DIRECTED BY Park Chan-wook

STARRING Shin Ha-jyung, Bae Du-na

Opened May 30, Cert 18, 121 mins

The amazing international success of South Korean cinema’s new wave continues with this psychologically and physically punishing thriller from director Park Chan-wook. Moving implacably forward through a world of really bad shit, this uncompromising crime movie is as hard-boiled as it gets.

The morally complex, ruthlessly focused narrative begins with deaf-mute anti-hero Ryu (Shin Ha-jyung, from Park’s previous movie, Joint Security Area) being laid off from a job he needs in order to pay for his sister’s kidney transplant. Encouraged by his anarchist girlfriend (Bae Du-na), he initiates an ill-conceived plan to raise the money by kidnapping the daughter of his former boss (Song Kang-ho).

Inevitably, the whole enterprise takes a considerable turn for the worse, and the body count begins to rise. But despite the unremitting savagery Park orchestrates, the film has an impressive empathy for victims and perpetrators alike?the characters’ motives are clear, the repercussions inevitable and the resulting tragedy deeply felt by all involved (including the viewer). The deliberate pacing of the film’s early stages more than pays off; having moved all of his pieces into position, Park unleashes a series of gut-churning set-pieces that forces us ever deeper into the hellish world his characters have created for themselves. Bodies are destroyed at a formidable rate, with Ryu swinging his baseball bat in a manner that would make Barry Bonds proud, and a ‘knife in the neck’gag that deserves to become a classic moment in cinematic violence. You may be repulsed, but the film’s grip is so strong that you won’t be able to look away for long. The grim fare is put across with great flair by Park; elegant, deep-focus compositions allow the degenerate action to play out on various levels in single shots, while crucial twists and shifts in perspective are integrated organically rather than used as an excuse for a smart-arsed complex structure.

Matching the impact of what’s on screen is a sound-design that ranges from unsettling, over-amplified noise to the muffled churning in Ryu’s tortured head, allowing the viewer to experience events on an uncomfortably intimate, near-subliminal level. The intensity continues even beyond the end credits; you’ll be unsteady on your feet long after you’ve finally left your seat.

Some piece of work.

OPENS JUNE 13, CERT PG, 116 MINS

Film and politics are so inextricably linked in China that Tian Zhuangzhuang’s decision to remake the 1948 classic Spring In A Small Town is itself a political act. The original’s director, Fei Mu, was dismissed as right wing by the communists after his death. In adding to Mu’s posthumous rehabilitation, Zhuangzhuang thumbs his nose at the authorities under the cloak of homage.

A shame the result couldn’t be more compelling. For while there’s much to admire in this elegant tale of a m

OPENED MAY 30, CERT 15, 103 MINS

Adapted from British writer Joseph Connolly’s novel, legendary French actor Michel Blanc’s fourth film as director is a subtle comedy of manners. In less sedate hands it could’ve been a breathless farce. But, riddled as it is with absurdly striking cheekbones (the women aren’t bad, either), it’s a very stylish, middlebrow soap.

A group of friends holiday together in Normandy. Some can’t afford the hotel, and jolly larks are had as they try to hide their poverty. Jerome is suicidal, Jean-Pierre’s a jealous maniac, and Julie deserts her baby to frolic with Maxime. Elizabeth (Charlotte Rampling) looks broody a lot and then woos a lovestruck teenager.

Blanc adeptly uses the photogenic qualities of the iconic Rampling and Carole Bouquet, the grumpiness of Jacques Dutronc, and the beauty of Clotilde Courau, who all help render a so-so story highly seductive.

DIRECTED BY Peter Segal

STARRING Jack Nicholson, Adam Sandler, Marisa Tomei

Opens June 6, Cert 15, 106 mins

People who like Jack Nicholson can’t like Adam Sandler. That’s like having Lou Reed and the Cheeky Girls on your car CD changer: the switch from one to another could plunge you off the road with an involuntary jerk. Which is basically what Anger Management does.

