Some of these reviews are cracking me up. It’s clear they have never played the game and have no idea what the fans want or ANY of the rules/ canon of Mortal Kombat. One reviewer was mad that a guy “had a laser eye!” Why the fuck do we still allow people that don’t have any love…
— Todd Garner (@Todd_Garner) May 6, 2026
Movie Reviews
Film Review: Young and Dangerous (1996) by Andrew Lau
“I’m Chicken of Hung Hing Society. This is my brother Nam.”
Written by Man Kai Ming, nicknamed ”Cow Man”, and inked by main artist Lun Yu Kwok, ”Teddy Boy” was a very successful Hong Kong comic series about the life of the Hung Hing Society triad member Chan Ho Nam. This very impressive comic with a print run of 2335 issues, was first published back in April 1992 and lasted 28 years when its production came to a stop in April 2020. ”Young and Dangerous” was the first live-action adaptation of Man’s work which became so successful that it spawned five sequels, numerous prequels and spin-offs.
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The film kicks off in Hong Kong, 1985, as members of a local triad headed by Ugly Kwan are harassing and beating up a group of five teenagers, Chan Ho Man, “Chicken” Chiu, Dai Tin Yee, and brothers Pou Pan and Chow Pan from a poor housing estate. However, after rescued by another more understanding triad leader, Uncle Bee, they decide to follow him and thus become the new recruits of his Hung Hing Society. Fast forward ten years, apart from drinking, gambling and harassing the locals like the triad members do, Chan and his best friends have also worked their way up and become Uncle Bee’s trusted enforcers.
As Chan progressively rises up in ranks, the jealous and overly ambitious Kwan tries to persuade them into working for him but without success. While Chan and his mob are on a mission in Macau to assassinate a rogue triad leader, Kwan makes use of the opportunity and attacks them in an ambush which results in Chow Pan’s brutal death. Furthermore, he has Chan and Chicken’s girlfriend kidnapped and drugged into having sex which is against the triad code. Back in Hong Kong at the Hung Hing meeting, Kwan is able to put the blame on Chan, Uncle Bee and even Chairman Chiang for the failure in Macau. He then successfully nominates himself as the new Chairman and expel Chan from their society while Chicken seeks shelter in Taiwan. A few months later, Kwan has Bee and his entire family killed which prompts Chicken’s return to team up with Chan to take down the ruthless Kwan.
Director Andrew Lau Wai Keung started his film career as a cinematographer and is well known for his creative use of lighting and the hand-held shaky camera technique which he continues to explore in this production, especially during the action scenes to emphasize the chaotic violence. This actually works well and makes the action seem more brutal due to the use of cleavers, hatchets and knives by the triad members as their preferred weapons. Also by incorporating some of the original comic book images into the film’s scenes, he is able to give it a refreshing and cool look. Furthermore, the Hong Kong cityscape like the neon lights and backstreets are all put into great use to create the overall mood.
Singer Ekin Cheng and dancer Jordan Chan are surprisingly good at portraying the young and low-level triad members; both are charismatic enough to command likable presence on the screen. However, Chan, with his unconventional looks and approach, seems to display more acting skills, including some humor, than Cheng who is definitely lacking when displaying emotions. Nonetheless, they both fit their characters and share good chemistry on screen as the pair of main leads. Ultimately, the film belongs to the amazing Francis Ng, playing Hung Hing Society’s most ambitious and cruel leader Ugly Kwan. No doubt Ng is having a ball chewing up the scenery while upstaging just about everyone on set in a performance that resulted in his own spin-off, “Once Upon a Time in Triad Society” in 1996.
The adorable Gigi Lai lands the role of Smartie, a car thief who also serves as Cheng’s triad member character Chan Ho Nam’s love interest. Though Simon Yam appears briefly as Chairman Chiang, it is still a welcoming presence which also adds a bit of star power. Shaw Brothers veteran, Wang Lung Wei turns up as a gang boss and the father of Chicken’s girlfriend while comic writer Cow Man himself shows up as another gang leader at Uncle Bee’s funeral.
Although “Young and Dangerous” is basically about the triad culture and therefore condemned as glorifying their lifestyle, the story also touches heavily on brotherhood, friendship and royalty. In addition, it is a decent and entertaining watershed production with arresting visuals which was also a box office sensation that continued to spawn many sequels and moreover, made both Ekin Cheng and Jordan Chan into huge stars.
Billie Eilish fans prepare yourself, the much talked about secret project has finally arrived on the big screens!
Billie Eilish has always been about intimacy over artifice, but her latest concert film takes that to a visceral new level. Co-directed by Eilish and James Cameron, Billie Eilish – Hit Me Hard and Soft: The Tour (Live in 3D) manages to bridge the gap between a massive stadium show and the quiet grit of life backstage.
The film starts 18 minutes out from the show and builds the tension until audiences are literally folded into a box with her. Being taken under the stage, passing fans who have no idea she’s inches away, sets a tone of total immersion. What makes this film different is the balance between the spectacle and the behind-the-scenes reality. We see the creative shorthand between Billie and James Cameron as they chase what she calls the “best kind of sensory overload”.
The film is very much fan focussed, with the sound mix being so specific that you can hear individual fans singing along in sync with the visuals.
There are so many standout moments, the handheld camera work during “Bad Guy” that gives a dizzying POV of the band, and the chilling minute of silence Billie requests from the crowd to record a vocal loop.
The film captures her unique stage presence. Influenced by rap culture, Billie refuses to have anyone else on stage, unlike many female artists that use back up dancers. Billie can hold the entire stadium in awe by herself which is incredible to witness, until Finneas joins her for a beautiful, emotional piano set.
