The Housemaid
Sumptuous gothic romance about a forbidden relationship between a beautiful young Vietnamese housemaid and her French colonial employer… The Housemaid is Asian-American director Derek Nyguyen’s first...
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Born Under Crossed Stars
A noteworthy introduction to the legend of Seijun Suzuki… Anyone who loves Japanese movies will know of – but not necessarily love – the experimental escapades of Seijun Suzuki. But Suzuki’s style was...
View ArticleThe Boy Who Came Back
An entertaining, heartfelt, and undeniably cool precursor to Seijun Suzuki’s legendary yakuza films… Seijun Suzuki’s world is one of slick gangsters, desperate women, shootouts in smoky bars, and an...
View ArticleThe Bride With White Hair
Love and loss on a battlefield… It’s rare to find a film where the main character tells you that his life is over because of the choices he made before the film truly starts. But director Ronny Wu (The...
View ArticleThe Scent of Green Papaya
A life unfolds in breathtaking colour and movement in a symphony of drama… Like a ray of sunshine on a cloudy day, The Scent of Green Papaya comes into your view lazily and quietly, giving away no hint...
View ArticlePoliceman and Me
Kazuya Kamenashi stars in this sickly sweet teen movie… When 26-year-old policeman Kota (Kazuya Kamenashi) meets Kako (Tao Tsuchiya) he knows he’s in love, what he doesn’t realise, though, is that...
View ArticleCute Girl
The humble comedic beginnings of one of the titans of Taiwanese cinema… The ageing of comedy is a tragic thing; as certain tropes and joke styles come to be more commonplace, the impact of certain...
View ArticleThe Green, Green Grass Of Home
Life in a small town is as big as your feeling about it… We idealize our childhoods in our adult years because it makes it easier to assume that growing up was not as hard as we thought it was at the...
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The 8-Year Engagement
Adapted from an autobiographical book of a real-life tragedy, the new Takahisa Zeze film fails to show its intensity… While the true story of a Japanese couple who was forced to wait for eight years to...
View ArticleBe With You
There won’t be many tears shed over this… When one reviews a remake, is it possible to do so without talking about the original assuming if one knows about the original in the first place? Absolutely...
View ArticleThe 8-Year Engagement
A story of a girl who slept and a boy who waited… “Based on a true story” should strike fear into the hearts of moviegoers. Long the domain of the unscrupulous filmmaker who, bolting on plot points...
View ArticleAs Tears Go By
Love and violence in the neon lit streets of Hong Kong… Wong Kar-wai is a name I hear all the time from friends who are into Hong Kong cinema. While I’ve never seen his more popular films In the Mood...
View ArticleTremble All You Want
An intelligent romantic comedy with a ‘twisted’ central character… I would like to dedicate this film review, my first for easternKicks, to all my male friends who believe that romantic comedies are...
View ArticleThe Scythian Lamb
A weird dark comedy mixing different genres while tackling rural depopulation in an unusual fashion… It’s a day like any other for Hajime Tsukisue (Ryo Nishikido), a young city bureaucrat, and his...
View ArticleTremble All You Want
A truly heart-warming experience full of honest and heartfelt emotions… With so many bittersweet romantic narratives being released in Japan, one might forget that, amidst this oversupply, true little...
View ArticleAsh is Purest White
Bitter and sweet look at two lives unfulfilled… Selected to compete for the Palme D’or at Cannes this year, and losing out to Shoplifters, it demonstrates the high level of quality and how hard a time...
View ArticleWong Ka Yan
Writer-Director Benny Lau presents a nostalgic glimpse back at Hong Kong in the 90s and one man’s search for love… Throwing back to the crazy heyday of Hong Kong in the 90’s, Wong Ka Yan is set on the...
View ArticleSway
A tangle of modern, melancholic love stories with an international scope… Writer, director, and editor Rooth Tang’s Sway presents modern love from a perspective in which borders are both crucial and...
View ArticleAsako I & II
Girl meets boy, girl loses boy, girl meets boy’s doppelgänger – but who loves who the most?… The nature of love and infatuation and the delicate balance of power in relationships is explored in this...
View ArticleThe Princess and the Matchmaker
Light-hearted comedy able to poke fun at traditions in fortune telling as well as story… Set in the Joseon era during a severe drought and famine, the only hope to save the kingdom and make it rain is...
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