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Blades of the Guardians (镖人：风起大漠, Yuen Woo-Ping, 2026)

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“I haven’t seen moves like that in the martial world in forty years,” quips a bystander in a post-credits sequence, and this adaptation of the manhua by the legendary Yuen Woo-Ping certainly does its best to bring back some of the charm of classic wuxia. Produced by star Wu Jing, Blades of the Guardians (镖人：风起大漠, biāo rén fēng qǐ dàmò) also features a cameo appearance by Jet Li as well Nicholas Tse, Tony Leung Ka-fai, and Kara Wai, as a cynical bounty hunter rediscovers his duty towards the common people while escorting a would be revolutionary to the ancient capital of Chang’an.

A former soldier, Dao Ma (Wu Jing) now wanders the land with a child in tow in search of wanted criminals, but when he finds them, makes an offer instead. Pay him triple the bounty, and he’ll forget he ever saw them. As we’re told, this is a world of constant corruption under the oppressive rule of the Sui dynasty. Zhi Shilang (Sun Yizhou) is the famed leader of the Flower Rebellion that hopes to clear the air, which makes him the number one fugitive of the current moment. This is slightly annoying to Dao Ma in that it necessarily means he’s number two when forced on the run after killing a corrupt local governor (Jet Li) in defence of an innkeeper with a hidden martial arts background whose family the official was going to seize for the non-payment of taxes. Taking refuge in the small township of Mojia, Dao Ma is given a mission by the sympathetic Chief Mo (Tony Leung Ka-fai) who agrees to cancel all his debts if he escorts Zhi Shilang to Chang’an safely before they’re both killed by hoards of marauding bounty hunters, regular bandits, government troops including two of Dao Ma’s old friends, or the former fiancée of ally Ayuya (Chen Lijun), the self-proclaimed Khan, He Yixuan (Ci Sha).

When given the mission, Dao Ma asked why he should care about the common people or Zhi Shilang’s revolution only to be swept along as they make their way towards the capital and witness both the esteem with which Zhi Shilang seems to be held by those who believe in his cause and the venality of the bounty hunters along with the mindless cruelty of He Yexian’s minions. As is usual in these kinds of stories, Mojia is a idyllic haven of cherry trees in bloom where the people dance and sing and are kind to each other, which is to say, the seat of the real China. Though Ayuya longs to see Chang’an and harbours mild resentment towards her father for his “control” over her, Chief Mo is the moral centre of the film and not least because he cares for nothing more than his daughter’s happiness. When she decides not to marry He Yixian on account of his bloodthirsty lust for power, Mo walks barefoot through the scorched land of the desert to free her from the obligation and, after all, has trained her to become a fearsome archer rather than just someone’s wife or a pawn to be played as he sees fit. 

But as someone else says, who is not a pawn in this world? There are other shadow forces lurking behind the scenes playing a game of their own while taking advantage of the corrupt chaos of the Sui Dynasty court. Dao Ma, however, revels in his outsider status. “Not even the gods control me now,” he jokes in advocating for his freelance lifestyle loafing around as a cynical bounty hunter who can choose when to work and where to go, in contrast to his life as a soldier of the Sui forced to carry out their inhuman demands. When the innkeeper’s son tells him he wants to be a swordsman too, Dao Ma gives him a sword as a symbol of freedom and instructs him to take a horse and go wherever he wants when he’s old enough. His fate is his own, whatever his father might have said. 

If that might sound like a surprising and somewhat subversive advocation for individualism, the final message is one of solidarity, as Dao Ma rediscovers his duty to the people and various others also fall in behind Zhi Shilang, who is hilariously inept at things like riding a horse and remaining calm under fire, to take the revolution all the way to Chang’an. With stunning action sequences including an epic sandstorm battle, the film successfully marries old-school wuxia charm with a contemporary sensibility and an unexpectedly revolutionary spirit as Dao Ma and friends ride off to tackle corruption at the heart of government.

Blades of the Guardians is in US cinemas now courtesy of Well Go USA.

Trailer (English subtitles)

The Hotel of my Dream (私にふさわしいホテル, Yukihiko Tsutsumi, 2024)

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What does a girl have to do to get her book published in this town? Adapted from the novel by Asako Yuzuki, Yukihiko Tsutsumi’s The Hotel of My Dream (私にふさわしいホテル, Watashi ni Fusawashi Hotel) follows its eccentric heroine through a literary feud with an established master in an attempt to defeat a misogynistic, hierarchal and exploitative publishing industry and finally publish a full-length novel. In part a meditation on identity, the trades on its heroine’s charms and the comedic prowess of leading lady Non.

