I was completely stunned at how well Robin Williams pulled off more serious dramatic roles, since he's much more well-known for high-energy comedy. But his roles as the bad guy in movies like Insomnia or, even better, One Hour Photo display the extent of his acting abilities, since he is able to pull off such different characters so well. In Jakob the Liar, his comedic talents are restricted just enough so that he is able to function properly within the atmosphere of the movie, but is still allowed a scene or two in which his ability to get laughs can come out. He plays Jakob, a Jewish shopkeeper in a Nazi ghetto who tells a friend that he has a radio in order to prevent that friend from committing suicide.

Things do not appear to be going well within the ghetto, the war seems like it will never end, and morale among the imprisoned Jews is steadily waning, resulting in suicides left and right. As Jakob finds a friend of his doing something that will certainly get him killed by the Nazis (this particular friend decided to make a ham-handed attempt at escape rather than overtly kill himself), Jakob runs to him and tells him that he heard on the radio that the Russians were closing in and would liberate them any day. His skeptical friend doubts him, so Jakob quickly tells him that he has a radio so that he will believe the Russians will be there to save them all soon, and his friend's suicide is prevented.

By the next morning, literally everyone in the ghetto knows that Jakob Heym has a radio, and so he is venerated like a God and constantly hounded about what the newest news is, and thus enters the main conflict of the movie. And speaking of which, one of the things that I really liked about the movie was the complexity of its conflict. It's a conflict that you sit there knowing what needs to happen for a happy ending and so you sit there and hope for that, because every option has terrible consequences.

Jakob, first and foremost, is absolutely terrified that word will reach the Nazis who will execute him if they discover he has a radio (whether he really has it or not), yet at the same time he can't let it get out within the ghetto that he DOESN'T have a radio, because since the whole rumor began the rampant suicides have completely ceased. What he has to do, then, is walk the fine line between delivering lots of fictitious good news to the whole ghetto without letting the Nazis find out about it.

There is definitely something that needs to be said about the importance of a movie like this. Obviously, holocaust movies are nothing new, and different depictions of the holocaust have been especially in the spotlight since Roberto Benigni made a holocaust movie called Life Is Beautiful in 1997, at least half of which was a comedy. A lot of people felt that it was distasteful to present something as serious and tragic as the holocaust in such a light. And not just average moviegoers like me, either. Spielberg thought it was too lighthearted for such weighty subject matter, and from a certain point of view, he's right. On the other hand, however, the fact that you laughed during the film does not change the meaning of the war that it focuses on. The Nazis killed funny people, too.

I read a review on the title page for Jakob the Liar here on the IMDb, where a reviewer who completely missed the boat on this movie criticized it for things like the comedic content, the behavior and presentation of the Jews of the ghetto, and the choice of Robin Williams for the role of Jakob Heym. To be perfectly honest, I can never understand people like that. The way I see it, as long as a movie takes the holocaust seriously then it should not be criticized for being a holocaust film that's not in the right format or that had an actor who has done too many comedy roles. This same reviewer, by the way, praised Life Is Beautiful, a spectacular film, as is Jakob the Liar.

I can certainly understand that there are people who are touchy about the holocaust. It is inarguably one of the most tragic events in all of recorded human history, made even more tragic by the fact that it was perpetrated by humans against other humans. It's sickening. But there are no jokes about the holocaust in Jakob the Liar. The Jews do not act like victims. It is historically accurate and does not compromise the truth of what happened for the sake of entertainment. It presents a story of a ghetto full of captive Jews who have had their lives stolen from them and are desperate for some hope, and one man tries to help and inadvertently finds himself in a position to provide massive amounts of hope to them, but at massive risk to his own safety.

So if you don't like to see Robin Williams playing serious, dramatic roles (roles at which he is increasingly displaying his massive talent ), don't watch the movie! It is neither a secret that Williams is in the movie, nor that it's a serious role. One look at the cover box will tell you that. But if it's the holocaust being taken seriously that troubles you, maybe you should be more concerned about the fact that there are people, alive TODAY, here in the 21st Century, and presumably relatively educated American citizens, who DO NOT BELIEVE THAT THE HOLOCAUST EVER EVEN HAPPENED. So like I said, if you're that concerned about the portrayal of the holocaust, maybe focus your efforts on these nutcases who have convinced themselves that the holocaust itself is just a fable. Maybe a myth that mothers started telling their kids to make them scared of Germans or some other such nonsense.

Jakob the Liar has no illusions, it takes a tragedy in human history and tells a story of a man who did what he could to help those suffering around him, and Robin Williams should obviously be commended for the power of his performance, as should the rest of the cast. The thing to keep in mind is that there is no certain perspective from which to view things like the holocaust. Everyone has different thoughts and feelings about it, and in the movies these different perspectives can be provided in different ways without compromising the severity and finality of the event itself. Jakob the Liar does not at all trivialize the holocaust in any way, what it does is honor the loss of its victims, who came from all walks of life.


I read the reviews and was a little hesitant to go see this movie. Not very good reviews. But after seeing the movie, I can't understand why the critics didn't like it. Guess they want Robin Williams to stay in his mold as a comedian. I've seen him in his recent serious roles, and I think he is an excellent drama actor. I think he has come a long way since Mork and Mindy. This movie was very good. It is a movie about the holocaust in Poland. It takes place in the ghetto and tells of a used to be restaurant owner who here's some propaganda on the radio (in the gestapos office) and ends up telling lies to boost his fellow mans moral. I don't want to go into detail to much cuz it would spoil the movie for you. Also, he meets a little girl who escaped from a train to the camps and befriends Jakob who takes her in and takes care of her. They have a very cute relationship. All in all I thought this movie was very well done and portrayed the holocaust in a very realistic way. The cast was very good..........you must go see this movie!!!!


Over the years, I have found Robin Williams to be one of the most frustrating actors around. Clearly loaded with talent, in my opinion at least most of his movies have been disappointments. He either gives unnecessarily over-the-top performances that really don't fit the context, or he controls his natural comedic instincts to the point at which he comes across as uninspired. So I wasn't sure what to expect in "Jakob the Liar." What I found was a surprisingly good performance in a wonderful movie.

Williams plays Jakob Heym, confined to the Jewish Ghetto of Warsaw by the Nazis during the Second World War. With hope fading, Heym accidentally discovers that Russian troops aren't far away, and begins to spread the news. Others become convinced that he has a radio hidden, and Heym's fictional "news reports" from the BBC provide enough hope to keep the residents of the Ghetto going through this dark time.

Williams (also executive producer) did a fine job as Heym. As one would expect, his character comes across as something of a comedian ("I believe we're God's Chosen People; I just wish He had chosen someone else!") but his humour is appropriate; the sort of dark humour one would expect from people in this situation. The other performances faded into the background, not because they were bad but because Williams so dominated the movie. Special mention should go to Justus von Dohnanyi, though, who played the Nazi Commandant "Preuss." Dohnanyi manages to capture exactly the sort of slimy, inhuman character one would expect to be put in charge of such a business. The rest of the cast (primarily Hannah Taylor-Gordon as Lina and Liev Schreiber as Mischa) are good, but overshadowed by Williams.

The character of Kirschbaum (played by Armin Mueller-Stahl) filled me with sadness and represents a clear statement of the evils of Nazism. A world-famous cardiologist, Kirschbaum, because he is Jewish, is forbidden to practice medicine, and ends up cleaning toilets. Mueller-Stahl plays the character with a quiet dignity, and next to Williams is the clear highlight of the movie.

This movie represents a wonderful testimony to the importance of hope in helping people see themselves through what must seem to be impossible situations. Although fictional, it is an important movie for those with an interest in the events of this era.

7/10


Well in my 9th grade history class in school we are learning about WW2 and so we watched Jakob the Liar and I think it was great, Robin Williams does good in the movie. I think they did the movie real well and really do good at showing how it was back in the 1940's during the war and how the Jews were treated. And i like how hey put some comedy into it also but not to much. When watching the movie i was very entertained the whole time. And the whole time you are left in suspense trying to figure out what is going next and what is going to happen to the main character Jakob with all the lying he does if either he was going to get caught or get away with it. And also how long he was going to go with the lie of him having a radio.And i just recommend this movie to teens or teachers who are looking for a good World War 2 movie.


Don't be put off by the negative comments. If you like the characters Robin Williams creates, and you like unusual dramas, you'll like Jakob the Liar. The film wanted to be Roberto Benigni and Life is Beautiful but never seemed to have the courage to go there, even with Robin Williams in the lead, until the last few scenes of the movie. However, being another Life is Beautiful is asking an awful lot. Life is Beautiful is one of the great films of all time. Having said that, Jakob the Liar is fiendishly good, creatively done, and Robin Williams does a fine job, even when Hannah Taylor-Gordon, who plays Lina, wasn't stealing every scene she was in. So, settle down and give this little movie a try. If nothing else, it's another solid performance by Robin Williams.


Maybe the reason I keep hearing so many negative comments on this film is because people aren't seeing it for what it is. It is not a comedy by any stretch of the imagination. It is not an attempt to profit from LA VITA E BELLA (this was filmed in the autumn of '97, before the Benigni film was even released in Italy).

The truth is, JAKOB THE LIAR is an incredible film in its own right. I've read/seen many other Holocaust testimonials (including MAUS and the aforementioned LA VITA E BELLA), but this was by far the most stirring of any of them. I was especially impressed by Robin Williams' performance. Granted, I'm partial to him, but I was completely bowled over by this performance. I believe this is the darkest and most serious role he has ever done, but he pulls it off magnificently.

Don't believe the nay-sayers on this one ... this is incredible. It's a must-see for everyone. Would I lie to you?


