Friyay! What to watch

This year's edition will feature 45 films - from China, Hong Kong, Taiwan, Malaysia and Singapore - which will be screened in cinemas and online.

The event is organised by Singapore Film Society and Centre For Chinese Studies @ Singapore University of Social Sciences.

In Taiwanese documentary The Good Daughter (2019, NC16, 83 minutes, available online at KinoLounge and in-cinema at Oldham Theatre), Long, a disabled man, marries Vietnamese Azha.

Director Wu Yu-ying explores the social pressure on men like Long to find brides and shows what life is like for women like Azha. She marries a foreigner to help her family in Vietnam, but then finds she has to support a family in Taiwan as well.

The work was named Best Film by Taiwan Film Critics Society and Best Documentary at last year's Taipei Film Awards.

WHERE Filmgarde Bugis+, GV Vivocity, GV Suntec City and Oldham Theatre; online screenings at Shaw KinoLounge MRT Bugis/HarbourFront/Esplanade/City Hall WHEN Till May 9 ADMISSION $15 for cinema screenings, $11.50 for online screenings, with discounts for members and bundles INFO www.scff.sg

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REVIEW

This pulse-racing action thriller showcases British film-maker Guy Ritchie at his Guy Ritchie-st.

The maker of movies about bad men who look virtuous because those around them are worse is back with another fist-and-firearms spectacular featuring his favoured tough guy, Jason Statham.

The English actor, as in other Ritchie projects (crime thrillers Lock, Stock And Two Smoking Barrels, 1998, Snatch, 2000 and Revolver, 2005), does most of his acting here with furrowed brows and flying feet.

The movie opens with a mystery. "H" (Statham), as he is nicknamed by his colleagues at a Los Angeles armoured car security company, is a new hire who is foreign to their world, and not just because he comes from across the pond.

His American buddies suspect that the steel-clad four-wheelers are merely vehicles (pun intended) for a deeper mission, one that the tight-lipped limey will not disclose.

Nomadland (M18, 108 minutes) took home three major prizes at the Academy Awards this week - Best Picture, Best Director for Chloe Zhao and Best Actress for Frances McDormand.

It is about a United States ruined by the 2008 financial crisis, causing Fern (McDormand) to remake herself as an itinerant worker. The drama has been screening in cinemas for a while and from today, it will be available on streaming service Disney+.

Soul (PG, 109 minutes), winner of the Best Animated Feature, is also available on Disney+. The musical comedy centres on Joe (voiced by Jamie Foxx), a music teacher whose dreams of being a jazz performer are cut short by a freak accident. In the afterlife, he has to find his life's purpose.

On Netflix, there is My Octopus Teacher (G, 85 minutes), winner of Best Documentary Feature. It tells the story of diver and film-maker Craig Foster and his bond with a curious octopus he meets in the kelp forests off the coast of South Africa.