Set in 1984, the film begins and ends at the Hilltop Hotel popular with writers through the ages thanks to its proximity to book town Jinbocho and the offices of big time publishers. Using the pen name Taiju Aida, Kayoko (Non) is an aspiring author who won her publisher’s newcomer prize a few years previously for a short form essay but has been unable to write anything of substance since after being stung by a harsh review from literary master Higashijujo (Kenichi Takito). After learning from her editor Endo (Kei Tanaka) that Higashijujo is in the room upstairs and is on a tight deadline to complete a story for an upcoming anniversary anthology, Kayoko decides to impersonate a hotel maid so he’ll stay up all night and not make it, forcing Endo to use her story instead.

The irony is that Kayoko’s story is popular with readers and she has real talent as a writer that’s being suppressed by the publishing industry at large in the form of her former publisher, Endo, and Higashijujo. Higashijujo is a representative of a particular kind of older writer and is effectively acting as a gatekeeper by suggesting that young women like Kayoko have no place in the literary scene. Even so, he’s captivated by the story she tells him that’s the same as the essay she later has published which cleverly weaves in some of his own personal details. She plays on his vanity and lasciviousness in telling him she’s a big fan and is romantically naive as if dangling herself as bait. Higashijujo realises that Kayoko is Taiju Aida and kicks off a kind of literary feud in which he disrupts her career and she puts on various different personas to upset or embarrass him. 

Nevertheless, his rivalry with her does seem to stimulate his own latent artistic mojo and have him writing manically once again if partly out of resentment, while Kayoko is forced to change her name again before winning a note literary prize as “Junri Arimori” and writing with a completely different style. On realising that they may both be being manipulated by Endo who is setting them against each other in order to stimulate their writing, they team up against him by attempting to disabuse his daughters of the notion that Santa’s not real only they already know. They were just going along with the ruse because that’s a child’s job in much the same as Higashijujo suggests a writer’s is to conjure a pleasant fantasy for the reader and Kayoko creates a series of false personas further her own literary dreams. 

Yet as Kayoko says she’s not given the kind of support that other writers get and even after getting a book published has to go round to stores on her own to encourage them to stock and promote it. She only rises to prominence by charming a bookseller after catching a notorious book thief who didn’t even steal hers because he only takes “popular” books. Kayoko is indeed a total crazy lady, but perhaps you need to be in order to survive in this environment that’s still dominated by men like Higashijujo writing borderline sleazy novels and hanging out with hostesses in upscale Ginza bars. Resented by his daughter, he stays out in hotels for days at a time, leaving his wife alone and neglecting his family. Kayoko has to fight tooth and nail for her place in this space and to prove herself worthy of a room at the Hilltop Hotel while Higashijujo’s ride was must less fraught with difficulty even if it may not have been easy. The final message seems to be, however, that art is created best in opposition and success isn’t always good for an artist as Kayoko finds herself frustrated, feeling as if she hasn’t achieved all of her revenge but has no left to take it against while perhaps still manipulated by Endo who provides a source of authority for her to kick back against as literary queen trying to hang on to her throne.

The Hotel of my Dream screens as part of this year’s Japan Foundation Touring Film Programme.

Trailer (English subtitles)

Images: © 2012 Asako Yuzuki_Shinchosha © 2024 “The Hotel of my Dream” Film Partners

Shinobi no mono 7: Mist Saizo Strikes Back (忍びの者 新・霧隠才蔵, Kazuo Mori, 1966)

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After the initial trilogy, the Shinobi no Mono series has changed direction following instead another ronin, Saizo, opposed to the Tokugawa because the promised world of peace had no room for ninja. Nevertheless, as time moved on, the sixth instalment shifted again to follow Saizo’s son, Saisuke, who continued his father’s vendetta against the Tokugawa but largely found himself frustrated by the times in which he lived. Nevertheless, film seven picks back up with Saizo and takes place in 1616 shortly after the siege of Osaka. 

Having joined up with a band of other displaced ninja, it seems that Saizo (Raizo Ichikawa) has had the rather unusual charge of heart in that his experiences with Yukimura have apparently convinced him to devote himself to serving a lord rather than living wild and free as a ninja while he still has a burning desire to kill Ieyasu but mainly for personal revenge. This is partly in recognition that he’s realised the Tokugawa are here to stay and politically it won’t make any difference killing Ieyasu as one of his underlings will simply move up to take his place.

