賊王

機械怪獸

等待方舟

　　Set in an underground dungeon inhabited by bundled, ragged human beings, after the nuclear holocaust. The story follows the wanderings of a hero through the situations of survival. People wait for the Ark to arrive and rescue them while their habitat falls apart.　　Delving deep into the dusty and long abandonded vaults of b-cinema in search of lost gems always leaves me with a bittersweet taste. On one hand the discovery of unexpected gems where no one would think them possible is a rewarding experience. On the other hand though it makes one wonder how many of these remarkable low-budget oddities, personal love affairs of directors never quite famous and now all but forgotten, have almost forever slipped from memory?　　n any case what we have here is a little post-apocalyptic gem from Poland that is really better than it has any right to. The dystopian near future of O-BI, O-BA finds a group of survivors of the nuclear war that ravaged the Earth inhabiting an underworld concrete bunker and biding their time as they wait for the mysterious Ark, an air ship of some kind that will come and save them. The Ark proves to be an elaborate hoax, carefully designed to give hope to the malnourished and desperate denizens of the bunker, while in the meantime the dome that separates their miserable existence from the nuclear winter outside is slowly caving in.　　What first striked me about the movie is the design of the bunker and the depiction of the survivors. The survivors are gaunt, filthy and terrible-looking penitents, dressed in rags and aimlessly wandering the neon-lit halls of the bunker like automatons. The bunker is a rundown, seedy place, with bright neon lights peering from all sides like the eyes of malignant beasts.　　On one hand it is a slightly 80's depiction of the dystopian future but the movie never stoops down to MAD MAX cheese. Instead it combines biting political satire with the bleak outlook of a world with no future, black comedy with barbs on apathy, religion and power. The survivors, for example, are fed some kind of flour dropping from a tube that hovers in the air - later on we discover the food supervisor uses books and the Bible itself as filler for this meagre meal. There are many such short symbolic touches, perhaps not life-changing or faith-restoring, yet playful, clever and inspired.　　One thing is for sure; O-BI, O-BA is not your run-of-the-mill sci-fi schlock. It overcomes its modest budget with creativity and has genuine artistic aspirations both from a writing and directing perspective. My opinion is that it should have been filmed in black and white instead of colour though. The director uses atmospheric light and shadow to great effect and it would have registered even better in stark black and white. The blue-green neon on the other hand outstays its welcome after a while. Just a minor gripe in an otherwise solid b-movie with its heart set in all the right places.　　Imagine a less bleak THE ROAD (Cormac McCarthy) being injected with the satire and humour of DR.STRANGELOVE and you're getting there. See it if you can find it.

追殺51號

　　未來巴黎，階層鴻溝割裂都市。超腦Alma執掌秩序，其創造者暴斃后，警探薩利亞聯手澤姆揭開顛覆割裂世界的驚天謎團。

午夜微博

　　夜深人靜，荒郊野嶺。幾名青年男女去永寧縣某廢棄工廠探險，并全程微博直播。他們為自己的無知和膽大妄為付出巨大代價，最終一死一瘋，另外兩人昏迷不醒，還有一人下落不明。美麗女記者蕭薇（鄧紫衣 飾）的妹妹霈霈及其朋友子妍正是這場意外的受害者，從醫生口中得知，妹妹她們出事前一定受到常人難以想象的驚嚇。蕭薇的搭檔阿康（唐禹哲 飾）調查后發現，霈霈她們前幾日都曾被某神秘微博帳戶@，之后在她們微博中便各自出現一個倒計時的畫面，而業已歸零的正是當前的死者子妍。　　絕不相信鬼神傳說的蕭薇，決定親自涉足永寧工廠一探究竟。伴隨蕭薇和阿康的追查，恐怖真相慢慢浮出水面……