John Lui
John Lui's reviews only count toward the Tomatometer® when published at the following Tomatometer-approved publication(s):
The Straits Times (Singapore)
Publications:
The Straits Times (Singapore)
Movie Reviews Only
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3/5 | 96% | Raya and the Last Dragon (2021) |
It is street food, dressed up restaurant-style. It is cleaner and less likely to cause offence, but it is no longer street food. - The Straits Times (Singapore)
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| Posted Mar 5, 2021
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2/5 | No Score Yet | Endgame (2021) |
After the bloated middle section comes a rushed final act, with hanging threads wrapped up with a title card and high-brow references to the art of acting that go nowhere. - The Straits Times (Singapore)
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| Posted Feb 26, 2021
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3/5 | No Score Yet | The Diam Diam Era (Chen Mo De Nian Dai) (2020) |
Despite these flaws, the film's relative coherence and sense of purpose make it feel like the movie Neo had really intended to make. The first movie now looks mostly like a nostalgic filler. - The Straits Times (Singapore)
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| Posted Feb 26, 2021
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4/5 | 90% | The Climb (2020) |
Instead of mocking traditional American masculinity, The Climb explains why the grip of the tough-guy image is still so strong. - The Straits Times (Singapore)
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| Posted Feb 26, 2021
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5/5 | 87% | Supernova (2021) |
What is captured powerfully in this deceptively simple drama is the idea that these lovers are also old friends. Firth and Tucci disappear into their roles as the middle-aged couple who have eaten thousands of breakfasts and travelled countless roads. - The Straits Times (Singapore)
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| Posted Feb 26, 2021
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4/5 | 90% | Unpregnant (2020) |
It pulls back from the brink and what emerges is a funny, moving coming-of-age story featuring two winning performances by Richardson and Ferreira. - The Straits Times (Singapore)
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| Posted Feb 24, 2021
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2/5 | 11% | Breaking News in Yuba County (2021) |
It does an admirable job in making the point that white respectability, especially when worn by a middle-aged woman, is a double-edged sword... But the story needs a thorough going-over to cut its sprawl and sharpen its weak satirical edge. - The Straits Times (Singapore)
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| Posted Jan 29, 2021
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4/5 | 77% | Shadow in the Cloud (2021) |
Liang's firm handling of the paranoia and claustrophobia make this movie all her own, however. For much of its brisk 83-minute running time, she puts the audience in Garrett's cramped ball turret, trapped and bracing for the next attack. - The Straits Times (Singapore)
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| Posted Jan 29, 2021
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2/5 | 72% | An American Pickle (2020) |
A Greenbaum versus Greenbaum conflict erupts midway, a patience-testing contrivance meant to illustrate the superiority of the old ways, but only serves to highlight the sloppy screenwriting. - The Straits Times (Singapore)
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| Posted Jan 20, 2021
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2/5 | 46% | Locked Down (2021) |
As a writer, Knight (the terrible fantasy-tinged drama Serenity, 2019) needs his tendency to sprawl reined in. Liman, one of the best action directors today, is not the person to do it. - The Straits Times (Singapore)
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| Posted Jan 20, 2021
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5/5 | 100% | 76 Days (2020) |
As a record of our times, it is hard to imagine anything more complete, or profoundly moving. - The Straits Times (Singapore)
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| Posted Jan 20, 2021
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3/5 | No Score Yet | André & his Olive Tree (2020) |
Chiang's lack of concern about false humility or self-effacement, as captured in the film, gives it a much-needed touch of astringency. - The Straits Times (Singapore)
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| Posted Jan 14, 2021
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2/5 | No Score Yet | Stigmatized Properties (Jiko Bukken: Kowai Madori) (2020) |
Nakata's deft touch can be seen in the supporting characters, such as Yamame's smarmy, ratings-driven boss, but that is not enough to lift this work. - The Straits Times (Singapore)
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| Posted Jan 14, 2021
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4/5 | 89% | The Vigil (2021) |
Thomas uses simple practical effects, boosted by soundtrack thumps, to create the odd jump scare, but what stands out is the sustained mood of dread. Dawn cannot come soon enough. - The Straits Times (Singapore)
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| Posted Jan 14, 2021
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2/5 | 51% | The Midnight Sky (2020) |
Some directors know how to make adventure movies that seamlessly blend action with feelings of loss and heartbreak - Clooney is not one of them. - The Straits Times (Singapore)
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| Posted Jan 14, 2021
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3/5 | 90% | The Rescue (2020) |
That bit of burlesque and the touch of gore, seen in shots of victims of explosions and crashes, are a couple of weirdly human and therefore interesting touches in an otherwise overlong and predictable production. - The Straits Times (Singapore)
