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The Perfection (2019) - USA   Reviewed by Andrew Chan (Film Critics Circle of Australia)   Help us continue to cover more Asian and Martial Art films by making a donation to Neo Film Blog below. Inspired by Korean directors and most notably Park Chan Wook’s “Handmaiden”, director Richard Shepard combines these elements into a genre horror psychological thriller, dealing with child assault and abuse whilst blending in the essence of classical music and torture. The film goes through a number of phrases, namely a drama-like beginning that resembles “Black Swan” then takes a dramatic horror and gore twist in the fun of...

Aladdin (2019) - USA Reviewed by Andrew Chan (Film Critics Circle of Australia)   Help us continue to cover more Asian and Martial Art films by making a donation to Neo Film Blog below. The latest “Aladdin” live-action remake is really a mixed bag. There are great moments and even magical ones but also moments that drags and bore. That’s the problem with these kind of Disney remakes, it will always be hit and miss when it comes to live characterisation of childhood dreams that we have grown to love and enjoy with a certain degree of familiarisation. This is by no means...

The Wandering Earth 流浪地球 (2019) - China   Reviewed by Andrew Chan (Film Critics Circle of Australia)   Help us continue to cover more Asian and Martial Art films by making a donation to Neo Film Blog below. In true “Interstellar” fashion, the big budget Chinese sci-fi and China’s first big foray into the space futuristic disaster genre. What impresses me the most is the lack of patriotic pride, over-drowning of nationalism and over idealistic individualism usually found in Chinese made blockbusters. This is particularly impressive as other than the main characters being focused on Chinese, it could’ve been any other nationality. Instead of...

First Night Nerves 八個女人一台戲 (2018) - Hong Kong Reviewed by Andrew Chan (Film Critics Circle of Australia)   Help us continue to cover more Asian and Martial Art films by making a donation to Neo Film Blog below. In true Gala Premiere fashion, we get the usual mid-festival star gazing first film at this year’s Hong Kong Cultural Centre with a Hong Kong film. This time we get renowned and respected director Stanley Kwan’s “First Night Nerves” and a star studded cast in presence of Sammi Cheng, Gigi Leung and Bai Baihe to name a few. This is a fantastic vehicle for female actresses...

Maria (2019) - Philippines   Reviewed by Andrew Chan (Film Critics Circle of Australia)   Help us continue to cover more Asian and Martial Art films by making a donation to Neo Film Blog below. There is a lot of lingering problems with the Netflix released Filipino film “Maria”, despite the obvious femme fatale premise and “John Wick” obvious inspiration, the action film is only mildly entertaining, uninteresting characters to follow and not to mention bland directing. The leads are attractive, especially Cristina Reyes who plays the title character and avenger for the death of her family. The film lacks a decent story...