Columbus (2017)

I was wondering how to start writing about this film, so I turned to the IMDb blurb for inspiration. It says: A Korean-born man finds himself stuck in Columbus, Indiana, where his architect father is in a coma. The man meets a young woman who wants to stay in Columbus with her mother, a recovering …

Okja

Why is Bong Joon Ho so obsessed with Tilda's teeth? This first came to my attention in the director's previous film, Snowpiercer, which never received a cinema release in the UK but which I purchased on DVD when travelling in New Zealand in 2015. And as a commentary on how western capitalism is eating itself, I …

Ah-ga-ssi – The Handmaiden

I wasn't expecting to laugh as much as I did in this tale of grifters, oppression and eroticism. Director Chan-wook Park has reframed this story from Victorian England to 1930s Japanese-occupied Korea, and it looks gorgeous. It's clever in the way it uses flashbacks and replays scenes from different viewpoints, gradually letting the audience in …

Dennis Rodman’s Big Bang in PyongYang

In which extrovert non-conformist Dennis Rodman offers North Korean despot Kim Jong-un a visit of an NBA All-Stars basketball team for his birthday. Rodman is an unlikely friend for Kim Jong-un but for reasons which are never confirmed (obviously), the North Korean leader is happy to be seen smiling and hugging Rodman - at least …