There are two genres of films that I think have managed to achieve the status of showcasing the full extent of what the human body is capable of doing. The first are the musicals produced during the Golden Age of Hollywood, where the lives of Gene Kelly, Fred Astaire, Ginger Rogers and a wealth of…

Even before he came to be known for his more nihilistic dark comedies that were propelled by their sense of effortless cool and roots in absurdism, Seijun Suzuki was consistently playing with cinema. In the first five years of his career. Suzuki directed a staggering twenty-four films, each one a distinct work of genre storytelling…

The history of Japanese cinema can be traced to a few different groupings of filmmakers, who normally tend to be associated to each other depending on their particular style, the stories their films told, or even the specific time in which they were working. It’s a communal approach that made Japanese cinema some of the…

In a career stretching from the formative years of the silent era, to just before the apex of New Hollywood, John Ford redefined cinema in his own way. It takes a very special filmmaker to win the endless admirations of the likes of Orson Welles and Ingmar Bergman, who could legitimately lay claim to being…

The wuxia genre is one that has flourished into one of the most beloved forms of filmmaking, albeit one that can occasionally be considered a bit overwhelming to those looking to get into this form of entertainment, as the vast wealth of entries into the martial arts genre being amongst the densest in all of…

Perhaps a cynical view, but there are very few instances, if any, of the terms “video game” and “film” going well together – as the past has shown us on countless occasions, mainstream attempts to bring beloved gaming franchises to the screen have rarely ever been successful, with the majority of adaptations being middling at…

I sometimes wonder if Gordon Parks knew he was making film history with Shaft. From the very first moments of the film, where Isaac Hayes’ soothingly seductive voice regales the legend of John Shaft, as we see the titular character walk through Time’s Square, it is clear that something very special is happening. This is…

Shadow (Chinese: 影 or Yǐng) is an astonishing achievement. Zhang Yimou has established himself as perhaps China’s most important filmmaker, at least from the perspective of the worldwide resonance of his films. This film, in particular, sees the master returning to form, creating a film that will undoubtedly exist alongside his towering masterpieces such as…

Assault on Precinct 13 reaffirmed something that I’ve slowly started to believe is less of an opinion and more of an unquestionable fact – John Carpenter is one of the most visionary filmmakers of his generation. While his cinematic career will deservedly be defined mainly through the lens of his two horror masterpieces Halloween and…

Steve McQueen has come to be seen as one of this generation’s finest auteurs, a highly-respected filmmaker who has been able to captivate audiences with his unique approach to storytelling and his remarkable technical prowess, most likely a remnant of his career as a visual artist before he went into narrative filmmaking. He achieved all…