival in 2019, and four other awards at the Swedish Guldbagge awards, which is like their Oscars.




Thank you very much to whomever inspired me to watch Aniara - I specifically remember someone recommending it to me, but I forget who that was (sorry!)

I know that Thief really likes it, so he may have recommended it. (He's the one who got me to watch it).

I liked it maybe a smidge more than you. (Thoughts HERE)

What was your reaction to (MAJOR SPOILERS) the infamous

Have you seen High Life? It tackles some similar themes, and it's one of those movies where the more I think about it, the more I love it. I really owe it a rewatch, because I think about it A LOT, and I imagine my originally split feelings about it might change on a second viewing.

I was really mixed on Aniara, but another viewing may get me to like it more.

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I loved it! It was completely mind-bending - but it also

I looked it up and I can't recall ever having seen that, so it's on my watchlist now and I eagerly await seeing it. .

Keeping it simple - The Wailing is an excellent and very rewarding excursion into the supernatural that is as much a thriller as it is a horror film. What's surprising is the fact that it's 156-minute run-time feels like a positive instead of a negative. We're given so much by the detail-focused (obsessed perhaps) director Na Hong-jin and personally, my feeling is that this is a film I'm going to be returning to multiple times so I can explore all of the nuances, details and everything else that I probably missed the first time around. It has everything - possession, religion, mythology, zombies, demons - but it somehow manages to integrate all of that into such a grounded bed of reasonableness that the end result is unnerving. The only lightness comes from the familiar way South Korean filmmakers portray law enforcement officers as incompetent boobs - but don't take the fact that we get so many wonderfully easy moments of comedy to mean this is a light hearted romp. This is as dark as it gets - and I'd say that's also a trait I've come to see a lot of from the likes of Bong Joon-ho - comedy amidst the darkest of subject matters and situations. The Wailing's director, having attracted attention with his 2008 film The Chaser, cemented his place amongst that cadre of talented visionaries from this part of the world with this film.

Jong-goo (Kwak Do-won) is a policeman in a sleepy village (Gokseong) amongst the mountains in South Korea, not exactly used to the scene he's greeted by one morning when he's called to the death of a local that happens to be a gruesome murder scene. It's replete with the murderer in handcuffs - obviously ill, covered in pustules, red-eyed and consumed by madness. As more cases start springing up in the area he keeps coming up against rumours that a Japanese man (Jun Kunimura) who arrived in the village recently is behind the spate of murderous contagion. When his daughter falls ill and seems to be heading in the direction all of the other victims have gone, the desperate Jong-goo turns to a Shaman, Il-gwang (Hwang Jung-min), whose mystic rituals he doesn't completely trust, and has to decide if the mysterious woman in white, Moo-myung (Chun Woo-hee), has something to do with the evil encroaching on his home, and his family. Personally, I changed my mind a half dozen times regarding who could be trusted and who couldn't - instead of pulling a twist out of it's hat, The Wailing is in constant flux, and the most frightening thing about it is the fact that you have no idea what or whom Jong-goo should be wary of, and who he should trust. Is the suspicion of the Japanese man simple xenophobia? Is the shaman a simple charlatan? Is the woman in white a ghost, a demon or on Jong-goo's side?

As a film lover, I appreciate the fact that The Wailing is meticulous, and is rewarding in a cinematographic sense along with having been edited via the guidance of this perfectionist movie maker. There are several sequences that absolutely pound you into the dust and they occur during rituals which almost seem to duel with each other in frightening and energetic ways. This is Asian folk horror, with an added element of the police procedural as if this ghost/demon/presence/evil is a serial killer in itself. A delirious mix of comedy, horror, thriller, and mystery made by a filmmaker inspired by the likes of The Exorcist, The Shining and Rosemary's Baby - and it has that dreadful kind of dream-like atmosphere of dread that you wish every horror movie had infused into it's structure. Visually, the landscape itself becomes as much a part of how we feel about everything as the characters, narrative and make-up effects - and in some instances it makes for as much danger itself as any demon, zombie or monster. Rarely does a longer run-time mean you're getting more for your money, but it really is the case here. Also - how good is contemporary South Korean cinema? I mean, if you were to rate a country on it's ratio of quality output, this nation might easily top the rankings. I'm so happy to be acquainted with The Wailing, and it's another film I look forward to watching again pretty soon.

