Jessica Kiang

Monsoon is a graceful and truthfully irresolute investigation into the strange, often poignantly unreciprocated relationship that many first- and second-generation emigrants have with the far-off foreign country of the past.

The Perfect Candidate doesn’t burn the veil, but it does lift it briefly, allowing us a glimpse of Saudi womanhood that is idiosyncratic and individual — in short, as we very rarely see it.

For all the film’s chatty insights into modern dating mores and its casually pointed discussions of racial identity, the formula to which Shortcomings mostly adheres is a familiar one, as though someone has given one of the Apatow-esque man-child comedies of the aughts an Asian makeover.

What it lacks in thematic newness, Run Rabbit Run makes up for in the sophistication of its moment-to-moment scarifying and its performances from Sarah Snook and outstanding newcomer Lily LaTorre.

The existential road movie gets an offbeat, elliptical yet peculiarly compelling Transcaucasian makeover in director Hilal Baydarov’s second fiction feature, In Between Dying.

An abundance of earnestness is hardly a fatal flaw in a story as innately complex and moving as this one, especially once it moves beyond its most obvious crescendo, and instead of bowing out in a note of relief and resolution, dares to re-complicate the situation.

One of the subtler strengths of Never Look Away is the canny evocation of a war-weary, defeated population who did not experience communism as a revolution but a substitution. The insignia and the catechisms changed, but the underlying attitudes remained grotesquely similar in their callous prioritization of dogma over decency.

The absorbing and entertaining Detention works well enough as a primer on a traumatic period of history, and as a story of semi-supernatural salvation for sins past, that it earns its surprisingly moving final moments, and even its heavily on-the-nose exhortation to modern-day Taiwan to remember and honor its ghosts.

Like the game, which is popular as kind of a one-off without much replayability, Exit 8 is designed to divert for a short time and does so enjoyably, with Kawamura proving a most judicious assessor of just how little backstory, plot explanation and character development he can get away with and still keep us engaged.

The lack of inflection in the film’s infinitely broad-spectrum compassion can sometimes feel less like restraint and more like timidity. Anger is alien to Yeung’s style but it is sometimes justified, and without it, All Shall Be Well is a plea for understanding that should by now, by rights, be a demand.

Watcher, if it has an agenda beyond being a fun, shivery, fish-out-of-water chiller, is not so much a manifesto to Believe All Women as it is a reminder to all women watching to at least believe ourselves.

Columbus and Klein present a palimpsest of erratically overlapping perspectives. The results are untidy and unbalanced, but derive considerable energy from that eccentric approach.

A fever-pitch, adrenaline-soaked vortex of social issues drama, deconstruction of the male id, and hokey, hubristic descent into hell, this crazed howl of human brutality morphing inexorably into bestial savagery deserves, and feels destined to find, a willingly cultish following on the festival circuit.

Flat-footed storytelling meets fleet-footed choreography and sumptuous production values in the untaxingly fun Ip Man 4: The Finale.

Riley, Nighy, Lowe and Agutter all find some truthful, moving place to work from, despite the ever-present threat of being upstaged by a kitschy sconce or an eye-jangling turquoise-and-pink color scheme.

The three leads summon lovely chemistry, re-creating a dorky-kid dynamic in later life that feels like the perfect summation of the film’s almost Spielbergian belief that at 10 years of age we are our best and truest selves.

Horror hounds may find themselves getting a little impatient with “The Wind,” especially when Tammi begins on such an unflinchingly nasty note ... but then elects to keep the gore to a minimum until the grisly climax. The film is much more successful, however, as a feminized reworking of the western mythos.

When Tomorrow starts to make intellectual as well as geographical leaps and to draw macroeconomic, political, and social factors into its bright-eyed, approachable orbit, that’s when cynicism gives way to admiration, and admiration can flare into inspiration.

In the Aisles is unusual in its compassion and respect for its blue-collared characters.

Her (Delpy) risk-taking is admirable, and given the excellent craft, never less than engaging to watch, but it does not always pay off.

This is a merciless film, and whether the process of teasing its meaning out for yourself feels like a punishment or a reward will depend entirely on your patience and your point of view.

It is problematic that many of the film’s most powerful segments are its most prurient, and even more, that they are juxtaposed with the poetic and the prosaic.

It’s to the film’s credit that it creates a sense of high-stakes peril despite us knowing the rough outcome from the get-go, and largely without simplifying its moral dilemmas into straightforward choices between heroism and villainy.

Part of the massive entertainment value of [Singer's] wild and unwieldy second feature is that it is refreshingly free of any kind of manifesto.

An utterly bizarre, frequently grotesque, occasionally obscene singularity, Polish artist Mariusz Wilczynski’s abrasive animation Kill It and Leave This Town exists so far outside the realm of the expected, the acceptable and the neatly comprehensible that it acts as a striking reminder of just how narrow that realm can be.

We are unusually invested in a middle-aged professional woman’s interior life, which is a refreshing place to be. But we are never sure of his heart the way we are of hers and so Le Prince feels entirely truthful to her story, and maybe just a little unfair to his.

In Love and Monsters, love is good, monsters are bad and feeling like Tom Cruise is “awesome.”

The unshakable perkiness of the whole endeavor, its blithe lack of topicality, edge or satirical intent (it’s not even a spoof, just a goof) would be irritating if it didn’t work so hard to remind us that you don’t have to be mean to be funny.