Rating: 4.0

Nominated for an Academy Award and sweeping the board at the Japanese equivalent of ‘The Oscars’, Yoji Yamada’s lyrically, tenderly woven tale of dignity is a triumph of substance over action.

Despite what flaws ‘The Twins Effect’ has, it never actually suffers as a result of them as it always retains the viewers interest and successfully juggles comedy, action and horror.

‘The Valiant Ones’ really does deliver on its promise of a group of gifted fighters going after a never-ending swarm of rampaging pirates and fighting them all to the death.

‘The Victim’ is a fine mixture of action comedy and even drama – three elements that director Sammo Hung juggles with masterful dexterity.

‘The Wandering Earth II’ is a marvel from a technical point of view and solid hard sci-fi that this time around manages to flesh out characters and story, all the while delivering epic scaled action.

This is not a flashy costume drama or a CGI enhanced flight of fancy but rather a gritty, grimy and quite often, an in your face epic.

‘The Water Margin’ is the kind of grandiose masterwork that is enthralling and, despite the presence of three accomplished directors, has a remarkable consistency to it.

A truly beautiful tale of personal growth and self-discovery that is more than perfectly in tune with many Asian ideals of family and the implicit importance of such.

While ‘Fist of Fury’ is the Little Dragon’s best film, this comes a close second and would not be out of place in the DVD rack of any martial arts movie fan.

‘The Way We Are’ is a gentle production about an act of kindness flowering into a friendship and how simple events can create a long-standing link between people who are initially strangers.

A blend of classy slow burn filmmaking and bloody violent action, the film may not be to everyone’s taste, but it certainly sets out to find its own rhythm and style.

Park Hoon-Jung certainly knows how to craft action but he also imbues the film with a dark tone, slow build tension, and a subtly cool vibe that contributes to the atmosphere and world building.