Tag: 2026

Fight Against Evil 3 (东北警察故事3, Yang Bingjia, 2026)

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Top cop Li Hongqi (returns for another holiday gone wrong in the third instalment of the Fight Against Evil series, and there is indeed some serious evil to be thought. Directed this time by Yang Bingjia rather than Qin Pengfei, Fight Against Evil 3 (东北警察故事3, Dōngběi jǐngchá gùshi)received a theatrical release in Mainland China rather than premiering on IQYI’s streaming service and so benefits from slightly higher production values and features a mild tonal shift that sends the film into action comedy territory.

In fact the first “fight” takes place off-screen as Honqi casually takes down a man who’s taken his wife hostage so that he can finish a telephone call with the rather demanding mother-in-law (Diama Lin Xiaojie) he hasn’t actually me though he and his wife Touzi have already been married for two years. Having become estranged from her birthmother, Touzi tells him not to bother with her because she’s a handful, though Hongqi is keen to be a good son-in-law and hopes to broker a reconciliation by agreeing to his mother-in-law’s madcap plan to stage a second wedding in her hometown without actually telling Touzi until she gets there. 

In any case, Hongqi is immediately distracted when Xinxin (Ma Qianyi) , a cheerful teenage girl he met on the plane, is reported missing, suspected of having fallen victim to traffickers after failing to reach her grandfather’s house. Hongqi feels personally responsible because he said he’d take her, but had to leave after hearing that his mother-in-law had been arrested for causing trouble in a cafe. Nevertheless, the mother-in-law proves to be unusually well connected and helps him track down the local crime kingpin whom she apparently knew when he was a snivelling child getting beaten up for his lunch money. 

On his arrival in the town, Hong’s old friend Sun Biao (Cui Zhijia) tells him that times are different now and they have to do law enforcement in a more “civilised” way, which might suggest that things work differently here compared to the city, though as it turns out Hong’s skills are still in demand as he finds himself repeatedly getting into brawls with the local bad guys. Even Baio also gets into the swing of things wanting to prove that his fighting skills are still as good as Hongqi’s. This is, however, violence very much in the service as justice as everyone involved in the fights is already an active participant in the world of crime and the violence is being used to subdue rather than interrogate them.

Meanwhile, the trafficking gang seems to be an offshoot of some kind of cult that attracts people who’ve encountered financial ruin due to contemporary social issues from being scammed to failing in business or developing a gambling problem. Most of the lower-ranking members are doing this more out of desperation and have abandoned their humanity as a means of survival, not that it excuses what they’ve done. The leader, meanwhile, experienced a tragedy of her own which seems to have affected her mind and has made her especially attached to young Xinxin who otherwise proves plucky and resourceful with her repeated attempts to escape from the gang.

Despite the grimness of the subject matter, the film finds plenty of opportunities for comedy not least in the zany antics of Hongqi’s mother-in-law who also has a justice-loving heart and at one point takes off to catch the kidnappers herself on her moped. There’s a fundamental absurdity to Hong’s existence in which he’s been yet again drawn into a case while supposedly on holiday while attempting to keep his demanding mother-in-law happy and keeping the whole thing secret from wife in the hope he can either bamboozle her into taking part or she will arrive and talk her mother out of it. This sense of absurdity also carries over into some of the fight scenes in which Hongqi has to fight off an entire gang while his mother-in-law hides under a table in a pool hall or has to go undercover in a club, despite looking the most like a policeman it’s possible to look without actually wearing a uniform.

It is not, however, all slapstick and still features some seriously impressive action sequences. The film also makes some attempt to mine humour in the decidedly unfunny customary series of title cards explaining that the nation is taking measures to combat human trafficking and explaining that everyone was caught and punished in accordance of law before finishing on a note that explains China has over two million police officers, which is intended to be reassuring but perhaps is also the exact opposite. Nevertheless, the film is a great deal fun as Hongqi and his mother-in-law fight off bad guys while simultaneously planning a wedding.

Fight Against Evil 3 screens 23rd August as part of Big Bad Film Fest.

Trailer (Simplified Chinese subtitles only)

Match Monde (マッチモンド, Ryusuke Kurahashi, 2026)

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Scripted by Yugo Sakamoto, Ryusuke Kurahashi’s low-budget adaptation of the Shogo Horiuchi manga Match Monde seems to be aiming for a Baby Assassins vibe while placing a contemporary spin on the classic high school delinquents fighting manga. Unlike many similarly themed films, high school never actually features and most of the users of fighting app Match Monde appear to be long past high school age even if it’s supposed to be limited to those 18 and under. 