Glad to catch this one - - it was shown out of competition at Cannes and ended up winning various Fantasia, Grand Bell, Korean, Asian and Fangoria awards.




Thank you very much to whomever inspired me to watch The Wailing

I liked it a lot, but it made me curious about what was going on inside the spaceship. Though unlikely, I'm curious if humanity still continued on. And if so, what the state of living was like in there.

I liked The Wailing, but given the reputation it had, I was surprised I didn't click with it more.

I'm running late! Feels like someone is messing with time, and speeding it up so there's not enough of it to do all of the things I want - but that's not going to stop me going through the best of August, which all-up delivered another 16 films wiped off from my watchlist. That brings the total up to 192 movies watched and reviewed - and that's a lot. Lets see if I can crank up my output again for the rest of the year so I can get up to 300!


I'm getting close to the 200 mark - it's going to be so interesting at the end of the year to compile a list of the Best 25/50 movies from this thread in order of greatness - there's going to be some fantastic candidates that won't even make it, and I guess that means it's going to be tough choosing. I've probably said this six or seven times already, but I never expected this high a ratio of great movies when I started this - I don't think I really believed there were that many movies out there for me to discover and love, and by the rate new films are going on to my watchlist it seems the source is never-ending. It's been a lot of fun!

There was all kinds of psychological resistance going on inside of me when it came time to watch Jeremiah Johnson - my internal monologue was of the sort : "So, this guy is going to go into the American wilderness and live off the land? This movie is going to be so boring!" I couldn't imagine much happening. He goes fishing? He shoots a bear? He builds a cabin? Well, he actually does do all three of those things, but Johnson's story, as told in this film, was a lot more interesting than a simple shopping list of "things you do when you go off the grid" being ticked off. I'd assumed that this character would be alone for most of the film, but as it so happens, Jeremiah is rarely alone - and it's his relationship with fellow homesteaders, soldiers and Native Americans that forms the core of Jeremiah Johnson. All of this reaches dramatic peaks that grip you tightly when he has to deal with death - whether it's coping with the grief of a crazed settler whose children have been brutally murdered, or else the murder of people he's personally close to. Not only is the harsh wilderness a tough place to survive just on your own - other human beings double the danger in a fight for resources and territorial rights. So Robert Redford, as Johnson, has a distinctly defined character arc from hopeless newbie to experienced survivor to grizzled, hardened maniac. I was definitely disabused of the notion that this would be a dull, lonely slog - it's high drama.

Johnson was a veteran of the Mexican War that decided to try his hand at being a "mountain man" in the Rocky Mountains. We watch him absolutely struggle at first, until he finds a mentor in "Bear Claw" Chris Lapp (Will Geer) - but the film doesn't go overboard as far as the killing of animals is concerned, except for one scene later on in the film where Johnson has to fight off a pack of wolves, most of which he bludgeons to death - one part for animal lovers to skip. Johnson finds other friends to hook up with, including Del Gue (Stefan Gierasch), and has high ideals when it comes to the Native Americans he comes across. Johnson respects the fact that this is their territory, and at one stage makes the mistake of offering a tribe way too much gift-wise. He ends up with a Native American wife through no choosing of his own, and in a similar manner a young mute boy - a kind of ad-hoc family. Interactions with Native American culture, where it's so easy to cross lines as far as both sides are concerned, make Johnson's journey both really interesting and absolutely full of tension and fear. The U.S. Army cavalry and much feared Crows complicate matters a great deal, and end up turning Johnson into the famous, somewhat 'massacre-happy' figure he became. The movie is more about this clash of cultures than it is surviving in the wilderness, although both form the core of this epic 1972 film.

