极东黑社会

AUNTY当网红

等待方舟

　　Set in an underground dungeon inhabited by bundled, ragged human beings, after the nuclear holocaust. The story follows the wanderings of a hero through the situations of survival. People wait for the Ark to arrive and rescue them while their habitat falls apart.　　Delving deep into the dusty and long abandonded vaults of b-cinema in search of lost gems always leaves me with a bittersweet taste. On one hand the discovery of unexpected gems where no one would think them possible is a rewarding experience. On the other hand though it makes one wonder how many of these remarkable low-budget oddities, personal love affairs of directors never quite famous and now all but forgotten, have almost forever slipped from memory?　　n any case what we have here is a little post-apocalyptic gem from Poland that is really better than it has any right to. The dystopian near future of O-BI, O-BA finds a group of survivors of the nuclear war that ravaged the Earth inhabiting an underworld concrete bunker and biding their time as they wait for the mysterious Ark, an air ship of some kind that will come and save them. The Ark proves to be an elaborate hoax, carefully designed to give hope to the malnourished and desperate denizens of the bunker, while in the meantime the dome that separates their miserable existence from the nuclear winter outside is slowly caving in.　　What first striked me about the movie is the design of the bunker and the depiction of the survivors. The survivors are gaunt, filthy and terrible-looking penitents, dressed in rags and aimlessly wandering the neon-lit halls of the bunker like automatons. The bunker is a rundown, seedy place, with bright neon lights peering from all sides like the eyes of malignant beasts.　　On one hand it is a slightly 80's depiction of the dystopian future but the movie never stoops down to MAD MAX cheese. Instead it combines biting political satire with the bleak outlook of a world with no future, black comedy with barbs on apathy, religion and power. The survivors, for example, are fed some kind of flour dropping from a tube that hovers in the air - later on we discover the food supervisor uses books and the Bible itself as filler for this meagre meal. There are many such short symbolic touches, perhaps not life-changing or faith-restoring, yet playful, clever and inspired.　　One thing is for sure; O-BI, O-BA is not your run-of-the-mill sci-fi schlock. It overcomes its modest budget with creativity and has genuine artistic aspirations both from a writing and directing perspective. My opinion is that it should have been filmed in black and white instead of colour though. The director uses atmospheric light and shadow to great effect and it would have registered even better in stark black and white. The blue-green neon on the other hand outstays its welcome after a while. Just a minor gripe in an otherwise solid b-movie with its heart set in all the right places.　　Imagine a less bleak THE ROAD (Cormac McCarthy) being injected with the satire and humour of DR.STRANGELOVE and you're getting there. See it if you can find it.

暴风雨之星

　　Upon arrival to Venus, cosmonauts find furious volcanoes and sundry prehistoric beasts in Klushantev's film, based on a novel by the Soviet sci-fi writer Aleksandr Kazantsev. Footage has been recycled in three Corman productions: Voyage to the Prehistoric Planet, Queen of Blood, and Voyage to the Planet of Prehistoric Women (the directorial debut of Peter Bogdanovich).　　83min

新的景色

高野任职园境建筑师，规划涩谷宫下公园重建；露宿者被驱赶，让路予结合户外休憩与购物商场的新地标。为了工作牺牲家庭，大刀阔斧改造都市面貌，自己却家破人亡了。十年后，一盆蝴蝶兰令父子重遇，女儿已不再在乎长期缺席的父亲。重回故地，亲子关系能否重建？团冢唯我首部长片，善用建筑空间显现家庭创伤，静谧中蕴藏情感波动，再以破碎灯泡让记忆回魂。被离弃的世代游走于冷漠城市，重新审视家人之间的距离之余，亦察看一座城市于急速变形下残留的空洞。

八棺索财

　　一个商业酒店因为三起离奇死亡案件被社会各界所关注，一时间流言四起，有人说这是蓄意谋杀，也有人认为纯属意外，甚至网络上有神人称酒店施工曾挖出八具棺材，地形暗合了一个叫“八棺索财”的道家阵法。记者苏莉、女网红与其老公陈宇天，两拨看似不相干的人组成奇葩小分队，一起走进诡异酒店，等着他们的，是福还是祸？

嗜血之夜

　　一群十几岁的少年庆祝一个本地连环杀人犯的忌日，突然发现他们自己与这个困扰的城市传说的现实面对面。