“B” movies. Films reviewed: The Boy in the Woods, Blackwater Lane, The Bikeriders
Hi, this is Daniel Garber at the Movies for culturalmining.com and CIUT 89.5 FM.
In weather like this, don’t you want to be watching a movie in an air-conditioned theatre? I sure do. This week I’m looking at three new “B” movies, as in the letter B. There’s a biker gang in the 1960s; a serial killer on the loose on Blackwater Lane in an English town; and a boy trying to survive in the woods in WWII.
The Boy in the Woods
Wri/Dir: Rebecca Snow (Pandora’s box: Interview)
It’s 1943 in Nazi-occupied Poland. The city of Buczacz is home to Poles, Jews and Ukrainians who lived together in relative peace, until the German invasion. But by 1943 the Jews were in captivity, soon to be executed or deported. 12-year-old Max (Jett Klyne) wants to stay with his mother and younger sister, but when they are loaded onto trucks, she insists Max escape. His aunt has arranged for him to stay on a farm until the war is over. Joska (Richard Armitage) helps him out by burning his clothes, dressing him in peasant garb and hat, and giving him a new name and history: if you want to survive, he says, you must totally change your identity. But following a near-death experience when the police come knocking at his door looking for hidden Jews, Joska decides it’s too dangerous to keep him there any longer. He finds him a cave in the forest to hide in, and gives him lifesaving advice: where he can find running water, which mushrooms or berries are safe to eat, and how to snare a rabbit and light a fire.
Max has no possessions except the knife Joska gave him and a 
white feather he finds. After many close calls, he meets an even younger boy, Yanek (David Kohlsmith), who has lost his family. Now Max has someone else to look out for. Together they try to fight the elements and escape their many potential enemies. But how long can two children survive alone in the woods?
The Boy in the Woods is a moving dramatization based on the memoirs of Canadian artist and writer Maxwell Smart. It’s similar to Jerzy Kosinski’s The Painted Bird. I found it quite touching in parts; it’s a holocaust movie but with a different look — none of the expected ghettos or concentrations camps. It’s also a Canadian film, so, to me, the woods themselves — the trees and plants and streams — feel nice and familiar, not scary and alienating, despite the harrowing episodes he experiences there. I also don’t understand why everyone speaks English but put on heavy, generic European accents. But these are quibbles. In general I thought it works well as a gripping personal history about a 12-year-old kid trying to survive in wartime.
Blackwater Lane
Dir: Jeff Celentano
Cass (Minka Kelly) is a strikingly beautiful young woman who teaches theatre arts at a posh English private school. She likes G&Ts and tarot cards. She lives in an isolated but beautiful manor house — surrounded by a lush forest, a verdant pond and tall hedges — with her husband Matthew (Dermot Mulroney), a business executive. When there are problems with her home life, she can always turn to her best friend and confidant, Rachel (Maggie Grace). They’ve known each other since they were kids. And she enjoys flirting with the seductive John (Alan Calton), a fellow teacher at her school. But her peaceful life is disrupted when she sees a woman in a car on Blackwater Lane in a thunderstorm. Turns out the woman is dead, and her murderer — possibly a serial killer — is still on the loose. That’s when strange things start happening to her. Edward, (Judah Cousin) a student who seems to have a crush on her, keeps showing up unexpectedly. A sketchy builder knocks on her door saying she asked him to repair the alarm system — which she has no memory of. She starts hearing strange creaks and knocks all around the house, and strange shadows appear just out of sight calling her name. An inquisitive police detective (Natalie Simpson) comes around when she calls, but sees nothing. And her husband keeps reminding Cass of her frequent memory loss, and wild imagination, as he calls it. But when dead birds, a fox and a blood soaked knife keep appearing and disappearing, she realized something is going wrong. Is she encountering ghosts in the old haunted house? Is the serial killer out to get her? Is 
he someone she knowns? And is she being gaslit by a stranger, or losing her mind?
Blackwater Lane is a psychological thriller, about a woman who can’t convince anyone else that her life is threatened. It’s loaded with classic suspense and mystery — almost gothic in story, but not in style. It’s based on a bestselling novel by B.A. Paris. Thing is, it has a movie-of-the-week feeling to it, good but not great, loaded with many clichés. The acting varies from OK to mediocre, and there are way too many scenes that end with slow fades. And the ending is a messy attempt to try to tie up all the loose ends. Even so, I always find it fun to watch this kind of psychological thriller late at night.
