Top five films to watch in Hong Kong this week (March 29-April 4), from Ready Player One to Custody

A Spielberg 1980s pop culture sci-fi homage, a French dysfunctional family drama, a horror film shot on an iPhone, an outlandish Japanese anime and a Hollywood monsters vs robots film are the cinematic picks for this week

Film reviews

Edmund Lee

Published: 7:03am, 29 Mar, 2018

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1. Ready Player One

Steven Spielberg’s second film to open in Hong Kong cinemas in two months, this exuberant adaptation of Ernest Cline’s 2011 novel is at once a nostalgia-tinted homage to pop culture of decades past and a visually enchanting peek into a future world saturated with virtual reality. It is pure cinematic magic. (Opens on March 29)

2. Custody

A nerve-racking portrait of a family torn apart by domestic abuse, this debut feature from French actor-director Xavier Legrand takes an unflinching look at the aftermath of a joint custody hearing, where a mother and her young son confront the spectre of the family’s violent former patriarch. (Opens on March 29)

3. Unsane

Claire Foy gives a fascinating turn in Steven Soderbergh’s iPhone-shot psychological thriller, playing a woman involuntarily committed to a mental institution alongside a man who may just be her obsessive stalker. This is a raw and powerful performance from the British star of The Crown. (Now showing)

4. Night Is Short, Walk on Girl

A young woman’s night of drinking spans seasons and spawns countless adventures in this mind-bending animation by Japanese director Masaaki Yuasa, adapted from a campus novel. It is a wacky mix of romance, detection, philosophy and fantasy that hops through genres and situations in outlandish fashion. (Now showing)

5. Pacific Rim: Uprising

Set 10 years after the end of the Kaiju war, this sequel to Guillermo del Toro’s 2013 sci-fi original sees Star Wars’ John Boyega join the Jaegar pilot programme and face a new group of towering monsters. The surprise here is Chinese actress Jing Tian, who indeed impresses as the head of a corporation bringing in Jaeger drones. (Opens on March 29)

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