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| Posted Jan 14, 2021
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4/5 | No Score Yet | City Dream (2019) |
This is a study of old and new, of a society in a hurry to get rid of its old ways and move forward while trying to deal with the human cost. - The Straits Times (Singapore)
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| Posted Jan 14, 2021
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3/5 | 58% | Tesla (2020) |
The mix causes the work to feel like disconnected vignettes. It's fine in small doses, but makes for an exhausting watch. - The Straits Times (Singapore)
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| Posted Jan 14, 2021
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4/5 | 95% | Soul (2020) |
While it deals with grown-up topics such as the meaning of life, it tip-toes around the idea of mortality, choosing instead to put forward a candy-coloured cosmology that often suffocates its deeper questions under layers of whimsy. - The Straits Times (Singapore)
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| Posted Jan 14, 2021
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3/5 | 83% | Shock Wave 2 (2020) |
Sequel gigantism - a sickness seen in action movies based on hits - is at fault, but there are also threads that feel superfluous. - The Straits Times (Singapore)
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| Posted Jan 14, 2021
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4/5 | 100% | Wife of a Spy (Supai no tsuma) (2020) |
This is the work of someone in masterful control of atmosphere. Kurosawa steers clear of the sepia-tinged colour palette and visual softness that seems obligatory for wartime dramas, instead opting for a clean, matter-of-fact look. - The Straits Times (Singapore)
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| Posted Jan 14, 2021
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4/5 | 83% | Mank (2020) |
Fincher, for a film-maker who has not delivered anything as light as this, is right on the money in the camera work, editing and crisply edited dialogue. - The Straits Times (Singapore)
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| Posted Jan 14, 2021
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5/5 | 59% | Wonder Woman 1984 (2020) |
In a bold move that pays off strongly, Jenkins builds the story to a climax that is less about an all-out battle than having a cathartic cry. - The Straits Times (Singapore)
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| Posted Dec 22, 2020
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4/5 | 66% | Falling (2020) |
Mortensen has created a memorable villain in Willis, a dependant relying on the people to whom he showed an especially tough brand of love. - The Straits Times (Singapore)
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| Posted Nov 25, 2020
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3/5 | 77% | The Croods: A New Age (2020) |
The film buzzes with visual energy - the plants are a Pandora's box of surprises and the hybrid animals are inspired - but that rich eye candy only makes the played-out nature of the jokes more apparent. - The Straits Times (Singapore)
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| Posted Nov 25, 2020
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4/5 | 84% | Mosul (2020) |
Because Carnahan's fighters are driven by simple rage, the battle scenes are a cathartic watch - free of the higher-purpose, save-the-puppy motivations that fill out too many war movies. - The Straits Times (Singapore)
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| Posted Nov 20, 2020
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2/5 | 88% | Monsoon (2020) |
Turgid when it should have been thoughtful, vague when it should have been concrete. - The Straits Times (Singapore)
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| Posted Nov 16, 2020
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3/5 | 83% | Freaky (2020) |
To be sure, there is a lot of fun to be had when Millie, possessed by the mind of a maniac, goes from meek to murderous. - The Straits Times (Singapore)
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| Posted Nov 16, 2020
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4/5 | No Score Yet | My Missing Valentine (2020) |
This sort of visually ambitious, genre-bending film-making is rare these days, and even rarer still is its maturity of vision and tastefulness. - The Straits Times (Singapore)
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| Posted Nov 16, 2020
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2/5 | 53% | Waiting for the Barbarians (2020) |
The film is an anti-Rudyard Kipling story that wants to tear down the Empire-loving writer's romanticised notions of non-Western cultures, but does not quite know how. - The Straits Times (Singapore)
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| Posted Nov 4, 2020
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2/5 | 48% | The Witches (2020) |
A visual tour-de-force perhaps but emotionally, about as deep as a layer of pixels on a monitor. - The Straits Times (Singapore)
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| Posted Nov 4, 2020
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2/5 | 30% | The War with Grandpa (2020) |
The movie's lack of drive must stem from how audiences have come to expect a degree of slapstick sadism and cartoonish violence from the old-against-young setup. - The Straits Times (Singapore)
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| Posted Oct 29, 2020
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4/5 | 99% | Saint Frances (2020) |
First-time feature director Alex Thompson, working with a screenplay from partner and lead actress Kelly O'Sullivan, has made an adulting comedy that steers clear of the worst talky, navel-gazing indulgences of the genre. - The Straits Times (Singapore)
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| Posted Oct 29, 2020