The title is a kind pun in that Match Monde operates in the same way as a dating app, though it allows members to find worthy opponents for fighting. Users can also monetise their pugilistic talents though taking the “bounty” from defeated opponents, or pick up tips through live streaming. It’s not really clear why Mikio (Kotaro Daigo) is on this app as he dislikes fighting and seems to be something of a coward. In the opening sequence, he waits outside pretending to play on his phone while his best friend Yuta is beaten up by a bullying gang of older kids that Mikio later hides in a bin to avoid. It’s while running away, however, that he bumps into Mahiro (Masayoshi Katsuki) who can’t really be bothered to fight anyone but gives Mikio some life advice to the fact that he should be fighting to protect something important rather than just to protect himself. 

Mahiro is a bit a stock character in these kinds of stories, walking around with a beatific smile permanently on his face and carrying a strangely vacant aura. Obviously, it turns out that he’s a top fighter and high school drop out who is willing to fight for Mikio after seeing him develop his resolve to stand up to the bullies rather than let his friend get beaten up on his own again. Like Baby Assassins, however, the film is perhaps a little bit more interested in the boys’ mundane lives than it is in the fighting. Mahiro ropes Mikio in to help out at a part-time job working in his childhood friend Suzuna’s cafe because he says he seems kind earnest, which is broadly true, while Mahiro struggles to knuckle down and work and fears letting his friend down in that way.

While it may have strongly homoerotic undertones, particularly in the relationship between sometime villain Mairu and his late “best friend” Kitano who was murdered after becoming a delinquent, the film’s humour is distinctly old school and in some ways spills over into sexism as the defeated bullies are seen acting in stereotypically feminine ways such as knitting scarves for each other. Meanwhile, Mahiro and Mikio aren’t really afraid of getting into fights with the delinquents, but are apparently terrified of being told off by Shizuna. 

The focus is indeed on traditional masculinity which is rooted in protecting those weaker than oneself, especially women, though here also avoiding becoming someone who deliberately picks on picks on easy targets to assert their dominance as Mikio had been doing. Perhaps the only reason he was on the app was to prove Yuta wrong when he called him a coward, though he quickly ends up being exploited by the bullies who force him to fight so they can take his winnings, as optimistic as that might be. As the so-called “Penniless King”, Mahiro comes to occupy the space of an underdog hero who isn’t even technically in the game, but ends up winning it anyway just by virtue of being a cool guy who’s good with his fists.

Speaking of which, the fight scenes are sometimes unpolished but generally well choreographed. There seems to be some attempt to set up a continuing series with repeated references to a friend who is no longer on the scene as well as an incongruous appearance by Danhi Kinoshita, the star of Takashi Miike’s Blazing Fists, seemingly in a background, non-speaking part as a random member of Mairu’s gang. The potential there is quite interesting given that the natural result of all these boys fighting is that they end up becoming friends, even as Mairu insists he wants to defeat all the delinquents in revenge for his friend’s death so he’ll be the only one left and they’ll cause no more harm. Who knew that what they were really fighting was loneliness? Maybe Match Monde is friendship app after all.

Match Monde screens 23rd August as part of Big Bad Film Fest.

Trailer (no subtitles)

Salmokji: Whispering Water (살목지, Lee Sang-min, 2026)

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Is there something a little bit uncanny about a manmade lake? Despite the sign warning of deep water and potential loss of life, the area surrounding the Salmokji reservoir is otherwise idyllic, its ominous “dead tree lake” name not withstanding. You wouldn’t necessarily know that it was only created in 1982 for the purpose of storing water for agricultural use. Its modernity seems slightly incongruous with the presence of a ghost.

Perhaps this is why it has become a tourist hotspot following the surprising success of Lee Sang-min’s low-budget indie horror Salmokji: Whispering Water (살목지), having previously mentioned on late-night TV show Midnight Horror Story. The location’s sense of eeriness ironically seems to stems from its disconnection from the modern world. A physicist who claimed not to believe in the supernatural reported that she nearly drove into the reservoir after her car’s GPS malfunctioned and subsequently suffered misfortune after visiting the area. The inability to get a phone signal or connect to cloud networks etc may of course be due to the fact that is surrounded by mountains and rocky terrain rather than the presence of a malevolent spiritual entity who is actively blocking digital signals. Yet its also true that the natural silence of this tranquil environment can be disquieting to those used to the ambient noise of a city.

