Mark Jenkins

As the wily leader of the Japanese forces, grizzled Kurata Yasuaki has more presence than Zhao, who’s bland in non-action sequences. But Zhao’s ability to deliver dialogue is less crucial than his skill at leading hundreds of extras through elegantly choreographed, sumptuously photographed chaos.

The film’s structural shortcomings will matter less to most viewers than the personality of the central character, Michal.

Music redeems an at-risk teen in Urban Hymn, a social-problem melodrama whose other major characters don’t fare so well.

This engagingly goofy romantic comedy speaks the international language of food.

Attempting to make an atrocity palatable to a mainstream audience, The Promise delivers the history, but undercuts its impact.

Donald Cried succeeds on its own modest terms, but watching its title character can be painful. This is not a movie for people who’d just as soon forget their own teenage mortifications.

Despite bloody mayhem, Sword Master is more swashbuckling ballet than epic battle.

Although it’s intended as a satire, director Feng Xiaogang’s movie has a literary tone, a leisurely pace and relatively few laugh-out-loud moments. It captures not only Lian’s frustration, but also the exasperation of the authorities who must deal with the demanding woman during her 11-year quest for justice.

The movie’s visual panache and fog-of-war ambiguity are as universal as the desire to detonate TNT under your enemy’s headquarters.

Most of the time, though, the movie is too busy being saucy or sappy to even look at its target.

Blair Witch runs only eight minutes past the original, yet it feels about a half-hour longer. The new toys — especially the drone — allow for fresh situations, and there’s more blood and supernatural affliction than before. Mostly, though, the filmmakers just repeat familiar moves and expand established locations

Murphy is fine as the title character, although his performance consists mostly of suppressing all of his usual shtick. He certainly doesn’t endow Mr. Church with any unexpected depths. But then neither does the script.

Director John H. Lee isn’t big on John Le Carré-style intrigue and introspection. (The dialogue comes in only two flavors: blustering and sentimental.) He’s better at the shootouts and chase scenes, which are loud, lively and well-choreographed, if sometimes outlandish.

More mood piece than drama, Equals ultimately benefits from the scarcity of exposition, because the story’s details make little sense.

Although it boasts three crackerjack action sequences, Cold War 2 won’t wow Hong Kong cinema buffs who crave nonstop mayhem. This clever drama features more bureaucratic wrangling than criminal scuffles.

Amusing and even edifying, although it is also unlikely to make converts out of those who just don’t get Zappa’s pastiche of juvenile parody and sophisticated songwriting, derived from rock, jazz and 20th-century experimental music.

In the movie’s first hour, all the blood is medical. Then the director stages a big shootout, mostly in slo-mo, that’s more clunky than epic. Before that misstep, though, Three is singularly entertaining.

In the Chinese martial-arts film The Final Master, the fighting is more lucid than the plot. That may be characteristic of the genre, yet this smart, stylish movie diverges from the expected in many ways, most of them enjoyable.

In giving equal weight to all subjects, “Older” flirts with triviality.... But Fegan punctuates some commonplace observations with more peppery ones.

The movie is carried by sweeping widescreen images, dynamic camera movements, impressive special effects and a color scheme that contrasts icy blues against fiery reds.

The filmmakers keep trying to make Will appear paranoid, but he’s not fooled for long — and most viewers won’t be, either.

The thing that really doesn’t translate is the movie’s melodramatic sensibility. What New York New York presents as profound tragedy may strike non-Chinese viewers as simple bad timing.

Standing Tall is indeed tough going, yet it’s illuminating and ultimately even a bit hopeful.

Although its final act is brutal, this Chinese crime drama also has elements of farce and romance.

Stretched across nearly two hours, it tells a story that would have been adequately laid out in a 30-second television spot.

Ip Man 3 credibly conjures the period with soundstage sets, rock-and-roll oldies and slicked-back hair. But director Winston Yip shows less concern for authenticity in Ip’s antagonists.

The movie is often poignant but leavened with humor.

Hitchcock/Truffaut would be a stronger film had it spent more time with its title figures and less with the contemporary directors.