Scene360Anton Bitel compensates for a general sense of disgruntlement by moping about in darkened cinemas watching other people's joys and sorrows. He currently freelances for Sight & Sound, Little White Lies, Real Crime Magazine, VODzilla.co and EyeforFilm.
Anticipation is an expression of bias, which is not to say that the bias is uninformed. I have seen only two of the ten Asian films listed below (“Burning” and “Believer,” both for festivals)—but my piqued interest in the others is not entirely arbitrary. What commends these various titles from Japan, China, Korea and Laos […]
So rich has been the history and variety of films from the Land of the Rising Sun that narrowing down a selection of the best—or even of favourites—is practically impossible. Here, then, is something a little more provisional: an eclectic anthology of ten titles which will each amaze, enthral and astonish, and which collectively will […]
Nothing penetrates the inner workings of a society’s power structures quite so starkly as its sexual practices – and so, by exposing the relations of the genders and the shifting positions of the body politic, films that focus on the erotic can poke, prod and probe the state of a nation. Korean directors like Kim […]
Now in its eleventh edition, this year’s London Korean Film Festival boasts some 40 features, a smaller number of which toured beyond London to Sheffield, Manchester, Nottingham, Glasgow and Belfast. Amid the usual programme of Korea’s latest hits and indie titles, shorts and documentaries, there was also a welcome showcase of work directed by women […]
Erotic films navigate the oceans of sexual desire, no matter whether that desire is frustrated and repressed or messily fulfilled. It is a category that spans the space between explicitness and restraint, between romance and pornography. Here are ten films from countries of the East Asian region—chiefly Japan, but also Hong Kong, South Korea and […]
From the vast treasurehouse of eastern cinema, there are always choice nuggets that find their way westwards, even though some, like Wong Kar-wai’s “The Grandmaster” (2013) or Bong Joon-ho’s “Snowpiercer” (2013,) can take a very long time getting here. Here are the Asian films to which I am most looking forward to in 2015, whether […]
Note: This article includes a violent image. Viewer discretion is advised. In a sense, all Asian action movies kick ass—even those no-budget DTV “ninja” flicks that seemed to come out once a week in the Eighties. Ass-kicking is what defines them. Yet there are some martial arts movies that can take on the competition and […]
Note: Contains violence and sexual references. From as long ago as 1896, when screenings of the Lumière brothers’ one-shot reel the “Arrival of a Train at La Ciotat” reportedly caused audience members to flee in panic from the rapidly approaching locomotive on screen, cinema has displayed a remarkable power to elicit extreme visceral reactions. Ever […]