Sandler plays a desk-bound pushover too shy to propose to his girl, Tomei. A misunderstanding on an airplane sees him sentenced to an anger management course run by Nicholson, who diagnoses him as an urgent case and moves in with him. The film shapes up nicely here, especially given great supporting roles from Luis Guzm

OPENS JUNE 13, CERT 18, 77 MINS

Japanese career-woman Rinko and her obsessive-compulsive husband are in a neatly ordered but sexually repressed marriage. Their relationship is thrown off kilter when she receives an envelope containing photos of herself masturbating. Terrified her husband will find out, Rinko is caught squirming in a kinky trap. And the ‘fun’ really starts when she decides she has no option but to follow the instructions from a mystery blackmailer to undertake repeat performances in a series of public arenas.

Filmed in monochrome, this erotic drama from director Shinya Tsukamoto features a striking performance by Asuka Kurosawa as Rinko, who undergoes a voyage of humiliation and self-discovery. There are moments of odd beauty, but the sub-Cronenberg theme itself is laboured, and the introduction of breast cancer as a metaphor for spiritual decay in a stagnating consumer society is cumbersome. Not half as challenging as Tsukamoto seems to think it is.

OPENS JUNE 6, CERT 15, 116 MINS

Veteran South Korean master Im Kwon-taek shared the best director award at Cannes last year with Paul Thomas Anderson for this opulent and often bawdy biopic of an artist unlikely to be familiar to Western audiences. Jang Seung-ub (known as Ohwon) was a lowly commoner and artistic prodigy who, having been adopted by aristocratic patrons, became a cherished national figure in the latter half of the 19th century. But he proved tough to control; his vagabond lifestyle, talent for pissing off authority and appetite for drink and women make him a prototype rock star. Ohwon veers between being entertaining company and a bit of a pain, although Choi Min-sik’s full-bodied performance ensures that he remains compelling and unpredictable. Im covers a lot of ground quickly, and keeping up with the political turmoil in the background isn’t easy. Still, any clarity lost in the broad sweep is made up for by the film-making, which brings Ohwon’s art to life in stunning fashion.

OPENS JUNE 27, CERT 15, 92 MINS

This debut feature from former ad director Christine Jeffs is a slim and stultifying affair that occupies territory better staked out by the likes of Ratcatcher, Le Ci

OPENS JUNE 6, CERT 18, 97 MINS

A frenetic Aussie Lock, Stock… from David Caesar, who made Idiot Box and Mullet, this would’ve benefited greatly from pausing for breath once or twice. He’s trying to do too much, cram too many characters and twists in, so we don’t get to give a four-X about any of them. Like AC/DC’s title song, it’s highly invigorating for a minute or two, then just wearisome.

Sydney, 1969, and top local crook Barry (Bryan Brown) has it all?clubs, casinos, wife Toni Collette, mistress, subservient crooked cop Sam Neill. The Chicago Mafia send two envoys (John Goodman, Felix Williamson) to either buy him out or take him out. They assume it’ll be a cakewalk, but Barry’s a tough nut to crack. Even when his pizza-loving Vietnam Vet nephew’s muscling in on his mistress, and the missus is giving him grief.

If ever you’re putting together a space capsule and need to send up a nugget of stereotypical (obsolete) Aussie bloke-ishness, look no further. Caesar tries a few tricks?tracing the bullet’s-eye-view, for example?but they’re incongruous and flip. Lively, but boorish.

Trembling Before G_d tells the story of orthodox Jews who have the misfortune to be gay in a faith that adheres rigidly to the homophobic line taken by Leviticus in the Old Testament, which describes the practice as an “abomination”.

We meet Devorah who, married for years with numerous children, can no longer repress her lifelong lesbian urges. Then there’s the diligently orthodox yet flamboyantly gay Mark, who, despite being HIV positive, adds a defiant note of joie de vivre to this remarkable, moving film.