The other problem that he has is that there seems to be a mole and the other ninja have all settled on Akane (Shiho Fujimura) as the likely source of the treachery seeing as she is a “kunoichi” and therefore not a real ninja. Akane of course rejects this, but has also fallen in love with Saizo, which is of course against the ninja code. Saizo somewhat reinforces the sexist message by telling her to think of her pride and happiness as a woman, both things that a female ninja is expected to reject. Even so, he does not agree with his fellow ninja that she is the traitor and does not reject her affections in quite the way he usually does. Meanwhile, the gang is also in touch with another woman, Yayoi (Yuko Kusunoki), a maid to Lady Sen who also claims to be looking for revenge against the Tokugawa as her father was killed at Osaka Castle while her clan is also opposed to Ieyasu. 

Ever duplicitous, Ieyasu sends his own ninja against them. Led by Fuma Daijuro (Takahiro Tamura), the clan is apparently an ancient enemy of the Iga with whom they’ve long been waiting for a showdown only they don’t usually leave their home promise. The vendetta pushes the film back into regular jidaigeki tragedy, if one with a spy element as Saizo and the others try to figure out the identity of the mole while plotting to kill Ieyasu. The other ninja are somewhat blinded by their own preferences despite the prohibitions against human feeling though they do eventually admit their mistakes and apologise.

This one is perhaps a little nastier with the rival gang calling Akane a whore and threatening to rape her while the Tokugawa also admit they plan to tie up loose ends by knocking off the mole when they’re no one longer useful. Returning to the director’s chair, Kazuo Mori leans more towards a classic samurai aesthetic, but nevertheless stays close to the series’ nihilistic atmosphere which is perhaps deepened by the solidifying of the Tokugawa regime which makes the ninja’s existence more or less redundant. In a slightly meta motif, this film overlaps with the last of the original trilogy in which Goemon does in fact bring about Ieyasu’s death even if, as Ieyasu says, he was old and would have died soon anyway though now he now goes out at the top of his game having achieved all of his major life goals.

It does however adopt the slightly more fantastical trappings of the later films in its flaming shrunken and whirring fire whips not to mention the spear action from Fuma’s gang. The final showdown takes place amid copious snow echoing the coldness of the ninja lifestyle in which human emotions are largely forbidden while not even fellow ninja can really be trusted. Trusting only his mission, Saizo cuts a lonely figure and cannot seem to separate himself from it, running fast towards Edo and a confrontation with politics hoping to start a domino effect, resulting in the decline of the Tokugawa through a simple process of elimination.

We Have Boots (我們有雨靴, Evans Chan, 2020)

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“Fight pragmatically for the impossible” is the advice from Chan Kin-man, cofounder of Hong Kong’s Occupy Central Campaign, in Evans Chan’s follow-up to his 2016 documentary Raise the Umbrellas, We Have Boots (我們有雨靴). Part of a projected trilogy which began with To Liv(e) in1991 examining Hong Kong in the aftermath off Tiananmen Square and may never now, the director fears, be completed, the sprawling two-hour doc runs through six turbulent years of Hong Kong protest, dissecting the failures of the Umbrella Movement and implications of the passing of the National Security Law in the midst of a global pandemic in June 2020.

Evans Chan opens with a faintly ridiculous propaganda video which outlines what the film describes as “Chinese exceptionalism” in that China can feel fairly smug about itself as it did not rely on exploitation, colonial massacre, or slavery to become prosperous nor has it submitted itself to Western democracy. The narrator of the video appears to view the people of Hong Kong as brainwashed foster children turned against their homeland by the “fake news” of international propaganda seeking to portray it as a source only of authoritarian oppression and, in fact, growing up to become “time bombs” posing a threat to Mainland security. In an ironic cut, Chan then drops us directly into a traumatic raid on a subway station in which we witness extreme and random police brutality directed against ordinary citizens. 

Yet Chan is not sparing of the Movement either, directly documenting concerns among the protestors at the Umbrella Movement five years after the fact as they complain of over centralisation, that their “democratic” movement did not practice what it preached when the main platform acted like a command centre and refused to listen to other points of view including those advocating for violent action. Meanwhile the more militant arm of protest movement finds it increasingly difficult to escape criticisms of entrenched xenophobia in its openly anti-Mainland stance, describing Chinese migrants as “smugglers and looters” in reference to a trend accusing frequent visitors from the Mainland trafficking supposedly safer commodities such as baby milk which had been the subject of scandals owing to lax safety standards. The same group also objects to Mainland women dancing in the streets as an affront to local Hong Kong culture, adopting the Sanskrit “Cina” to refer to the country while viewing those coming from wider China as “colonisers” rather than migrants hellbent on undermining the traditional culture of the island. 

