Showing 1 - 6 of 6
Keeping classic films alive
Life, Kong Rithdee, Published on 06/04/2018
» The colours in the Thai spy movie Operation Revenge remain as vibrant as when the film first came out 51 years ago. Likewise, the struggle for independence in the Indonesian film Barbed Wired Fence remains intact, as vivid and strong as the image of the college boys projected on the screen when it came out in 1982. These films were on the verge of disintegration when they were revived to their former glory, ready to return to where they belong.
A patriotic romp
Life, Kong Rithdee, Published on 06/01/2017
» Smooth, slick and unabashedly patriotic, Korean spy thriller The Age Of Shadows has cooked up a winning formula. It's the 1920s, the oppressive Japanese army rules over Korea while a band of stylishly dressed resistance fighters lurk in the shadows, rattling the colonial sabre. The Japanese -- a villain du jour given that this week at the cinemas we also see Jackie Chan fighting them in World War II-set Railroad Tigers -- are punishing and manipulative, meanwhile the Koreans are clever and heroic (and fashionable). There will be a final explosion so huge the cinema shakes, and you know who'll get blown to bits.
Snowden under siege
Life, Kong Rithdee, Published on 27/03/2015
» The Oscar-winning Citizenfour has opened in Bangkok. An opportune cinema experience here in our land of 99.9% democracy where the contentious Cyber Security Bills are being revised, the so-called Edward Snowden documentary seethes with unsettling power. Its civic outrage is strong, but the cool-headed storytelling gives it gravity. The immediacy of the issue at its heart is also the debate of the early 21st century. And if the film lets us know from the start that it's taking the side of the whistle-blower, all the better.
‘Citizenfour’ rings eerily close to home
News, Kong Rithdee, Published on 21/02/2015
» Come Oscar night tomorrow, Edward Snowden, still holed up in Moscow, won’t be joining the glitterati in Los Angeles though the film in which he is appears likely to snatch a golden doll. Unless there’s a major upset, Citizenfour should win Best Documentary, and the spectre of massive national surveillance, indiscriminate spying and the thorny scuffle to find balance between national security and the sanctity of human rights will, hopefully, steal some of the vacuous limelight that characterises the Oscars.
Picture predictions
Life, Kong Rithdee, Published on 28/02/2014
» The last time the Los Angeles Times checked, the nearly 6,000 Oscar voters were 94% white, 77% male, almost 100% American, with the average age of 62. So much for movies as democracy, so much for art as majoritarianism, because to guess the Oscar winners — the time-honoured and completely useless activity practised around the world — is to guess the taste and preference of these faceless voters.
Bourne this way
Life, Kong Rithdee, Published on 10/08/2012
» The action heroes of the 21st century have the option of being David and not Goliath. They're a compact ball of energy, a clenched fist, a meteor with a low centre of gravity, darting and zipping, not rumbling and thundering. I've grown up watching Eastwood, Stallone, Willis, Schwarzenegger; but the current generation of multiplex-goers, besides the usual slab of pen-fed meat like Jason Statham or Daniel Craig, also have the choice of skinny Tobey Maguire as Spidey, little James McAvoy as one of the X-men, and of course, Matt Damon, dense and crackling, as the man with no memory, Jason Bourne.