Bikeriders
Wri/Dir: Jeff Nichols
Kathy (Jodie Comer) is a working-class woman in the mid 1960s.She lives in the midwest near Chicago. One day she wanders into a tough local bar and is smitten by a young guy playing pool. Benny (Austin Butler) is the sort of bad boy she knows to stay away from. But when a tough, fatherly figure, Johnny (Tom Hardy) tells her she should feel safe, they’re just a bunch of guys in a motorcycle club, she lets her guard down a bit. Benny takes her for a ride on his hog, heads out on the highway… and they fall in love. Eventually Benny moves in with her and they start a normal happy life. Thing is, Benny is not the kind of guy who likes to be tied down — he’s a free spirit, never happier than when he’s on the road with his buds. He’s also a firecracker, and neither the threat of violence or jail will calm him down. 
Johnny, the leader of the Vandals, doesn’t look for trouble. But if anyone challenges his leadership, he’s always ready for a fight — fists or knives, your choice. But as the years go by, Kathy tells Benny he has to choose — keep riding with Johnny and the boys, or stay with her and their baby. But with teenagers who don’t know the rules trying to join the gang, its hierarchy starts to crumble. Which way will Benny turn?
The Bikeriders is an historical drama about the rise and file of the Vandals motorcycle club. Though it concentrates on those three characters — all very well acted — it’s really an ensemble piece with a dozen other characters: Zipco (Michael Shannon), Wahoo (Beau Knapp), Cockroach (Emory Cohen), Funny Sonny (Norman Reedus), Corky (Karl Glusman), The Kid (Toby Wallace) — each with their on quirks and personalities. It’s based on a famous collection of pics of motorcycle gangs in the 60s and 70s taken by photographer Danny Lyons. Naturally, the cinematography is of top quality, as are the clothes, hair, tats, and music. What it doesn’t have is much of a plot, just a series of linked vignettes. Instead, for reasons unknown, they bring the photographer (Mike Faist) into the story, thus alienating the viewers by keeping us at arms length from the characters. The thing is, Jeff Nichols is not just good, he’s a great director. And he redeems himself in the last third, where there are some really powerful scenes. With great acting and a huge talented cast — though far from perfect, the Bikeriders is a good movie to watch.
The Bikeriders and The Boy in the Woods both open this weekend in Toronto; check your local listings. And Blackwater Lane also opens, both theatrically and VOD.
This is Daniel Garber at the Movies, each Saturday morning on CIUT 89.5 FM and on my website culturalmining.com.
Canadian sex and violence. Films Reviewed: Hollow in the Land, Birdland, Badsville PLUS Film Stars Don’t Die in Liverpool
Hi, this is Daniel Garber at the Movies for culturalmining.com and CIUT 89.5 FM.
Who said Canada is “nice but dull”? I’ve got three new indie Canadian movies this week, chock full of sex and violence. There’s torrid sex among the towers of Toronto, a bludgeoned body in the mountains of BC, and a gang war in the steamy southwest. …plus a UK romance set in Liverpool.
Film Stars Don’t Die in Liverpool
Dir: Paul McGuigan
It’s 1980 in Liverpool. Peter (Jamie Bell) is an aspiring actor who gets a surprise call from an older actress. She’s in the UK performing on stage in The Glass Menagerie and wonders if she can come by. Gloria Graham (Annette Bening) is a former movie star who won an Oscar in the 1950s. She talks like Marilyn Monroe and looks like Gloria Swanson. She was once known for “playing the tart” 
in Hollywood dramas. Now she wears large sunglasses and silk scarves over her hair.
Peter is surprised to hear from her again. He met her a year ago at a London rooming house which led to a torrid affair spanning two continents. He visited her at her beach house in California and followed her to New York. But she dumped him unceremoniously at her Manhattan apartment and he never understood why. And now she’s back again 
asking to stay with him in his working class home with his dowdy mother Bella (Julie Walters). Is it because film stars don’t die in Liverpool?
Film Stars Don’t Die in Liverpool is a wonderful romance based on Peter Turner’s memoirs about his encounters with a once famous actress twice his age. Bening is 
perfect as an over-the-hill diva who still sees herself as a Shakespearean teenaged Juliet while rejecting aging and her own mortality. And Bell is endearing as the starstruck Peter.
