Category: Features

November 24, 2021 · 0 comments

By Andrew Osmond. In Penguindrum, a dorky penguin hat – that’s a hat that looks like a penguin, not one made out of penguins – brings a beautiful girl back to life. This miracle starts an adventure that’s insanely odd even by the standards of anime. The girl is Himari Takakura, the angelic sister of […]

November 21, 2021 · 0 comments

By Jonathan Clements. Despite the title, which immediately and perhaps unjustly evokes Jasper Sharp’s magisterial Behind the Pink Curtain, Norman England’s Behind the Kaiju Curtain: A Journey onto Japan’s Biggest Film Sets is not an exhaustive account of an entire genre. Instead, it is a very personal snapshot of one man’s interaction with the Japanese […]

November 18, 2021 · 0 comments

by Jeremy Clarke. Angels tell people the date and time of their death, then demons come and cart people off to Hell, generating a circus of fundamentalist, religious activity. The new six-part Netflix series Hellbound (2021) from South Korea’s Yeon Sang-ho, creator of zombie outings Seoul Station (2016) and Train to Busan (2016), began life […]

November 15, 2021 · 0 comments

By Andrew Osmond. Fans of Perfect Blue are recommended to catch a new animated psycho-drama feature, Climbing, that is screening on 18th November as part of the London Korean Film Festival. Like Perfect Blue, Climbing is about a young woman for whom reality starts to skew. Se-hyeon is a dedicated sports climber, intent on glory… […]

November 11, 2021 · 1 comment

By Andrew Osmond. Anti-Magic Academy: The 35th Test Platoon spends its first moments fooling you into thinking that it’ll be a gritty military drama. There’s a flashforward to a terrible battle. There are ruined city buildings, a wounded youth in a school uniform facing death, and a little witch-girl intoning “Congratulations” with flat menace. And […]