In any case, within the world of the film the lake is a popular fishing destination as demonstrated by the couple visiting it in the opening sequence who are on what seems to be quite an early date in their relationship. The woman’s aversion to the worms used bait is also reflective of a new squeamishness regarding the natural environment that is also echoed when producer Su-in drops a box bait brought by her cameramen who were planning on staying behind once their job is done. Su-in’s irritation stems from a different source. They’re supposed to be here to work, and in fact to fix an urgent problem, though no one is taking it seriously and the team are largely behaving as if they’re here on a day trip. Junior producer Seong-bin has brought an intern with him he is clearly pursuing romantically, while she secretly plans to moonlight by filming footage for her personal horror vlog.

They’ve come to Salmokji because a ghostly figure has been spotted in a photo they uploaded, though it does not appear to have been one that was taken by them. As such, they urgently need to replace with a photo that is not cursed, because they’ve been getting complaints from the locals. It’s not really explained why they can’t just stop with deleting the original photo, but for some reason Su-in’s boss insists the image must replaced immediately. He even insists they stay overnight when it turns out further equipment is required and won’t reach them until after dark. This perhaps bears out another lingering horror in contemporary urban life with the pressure of workplace heirarchy and exploitative employment environments. The cameramen immediately resent Su-in for telling them off for bringing the fishing gear and subsequently reject her authority by disobeying her commands and belittling the idea of their actually being a ghost even when strange things start happening.

Su-in is also exposed as having tried to palm this job off on a colleague after visiting the area herself previously and deciding it was too creepy. Some suggest this is all then her fault, that the lake did this to make her come back and now she’s dragged all of them into it. She meanwhile seems to have been dealing with a potential crush on her team manager, a widower who may have been attracted to the lake by the rumours of it being somewhere that the worlds of the living and the dead intersect. The lake then also becomes a metaphor for a more literal drowning in grief, as if her co-worker willing embraced oblivion by walking into it in order to be reunited with his wife if in death rather than in life. The creepy old lady living nearby tells them to place a stone on a cairn and make a wish, but in reality this seals their fate just as getting even a toe wet later will. The real horror is that once marked by whatever is in the lake, there is no real possibility of escape and even if you think you’ve made it out, in reality you may not have. Incorporating some elements of food footage horror, Lee piled on the sense of supernatural dread right until the ambiguous ending that suggests all this has happened before and will happen again.

Trailer (Simplified Chinese & English subtitles)

All Wishes Come True! (八仙！, Mu Zhengyang, 2026)

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Long ago, a lantern defended humanity from the darkness. But now the lantern has gone missing, and the world is plagued by storms and turmoil. Those who can have fled to the glamorous city of Penglai where the mortal and immortal co-exist and destruction cannot follow. Mu Zhengyang’s animated epic All Wishes Come True! (八仙！, Bāxiān!) draws inspiration from the classic folktale Eight Immortals Crossing the Sea, dramatising it as an Oceans Eleven-esque caper in which a series of scrappy heroes must learn to put aside their greed for the greater good.

The very existence of Penglai is in itself a symptom of the problem. As some point out, the residents aren’t all that interested in finding the lantern because everything is fine in the city. The guardian gods who govern it, Fu Lu Shou, who represent luck, prosperity, and longevity, have become corrupt and are sitting on vast riches embezzled from citizens. Apparent hero Lü Dongbin believes that the lantern is hidden in their vault, but needs help to break in and retrieve it. He recruits local pickpocket Zhongli Quan, whom he believes reshaped the lantern to disguise it, on the promise of allowing him to take as much of the gold as he wants.

It turns out that Zhongli Quan was thrown out of the immortals academy for using an artefact to improve the lives of ordinary people suffering in a famine after prolonged drought. His master reprimands him that the vase is intended to help the elite, not a few peasants. He ironically curses Zhongli Quan that he will always be a thief and a liar, preventing him from living an honest life and forcing him into that of an outlaw. This has, in a way, made him cynical and greedy. The quest to retrieve the lantern presents an opportunity to break the curse and redeem himself, though Zhongli Quan always has half an eye on the gold. Lü Dongbin isn’t completely untainted either with the implication that he is the guardian who sold the lantern in a fit of pique having been passed over for promotion and is now trying to make it right by taking the lantern back. 

As such, the film presents an anti-capitalist, anti-consumerist message along with an ant-corruption sentiment as this team of ordinary mortals attempts to go against the gods by outsmarting Fu Lu Shou to reclaim the lantern and lift and the curse on the wider society. Zhongli Quan’s cynicism is an extension of that which has infected ordinary people who have been encouraged to believe that greed is good. As he and Lü Dongbin forge an uneasy alliance, there is a constant push and pull between them as Lü Dongbin does his best to bring Zhongli Quan back from the dark side by retrieving the lantern. 

