Pasha's Film Reviews Etc.

4/5 It is 48 BC and Huo An is a disgraced head of so-called SILK ROAD PROTECTION SQUAD. As brave as he is kind hearted, he fights for the benefits of the others. When faced with Roman General and his squad, escaping Rome after a coup, he lets them into the GOOSE GATE, a ruined fortress he is forced to rebuilt as a punishment for a crime he did not commit. Here he makes a great friend in the face of Lucius (John Cusack). Together they work hard to rebuild the city. But the Roman legion, led by villainous Tiberius (Adrian Brody), approaches the GOOSE GATE. Will a handful of warriors be able to stand against the army of Rome? The correct translation of the movie is “CELESTIAL GENERAL, HEROIC ARMY”, it is more suitable name to this giant epic deserving an IMAX screen. The enjoyment of DRAGON BLADE requires total suspension of disbelief. One of the characters calls the story of Huo An “an engrossing fairy tale” and this is exactly what it is. If you want a historical movie...

4/5 The year is 1938. Young Korean girl Ju-Ran arrives to a remote boarding school. She is sickly and unlikable and is not accepted by her classmates, until one of the girls shows her kindness and becomes her friend. Together they try to unravel the mysterious happenings at the school. Are the ghosts to blame for the disappearance of their classmates, or something else, even more sinister is going on? Like many Korean films THE SILENCED is a bit of a genre blend, with gothic motives prevailing, it starts as a coming of age drama with a mystery twist, and succumbs by its end to a full range mayhem the type seen in Carrie. This movie is all about style: the costumes, the details, the surrounding - all dreamlike and fascinating. The photography is stunning and every frame is a pleasure to look at. The atmosphere is also spot on, and the menace lurking in the air is almost delicious. Building the anticipation to something staggering to be revealed in the end, the film;s e...

3 1/2 /5 A hundred years from now creatures called TITANS had destroyed the world, pushing humanity behind the giant walls. Eren Jaeger is twenty something young man who dreams of one day leaving his home country and see beyond the walls. He does not believe in the existence of the Titans. But that is all about to change as the wall is suddenly breached, letting the monstrous creatures in… Attack on Titan is an incredibly popular manga and anime series and created a huge following all around the world. While movie remains true to the story’s major check points, it re-imagines the original plot in many ways. Just like in the source material, we get the usual trio of young, wide-eyed innocent friends, who face unimaginable horror sand have to become a part of the fullscale war against the dangers they don’t fully understand. But the movie leaves out most of melodramatic moments, focusing on action and horror. This year’s MAD MAX showed us the new ways of establishing c...

4/5 Amy Winehouse had been a wild child even before she made the news or number one charts around the globe. What lies beneath her incredible talent? When we get up close, who are the judges when a young person's destiny is on the scales? And despite Amy's great talent and riches, those scales are not tilting in her favour. There is an important thing that the documentary by Asif Kapadia had achieved, and it is making the audience to identify with a legend. The doubts, the pain, the happiness and the magical moments of being on top of the world - it is all real in a clever composition of family archive videos, rare footage and recordings.  While Amy's father Mitch Winehouse referred to the film as "preposterous", the documentary is a treasured portrait of a disturbed and vulnerable artist, who had travelled a long journey from being a club singer to the great heights of the world's fame. This documentary's deceptively simple layout and c...