Sunday 26 July 2020

The Current Cinema - Asian film specialist John Snadden recommends two films PENINSULA (Yang Jin-mo, South Korea, 2020) and NEOMANILA (Mikhail Red, Phillipines, 2017

Two films which won't be screening at the 2020 Melb International Faux Film Festival are PENINSULA (2020) and NEOMANILA (2017). 

The former title is a sequel to the hugely entertaining 2016 South Korean zombie flick, Train to Busan. On its home ground opening last week, Peninsula is already a box-office hit. Pandemic allowing, an Asia-wide release is set for coming weeks, except mainland China where the CCP regularly ban horror movies - esp those of the zombie persuasion. It looks likely to begin a local season from mid-August (at least for people living outside Victoria).

Neomanila  is from Filipino genre director Mikhail Red who is a talent to definitely keep an eye on. His 2017 crime thriller is a timely tale set in the Manila slums where politicians are paying low level street criminals to murder known drug dealers. Most of the filming taking place on locations which are unflinchingly shown as fetid and near unliveable. The story's main action takes place at night in an underworld of uninhibited sexual deviancy and Darwinian-like gangland brutality. 

There's a plot twist in the final minutes which will leave your head spinning - and remain in your mind for days after. 

Neomanila  is streaming on Youtube  on a free download in a very nice HD transfer.

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