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Movie Reviews: A Vietnamese ‘E.T.’ for kids

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Movie Reviews: A Vietnamese ‘E.T.’ for kids

Maika: The Woman From One other Galaxy (Vietnam, Properly Go USA, streaming, PG, 105 min.). The movie, which premiered on the 2022 Sundance Movie Pageant within the Children part, is Vietnam’s first youngsters’s science-fiction characteristic and the nation’s second-ever entry within the sci-fi style. The family-friendly journey relies on a beloved Czechoslovakian tv collection (1978-1983) that grew to become a cultural sensation in Vietnam all through the Eighties and ‘90s, to the extent that the titular character has been cited as influencing client behaviors that vary from youngsters’s haircuts to child title selections.

The movie begins a 12 months after Hung’s (Lai Truong Phu) mom died. Now the 8-year-old and his father Thanh (Ngòc Tuòng) reside in an house above his father’s cellular phone restore store. Hung’s solely actual pal My (Khánh Như) and her household moved out, leaving Hung, who likes to fly his Comet distant airplane (the enjoyable starting sequence), has been left on his personal, as his father works lengthy hours beneath in his store. Two goons, employed by the constructing’s proprietor, are attempting to pressure all of the tenants out so he can promote it for triple the worth.

One evening, Hung sees a glowing purple object streak throughout the sky and crash into a close-by lake, which simply occurs to be close to property the unscrupulous, ultra-wealthy house program developer Nghia (suppose Elon Musk, solely villainous) has lately purchased up. The now-damaged car contained Maika (Chu Dièp Anh, voiced by Malea Emma Tjandrawidjaja), an alien who takes the type of a younger lady with purple hair. Whereas investigating, Hung almost drowns making an attempt to retrieve Comet from the lake, however Maika rescues him, and their unusual friendship begins.

The 2 dangerous man goons are there for apparent comedian reduction. Since it’s a movie for youths, there are the compulsory fart jokes. Hung’s flying antagonist CuBeo finally ends up serving to Hung and Maika, to whom he’s attracted. Product placement is a bit apparent, particularly when the largest occasions happen within the Disney World-like Solar World amusement park.

All in all, the movie is entertaining and gives some laughs, in addition to an exquisite music rating by Christopher Wong. Reportedly, writer-director Ham Tran (“Journey from the Fall,” “Bitcoin Heist”) started work on the movie shortly after the loss of life of his personal mom, which influences the best way Hung and his father’s grief is dealt with. Along with a flying second, the movie could be very like “E.T. the Additional-Terrestrial,” in that Maika is making an attempt to repair her antenna so she will be able to name residence for rescue. Grade: movie 3 stars
Ranking information: 5 stars = traditional; 4 stars = glorious; 3 stars = good; 2 stars = honest; canine = skip it

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The Felony Lifetime of Archibaldo de la Cruz aka Ensayo De Un Crimen (Mexico, 1955, VCI Leisure/MVD Visible, Blu-ray, NR, 99 min.). Some contemplate this to be Luis Buñuel’s most underrated movie. As standard, it combines the macabre with comedy. A lot of the movie is a flashback confession of the title character to murders he needed to commit, however truly didn’t, as outdoors forces truly do the deeds.

The movie begins with the introduction of Archibaldo as an overindulged younger boy of privilege. He’s given a music field, a household heirloom, that allegedly brought about the loss of life of an enemy when performed. The boy decides to check it out, setting his sights on his nanny, wishing for her loss of life. When moments later, a stray bullet from a revolutionary’s gun sails although the window and kills her, Archie is satisfied it was no accident. He carries the mindset of a serial killer into maturity, plotting and fantasizing the deaths of girls he encounters.

Certainly one of his alleged victims is a lady who fashions for division retailer mannequins, which ends up in a really perverse date. One other is his a lot youthful bride. Ernesto Alonso performs the grownup Archibaldo.

