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Bang 2025 - ()
A Line of Fire 2025 - ()
Fear Cabin The Last Weekend of Summer 2024 - ()
Dear Viv 2025 - ()
Tornado 2025 - ()
Unknown Number The High School Catfish 2025 - ()
Splitsville 2025 - ()
Cleaner 2025 - ()
Ship of the Damned 2024 - ()
The Thursday Murder Club 2025 - ()
Ballerina 2025 - ()
The Players 2025 - ()
Au revoir 2024 - ()
Oh Hi 2025 - ()
Sketch 2024 - ()
KPop Demon Hunters 2025 - ()
Together 2025 - ()
Stans 2025 - ()
I Know What You Did Last Summer 2025 - ()
Prepare to Die 2024 - ()
I didn't take to this initially. The scenario reminded me a little of an episode of "Columbo" - a rather sterile, studio-set environment that came across as quite limiting. Once it gets going, though, it's one of the best crime thrillers I've seen in ages. It all centres around the kidnapping of a small boy for whom the anger-prone, shoe millionaire "Gondo" (a strong contribution from Toshirô Mifune) is supposed to pay a ransom of ¥30 million - a colossal sum. It turns out, though, that it's not his son who has been snatched - it's the child of his chauffeur. Why ought he to pay? Will he just get on with his impending company takeover or will he risk bankruptcy for the young "Shinichi"? This is a film split into three sections. The first deals with the decision making process around will he/won't he/why should he. Next, the police must try to apprehend this individual. This process is meticulously carried out and Kurosawa has chosen to immerse us in some of that detail, rather than just cursorily skip through it. This makes the whole detection process a much more interesting part of the film; allowing some aspects of the characterisation of the police officers to develop and also introducing some dark humour to the proceedings. Finally, we reach the denouement with it's own rather curious and not entirely explicable agenda. There's an element of "what would you do?", there's a grim depiction of a seamier side of Japanese (heroin-fuelled) culture that we seldom get to see and there is a rather starkly effective dose of humanity presented here as the story juggles aspects of human nature, nurture and good old fashioned greed in quite an effective fashion. It's based on an Ed McBain book (which I haven't read) but the entire project has been successfully subsumed into it's guest culture for a gripping and detailed mystery that flies by.
A well worked, high stake crime thriller. The stakes are deeply personal to our main characters and puts them in an impossible situation. The performances and direction are very solid, the story is engaging and ultimately, it's a simple yet enjoyable film. Kurosawa comments on modern corporate greed and poverty in post-war Japan, and he does it very well.
I’m always amazed at how a single film can be fundamentally characterized in multiple ways, but that’s understandable when the picture combines an array of diverse elements, each of which has a validity all its own that can subsequently lead to different overarching interpretations. Such is the case with this 1963 film classic from famed Japanese auteur Akira Kurosawa, which provides the cinematic inspiration behind filmmaker Spike Lee’s current reimagination, “Highest 2 Lowest,” now playing theatrically. Like the current iteration, “High and Low” follows the story of a wealthy businessman, Kingo Gondô (Toshirô Mifune), who’s looking to take control of the shoe manufacturing company for which he works, a plan that requires him to leverage his entire personal fortune to make it possible. But, just as he’s about to close the deal, he’s distracted by the alleged kidnapping of his young son (Toshio Egi), a crime for which the perpetrator demands a ransom equal in value to the funds needed to cover the pending transaction. However, not long after hearing about the kidnapping, Gondô learns that the culprit has nabbed the wrong child, erroneously taking the son (Masahiko Shimazu) of his chauffeur (Yutaka Sada). But Gondô is not off the hook: the kidnapper still demands payment of the ransom, even though the crime doesn’t involve his son. This leaves Gondô with a huge moral dilemma: does he use the money to close his business deal or to pay the ransom of his employee’s child? As Gondô grapples with this decision, an intense police investigation ensues to discover the kidnapper’s identity and to figure out a way to retrieve both the victim and the ransom money. Unlike the current film, though, Kurosawa’s version focuses less on the particulars driving this scenario and more intently on the ethical questions that the protagonist is left to wrestle with, issues ultimately symbolic of the divisive class and economic disparities in Japanese society. Indeed, while the picture provides viewers with its share of intense thriller moments, in many regards it’s really more of a morality play, not only where Gondô is concerned, but also in its exploration of the inherent chasms between rich and poor, privileged and impoverished, and control and servitude. (This attribute, in turn, helps to shed light on the nature of the film’s character and the relevance of its original Japanese title, “Tengoku to jigoku,” which translates to “Heaven and Hell,” in my opinion a more fitting appellation that probably should have been retained when renamed in English.) The foregoing aspects of the picture thus distinguish this predecessor work from the current release, even though the exact nature of the nexus between kidnapper and target is not developed as fully here as I believe it should have been (one of the few ways in which the present offering modestly improves upon the original). In addition, there are times in the opening act, as well as in the run-up to the film’s conclusion, when the storytelling could have been a little brisker (the slower pacing style of the period in which the picture was made notwithstanding). Still, this offering’s social and cultural themes are nevertheless intriguing, and their place here has a tendency to grow on audiences as the picture progresses. And those thematic aspects, when combined with the contrast of the narrative’s riveting criminal investigation, make for an intriguing mix, one that undoubtedly accounts for the differing perspectives that this release often evokes among viewers. While “High and Low” may not be Kurosawa’s best work when compared with such pictures as “Rashômon” (1950) and “Ikiru” (1952), it stands out as one of the filmmaker’s most thoughtful and engaging works, one that probes the heaven and hell that reside here on Earth, both individually and at their points of intersection, and how the lines between them can become all too easily blurred, a caution to us all.
The young Harold lives in his own world of suicide-attempts and funeral visits to avoid the misery of his current family and home environment. Harold meets an 80-year-old woman named Maude who also lives in her own world yet one in which she is having the time of her life. When the two opposites meet they realize that their differences don’t matter and they become best friends and love each other.
An ex-thief is accused of enacting a new crime spree, so to clear his name he sets off to catch the new thief, who’s imitating his signature style.
When an armed, masked gang enter a Manhattan bank, lock the doors and take hostages, the detective assigned to effect their release enters negotiations preoccupied with corruption charges he is facing.
The defense and the prosecution have rested and the jury is filing into the jury room to decide if a young Spanish-American is guilty or innocent of murdering his father. What begins as an open and shut case soon becomes a mini-drama of each of the jurors' prejudices and preconceptions about the trial, the accused, and each other.
Havana, 1993. A serial killer decapites cops. Mario, a disenchanted policeman, finds the head of the seventh victim...
A story in the Egyptian countryside about an unjust mayor who controls everything in the village with his power.
In Alexandria a terrifying phenomenon of the disappearance of women, spreads terror in the city. Police work to unravel its secrets. Officer Ahmed is preparing a plan to uncover who's behind it and it turns out to be the gang of Raya and Sakina, who were targeting women to steal their jewelry.
When The Thief’s partner is kidnapped after stealing millions in cash from a merciless drug lord named Nushi, he reluctantly teams up with an angst-ridden orphan to rescue him. Nushi enlists her most trusted hitman, The Cowboy, a lovable charmer who’s quick with his guns, to track down the Thief. Guns, cars, and explosions will give the newfound partners a head start, but how long will they be able to keep it up?
The story revolves around a bus that gets lost in the desert, and the play presents the human models represented by the bus riders and the mistakes and sins of each passenger. When they are about to die of hunger and thirst, each of them declares his repentance and decides to reform himself, so will their positions change after their salvation?
A 1973 documentary film from the Central Office of Information about the Liverpool and Bootle Constabulary.