The gang ironically attract some attention as apparent “thief catchers” signalling the ways in which people are not always who they claim to be. Nevertheless, they find themselves having to live up to the expectations of being a “hero”, gradually swapping their cynicism for a genuine desire to help those around them. This act of deciding to do the right thing in defiance of the authorities is both quietly subversive and a counter to the greed and selfishness which taken hold across the world along with the elitism that defines life in Penglai. 

At the same time, it’s clear that the gang can only succeed by working together and utilising each of their unique skills in harmony. In the end, they prosper precisely by calling in an unexpected ally who helps them pull off another heist on the villain through misdirection and subterfuge. Like many similar recent animated takes on classic folklore, the film humorously layers the modern world onto the fantasy setting through the swirling cloud highways that surround the city and opening taxi chase along with the magic wristbands that secure entry to Penglai’s VIP area. That the gang are later made immortals precisely so that the authorities can take credit for their actions is another ironic touch, suggesting that they can not really transcend the forces that constrain them. Nevertheless, what remains is the poignant tale of brotherhood and redemption in the relationship between Lü Dongbin and Zhongli Quan that quietly makes plain that in the end we save each other and kindness will always be repaid.

Trailer (Simplified Chinese and English subtitles)

Crossing a Dawn (今晚正好, Zhao Badou, 2026)

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“Beijing is Beijing, no need to romanticise it,” according to the practically minded heroine of Zhao Badou’s romantic odyssey, Crossing a Dawn (今晚正好, jīnwǎn zhènghǎo). A little less zany than 2012’s similarly themed Lacuna, the heroes of Zhao’s tale of city serendipity are in their own ways yearning to believe in something beyond urban cynicism with its lack of affordable housing, dissatisfying dating app romance, scammers, and pressure to conform to socially defined notions of success.

In their own ways, Qiu (Ma Sichun) and Yuzhou (Edward Chen) are each displaced people struggling to get a foothold in the city. They spend the entire night wandering around in part because they can’t find anywhere to hook up. For various reasons that only will be disclosed in a final moment of mutual vulnerability, neither than take the other one home while they’re kicked out of a hotel when a receptionist figures out what they were planning on doing there. An attempt to borrow a friend’s apartment is also frustrated, firstly by nosy neighbours and the need to avoid waking her roommate, and then by the friend coming home unexpectedly after catching her boyfriend with another girl. Tinting (Lv Xingchen) hadn’t wanted to move in with him to preserve her own space and independence, only for him to complain it made him feel “insecure”.  

Qiu may seem cynical and materialistic, but in another way she is trying to exert a degree of control by asserting dominance over her dating life. Perhaps bearing out the superficiality of dating app culture, she seems to go for conventionality handsome men but is generally disappointed. This one wants to meet her in a supermarket, for some reason, but turns out to have been using an outdated photo. Qiu feels as if she’s once again been “scammed” by this duplicitous city, though her would be date may have an ironic point about ageism. He complains that he’s done a lot of interesting things in his life and is still the fun-loving and adventurous person he was in his youth, but no one gives him a chance. Qiu is saved from this encounter by Yuzhou, in the supermarket in search of somewhere to return his power bank, though their criticism of him turns out to be somewhat hypocritical given the extent to which both he and Qiu are misrepresenting themselves. After all, as Qiu later reflects, who can resist the temptation to make out their lives are a little more impressive than they really are if it’s just going to be for one night?

It’s clear that Qiu isn’t really looking for anything more than that. Her constant references to making money may seem cynical but also hint at the extent to which money is the only thing that can be relied on in this environment, even if others may try to con it out of you. Her desire to own her own apartment is symbolic of that root herself in this city and carve out a domestic space that’s hers alone. Yuzhou, meanwhile, says he prefers renting because it offers more freedom. In contrast to Qiu’s straightforward practicality, he is more soulful and romantic, countering Qiu’s desire for ownership by suggesting that the place doesn’t matter as long as you get to live with the person you love. 

Qiu may not, however, be quite as cynical as she seems so much as she is afraid to trust in this moment of city serendipity. Beijing beats you down, she says, like the woman still looking for a dog who went missing a year ago driven out of her mind by loneliness and disillusionment. Yuzhou has been here two years, but feels as if he’s achieved less than nothing. Their long walk through the city takes them from walk-up, multiple occupancy apartments to a vast, unoccupied mansion full of unused rooms watched over by one of Qiu’s previous hookups whose name she never found out. He too is experiencing romantic drama with a free-spirited young woman equally afraid to face her feelings. As the night wears on, the pair begin to generate a kind of intimacy that paves the way towards emotional authenticity. Whether this one magical night in the city, or the beginning of something more, they have at least crossed their own kind of dawn, now less guarded and more open to the possibilities of the world around them.