The story is straightforward but the director experiments with style. Peter has flashbacks while walking through a door signalled by a subtle change in lighting and music. And surprising results come from identical scenes which are shown twice but with very different points of view.
Definitely worth seeing.
Hollow in the Land
Wri/Dir: Scooter Corkle
It’s nowadays in the BC interior, a land of mountains, pulp mills and grow-ops. Ally (Dianna Agron) is a pretty but tough woman in her twenties, blonde hair beneath her hardhat. By day, she works at the town pulp mill, and at night looks after her 17-year-old brother Brandon (Jared Abrahamson). And every so often she spends the night with her lover Char (Rachelle Lefevre). Ally may be Brandon’s sister but she acts like his mother, warning him to stay out of trouble with the cops – or they’ll throw him in jail, just like their dad. He’s in prison for running down a teenager while drunk. And the kid he killed happenis to be the son of the family that owns the pulp mill. Which is very bad news in a company town.
The two cops – friendly Darryll (Shawn Ashmore) and hard-ass Chief (Michael Rogers) –
never let them forget it. So when a dead body turns up, and Brandon is the chief suspect, only Ally believes in her brother. It’s up to her to play detective, follow the clues, uncover the motive, track down the killer and find her brother who ran away into he woods. And she has to do all this before the killer kills her.
Hollow in the Land is a pretty good detective mystery/thriller, but with a few problems. I get that it’s noir so most of the scenes are at night, but you’d think they’d light up people’s faces properly so you can see who’s who. But the BC locations are amazing. The movie starts out very confusing, with dozens of characters and a foggy plot, but as it develops, it gets much more interesting. And Diana Agron is great as Ally – tough but tender — who carries it through to a satisfying end.
Birdland
Dir: Peter Lynch
It’s present-day Toronto. Shiela (Kathleen Munroe) is a tough as nails former cop with her own security firm. She’s a whiz with surveillance cameras and disguises. Her mild-mannered husband Tom (David Alpay) works at a museum cataloguing bird carcasses. But when she discovers he’s having an affair with a mysterious woman in a blue kimono, she decided to investigate. But when the affair leads to murder she realizes 
it’s all much bigger than she suspects. And someone is trying to cover it up. There’s an oil magnate pulling strings, a protester, a femme fatale, a nightclub entrepreneur, and a cop — her ex-partner — investigating the crime. And they all seem to share the same hobby — 
BDSM sex parties. Who is the killer? Who is having sex with whom? And who’s behind the conspiracy?
Birdland is full of politics, Big Oil, the police, museums, nightclubs, detectives, and kinky sex. And everything is projected against a fabricated bird metaphor: there’s a man named Starling, an ornithologist, a nightclub with a bird concept, characters who sing Lullaby in Birdland, a bird rescue team… But what’s the point? The “bird” themes don’t come from the characters, it’s superimposed on them. There are some cool concepts and images in Birdland, but it just doesn’t work. I was never sure if I was watching a messy story to justify the not-so-sexy, softcore porn, or if the sex was there to justify an extremely confusing plot. It might work as a miniseries but it packs in too much stuff for a single movie.
Badsville
Dir: April Mullen (Written by Benjamin Barrett and Ian McLaren)
It’s a dead-end town in the southwest in the 1950s (or 60s?). Wink and Benny (Ian McLaren and Benjamin Barrett) are lifelong friends and members of the Kings, a local gang. Wink works in a greasy spoon and hangs with his buddies in the seedy bar or bowling alley. He serves as a mentor for Lil’ Cat (Gregory Kasyan), a local kid with a junkie for a mom. Wink wants him to “stay gold”. The Kings are mainly Latino while their rivals, the Aces, are white. They regularly meet to 
rumble, meaning big fistfights supplemented with metal pipes and pieces of wood, all lit up by blazing oil drums.
Sounds like fun.
But when he falls for Suzy (Tamara Duarte) a newcomer with a secret past, it looks like things are going to change. Wink might finally achieve his dream – escaping Badsville for a better life in Colorado. And this is what pushes Benny over the edge. He loves Daddio – that’s what he calls Wink – and not just as a friend. So he sets in 
motion a series of events that he hopes will stop Wink from leaving, but that end up putting all their lives in jeopardy.
Badsville is a new take on classic exploitation gang movies and SE Hinton novels. We’re talking Jets and Sharks here, not Crips and Bloods. And they’re not in high school either, they’re much older. The film looks at masculinity and friendship with a bit of racial politics in the mix. Directed by April Mullen, it’s a first effort by the two non-actors who play Benny and Wink, and also wrote the script. It’s low budget and not perfect – but it works.