So, this was anything but boring, with a pace that surprised me in it's nimble forward progression from start to finish. Whether it be difficulty or calamity, there's one event after the other or else the characters in this film are facing challenges that keep a viewer very much invested all the way through. You have to wonder from time to time - "could I have survived out there?" Imagine living with the terrible fear of being beaten by either the environment or hostile people. Where life is simply a constant all-out effort to just survive and provide basic needs for yourself. I'm not an American, so maybe Jeremiah "liver-eating" Johnson is more of a famous figure than I initially realised, but despite this being based on a real-life figure I approached it as a kind of fiction - or at least only loosely based on fact. That said, it's brutal depiction of life in the wilderness felt authentic and true-to-life, and that's what I really liked about this film. I also liked the fact that the Native Americans weren't tarred with the same brush, and that instead some were shown to be wise and measured, others more combative. There's some great photography and editing, and all-up Jeremiah Johnson ended up really surprising me - it's a firm recommendation to those who haven't seen it.

Glad to catch this one - nominated for the Palme d'Or at Cannes in 1973, it was also a critical and box office success.




Thank you very much to whomever inspired me to watch Jeremiah Johnson

If you want to luxuriate yourself with images it seems Wong Kar-wai and Fallen Angels is the way to go - every shot looks achingly beautiful, even though the editing (which is also magnificent) keeps us on our toes, and never lets the eye linger on the neon jungle that's the streets of Hong Kong. Every scene is absolutely bathed in one specific colour, and the kinetic energy is out of this world. It's been a while since I've been able to sit back and admire a movie for it's transcendent beauty, which in this case gave me that super-enjoyable inner hum that I suppose was the release of some kind of endorphins in my brain. I was literally loving this movie. That makes sense also in regard to the fact that love dominates the film - the kind of young love that makes people crazy, and the kind of love that binds us together. A couple of inner monologues guide us through the thoughts and feelings of two characters that have stories that intertwine - hitman Wong Chi-ming (Leon Lai) and petty crook Ho Chi-mo (Takeshi Kaneshiro), who is mute and a little crazy. The hits and crimes aren't important - instead we focus on their inner feelings and everyday musings, especially concerning Wong Chi-ming's partner (Michelle Reis), who deeply loves him, and Charlie (Charlie Yeung), who forms a firm bond with Ho Chi-mo - someone who can lean on him and cry on his shoulder, but not love as he does her.

Music is also a big component of Fallen Angels, with the likes of "Si Mu De Ren" performed by Chin Chyi an absolutely unforgettable part of the magical world within this film, and a beautiful accompaniment to it's imagery. A powerful pre-2000 pop ballad that plays on your heart so heavily once you see the events it's paired with. It's rare for me to immediately take to non-English language songs, but I did here and it seemed that no translation was necessary. Wong Kar-wai also uses the likes of old Flying Pickets hit "Only You" at the exact moment the bittersweet sentimental power of it can cause the most emotional activity in your mind. It's a sublime mixture of masterpiece-level cinematography and sound, and it's enchanting in the extreme. The likes of Laurie Anderson's "Speak My Language", and Marianne Faithfull performing "Go Away From My World" mix with Massive Attack's "Karmacoma" and Cantonese songs to provide periods when the film has a sharp edge, and periods where we're spiritually uplifted and carried along in constant high-speed motion - at a speed that's bound to break hearts, while all we can do is watch on and see them bleed unrequited love and loss. It's such a pleasure to be a witness to though - gloriously so.