This movie is a great mix of history and humour, which Robin Williams delivers brilliantly. Set in late 1944, it tells the story of a Jew living in his hometown that the Germans have taken control of. When he is sent to a German officer's office for being out after curfew he hears a report that the Russians are heading in his towns direction and thinks they may free him and his town from the Germans. The next day he tells his friend what he heard, in confidence, but doesn’t believe Jakob heard it on a German radio and believes Jakob has his own radio (Jew's were forbidden to own or listen to radio's, and rarely return from German office's,). Once the rumour spreads that the Russian's are coming and that Jakob has a radio, the town keeps asking for more Information. Jakob has to make up information since no one believes he doesn’t have a radio and the information brings the Jew's hope. Meanwhile Jakob has taken in a little Jewish girl who has escaped form a train heading to the gas "showers" and must also keep hidden from the Germans. Just a great story of Jewish life in the war without to much war violence.


NO SPOILERS, read freely. I had long heard about this movie but I did not have a slight clue of how good it really was. Apart Michael Jeter, Alan Arkin, Robin Williams and Armin Mueller-Stahl I wasn't really familiar with many other faces on the screen but everyone stood up to their role brilliantly. This WWII drama narrates the story of accidental prophet Jakob whose lies bring hope to those living in his Ghetto in a time of hardship. It's a sad story but more than once you are forced to smile by the evvents. Missing out on this one would be a pity. Everything about JAKOB THE LIAR is perfect, it's a very realistic down to earth story, acting and script are also brilliant...not to mention Edward Shearmur's really heartwarming scoundtrack, what a pity it has not been released. (the CD) A must for the lovers of the genre.


What I like about Jakob's tale is that Jakob is no natural hero who sets out to keep hope alive. Far from it. He is an ordinary man, and as terrified of the Nazis as any of his neighbors in the ghetto. He blunders his way into his unlikely role as a keeper of hope, and once there, cannot see from moment to moment how he can maintain it, wishes at times he could be rid of the burden, and yet somehow, manages to continue to inspire others who are so desperate for hope, they don't even try to disbelieve. In short, don't be fooled by the title: Jakob is just this guy; plotwise, he is only a hub around which a large wheel turns.

There were parts that didn't work for me, especially pieces where narration would have worked better than a character monologue (Jakob is a narrator as well as a character, so why does he talk to himself instead of us so much?) But on the whole, it was a good story, well performed by those involved.

The ending, which I shall refrain from describing for the benefit of any who have not seen it, is absolutely fitting. It is surreal, which may bother some, but leaves the door open to so many interpretations that you will wonder whether to take it as the true end, or whether it was Jakob's final lie. And fittingly, the decision is left in the mind of the viewer.


Personally, I found very touching & heart wrenching this story of one man's efforts to lift spirits in a World War II Jewish ghetto in Poland. Many have compared it to Life is Beautiful, and there are some similarities. I can understand why some viewers take offense at any film which might seem to trivialize the Holocaust, but I found Life is Beautiful not disrespectful but deeply moving, and consider this particular tale to be a captivating depiction of one individual's unique attempt to keep hope alive in a desperate situation.

The story revolves around a lonely Polish shopkeeper & widower, Jakob, who is confined to a Jewish ghetto in 1944. When summoned to ghetto headquarters for being out after curfew, he hears a radio report about Russian troop movements. To prevent a friend's suicide, he claims to have heard on his radio that the Russians are very close (within a few hundred kilometers) and will liberate the ghetto soon, causing rumours that Jakob has a secret radio. Instead of telling the truth, he tries to lift spirits and impart hope to the war weary & depressed ghetto inhabitants by maintaining the fiction of possessing this radio, and regularly disseminating uplifting fictional news bulletins about the Allies' progress. Meanwhile, Jakob is also hiding a young Jewish girl who escaped from a camp transport. The Germans hear reports of this forbidden radio and are seeking out the resistance operator of it.

Robin Williams dominates this movie and is brilliant as usual in the endearing, sympathetic role of the kind Jakob who must try to balance getting out lots of hopeful (if fictitious) war reports to keep spirits up while at the same time avoid Nazi suspicion and detection.

The movie portrays the despair of the ghetto's inhabitants and the grave injustice of their captive state. For example, Jewish people are prohibited from practicing medicine and a cardiologist is reduced to cleaning toilets, though does so with good humour, grace, and dignity. On the whole it is a very poignant tale, with any humour having a sad note to it. Jakob the Liar shows another tragic aspect of the Holocaust. Rather than the horrors of the concentration camps that are often the setting of such stories, here we see the injustice and despair of prolonged ghetto captivity.


this has to be the worst remake ever. It's not only Robin Williams, he's just bad as usual. They just changed the most powerful scene from the 1975 original by Frank Beyer.

SPOILER ahead When Lina discovers that Jakob has no radio at all, she prolongs his lie, so that he can still believe in it too. In this disgraceful remake, she goes to him and dances with him. They just don't get the message of the book by Jurek Becker.

I can't understand this. So leave this one alone and watch "Jakob der Lügner", by the way the only movie from the former GDR ever to be nominated for an Oscar as best foreign language film.


It's always a shame to see movies that we feel bring so much to the table, be given bad reviews or do poorly at the box-office. While people who say the "holocaust film" has become a trite and overdone genre may be correct, this film is an outstanding piece of work that suffered mainly because it was released around the same time as the fairly similar "Life is Beautiful." with Roberto Benini. The story follows a jewish man named Jakob, who had been forced into a ghetto by the nazis. (hollywood's favorite villians by far) After overhearing a radio transmission, he relays the information to his companions that the russians are coming closer to liberating the ghetto. His friends misunderstand this, and believe that he himself has a radio, and press him for more at every turn. He is forced to make up news, in order to give his fellow prisoners hope. This film is not only about one man bringing hope to people who otherwise have none. It is about the sacrifices that some people are willing to make, in order to keep that hope alive. The jewish doctor in this film was actually in the original movie (made in germany in the mid 70's) The sacrifice the doctor makes is very moving, and gives a clear cut message of the film. At the time, many critics disliked this film. If they had a chance to review it again however, I think that they would most likely change their perspective. Nine out of Ten.


The great thing about this movie is how honest it is. Even though some of the things you see may be a bit graphic, the movie dosen't hold back. The tag line "when there was no hope, he invented it" is very fitting for this movie. Doing the same type of thing he did as Adrian Chronhour in Good Morning Vietnam, Robin Williams shines. Personally, I think it is best performance yet. It was such an impacting movie. When Jacob(Robin Williams) does that first "Radio broadcast", you feel yourself laugh along with the little girl whom he befriends. I really liked this movie.(in case you didn't figure that out) The performances were very solid, the heartfelt moments were touching and the direction was solid. It was a visually engrossing movie. It makes you laugh, cry and at the end feel good about your life. If it's Friday night and you want a drama, take this one home.


I had the previlage of seeing this picture at the Toronto Film Festival. This was a touching picture, that will bring a tear to the eyes of many. It's about a single man, who hears a German propoganda broadcast, and relays information he's heard onto others in the ghetto, how ever his words are relayed and sometimes distorted. Some of the imformation is correct others ficitional, thus this is how his character is created. He see's how it gives his people a sense of secuirty, how it boisters their spirit, and gives them a sense that thier might be hope for them afterall. It is set in the ghetto of Poland, during the wartime. Mr. Williams does a wonderful job, and really conveyes the message in this film. Highly recommended. Oscar material in my books.


I saw this at a sneak preview hosted by the Jewish Community Center, and was probably the only goy in the audience! This movie deeply moved me. Robin Williams deserves an Oscar for his portrayal of Jakob. The supporting cast was fantastic. I highly recommend it.


Jakob the Liar is an underrated movie.I just want to say that before anything else in my review.The movie tells about Jakob Heym, excellently played by Robin Williams.Jakob is a Jewish shop keeper living in Polish ghetto in 1944.He overhears a German radio broadcast about Russian troop movements.When he shares the information with a friend a rumor about a secret radio starts spreading in the ghetto.Jakob starts making up stories to the ghetto inhabitants he has heard from his 'secret radio'.This way he brings hope to the people who are losing it.Peter Kassovitz' Jakob the Liar (1999) hasn't got as much credit it would have deserved.It's a movie about an important matter.It combines comedy and tragedy in a great way.It has a brilliant cast.Robin Williams is just amazing.This actor, who turns 55 today (congratulations) has a great ability to act both comic and dramatic roles.He is a great man and a great actor.The young Hannah Taylor- Gordon is excellent playing Lina Kronstein, the Jewish girl Jakob is hiding.She was amazing also playing Anne Frank a couple years later.I hope we'll be hearing a lot from her in the future.Then there are also these greats; Bob Balaban (Kowalsky), Alan Arkin (Max Frankfurter), Michael Jeter (Avron), Liev Schreiber (Mischa the Prizefighter), director's son Mathieu Kassovitz (Herchel) and lots of others.This is a movie that can make you laugh and it is a movie that can make you cry.It shows all these poor people living under the horrors of war, under the circumstances you can not justify. Horrible things happened back then and now there are movies to show us it all.This is a movie about hope.Hope is still there in the dramatic ending.Hope is seen through the tears.Isn't that, hope, all we need in the end?


A novelist who could find a funny side of a disastrous incident in the history of mankind (Jurek Becker), a director who could find a great perspective to create this vision and assemble a delicious cast and crew (Peter Kassovitz). To be brief the producers of Jakob The Liar don't deserve from the users of Internet Movie Database a "6.0 average".

The humor in the screenplay became unforgettable by the perfect role-playing of an actor (Robin Williams) who created the main characters of every movie that he acts a milestone... The final of the movie could disappoint most of the viewers but as my opinion that counts: it is the two-way endings tradition that you can imagine the rest and feel whatever that you want to feel...


It is a really good film to watch alone, when you are in a sensitive mood, ready to accept and understand the emotions and feelings of the characters. Even those who don't actually like films related to wars, might like this one,robin Williams has done a good job, but others in the cast are at times even better. Half true, comment from Williams,heard on the radio with the Nazis starts giving hope to the distressed common people , caught in a small town held by the Nazis. Jakob, then carries on the lie,and later is forced to carry on the lie, that he has a radio, to keep the hope alive, in the end dies , but doesn;t let go , just so that people already close to death under the Nazis, don't lose whatever hope that is left.