The restored, black-and-white movie comes with a visible essay (26:40) on Buñuel’s profession by Dr. David Wilt, who factors out how two of the actors died earlier than the movie’s premiere — Miroslava, who performed Lavinia, and Jose Maria Linares-Rivas, who performed Willy Corduran — and co-screenwriter Eduardo Ugarte died six months after the premiere. Grade: movie 3.5 stars; additional 2 stars

Symphony for a Bloodbath (France, 1963, Cohen Movie Assortment, NR, 110 min.). This new launch is of the 2016 restoration of Jacques Deray’s unusually named movie. In keeping with the additional, the title was chosen to resemble that of one other lately in style movie in France. Nonetheless, the participating story has to do with 5 businessmen, who personal and function a dance corridor/on line casino, who mix their funds for one final drug buy ($500,000) to set them up for all times. Nonetheless, one of many 5 males cleverly arranges to steal the cash and prepare an alibi. The 5 then begin dying one after the other, some as a result of the betrayer made two silly errors.

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The 5 males embody the eldest one, Paoli (Charles Vanel, “The Wages of Concern”), who finalizes the deal; Moreau (Jose Giovanni), who’s the one to ship the funds after a trip on the late practice; Maurice Clavet (Michel Auclair), who runs the playing tables; Valoti (Claude Dauphin), who will deal with the distribution preparations; and Christian Jabeke (Jean Rochefort in his first severe lead function), who’s off to Brussels for a enterprise assembly. The primary wrinkle is Jabeke is having an affair with Valoti’s spouse (Daniela Rocca). Michele Mercier performs Clavet’s fearful spouse.

The only additional is a dialogue of the movie by journalist and biographer Jean-Philippe Guerand (“Jean Rochefort, pince sans rire”) and movie historian and creator Francois Guerif (“Le movie noir American”). They talk about, in separate, intertwined interviews, the manufacturing historical past, visible aesthetics and dialog of the movie (28:21). Grade: movie 3 stars; additional 2 stars

NCIS: The nineteenth Season (CBS/Paramount, 5 DVDs, NR, 14 hours 52 min.). The veteran Naval Felony Investigative Service collection sees Folks’s Alternative Award winner Mark Harmon retire his lead function as Particular Agent Leroy Jethro Gibbs. The season begins with a seek for Gibbs after wreckage from his boat is discovered, with none signal of him. It seems, Gibbs was on a secret mission to trace down a serial killer. Main the search are Agent Jessica Knight (Katrina Regulation) and Particular Brokers Timothy McGee (Sean Murray) and Nickolas Torres (Wilmer Valderrama). Particular visitor stars embody Pam Dawber (“Mork & Mindy”) and Denise Crosby (“Star Trek: The Subsequent Technology”).

The set comes with greater than 45 minutes of particular options, together with “Being Gibbs” (10:28), on capturing on location in Alaska (5:43), Brian Dietzen and Scott Williams discussing “The Helpers” (5:40), on Gary Cole and Regulation becoming a member of the present (7:58), a have a look at Torres and Jane Tennant (7:33) and an total forged look (11:18).

NCIS: Los Angeles: Season 13 (CBS/Paramount, 5 DVDs, NR, 15 hours 41 min.). Throughout this season, the spinoff present marked its three hundredth episode. A lot of the motion facilities round Particular Agent G. Callen’s (Chris O’Donnell) pursuit of Russian operative Katya (Jana Kolesarova), whose use of deepfakes to pose as Callen put the entire crew in danger. Different threats come from Chinese language intelligence, white nationalist militias, the Mob, and a web based military of murderous web trolls.

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The set comes with greater than an hour of particular options, together with an summary of the season, the addition of Gerald McRaney as a collection common as Admiral Kilbride (he had made visitor appearances beforehand), the forged and crew discussing the three hundredth episode, deleted and prolonged scenes, and a gag reel.