It's about time I watched some more stuff from Wong Kar-wai - I'd only ever seen In the Mood For Love before this, and I absolutely love that movie. Now he's 2 for 2 with me - a perfect record, because for me this was another perfect film. I felt a little like I was watching a work of art, with just enough narrative to situate ourselves as far as the emotions of the characters are concerned - I felt what I think they felt to what seemed like an exact degree. Guided by inner monologues, day-to-day rituals, the wild body-language of Karen Mok, who plays the lively love interest Blondie, the coordination of colour, neon light, music, unusual perspectives, Hong Kong culture, all mixed together with seeming precision, but more pointedly a filmmaker working with their subconscious - as so many of the greats do. Mood-setting is an artform here, and personally it felt more like I was reading poetry than watching a feature film - watching on as Fallen Angels' characters wrestle with the spectre of fading connections, rejection, love, the warmth of chemistry and magic of dreaming away your loneliness. Never has murder felt more peripheral, or neon felt more like sunlight glowing on the cheeks of young men and women who are right in the moment, and alive. This is a desert island movie, for I reckon it's one I could watch over, and over, and over.

Glad to catch this one - a numberless Criterion release on their World of Wong Kar Wai boxed set, and winner of 3 Hong Kong Film Awards - along with being a cult classic.




Thank you very much to whomever inspired me to watch Fallen Angels

I used to watch this all the time on HBO when I was a kid back in the 80s. Loved it. I was like 11 years old and was somehow like, "Yeah, this is my jam."

There's a lot to unpack regarding Arrebato - a film that explicitly mirrors what it's maker was going through at the time he made it. Iván Zulueta was addicted to heroin, and obsessively making his one and only feature film, but this movie doesn't go down the route of exploring drug addiction and/or movie-making, instead using both as a means to explore connections between cinema, vampirism and obsession - and I think also death, or at least the relationship our minds have with the concept of death. It does lots of interesting little things, wrapping them all up in a narrative that is almost nonsensical and surreal - and in it's final act becomes a horror film that will leave you feeling terribly haunted and uneasy. Films within the film use time-lapse photography, and the speeding up or stopping of time also comes into play during certain segments. It went so far as to affect my dreams once I'd settled down for the night and slept - my subconscious still trying to deal with the matters it digs up and plays around with. For all those who feel there's not enough equality in cinema when it comes to full frontal nudity, I recall seeing at least three different male members, but the sex and sexuality, though very much part of the movie, is mostly implied or plays at the very edge of our awareness.

Filmmaker José Sirgado (Eusebio Poncela) meets the nephew of a friend, Pedro (Will More) - who makes his own amateur movies. Pedro is an otherworldly presence in the movie, and while most of the other characters are more or less straightforward and what we'd consider normal, Pedro speaks in riddles and behaves in an unusual manner - claiming to be over a century old. Is he cinema itself? Despite having a girlfriend in Ana Turner (Cecilia Roth), José becomes intimate with Pedro after sharing movie knowledge and drugs with the young man. Later, as an introduction to Pedro's world and view of cinema, he does something really interesting which pretty much involves an almost magical ability to produce a cherished childhood relic for José, and later Ana, to basically 'blow their minds' and kind of open them up to his wavelength. He's already introduced José to his abilities by speeding up time itself from his perspective, and the movie-man gives Pedro the ability to record time-lapse photography - to lengthen the pauses between recorded frames of film. When Pedro accidentally records himself sleeping however, he discovers something disturbing that becomes both an addiction and obsession in itself which threatens the very existence of both Pedro and José.

Our relationship with the screen, and via that connective tissue the camera, is a complex one when it comes to the human mind and recorded images - and swirling through all of that, becoming part of the puzzle in Arrebato, is the constant presence of drug use and addiction. Being filmed while asleep becomes that very thing for Pedro - a physical addiction - as does his need to see what his camera is purposely withholding from him by turning an ever-expanding series of frames bright red. In my search for the meaning behind all of this I thought of the strange way we try to halt time by recording it and being able to replay it - and I thought of how those onscreen pursue a kind of immortality through it, even though it's an immortality that won't save them personally from death and non-existence. I thought about what's exchanged between what's filmed, what's doing the filming, and who's watching - the ebb and flow of energy, emotion, need and the material. Is cinema a drug? Has it changed the way we relate to death? Arrebato propelled so many thoughts, and it's intimate, purposeful visual style stuck with me - even scaring me in the end. What am I to think about a film that thinks about films? Freaky, and unusual. Catharsis for cinema addicts.