You keep getting the feeling , that it could have been better made, with more focus on the emotional drama happening due to the situation. Good cinematography, If you are making a film portraying the emotion of hope , always there will be a difference in the way different people look at it, since things are relative to different people depending on their thought process. It could have been better, thats all can be said. But whatever there is , is a definite thing that all people who like good, sensitive cinema should watch.


Jakob the Liar is not a great film, but it is worth watching. The only bad thing about it is the fact that it's too sad. Although the movie has some light parts in it, it's not light enough to replace all the killings and the executions in the movie. Robin Williams gives a great performance and so does every single actor in the movie. I've just watched the movie and didn't see one actor that wasn't acting good. Hannah Taylor Gordon also gives a great performance and I think she will become a great actress. If you haven't seen Jakob the Liar, you should, although it is very sad.


Having read a fair amount about the Holocaust and having visited the memorial in DC, as well as seeing other films depicting this time period, I wasn't sure what to expect. However, I thought this movie was extremely well-done. Robin Williams was perfect in his role as Jakob, a latkah vendor, who pretends to have a radio and distribute good news to other Jews in the ghetto. Both sad and funny, this movie is well worth seeing.


I won't repeat the plot as many other comments have taken care of that. Many of Robin Williams' performances have been Robin Williams playing a character -- there's a wink and a hint that he'll bust out with some shtick at any time. He (or the director, or both) contain that impulse to an impressive degree in this movie and do so without the excessive sincerity that Williams often substitutes for emotion in his other parts. (Good Will Hunting contains an overrated performance of this type.) Example: in the scene where he takes on the voices of Churchill, Stalin, and others, it's wholly within his character's desire to persuade the little girl (who's wonderfully played, by the way) that hope remains. I agree that some of the actors, notably Alan Arkin, aren't very good, but other, less-well-known ones support the movie well. In addition, I thought the production design, cinematography, and editing were thoughtful and well-done. And I liked the ending...


Jakob The Liar is an excellent film, I could not see it at the cinema last year as the film was not on at many cinemas and if it was shown it was not on for very long. I rented the film out the first day it came out for rent and have seen it about 6 times already. This film did not deserve the awful criticism it received. It is a film that has everything, sadness, some lighter moments and history and like Robin Williams said people should be reminded the awful going ons of that time. Robin Williams's performance in this film was wonderful and he deserved more praise than he got. But I have to say I did not like seeing him getting beaten. Well done Robin.


I gave this 8/10

Well acted, great scenes, great sets, excellent supporting characters (especially Misha), very believable behaviors, everybody is starving, the Germans are brutally bad people (mostly) and Robin Williams is wonderful.

But there's something wrong somewhere, and I can't put my finger on it. The film was too light. This topic was very dark and gloomy. But somehow it came over as light entertainment!


Perhaps best described as Good Morning Vietnam meets Schindler's List. Robin Williams plays Jakob, a Jewish prisoner in WW2 Germany who hears some news about the approaching Russian army, and lets it slip to his friend Mischa who believes Jakob has a radio to have gotten this news. Rumors then spread throughout the Jewish ghetto and soon everyone believes he has a radio, so he decides to make up news in order to give them some sense of hope in this holocaust. It's important to note that Williams is NOT trying to be funny in this film, which is appropriate considering the setting. Well written and produced with noteworthy performances


I totally agree with the review. The end of the money absolutely kills it. Save your money for a better film. While Williams gives a great performance, the script is lacking. Next time, I'll not go to a movie til it's been out at least a week.


This remake of the 1974 film by the same name draws obvious comparisons to `Life is Beautiful', but it is a poor substitute in every regard. This film sometimes tries to be `Hogan's Hero's' in its farcical sendup of German captivity and at other times it tries to be `Schindler's List' with disturbing portrayals of the inhumanity of the holocaust. Unlike `Life is Beautiful' which was a bittersweet story lovingly done, this story is merely distasteful and makes a mockery of the plight of the Jews in captivity during WWII. It portrays the citizens of the ghetto as bumbling idiots with little regard for the gravity of their situation. A holocaust story is no place for Keystone Cops comedy skits.

Director Peter Kassovitz gives us nothing distinctive from a visual standpoint, nor does he bring forth the proper tone and mood from the actors. The acting is uniformly mediocre. Alan Arkin has given us numerous excellent performances, but his character was so insubstantial and inane, it was difficult for him not to look foolish. Liev Schreiber, as Mischa, made the character into a complete buffoon (perhaps that is what Kassovitz intended).

Finally, Robin Williams needs to seek career counseling. He keeps taking these poignant comedic roles that are just not right for his talents. He needs to realize his limitations and embrace his genius. He is incomparable in frenetic, over the edge comedic roles that require quick witted ad libs and shock comedy. As a serious actor he is simply unexceptional and his attempts at such are especially disappointing when compared against his true ability.

I rated this film a 4/10. If it was a holocaust story that needed to be told, it certainly needed to be told differently.


It is the story of a Jew, that stepped by accident in a complicated situation. Kept into one of the many German concentration camps, he got to know that front line comes closer. A Russian advance would mean to be restored to freedom. But knowing this he has to see how his companions and friends commit suicide. So he has the chance to stop it, telling them of the news. It is alluring but unmoral, cause he has to lie. Nobody would believe him the true story, so he fakes up a radio.

Jurek Becker created one of the most sensitive and heartbreaking plots for Holocaust films. Marcel Reich-Ranicki praised him for inventing the "principle radio". But this hollywoody holocaustic thingy can't deal the complexity. Jacob is presented as just a funny Jew, that loves his people. It does not deal with the problem of Jewish identity, which is one of the central themes. It even naively adopts stereotypes Nazis used. This adaption sacrifices density for simplicity and compatibility.

This Movie is just an entertaining film, an audience preferring a more deep and dense plot should look the GDR production, for which Jurek Becker himself made the screenplay and earned the first and only Oscar nomination an East German film ever got.


This movie is amazing. i am only 15 and i think everyone no matter what race or religion should see this to see how awful things must have been. Robin Williams did a beautiful job jumping out of his funny roles and transitioning to such a serious role. it made me cry it is so heart touching. this is a beautiful movie. i would suggest it to anyone. This movie is about hope and dream and he made them come true. i cannot stress how lovely this movie is. just awesome. i didn't remember the name until i looked up movies he starred in and when i did it came to me by seeing the list. thats how much of an impact it had on me. i even think schools should show this movie. wonderful.2 thumbs up.


Robin Williams delivers the finest performance I have been privileged to see him give. Jakob is a role he carries off with impressive realism, and which significantly deepened my respect for the man's acting talent.

As a Jew in a Polish ghetto under the Nazis, Robin Williams portrays a man hurting from the loss of wife, freedom and friends. Suicides abound, and children have long since been killed or shipped away from the ghetto. The entire backdrop is bleak, broken only by the cynical humor the Jews have developed as the merest survival technique. The excellent film-making further supports the atmosphere by almost making you feel you've stepped into a black-and-white era, walking the streets with Williams, watching death and depression eat away at the whole neighborhood.

Things begin to change when Jakob, summoned by the commandant, overhears a radio bulletin. Encouraged by the report that the Russians are mere hundreds of miles away - a very little distance in the great give and take of war - the Jews begin to take heart, and the suicide rate is reduced to nil. Things are complicated for Jakob when his friends start to believe that the bulletin came from a radio that Jakob owns - a radio which doesn't exist - and begin to hound him, some for more information, and some because they want him to destroy it before it destroys them.

The impressive cinematography and the convincing acting from the entire cast make this movie a must-see. 8 out of 10, with the two taken off for an ending that didn't sit well with me, but than again, can you really expect a movie with the Holocaust as its subject matter to be easily stomached?


This movie is being compared to Life is Beautiful as both movies are set in Nazi war camps, and the stars of both movies try to make life in the camp as optimistic as possible. In this film, Robin Williams plays a serious role as Jakob, a jewish resident in a war camp in nazi occupied Poland. He overhears a radio report that the Russians are moving in, speculating that WWII should be over soon. He tells a few fellow jewish residents that he heard this radio report, to help bring some hope and optimism in the cold,dreary,nazi camp where many people are dying from the hands of german soldiers, and from suicides. This report causes much excitement amongst the jews and the news travels faster than Jakob imagined. He notices how this news lifted the spirits of many of the jews so he continues to make up bogus reports and gives everyone the impression that he does in fact have a radio, which he does not.

In the meantime, he is secretly taking care of a young girl in the camp and must try and keep the secret that he has no radio, from her as she is very much looking forward to getting out of the camp and seeing her parents again.

I really liked this movie. It was nice to see Robin Williams play a serious role. I give this movie 8/10.


I was lucky enough to go to a small screening of FOD at my college. Randy Olson was present at the end to discuss opinions and answer questions.

What struck me about this movie was how unashamedly it looks at pretension and ego in the scientific community today. Though ostensibly about the Evolution vs. Intelligent Design debate, this movie delves quite deeply into the levels of effective communication between scientist and layman. Anyone out there who's ever studied under a particularly brilliant professor will know exactly what I mean- they usually have quite earth-shatteringly amazing ideas and thoughts that they are woefully unequipped to communicate to the rest of us mortals.

The movie covers the Evolution/ID debate (and its theological implications) from a variety of perspectives, ranging from Conservative right-wingers to Athiest Liberals. To be entirely honest, I went in to see this movie with a preexisting bias- I am a student of Evolution and an Athiest. However, what I like about this movie is that it does not hide or suppress the opinions of either side, but lets them be heard. While my opinion on Evolution remains unchanged, this movie did uproot some prejudices in my mind relating to certain very common social stereotypes. Fundamentalist Christians are not necessarily scary bible-spouting messengers of doom, nor are scientists with an arsenal of PhDs necessarily the calm voice of reason.

