The years leading up to the hand over of Hong Kong from the UK to China was starting to show in the pop culture produced at this time. Films that were drenched in paranoia and uncertainty of what the future held under the Chinese Communist Party. This mood reflected in […]
Movies & Documentaries
Infested (2023) Shudder by Name, Shudder by Nature (Review)
Shudder is a cool name for a horror streaming platform, but never have I considered the word until the release of their latest Original, 2023’s Infested (A.K.A. Vermines) – the feature debut by French director Sébastien Vaniček. The reason why that train of thought ran through my head was that […]
The Cat and the Canary (1927) Hauntingly Expressionist Silent Classic Struggles without Words (Review)
If you’re a regular visitor to The Geek Show, then you might be aware that this isn’t the first adaptation of John Willard’s 1922 play “The Cat and the Canary” that I have written about – nor is it the first adaptation to receive a shiny remastered Blu-Ray edition from […]
Peter Five Eight (2024) An Attempt was Made by Spacey (Review)
Film noir casts a long (dark) shadow over cinema. Since French critics retroactively applied the term to crime films of the 1940s, filmmakers across the world and through the decades have attempted to emulate and update the look and feel of what was never designed as a coherent genre. From […]
The Bounty Hunter Trilogy (1969/72) Samurai Western Trilogy by way of James Bond? (Review)
Shogun Assassin gained infamy on the midnight cinema circuit, yet its leading man didn’t enjoy fame comparable to Ogami Ittō’s hellish saga. Tomisaburo Wakayama, although prolific and renowned in his own right, is nought but a footnote for World Cinema fans next to the likes of Tetsuya Watari, Joe Shishido, […]
The Foul King (2000) Rediscovering a Song Kang-ho Wrestling Romp (Review)
There was a time in my life when wrestling was more important to me than film or football. Before my discovery of Mike Leigh, or the emergence of Gareth Bale, there was Rob Van Dam. Before The Apartment moved me to tears, or Lucas Moura set me into delirium, there […]
A Bittersweet Life (2005) & The Chaser (2008) Two Korean New Wave Classics (Review)
Two South Korean films that straddle one of the most important events in Korean cinema in the 21st century. One by an established director of TV and Film whose name would be placed next to the modern greats like Park Chan-wook and Bong Joon-Ho, the other by a new up […]
Shadow of Fire (2023)Tsukamoto At His Most… Hopeful? (Review)
While he doesn’t have the same cut-through of his halycon days with Tetsuo, Bullet Ballet or A Snake of June, Shinya Tsukamoto is undoubtedly one of the more consistent filmmakers in Japan. This is partly due to that movie industry not being as buoyant as it once was, but also because he’s a director […]
Hamlet (2024): Age cannot wither McKellen’s Great Dane (Review)
To quote that great authority on Shakespearian acting, Withnail’s Uncle Monty, “it is the most devastating moment in a young man’s life when he quite reasonably says to himself ‘I shall never play the Dane!’” Shakespeare might have ascribed seven ages to man in As You Like It, but as […]
Concrete Utopia (2023) Bleak and Brutal But Riveting Modern Dystopia (Review)
Dystopian stories come in a variety of different forms, and we’ve been treated to many examples of them in recent years. There’s the YA dystopias such as The Hunger Games and Maze Runner that explore systemic oppression in fantastical societies, the more relatable urban dystopias such as Daniel Kaluuya and […]