Heroes Two (5 Stars)

"Heroes Two" is one of the key films in director Chang Cheh's Shaolin cycle for the Shaw Brothers studio. On the surface it's a straightforward kung fu adventure, but it's built around Chinese folk legends connected to the fall of the Ming Dynasty and resistance against the Qing rulers.

The film opens after the destruction of the Shaolin Temple. Qing government forces, often referred to in the film as Manchus, have burned the temple and massacred most of its defenders. One of the few survivors is the famous martial artist Hung Hsi Kuan, who escapes and becomes part of an underground resistance movement.

The Qing authorities desperately want to capture Hung because he's become a symbol of resistance. General Che Kang, a ruthless Qing commander and skilled fighter, organises a manhunt.

Meanwhile, another Shaolin fighter, Fong Sai Yuk, wanders through the countryside. Fong is immensely talented but impulsive and naïve. Che Kang quickly realises that Fong doesn't know the full political situation and tricks him into believing that Hung is merely a dangerous criminal.

The deception works. Fong tracks down Hung and, after a fierce fight, helps the Qing forces capture him. Word soon spreads through the resistance movement that Fong has betrayed a Shaolin hero. The rebels confront him and reveal the truth: Hung is actually fighting against Qing oppression and the people Fong has been helping are the real villains.

Horrified by what he's done, Fong decides to rescue Hung. His first attempts fail because General Che Kang is an accomplished martial artist himself. Eventually Fong joins forces with the resistance fighters, who devise a plan to tunnel into the prison where Hung is being held.

The film is based on a famous body of Chinese folklore surrounding the alleged destruction of a southern Shaolin Temple during the early Qing Dynasty. According to legend, the Manchu rulers feared that Shaolin monks and Ming loyalists were plotting rebellion. The temple was supposedly attacked and burned, with only a handful of masters escaping. These survivors then spread martial arts throughout southern China and founded many famous kung fu styles.

Fong Sai Yuk and Hung Hsi Kuan are both major figures in southern Chinese martial arts mythology and appear in countless novels, operas and films. Later audiences may know Fong Sai-yuk best from "Fong Sai Yuk", in which he was played by Jet Li.

Martyrs (1 Star)

Recently two of my friends have called "Martyrs" one of the best films they've ever seen. That made me sit up and pay attention. I had to see it.

Two girls, Lucie and Anna, escape from an orphanage where they're being tortured. 15 years later they find two of the people who tortured them, and Lucie slaughters the whole family. Lucie then kills herself. Anna searches the house and finds another women in the cellar who's being tortured. The woman kills herself. Anna is captured and is tortured even more than before.

There's an explanation for the torture which is given late in the film. It didn't satisfy me. The only memory I have after watching the film is women being tortured. It's ugly. How can anyone possibly like a film like this? It's horrible.

The film does seem to have something of a cult following. It was even remade in English. I honestly don't understand why.

Success Rate:  - 2.5

Deus Irae (3 Stars)

I have an aversion to films about demon possession. For a film in this genre to win me over, it has to offer something special. That isn't the case with "Deus Irae". It has a slightly unique take on possession. The film claims that demons are born into human vessels. The film follows two priests and a sister (a nun?) who work together to find and exorcise demons. They're fighting a losing battle. There are always more demons.

The film's imagery is overwhelming. The problem is that it's difficult to follow the plot. I could never be sure what was happening, and the film seemed incomplete.

The film's director Pedro Cristiani and the producer Marcela Cardenas-Alvarez came all the way from Argentina to present the film. They spoke about the financing difficulties that led to the film needing seven years for completion. They spoke about opposition to the film because it's blasphemous. They've done a good job, but I'm sorry, it's just not my sort of film.

