Film Picks: Singapore International Film Festival

John Lui Film Correspondent recommends

Jailbreak PHOTO: SINGAPORE INTERNATIONAL FILM FESTIVAL
Ilana PHOTO: SINGAPORE INTERNATIONAL FILM FESTIVAL
The Odyssey PHOTO: FRENCH FILM FESTIVAL
Blade Runner 2049 PHOTO: THE PROJECTOR

SINGAPORE INTERNATIONAL FILM FESTIVAL

Jailbreak (NC16, 92 minutes, screens on Nov 25 at 11.55pm) is a lean martial-arts extravaganza from Cambodia in the style of The Raid (2011).

Closeness (R21, 118 minutes, screens on Nov 28 at 9.30pm) is a character study of Ilana (Darya Zhovner, in blue), a young woman with a will too strong for members of her close-knit Jewish community in North Caucasus. This Russian-language production picked up the Fipresci Prize at the Cannes Film Festival this year.

In the drama-comedy of cultural confusion Oh Lucy! (M18, 95 minutes, screens on Nov 30 at 8pm), an English teacher (Josh Hartnett) in Tokyo becomes an object of fascination for jaded woman Setsuko (Shinobu Terajima).

Updates to the festival: Joe Lynch, director of Mayhem, will no longer be attending the festival; Terajima, the female lead of Oh Lucy!, will be speaking at an In Conversation panel on Nov 30.

WHERE: Various locations WHEN: Next Thursday to Dec 3 ADMISSION: Tickets for opening film Angels Wear White at $25; Special Presentation films The White Girl, The Song Of Scorpions and Oh Lucy! at $15; all other films at $12 TEL: 6348-5555 INFO: For schedule and bookings, go to sgiff.com; tickets are also available at Sistic outlets (go to www.sistic.com.sg)


FRENCH FILM FESTIVAL

People of a certain age will remember Jacques Cousteau's marine documentaries, but where did he come from?

The biopic The Odyssey (PG, 103 minutes) stars Christopher Lambert as Cousteau and Audrey Tautou as his wife, Simone. The film picks up from his life in 1948, when the explorer is on the verge of inventing the aqualung.

WHERE/MRT: Shaw Theatres Lido, 350 Orchard Road (Orchard); Alliance Francaise, 1 Sarkies Road (Newton) and The Projector, 6001 Beach Road (Nicoll Highway) WHEN: Till Nov 19 ADMISSION: $13 INFO: www.frenchfilmfestival.sg


BLADE RUNNER 2049 (NC16)

164 minutes/ 4 stars

This sequel to the 1982 science-fiction classic is more like a rebrand than a new product.

But for all that, this is still top-notch entertainment. Three decades after the events of Blade Runner (1982), replicants - bioengineered humans - now number in the millions and are the slave class.

"K" (Ryan Gosling) is a blade runner, an agent who hunts and kills runaway replicants, in spite of how he is himself a replicant.

While pursuing a case, K learns a fact that could destroy the delicate human-replicant power balance.

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A version of this article appeared in the print edition of The Straits Times on November 17, 2017, with the headline Film Picks: Singapore International Film Festival. Subscribe