"Predator Badlands" - Review

Alien runt of the litter Dek (Dimitrius Schuster-Koloamatangi) embarks on his first hunt, fuelled by vengeance and a thirst to be accepted by his aggressive warrior tribe. Seeking the unkillable Kalisk, the highest honour his hunt could bestow, he heads to its equally dangerous home planet Genna. He encounters a damaged yet still perky robot named Thia (Elle Fanning) and begrudgingly agrees that he may need her expertise and help in this matter. Together they embark on a hunt.

(Photo credit: IMP Awards)
The concept for this got announced and I was rather keen. I enjoyed Trachtenberg's "10 Cloverfield Lane", which was an excellent little bottle movie, and am always keen on simpler, old-school campier adventures like this.
It's a fun ride, very much at home with the buddy cop angle: it's the classic "I'm an edgelord who doesn't need friends" partnered with the "perky cheerful robot who does not understand your silly ways", and much like telling my fiancee they look cute: it always works. Elle Fanning is wonderful as the robot, and steals the show in my eyes, but "second-guess the first name spelling" Dimitrius Schuster-Koloamatangi is also excellent, sprinkling a little of Bautista's "Drax the Destroyer" in the lead role, and really having fun as the defrosting, confidently powerful warrior whose heart grows 2 sizes. Their relationship is the staple, and it works, it's competently put together.
The beginning is fucking rough: all CGI blurs and nonsense greenscreen mashing together like a 2000s cut-scene tossed into a blender from a moving car, but once it hits the equally CGI-heavy planet and you turn your brain off, it's fun. The "BRAND!" and "FRANCHISE" stuff is honestly a tad distracting and a damning indictment that we can't even have 80s throwbacks or "Enemy Mine" homages without there being "INTELLECTUAL PROPERTY" attached to it (though it's not anywhere near as bad as "Alien Romulus" for its ghoulish nostalgia mask), such is the state of movies...
This was still fun, and will make for a good 9:00PM Film4 movie.
Plot was bollocks and the least interesting part, but its themes of overcoming societal expectations, toxic masculinity and found family elevate it above the standard fare.

"Valley of the Shadow of Death" - Review

Pastor Leung (Anthony Wong, star of "Untold", "Hard Boiled" and every Johnnie To movie) went through a tragedy years ago, but his marriage to his wife (Louisa So) surprisingly remains, as well as his firm conviction in God and dedication to his church. However, all three of these things, and the man himself, are tested when a young man named Chang Tsz Lok (George Au) is brought in for help.

(Photo Credit: "Film at Lincoln Center")
I went to see this on a whim, there were no other showings in the week, due to it starring the excellent, interesting and prolific yet underappreciated Anthony Wong.
It's my film of the year and I never want to watch it again.
It begins as a quietley excruciating look at grief and the emptiness of one's life when you lose somebody: Louisa So making noise to drown out the questions asked about the missing person before leaving the house, the two of them sitting in silence with a birthday cake, a room of stuffed bears. You feel like you shouldn't be here, it's intimate and skin crawling and gut-churning. Then the plot itself kicks in and becomes a 3 hander, as the film simply poses the question of what it means to want to reform, and what you do in the face of legitimate evil wishing to change, when it has directly harmed you. The towering performance of Wong is something to write home about: torment and turmoil and a boiling whirlpool of feelings inside, conveyed with a simple look or a glower or a snap at somebody, he carries himself with the emotional complexity the script requires as a man's faith is challenged and he has to decide if it's something he truly believes or just what he has been telling himself in order to get through the day. He's fantastic in this. Lousia So and George Au are also bloody excellent here, and they are given a lot to work with. Excellent editing too at a dinner table in the 3rd act. Some may find the plot revelations too dramatic or overstated, but I feel that they landed just right.
It's an ugly, unpleasant movie which throws these questions out on the table, lets them squirm, and leaves you to watch and prod and be drenched in the results. It's the sort of thing Schraeder and Scorsese made in the 70s. The ending is a phenomenal understated shot.
I loved this.
I never want to see it again.