Glad to catch this one - it won numerous awards at the inaugural Fantasporto Awards in Portugal, and has become a Spanish cult classic - part of the La Movida Madrileña art movement.




Thank you very much to whomever inspired me to watch Arrebato

I really loved Arrebato. HERE is what I wrote about it when I watched it. I thought that it walked a fantastic line between dark humor and actual horror.

I was very surprised to find out about Pedro Almodovar's involvement with Arrebato.

I'm a huge fan of this one. I'm curious what you'll think of it.

Oh the irony of looking forward to watching Sherman's March because you're interested in Civil War history - not that this documentary isn't more fulfilling and humanistic by being famously sidetracked by one man and his personal crisis of confidence. Approaching 40, Ross McElwee is experiencing the dread of never finding that special, perfect person who wants to spend the rest of their life with him. That breeds desperation, and desperation just happens to be one of the biggest turn-offs known to humankind - beginning a sad cycle of rejection, false-starts and brief flings. Travelling through the American South, intending to make a documentary about General Sherman's "March to the Sea" as he follows in the famous figure's footsteps, he soon starts to realise that the real movie is about McElwee's own personal life, and the various women he briefly becomes infatuated with. It does feel like a path of destruction, but there's a really natural, breezy feel to the conversations he has, despite the fact that he obviously has a large camera hoisted onto his shoulder. These ladies might not be falling madly in love with him, but they do seem disarmed, open, at ease and comfortable with being recorded in such intimate circumstances - as if the camera is invisible.

Ross McElwee is obviously aware of how compelling his own emasculation will be to audiences - there's an urge to cheer the hidden protagonist, mixed with an overwhelming urge to reach out and tell him to please stop - the impulsive reaching itself sometimes excruciating. One of the targets he's fallen for dreams of meeting Burt Reynolds when she goes to audition for a film, and Reynolds becomes something of a rival in McElwee's eyes, and almost a Macguffin for the movie. At the time this actor was the very symbol of American masculinity, and the filmmaker's antithesis - so there's a natural progression here once we seek out the man himself - leading to a hilarious confrontation and the perfect climax to this extraordinarily long documentary. In the meantime we meet a variety of interesting women with infectious personalities, high aspirational goals, winsome manners, plentiful energy and natural beauty. Their obvious attractiveness makes it easy to understand why McElwee swoons over each one, and as such the camera also follows his male gaze - now and then almost comically. He's not offering them much, and instead, like a vampire, kind of sucks up all of their vitality with his camera - great for his movie, but not for his love life. He's almost a victim of his own passion.

I find history really interesting, but have to admit that every time McElwee tries to get this documentary back on track by visiting a historical site where Sherman fought, the emptiness and lifeless silence of a battlefield long since forgotten only reminds me how much love and life are more vibrant. It's a keen distinction, and I think the filmmaker himself understood the the real colour lay with his disastrous love life, and his attempts to understand why he was in such a rut. There's not much of a connection between the two, other than the fact that love is something of a combat zone, and furthermore that McElwee leaves a metaphorical of trail of destruction behind him as he follows Sherman's path. The destruction is made up of McElwee's tattered confidence and the feeling that whatever phase he's going through, it's relationship poison - one broken heart after the other stretchered off the battlefield. To me it seemed like he was married to making movies, and every time he started up with this lady or that they instantly came a distant second to his primary passion in life - his camera and his current big project, which fed back into an obsessive focus on them. Once amorous emotion was doused to dying embers, along comes his favourite subject : "why don't you like me enough to be my lover?" - the bucket of cold water that puts the fire out forever. Then, just like a general, it's on to the next target and the next town - echoing Sherman, and cursing Burt Reynolds.

