Considering how the Hong Kong film industry has been so profoundly corrupted by Xi Jinping’s puppet regime, genre fans need new sources of action and martial arts spectacles. Happily, South Korea has been stepping up Brave Citizen looks like the sort of over-the-top masked-vigilante riff on The Substitute that promises thrills, as well as a much-needed cathartic release.
Although based on a popular manga franchise, Don’t Call it Mystery sounds like it evokes the spirit of vintage Japanese mysteries set within powerful and mysterious families, like Kon Ichikawa’s The Inugami Family (both of them). Sorry Maxwell Smart, I guess I wasn’t supposed to call it “mystery.”
Every year, Fantasia always brings in terrific animated films. Ghost Can Anzu is about a big, mystical cat, so how can it go wrong? Kizomonogatari: Koyomi Vamp is a revised, reworked, and re-edited relaunch of 2016 films that essentially raises beloved (but intense) horror franchise from the dead.
The story of Mantra Warriors: Legend of the Eight Moons might be familiar, but this Thai science fiction re-imagining of The Ramayana promises to be very different from Koichi Sasaki & Yugo Sako’s classical Japanese-Indian co-production Ramayana: The Legend of Prince Rama, so it should be fun to compare and contrast.
Those are just a few promising selections. There is always plenty of good stuff to watch at Fantasia, so keep an eye out for reviews.
