Fast & Furious 8, The Handmaiden, The Sense of an Ending The Film Review

Indy 500. And we will hear from Katie Archbold who has won Britain's

first gold at the world track cycling Championships. Now on BBC

music is time for the Film Review. Hello and welcome to the Film Review

on BBC News. To take us through this week's cinema releases is James

King. What do we have this week? First up, fast cars and tight

T-shirts. It is the return of Vin Diesel in the fast and the theory of

eight. From the ridiculous to the sublime, Count The Handmaiden. And

The Sense Of An Ending. So fast and theory of eight. Have you seen the

others? A couple. This is such a huge franchise, this one will be

huge. The interesting thing about the franchise is where they go with

it. They have to give audiences what they want which is generally

speaking the big action scenes which the car chases. This time round, Vin

Diesel who plays the lead character has gone rogue. He has gone to the

dark side. He is linked up with a superb criminal called Cypher played

by Charlize Theron. He is playing the bad guy again. We have a clip of

them. This is what Vin Diesel does for most of the movie which has

looked puzzled. Here he is. Let me ask you something, Dom, what is the

best thing in life? Family. No, it is not. Not if you are being honest.

It is the ten seconds between start and finish when you're not thinking

about anything, no family, no obligations, just you, being free. I

got to tell you, this whole saving the world Robin Hood nonsense you

have been doing recently, it is not you. Be who you are. Why live only a

quarter of a mile at a time when you can live your whole life that way. I

think we get a sense there. I'm just looking at the cast list, Helen

Mirren? Helen Mirren playing Jason Statham's mum, who would have

thought it? She is actually funny in it. It is a deliberately over the

top cockney sparrow performance from her. Jason Statham provides the best

moment of the film. It is a scene where he is fighting the bad

guys on a plane, at the same time as trying to save a baby in a carrying

cot, so he has two punch people on second and the next second look

after the baby. It is like something Jackie Chan would have done. It is

an entertaining scene in the movie. A lot of it is car chases. That is

fine, that is what people want. Is it doing anything different to the

other ones? I am not sure. It is a formula and it is sticking closely

to it. What will number nine look like? I hope it will shock us. I

hope it will take more risks. I enjoyed number eight, it did a good

job but it was occasionally treading water and I wanted more surprises.

Although this one will be massive, I hope the next one will take more

risks. Let's talk about handmaiden. This is a film you really like? This

is great. It is inspired by the book Fingersmith by Sarah Walters. It is

erected by Park Chan-wook who is South Korea's most respected film

director. He has moved the action from Victorian England to 1930s

occupied Korea. But the story is generally the same. A young girl

from a criminal background goes to work for the Lady of the manner that

she is actually there to swindle her out of her fortune. Unlike the book,

it really relishes the power of storytelling, in other words, it is

the twists and the turns, it is the horror, the comedy, the romance, it

throws everything into the mix and does it in a really luxurious and

lush way. I want to call it a romp but that sounds throwaway but it is

not. It is a costume drama? A costume drama but heartfelt.

Although it is fun to watch because there is so much going on, it is

intelligent and heartfelt and tender. Ultimately, it is a romance.

It is a beautiful, tender love story. Absolutely beautiful to

watch, highly recommended. And a major twist? At least one. I

had read the book so I knew the twist. The end of The Handmaiden,

the movie was different to Fingersmith. It will still a joy to

watch. Let's move on to The Sense Of An Ending. This was from the book by

Julian Barnes which won the Booker prize. This is about Tony who is

semi retired and works in a camera shop. Out of the blue he gets a

letter saying the mother of his ex-girlfriend from when he was a

teenager has died and he has been left something in her will. This

gets him reminiscing and looking back to when he was at college. In

the present day, that ex-girlfriend is played by Charlotte Rampling so

here is Jim and Charlotte getting to know each other again. Let's take a

look. Are you married, I take it? Not married. Never? Mysterious to a

fault. I'm divorced, in case you were wondering. I wasn't but I am

sorry to hear that. On the contrary, very happily so. The best decision

we ever undertook. In fact, she recently accused me of having built

a shrine to you, no less. A shop, when I told her it was you who gave

me my first like. And what did you say? A remarkable cast. The only

criticism I have read about The Sense Of An Ending is a criticism of

the ending! It is certainly a story that deals with quite subtle and

nuanced arguments about memory and the past and subjectivity, so in a

way it can never have a big punch of an ending. In a way, the ending had

to be slightly anti-climactic, because that is sort of what it is

about, but when you have performances like Jim Broadbent,

Charlotte Rampling who does Stern and mysterious better than anyone

else, when you have that calibre of performers in a movie, however

subtle and nuanced the story is, and it is slow, the more you are drawn

in. I liked that it dealt with quite abstract subjects. And it goes back

to the 60s? It takes awhile to get to know the story if you have not

read the book already, so it takes awhile to work where the penny will

drop but for me that as part of the joy of the film that you have to

work a bit to get into it. . And with Jim Broadbent and Charlotte

Rampling you will not go far wrong? He is more of a curmudgeonly in this

movie but he does it row well. Now, you have chosen Roar. Mark waxed

lyrical about this. It is an arthouse cannibal movie. He would be

upset if I did not mention it! I really liked it. It does have an

unwavering commitment to unsettling the audience. It is set in the

veterinary College about a teenage girl who discovers her taste for

flesh, taste for cannibalism, and it is genuinely creepy and weird. The

lighting, the music, the performances, it has this sort of

industrial brutalist backdrop and surreal moments, and it is not often

with horror films you can say I just haven't seen anything like it

before, and it genuinely disturbed me. But Raw did that and did it in a

beautiful way. It is an elegant full. She starts as a vegetarian!

His darts as a vegetarian but things happen at college which make her

realise she is perhaps not quite as vegetarian as she thought. -- she

starts as a vegetarian. On the squeamish is Gail, it sounds like

something, where would you pitch it in taste? It is squeamish because it

is beautifully done. Because of the elegance that makes it more

horrific. Sometimes if it is straight out blood and guts stroke

movie it is so in your face and there is nothing to it. When it is

more subtle, that is actually creepier. Let's move on, please!

Let's move onto DVD. This is Sully, the pilot who managed to land his

plane on the Hudson River. It is directed by Clint Eastwood. It was

raved about at the time. Although you expect it to be about the crash

landing in 2009, it is in there, you see that, you experience that, but

it also shows you what happened before. It also shows you Sully

afterwards. It shows you the investigation which happened

afterwards. He has to prove that he did the right thing, that he is a

hero, and of course Tom Hanks can do the everyday down-to-earth

reasonable hero probably better than anyone else. So it is not perhaps

the movie you would expect that that makes it all the better, because it

does delve a lot deeper. And it is that quiet unfussy... Unfussy is the

word for it. Clint Eastwood does that very well. He brings movies in

on budget and on time. He does it intelligently and you see all of

that in this movie. James, always a pleasure. James King there. That is

it for this week, thanks for watching.