Film Stars Don’t Die in Liverpool, Hollow in the Land, Birdland and Badsville all start today in Toronto; check your local listings.
This is Daniel Garber at the Movies, each Friday morning, on CIUT 89.5 FM and on my website, culturalmining.com.
Names. Films reviewed: Beeba Boys, Meet the Patels, The Last Saint
Hi, this is Daniel Garber at the Movies for culturalmining.com and CIUT 89.5 FM.
The imagineNATIVE Film + Media Arts Festival is on right now, with over a hundred works by indigenous artists and filmmakers. Where else could you enjoy tea ‘n’ bannock while checking out virtual reality and video games by First Nations artists? Go to imaginenative.org for info, or, better yet, drop by the TIFF Bell Lightbox to see it in person. Experience indigenous culture and be sure to remember the names of these artists filmmakers.
Names are important, so this week I’m looking at some movies about names and families. There’s a documentary about a man named Patel, a crime drama about a gangster called Jeet, and a coming-of age drama about a Polynesian-Kiwi named Minka.
Beeba Boys
Dir: Deepa Mehta
Jeet (Randeep Hooda) is a charismatic criminal from Vancouver. He lives with his gossipy Mamaji and woebegone Papaji but makes a living trafficking drugs and guns. His underlings dress in garishly-coloured suits, as he carries out his business in a flashy nightclub. And he spends his spare time with Katya (Sarah Allen) 
an old-skool gangster’s moll he keeps locked away in a luxury condo.
The movie starts with a bang, involving a dead groom and a parking lot shooting. But his rise in power is challenged by a more powerful Sikh gang headed by a man named Grewal. Jeet is sent to a local jail where he meets a petty gangster named Nep (Ali Momen) just in from Toronto. And he wants to join Jeet’s crew. But 
he has a secret: he’s dating Grewal’s pretty daughter even as he makes his name with the Beeba Boys. Which kingpin will triumph – the upstart Jeet or the powerful Grewal? And where does Nep’s loyalty really lie?
Beeba Boys is a stylized gangster pic typical in every way except for its players – all Desi Canadians – and its locale, Vancouver. Except for a few scenes, it lacks humour (despite a character who insists on telling bad jokes). And the women are all hanger-onners, surprising for a film from a female director. This is a guy’s gangster movie. But the action is good, with plenty of gratuitous violence. It holds your attention, and there are even a few truly surprising plot twist. And the acting is mainly good, including a surprising appearance by Paul Gross as a bad guy. If you’re in the mood for an all-Canadian Sikh gangster pic, this one’s for you.
Meet the Patels
Dir: Geeta Patel, Ravi Patel
Ravi Patel is 29 and single. He’s not a doctor, but he’s played one on TV (He’s an actor working in LA). His childhood sweetheart recently dumped him for his fear of commitment. And he foresees a rootless future if he doesn’t do something soon. So he agrees to give in to his parent’s advice and find an Indian woman to marry. Soon he’s plunged into a visit to 
Gujarat and a lesson in his heritage.
The Patel’s are more than just a common last name and a lot of motel owners. It’s a gujarati-speaking caste, not a family, per se. And it has an amazing networks of connections in North America with a registry of singles spanning the globe. Their “bio-data” includes their shade of skin (“wheat-coloured” women — whatever that means — are, apparently, considered more desireable), their education, family 
background and ancestry.
Followed by his sister Geeta behind the camera, Ravi begins an amazing series of blind dates, speed dates, and online match-ups. But will he ever find love among the Patels?
Meet the Patels has some cool animated sequences, and it told me a lot I didn’t know about a hidden world in North America. But it gets bogged down by endless family discussions and Ravi’s confessions that felt too much like a reality TV show. It’s not the comedy it’s advertised as, but more of an intimate portrait of an insecure, single man.
The Last Saint
Dir: Rene Naufahu
Minka (Beulah Koale) is a young Polynesian guy who lives with his mum Lia in Aukland, N.Z. He enjoys spinning disks and hanging with his only friend, a nihilistic girl named Xi (Like the Warrior Princess, she says).