Ultimately, Flock of Dodos is precise, to the point, and in a way- manages to do exactly what it asks the scientific community to do. It communicates a complex idea to the everyman without resorting to falsification or 'dumbing-down.' (9*/10*)


This was a really funny, interesting movie. It kind of has the tone of Super-Size Me, where it's a comedic documentary. But it's amazing how it jumps from funny to serious at the drop of a hat, the issue behind Intelligent Design/Evolution is one that everyone has an opinion about, and it is really at the heart of the divide between red state/blue state (I know those terms have been exploited in the media, but the movie does a good job of honestly showing both sides of the debate). Very even-handed film, made by an evolutionist Ph.D., but he's not afraid to make fun of the scientists he works with, so the movie is interesting to watch and very original/ unexpected. I saw it as part of an advanced screening at my college, they're apparently doing screenings all across the country starting in Feb. 2007, but it's not really out on Video or in Theatres besides that. Hard movie to find in theaters, so if you get a chance to see it you should go.


I love science. I am not a scientist, but when it comes to books, magazines, etc., I am more likely to pick up something about science than anything else. I also love movies, so when a movie about Science comes along, I will see it.

I am not anti-religion. If it helps you get through life, then I am all for it. I prefer Effexor myself, but whatever floats your boat is OK with me as long as you don't try to teach my children your fantasies.

This is what it's all about. The fantasy of Creationism versus the facts of Evolution. This film makes it simple to understand even for the uneducated dodos that let others do their talking and thinking for them. It is even-handed and gives time to both sides of this non-debate.

The Creationists want to promote "teaching the controversy." This film is perfect for that and should be shown in all schools and all classes.


A documentary film about discrepancies between Darwinian evolution and Intelligent Design, focusing on the Kansas school board controversy of a few years ago.

It's a pretty good movie too. We get to know both sides of the issue, nobody is demonized, nobody exalted. The graphics are entertaining and the editing about as good as you can expect. Randy Olson, who made the film and narrates it, makes some low-key witty remarks along the way. Some documentaries, whether good or bad in their own right, consist of so many talking heads that you can listen to it from the next room and still follow the presentation. Not this one. Talking heads abound but so do cartoons and travelogue-like on-location shooting.

Olson himself is an evolutionary biologist who's studied at Harvard and done research on changes in coral communities. He's a sharp guy, and he's pleasant and polite, and when he's negative about something it's in a gently ironic way.

But don't expect a movie about evolution. It's about the nature of two pretty much antagonistic groups and the conflict between their belief systems. The debate is important because it is evidently not going to go away by itself. These are existential propositions being examined, not hortative. What I mean is that this is a debate over what IS, not over what ought to be. It's not a symbolic issue like having the ten commandments in a courthouse or having a state flag that resembles the Confederate stars and bars or whether or not films that show a lot of smoking should get an R rating. The argument is about whether something exists or not, and that's a different order of argument.

Olson is clearly on the side of the evolutionists but he's not a zealot. He criticizes them (or allows them to criticize themselves) for being too snooty to present their case to common people in common-sense terms, whereas the ID side hires The Discovery Institute to invent appealing bumper-sticker slogans like "teach the controversy." The same public-relations outfit developed the SwiftBoat ads that torpedoed Kerry's run for the presidency. The anti-evolutionists also seem to be cohesive, highly organized, and well funded. They're good at what they do, and the evolutionists are mostly aloof, indignant, arrogant, abrasive, disputatious, and sometimes kind of snotty with one another. In other words -- dare I say this? -- the ID people look like Republicans and the evolutionists look like Democrats.

Actually, "Teach the Controversy" isn't a bad idea per se. Why not? Only I would stipulate, as an ex-prof, that it belongs in a senior seminar organized around philosophical/scientific controversies -- Copernicus and all that. I can't see both views being given equal weight in biology classes because, if Darwinian evolution is "only a theory," as the ID people argue, then Intelligent Design hasn't yet cleared even that bar.

The film was at times a little irritating. It's okay when the film maker inserts himself into his work as narrator. Michael Moore does it entertainingly and numerous others, such as Milton Friedman, have walked us through scientific arguments in TV series. But Olson's movie is a little self congratulatory. I had to wince once in a while as the auteur explained that his father was a graduate of West Point in "the year of heroes" and his mother ("Muffy Moose") was a relative of General George C. Marshall or somebody and they both knew General Douglas MacArthur on Corregidor and -- well, and so forth. Not to say anything against Olson's mother. She's savvy, keenly intelligent, and engaging. I just don't think we needed to know that she was a model. And the film is informed with a subtle elitism. Eight evolutionists are gathered together by Olson to play poker and talk about biology and we get the title card -- not only are they all PhDs but we get a list of the schools they attended. (Mostly Harvard.) PhDs are introduced to each other as "doctor," which doesn't happen except on film.

That's carping, though. The film's virtues as an exploration of a controversy that simply will not go away far outweighs any weaknesses it might have. Well, maybe I should add that not only does the theological interpretation of evolution refuse to disappear, but lots of public figures are obviously afraid to challenge it. One third of the American public does not "believe in" evolution. President Bush has argued publicly that both sides should be taught in school. And at the recent debate between Republican presidential candidates, one of the questions was, "Who does not believe in evolution," and three out of ten hands went up.


I watched this movie a couple of years ago with an large audience of mixed partisans from both sides. There was also a discussion panel afterward that included a number of scholars and critics and politicians.

I think Olson showed everyone as they really were: The scientists were a bit supercilious but the fundamentalists were absolutely idiotic. The documentary had no obligation to make the latter seem anything other than the scientific illiterates and theocrats that they truly are. I wish the film had also shown the venality and pervasive corruption of the bible thumpers revealed in their mismanagement of and campaigns for the Kansas State Board of Education, but that complexity would have been harder to explain and would have taken much longer.

On the panel above, held in Kansas City, a local reactionary radio host participated on the "Intelligent (sic) Design" side. After a number of outrageous, preposterous statements, he got progressively more contentious and finally loudly contended that all the scientific advances since the birth of Christ were a product of "western Christian civilization." I'm sure that, for instance, dozens of Jewish Nobelists in the hard sciences would have been stunned by this calumny, but I think it revealed the true colors of these fundamentalists. Taken to task, the ideologue even claimed that Gallileo had not actually been persecuted by religious zealots and the Vatican.

It should be mentioned that this was a truly amusing documentary in many ways. It captured some leading scientists in their most casual, unguarded and perhaps slightly inebriated moments. It showed the "I.D.ers" for the bumpkins they are, with ludicrous statements against interest right from their own mouths. Audiences even got to identify with Olson's mom, "Muffy Moose," who was an endearingly hilarious example of a fence sitter, and were educated about the peculiar digestive processes of rabbits (I'll avoid a spoiler here, but just that part makes the movie worth attending).

I have to give it two opposed thumbs up!


I enjoyed watching this documentary.

The filmmaker, Randy Olson, seems like a pretty down to earth kind of guy. His documentary, Flock of Dodos, could pretty much be summed up the same way.

I wouldn't consider myself to be in either the intelligent design or the evolutionists' camp. Honestly, I'm not even sure it really matters which camp a person finds themselves in when it comes to their spirituality. This brings me to my point: Randy, though I found his documentary enjoyable, failed to ask an obvious question that I feel strikes directly at the heart of the current debate. That question being - do the evolutionists that were seated around the poker table feel that the theory/fact that they have devoted their lives to leaves no place for a creator...no place for a designer? Though beyond the empirical realm, this question was never opened for consideration. Yes, the evolution guys attacked the credibility of the ID guys, but they were never directly asked about whether they felt that evolution and the possibility of design were mutually exclusive ideas.

Most of the educated ID guys didn't discount that evolution has occurred. They just seemed to discount the idea that it occurred unassisted. I would have liked to have heard some equally candid thoughts from the evolution camp about whether or not they felt that the theory/fact removes the possibility of a designer.

A side note: Several of the reviewers, who I assume fall into the ID camp, seemed to feel that Randy treated the ID side unfairly. Let me just say that I don't think that he did this on purpose. Randy, like the rest of us, is subject to the knowledge and experience in his possession. He has his own set of biases. When those biases go unchallenged it logically results in the appearance of bias, i.e. the faulty red state/blue state construct as well as other indications of bias that again are probably more the result of a lack of knowledge than a malicious attempt at arrogance. To me, at least, Randy seemed like a pretty open-minded sort of guy.

Just my two cents. Fun doc to watch.


I want to begin by saying that I believe in evolution, and that I do not worship supernatural beings.

This is not a non-entertaining film, and I don't know of a better one about the teaching-intelligent-design-in-schools issue. However, ultimately, it's a disappointing, sometimes mildly amusing, hypocritical, smug documentary that is nevertheless not totally devoid of value about an important subject.

This film comes off as arrogantly insulting those who believe in intelligent design ("ID") itself, and it fails to get across the most important point that, even if you are pro-ID, while your views are arguably worthy of respect as a philosophical matter, you can't reasonably believe that your ID philosophy ought to be taught in science class.

Whether you believe in ID or don't, when it comes to whether ID should be taught in science class, it is clearly unreasonable to think that it ought to be, because science is a completely different way of looking at the world than that implied by ID. Teaching ID in science class would be a lot like teaching Kant's ethics or Russian literature in science class--it obviously doesn't belong there. The film really doesn't develop this idea enough, or, hardly at all actually, and devotes much too much time to trying to debate the truth or falsity of ID itself, which, in my view, is either (a) something that reasonable minds can and do differ upon or (b) completely incoherent babble, ultimately, on both sides of the debate.

I find it incredibly arrogant to presume to know that the universe was designed by a deity, just as I find it incredibly arrogant to presume to know that it wasn't. How would YOU know, unless you were a deity yourself? It might seem implausible to you that there's a deity behind all this, and it does in fact seem implausible to me that there's a deity behind all this, but I can assure you that it seems at least as implausible to many people that there isn't.