NCIS: Hawai’i: Season One (CBS/Paramount, 6 DVDs, NR, 14 hours 12 min.). The latest collection within the NCISverse stars Vanessa Lachey as Jane Tennant, the primary feminine particular agent in command of NCIS Pearl Harbor. Tennant has thrived and risen by the ranks by equal components confidence and technique in a system that has pushed her again on her each step of the best way. Her crew consists of area brokers Kai Holman (Alex Tarrant), Jesse Boone (Noah Mills) and Lucy Tara (Yasmine Al-Bustami), plus tech specialist Ernie Malik (Jason Antoon). Additionally within the forged are Tori Anderson as FBI Agent Kate Whistler and Kian Talen as Tennant’s son, Alex.

The set comprises each components of the particular crossover with “NCIS.” There are greater than 45 minutes of bonus options, together with a glance into making the collection, costume designer Luke Reichle giving a tour of the costume division, manufacturing designer Andrew Bernard and set decorator Carrie Stewart discussing the units and a have a look at Nickolas Torres and Tennant (additionally obtainable on the season 19 “NCIS” set).

Tom Von Malder of Owls Head has reviewed music since 1972, simply after commencement from Northwest-ern College’s Medill Faculty of Journalism. He has reviewed movies/DVDs since 1988.


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Movie review: “Mission: Impossible – The Final Reckoning' still thrills after slow start – UPI.com

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Movie review: “Mission: Impossible – The Final Reckoning' still thrills after slow start – UPI.com

1 of 5 | Ethan Hunt (Tom Cruise) hangs on in “Mission: Impossible – The Final Reckoning,” in theaters May 23. Photo courtesy of Paramount Pictures

LOS ANGELES, May 14 (UPI) — Mission: Impossible – The Final Reckoning, in theaters May 23, delivers on the level of the franchise’s most recent films once it gets going. It does, however, have the slowest start of all eight Mission: Impossible movies.

In 2023’s Dead Reckoning, Ethan Hunt (Tom Cruise) took on the villainous Gabriel (Esai Morales) to retrieve the key that unlocks the source code of the rogue artificial intelligence known as The Entity. Final Reckoning opens two months later, with Ethan unsure what to do with such power.

As The Entity holds hostage all of cyberspace and the world’s electronics, including military weapons, there is a deadline before the AI will control the world. That is, if Ethan doesn’t stop it first.

The plan to destroy The Entity requires Ethan’s teammates, hackers Luther (Ving Rhames) and Benji (Simon Pegg), pickpocket Grace (Hayley Atwell) and Gabriel’s turncoat assassin Paris (Pom Klementieff). The mission is complicated by U.S. President Sloane (Angela Bassett) sending agents to recover The Entity’s controls for U.S. purposes, which Ethan knows will backfire.

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The missions live up to the movie’s title by devising ways to keep making the task harder for Ethan. For example, he’s already diving to crushing depths to activate computers in a sunken submarine when the sub rolls towards an abyss.

Not only does this add another ticking clock to his task, but the water level rotates around Ethan and causes missiles to fall and shift, blocking his path and exit route.

The climax, which has already been shared during the film’s publicity, features Ethan hanging from a propeller plane. The scene is more than just a spectacle — writer/director Christopher McQuarrie and co-writer Erik Jendresen craft a sequence that justifies the stunt and continues to build as the pilot attempts many different ways to shake Ethan.

Final Reckoning does play the same trick one too many times, where Ethan’s team goes to meet someone and finds someone else waiting for them. The second and third iterations lack surprise, but the interlopers at least complicate Ethan’s plan, necessitating some fun improvisation.

Leading up to such sequences, this Mission: Impossible unfortunately becomes tedious and repetitive. The problem could easily be solved by cutting 40 minutes out of the film — which would still leave it at over two hours long.

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Final Reckoning recapping Dead Reckoning is the least of these worries, as it gets handled before the title sequence, which admittedly comes some 20 minutes in. What does become redundant are long sequences of Ethan walking through a war room looking at models as the DEFCON clock ticks down to The Entity’s takeover.

Ethan explains to Gabriel, then to the President, then to Admiral Neely (Hannah Waddingham), how dangerous The Entity is. There’s buildup and then there’s just wallowing, and this leans towards the latter.

