我的猎物

　　《幽灵人间》：一幢豪华的别墅内，年迈的主人坤桑遇刺身亡。他曾留下遗嘱，将房子留给一对连体的双胞胎姐妹花。但是条件只有一个，姐妹俩必须为祖父首领三天。守灵之夜，怪事频发，鬼影幢幢，杀机四伏；《第11层天堂》：在名为“Heaven 11”的超市内，开业不到两个月内，接连4名店员自杀身亡。从收银台前的监视器内，可以清楚看到自杀收银员的身影。所见之人，不寒而栗，死亡诅咒仍在继续，纯情的收银女孩步入死局；《第八层地狱》 ：命运凄惨的女孩在大厦电梯间被粗暴蛮横的负心汉残忍杀害。美人香销玉殒，但冤魂久久不散。电梯间内，血腥的一幕重复上演，轮回不止……

　　Set in an underground dungeon inhabited by bundled, ragged human beings, after the nuclear holocaust. The story follows the wanderings of a hero through the situations of survival. People wait for the Ark to arrive and rescue them while their habitat falls apart.　　Delving deep into the dusty and long abandonded vaults of b-cinema in search of lost gems always leaves me with a bittersweet taste. On one hand the discovery of unexpected gems where no one would think them possible is a rewarding experience. On the other hand though it makes one wonder how many of these remarkable low-budget oddities, personal love affairs of directors never quite famous and now all but forgotten, have almost forever slipped from memory?　　n any case what we have here is a little post-apocalyptic gem from Poland that is really better than it has any right to. The dystopian near future of O-BI, O-BA finds a group of survivors of the nuclear war that ravaged the Earth inhabiting an underworld concrete bunker and biding their time as they wait for the mysterious Ark, an air ship of some kind that will come and save them. The Ark proves to be an elaborate hoax, carefully designed to give hope to the malnourished and desperate denizens of the bunker, while in the meantime the dome that separates their miserable existence from the nuclear winter outside is slowly caving in.　　What first striked me about the movie is the design of the bunker and the depiction of the survivors. The survivors are gaunt, filthy and terrible-looking penitents, dressed in rags and aimlessly wandering the neon-lit halls of the bunker like automatons. The bunker is a rundown, seedy place, with bright neon lights peering from all sides like the eyes of malignant beasts.　　On one hand it is a slightly 80's depiction of the dystopian future but the movie never stoops down to MAD MAX cheese. Instead it combines biting political satire with the bleak outlook of a world with no future, black comedy with barbs on apathy, religion and power. The survivors, for example, are fed some kind of flour dropping from a tube that hovers in the air - later on we discover the food supervisor uses books and the Bible itself as filler for this meagre meal. There are many such short symbolic touches, perhaps not life-changing or faith-restoring, yet playful, clever and inspired.　　One thing is for sure; O-BI, O-BA is not your run-of-the-mill sci-fi schlock. It overcomes its modest budget with creativity and has genuine artistic aspirations both from a writing and directing perspective. My opinion is that it should have been filmed in black and white instead of colour though. The director uses atmospheric light and shadow to great effect and it would have registered even better in stark black and white. The blue-green neon on the other hand outstays its welcome after a while. Just a minor gripe in an otherwise solid b-movie with its heart set in all the right places.　　Imagine a less bleak THE ROAD (Cormac McCarthy) being injected with the satire and humour of DR.STRANGELOVE and you're getting there. See it if you can find it.

　　Chosen Family sees Ann, a yoga teacher trying to find inner peace despite the fact her family is manic, and whose dating life is miserable. Ann doesn’t know how to say no and finds herself fixing everyone’s problems. Struggling to repair her estranged relationship with her sister Clio, Ann relies on her friends Roz, Max and Frances to be her rock and guide her through life’s troubling decisions.

　　1936年冬，抗联战士刘文泽等人于林海雪原伏击日军，欲夺回被窃国宝，却发现是赝品。他们与渡边一郎部周旋，多名战友牺牲，后在情报员老吴、僧人观空协助下找到地宫。最终众人与日军激战殉国，而他们用生命守护的国宝，50年后在般若寺遗址重现。