Accion Mutante (3 Stars)

This is Alex de la Iglesia's first film, made in 1993. "Accion Mutante" remains one of the wildest debuts in modern Spanish cinema; a savage, anarchic mix of science fiction, black comedy and comic-book grotesquerie. Set in a future ruled by beauty and consumerism, the film follows a terrorist gang made up of physically disabled and socially rejected outsiders. The satire is broad, violent and deliberately ugly, but beneath the chaos lies a genuine anger at superficial society and media culture.

What separates "Accion Mutante" from De la Iglesia's later films is its rawness. Later works such as "The Day of the Beast" or "The Ferpect Crime" are still frantic and darkly comic, but they're far more polished and audience-friendly. "Accion Mutante" feels almost punk in comparison; dirtier, harsher and less interested in emotional warmth or commercial accessibility. The director's later films balance cynicism with affection for their characters, while this debut attacks nearly everyone with equal cruelty.

The influence of producer Pedro Almodovar can occasionally be felt in the exaggerated colours and grotesque humour, yet the film already contains the obsessions that would define De la Iglesia's career: social outsiders, collapsing morality, media hysteria and human beings reduced to caricatures by modern society. Even today, "Accion Mutante" still feels more dangerous than his later films.

Success Rate:  - 3.0

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The Last Circus (5 Stars)

Epic.

That's the only word that does this film justice,

Rather than tell a single story it meanders from one topic to another.

Does it have a message? Maybe, maybe not. It's entertainment. A snapshot of Spanish history from 1937 to 1973.

Let the images wash over you. You won't be disappointed.

Success Rate:  + 1.1

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Mother Mary (4 Stars)

I went to see this film in the cinema knowing nothing about it. I hadn't seen any trailers in the cinema prior to it being shown.

The film is about a pop singer returning to stage after a three year break caused by an accident on stage. In the film Anne Hathaway reminds me of Lady Gaga in her early years, but I've read that the director based Mother Mary primarily on Taylor Swift. Maybe; I hardly know Taylor Swift. Three days before the concert Mary arrives dishevelled and hardly recognisable at the house of her former costume designer and lover, Samantha, and asks her to design a dress for the concert. That's very short notice, but Samantha agrees.

The film is a talkie. For the first hour of the film the two women discuss their past, with flashbacks to concerts over the last 18 years. The film doesn't seem to be going anywhere. Then the women discover in their conversations that they've both been haunted by the same ghost. Yes, the film needs a whole hour to reach the supernatural part. This is strange, from the pacing, but the story is well told.

One small word of praise. All the songs in the film are sung by Anne Hathaway herself.

Messi (4 Stars)

"Messi" is a sports documentary that often feels as if it would rather be a feverish piece of mythmaking than a factual account of a footballer's life. That is what makes it interesting. Instead of the polished, corporate style that dominates modern sports documentaries, Alex de la Iglesia approaches the material with the same exaggerated energy and restless movement that run through his fiction films.

The film is built around conversations in restaurants and cafés, with journalists, coaches, childhood friends and football figures discussing Lionel Messi almost as if they're trying to reconstruct a legend. De la Iglesia shoots these scenes with dramatic lighting and constantly shifting camera angles, giving even ordinary anecdotes a strange intensity. The documentary rarely settles into the calm observational rhythm associated with serious sports filmmaking. Instead, it rushes forward, fuelled by rapid editing, pounding music and a visual style closer to tabloid spectacle than sober biography.

At times, the approach feels deliberately excessive. Archive footage is cut together with such speed and excitement that Messi begins to seem less like a real person than an abstract force of movement. The film is less interested in analysis than in sensation. De la Iglesia treats football highlights almost like action sequences, lingering on impossible changes of direction and sudden bursts of acceleration with the awe of someone filming a supernatural event.

What's most distinctive is the tension between documentary realism and cinematic exaggeration. The interviews are real, the stories are real, yet the atmosphere often feels heightened to the edge of fantasy. That mixture suits De la Iglesia's sensibility perfectly. Even when the structure becomes repetitive, the film never looks anonymous. In an era where many football documentaries resemble extended television specials, "Messi" has the personality of an auteur film.