All of which begs the question: why don’t they abandon such a cruel Old Testament faith? Yet we see how their religion is as ingrained in their sense of self as their sexuality?they can deny neither, and must reconcile them. But, as David?who was told as a child to flick a rubber band on his wrist whenever he felt gay urges?discovers his rabbi has nothing helpful to say to him.

Director Sandi Simcha Dubowski’s unique film is a seething indictment of ultra-religious dogma in all its life-denying forms. Powerful stuff.

DIRECTED BY James Mangold

STARRING John Cusack, Ray Liotta, Jake Busey, Rebecca De Mornay, Amanda Peet

Opens June 27, Cert 15, 110 mins

The set-up is somewhere between classic noir, slasher flick and Agatha Christie. Ten disparate characters are forced to hole up in a ramshackle and isolated motel to escape a torrential rainstorm, only to get picked off one by one in James Mangold and screenwriter Michael Cooney’s crisply-paced and entertaining B-movie thriller.

Cusack’s a former cop working as a limo driver, and his passenger, De Mornay, is the archetypal, egocentric Hollywood starlet who’s seen better days. Liotta is a gruff corrections officer ferrying convict Busey to a pre-trial hearing and?speeding towards her dream life in Florida?Peet’s hooker out to escape her violent past. Also at the motel are a family who’ve been involved in a road accident, a young couple with a dark secret and the motel owner himself, nicknamed?get this?”Bates” by some of the guests who appears to have the darkest secret of all. As their numbers dwindle through a series of grisly murders, and the search for the killer and a motive becomes more urgent, Identity seems uncannily like a superior update of Agatha Christie’s Ten Little Indians. But Mangold’s unerring attention to detail and the clammy atmosphere engulf both viewer and characters, taking the premise somewhere else entirely, while the layers of deceit, coincidence and suspense lead to an ingenious pay-off that riffs on that jaw-dropping climax to The Usual Suspects. It seems that after the overrated Girl, Interrupted Mangold is back on fine form.

The claustrophobic setting helps bring out the best in Cusack and Liotta, who compete to be the dominant Alpha Male in the group, while Peet and De Mornay give smart, nifty performances. There’s a midway point where the film almost topples into farce but thanks to a neat change of tone Mangold pulls Identity back from the edge. The psyche under siege has been a recurring theme in Mangold movies, but it’s never been as easily deployed than in this smarter than average psychological thriller.

DIRECTED BY Burr Steers

STARRING Kieran Culkin, Claire Danes, Jeff Goldblum, Bill Pullman, Susan Sarandon

Opens June 13, Cert 15, 97 mins

Igby (Culkin)?depressed, narcissistic, fatalistic and snide?is this generation’s Holden Caulfield, a slacker prince. Kicked out of most schools on the East Coast, he drops out, much to the fury of his domineering mom (Sarandon). She allows “godfather” DH (Goldblum) to look after him in New York for the summer, but Igby runs loose, enjoying carnal relations with DH’s drug-addled mistress (Amanda Peet), then with ‘nice’ Jewish girl Sookie (Danes). “What kind of name is Igby?” she asks. “It’s the kind of name that someone called Sookie isn’t in a position to patronise,” he retorts. Igby Goes Down is jam-packed with crisp, cynical one-liners, but our young existentialist doesn’t see the light. He loathes his pompous brother (Ryan Phillippe), who’s moving in on Sookie; his godfather’s about to beat him up, and he wishes his mom was dead. Even an atheist misanthropist like Igby has to be careful what he wishes for.

Written and directed by Gore Vidal’s nephew, this is a teen-angst classic. Not as in John Hughes, but as in Dostoevsky-meets-Cobain. Igby hates almost everyone and everything, chiefly the phoneys who constitute his family circle. His wealthy folks make the Royal Tenenbaums seem perfectly functional. As a lover, he’s implausibly successful, and you may find his relentless tone of carping negativity tiresome. “If Ghandi had to hang out with you for any period of time,” sighs his brother, “he’d end up kicking the shit out of you.” But cussing Culkin’s very convincing in the kind of role that’s made Jake Gyllenhaal’s name.