Trailer (Simplified Chinese & English subtitles)

My Name (내 이름은, Chung Ji-young, 2026)

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An ageing woman’s internalised anxiety and inability to remember her childhood stand in for a nation’s wilful amnesia in Chung Ji-young’s gentle contemplation of the legacy of the massacre that began on 3rd April 1948 on Jeju Island. Set mainly in the late 90s a decade or so after Korea’s transition to democracy, the film emphasises the importance of reckoning with the buried past in order to prevent its mistakes occurring again.

Those mistakes are largely reflected in the life of cheerful teenager Young-ok (Shin Woo-bin) who is embarrassed by the fact his single mother is much older than all the other parents while she also gave him a name that is customarily given to girls. On the first day of the new term, Young-ok’s teacher Mr Hwang (Heo Dong-won) mockingly refers to him as “Miss Young-ok” with exaggeratedly feminine gestures. Hwang is, in many ways, a relic of the authoritarian past and his mocking of Young-ok’s name bears out the toxic masculinity of a militarised society. Min-soo (Choi Jun-woo), Young-ok’s more astute best friend, takes the teacher to task for skipping over the massacre in their contemporary history classes. Hwang tells him that it is “unimportant” as it does not even appear on the university exams, brushing off Min-soo’s protests that the city wouldn’t be gearing up to commemorate the 50th anniversary of an “unimportant” event. If it were important, it would be in the text book, Hwang insists demonstrating his lack of curiosity and authoritarian mindset. Of course, it later turns out that he is also corrupt. Young-ok’s mother Jeong-sun (Yeom Hye-ran) brings a “gift” to parents’ day, but ends up not giving it to him after noticing that his desk draw is full of other envelopes while he makes veiled comments about all the kids being “equal”, but some being more equal than others depending on how thick those envelopes are.

The film seems to equate this masculine jockeying for power with the origins of the massacre as the boys engage in slapping games similar to the way in which the army forced the villagers to slap their friends who had been accused of being communist sympathisers to prove their own loyalty. Rich kid Kyung-tae (Park Ji-bin) has just transferred in from Seoul having apparently caused some trouble there due to his violent outbursts. He too makes the kids engage in slapping games to define hierarchy, while using picking up on Young-ok as a useful stooge too naive to see that Kyung-tae has manipulated him into becoming class president because unlike Min-soo he will be easy to control. Young-ok is too concerned with being liked and is happy to have been co-opted into Kyung-tae’s gang, going along with his violent rule and even betraying Min-soo by siding with Kyung-tae even when he makes him lie on his behalf. This is where it starts, as the film would have it, by failing to stand up to a thuggish teen leveraging his wealth and status to dominate those around him.

Jeong-sun, meanwhile, is encouraged to address the cause of her anxiety rather than suppress it with medication by a doctor newly arrived from Seoul. Delving into the source of her trauma awakens memories of the massacre that it had long been taboo to talk about. The subsequent connections to both Korea’s involvement with the Vietnam War and the Gwangju Uprising in 1980 in which ordinary people were once again murdered by the state echoing what had happened in Jeju hint at a destructive legacy of militarised authoritarianism infecting all areas of society. In order to fully progress into the new democratic future, the nation will need to reckon with its autocratic past which begins with the act of remembrance. 

This is really what Jeong-sun begins to do in unlocking the traumatic memories of her childhood and with them reclaiming her authentic identity that also informs that of Young-ok. As she told him, she dances when she’s happy and also when she’s sad, but there is something quite poignant in her dancing her in the memory of those who lost their lives during the massacre as if she were liberating both their souls and her own by resolving to go on building a better, kinder world that remembers its past and is mindful not to repeat it.

My Name screened as part of this year’s New York Asian Film Festival.

Trailer (English subtitles)

God Skin (หมัดเทวา ท้าเดิมพัน, Paween Purijitpanya, 2026) [Fantasia 2026]

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In the closing moments of Paween Purijitpanya’s God Skin (หมัดเทวา ท้าเดิมพัน), protagonist Win (Sutthirak Subvijitra) remarks that the question isn’t if we can win the game, but if it was always rigged against us from the start. The house always wins, the film seems to say, though most people never even realise they were playing the game. Win comes to the realisation only too late, reflecting that he was suckered in by that first win that encouraged him to think that the system was fair when, in reality, it was anything but.