He keeps warning that The Entity expects them to act a certain way and advising they should instead surprise the AI. He says it enough times that the audience has surely caught on, if not The Entity itself.

Furthermore, The Final Reckoning becomes the most convoluted of all the Mission: Impossibles, which is no small feat, by connecting the plot to all seven previous films. It is an odd choice in a series predicated on standalone entries, and a mistake also recently criticized in the James Bond films starring Daniel Craig.

Bringing back some characters from previous entries is fun and gives them satisfying character arcs to imagine in the time between films, while others concoct unimportant connections. Just let some people be new characters.

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For example, tying in The Entity with the Rabbit’s Foot from Mission: Impossible III is wholly unnecessary. The Rabbit’s Foot was one of that director J.J. Abrams’ trademark unanswered mysteries, so saying now that it was a component of The Entity adds little to the current film.

The pieces of The Entity could be any Maguffin. Making Ethan feel responsible for it just forces more spurious connections. Ethan was going to stop The Entity anyway, whether he indirectly helped build it or not.

This is not to criticize the scenes explaining the missions, which effectively establish the impossible tasks at hand. Those scenes are not included in the superfluous 40 minutes of exposition.

Potentially interesting threads are also abandoned, such as a doomsday cult that worships The Entity but never becomes a factor in the mission.

When the screen expands to fill the entire IMAX frame, rest assured the show is about to start — and it is worth it. The unfortunate issue is that it happens about 80 minutes into the film, not including a few earlier IMAX shots of The Entity’s core. The submarine is the first proper IMAX action scene.

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During the intense scenes, the film has a sense of humor about its own tropes of deadlines and cutting wires. It’s only when it’s taking itself seriously that it drags.

Gabriel becomes more of a mustache twirling, cackling villain in this film. It’s motivated by his loss in Dead Reckoning but still a drastic shift, though the film has a sense of humor about his behavior too.

The second half of Mission: Impossible – The Final Reckoning makes up for earlier mission failures, and this level of craftsmanship is still worth experiencing. Otherwise, the script problems would be unacceptable.

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'Holy Night: Demon Hunters' Review — A Punchier Version Of 'Constantine'

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'Holy Night: Demon Hunters' Review — A Punchier Version Of 'Constantine'

Ma Dong-Seok as Ba Woo in ‘Holy Night: Demon Hunters’ (2025), Capelight Pictures

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Written and directed by first-time filmmaker Lim Dae-hee, Holy Night: Demon Hunters follows three underground demon hunters, operating like private investigators who are too unorthodox to be cops and too accepting of the occult to be associated with the church.

The demon-hunting trinity is led by Ba Woo (Ma Dong-seok), a beast of a man capable of solving most of his problems with his bulking fists. Whatever slips through Ba Woo’s fingers is typically dealt with by Sharon (Seohyun), a woman who can sense and exorcise demons. Then there’s Kim Goon (Lee David), a demon hunter in training who is the team’s tech support.

(L-R) Seohyun, Ma Dong-seok, and Lee David as Sharon, Ba Woo, and Kim Goon in Holy Night: Demon Hunters (2025), Capelight Pictures

RELATED: The Dismal Ending Of Blumhouse’s ‘The Woman In The Yard’ Isn’t Pleasing Some Horror Fans

A neuropsychiatrist named Jung-won (Kyung Soo-jin) is trying to help her sister Eun-seo (Jung Ji-so) who is in desperate need of an exorcism. With the church unable to assist with their stance on exorcisms, it’s up to Ba Woo and his team to save Eun-seo.

It feels like Holy Night: Demon Hunters is the second installment of a franchise that nobody knew about. A prequel webtoon called Holy Night: The Zero is available on Naver Webtoon and is currently 13 episodes long. The webtoon could add more depth to the film since Holy Night: Demon Hunters seems to struggle to keep your interest for its measly 92-minute duration. Like Richard Kelly’s Southland Tales though, viewers shouldn’t have to read or watch something else to fully appreciate a director’s vision.