Nevertheless, Chan also makes plain the various levels of Kafka-esque obfuscation the opposition faces in its goal of gaining universal suffrage and true democracy for Hong Kong. Young councillors are abruptly disqualified after “misusing” their swearing-in speeches by flying flags which state Hong Kong is not China or otherwise badmouthing the Mainland or political process. Unable to find appropriate offences to discourage the ringleaders, they come up with nebulous charges such as “incitement to incite public nuisance” which are essentially meaningless not to mention counter-productive save that they prevent those who receive custodial sentences from standing for further political office. 

One young man appears only in full protest gear clad in black head to toe, presumably keen to maintain his anonymity as he details his role as a frontline protestor. We’re reminded that China essentially disappeared five booksellers from Causeway Bay for the crime of selling problematic books, only one of whom later resurfaced explaining he’d been held on the Mainland against his will. The leaders of the movement fully expect to pay with their freedom and, according to Chan Kin-man at least who turns down the opportunity of exile abroad, view participation in their trials as facet of their resistance. “Being young is a crime,” the anonymous protestor laments. His generation don’t expect to have money, they don’t expect to have children, in short they do not expect to have a future, all they have is resistance. While the international press holds up Hong Kong as a bastion against incremental authoritarianism in an age of democratic recession, China describes the Be Water protests as “riots” and continues to target prominent protest leaders driving some into exile. With a mix of stock footage, talking heads interviews, and experimental dramatisations, Chan spins a melancholy picture of a Hong Kong facing the crushing despair of the Security Law, but as the poem which inspired the film’s title reminds us, they have umbrellas, they have boots, they have each other and so the fight is not yet over. 

Trailer (English subtitles)

The 36 Deadly Styles (迷拳三十六招, Joseph Kuo, 1979)

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First you and your uncle are forced to flee for your life after getting attacked in a forest, then your uncle dies, you wake up in a monastery where you’re not a monk but the head monk keeps making you do all the chores anyway, and you still have no real idea of what is going on. That’s what happens to poor Wah-jee (Nick Cheung Lik) in Joseph Kuo’s wilfully confusing kung fu drama The 36 Deadly Styles (迷拳三十六招) which leaves us as much in the dark as the hero as he finds himself inexplicably pursued by a man with a red nose and his brothers who are each for some unexplained reason wearing ridiculous wigs. 

As much as we can gather, Wah-jee is on the run because the brother of a man his late father apparently killed by accident after messing up a kung fu move seeks vengeance against his entire family, leaving his uncles scattered and apparently unknown to him. As a young man, however, he is less than impressed with life in the monastery and often displays a comically cocky attitude, though if his torment of two of the lesser monks is intended to be comedic, it often comes off as cruel and bullying rather than just silly banter. Meanwhile, he remains clueless as to how to complete basic tasks familiar to the monks and even manages to get himself into a fight when sent to buy soy milk after forgetting he’d need to pay for it..

While all of this is going on, Kuo switches back and forth between a secondary plot strand concerning another man searching for the book of the 36 Deadly Styles before tracking down the man who’s supposed to have it only to be told he burnt the book ages ago without even reading it because it caused too much trouble in the martial arts world. It’s unclear how or if these two plot strands are intended to be connected, but they do perhaps hint at the confusing nature of personal vendettas and ironically destructive quests for full mastery over a particular style. Tsui-jee’s father (Fan Mei-Sheng) effectively splits his knowledge between Wah-jee and his daughter as a complementary pair of offence/defence partners. 

Meanwhile, Huang (Yeung Chak-Lam) and Tsui-jee’s father are also afflicted by pangs to the heart as a result of their previous battles, which can only be eased with strange medicine and herbal wine. Huang is a Buddhist monk but is seen early on skinning a live snake in order to make such a concoction. These are presumably symbolic of a bodily corruption caused by violence and the slow poisoning of the unresolved past. Wah-jee, a child at the time of his father’s transgression, is also forced to inherit this chaos of which he has little understanding and no real stake save vengeance for his familial disruption and a vindication for his father and brothers. If there is any kind of moral it seems to be in the ridiculous futility of vengeance as dictated by the codes of the martial arts world which demands that honour be satisfied even when it has lost all objective meaning. 

