Film reviews

The Telugu film RRR is an incredible mixture of genres, influences, and ideas: a historical epic with obvious ahistorical qualities, a combat-heavy actioner with exuberant song-and-dance numbers, a homosocial friendship drama with recognizably romantic montages. Strong notes of melodrama accent its potent blend.

In 1997, a young Ike Nnaebue, along with free of his friends, left Lagos, Nigeria for a journey across West Africa, hoping to get into Europe by road (and ultimately) by sea, but a fortuitous encounter at Mali’s capital city caused him to make a detour, one that would change the trajectory of his life forever.

Pili Puppetry is a well-known Taiwanese glove puppet series, which transposes wuxia tales of martial arts chivalry to a fantasy setting.

Part of coverage of the 2022 New York Asian Film Festival.

If we think of film as “visual storytelling”, Blood Sisters certainly gives us the “visual” even if it sometimes leaves us wondering about the “storytelling.”

There are few words fit to describe Blue Island (憂鬱之島), apart from “masterpiece.” The film stands out as an example of its genre, while also managing to be highly powerful and personal.

A Review of "Singing in the Wilderness" written in collaboration with Cinema Escapist, as part of coverage of the International Film Festival Rotterdam. Keep an eye out for more!

This is a No Man is an Island film review written in collaboration with Cinema Escapist, as part of coverage of the International Film Festival Rotterdam. Keep an eye out for more!

A Review of Episodes One and Two of Gold Leaf (茶金)

FATHER (爺爺和父親) is a standout documentary, whose strengths primarily derive from the revealing moments it manages to capture on camera. This is due to the fact that director Deng Wei is filming his father and grandfather as the documentary’s subjects.

I’m getting ready for the function at the junction And baby you’d better come on right now Because everybody’s gonna be there We got people comin’ from everywhere – “Function At The Junction,” Shorty Long, 1966 There’s a long, long legacy of Black folks gathering around food and funk, bbq sauce and song.

THE SOUL (緝魂) stands out among recent Taiwanese film as an effective and well-executed commercial thriller.

Building off of Taiwan’s complex relationship with intersex issues stemming from the 1950s, 2021’s "Born to Be Human" brings light to contemporary misunderstandings of intersex people and the continued medical violence they face. The film proves an emotionally harrowing look at the medicalization of the gender binary through the lens of intersex rights.