Glad to catch this one - it was awarded the Grand Jury Prize (documentary section) at the Sundance Film Festival in 1987, and it gained preservation status by the Library of Congress in 2000. It's also in Steven Jay Schneider's 1001 Movies You Must See Before You Die.




Thank you very much to whomever inspired me to watch Sherman's March

Glad you enjoyed it! I was really taken in by how McElwee was simultaneously pathetic and tragic at the same time. It made the ending hurt so much. I imagine it would make for a great double feature with La Dolce Vita.

Watching The Killer is a kind of heavy experience, because it's a painful reminder of how action films in the late 1980s were so, so much better than the action films of today. It's an over the top, pyrotechnic ballet with grand melodramatic flourishes that is self aware enough to not take itself too seriously, but it's also a highly polished work of art posing as a pure genre outing. That makes sense, considering that Woo was influenced by the likes of Jean-Pierre Melville and Martin Scorsese specifically. It's Le Samouraï with a very Hong Kong slant, and has clearly been made with a great amount of love for the artform - everything carefully considered. One thing I really enjoy doing when watching a good action movie is taking note of all the editing choices - you find choice after choice is quite inspired. It's something about The Killer that I found absolutely sublime - and also a painful reminder of how lazy and shoddy the artform has become for the most part. The story won't tax your brain either - we're here to watch a choreographed dance of death and get a taste of a stock element I have a particular weakness for : the unlikely friendship and team-up of two deadly enemies.

Ah Jong (the eminently recognizable "can't be all that bad really, just look at him" baby-faced Chow Yun-fat) is a deadly assassin, and if you think you're in for gritty realism here take note - Ah Jong won't make a small target of himself or hide in the shadows. He'll instead stand in the middle of the room dealing death with his pistols as chaos reigns, dispatching the dozens of deadly enemies around him one at a time with casual ease and great style. Everything in the room is going get broken (if it's glass, smashed into smithereens) and new threats are going to pour in from every entrance and exit - or else surprise him by popping out of nowhere. Detective Li Ying (Danny Lee) is the die hard, never give up, handsome pursuer of Ah Jong who keeps getting into one Mexican standoff after another with our intrepid "nicest guy - he only kills bad guys really" killer. Jennie (Sally Yeh) is the sweet nightclub singer who becomes Ah Jong's love interest after he accidentally blinds her during one of his massacres, running into her a second time but not divulging the terrible truth that he's the one responsible for her newfound vulnerability. This Hong Kong diva ends up singing all of the songs on The Killer's soundtrack - quite nicely. There are partners for both (played by Kenneth Tsang and Chu Kong) killer and cop, along with various betrayals, sacrifices and the ultimate enemy - triad boss Wong Hoi (Shing Fui-on).

As soon as the film reveals that it's first indoor set is a church filled with literally thousands of lit candles - a dazzling meeting place which sets up our first shoot-out planning stage (and equally dazzling, book-ended final location of carnage) - you know that this will be a visual treat - and the cinematography rises up to meet the set-decoration and art direction. Hong Kong is always going to offer up a fantastic mix of bright lights, wonderfully mountainous topography, and mystifying cultural events which happen alongside the delirious action. It's a place made for the genre, whose culture also allows martial arts to be added to an already heady mix. The Killer has all of that, but what makes it really special is the fact that it's treated with virtuoso cinematic gloves, introducing the best of European and American contemporary style and method to transform this uniquely Asian action film into a movie that has international currency. There's a wonderfully perfect mix of the familiar with the exotic, and that makes the film all the more inviting right from the get-go. It's silly, a load of fun, way, way over the top and as far as violent action goes pure poetry.

Glad to catch this one - it's in Steven Jay Schneider's 1001 Movies You Must See Before You Die, was nominated for Best Film at the Hong Kong Film Awards (at which it won Best Director and Best Editing), and has been endlessly imitated. A very influential action classic, remade in 2024. Criterion #8.




Thank you very much to whomever inspired me to watch The Killer

Never heard of Mommy, but it’s now in my watchlist.

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