1342 Best Film & TV Releases Translated Into Mandarin (Page 8)
Der Schwarm
SimilarGolden Years, The Incredible Hulk,
The sea is always a great setting for a story. It’s both soothing and menacing; water is cleansing and purifying, and a consistently replenishing source of food. But it’s also dangerous and uncompromising. Water is one of nature’s greatest antagonists, it can get into virtually anything, softening it, weakening it, eventually breaking it apart. But nothing on earth would survive without it. It’s a brilliant metaphor for so many things, as it’s constantly changing and moving and covers wondrous and monstrous secrets. It works even better in visual mediums like TV and film because it’s beautiful to both look at and listen to. The CW’s new eco-thriller, The Swarm, makes good use of its watery locations in establishing an aura of tranquil menace: everything seems calm and orderly, but there’s trouble bubbling up just below the surface. Continue Reading →
Welcome to Wrexham
NetworkFX,
Studio3 Arts Entertainment, FX Productions,
Welcome to Wrexham Season 2 opens with Ryan Reynolds and Rob McElhenney telling the audience, directly to camera, that they’ve spoken to the King of England. It’s a good gag, with both demonstrating their talents for comedic timing. It is also the kind of thing that makes avowed anti-Royalists and fans of Season 1—of which this critic is both—a bit nervous. Continue Reading →
The Inventor (In Mandarin: 大發明家)
SimilarBen-Hur (1959), Edward Scissorhands (1990), Metropolis (1927), Princess Mononoke (1997), Schindler's List (1993), Titanic (1997), Wallace & Gromit: The Curse of the Were-Rabbit (2005),
Watch afterAquaman and the Lost Kingdom (2023),
Barbie (2023) Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness (2022),
StudioHBO Documentary Films,
The Inventor is an odd little film. It is a mess throughout, and there are many instances where I got the sense that writer/co-director Jim Capbianco did not know what kind of story he was trying to tell or who his audience was. And yet it possesses an undeniable charm, one that sticks with you. Continue Reading →
Sitting in Bars with Cake (In Mandarin: 帶著蛋糕在酒吧)
Watch afterBarbie (2023) Blue Beetle (2023), Elemental (2023), Shortcomings (2023), The Marvels (2023),
StudioMetro-Goldwyn-Mayer,
(Editor's note: A previous version of this review included the full name of the presumptive real-life inspiration for the film; upon a subsequent request to maintain their privacy, we have removed that sentence.) Continue Reading →
Mickey's Birthday Party (In Mandarin: 米老鼠的生日聚会)
Friedkin’s second film is a bruising affair that finds the fledgling director wielding style to produce maximum psychological damage.
In the early days of his career, William Friedkin found himself playing second banana to his collaborators. For instance, one of his earliest biggest TV directing gigs was on Alfred Hitchcock Presents. Then, when he made the leap to feature narrative films, his debut was in service of Cher and Sonny Bono’s cult of personality.
In The Birthday Party, Friedkin’s second film, more well know talent once again eclipses him. Playwright Harold Pinter, whose original stage play the film adapts, also contributed the film script. Even now, the cover of Blu-rays and DVDs, the only way to see it currently, bills it as “Harold Pinter’s The Birthday Party.” Continue Reading →
Aristotle and Dante Discover the Secrets of the Universe (In Mandarin: 宇宙奥秘狂想曲)
SimilarBen-Hur (1959), Closely Watched Trains (1966), Contact (1997), Cruel Intentions (1999), East of Eden (1955), Finding Forrester (2000), Forrest Gump (1994), I've Always Liked You (2016),
Jackie Brown (1997) La Haine (1995),
Manhattan (1979) Maria Full of Grace (2004), Random Harvest (1942),
Rebecca (1940) Schindler's List (1993), The Art of Racing in the Rain (2019), The Bridges of Madison County (1995), The Irishman (2019),
The Name of the Rose (1986) The Silent Partner (1978), The Tin Drum (1979),
Watch afterDune: Part Two (2024), Napoleon (2023), Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse (2023), Thanksgiving (2023),