There are many reasonable people in the world who believe in ID but do not want it to be taught in science class. And this film is more about criticizing and insulting those who believe in ID itself than it is about criticizing those who not only believe in ID but also believe that it should be taught in science classes.

There are some positives though. This film does do a couple of interesting things. It briefly talks about an organization called the Discovery Institute which is a well-funded group which promotes the teaching of intelligent design in science classes, and it contrasts it with the relative lack of organization on the opposition-to-ID-in-schools. It criticizes the anti-ID camp for not doing what the pro-ID-in-schools camp is doing, i.e. for not really getting organized, not engaging in politicking, not being charming when in the public eye, insulting the other side and acting as though the subject is not worthy of debate rather than respecting its dignity and engaging in reasonable debate, and for not really explaining to the public its position and exactly why it's a bad idea to "teach" ID in science class.

It also explains a little about the legal and political history of the recent ID-in-schools phenomenon, and that's interesting stuff.

But the film lacks depth. I would have enjoyed hearing more about the subjects that I just discussed in the "positives" part of my review.

But the most glaring problem is its hypocrisy. It is guilty of exactly what it criticizes the anti-ID camp for, specifically: (1) not really explaining exactly why it's ridiculous for ID to be taught in science class, and (2) arrogantly insulting the pro-ID side rather than respecting its dignity and engaging in reasonable debate. At the very least, it should have reserved its insults and criticisms for those who not only believe in ID but who are also of the crazy view that ID ought to be taught in our science classes. There's nothing especially crazy about merely believing in ID. I don't, but most people actually do, and most of those people are not crazy.

For example, as far as (2) goes, the film basically calls the pro-ID camp a bunch of "dodos" in the first 5 minutes. The film's entire tone is one that basically kind of treats the pro-ID camp like it's just stupid and that you are stupid if you think it's anything other than obvious that the pro-ID camp is stupid. It is unlikely to turn on any pro-IDers for this reason alone. And that is really unfortunate. It would have been much more effective to grant that there is possibly some value to the ID viewpoint, but nevertheless that there is absolutely no value to the view that ID ought to be part of science classes.

As far as (1) goes, even though it seems pretty obvious to me why ID shouldn't be taught in science class, the film doesn't do much to explain why it's so obvious. It just spends almost all of its time childishly attacking people for merely believing that the universe was created by an intelligent designer. It seems to be of the viewpoint that somehow the standard position for a pro-ID person to take is that ID ought to be taught in science class, when in reality this is just an incredibly radical and idiotic position that most pro-IDers cannot possibly subscribe to.

There is some value to seeing this, but it is ultimately a pretty childish documentary that will insult the very people it claims to most want to influence--the pro-ID camp.


I think the problem with this film is that it goes into the Darwinism/Intelligent Design debate with its mind already made up.

It does recognize that the ID side is a lot better at connecting with people. It attributes this to the fact that they've gotten slick public relations firms, not that they actually make legitimate points that the Darwinist side is unable to answer.

It does engage in some chicanery. For instance, it attacks Dr. Wells "Icons of Evolution" on the dispute over Haeckel's embryos. THe problem is that Haeckel's embryos are frequently included in a lot of textbooks. They engage in misdirection by pointing out they aren't in advanced embryology textbooks. Well, most people aren't going to take advanced embryology, they are going to maybe take High School biology.

It criticizes the ID side for using catchphrases, while repeating catchphrases of the Darwinist side- such as 'God of the gaps". It's a clever phrase, but it doesn't really address the problem - that there are some huge gaping holes in Evolutionary theory- how did life evolve from chemicals, why are there so few transitional fossils in the records, how would a complex structure like an eye evolve.

It also engages in "guilt by association". The Discovery institute uses the same public relation firm as the Swift Vets who attacked Kerry, that makes them evil. Sorry, the Swift Vets had a legitimate point, Kerry was presenting himself as something he wasn't.

It also presents it as a "blue state/red state" issue. Again, wrong. I know a LOT of liberal democrats who believe that God had something to do with the origin of life in the world.

In all, it tries to be fair, but really isn't.


It never ceases to amaze me how evolutionists posture themselves as the great intellectual victims in America. Hey, wake up, you won! In fact, YOU WON BIG, so stop whining. Forget for a moment that you are crusading for a theory which has scant little verifiable evidence for where its advocates want to take it, or as a general explanation of the development of life on earth. It's like one of the great scams of the last century. In the home of the free and the land of the brave you get to teach unimpeded and unquestioned a theory with gaping holes and little actual factual support as an explanation for the development of life. Congratulations!

And what the school district wanted to do in the Dover case was so insignificant, that is, inform kids that another theory existed. Oh my goodness, what happened to the opportunity to form your own opinion? If John Scopes were alive today he'd be fired for teaching that Darwinism might just not be right. Heresy!! It's like the Dark Ages all over again, except this time the left is in control. Isn't the free expression of reasoned belief and opinion what PBS and the ACLU are supposed to stand for, or does that only apply to beliefs without Christian support? The only thing I agree with Bush on (and I voted Dem the last two presidential elections) is that both theories have some factual basis, neither have complete validation, and both are appropriate for the classroom where neither can scientifically prove itself to be the definitive answer.

This movie and the even more intellectually dishonest NOVA "documentary" (I gag at the use of that word with the NOVA "effort", my tax dollars at work) assume that Darwin's theories have been conclusively proved to be correct as an explanation for the development of life on earth, and that if you were just smart enough and didn't let your mind be clouded by the religious nonsense you'd see the truth too. Unfortunately, that just AIN'T TRUE. The Inconvenient Truth (ignored by these position papers) is that there are as many issues with Darwin's theories as there are with the intelligent design theory. The dishonesty of this movie (and the NOVA "effort") in appearing to show the creationist view, but simply as a set up to the Darwinist response, is so contrived as to suggest the weakness of the Darwinist position. This one does the intellectual dishonesty in a particularly coy, pseudo self-effacing manner, making it in its own way even more dishonest. And they always have to throw in the personal stuff, just to show how all the creationists are Nazis and the anti-creationists just humble little folks (who nonetheless would like to impress their unsupported beliefs on your kids). I'm sure there are personal issues both ways, but you won't see it here or on NOVA. Let's have an intelligent debate on this issue, not the propaganda machine. Be professional journalists and grow up guys.


Watch either "Dodos" or "Expelled" if you do NOT want to learn much about Evolution or Intelligent Design.

Both movies are more about attitudes towards their respective theories rather than the merits of the theories themselves. "Expelled" argues that scientific communities act with the same partisan and even repressive behavior seen in almost every kind of community, and "Dodos" argues that anyone who questions Evolutionary theory is an idiot or a quack (albeit likable idiots and quacks).

And this utter lack of respect for it's opposing position is why I give this movie a low grade. It doesn't even pose provocative ideas (like Expelled), or a sense of humor (like a Michael Moore film).

Instead Dodos offers criticisms of ID that would easily be destroyed if posed to one of the various ID representatives the movie interviews. The scientists offered as friendly witnesses on the side of Darwin rarely if ever pose a scientific argument, and instead offer ad hominem attacks, and other examples of logical terrorism that should make any scientist ashamed.

But perhaps worst of all is the recommendation the movie makes to scientists in the following statement: "The bigger issue in this whole thing is who will be the voice not just of evolution, but of science in general. Is it going to be scientists who are handicapped by their blind obsession with the truth? Or will it be public relations firms that know the importance of a good story but feel no constraints by the truth?" This is not the kind of statement made by people assured of the merits of their argument; no, this kind of statement is made by one with blind faith who lacks confidence in their ability to persuade by reason.

Dodos argues that ID succeeds in the public arena because it tells a simple story, while the truth is much more complex. I would argue that the opposite is true. Evolution succeeds because it is such a simple explanation; ID succeeds when the simplicity of Evolutionary theory fails to account for the evidence. IDs biggest problem is that it's central argument (that there is a designer to life) opens up so many more questions that sticking to the simple "selection via random mutation" is often more attractive intellectually.

Dodos claims that scientists have good answers to the questions posed by ID, but those answers require time and a depth of knowledge to understand. Personally, I've tried to find those answers, but such responses will rarely convince anyone not already converted, and often are rebuttals to arguments no one is even making.

I will agree with Dodos about one thing: if champions of Neo-Darwinism hope to squash the "pseudoscience" of ID, they need to have a more compelling presence in the media. But when they lose the veneer of a "blind obsession with the truth", scientists lose all credibility.


An underground country, each level of its underground home is another set of strange people. From the casual crowd, to families and civilians, to scientists, and military. However there are also floors you don't want the elevator to stop at. What could happen if the elevator were to stop on a psychotic prisoners level, sending them to be disposed of is what we get to see and how things can go completely bizarre when you involve telepathic powers, violence, rape, and gore all into one enclosed elevator.

All scores are out of a possible 10: Story: 8 - There's several stories twisted into one. The main girl Luchino has a twisted past with her father but has telepathy powers and the ability to see into peoples soul. The prisoners background is freakish and very violent. Even the mild mannered people in the elevator have strange background stories that while all we get is a glimpse, its very cool and explains why they act the way they do.

Acting: 8 - Acting is superb. The two prisoners are especially insane! When he's not crawling around licking everything he's yelling all kinds of freaky stuff at people. The other prisoner is calm and collected but oh MAN, he's speaking -backwards!- its really twisted how this sounds on screen. Everyone else goes just insane enough to be believable if not over the top but hell, when you see deaths like they do how can you not lose your mind!

Characters / Fashion: 10 - The outfits in the movie stand out a lot! Elevator lady especially with her uniform thats sexy yet professional looking. The military in their Nazi-esquire getup. Even the prisoners have their own unique creepy style sense.

Music: 8 - The classical music thrown in fits right in, especially how its used. Much like Battle Royale and other Japanese horror films, there's something eerie about how the classical music can be used at the most disturbing scenes. There's also Noize and Drum & Bass riffs that fit in well too during some of the more gruesome scenes.