There are ripe performances from the entire ensemble, none better than a slick, smug Goldblum, while Danes reveals hidden depths. Everyone is on medication. Money can’t buy you squat. It’s a very literary piece, where Rilke is ridiculed and pillow talk consists of “You’re a real fucking upper.” You admire the put-downs and quips, while wishing the pace was a fraction less morbid. Nevertheless, this is honed, icy black comedy, with an uncompromising anti-hero. Let Igby take you down.

OPENS JUNE 20, CERT 15, 98 MINS

Hated drill instructor Samuel Jackson and most of his squad disappear on a basic training mission in the jungle and disgraced DEA agent John Travolta is the only man qualified to winkle the truth out of the two remaining soldiers. In the tradition of Rash

OPENS JUNE 20, CERT U, 102 MINS

Even the most hardened viewers might find themselves melting under the influence of this beautifully poised documentary about a primary school in rural France. Director Nicholas Philibert charts a year in the life at the village school in Puy-de-D

OPENS JUNE 27, CERT 18, 100 MINS

Asian movie god Andy Lau stars as Tok, a perma-grinning assassin-for-hire who blasts his way into the eastern underworld with one aim in mind: becoming Hong Kong’s No 1 professional killer. Unfortunately, this position is already filled by the mysterious O (Takashi Sorimachi), a ruthlessly efficient death machine with an unfortunate habit of falling in love with his beautiful-but-consequently-shortlived housekeepers. The latest of these, Chin (Kelly Lin), soon finds herself being romanced by both men as they dodge Interpol agent Lee (Simon Tam) and engage in increasingly perilous rounds of gangland one-upmanship.

All desperately reminiscent of The Killer, but what stops this movie from being just another low-rent Woo knock-off is Johnny To and Ka-Fai Wai’s energetically atmospheric direction and fantastic performances from the leads.

Formulaic but masterfully assembled, Fulltime Killer is the best Hong Kong flick to earn a UK cinema release in years.

OPENS JUNE 6, CERT 15, 115 MINS

This slice of Thai kitsch comes from the same producer as Tears Of The Black Tiger and shares something of the same anarchic exuberance. It’s a musical romance which makes much of the juxtaposition of tradition Thai culture with Western influences. The hero, Pan, is an amateur singer who strikes rock’n’roll poses while singing Thai folk music on a stage surrounded by chickens and goats. He falls in love with, and marries, beautiful local girl Sadaw. But their life is disrupted when Pan is drafted into the army, then goes AWOL to pursue his dream of becoming a professional singer.

This is unashamed melodrama but without the element of pastiche that was present in Tears Of The Black Tiger, and as such it’s rather harder for a Western audience to accept as anything other than a quaint novelty.

Still, the Thailand we see is vividly drawn and probably not the Thailand that’s familiar to tourists and travellers. It’s fascinating as a piece of Thai popular culture rather than as a piece of great cinema.

OPENS 27 JUNE, CERT 12A, 111 MINS

Put The Fast And The Furious on two wheels and you’ll have this laughably po-faced tale of illegal street-racing among LA’s biker fraternity. Derek Luke plays Kid, a young speed freak eager to dethrone “King of Cali” Smoke (Laurence Fishburne). To do so, he must set up his own club (the titular Biker Boyz), working his way up the racing hierarchy while keeping true to his late dad’s mantra that you should “burn rubber, not your soul”.

Despite Reggie Rock Bythewood’s flashy direction, this dopey yarn is more Vespa than Kawasaki. Mindful of the homoerotic implications of leather-clad males fetishising throbbing machines, By the wood assigns Luke a tattooist girlfriend to jump his bones and etch a silly symbol on his chest. Mercifully there are enough stunts, trick riding and 100mph wipe-outs to make up for the slack script. Even so, you may find yourself wondering where Fishburne found a bike big enough to handle his flab.