Set in the near future, Win is one of many regular office workers who’ve lost their jobs to AI. He now works as a food delivery driver, but struggles to meet his expenses while caring for his mother who has serious health issues. When he runs into old school friend It seemingly by chance, he’s introduced to an underground world of illicit prizefighting in which the wealthy and powerful bet on augmented matches in which they can award special items to fighters enhanced with all-powerful nanobots. Evicted from his apartment and with his mother hospitalised awaiting expensive medical treatment, Marwin decides it might be worth stepping into the ring despite his age and lack of familiarity with the game.

The fact is that in this world, Win’s physicality is almost irrelevant while his body is exploited as a tool for wealthy men to fight each other by proxy. Against the odds he manages to make it past the first round with the help of unlikely patron Guan Yu, an anime obsessive nicknamed “nerdass”, who takes a liking to him because of his bold, underdog spirit. Though he swore to do this only once to get the money for his mother’s operation, Win is emboldened by his unexpected success, and decides to continue playing despite knowing the potential health risks involved with upgrading his nanobots and exposing himself to physical punishment in the ring. 

In a way, this kernel of greed that exists within Win’s desire for success subtly undercuts the film’s sense of rebellion against the inherent unfairness of a capitalistic system especially once it becomes clear that some of what’s happening to him is a direct consequence of questionable choices he himself may have made. Then again, perhaps it’s fairer to say that he fell victim to an irresponsible product designed to prove addictive and exploit a sense of dissatisfaction with the system even if it seems his life may have been comfortable enough as it was without being tricked into always wanting more.

But in the world of underground prizefighting, he can convince himself he’s not fighting for himself but for others. After covering his mother’s medical expenses, he becomes determined to pay off the debts of his high school girlfriend Praewa who has apparently been sold to the bar as a hostess to satisfy her father’s debts. There are two female fighters, one a former hostess and the other a transwoman, who are also challenging this system in the ring though it seems fighting to protect his mother and girlfriend becomes a key factor in Win’s sense of himself as a masculine hero succeeding through physical dominance of other men in the gladiatorial ring. He is unwilling to fight women on an equal footing, and when he discovers that his opponent is only a teenager refuses to fight altogether while taking It to task over the game’s questionable ethics. 

Nevertheless, Win stays in this world because he still thinks he can win even as his body begins to betray him. It isn’t really about Praewa or his mother, he wanted to be a winner without realising that the only “winners” are the men upstairs and you can’t become one of those by playing the game honestly. It may have succeeded in becoming one, but only by accepting that being an elite means exploiting other people’s desperation to get them to fight for you while creaming most of the profits. That’s not even something that’s really occurred to Marwin, who is as the mad scientist nanobot tattooist says, not someone who’s naturally disposed to hurting other people which makes him a natural sucker for this game. Bleak and dystopian in the extreme, the conclusion seems to suggest that in the end, Win was a victim of his own deluded hopes who never realised the only way to win was not to play in the first place.

God Skin screened as part of this year’s Fantasia International Film Festival.

Wild Sing (와일드 씽, Son Jae-gon, 2026)

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A once-famous K-pop trio reunite for one last performance 20 years after their careers imploded in a plagiarism scandal in Son Jae-gon’s zany comedy Wild Sing (와일드 씽). Exploring the Wild West days of the turn of the century popular music industry, the film ultimately seems to say that it’s never too late to follow your dreams while success is perhaps not quite as important as the personal fulfilment found in performing if only for a small audience.

In the early 2000s, street dancer Hyun-woo (Gang Dong-won) thinks he has all the moves and is thrilled to be recruited by A&R man Park Yong-gu (Shin Ha-kyun) only to discover he works out of a tiny basement office in a rundown building and has no other artists signed to his label. Forming a trio with rapper Sang-gu (Um Tae-goo) and singer Do-mi (Park Ji-hyun), Triangle becomes one of the biggest acts of the day. But this kind of industry doesn’t really like it when you get too big, and the band is eventually brought low by its hubris and naivety. Like many pop stars of their time, they were excited to join the music industry and didn’t pay too much attention to their contracts. 

Yong-gu is effectively a conman who withholds their pay and forces them into exploitative working practices. He also fosters discord within the group by pushing Hyun-woo as the leader while falsely claiming that he writes and composes all their songs. In reality, Yong-gu is buying in tracks from outside for the band to perform leading to a plagiarism scandal when it turns out their latest track is actually a cover of a hit Bulgarian pop song. After Yong-gu skips town with their money, Sang-gu and Do-mi quickly sign with other labels while Hyun-woo is left to carry the can alone. 

