Jonathan Ashun

Rififi is a fun crime caper that makes excellent use of silence to accentuate the gravity of the tension. The cast are ever charismatic, and their acting prowess is good enough to get us to feel real stakes when their characters are in danger; the... Read the full review »

'A Brighter Summer Day' is a sobering and sprawling epic, dealing at once with many characters and their intricacies, and their collective identity and struggle. Its tragic finale feels earned because of the almost Godfather esque journey through... Read the full review »

'Never Rarely Sometimes Always' revels in visual potency, submerging its frames in grainy textures and lightly saturated colors in order to deliver a slice of life experience decidedly indigenous to the art form of Film. The performances feel like... Read the full review »

'The Half of It' is a genre renegade of the highest order, submerging its frames in bleak and understated storytelling, all while maintaining all the heart and requisite trappings of the "high-school romance" movie. Alice Wu's maturity on the subj... Read the full review »

Akira Kurosawa returns to modern day with 'High and Low', providing a grounded take on the ransom story, whilst displaying his signature flair for calculated direction and palpable tension. The film exists in two different genres - both making ful... Read the full review »

While portraying some gratuitous violence and questionable themes, ‘Extraction’ does have mind-boggling set-pieces that exhibit the full potential of the modern action film. Perhaps with a better emotional through-line and a tighter, more conc... Read the full review »

Tokyo Story is an unparalleled tone poem specializing in the the ever changing tides of life; and in conjunction with a rigid and cubic composition, the film is a static look at everything so poignantly organic, and devastating about human existence. Read the full review »

Kagemusha is often regarded as Kurosawa's dress rehearsal for 'Ran', and while the latter is superior, Kagemusha is a powerful epic in its own right. Exploring the power of leadership, and the role of duty in society, Kurosawa uses his signature p... Read the full review »

Ikiru is Kurosawa's melancholic rhapsody of the importance of living, and through an all-time great performance from Takashi Shimura, we the audience can easily empathize and meditate on this somber tale of life, death, and joy. Read the full review »