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3/5 | No Score Yet | My People, My Homeland (2020) |
It is a weak piece because it sells the notion that civil servants deserve thanks because sometimes, they are inconvenienced by a hardship posting to the boondocks. - The Straits Times (Singapore)
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| Posted Oct 29, 2020
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2/5 | 34% | The Sunlit Night (2019) |
There are gentle comedies. Then there is The Sunlit Night, a comedy so gentle, it should come with a "do not consume while operating heavy machinery" warning. - The Straits Times (Singapore)
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| Posted Oct 29, 2020
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3/5 | 39% | Honest Thief (2020) |
The film feels small-scale and unambitious, an experience made worse by lazy thriller writing that deals in fantastic coincidences and the ultra-competent Carter behaving irrationally at convenient points in the story. - The Straits Times (Singapore)
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| Posted Oct 29, 2020
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3/5 | No Score Yet | Number One (2020) |
Director Ong Kuo Sin makes Beng an easy character to like and Lee's Golden Horse nomination for Best Actor is deserved. - The Straits Times (Singapore)
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| Posted Oct 29, 2020
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2/5 | 17% | The Silencing (2020) |
This movie forgets that the character stuff is the side dish, not the main course, and serves an insultingly under-prepared crime procedural. - The Straits Times (Singapore)
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| Posted Oct 29, 2020
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2/5 | 73% | Blood Vessel (2020) |
From the bad accents, to the lazy liberties taken with war history, to the creature effects lifted from a basic cable television show, nothing here can be taken seriously in spite of how strenuously the movie tries to be grim. - The Straits Times (Singapore)
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| Posted Oct 29, 2020
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4/5 | 81% | Over the Moon (2020) |
The moonscapes are delightful, but the town that Fei Fei calls home is stunning. - The Straits Times (Singapore)
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| Posted Oct 29, 2020
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2.5/5 | 73% | Mulan (2020) |
The 2020 Mulan adaptation suffers from the problem that also plagued 2019's Dumbo (based on the 1941 children's classic), an update that felt more like a mummification. - The Straits Times (Singapore)
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| Posted Oct 1, 2020
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2.5/5 | 66% | The Secret Garden (2020) |
Director Marc Munden deploys light realistic horror when portraying inner demons and then switches to Victorian-era whimsy to show the healing process. The result is not only tonally uneven, it is also glib. - The Straits Times (Singapore)
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| Posted Oct 1, 2020
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3.5/5 | 86% | The Eight Hundred (2020) |
It serves as a big-budget corrective to myths about war generated by Western cinema, such as the idea that Asians stood by to watch while Westerners fight their battles. - The Straits Times (Singapore)
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| Posted Oct 1, 2020
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4/5 | 88% | #Alive (2020) |
Who knew that zombie films could be as inventive and nerve-wracking as this, despite there not being a dozen characters with backstories to care about? - The Straits Times (Singapore)
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| Posted Oct 1, 2020
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3/5 | No Score Yet | I'm Livin' It (2019) |
First-time feature director Wong Hing Fan has earned a brace of well-deserved festival awards for this engaging if heavily romanticised portrait of a tragic social phenomenon. - The Straits Times (Singapore)
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| Posted Oct 1, 2020
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5/5 | 92% | The Personal History of David Copperfield (2020) |
The infectiously joyful The Personal History Of David Copperfield offers a rare combination of factors. - The Straits Times (Singapore)
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| Posted Oct 1, 2020
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2.5/5 | 62% | The Secrets We Keep (2020) |
This update's fixation on achieving a bloody catharsis drowns out other ideas. - The Straits Times (Singapore)
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| Posted Oct 1, 2020
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2.5/5 | 49% | Made in Italy (2020) |
If that set-up sounds corny, that is because it is, and actor James D'Arcy, making his directorial debut, is ill-equipped to excavate anything in his screenplay that feels fresh or profound. - The Straits Times (Singapore)
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| Posted Oct 1, 2020
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4/5 | No Score Yet | The Tunnel (Tunnelen) (2019) |
The tone is so realistic that at times, the film feels more like a re-enactment of a past tragedy of the sort found on cable television documentaries. - The Straits Times (Singapore)
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| Posted Oct 1, 2020
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2.5/5 | 84% | Pinocchio (2020) |
This is a strange decision given the film's decidedly non-cute look, which some might call grotesque, made worse by how the English voices have unnecessarily strong Italian accents. - The Straits Times (Singapore)
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| Posted Oct 1, 2020
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