At the same time, the band’s rival, ballad singer Seong-gon (Oh Jung-se) is frustrated by his inability to take the top spot while his brand of sentimental pop is losing out to the kind of dance-inspired tracks performed by bands like Triangle. When he’s offered drugs, apparently for the first time, at an industry party and begins behaving strangely, it causes a major scandal than puts an end to his career and to an extent his personal life as he’s made an example of and sent to prison for an extended period of time highlighting the hypocritical unfairness of Korea’s hardline stance against drug use especially as regards those with a public profile. Seong-gon is cast so far out of the mainstream, that he becomes an effective exile hunting wild animals in the mountains in a total reversal of his sensitive, feminine image as an idol star specialising in sappy love songs.

In the present day, Hyun-woo has fallen on hard times as his stint as a radio DJ comes to an ignominious end. Not particularly good at the job, he no longer has any cachet as Triangle has faded into the past now that younger people no longer recognise the name. A producer advises him he should have made a move into variety television to keep his celebrity active as another boy band star they used to mock, Tae-poong, seems to have done. Though Hyun-woo looked down on Tae-poong and never even bothered to learn his name correctly, he seems to be the one who worked out how to ride the waves of fame through changing times as TV star with a current profile. Sang-gu, by contrast, is in huge debts to loan sharks who financed his failed solo projects and is currently selling insurance that promises huge payouts if the policy holder is diagnosed with cancer. Do-mi has married into a chaebol family, but is effectively a prisoner of her overbearing mother-in-law and barely allowed to leave the house.

There are then reasons why they would all agree to join Hyun-woo for a comeback performance as part of a retro concert to promote a local bid to host an expo even if they parted on bad terms and have not been in touch since. For various reasons, the gang unexpectedly ends up in a police chase after a road trip goes awry that forces them into a reckoning with their desire to perform. Meanwhile, the producer on the other threatens to cancel their perforce in fear of the negative effect on his own career after convincing himself the only possible reason they could be late is because they must have been involved in a hit and run. The ironic conclusion might paradoxically suggest that the only true freedom comes from access to limitless and unconditional access to money as Do-mi harnesses her new status to support the group, but that does at least suggest that conventional success might not be the be all and end all of performing which offers a kind of liberation just in itself.

Trailer (English subtitles)

You Are the Film (君は映画, Makoto Ueda, 2026) [Fantasia 2026]

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What if you went to see a film, but it was actually just a Zoom meeting with another person who thought they were there to see a film about you? That isn’t quite what happens in Makoto Ueda’s directorial debut You Are the Film (君は映画, Kimi wa Eiga), but it does take the protagonists longer than one would expect to stop suspending their disbelief, convinced that “a film” is conversing with them, and consider that they’re actually just watching a live feed of another person who is also watching them. 

But then again, the image reflected back at them from the screen is also a kind of wilful fantasy designed as both an escapist flight from an unsatisfying “reality” and a means of reframing their current dilemmas so that they can think about them more clearly. Effectively, it’s a way of realising what you might advise someone else to do in this situation, but wouldn’t actually consider doing yourself until you’re given this external vision of your own life. Ueda hints at this subtlety in the film’s opening sequence as he has playwright Madoka (Marika Ito) walk past a forked road representing a bifurcated reality, just as the film she’s going to see takes place directly adjacent to where she’s currently watching it, which is also the environment in which she spends the majority of her life. 

Both she and struggling musician Kazuma (Kai Inowaki) have enough in common to see themselves in the protagonist of the other film, and not just because Kazuma also inhabits this physical space too just on the other side of Madoka. He has a strained relationship with a band member and is so far failing to sell enough tickets for their upcoming concert. Madoka, meanwhile, has been offered the opportunity to put on a play at a larger, more prestigious venue but is feeling the pressure and struggling to complete her script. Despite what originally seems to be a very weird and uncanny situation, they eventually realise that they are able to help each other in a more direct way such as feeding back information about their respective “films” from the pamphlets they sell at the cinema.

But at the same time, the film seems to be in a way satirising these kinds of indie dramas or at least the sci-plot that develops on Madoka’s side is not that far away from the kind zany fringe theatre that troupes like hers often perform. In fact it’s even foreshadowed in the opening sequence as her co-stars seemingly play princess and retainer from another world mystified by the existence of a thermal tumbler, an apparent symbol of corporate oppression. Kazuma’s meanwhile spirals into an unlikely crime drama when his bandmate steals some money from a pair of counterfeiters which eventually exposes that the rock cafe he frequents is a front for an illegal gambling den run by an undercover gangster.