In any case, the narrative is largely unimportant merely connecting (or not) the various action scenes each well choreographed and expertly performed. Wah-jee undergoes a series of training sequences both at the monastery and after uniting with his second uncle who has some idiosyncratic teaching practices of his own that require Wah-jee to humble himself in order to learn. Then again, there are enough strange details to leave us wondering what is exactly is really going on such as Tsu-men suddenly turning up dressed as a woman looking for someone other than Wah-jee, eventually used for another bit of awkward comic relief as he struggles to write a letter and has to use drawings to make his point because he can’t remember the right characters. None of this makes any sense, but perhaps it never does when you live for the fight alone. 

Danger Point: The Road to Hell (Danger Point: 地獄への道, Yasuharu Hasebe, 1991)

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A pair of hitmen find themselves conflicted when their latest target dies gripping the photo of an innocent-looking nurse. Who was this man, what’s his relationship to the woman in the photo, and why did he have to die? Asking questions is taboo when you’re a hired killer, and you’re probably better off not knowing anyway, but there’s something that’s bugging veteran executioner Joji (Jo Shishido) and it’s not just the missing 20 million dollars.

Nikkatsu veteran Yasuharu Hasebe’s V-Cinema noir Danger Point (Danger Point: 地獄への道, Jigoku e no Michi) is a classic tale of nihilistic fatalism in which the bond between the two assassins is tested by the intervention of greed and mystery. Shishido’s Joji is the more old-fashioned of the pair yet fascinated by the mystery behind Sakai’s death, not necessarily wondering if he bears any culpability but confused about why he had to die despite not actually having the missing money. This puts Joji partially at odds with the younger Ken, a more dynamic and less morally ambivalent figure played by the contemporary star Show Aikawa who’d come to represent for V-Cinema what Shishido once had for Nikkatsu action. Together, the chase the various clues they’ve been given looking for the person behind the job and, of course, the missing money.

But the money presents a problem too. Ken begins to wonder if Joji will abandon him and take the prize for himself, though that doesn’t seem to be something that Joji is actively considering. The relationship between the two men is more brotherly than paternal, though Joji does scold Ken for his treatment of Yumi (Nana Okada), the nurse from the hospital and their key witness. He beats and sexually assaults her, though it’s less his lack of chivalry that Joji criticises than the wisdom of bringing a woman into their business. He’s suspicious of Yumi in a way Ken does not seem to be, though they both agree that eventually she’ll have to go before she does them any harm because now she knows too much.

Ultimately, the money turns out to be from a bank job in the Philippines that the American criminals were hoping to convert to US dollars in Japan, though predictably everyone wants the whole amount for themselves, not least Joji and Ken along with the kingpin’s horse-loving girlfriend Saeko (Miyuki Ono) who is playing her own side of the game. Neither Saeko nor Yumi do very well out of this particular affair and are each constrained by the men around them. While Yumi was apparently seduced and abandoned by corrupt cop Sakai, Saeko is hemmed in by her gangster boyfriend Takamura (Hideo Murota) and seeks escape through stealing the money with the help of Sakai, one way or another, at least. Though this world doesn’t seem to want to let either of them have it while the  men fight over the spoils in a desperate struggle to assert dominance over the situation.

As the ironic “Dead End” sign at the film’s conclusion implies, however, that chasing money is a fool’s errand and leads only to hell. A chase past the no entry signs into an industrial complex suggests that this world is not quite fully formed or in the process of falling apart. The ironic and strangely obvious product placement for Perrier sparkling mineral water might hint at a more sophisticated world the hitmen are on one level trying to inhabit, but in other ways their presence is incongruous. They belong to an earlier time as does this hidden world of bank robberies, smuggled cash, criminal gangs and fixers that seem out of place amid the tail end of the Bubble era. Or in that sense at least, perhaps it’s Japan heading for a crash desperately chasing the riches that seem only slightly out of reach. Nevertheless, there’s a genuine sense of mystery that leads Ken and Joji to their final destination in which they discover that it might not be greed that does for them after all, but in an odd way, love. Their desire for togetherness and fear of separation in the end can have only one conclusion and as much as it is the money that leads them to their doom, it’s loneliness and brotherhood that eventually seal their fate.