Lia (Joy Vaele) is a recovering addict, given to terrifying bouts of insane violence involving sharp knives. Minka pleads with social services to help take care of her but they turn him down. So he’s forced to look elsewhere for money. In walks a shady-looking man in black (Calvin 
Tuteao) who offers him a job at his nightclub. It’s a seedy joint but he does his work. He refuses his boss’s offers of drugs, alcohol or prostitutes, and shuns all violence.
His boss is impressed and reveals his connection to Minka and his mum: he’s his missing father! Still, he sends him out on a dangerous mission to make a delivery in the middle of the night. Minka encounters a musclebound, tattooed Polynesian dealer named Pinball (Joseph Naufahu). In the midst of 
‘roid rage Pinball demands to know Minka’s “real name” and threatens to kill him.
Later, he encounters a gang of intimidating, torturing Tongans and other unexpected strangers. Can he survive the night? And will his family ties save him or drag him deeper into a life of crime.
The Last Saint is an excellent coming-of-age look at a good guy driven to crime. The acting is great, with nearly every portrayal compelling, especially Koale.
Beeba Boys and Meet the Patels both open today in Toronto. Check your local listings. The Last Saint screens tonight as part of ImagineNative.
This is Daniel Garber at the Movies, each Friday morning, on CIUT 89.5 FM and on my website, culturalmining.com.
Oscar Redux. Movies reviewed: Girlhood, Duke of Burgundy, Elephant Song
Do you have the post-Oscar blues? Tired of the same-old, same-old? We’ve got Boyhood, but what about Girlhood? There’s Birdman, but how about an Elephant Song? And how about 50 Shades of Gray… with an all-female cast? This week I’m looking at three new movies, that provide a twist to some you’re more familiar with. I have a coming of age movie from France, an erotic art-house flick from the UK and a psychological drama from Canada.
Elephant Song
Dir: Charles Binamé
It’s a Canadian mental hospital in the 1960s. Michael (Xavier Dolan) a patient there is summoned to a therapy session. but his regular doctor isn’t there — he’s missing. In his place is a new face, a certain Dr Green (Bruce Greenwood). He’s read the files and listened to the reel to reel tapes. Now he’s there to set things straight, and has no time for 
psychological games. But games are exactly what Michael loves.
Dr Green is a greenhorn in that office, but Michael knows every nook and cranny. He decides to take the doctor (and the movie’s audience) on a grand tour of his own life, but on his own 
terms. And just outside the office door, always listening, is Miss Peterson, a nurse (Catherine Keener). He reveals his hidden past – he says he’s the son of a famous opera singer who toured the world as a child. Even as he uncovers hidden treasures around the office, which fit together like the missing pieces from a jigsaw puzzle. These include a stuffed animal, a box of treats, and some hidden photographs – that may be related to the doctor’s disappearance.
Dr Green is convinced everything Michael says is a lie. He thinks Michael has alterior motives — possibly an escape plan to escape the high security facility. But what about the doctor’s real reason for this question/answer session? And how does Nurse Peterson fit into this puzzle?
Elephant Song is not bad at all. It’s a genuine psychological drama, a chess game between two equal players — sort of like the movie Sleuth, but shot with a soft focus lens. The acting is credible. But the whole film has a slightly clunky, wooden feel to it. It’s like a stage play still in previews that hasn’t yet found its rhythm.
Girlhood (Bande de Filles)
Wri/Dir: Céline Sciamma
Marieme (Karidja Touré) is a 15-year-old Parisian schoolgirl. She’s shy, neat and conscientious, making sure her younger sisters are fed and put to bed… and careful not to antagonize her abusive older brother. She likes school, and is on the girls’ tackle football team. She keeps her long braids tied back and wears American Apparel jeans and hoodies. She just wants to live a normal life. But everything changes when her guidance counsellor says she’s being channeled to the vocational stream. But why? She wants her bac, she wants a chance at a better life, not cleaning 
offices like her mom.
It’s like her life is over. Mortified, she runs out of the building, but is called over by some tough girls cutting class outside the school. Lady, Adiatou and Fily (Assa Sylla, Lindsey Karamoh, Marietou Touré) are not like her. They use lots of makeup, have their hair ironed straight, dress in leather jackets, and carry switch blades. They’re a gang of three and want a fourth member to complete their crew. But she’s not like them… is she?