Despite these seemingly apocalyptic scenarios, what they learn is that they are able to change the script and eventually escape their own movie by transcending it, leading to the creation of a third movie starring those they left behind. It turns out that their friends are also yearning for escape in one way or another as Madoka’s friend Shiho has been offered a promising opportunity and secretly wants to move on, while the other actress sort of longs to escape by staying with the troupe but says she wants to leave as her parents have finally found out that she hasn’t been studying for the civil service exam after all. While watching these dramas play out Kazuma comes to his own realisations about his relationships with his bandmates, just Madoka begins to realise that all these desires must also be respected. If she wants to escape her movie, so does everyone else, and in order to be free she will have to let them go.

Nevertheless, each of them learn to embrace their status as the protagonist of their own lives with full authorial power to change the script, rejecting the meddling interference of some kind of engineer sent to rectify the “entanglement in filmspace” and get everyone back inside the right movie again. It turns out that you really are the film, and so is everyone else, but our realities aren’t as separate as they first seemed and we can still help each other out as we go along rather than remaining passive spectators within our own lives and those of others.

You Are the Film screened as part of this year’s Fantasia International Film Festival.

Trailer (English subtitles)

The Specials (スペシャルズ, Eiji Uchida, 2026) [Fantasia 2026]

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Times are hard for yakuza these days. Nevertheless, it seems there’s still a little of the old spirit left in Eiji Uchida’s light-hearted caper The Specials (スペシャルズ) as an underling’s desire to make his boss’ dreams of ruling the city come true sees him enter the world of competitive dance. It’s a compelling hook, but at the same time a slightly mystifying one seeing as it’s never really explained why the assassins would need to form a dance troupe to knock off their target as opposed to just purchasing a ticket for the competition. Nor does it it explain why they want to shoot him from the stage rather than discretely injecting him with something from behind to make it look like a heart attack. And all of that aside, couldn’t they just kill him during his granddaughter’s dance rather than actually having to perform as part as part of the show?

Granted, it doesn’t make a lot of sense, but as the gang are repeatedly told it’s not all about skill, passion counts for something. The main problem is that elderly rival boss Honjo seems to have an endless supply of henchmen who kind of look like him and are prepared to die in his place. The only time they can be sure it’s the real Honjo is when he attends his adult granddaughter’s dance competitions, which is why Kumashiro hits on the improbable idea of hiring a trio of assassins he believes has dance experience and getting them to enter in return for a huge reward. 

It doesn’t all quite go to plan, mainly because two of the assassins he picks are dealing with dance-related childhood trauma. The main man, Daiya, has retired from the hitman game and is currently working as a helper at an orphanage. He only agrees because the landlord’s trying to evict them so he can build luxury apartments there instead and they need money to buy the building back. The ironic thing is that one of the little girls there, Asuka, dreams of becoming a dancer. After the gang is kicked out of every dance school in the area due to their gloominess and emotional volatility, Asuka ends up becoming their coach. While there is something endearingly funny about the idea of these ice-cold tough guys being bossed around by a 10-year-old girl, there’s also an ethical issue that no one’s really considered yet given they’ve been lying to her about their true nature as killers for hire. Asuka will obviously want to be there if they make the final, and they don’t want to let her down but nor do they want her to witness them firing bullets from the stage to murder an old man and possibly a few others on the way given that this isn’t the most precise assassination plan.

Nevertheless, dance proves a liberating experience for all and as time moves on, most of the guys have sort of forgotten about their mission and are focussed instead of competition-winning glory. Even Kumashiro’s ambitious boss remarks that he seems different these days, somehow happier having traded his stern yakuza expression for something more friendly, which might not altogether be a good thing for his working life. The various assassins, who were accustomed to working alone, have now warmed to the idea of being part of a team and to a certain extent at least, it’s no longer purely about the money or achieving any of their singular goals. 

Then again, it says something that the ones who suffer most are old-school yakuza like Kumashiro and his prison buddy Murasame (played by V-cinema yakuza movie star Hitoshi Ozawa) who can literally only dance to old tunes and unlike the youngsters find it difficult to adapt to this more modern world in which things like loyalty have become “old-fashioned,” in the words of sullen hitman Kiryu. Though the tonal shift of the film’s unexpected final sequence may undercut the feel good quality of what is essentially a zany post-yakuza comedy that as much as possible glosses over the bloody reality, it does at least allow the gang to fulfil their mission in a more satisfying way that suggests loyalty may not be such an outdated idea after all.

The Specials screened as part of this year’s Fantasia International Film Festival.

Trailer (English subtitles)