Sound Mix: 8 - Sound is mixed almost TOO well, its kinda disturbing how the people who made this could actually come up with a "sound" for splitting people's throats in half, or bashing someones face in. Elevator sounds too go really well and amplify the scenes enough that you almost get claustrophobic yourself.

Camera-work / Lighting: 9 - VERY good. The elevator is all you ever see but the lighting effects are very freaky. All of the speed-ups, the slow downs, heck.. even bullet-time is incorporated in this film! During the scenes with telepathy, they edit-cut the dialog between two characters and throw in the film burn effect so it gives you the twisty psychic feeling. Its very cool and should be used in more films the way this used it.

Uniqueness: 8 - Maybe its because I've seen a lot of Japanese horror/thriller but this one wasn't about one crazy guy trying to kill everyone, or a group of school kids killing each other. This is a twisted, different world with no rules, and nothing leading you into guessing what could happen next. The movie's setting isn't explained but by the end you should figure out how it works.

Worth: 7 - For fans of Japanese horror/thriller its definitely one to see. Ichi The Killer, Old Boy, Izo fans would like this but quite possibly fans of violent anime as the characters in this definitely take some influence from the movies.

Overall Score (Not an average): 8 - Previews of this movie definitely got me interested and its been a good while since something totally new and different came along. I'm a big fan of the Silent Hill series of games and this was right about the same category as it. The movie never let up at all, and the fast-forward effects and telepathy scenes really got me interested. Watch with a group of friends and definitely spread the word to get an official release of this in America as more people should see this twisted film!


The low-budget origins and "arty" look initially had me worried this would be another Shinya Tsukamoto-esque Japanese film, high on style but low on content. Thankfully, HELLEVATOR is a very accessible, very watchable science fiction flick that is not trying to answer the meaning of life, just deliver 90 minutes of first class entertainment.

It resembles CUBE in that respect, making the absolute most of its location, and building the tension around the personalities of the characters accidentally thrust together in a high-stress situation. In fact, it could be seen as an ultra-minimalist riff on that film, confining the action to just one single room, but providing breathing room via the schoolgirl's telepathic "visions", and varying the tone via the comical parade of passengers getting on and off.

Great fun.


I have to wonder if this was based on a comic (Manga?) because it seems lots of Japanese films are. This seems like that sort of material but since I don't read those I can't be sure. This takes place in an ugly future Japan where everyone lives underground in some giant building with 200 stories. The travel from one level to the next by a system of huge elevators, and on this particular day a young girl named Luchino and her drug-addled friend happen to board this particular elevator & are treated to a stop at level 99 for the pick up of a couple prisoners, both of whom are highly dangerous. Of course I don't have to provide a spoiler to tell you what happens after that, unless you've never seen a movie before. There also happens to be a little explosion, a little explosion caused by the cigarette that Luchino dropped when being pursued by surveillance for having an illegal substance, which doesn't particularly mix well with some fuel that got spilled. So now these folks are trapped in the elevator. There's a housewife with a baby carriage and a businessman and a guy with headphones & shades sitting on the floor, seemingly oblivious to all. There's also the elevator operator, a young lady in uniform who has been "trained to deal with adverse situations". Apparently she's never encountered a real one, though. Luchino brings to the table something else: she's psychic and can see into each and every one of these people and what she sees isn't pretty. Anyway, while they're all trapped in the elevator, Luchino does the usual Japanese school girl violence thing (that is, if you've watched a lot of Japanese movies) and it's not pretty either. Evemtually what is left of this little band of people is rescued, Luchino is arrested for various crimes, and this leads up to a twist ending that was quite surprising. I would highly recommend this to anyone who likes Japanese sci-fi & horror.


Hellevator: The Bottled Fools is set in a dystopian future somewhat reminiscent of THX1138. Apparently the outside world is no longer fit for human habitation so everyone is forced to stay indoors. Large elevators are used to get from one place to another and the commute time on these vehicles seems to be substantial for most people. After dropping an illegal cigarette and running away from the police, thus starting a chain of events that culminates in a large explosion a few minutes later; Luchino Fujisaki, a seventeen year old telepathic schoolgirl who has recently been released from a mental institution in spite of her ongoing violent urges and/or delusions, enters one of these elevators. The elevator soon becomes a HELLEVATOR when a young, nervous police officer enters with two extremely dangerous prisoners moments before the aforementioned large explosion causes him to be distracted long enough for the prisoners to get the upper hand and wreak havoc. Eventually Luchino gets a little berserk herself and the bodies start to pile up. As this unusual scenario plays itself out each of the eight passengers is involved in multiple acts of violence and it's revealed that virtually every one of them has something to hide.

Although rookie director Hiroki Yamaguchi pulls out a lot of tricks to make Hellevator at least moderately visually interesting, it's clear from the get go that the film was shot on a tiny budget. Still, there are some nice dreamlike special effects shots when Luchino enters the minds of her fellow passengers and the frequent gore effects were done fairly well. Yamaguchi also does a good job of creating some atmosphere, both in the green tinted elevator scenes and the interwoven interrogation scene that makes use of a dark blue color palette. Hellevator is a fairly well done cyberpunk movie that makes adequate use of an unusual setting but runs out of steam just before the inexplicable ending.


This is certainly not the best Japanese movie ever, there are a bit too much technical flaws (could partially have been due to a bad tape though, I've seen it on the Brussels BIFFF festival), and a bit too many cliché's in the plot, and the gore was a bit too soft(for a movie advertised as a horror movie, that is) it doesn't really have something to stand out from the rest of the new Japanese movie....except for its atmosphere...really liked the atmosphere, which had a lot to do with the decors, which were very well put together.... the two people who I went to see the movie with hated it, mainly for the flaws I've mentioned before, but I guess this is a typical case of "if you concentrate too much on the flaws you'll hate it, otherwise it just might grab you, and you're in for a very enjoyable ride"

So to be brief: I loved it but I can't really recommend it...still I'll give it an 8, mainly to promote a talented filmmaker which I'm sure will deliver a few brilliant movies if he gets the budget he deserves


The minute this movie started, it had 'cube' written all over it. The high-tech yet raw atmosphere, the lighting, even the camera-work reminded me of it. And obviously this movie was meant to capture a similar type of claustrophobic ambiance.

Now I am totally into Japanese movies (big fan of Takashi Miike), and I love suspense/thriller stuff (I loved the Cube), but this movie was a total bore.. The atmosphere itself was OK, but the acting, the props, the character design, the story, the logics; utter crap. Truly, over half of what happens makes no sense. In addition, the suspense is broken over different events, so it never really builds up. Something happens, and it's resolved... something else happens, and it's resolved.. and none of these things really get to you because they are so incredibly predictable and unnecessary, mixed up with pretentious horror-like cut-scenes to spice things up, which instead ridicule the whole deal even more.. I'm giving it 3 stars for the ambiance and the chicks, but other than that, this movie is not worth your time.. unless you really, really have nothing else to do..


I went into The Bottled Fools hoping for a lot. I knew it was low budget, but the trailer and synopsis had me very intrigued. I guess that's why companies have marketing departments. It's probably the only way to sell this film.

The set/feel to the movie reminded me of the mid 70's Dr Who show. It was very low budget and almost looked like it was shot on a camcorder. This didn't really bother me however, it's more I'm letting others know what to expect. I've seen my share of low budget productions and I've grown to learn that a strong story or cast can take a movie much more powerful than it's CGI effects.

So now I'll get into the story. While the concept was somewhat good, the execution was not. The story seemed pretty basic after the first 30 minutes, however upon the 45th minute passing I realized I was wrong. I guess the writer wanted to make a statement on human interaction, so he decided at the expense of the audience to keep the film going much after one would have assumed this disaster would have finished.

I won't ruin the film by saying what happened, but the final scene made my laugh out loud.

Not something I'd suggest anyone waste time on. I'm guessing Tokyo Shock made a killing on this one as the hype around the DVD was fairly good. I'm starting to wonder if they may have got the rights for this film for free. I wish I would have got my copy for that price.


This film provides an interesting counterpoint to other Kurosawa films. Its portrayal of post-war Japan recalls Stray Dog, but the poverty and sleaziness in this case are used as the background for a romance between two very attractive young people, who have a Sunday date, but only 35 yen to spend. Yet there is not the gloom of Lower Depths. Both have jobs and we see his minimally decent rental room. The title seems throughout the film to be rather ironic, since most of the situations they encounter, such as being cheated at a snack bar, are far from wonderful. However, Kurosawa puts a positive spin at the conclusion. I agree with another reviewer that the device of having the girl speak to the audience, seeking our sympathy for young couples without money, who wish to marry, is a very awkward device that distracts from our interest in the relationship. However, I disagree with another reviewer who describes the ending as corny: we've all heard of Capra-corny. This film does not come up to Capra's level, but it is reminiscent of his human interest. It seemed to me that the closing device of the girl's making a date for the next Sunday works very well. Every film needs closure, and this one does not deal in high drama at any point, so a highly dramatic climax would not be appropriate. The viewer who wants that should go to Ran or Kagemusha. In my view, the early Kurosawa films showed him how to develop human relationships: a gift that later would be present in the samurai films, and would make them much more than action epics.


