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James Mottram
James Mottram
SCMP Contributor
James Mottram is a film critic and journalist based in London. As well as writing for the SCMP for over 10 years, he’s also written a number of books on cinema including The Sundance Kids, The Making of Memento and Die Hard: The Ultimate Visual History.

Our 2024 Academy Awards predictions, from why Oppenheimer should and will win best picture, to how Ryan Gosling may be pipped at the post for best supporting actor.

Timothée Chalamet and Zendaya return in Denis Villeneuve’s excellent Dune: Part Two, which features amazing set pieces, stunning cinematography and thunderous, moving music.

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Kristen Stewart in lesbian crime flick Love Lies Bleeding, trans tale I Saw the TV Glow, and Min Bahadur Bham’s Himalayan film Shambhala all feature in our picks of the best movies at Berlin 2024.

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Shambala, the first Nepalese film selected for the Berlin Film Festival’s main competition, is an unhurried masterpiece about a Nepalese woman searching for her husband in the Himalayas.

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Starring Adam Sandler, Carey Mulligan and Paul Dano, Netflix sci-fi Spaceman – which premiered at the 2024 Berlin Film Festival – has its moments, but director Johan Renck struggles to sustain interest.

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Ray Yeung’s film All Shall Be Well, about the struggles of a gay woman after her partner dies, is based on ‘shocking’ true events. The Hong Kong director talks about rights for same-sex couples.

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Korean director Hong Sang-soo returns to the Berlin International Film Festival with another typically opaque drama – in A Traveler’s Needs, Isabelle Huppert plays a mystery woman teaching French in Korea.

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Gael Garcia Bernal plays a widower whose wife is reanimated in the body of another woman (Renate Reinsve). Piero Messina’s film is hackneyed and gets bogged down in jargon, but is visually appealing.

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English actor Cosmo Jarvis talks about bringing James Clavell’s 1975 novel Shōgun to life, studying feudal Japan, filming for 11 months in Canada and his co-star Hiroyuki Sanada.

Despite strong performances by Kingsley Ben-Adir as the reggae star and Lashana Lynch as his wife Rita, Bob Marley: One Love is not as good as it could – and should – be.

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Expats was shot in Hong Kong but is not being shown there. This has happened before with films, such as The Kite Runner, set in and partly filmed in Afghanistan, and A Clockwork Orange, shot in the UK.

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Brief History of a Family made a splash at Sundance and is about to screen at the Berlin film festival. Its Chinese director, Lin Jianjie, reflects on its subject – China’s middle class – and dreamlike ending.

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Directed by Raman Hui and starring the voices of Michelle Yeoh, Henry Golding and Brandon Soo Hoo, The Tiger’s Apprentice is a messy, unfocused animation that cherry-picks from Chinese mythology.

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Perfect Days director Wim Wenders talks about the film’s Oscar entry, Japan’s ‘common good’, envying his lead character, and why he knew Koji Yakusho would win the best actor prize at Cannes.

Lin Jianjie’s unsettling drama, which will premiere at the 2024 Sundance Film Festival, exposes hidden tensions in a post-one-child-policy Chinese family as the son’s mysterious friend becomes a fixture.

Films screening at the 40th Sundance Film Festival in Park City, Utah, include Love Lies Bleeding, starring Kristen Stewart, Freaky Tales with Pedro Pascal, and Saoirse Ronan in The Outrun.

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Chinese-American filmmaker Lulu Wang talks about the challenges she faced making the Hong Kong-set Expats, and how the show’s star, Nicole Kidman, championed her ‘untraditional’ voice.

What to expect from Hollywood in the year ahead? Few superhero films other than Deadpool 3, sequels galore – including Kung Fu Panda 4 and Paddington in Peru – and Lady Gaga in, ahem, a Joker musical.

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Hong Kong superstars Tony Leung and Andy Lau reveal what they like about working with each other, playing good and bad guys in The Goldfinger, and how to boost the city’s movie industry.

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Disney celebrates 100 years of family classics with Wish, the story of a young girl whose wish for her grandfather is shrugged off by the king. Then she meets a falling star who can also grant wishes.

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Ridley Scott’s Napoleon has stunning battle scenes, cinematography that looks like oil painting, and a brilliant Joaquin Phoenix in the title role, while Vanessa Kirby is resolute as Empress Josephine.

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Chinese actress Zhou Dongyu talks about filming Gen Z drama The Breaking Ice in freezing conditions, being discovered by Zhang Yimou, challenging herself and her hopes for ‘a better Chinese cinema’.

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Chicken Run, a 2000 animated hit, saw a bunch of chickens comically break out of a chicken farm. Zachary Levi heads the cast of sequel Chicken Run: Dawn of the Nugget, in which they break into one.

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Hayao Miyazaki’s latest and possibly last anime is about a boy searching for his mother in wartime Japan. He moves to a farm, where he meets a goblin that looks like a heron and tells him his mother is still alive.

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Halloween reboot director David Gordon Green turns his eye to another horror franchise, helming The Exorcist: Believer for a sequel that brings back Ellen Burstyn’s Chris MacNeil from the 1973 original.

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Gareth Edwards’ The Creator marries the Star Wars: Rogue One director’s love of Asian culture with the current conversation around the use of AI. He talks to the Post about making the film.

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Helen Mirren stars as Israeli stateswoman Golda Meir and her role in the 1973 Yom Kippur war in this slightly dreary biopic that struggles with the complexities of Israeli politics during that time.

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Emma Stone shines in Golden Lion-winning black comedy Poor Things, J.A. Bayona retells the true survival story from 1993’s Alive, and films about Salvador Dali and Leonard Bernstein impress at this year’s festival.

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As Ryuichi Sakamoto | Opus premiered at this year’s Venice Film Festival, the late Japanese composer’s son, who directed the feature, spoke to the Post about the challenges ofilming his cancer-stricken father.

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The Post sits down with Ryusuke Hamaguchi, whose new movie Evil Does Not Exist – showing at the 2023 Venice Film Festival – was a totally new way of working for the Japanese director.