Donnie Yen vehicle Flash Point (Wilson Yip, 2007)

MINI REVIEW

Hong Kong action film. There's a cop, he has a partner undercover in a Vietnamses gang. He gets rumbled and there's a bit of fighting to be had about it.

There are few fight sequences as good as the whole final scene. But leading up to that it could have done with having a little more going on (car chase and on foot chase a little underwhelming). Wasn't particularly sophisticated, but at least it brought up many issues: corrupt police, immigration/diaspora communities and over-zealous, violence-consumed police officers, but made no sincere effort to try and deal with any of them. Short film, good fun.

Beetle Queen Conquers Tokyo (Written and directed by Jessica Oreck 2009)

MINI REVIEW

A documentary on the Japanese people's fascination with insects.

It was quite experimental and poetic in bits, which gave it a wonderfully spellbinding feel. It is fascinating how ingrained and mainstream the activity of collecting bugs is in Japanese life. The film shows many demographics in awe of the many kinds of creepies and crawlies. From professors that have devoted their life to collecting, to children playing bug-catcher PS2 games or beetle-battle arcade games where the player loads his own personalised beetle into the battle.

The film was really getting at the way the insect's proximity to nature makes an increasingly industrialised Japan find them so therapeutic, functioning as a link to the past.

This was particularly aided by the poetic voiceover, giving examples and telling stories from history and myth.