‘Baby Assassins: Nice Days’
Rent or buy it on most major platforms.
In the third installment of the writer-director Yugo Sakamoto’s endearing murder-for-hire series, Mahiro (Saori Izawa) is only turning 20, but she and her partner, Chisato (Akari Takaishi), are becoming burned out. Their malaise is intensified when Fuyumura (Sosuke Ikematsu), an unhinged freelance assassin, attempts to take their target. The pair’s embarrassed bosses dispatch the efficient Iruka (Atsuko Maeda) and the jolly Riku (Mondo Otani) to help Mahiro and Chisato kill Fuyumura.
While “Nice Days” delivers on the trilogy’s exceptional choreography and camera work — a hand-to-hand fight between Chisato and Fuyumura is a highlight for its fluid movement in a long take — the series is becoming even more comedic and heartwarming. For instance, rival agricultural co-op assassins (you read that correctly) crash the party, and Chisato and Mahiro act as each other’s therapist. Both Izawa and Takaishi share such a beautiful chemistry, this could easily be a shaggy hangout film, and you wouldn’t be disappointed.
‘Hunting Grounds’
Stream it on Amazon Prime Video.
Chloe (Emily Alatalo) is a mother of two attempting to enter witness protection when goons working for her kingpin husband, Donny (Greg Bryk), kill her F.B.I. contact in a bid to return her and the kids back to Donny. She’s saved by a hunter, Jake (Tim Rozon), whom she later learns is a Marine with serious mental health issues. When Jake begins to turn on her, she finds herself on the run from both her savior and her husband in a perilous journey to keep her children.
Set in the forests of Canada, Derek Barnes’s film is a gory survivalist escapade filled with gnarly kills. For example, Jake bashes one guy’s face in with a tin coffee pot and uses a wood saw to cut another guy’s face in half. Alatalo as Chloe, however, isn’t a wall flower. She claws and kicks her way from Jake, physically dominating scenes opposite a tall and sturdy Rozon who looms with a chilling villainous presence.
‘Night Call’
A locksmith in Brussels, Mady (Jonathan Feltre) is plunged into trouble when he’s called by Claire (Natacha Krief) to unlock what he thinks is her apartment. Once Mady opens the door, Claire charges inside, steals money from the place and leaves him in the lurch. He is ultimately captured by men working for Yannick (Romain Duris), a mobster who tells Mady that he has the night to find Claire and retrieve the money or he’ll be killed.
Directed by Michiel Blanchart, “Night Call” is a brutal wrong-place-wrong-time tale with a political mind-set. Black Lives Matter protests become a set piece for an elaborate foot chase between Mady and one of Yannick’s henchmen. Another wonderfully composed chase involves Mady biking away from those goons down into the subway. The camerawork is unbelievably smooth, supporting a thriller whose best moments happen by stringing together set pieces to create a larger citywide canvas.
‘The Siege at Thorn High’
Stream it on Amazon Prime Video.
Near the beginning of the writer-director Joko Anwar’s startlingly violent film, anti-Chinese riots in Indonesia lead to a young Edwin’s only sister being kidnapped and raped by protesters. Many years later, in 2027 (and after his sister’s death), Edwin (Morgan Oey) works as a substitute teacher, searching schools for the son his sister gave up for adoption. His journey lands him at a juvenile detention center in Jakarta ruled by the sinister teenager Jefri (Omara Esteghlal).
Jefri and his ruthless gang, who maraud the city to dole out anti-Chinese punishment, become so enraged by a defiant Edwin, they use a riot raging outside to hunt him through the hallways of their deserted school. During their pursuit of Edwin, these demonic kids set a man on fire and viciously turn on one another, causing gruesome deaths in a bloody movie that makes “Lord of the Flies” look like a happy commune. The camera doesn’t look away either, immersing you in a hellish location that’s nearly impossible to escape.
‘Weekend in Taipei’
Rent or buy on most major platforms.
A surprisingly funny romp, George Huang’s movie sees the Drug Enforcement Administration agent John Lawlor (Luke Evans) drawn to Taiwan by the promise of a ledger capable of taking down Kwang (Sung Kang), a drug kingpin. Upon arriving, John learns the informant is Kwang’s teenage stepson, Raymond (Wyatt Yang), whose mother Joey (Gwei Lun-mei), was once John’s lover. Fearing Kwang’s wrath, Joey and Raymond take refuge with John in Joey’s tiny, secluded seaside village.
While the film has plenty of bruising sequences, including elaborate car chases and a hotel shootout that moves like a wrecking ball, it is primarily about both Kwang and John fighting to keep their families. Fun flashbacks featuring Evans in bad wigs lighten the mood, while an expertly staged final fight in a movie theater playing “House of Flying Daggers” puts a crowd-pleasing cherry atop this charming thriller.
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