Bayside Shakedown 3: Set the Guys Loose (踊る大捜査線 THE MOVIE 3 ヤツらを解放せよ！, Katsuyuki Motohiro, 2010)

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It’s all change at Wangan police station in the third instalment in the Bayside Shakedown series, Let the Guys Loose (踊る大捜査線 THE MOVIE 3 ヤツらを解放せよ！Doru Daisousasen the Movie 3: Yatsura wo Kaihou seyo!). Seven years on from the previous film, many things have changed. Aoshima (Yuji Oda) is now in charge of his team and the precinct is set to move to new purpose-built premises boasting the latest high-tech security systems which will aid them in combating potential terrorism and safeguarding local dignitaries. Even so, the gang will have to deal with some unfinished business from the past before they can fully move on as the circular tale takes us right back to the original film’s villain. 

Following the familiar formula, Motohiro opens with a gag sequence in which Aoshima prepares to give a briefing only it’s not about a case it’s about the logistics of moving offices of which he is in charge and characteristically vowing to do the best job possible. Hindering his progress, however, are two bizarre crimes, the first a bank robbery investigated by his colleague/long-term love interest Sumire (Eri Fukatsu) in which no money is stolen, and a bus hijacking he investigates himself in which the hijackers simply left the scene again without stealing anything. Ironically enough a theft does take place during the move involving three pistols which happen to belong to Aoshima, Sumire, and a new recruit from China, Wang (Kenichi Takito). Soon enough a body turns up on a boat along with Aoshima’s gun sending the gang on the chase for the mysterious thieves. 

The thing we’re constantly told about the new building is how secure it’s going to be, which makes the theft even more ironic, but the truth is that in true franchise style pretty much anyone and everyone is walking in and out carrying moving boxes so nothing is ever really “secure” even in the police station, harking back to the minor villain in the first film who was able to sneak in because he was wearing a fake cosplay police uniform and no one noticed him. Inevitably, this invisible vulnerability eventually comes back to haunt them when the criminals are simply able to steal the manual for the security system and replace it with one of their own to render it unusable to the police later trapped inside the building. Meanwhile approaches to public safety become a matter for debate when it arises that the criminals’ demand is that all of the villains we’ve seen Aoshima arrest so far including psychopathic serial killer Manami (Kyoko Koizumi) who still has a sizeable following online should be released. Counter-intuitively, the police bigwigs are in favour of acquiescing with only Muroi (Toshiro Yanagiba), who has now been promoted to sit at the table himself, objecting on the grounds that it simply isn’t safe to release such dangerous criminals back into society. 

Rather than simply bureaucracy and funding concerns, Bayside Shakedown’s third instalment is more directly critical of the interplay between politics and justice as it becomes clear that the majority of police chiefs care more about public opinion than the law while also mindful of the upcoming general election. Meanwhile the same problem arises with the local police being sidelined by the elites from HQ, a smooth liaison officer Torikai (Shun Oguri) arriving to solve any disputes insisting that the locals be fully respected and allowed to turn their jobs only to turn dark and authoritarian after suffering a catastrophic injury on the job. Once again, Aoshima is forced to consider if his work has real value not only because of the way he’s treated by the cops from HQ but subjected to a healthcare crisis which leads him and many others to assume he’s not long to live. It’s later discovered that he’s been misdiagnosed during his annual checkup, but his boss unethically decides to keep that from him noticing he’s become depressed and lost his mojo, hoping that he’ll be easier to manager but quite the reverse turns out to be true. Again mimicking their previous heart-to-hearts throughout the series, Aoshima perks up after some encouraging words from Sumire in addition to some words of wisdom from the late Waku presented by his rookie nephew and decides to live as if there’s no tomorrow going flat out for justice while caring nothing for his safety. 

Even more than ten years on from the TV series and first big-screen outing, the romance between Aoshima and Sumire still hasn’t quite blossomed despite their respective brushes with death. Many things seem set to change for the Wangan police, the new building acting as a kind of reset while Muroi prepares to move into a more political role and a new, somewhat surprising, local police chief is selected to lead them into a new future just as dedicated to compassionate local policing defined by fairness and justice as they have ever been. 

Trailer (no subtitles)

Fantasia International Film Festival Confirms Complete 2025 Programme

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The Fantasia International Film Festival returns for its 29th edition taking place once again in Montreal from July 17 to Aug. 3. As usual this year’s programme includes a host of new and classic features from East Asia:

China

  • Contact Lens – Experimental drama in which a young woman longs to break free.
  • The Girl Who Stole Time – Animation in which a young girl gains the ability to control time.