I had said two weeks ago, in a review of Scandal, that Eclipse's new Kurosawa box set could just as easily be called Lesser Kurosawa. That's not fair. I know there are those who champion The Idiot and No Regrets for Our Youth, and even the one film I had previously seen from the set, I Live in Fear, is quite good (though it's hard to argue with it being a lesser film is such an outstanding oeuvre). The truth was, I was hoping very much to find some lesser-known Kurosawa classics. Which brings us to One Wonderful Sunday. Judging solely by IMDb's votes, it's Kurosawa's third least seen movie. And it ranks #26 out of 30 when listed by ratings. Well, I'll be happy to act like I was the first who discovered this hidden gem in Kurosawa's catalogue. This really is a wonderful little film. Influenced very much by Vittorio de Sica, one of Kurosawa's favorite directors, One Wonderful Sunday follows two young lovers, Yuzo and Masako (Isao Numasaki and Chieko Nakakita), spending the titular day together with nothing but ¥35 between them. The two experience sadness and hardship as they go about their date. The structure is episodic, as the lovers experience odd vignettes, meeting various post-war types, like bums and orphans and ticket scalpers. The two try to be happy with each other's company, but Yuzo's poverty makes him feel like less of a man. In one of the strongest sequences in Kurosawa's career, Yuzo decides to act like a cad to drive Masako away. Kurosawa was hardly ever the subtle type, and he is not known for long periods of silence or long takes. This sequence demonstrates a different side of the director. The climax of the film involves an odd breaking of the fourth wall resembling the device in J.M. Barrie's Peter Pan. As far as I know, this is the only time Kurosawa ever attempted such a thing. That wouldn't be too surprising, though, as film audiences rarely interact with characters on screen. It's just too out there for the medium. But God bless Kurosawa for trying it. It's kind of schmaltzy, but I loved the characters so much that at least I thought about clapping for them. A forgotten near-masterpiece.


This is almost like a play and it is a deceptively simple story. Its about a poor couple who get together on Sundays for a date. Essentially, this film is about one of the dates. Nothing earthshattering happens, pretty much life happens. I was at first not convinced by it, but as the film progressed I began to listen to the characters more, meaning the story took on a deeper meaning. The two lead actors are superb, and one thing I do like is that especially Masako is played by a lady who is not beautiful but sweet and just attractive (if this film was remade in America tomorrow, Beyonce would be the star). Actually, its a shame this film wasn't re-made in the United States about 25 years ago. I could see Meryl Streep really flexing her always considerable acting muscles on a role like this. So, it is a film about a date, but its a film about hopes, disappointments and dreams. It gets better as it goes along. I recommend it, its worth your time.


This is not the most exciting or engaging of Kurosowa's films. The pace is a bit slow and the plot meanders here and there. Even so, I found it very enjoyable. It has a light and hopeful tone to it. Having recently taken a class focusing in great detail on immediate post-war Japan, this film is a good reflection and comment on that time. Everyday hardships, such as black marketeering, inflation, and scarcity are well represented without being overwhelmingly depressing. The tone may often seem a bit maudlin, particularly the scene requesting audience participation near the end, yet this film was released in mid 1947 and life for the intended audience was as bad as or worse than our fictional couple. People could relate to the scenes portrayed. When the girl asks for the audience to clap, it is not just to raise her and her boyfriends spirits, it's to try to bring everyone up. Today, out of context, it seems corny, but back then in 1947, if you had just ducked into a dark movie theatre and spent your 5 or 10 or however many yen for a few hours escape on a Sunday afternoon with your girlfriend, it has a different meaning. All in all, a worthwhile film, particularly for those with an interest in Kurosowa or postwar Japan.


A poor couple spend a Sunday together. They desperately try to have a good time but their pockets are just too empty to think of anything else.

This is one unbelievable film. Genre is Neo-realism but the style is poetic. I think this is Kurusowa's best. Of course it lacks the complexity of 'Rashomon', grandeur of 'Ran', brilliance of 'kagemusha' or even novelty of 'Seven Samurai' but this film is no doubt a fantastic depiction of human misery by the genius himself. There are so many scenes where you are so much into the scene that you don't realize that the camera has not moved in a long time. For example when girl leaves the room and Yuzo walks around frustrated the camera doesn't move. It gives a very theatrical feel. Every single track is a master piece. I loved the scene where Yuzo goes inside a hotel to meet his friend and he see people in changing rooms and staff rooms. Its brilliant. Its out of the world. How the hell he thinks about about such fantastic locations. Baseball , Ticket line, Yuzo's home, Opera, hotel. Its just fantastic. Parallel allusion drawn with sunshine and rain was phenomenal. Significance of the cigarette bud was sheer genius. Clap, coffee, home. Its unbelievable.I have no idea why people call it Kurosawa's transitional film. Great director make all kinds of films. which one is Spielberg's, Kubrick's or kiarostami's transitional film? I think if a person doesn't like this film then he has no idea what poverty is. 10/10.


One is never too old to learn. I am discovering Kurosawa's pre-Rashomon films on TCM while I am approaching old age. This film has shown me that Kurosawa has tried and excelled in positively every genre imaginable while preceding others in each field. "One Wonderful Sunday" has probably taught a few things to Fellini while totally preempting the French New Wave. Compared to this opus, all of Godard's and Truffaut's pretentious, meaningless essays fall short in both the story-telling department and the ability to convey a useful message. They didn't bring anything new and made our world a little poorer in the process. Kurosawa, on the other hand, was a courageous inventor who was capable of improvising as he went along - without losing track of his goal, a brilliant technician and director of actors as well as a poet.


A young couple meet to spend their Sunday together, as they do every Sunday. They have 35 yen to spend - a paltry amount. Off they go, but at the back of their minds, nagging them, threatening to ruin their date, is their impoverished circumstances. The man takes this to heart. The woman, whose shoes are falling apart, is blessed with optimism.

Don't be fooled by the simplicity of the storyline. This film engaged me on several levels. It's the story of their date which keeps threatening to turn sour, and often does, but which is finally rescued by one unalterable fact: their love for each other. Not some dreamy-eyed American mass-culture Silhouette-novel type of love, but real, practical love that demands rigorous action when the stakes are down. If anything, this film presents a blueprint of how this couple will spend the rest of their lives together. It's heartwarming in a really special way.

Through the eyes of this couple, as the day's events unfold, we see a panorama of post-war Japan, and it isn't a pretty sight. There is corruption on every scale imaginable. Desperate circumstances force people to compromise their pride and integrity, even in minuscule ways. The man is tempted on all sides to compromise his, so this film becomes the story of his struggle not to (in one scene he becomes enraged when scalpers buy up the remaining 10 yen concert tickets that he and his date wanted and start re-selling them for 15 yen). Money is the pervasive leitmotif of this film. Money and the not having it, the wanting it, the scrounging for it, the giving it, the soul-tainting influence of it, and yes, the necessity of it.

That's not to say that there isn't grace and beauty here. And magic. There's plenty, amid the heartache and despair. "One Wonderful Sunday" reminded me of "The Bicycle Thief", De Sica's powerful portrait of post-war Rome, also mounted on a deceptively simple vehicle - a man's desperate search for his stolen bicycle.

And finally, the whole thing is tied together by a most inspired and dramatic metaphor. At the start of the film the man spies a half-smoked cigarette on the busy sidewalk. He focuses all his attention on it. Looking around, embarrassed, he quickly reaches for it, but his girlfriend suddenly appears. He explains, sheepishly, that he hasn't had a smoke in three days. At the end of the film he comes across a half-smoked cigarette on the train platform. He hesitates, then crushes it with his shoe, his pride intact.

I've been watching some Kurosawa films recently, and I had almost forgotten that there could be such beauty and intelligence in cinema.


With this warm and uplifting film, the effect Kurosawa achieves is in the simplicity. The story is threadbare. Two lovebirds try to spend a Sunday together in post-war Tokyo and enjoy themselves with only 35 yen in their pockets. Kurosawa never ceases to amaze me because of his incredibly acute comprehension of the visual effects of a story. The simpler the story is, the more it becomes simply a day in their lives. The more it becomes a day in the life, the more upsetting we find the challenges facing them because of the Occupation and the crumbling economy at the time.

It's almost like a lightweight version of The Lost Weekend. There are no debilitating problems like alcoholism or writer's block. There are just obstructions and inconveniences with which the characters can either roll or stew around.

One Wonderful Sunday is a beautiful slice of life from a time that could be many different times in many different places. It's a peaceful movie about the peace that is always there for a given person, their journey being to find it. I have rarely seen a sequence so beautifully crafted on film as the two lovers in the empty, decaying concrete exterior auditorium, where one resolves to create the music they have been struggling to hear. There is hardly a handful of filmmakers living today that would think of such a thing. Kurosawa may have had the clearest, purest understanding of cinema out of any filmmaker.


Probably those who respect Kurosawa's samurai movies can hardly recognize this film as his. Far from these samurai plays it lacks dramatic tension. Easygoing atmosphere dominates the whole story (some shots are pleasant, for example, playing sandlot baseball or visiting a show room). Of course Kurosawa doesn't intend to make fairy tale. Hero and heroine are miserably poor, spot the undernourished child and resent the ticket scalpers. All are the reflections of the then Japanese society. None the less they don't effectively function and often make dull situations (especially the scene of the couples in their room). Near the end heroine cries out towards audiences watching this film but I couldn't catch the spurt of her emotion. Supposedly because Japan became by far economically richer and this film lost its conviction in present Japan. However, next to this movie Kurosawa made a breathtaking "Yoidore Tenshi", whose scene is also laid in late 1940's poor Japan. From this point "Subarashiki Nichiyobi" can be regarded as a Kurosawa's transitional film.


I was channel surfing the other night on DirectTV, and I noticed this movie with the wacky title. When I read the nutty plot description and noticed that it starred Ellen Dubin and Denise Richards in an early role, I selected it out of curiosity. I expected to watch it for maybe five minutes and then get bored and turn to something else. I ended up, however, being really surprised by how entertaining I found this film to be. I knew I had to see what other people thought about it. Just as I expected, almost everyone here hated it. I'm not surprised that most people don't "get" this movie. Those without any sense of camp will have no appreciation for it.