Jung Ji-so as Eun-soo in Holy Night: Demon Hunters (2025), Capelight Pictures

The action horror film teases a real-world takeover by not only demons but Lucifer himself. The credits introduce the audience to every demon that could come into play. Holy Night: Demon Hunters barely scratches the surface of the ideas it introduces, so it’s a bit confusing why so many aspects are shown and not utilized. The film then decides to vaguely describe semi-intriguing backgrounds for characters barely seen through to completion.

Ba Woo is using all the money he’s making as a demon hunter to build an orphanage. He grew up as an orphan. And the people from the orphanage he grew up in were slaughtered by his best friend, whom he viewed as a brother. The two of them gained a demonic power, and Ba Woo used his power for good while his brother became a demon.

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RELATED: ‘Badland Hunters’ Review – Ma Dong-seok Delivers Frenetic Guillotine Action

The majority of the rest of the film is devoted to Eun-Seo, her exorcism, and which demon has possessed her. The exorcism Sharon uses on her is broken down into six stages (and a piece of bamboo since it thwarts off demonic energy for whatever reason). The six stages of exorcism are presence, deception, break point, voice, clash, and expulsion.

Most of the characters in the film are underdeveloped. Ba Woo is a big, buffed dude struggling with both literal and inner demons inside of him. Sharon is in the same boat, and her power could easily sway her to the dark side. Apart from asking for a raise and being the most sympathetic of the bunch, Kim Goon doesn’t do much.

(L-R) Seohyun, Ma Dong-seok, and Lee David as Sharon, Ba Woo, and Kim Goon in Holy Night: Demon Hunters (2025), Capelight Pictures

Jung-won is so annoyingly written. The character is meant to be a burden by being in the room during the exorcism for no reason other than being an obstacle, making stupid decisions at every turn, and being an inconsolable crier at every turn.

The VFX in the film is a mixed bag. Sometimes they look almost great, like when Ba Woo punches demon-possessed people, as smoke seeps from their bodies or the weird shadow demon that haunts him throughout the film. But the CGI highs come with a lot of visual lows, and Holy Night: Demon Hunters struggles with decent-to-janky CGI the majority of the time.

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(L-R) Ma Dong-seok, Seohyun, and Lee David as Ba Woo, Sharon, and Kim Goon in Holy Night: Demon Hunters (2025), Capelight Pictures

Holy Night: Demon Hunters is a punchier version of Constantine. There are some fun sequences, but the film is a bummer overall. Ma Dong-seok typically chooses great projects to be a part of, and it’s unfortunate that Holy Night: Demon Hunters feels so rushed and incomplete. A big dude storming around the city punching demons into submission sounds so awesome, but somehow Lim Dae-hee turned it into this thin, dull, and lifeless attempt at purification.

NEXT: Capcom Censors Oyu’s Extra Costume In ‘Onimusha 2: Samurai’s Destiny’ Remaster

Holy Night: Demon Hunters (2025), Capelight Pictures

PROS

  • Ma Dong-seok
  • Some of the action and VFX are fantastic

CONS

  • Mutilates a fun concept
  • Makes 90 minutes feel long
  • Thin story
  • Little to no character development
  • Opening credit terminology seems longwinded for no reason
Chris Sawin is a Tomatometer-approved film critic who has been writing about film for over a decade. Chris has … More about Chris Sawin

Mentioned In This Article: action Capelight Pictures Don Lee Holy Night: Demon Hunters Horror Ma Dong-seok Movie Review Movies

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Film Review: ‘Caught by the Tides’ is Another Daring Work of Art from Jia Zhangke – Awards Radar

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Film Review: ‘Caught by the Tides’ is Another Daring Work of Art from Jia Zhangke – Awards Radar

Less a narrative feature than an impressionistic work of art, Jia Zhangke distills the past twenty years of his life through the perspective of Qiaoqiao (Zhao Tao) in his latest film, Caught by the Tides. The only “newly” shot portion for the movie occurs during its final half, set in 2022 during the COVID-19 pandemic, as Qiaoqiao reunites with her former lover, Bin (Li Zhubin), for the first time since their separation. What precedes this section is a non-linear assemblage of footage shot by Jia, either for his past films, such as Still Life, Ash is Purest White, and Unknown Pleasures, or footage he kept for himself until today. 