Hong Kong

  • The Battle Wizard – Zany Shaw Brothers fantasy in which a man is imbued with the knowledge of kung fu and the ability to shoot lasers after biting a snake.
  • Bullet in the Head – 4K restoration of the John Woo classic in which a trio of friends flee Hong Kong only to be trapped in Vietnam.
  • A Chinese Ghost Story III – 4K restoration of the Tsui Hark /Ching Siu-Tung classic in which the arrival of a young monk destabilises a community of fox vixens.
  • Good Game – With business declining, a middle-aged internet cafe owner sets his sights on an esports championship.
  • Stuntman – A legendary action choreographer gets a second chance on a retro movie but finds himself out of step with modern filmmaking in Herbert Leung & Albert Leung’s elegiac drama. Review.

Indonesia

Japan

South Korea

  • Fragment – Drama in which the children of a murderer and their victim live in the same village.
  • Hi-Five – Five people receive super powers after receiving an organ transplant.
  • Holy Night: Demon Hunters – The mighty fists of Ma Dong-seok punch the Devil right back to hell in Lim Dae-hee’s supernatural action drama. Review.
  • The Last Woman on Earth – A film student writes a vengeful satire against men.
  • Noise – A woman investigates her sister’s disappearance.
  • Omniscient Reader: The Prophecy – Isekai drama in which an office worker is thrust into the world of the web novel he’s been reading.
  • The Woman – A woman suspects a man she was trying to buy a second-hand hoover from may have murdered her friend.

Taiwan

The Fantasia International Film Festival runs in Montreal, Canada, July 17 to Aug 3. Full details for all the films along with scheduling and ticketing information are available via the the official website, and you can also keep up with all the latest news via the festival’s official Facebook page,  X (formerly Twitter) account, Bluesky, Instagram, and Vimeo channels.

BFI to Host “Myriad Voices: Reframing Taiwan New Cinema”

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Throughout April 2025, the BFI will be hosting a season of films exploring Taiwanese New Cinema from new perspectives including a selection of films from lesser known filmmakers alongside those of heavy hitters such as Edward Yang and Hou Hsiao-hsien.

Duckweed (aka Floating Weeds)

Edward Yang’s television debut after returning to Taiwan, Duckweed was part of the Eleven Women TV series produced by Sylvia Chang and Chen Chun-tian, and follows a young woman who moves to Taipei from the countryside to become a model.

In Our Time

1982 anthology film featuring instalments directed by Tao Te-chen, Edward Yang, Ko I-chen, Chang Yi.

The Boys from Fengkuei

1983 drama from Hou Hsiao-hsien following a group of young men who leave their fishing village after getting into trouble with gangsters and try to make new lives for themselves in Kaohsiung.

Chen Kun-hou, who was the film’s cinematographer, will introduce the screening on 11th April.

The Sandwich Man

Tripartite anthology film featuring instalments by Hou Hsiao-hsien, Tseng Chuang-hsiang, and Wan Jen adapting short stories by Huang Chun-ming.

Out of the Blue

1984 drama from Chen Kun-hou in which teenagers Jielong and Tangmi spend a single night together before she disappears and Jielong must return to university.

Director Chen Kun-hou will be present for a Q&A following the screening on 10th April.

Ah Fei

Drama adapted from a short story by Liao Hui-ying and following a woman over several decades after the Chinese Civil War.

Kuei-mei, a Woman

A woman’s stoical endurance of hardship as she travels towards hard-won prosperity mirrors that of her nation in Chang Yi’s allegorical maternal melodrama. Review.

My Favorite Season

1985 Chen Kun-hou drama starring Sylvia Chang as a woman who conceives a child with her married boss but wants to break up with him and raise the baby on her own.

Director Chen Kun-hou will be present for a Q&A following the screening on 11th April.

Taipei Story

An ambitious young woman is determined to keep pushing forward while her more traditional boyfriend remains trapped in the past in Yang’s melancholy urban drama. Review.

A Time to Live and a Time to Die

Semi-autobiographical drama from Hou Hsiao-hsien following a young man in Fengshan from 1947 to 1965.

This Love of Mine

Psychological drama from Chang Yi adapted from the novel by Hsiao Sa in which a woman must re-evaluate her life after learning of her husband’s affair.

