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Film Review: The Final Semester (3학년 2학기) (2024) - South Korea Rating: 8/10 Reviewed at Hong Kong Filmart 2025 2025 Review Count - 54 Support my goal of writing one film review per day in 2025 - https://www.patreon.com/neofilmreviews Reviewed by Andrew Chan (Film Critics Circle of Australia) In “The Final Semester”, director Lee Ran-hee crafts a story that hums with the quiet urgency of a generation caught between aspiration and obligation. This is not merely a coming-of-age tale—it’s a wrenching ode to the invisible hands that build societies, and the young bodies sacrificed to keep them running. Chang-woo (Yoo Lee-ha,...

Film Review: High Noon (aka Winds of September - The Hong Kong Chapter) 烈日當空 (2008) - Hong Kong Rating: 8/10 2025 Review Count - 53 Support my goal of writing one film review per day in 2025 - https://www.patreon.com/neofilmreviews Reviewed by Andrew Chan (Film Critics Circle of Australia) Tagline: “High Noon” doesn’t just depict growing up—it immerses you in its sticky, sunlit delirium. Like the best of Hong Kong cinema, it balances social critique with visceral humanity, offering no easy answers but plenty to feel. By the final frame, you’ll mourn these kids as if they were your own. Mak...

Film Review: Spring Night 봄밤 Bombam (2024) - South Korea Rating: 7/10 Reviewed at Hong Kong Filmart 2025 2025 Review Count - 52 Support my goal of writing one film review per day in 2025 - https://www.patreon.com/neofilmreviews Reviewed by Andrew Chan (Film Critics Circle of Australia) Tagline: This isn’t a film about love saving anyone. It’s about love “witnessing” and in that act, finding a kind of bruised grace. Kang Mi-ja’s “Spring Night” feels like a whispered confession—a film that aches with loneliness yet resists the urge to console. Seventeen years since her last feature, Kang returns with a story...

Film Review: Anora 阿諾拉 (2024) - USA Rating: 7.5/10 2025 Review Count - 51 Support my goal of writing one film review per day in 2025 - https://www.patreon.com/neofilmreviews Reviewed by Andrew Chan (Film Critics Circle of Australia) Sean Baker’s “Anora” is a film that lingers in the liminal space between fairy tale and cautionary fable, where love is both a transaction and a rebellion. With his signature unflinching eye for marginalized lives, Baker invites us into the neon-lit world of Anora “Ani” Mikheeva (Mikey Madison), a Brooklyn stripper whose whirlwind marriage to the wayward oligarch heir Vanya (Mark Eydelshteyn) becomes...

Film Review: Invincible Swordsman 笑傲江湖 (2025) - China Rating - 5/10 2025 Review Count - 50 Support my goal of writing one film review per day in 2025 - https://www.patreon.com/neofilmreviews Reviewed by Andrew Chan (Film Critics Circle of Australia) The curse of the remake haunts “Invincible Swordsman”, a film that lunges at the legacy of “The Swordsman II” (1992) with all the grace of a novice stumbling through their first sword form. Directed by novice Luo Yiwei and shepherded by producer Wong Jing—a name synonymous with Hong Kong cinema’s vibrant excess—this reimagining of “The Smiling, Proud Wanderer” saga feels less...