“Kingdom: Return of the General” continues in the same, rather high quality of the previous movies, while intensifying the drama

The fourth installment in what has come to be one of the best and most successful anime/manga adaptations is as epic as the previous parts, in the movie that concludes the first season of the anime (there are 5 by the way). 

The last chapter of the first season is actually the most dramatic one, with the focus changing, after a point, from Shin and his crew towards Ohki, in a rather well-deserved, as much as successful approach. The drama, however, starts essentially from the beginning of the film, with the appearance of Pang Nuan, aka God of War, who attacks the group out of the blue. Shin seems to pose no threat to him at all, while Qiang Lei, who does her best to counter him, soon realizes that she is no match either. The group suffers tremendous losses, with a number of Shin’s men dying and the rest barely making it out. 

Soon, and as flashbacks reveal Ohki’s tragic past, it becomes evident that Pang Nuan actually aims at him, as a fighter who seems to stand on equal level as the field leader of the country of Zhao. While he poses a threat to Ohki as a fighter, Li Mu, Zhao’s main general, does the same to him as a strategist, with Qin’s army eventually finding themselves in a tremendous binge. 

Up until now, the good guys were going from victory to victory, with Shin and his crew growing exponentially with each success, and the same applying to the Kingdom of Qin. This time, however, all the protagonists seem to find their matches, with the consequences being dire. In that fashion, the dramatic aspect of the movie, which has taken the place of the political one, is quite intense, essentially on par with the action. Ohki’s past adds even more to this sense, while the ending of the movie is probably the most tragic in the four parts. Add to that the loss of some of Shin’s comrades that have been following him since he left his village, and you have the backbone of the drama here. 

Considering the focus is also intensely on Ohki, Takao Osawa, who reprises his role from the previous installments, gets to shine even more, in another impressive performance that has his theatricality being even more imposing. Furthermore, he is also the protagonist of the most impressive fight in the movie, with his rather prolonged one-on-one with the God of War being a wonder to watch. Even more so, since the two armies around them also continue to clash, with neither stripping anything from the impact of the other. This rather prolonged sequence is a testament to both Shinsuke Sato’s direction and the overall editing, with the succession between the two settings being truly astonishing. 

The same quality applies to the rather fast pace here, which, despite the 145 minutes of the movie, does not seem to lag at all, as it has enough story, characters and events to carry it fully. The cinematography and the SFX are also on a very high level, with the filmmakers taking full advantage of the different settings, forest, mountain, desert-like in order to present images of true epicness. 

Kento Yamazaki as Xin plays his character with an excessiveness that goes too far on occasion but actually mirrors the original. Kanna Hashimoto as He Liao Diao is quite good in the exact opposite style, with the same applying to Shun Oguri as Li Mu, who steals the show even if his role is brief. 

“Kingdom: Return of the General” continues in the same, rather high quality of the previous movies, while has enough elements, particularly regarding the permeating drama, to make it  stand out. 

Immaculate stands out from other films of this sub-genre with regards to the invincibility of the devil. But there is nothing to cheer about it, as it is a byproduct of a lazily written antagonist.

Part of the reason why Sydney Sweeney’s Cecilia works is that the other characters are peripheral and operate in a mechanical manner. Alvaro Morte’s Sal Tedeschi and Dora Romano’s Mother Superior are hugely disappointing for their lack of depth.

The visceral gore scenes partly make up for the lack of certain obligatory horror elements in the film. The repulsion that such scenes evoke testifies to the sublime craft in play, even though director Mohan milks the genre beyond acceptability. The film offers great ideas to ponder, too. There are scenes where we are told women choose nunhood not out of free will but rather because of the ill treatment they suffer at the hands of men outside. Another captivating idea is the choice of weapons in the stunt sequences; Cecilia uses a crucifix and nail, believed to be from Jesus’ crucifixion, to attack those who terrify people using faith and demand unquestioning submission.

Immaculate is a film with some moments that make you want to exceedingly adore it, but also others that border on trashy. Cecilia stands against her religion’s leaders in deciding whether she wants to have a child or not, demanding noninterference of the state in a woman’s bodily autonomy over pregnancy. Such exceptional writing is marred by other poor choices, forcing us to form a love-hate relationship with the film.

We know what typically happens in movies when characters go looking for missing loved ones. Surprise — they find themselves. End of quest. But something more nuanced emerges regarding our internal compasses in filmmaker Levan Akin’s “Crossing,” about a retired Georgian schoolteacher trying to track down her transgender niece in Istanbul. It’s what gives this compassionate, cautiously hopeful movie’s open-eyed naturalism a wonderful, pulsating humanity.

Grim-faced, dignified Lia (Mzia Arabuli) doesn’t have much information to go on, only the hearsay of a young, restless operator named Achi (Lucas Kankava), who tells her that her niece Tekla, whom he knew as a local prostitute in their Black Sea port city of Batumi, has likely decamped to one country over. Reluctantly adopting the cocksure Achi as translator and companion — his border excursions with tourists have given him a smattering of Turkish and English (plus Achi wants out of Georgia) — Lia sets off with stoic determination. The question curling the edges of this search, however, is whether Tekla even wants to be found.

Because what’s also clear, and bracingly so in Akin’s thick-of-it depiction, is that massively populated Istanbul makes disappearing easy. One person’s acute sense of absence is for another, perhaps, an opportunity to blend in, as evidenced by the trans neighborhood Lia and Achi encounter, with sex workers popping their heads out of apartment windows to assess these visitors, like some colorful urban advent calendar. The atmosphere simultaneously projects wariness, vivacity and community.

Akin, a Swedish filmmaker whose family originally hails from Georgia, knows this is a story tinged with sadness for lives that have been ostracized and marginalized. But his wider view starts from a place of optimism about what curiosity engenders. The first long, calmly fluid shot in “Crossing,” after the edgily comic vibe of the early minutes, comes when Lia and Achi board one of Istanbul’s intercity ferries, and cinematographer Lisabi Fridell’s camera leaves our mismatched duo to roam the decks so we can feel the peaceful spirit of lives in transit: tea being served, passengers talking, a boy plucking a stringed bağlama as the water rushes by.

It’s a graceful segue for a movie about going somewhere, letting a trip open you up. The sequence alights on the movie’s other significant figure on that ferry, Evrim (Deniz Dumanli), a trans woman lawyer working for an NGO. The movie’s most aspirational character, she meets struggle (like the bureaucracy of getting hospital administrators to sign off on her identity) with friendly poise, finding romance with a kind-eyed cab driver. In crossing paths with Lia and Achi, Evrim knows how to help.

“Crossing” begins with a hard-edged woman trying to bridge a terrible distance, yet it’s measured in incremental expressions of closeness everywhere, across generations, among strangers and between everyone we meet and their possible futures. (Even a street cat plays its connective part.) Whether we’re in daytime or night, there always seems to be a light bathing someone’s face or beckoning them, a visual touch I came to appreciate in a movie that could so easily have taken a more despairing route considering its gritty backdrop.

Akin’s prior film, the queer-themed Tbilisi-set character study “And Then We Danced,” showed how tender his approach to LGBTQI+ stories is, keeping sentimentality at bay while foraging for well-earned smiles. And if you’ve seen that film, which criticized the homophobic strictures of traditional Georgian dance as it celebrated the form’s manifestation of joy, you won’t be surprised that “Crossing” also finds time to bring its pair of weary Georgians to their feet. Lia may not technically be looking for her niece on a restaurant’s dance floor, but as Arabuli’s exquisitely turned, gently cracking performance shows, the life she exhibits is its own discovery.