In cinema, water is a site of birth, rebirth, and drastic transformations. In movies ranging from Sansho the Bailiff to Moonlight to Paul Blart: Mall Cop 2, characters walk into vast bodies of liquid one person and exit another (if, that is, they resurface). It tracks, then, that the romantic drama Aristotle and Dante Discover the Secrets of the Universe kicks off its central relationship at a community pool. A conversation between the film’s titular leads, set against the blue, kicks off a life-changing connection. Continue Reading →
Meg 2: The Trench (In Mandarin: 極悍巨鯊2:深溝)
Ever since James Cameron boldly wrote “S” after ALIEN on a chalkboard and then changed it to a dollar sign, the quickest way to sequel-ize your killer extraterrestrial/reptile/mammal/whatever has been to add more of it. You scored a hit with people fighting one giant mosquito? Great, here’s a sequel with six of them. Continue Reading →
The Wheel of Time
Similar2Moons: The Series, A Dance to the Music of Time,
Agatha Christie's Poirot Ah! My Goddess, Amazing Stories, American Gothic, Animated Classics of Japanese Literature, Are You Afraid of the Dark?, Bodies, Brimstone, Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Cybersix, Des, Fate/Apocrypha, Fearless, He-Man and the Masters of the Universe,
Hilda Furacão House of Cards, I Dream of Jeannie, In the Land of Leadale, Jewels,
Little Women Loveless, Lupin, M*A*S*H, Masters of the Universe: Revelation, Monarch of the Glen, Mortal Kombat: Conquest, Mr. Mercedes, Out of This World,
Planet of the Apes Pride and Prejudice Santa Evita,
Sherlock Holmes Spies of Warsaw, Star and Sky: Star in My Mind, Super Pumped,
Tales from the Neverending Story Tattooed Teenage Alien Fighters from Beverly Hills, The Alienist, The Chestnut Man, The Dawn of the Witch, The Family Game, The Lost World, The Serial Killer's Wife, The Sleuth of Ming Dynasty, The Slime Diaries: That Time I Got Reincarnated as a Slime, The Strain, The Three-Body Problem, Tientsin Mystic, Tira, Unorthodox, Winning Time: The Rise of the Lakers Dynasty, Wycliffe,
Big-budget fantasy lovers have reason to celebrate this week with Amazon Studio’s The Wheel of Time Season 2's debut. With some careful tweaking by Showrunner Rafe Judkins, Robert Jordan’s epic fantasy of feminine magic and quests of destiny came to life in an impressive if uneven first season. Now, the stakes are higher, the dangers subtler, and the ever-expanding cast of characters more compelling. Continue Reading →
女子高生物語 淫らな果実 (In Mandarin: 女高中生物语 淫荡的果实)
The Criterion Channel dives into the unique hell of being a teenager & we’ll tell you which films not to miss.
This piece was written during the 2023 WGA and SAG-AFTRA strikes. Without the labor of the writers and actors currently on strike, the movies being covered here wouldn't exist.
Back to school time is here, and maybe you’re taking a moment to reflect on your high school days, that complicated, angsty time of bad skin, painful crushes, poorly timed boners, and discovering that you’re turning into a werewolf. Continue Reading →
Who Is Erin Carter?
SimilarA Little Princess, Alias Grace, Cleopatra, Close Relations, Elizabeth R, Fallen, G.B.H., Good Morning Children, Love You Just as You Are, More than Blue: The Series, Narco-Saints, Peter and Paul, Pope John Paul II,
Pride and Prejudice Quatermass II, Queen Cleopatra, RUSH: Inspired by Battlefield,
Scully Son of the Morning Star, Star and Sky: Star in My Mind, The Buccaneers, The Fire Next Time, The Gangster Chronicles, The Gold Robbers, The Killing Kind, The Quatermass Experiment, The Shining, Tiger Lily, 4 femmes dans la vie, Ultraviolet, Unorthodox, World War II: When Lions Roared,
In Who is Erin Carter? ’s precipitating event, the titular character (Evin Ahmad)—a British ex-pat living in Spain and trying to make a living as a substitute teacher—must fight a masked gunman during a grocery store robbery. At stake is the life of nearly blind daughter Harper (Indica Watson), who cowers unseen under a display of oranges. Continue Reading →
Stoker (In Mandarin: 私房嚇)