Let me explain something to everyone: This movie is bad, and the people who wrote and directed it KNEW that they were making a bad movie. Most of the characters and things that go on in it are totally, utterly ridiculous, and the filmmakers obviously revelled in this fact, to a degree of aggressive silliness. Realism and reality have nothing to do with this film. Basically, it's a send-up of other B-movies--romance, sci-fi, horror, etc--and a clever one at that. But apparently very few seem to have recognized it as such. Do people really think that the filmmakers were just too dumb not to realize that real-life funeral-goers would have noticed a huge T-rex watching the burial service from behind some shrubs just a few yards away? Or that the creepiness of the tender love scenes between Tammy and her grotesque dinosaur "boyfriend" was an accident? The movie's deliberate outrageousness and low-mindedness is what makes this movie fun and is the source of some of its funniest moments. For the first half of the film, I couldn't believe what I was watching, and I couldn't believe that anyone would make a film like this.

And then I loved it!


Tammy and The T-Rex is just a great film, in my opinion. Understanding that it's hard for people to characterize dinosaurs in their movies, this movie did an alright job. I did not see anything THAT bad about this movie, because while it is cheesy and overrated in some scenes, it's total fun and a complete delight. There's even a couple of scenes I could have dealt without, but still they're in there, and quite frankly the makers of this film did a great job with what they had to work with and created a nostalgic, yet entertaining flick that is fun to watch from beginning to end. Denise Richards being an excellent actress portrays Tammy pretty lovably, as well.

This movie is very fun and I like it very much. Not many people might have heard of this movie and I believe it is their loss, really, because they're missing out on a very interesting movie with a decent story and plot that you can just get a good kick out of. Corny, fun, interesting and light-hearted are the perfect ways to sum up this movie, and if you haven't seen it, of course don't expect a masterpiece, but you will enjoy it for it's wacky characteristics and overall cheesiness, yet emotional effectiveness.


This is the funniest movie I've ever seen. I'm channel surfing and I come in just as the T-Rex is going to some party and you see the table shaking as it walks. It was the funniest thing I'd ever seen. I had to come here just to see if it was a real movie. This is great, I can't wait to see what happens next!


This movie is so cheesy, it is the funniest thing I have ever seen! My friends and I all died laughing through the whole movie. You really must see this movie, if only to see how being really bad can actually be a very good thing!


Everyone says this movie is bad, of course it is... do you think the people were actually serious when they made it? NO! It is to be enjoyed as a B movie. It shows a T-rex make a phone call, then check the pay phone for change after he's done, then it shows him crying with tears pouring from his eyes. I assure you no one thought they were making a great cinematic moment, they were just being silly. If you can't appreciate this movie for what it is, then you shouldn't be reviewing B-movies. They weren't made for you.


For those of us out there that miss the "Old" John Woo from The Killer, Hard Boiled, and A Better Tomorrow 1&2, Johnny To comes to pick up where Woo left off with Fulltime Killers. Now while some call that a blatant bootleg or hijacking of John Woo's style, I call it a pleasant revisit.

Andy Lau plays Tok, a flamboyant leather clad professional killer who not only takes pride in his work but also looks to put himself in the spotlight with every kill he makes. Tok is a sort of tribute to one Castor Troy of Face-Off, with his flair and his trademark smile which he flashes at all times. Takashi Sorimachi plays O, a more traditional killer with a guilty conscience, who stays in the shadows and executes his job keeping himself out of the spotlight. O's guilty conscience is the result of an innocent getting caught up in his world. O is something of a tribute to Chow Yun-Fat's character in The Killer. As a result of O's more low-key approach he is the highest ranked and most sought after professional much to the dismay of Tok. Naturally a rivalry will result between these two polar opposites in an attempt to be the top.

Acting as a catalyst to this rivalry is the lovely Kelly Lin, playing Chin, a mild-mannered video store clerk who is bored by life. An incidental visit by Tok to her video store, and a second job cleaning O's apartment begins a chain of events that puts her in the middle of these two professional killers rivalry.

Fulltime Killer provides mind-blowing action scenes and a love triangle that even guys don't mind keeping up with. A throughly entertaining movie and a throwback to the "old" John Woo puts this movie high on my list. Give it a chance, and you'll be entertained at the very least.


This film is wonderful. Although slow in places, this thing is a work of art and beauty. Andy Lau is amazing, dynamic and charming! I really enjoyed the multicultural aspects, and felt the tensions between characters as their individual mysteries unfold to be very charming, sincere and often surprisingly touching. In an rather tired and often exploiting genre, this film really stands apart as an example of the value of depth in characters, theme and story no matter how two dimensional the tracking story might be. The making of footage on the flip side of the DVD is equally nifty, because seldom will a film include multiple agonizing takes of key scenes both action and non-action so that you might understand how excruciatingly demanding and exhausting film making can really be.


I just finished seeing Fulltime Killer. What a pleasant surprise. 2 months ago, I was sorely disappointed with the flicks that H.K churned out. Apparently, i was tired of watching every action directors in H.K imitating Tsui Hark, John Woo, Ringo Lam, and Johnny To. Every movie I saw, there was that typical shaky cameras, and sweeping movements, making everything seemed cooler than it actually is. Even the Greats imitated themselves in such mess as Zu Warriors. But then I saw Shaolin Soccer, and that shook my disturbed belief a bit. And today, I saw Fulltime Killer, and my faith in H.K is fully restored. I know that Fulltime Killer is nothing original, compared to the action classics such as "the Killer", but it was done right for once. I found myself lost in Johnny To's perspective of this excellent story. In the end, I took what seemed like the first breath since the opening of the film. Apparently I had a very good time. I was certainly pleasantly surprised. I found that every actors did their jobs well. Andy Lau, who always seemed a bit feminine to me fit the role well, and made it work. I was impressed with Takeshi's performance. Although his role seemed very stereotypical and slightly less demanding, he made it work well. I found myself in awe with Kelly Lin's portrayal of the innocent girl. The action scenes were very well done. Although they were noting revolutionary as the recent films "crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon" or "time and Tide", but I found them incredibly effective. The Music was certainly the highlight of the film. Its haunting theme weave in well with the scenes, and made them alive. All in All.... not the most original, but at this day and age, it's almost impossible to find originality. Very fun time, and quite a pleasant surprise.


It is the story of two professional assassins who live to kill. Both are act without remorse or second thoughts, are highly effective and completely relentless. Takashi Sorimachi plays O, the Japanese killer who is considered the best in his (admittedly limited) field. He kills efficiently, dispatching the target, his bodyguards and anyone who could identify him. He is quick, clean and much in demand by those who employ him. Andy Lau is Tok, a Chinese killer who wants to replace O but who is considered too showy and flamboyant. When O executes a hit he simply walks away and disappears into the crowd. Tok escapes on a stolen motorcycle while a police station explodes in the background.

They are brought together by Tok's envy of O and Tok's desire to replace him as the most sought after assassin in Asia. While they stalk and spy on each other, they are also linked by Miss Chin, played by the gorgeous Kelly Lin. She is O's housekeeper and Tok's girlfriend. Simon Yam is Inspector Lee of Interpol who leads a team going after both of the killers and who (literally in one case) are always just a step behind them.

There are references galore to other movies: El Mariachi and Desperado, Blood Simple, Hard Boiled, Point Break, The Godfather, Samurai and probably plenty of others that I missed. Even the Warner Brothers cartoons of Chuck Jones are referencedone of the more outrageous assassinations by Tok has "Largo Factorum" from The Barber of Seville accompanying the action, in much the same way that Bugs Bunny committed mayhem to the tune of Mozart, Wagner or Rossini.

The action scenes are excellent. There are cars that blow up when shot, pistols that are accurate at 500 yards and huge shotguns that appear from beneath short leather jackets but even with these clichés the action set pieces created by Johnny To are exciting, fast paced, very violent and seamlessly shot and edited.

Sorimachi is properly dour and brooding, almost phlegmatic. His understated acting personifies the loneliness and isolation of his character. Lau, in keeping with his character, has a much more florid styleTok could be a full time smirker as well as a full time killer.

While not exactly a return to heroic bloodshedthere aren't any heroes hereFulltime Killer uses many of that genre's conventions. Very much worth seeing and recommended.


There seem to be a lot of Japanese movies that are pure exercises in style. I tend to like highly cinematic movies, so I usually enjoy myself, but somewhere along the way I always seem to go from thinking, this is just so cool to thinking, is there some point here. Fulltime Killer is lots of fun. It is very stylish, looks nice and has some very striking scenes. But it has about as much depth as a piece of typing paper. There's not much in the way of character development, and the movie feels increasingly unconvincing as it progresses. So while there is stuff I love, like the scene with the grenades, the movie as a whole failed to connect with me on any sort of intellectual or emotional level. Still, it is lots of fun, and I was torn between giving it a 7 or an 8 (which is usually the quandary I face when rating stylish, empty movies). Well worth watching, but not worth remembering.


This operatic action movie abounds with nods to various directors: Woo, Coppola, Godard, Tarantino, Penn, they're all there. From O's "Resevoir Dogs"-like killing suit to Tok's pinning an opponent's hand to a bar with an icepick to O and Chin's "Bonnie-and-Clyde"-like moment in a field, the movie is an homage to cinephiles everywhere. While it's billed as a film about two hitmen--one vying for recognition, the other for anonymity--it also peers into the lives of the supporting characters. The film takes interesting turns (no spoilers whatsoever here). If you find some of the camerawork a bit florid, keep in mind that that's the MO of Tok: flashy, show-offy, but gets the job done. The film is fast, meditative, and just plain cool.


O (Takashi Sorimachi) is a Japanese living in Hong Kong and is the best hitman money can get in Asia. To evade from his enemies, he rents another apartment opposite his current one and lives there.

Tok is the new kid on the block who wants O's high-paying jobs and obsessed about having O's fame. He rents an apartment above O's to observe him and rents his favorite films from the neighborhood video rental store even though he doesn't own a VCR.

Chin is a Taiwanese who owns a video rental store round the corner, cleans O's apartment 3 evenings a week and has huge crushes for both men.

Adapted from the HK serialized novel of the same name, it has less details, character development and plot but still leaves a lot to be admired. And if you liked Johnny To's Running Out of Time, you would enjoy his style of gun fights, the hint of brotherhood between the two opposing characters and the non-sequential way of story telling. Highly watchable.