Chinese-American film-maker Bing Liu made an impression with the poignant documentary Minding the Gap about people from his home town in Illinois; now he pivots to features with this sad and sombre study of romance and life choices among those on the margins of US society, adapted from the prize-winning novel of the same name by Atticus Lish. The scene is the no-questions-asked world of New York’s Chinatown; newcomer Sebiye Behtiyar plays Aishe, a Chinese Uyghur Muslim undocumented immigrant. One day she catches the eye of Skinner, played by Fred…
Tag: Film adaptations
Ballad of a Small Player review – Colin Farrell seeks redemption in Edward Berger’s high-stakes gambling yarn
The vast emptiness of luxury hotels is part of the mystery and spectacle of Edward Berger’s intriguing if static and overwrought psychological drama-thriller; it is about a desperate chancer and gambling addict, faced with the metaphysical crisis of renewing or annulling his existence by staking everything on a single bet. Screenwriter Rowan Joffe adapts the 2014 novel by Lawrence Osborne, whose title is ironic. He would not have these problems if he really was a small player. He is a big player and a big loser, although his smallness comes…
Creation of the Gods I: Kingdom of Storms review – immortals and armies wreak havoc
“Strange things keep happening these days,” muses Jiang Ziya (Bo Huang) halfway through this extravagant adaptation of Xu Zhonglin’s 16th-century myth-and-fantasy novel Investiture of the Gods. By this point, we’ve already seen a woman kill herself with a hatpin before being possessed by the spirit of a white fox; a gurgling, pistachio-coloured demon baby is found naked in the woods; and a conjuror who can make his head float free of his body when threatened with decapitation. Strange days indeed. Ziya is one of three immortals sent to arrest the…
The Monkey King review – lively Netflix animation revives ancient Chinese classic
Despite recent budget cuts, Netflix’s in-house animation division continues to produce lively, interesting works that, if released theatrically, might be diverting some of the applause that gets automatically lavished on Disney and Pixar’s currently mediocre output. Not that this is anywhere as rich and strange as the streaming service’s last big title, the Oscar-winning Guillermo del Toro’s Pinocchio. The latest in a 10,000-mile-long line of adaptations of Journey to the West, the 16th-century Chinese novel attributed to Wu Cheng’en, bounces along energetically, and has some exceptionally fun frills around the…