John Lui Film Correspondent & Boon Chan Media Correspondent recommend

Film Picks

The Big Boss . PHOTO: CATHAY CINEPLEXES, GOLDEN VILLAGE, NETFLIX
Daan Lennard Liebrenz. PHOTO: CATHAY CINEPLEXES, GOLDEN VILLAGE, NETFLIX
Cannes Film Festival, Shoplifters. PHOTO: CATHAY CINEPLEXES, GOLDEN VILLAGE, NETFLIX

BRUCE LEE RETROSPECTIVE

Five of the martial arts master's well-known films - The Big Boss (1971), The Way Of The Dragon (1972), Fist Of Fury (1972), Enter The Dragon (1973) and Game Of Death (1973) - have been brought by Cathay Cineplexes back to the big screen, in remastered formats and with original, undubbed dialogue.

Bruce-mania gripped the world from the early 1970s and lasted well after his death in 1973. His work spawned an industry in martial-arts movies in Hong Kong that has lasted to this day, paving the way for a new generation of gongfu stars.

WHERE: Cathay Cineplex AMK Hub, Level 4 AMK Hub, 53 Ang Mo Kio Avenue 3 and Cathay Cineplex West MallLevel 5 West Mall, 1 Bukit Batok Central Link, MRT: Ang Mo Kio/Bukit Batok WHEN: Aug 12 to 16, various times ADMISSION: $7 standard, $4 for seniors. Tickets on sale from today INFO: www.cathaycineplexes. com.sg/movies

John Lui


DARK

Now showing on Netflix/5 stars

A group of teenage friends, including Jonas (Louis Hofmann), Magnus (Moritz Jahn) and Martha (Lisa Vicari), head into the woods one night. Magnus and Martha's younger brother, Mikkel (Daan Lennard Liebrenz), tags along but later vanishes into thin air.

The pacing is pretty slow at first, but it soon becomes clear there are plenty of secrets and lies in the small town of Winden, home to a nuclear plant and where everyone seems to know everyone else. Stick with it for a while and soon you will find it hard to stop at one episode as your eagerness for answers grows.

It is the first German-language Netflix original series, with the first season debuting in December 2017 and Season 2 released in June - proof that the streaming giant beefing up its slate of non-English content can pay off handsomely.

Boon Chan


SHOPLIFTERS (M18)

121 minutes/5 stars

Winner of the Palme d'Or at last year's Cannes Film Festival, Shoplifters tells the story of a rag-tag band of misfits who call themselves a family.

There is enough warmth, joy and sadness in this movie to fill three ordinary films. If Dickens lived in Japan today, he might have penned this story of the Fagin-like Osamu (Lily Franky), a thief with a weakness for giving space in his home to people with no place to go. This cheeky multi-generational bunch has created an oasis in a city with no space for the losers.

Writer-director Hirokazu Kore-eda lives for tiny, poignant moments of humanity - a parent teasing a child, older people looking at fireworks in the sky, wistfully talking about the time they used to be part of something larger, but which now seems like a lifetime ago.

WHERE: The Projector, Level 5 Golden Mile Tower, 6001 Beach Road MRT: Nicoll Highway WHEN: Sunday, 2.20pm ADMISSION: $13.50 INFO: www.theprojector.sg

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A version of this article appeared in the print edition of The Straits Times on August 02, 2019, with the headline Film Picks. Subscribe