Watching such a movie feels truly daring, as Jia moves away from his linear works into associative territory, linking one piece of shot-on-video footage with another, completely different, celluloid image. The most impressive moment occurs near its end, as the movie cuts from a top-down shot of a ballroom, where a group of people dance during the pandemic, to a fish-eyed digital zoom of a supermarket CCTV camera, first honing in on a pack of oranges, then clumsily careening around the space, desperately looking for an image to focus on. The camera follows Bin inside the market as he reunites with Qiaoqiao. From there, pure cinema occurs. 

Bin reunites with Qiaoqiao and, despite the face masks they are wearing, the two immediately recognize each other’s eyes. Jia lingers on their masked faces for a bit before Bin removes it, to the shock of Qiaoqiao, still unable to process that he’s in front of him, after so many years apart. It’s one of the most potent images in post-COVID filmmaking, where the director is able to find purpose in the sanitary limitations of the era, showing us that connections were still possible, despite the tragic situation the characters were living in.  

Many filmmakers have tried to express the COVID-19 era in film, but have failed to draw anything meaningful out of it. The only artist who got something out of the anxieties such an event drew was Steven Soderbergh when he made his paranoia thriller KIMI in 2022. Radu Jude also tried to say something out of such an event with his unofficial duology Bad Luck Banging or Loony Porn and Do Not Expect Too Much from the End of the World (both are masterpieces, by the way), but no filmmaker expressed dramatic power the way Jia does in this particular section with Caught by the Tides, let alone letting the silences of his (masked) actors speak in ways that words cannot. 

Zhao Tao’s performance is entirely silent, barring a section taken from Unknown Pleasures where the protagonist sings. But there isn’t a spoken word uttered by Qiaoqiao throughout the entire movie, and Jia lets us sit with her in silence, contemplating her future and the choices she has made that ultimately lead her to where she is during the pandemic. Even her exchange with Bin, preceding their breakup, is told through intertitles, with only their looks as the point of reference to make us feel their emotions. To some, that may be an alienating way to watch a movie, especially when Jia flows from one scene to the next without tangible linearity, a massive departure from what he is usually known for. 

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However, there’s something so emotionally stirring in Zhao Tao’s portrayal of Qiaoqiao, whether in the repurposed footage from Jia’s past films or what was shot for this movie, that makes the experience so worthwhile. The best parts of acting are conveying everything you want to say without having the need to say anything. Few actors can accomplish this feat well and express a litany of emotions like this, yet Zhao Tao does it so effortlessly. Her forced smile hides feelings she doesn’t want to put forward, even though we can clearly read them. Qiaoqiao isn’t happy, and her current trajectory ensures she won’t find the peace she wants. 

It’s only during an interaction with a robot, in one of the year’s most moving exchanges, that we get to see the real Qiaoqiao, who warms up and happily smiles, for the first time, after the machine tells her, “Mother Teresa once said, if you love until it hurts…there can be no more hurt, only more love.” It’s the first occasion where we see her feel something, and the rest of the film, where Qiaoqiao ties up all of her past loose ends, gives her the courage to do what she needs to do to move on. It’s simultaneously heartbreaking and profoundly affecting, even if Jia’s associations sometimes lose their meaning, particularly in the movie’s midsection. 

That said, even if Caught by the Tides sags and loses its intent in a few places, Jia Zhangke knows he has to anchor his decades-spanning emotional journey through the eyes of his wife and creative partner, Zhao Tao. It’s through those sullen, devastating looks that pierce the artifice of cinema and touch us so profoundly that we’re ultimately moved by this daring proposition from one of China’s greatest formalists, caught in the tides of the past and present, and offering us no solutions for a future that doesn’t look as promising as it might have been envisioned, by Qiaoqiao, or society itself…

SCORE: ★★★1/2

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