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Sam Lee (Wei Tung) was once a revered stunt choreographer in Hong Kong action films; after a tragic accident on set, he leaves the profession and works as a physical therapist for 20 years. When his old friend, the director Cho (Yin-Gor To), asks him to return for Cho's final movie, he at first demurs, but when he learns that Wai (Philip Ng), now a superstar who got his start with Sam, is involved, Sam agrees. He brings in young Long (Chun-Him Lao) as his stunt coordinator, but finds that the profession has changed a lot: known for his insistence on perfection ahead of safety, he now keeps finding his instincts restrained by what he considers weakness. Can Sam really fit in with the new system of filming in Hong Kong, or is this last chance truly his swan song?

It's always interesting to see a movie about making movies, and this one is no exception. The stunts are stunning, of course, but even more so when you see how the stuntmen go about achieving the filmed effects. The film looks very good, and also very scrappy, but it is the performances that stand out the most. For example, Wei Tung's Sam is in some ways quite a sad man, but in others very much a jerk, and the viewer can see that, really, he deserves all the broken relationships he endures, whereas his young protege Long (played by Chun-Him Lao) gets a close-up look at his childhood idol's feet of clay. Recommended.

Four friends have helped someone move, and Tyler (Mitchell Cole) offers to drive the other three - Day (Akira Jackson), Fisher (Noah Toth) and James (Phinehas Yoon) - to wherever they need to go, but somehow they miss a turn and find themselves stuck on a road that never seems to end. They can tell that time passes, as the sun rises and sets, night falls and morning comes, but they don't seem to feel sleepy, or hungry, or much of anything really. All they can do is to keep driving, as they try to figure out what is going on....

This sounds like a simple premise, and perhaps an obvious one: the friends are Gen Z, they've just finished college and are starting out for the "real" world (although Tyler is already there), and of course, what's the endless road ahead of them but the future? But this movie is so much more than that - the dialogue is both funny, poignant and very realistic, the relationships between these young people are completely believable, the hypotheses that they consider and discard and consider again are all things you would hope for in this type of scenario. The actors are all terrific here, and the very enclosed set (a road, a vehicle, some trees) is used to great effect. In the end, the story speaks to every generation, and it is up to each viewer to decide how to parse the film, but I found it utterly wonderful. Probably my favorite film of the year; highly recommended!

Sun-kyung has a strange encounter with a man who is giving away a vacuum cleaner; she brings him some strawberries as a thank-you, but he insists that he cannot eat them because his mother had been given a drink by a stranger and died, because the drink was laced with cyanide. As Sun-kyung is getting a little nervous, an old school friend passes by and sends the strange young man packing, but that friend that very evening dies by apparent suicide - he drank a drink laced with cyanide. Can Sun-kyung help the police with the case, or will they dismiss her as the neighbourhood psycho? And what is up with the strange young man, is he really possibly a murderer?

I found this to be a very confusing film indeed. I was never clear about whether Sun-kyung is crazy (although various people in her orbit seem to die mysteriously), whether the young man's story about his mother is true, and then there's a co-worker of the young man and acquaintance of Sun-kyung, who apparently spends all his free time promoting conspiracy theories online, including that the young man is a murderer. Also, there are a few scenes using the hand-held camera technique that results in a very jumpy visual effect which can be distracting (and worse) for some viewers. It's all very stylish and atmospheric, but what it is all about is totally opaque to me. I just don't get it.