Film Picks: The Last Dance, Polish Film Showcase, A Touch Of Sin

The Last Dance, Cantonese Extended Version (NC16)

140 minutes, Golden Village VivoCity 

Tickets for the Cantonese screenings of hit Hong Kong movie The Last Dance sold out quickly when it opened here in 2024.  

For a limited period, there will be a Singapore Film Society Special Presentation of the drama, which has earned the title of the highest-grossing Chinese-language film of all time in Hong Kong, with takings of more than US$20.6 million (S$27.7 million). 

Five screenings are available from April 4 to 6 exclusively at Golden Village VivoCity. 

The extended cut of the film adds about 14 minutes of material, which, according to press reports, provides more character development and is closer to director Anselm Chan’s vision. 

The story follows Dominic (Dayo Wong), whose wedding planning business has been sunk by the pandemic. When Taoist priest Master Man (Michael Hui) seeks someone to handle the business side of his funeral rites company, the cash-strapped executive steps in.

Their partnership is fraught with tension, further strained by family dynamics – particularly concerning Master Man’s daughter Yuet (Michelle Wai), who has been denied succession as Master because she is a woman. 

A Mandarin extended version is also available at more cinemas from April 4. 

Polish Film Showcase 2025

Boxing biopic Kulej. All That Glitters Isn’t Gold (2024, M18, 148 minutes, screens at The Projector, Golden Mile Tower, on April 5, 7.30pm) puts the spotlight on Jerzy and Helena Kulej (Tomasz Wlosok and Michalina Olszanska), a power couple in the Polish scene during the 1960s.

Boxer Jerzy comes home a hero following his gold medal triumph at the 1964 Tokyo Olympics. What follows is a colourful account of the morally compromised life of a man given all the benefits of a celebrity, while Helena tries to upgrade their lifestyle, at the same time making sure her husband remains fit enough to compete at the 1968 Mexico Olympics. 

In a review, The Guardian says the film “takes too long to dramatise the dark half” of the boxer’s personality, but the story takes a “sudden rally in the final half hour, and the drama finally starts to put down roots”. 

The screening is part of Polish Film Showcase 2025, which features three films co-presented by the Embassy of the Republic of Poland in Singapore and indie cinema The Projector.

Where: The Projector at Golden Mile Tower, 05-00 Golden Mile Tower, 6001 Beach Road
MRT: Nicoll Highway
When: April 5, 11 and 13, various times
Admission: $16 (standard), $14 (students and full-time national servicemen)
Info:

str.sg/kqbp

A Touch Of Sin (NC16)

133 minutes, screens at Oldham Theatre on April 5

The English title of this 2013 short-film anthology is a play on the wuxia classic A Touch Of Zen (1970), hinting at the Mandarin movie’s influences.

Besides wuxia, this stylishly violent work draws on Chinese opera and pulp cinema to tell four stories based on grisly acts that happened in China, often involving corrupt petty officials and common folk driven to extreme acts. 

In one short story, the itinerant San’er (Wang Baoqiang) returns home to Chongqing for Chinese New Year to be a dutiful father, husband and son. The pistol-toting man’s wife treats him with a degree of suspicion. Her doubts are later confirmed in bloody fashion. 

The film, winner of the Best Screenplay award at the 2013 Cannes Film Festival, is written and directed by Jia Zhangke. The celebrated film-maker is known for stories that critique a society torn apart by economics that enriches a few at the expense of the many. It also won Best Original Score and Best Film Editing at the 2013 Golden Horse Film Festival.

The film is being screened as part of the Asian Film Archive’s 6 Films By Jia Zhangke programme. 

Where: Oldham Theatre, National Archives of Singapore Building, 1 Canning Rise
MRT: City Hall/Bras Basah
When: April 5, 2pm; April 18, 8pm
Admission: $10 (general), $9 (concession)
Info:

str.sg/9axz