Soon enough she’s shaking down girls for cash, going on trips into the city, away from the desolate banlieus. She goes by the name Vic now, short for Victoire. And they get into fist fights with rival girl gangs. The losers are publicly shamed by getting their clothes pulled off in from of a crowd holding up their cameras. The four friends’ rules? Stand up for yourself, don’t let boys push you around, and only do what you want to do, not what others expect of you. But how much of a future does this gang have? Will she fall into organized crime? Drugs or the sex trade?
This is a great coming-of-age story, told from the viewpoint of a young black Parisian woman living in the suburban public highrises. It’s a slice of life drama, not one with easily solved problems. But the cast – all first time actors — is incredible, and the story touching and realistic.
The Duke of Burgundy
Wri/Dir: Peter Strickland
Cynthia (Sidse Babett Knudsen) is a single woman who lives on an estate somewhere in Europe, surrounded by fields and trees. She has auburn hair, long eyelashes and a severe demeanor. She’s a lepidopterist, and her mansion is filled with items from her collection: thousands of butterflies and moths – including the Duke of Burgundy – all carefully pinned and mounted 
in glass-covered wooden cases. She’s a perfectionist. Each day she spends her time drawing precise diagrams on white charts and typing her observations using a manual Underwood typewriter. And every so often she ventures outside on her bicycle to give lectures to row after row of smart looking women in smart dresses.
Evelyn (Chiara D’Anna) works for her as a maid. She’s late for work and a bit confused about her duties, but Cynthia doesn’t cut her any slack. She scolds her, and warns her to do what she’s told… or suffer the consequences!
But she’s given strange tasks for a cleaning woman, made to crawl around on her hands and knees, while scrubbing the floor. When she asks for a toilet break, Cynthia cruely says no, not until I say you can. Meanwhile she’s polishing Cynthia’s knee-high black leather boots, kneeling on the floor massaging her feet or washing her 
boss’s undergarments… by hand. Though Evelyn always wears a meek and baffled look on her face, she doesn’t seem bothered by her boss’s eccentricities. She almost seems to want to be punished.
What’s going on? And why is Cynthia guzzling glass after glass of water for some unkown future punishment? Soon we discover its all a fantasy — complete with wigs and costumes — a role-playing exercise between two lovers: dominant Cynthia and submissive Evelyn.
And these scenes, down to the tiniest detail are repeated day after day, as almost an exercise in absurdity. These episodes are alternated with love-making in the bedroom at night, discretely shot reflected in convex mirrors, faded triple exposures or shot through tiny peepholes in closed doors.
Is this a parody of 70s soft core porn? Or an homage to it? I’m not sure which, but a director like Peter Strickland would never include footage just for titillation. He’s somewhere between Quentin Tarantino and Peter Greenaway, with a distinctive 70s style. Duke of Burgundy is beautiful to watch and listen to… but it’s clearly not for everyone.
Elephant Song, the Duke of Burgandy, and Girlhood all open today in Toronto – check your local listings. And this weekend lookout for the Canadian Screen Awards, our own Oscars.
This is Daniel Garber at the Movies each Friday morning on CIUT 89.5 FM and on my website culturalmining.com.
Daniel Garber talks with Sono Sion and Young Dais about Tokyo Tribe at TIFF14
Hi, this is Daniel Garber at the Movies for culturalmining.com and CIUT 89.5 FM.
Imagine a dystopian future, where Tokyo is divided up into neighbourhoods ruled by rival gangs, that jealously guard their borders. Follow the train up the east side of the city and you’ll hit places like Shibuya, Shinjuku and Ikebukuro, and further out Musashino and Nerima.
Musashino is peace and love; the character Kai just wants to hang with his bros at the local Denny’s (aka Penny’s). But ‘Bukuro is a land of brothels, gangsters, kidnappers and cannibals. Nera, a ‘Bukuro blonde muscleman has it in for Kai. Will this lead to all out war between the Tokyo Tribes?
Tokyo Tribe is the name of a new movie based on the manga by Inoue Santa. It’s a fantastical epic shot as a hip-hop musical, full of crowds, choreographed fights, a constant beat and more flashing lights than a pachinko parlour. It’s directed by Sono Sion, known for Guilty of Romance, Cold Fish, and Why Don’t You Play in Hell?. He’s always testing the limits of what can be shown in a film… and then 
going beyond that limitation. The movie stars Young Dais, well-known Japanese rapper, doing double-duty as a movie star. It opened at The Toronto International Film Festival (TIFF14), as part of Midnight Madness. I spoke with director Sono Sion and rapper Young Dais at the Royal York Hotel.
culturalmining.com 
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