The Terrorisers

Landmark drama from Edward Yang in which a doctor and his novelist wife teetering on the brink of divorce, a voyeuristic photographer, and a rebellious teen are connected by a single event.

Strawman

Satirical comedy set at the end of the war in which two farmers find an unexploded bomb in their field and decide to carry it to the Japanese police in the hope of a reward.

Autumn Tempest

Huang Yu-shan’s 1988 narrative film debut in which a young man retreats to a mountain temple to study but enters an affair with a young woman who subsequently becomes pregnant.

Director Huang Yu-shan will be present for a Q&A following the screening on 12th April.

A City of Sadness

Historical drama from Hou Hsiao-hsien set immediately after the liberation from Japanese colonial rule following a family who become embroiled in the White Terror following the February 28 incident.

Myriad Voices: Reframing Taiwan New Cinema runs at the BFI Southbank throughout April.

The Last Dance (大病人, Juzo Itami, 1993)

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A self-involved film director gets a lesson in what it is to live when he discovers that he has terminal cancer in a lighthearted melodrama from Juzo Itami, The Last Dance (大病人, Daibyonin). Itami was apparently inspired by his own stay in hospital after being attacked by yakuza offended by his previous film Minbo and like his debut The Funeral the film has a few questions to ask about the nature of death along with the functioning of the medical system. 

That’s partly because film director Buhei Mukai (Rentaro Mikuni) is not initially told of his diagnosis. His well-meaning doctor, Ogata (Masahiko Tsugawa) a old university friend of his wife, elects to tell him only that he has a stomach ulcer in keeping with an old-fashioned policy that worries patients may lose hope and give up too easily on discovering the extent of their illness. Buhei meanwhile continues to obsess about his condition, convinced it must be cancer and that his wife, Mariko (Nobuko Miyamoto), and the medical staff are lying to him, at one point pretending to be his own uncle in order to tease the truth out of Ogata over the phone and attempting suicide when he accidentally implies that Buhei may not have long left. 

His distress is compounded by the irony that in the film he was working on when he became ill he was starring as a composer with advanced cancer whose wife has also been diagnosed with a more aggressive form of the disease. Whatever we might think about Buhei, it’s fair to say that the film’s sexual politics have not aged well. Not only was he having an affair with the actress playing his wife, but continues to flirt inappropriately with the medical staff and at one point even tries to force himself on his wife who was in the process of leaving him when he was first diagnosed. His lechery seems primed to appeal to men of a similar age while hinting at his virility and desire for life, but is nevertheless crass and often uncomfortable. Nevertheless, as Mariko says he’s like a child inside cheekily joking with the doctors about his drinking and smoking habits while running away from anything unpleasant and trying to get out of having to undergo treatment. 

Itami had often remarked on the weaknesses of Japanese men who “can’t stand loneliness, can’t make decisions alone, can’t face anyone who disagrees with them and can’t accept responsibility for their mistakes,” Buhei seemingly possessing all four. In part regretting her decision to keep the seriousness of his illness from him, Mariko reflects that in the end all they did was leave Buhei alone in his fear and anxiety as the only one who didn’t know the truth, engineering a kind of conspiracy as they cheerfully told him to “soldier on” knowing there was no hope. Yet during his time in the hospital, Buhei is also confronted by the ethical dilemmas of medical treatment on witnessing doctors desperately try to resuscitate a man who was miserable, in pain, bedridden, and unable to communicate, just waiting for the end. As even his grieving wife calls out to the doctors to let him go, Buhei wonders if it’s right to preserve life at all costs especially when the patient has not been given a choice in his treatment and may not have been informed that they have no possibility of recovery. 

Coming to a new realisation he challenges Ogata’s conviction that death is his enemy, telling him that he should see it less as defeat than acceptance reflecting on the irony that he never felt so alive as when dying. Whimsical if occasionally maudlin, Itami throws in a surrealist dream sequence in which Buhei approaches the other side and comes to realise that death might not be so frightening after all even as he watches himself from above in an out of body experience witnessing the accidental violence inflicted on his body by those trying to save it. In some senses, Buhei is fairly unredeemed, winking at his indifferent mistress even on his death bed, but is in others humbled as he looks back on his life with its regrets and unfulfilled promises, repairing his relationship with his long suffering wife while admitting that under different circumstances he and Ogata might have become good friends. Offering a sometimes critical view of medical practice and ethics, Itami’s poetic meditation on what it is to die loses none of his ironic humour even in its unfolding tragedy.