Between the high-tech visuals and the “Puppy Room” (where she keeps rescue dogs for staff to decompress), the film feels incredibly personal. While the film doesn’t give us any new insights into Billie, Billie Eilish – Hit Me Hard and Soft: The Tour (Live in 3D) is an enjoyable experience that elevates the tradition concert film.
Movie Reviews
Mortal Kombat 2 film producer asks ‘why the f**k’ critics who ‘have never played the game’ were allowed to review it | VGC
The producer of the Mortal Kombat 2 movie has called out critics who gave it a negative review.
At the time of writing, Mortal Kombat 2 has a score of 73% on film review aggregator site Rotten Tomatoes, and a score of 48 on Metacritic.
While this means reviews have generally been mixed, the film’s producer Todd Garner took to X to criticise those who wrote negative reviews, suggesting that some of them were written by critics who aren’t familiar with the source material.
“Some of these reviews are cracking me up,” Garner wrote. “It’s clear they have never played the game and have no idea what the fans want or any of the rules/canon of Mortal Kombat.
“One reviewer was mad that a guy ‘had a laser eye’! Why the fuck do we still allow people that don’t have any love for the genre review these movies! Baffling.”
When questioned on this viewpoint by some followers, Garner explained that while he doesn’t have an issue with negative reviews in general, his problem is specifically reviewers who don’t appear to be familiar with Mortal Kombat.
“My comment was very squarely directed at a couple of reviewers that did not like the ‘zombies’ and the fact that there was a ‘guy with a laser eye’, etc,” he said. “Those are elements that are baked into the Mortal Kombat IP and therefore we were dead in the water going in.
“There is no way for that person to review how it functioned as a film, because they did not like the foundational elements of the IP. I just wish when something is so obviously fan leaning in its DNA, that critics would take that into consideration.”
One follower then countered Garner’s complaint by arguing that he shouldn’t be criticising people who don’t know the games, when the films themselves take creative license with the IP.
“Bro to be fair, you invented Cole Young, Arcana and couldn’t even get the simple lore of Mileena and Kitana correct,” said user Dudeguy29. “I’d say you shouldn’t be tossing any stones here.”
“Fair,” Garner replied.
Garner previously criticised the cast of the Street Fighter movie when, during The Game Awards last year, comedian Andrew Schulz – who plays Dan in the Street Fighter film – claimed that the Mortal Kombat 2 movie cast were also in attendance, before joking: “I’m just kidding, they didn’t come, they don’t care about you, they only care about money.”
The jibe didn’t go down well with Garner, who stated on X at the time: “I don’t climb over others to get ahead”. When recently asked how he felt about the cast vs cast rivalry, however, Mortal Kombat co-creator Ed Boon laughed and said he had no issue with it at all.
Mortal Kombat 2 is released in cinemas this Friday, May 8, while Street Fighter arrives later in the year on October 16.
Within the family at the center of Blue Heron, the black sheep is a blond. Fair-skinned teenager Jeremy (Edik Beddoes) is an outlier among his siblings, two jostling preteen boys and watchful, 8-year-old Sasha (Eylul Guven), who are all darkly featured and take after their Hungarian parents (Iringó Réti and Ádám Tompa). Jeremy’s hair color doesn’t really matter, of course, but the contrast makes a useful shorthand for Jeremy’s otherness.
If “other” sounds inexact, that’s the point. To the frustration of his devoted but exhausted parents, there’s been no straightforward diagnosis for what ails Jeremy – for the mood swings, the “acting out.” A move at the beginning of the film to a new home is hopeful but short-lived: The mystery of Jeremy, to himself and to others, persists.
Much of Blue Heron is set over the course of one summer on Vancouver Island in the late Nineties, mirroring filmmaker Sophy Romvari’s own backstory, though the film shouldn’t be confused for straight autobiography. (Her 2020 short film, “Still Processing,” explored her family’s struggles with mental health through first-person documentary.) Still, the remarkable texture of these family scenes and how they favor Sasha’s childlike perspective – her small hands as they handle a potato peeler for the first time, the easy smiles as her mother dabs sunscreen on her face – feels intensely personal. There’s a hushed, dreamy quality to these scenes, mimicking memory itself, that plays into Blue Heron’s remarkable ability to hold two seemingly contradictory things to be true. Sasha can resent her brother and love him. Jeremy can be terrifying and in pain. A film can be whisper-quiet and still trip the wires in your brain that scream “danger.”
With very little dialogue and no cookie-cutter story beats, this fraught family life is vividly, tenderly rendered by Romvari and her naturalistic cast. That makes it all the more disorienting when, at arguably the moment of highest drama, Romvari shifts to a different vantage point. Boldly, she is asking the audience to look anew at what we’ve seen: to acknowledge what we saw was not the whole picture (how could it be, from an 8-year-old’s eye line?). The effect for me – and I suspect for you too, if you’re the kind of person who likes to take a movie apart and understand how it ticks – is exhilarating.
But not entirely effective – and in this reservation I gather I’m the outlier; Blue Heron has been rapturously received at festivals and by critics. This second half (of which I’m loath to spoil the specifics) becomes at once more experimental and more documentary-like, and revolves around a muted performance stranded in the in-between of drama and docudrama. Nothing ruinous, but a hangnail nonetheless on a film that otherwise had me in its thrall.
Blue Heron
2026, NR, 90 min. Directed by Sophy Romvari. Starring Eylul Guven, Edik Beddoes, Amy Zimmer, Iringó Réti, Ádám Tompa, Liam Serg, Preston Drabble.
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This article appears in May 8 • 2026.
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