PRINCESS MONONOKE (PG)
134 minutes/Streaming on Netflix/4 stars
This story of human greed taking a toll on nature became Japan's highest-grossing film when it was released in 1997, before its crown was taken by another Studio Ghibli work, Spirited Away (2001).
Set in mediaeval Japan, a time of forest demons and cursed villages, young prince Ashitaka is on a quest to heal himself from a wound received from an angry boar god.
Along the way, he finds a land wrecked by iron mining and vengeful spirits seeking to cleanse the land of human industry.
This ambitious work of fantasy was the first work of animation to win the Japan Academy Prize and the nation's entry for the Academy Award for Best Foreign Language Film.
It was recently released on Netflix as part of a package that includes other Studio Ghibli works.
THE CABIN IN THE WOODS (M18)
95 minutes/Streaming on Netflix/4 stars
This 2011 work defies categorisation. It opens like a low-budget slasher movie before expanding into the land of supernatural horror and science fiction.
A group of youth (from left, Fran Kranz, Chris Hemsworth and Anna Hutchison) travel to a secluded cabin only to find horrors, both ancient and new, awaiting them.
The film is the directing debut of Drew Goddard, who would go on to adapt the screenplay for the science-fiction adventure, The Martian (2015), for which he would earn an Oscar nomination.
EXTREME JOB (NC16)
111 minutes/Showing on HBO Go, airs on HBO Signature on April 17, 4.20pm
This comedy, starring Ryu Seung-ryong (above), shot to the top of the South Korean box office after its release last year and is the country's second-highest-grossing domestic film of all time, after the 2014 period epic, The Admiral: Roaring Currents. An American remake is planned.
A group of bungling narcotics cops have a final make-or-break assignment: Monitor a narcotics gang who hang out at a failing fried chicken restaurant.
But with the owner ready to close the place for good, the cops are forced to take over the business, pretending to be staff, so they can maintain surveillance.
Chaos ensues when their chicken recipe attracts droves of customers.