There's more than one transition going on in Park Chan-wook's 2013 thriller Stoker. Yes, the film tells the story of how the seemingly carefree India (Mia Wasikowska) goes from worshipping her father to worshipping her uncle Charlie (Matthew Goode). But the Hitchcockian thriller -- and it is one, beyond the shadow of a doubt -- was also Director Park’s first English-language title. Continue Reading →
You Are So Not Invited to My Bat Mitzvah (In Mandarin: 我的成年禮誠摯不邀你)
SimilarBring It On (2000), Closely Watched Trains (1966), Fried Green Tomatoes (1991), Lolita (1962),
Manhattan (1979) Mary Poppins (1964), Sahara (2005), To Die For (1995), Willy Wonka & the Chocolate Factory (1971), Wonder Boys (2000),
You Are So Not Invited to My Bat Mitzvah has a simple premise. Stacy Friedman (Sunny Sandler) wants her bat mitzvah, only a few weeks away, to be perfect. Using that premise, the film takes off, exploring the growing pains of middle school. Continue Reading →
Rebecca (In Mandarin: 蝴蝶夢)
“Last night I dreamed I went to Manderley again…” So begins Daphne du Maurier’s gothic masterwork Rebecca, one of the most famous opening lines in fiction. Rebecca proved a hit upon release in 1938 and has remained in print ever since. Alfred Hitchcock’s adaptation, coming just two years later, netted him his first Best Director nomination. That interpretation of the text has come to be considered a classic, and with good reason. Its misty black-and-white photography and mysteries hypnotize. Continue Reading →
Pirates of the Caribbean: At World's End (In Mandarin: 加勒比海盜:魔盜王終極之戰)
Though their core plots aren’t similar, all three movies in Edgar Wright’s Cornetto Trilogy share the common thread of emotionally immature men clinging to the relics of their youth, often to the detriment of their friendships and romantic lives. Specifically men of Generation X, who tend to glorify their younger days, and the pop culture associated with it, at a level that borders on delusional (and as a Gen X woman I can tell you we’re not much better about it). Continue Reading →
Free Fire (In Mandarin: 玩命鎗火)
The plot of Free Fire, in many ways, could not be more straightforward. A mix of thugs, gun runners, and revolutionaries meet up to exchange weapons in a Boston warehouse in the 1970s. Things go wrong in a hurry. Continue Reading →
High-Rise (In Mandarin: 魔天豪廷)
This piece was written during the 2023 WGA and SAG-AFTRA strikes. Without the labor of the writers and actors currently on strike, the movies being covered here wouldn't exist. Continue Reading →
Landscape with Invisible Hand (In Mandarin: 隱形之手的風景)
Similar2001: A Space Odyssey (1968), 9 Songs (2004), A Clockwork Orange (1971), Annie Hall (1977), Apocalypse Now (1979),
Blade Runner (1982) Boys Don't Cry (1999) Contact (1997), East of Eden (1955), Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind (2004), Fried Green Tomatoes (1991),
Jackie Brown (1997) Manhattan (1979) Mars Attacks! (1996), Mary Poppins (1964), Metropolis (1927), Predator (1987), Random Harvest (1942), Solaris (1972), Stalker (1979), The Elementary Particles (2006),
The Name of the Rose (1986) The Outsiders (1983), The Science of Sleep (2006), The Silent Partner (1978), The Thing (1982), The Thirteenth Floor (1999), To Die For (1995), War of the Worlds (2005),
Watch afterBarbie (2023) Rebel Moon - Part One: A Child of Fire (2023), Shortcomings (2023), The Equalizer 3 (2023),
StudioMetro-Goldwyn-Mayer,
Cory Finley is obsessed with money. His characters have nice things or want them. They live in beautiful houses or enviously plot to get them. Even in the year 2036, with aliens living on (or, more precisely, about two miles above) planet Earth, people still fret over money and try to make scads of it. That’s the state of things in his latest, Landscape with Invisible Hand. It’s a title with the same bespoke aestheticism as the stuffed ocelots and oversized chess pieces his characters own. It feels seemingly designed to scare off less curious viewers. While the film has an awful lot of plot, the undergirding is the same. As in his 2017 debut Thoroughbreds, his follow-up Bad Education, and even his episodes of the abysmal miniseries WeCrashed, the drama comes from the idea of what money does to the soul. Continue Reading →
Strays (In Mandarin: 复仇狗联盟)
SimilarArmageddon (1998), Austin Powers in Goldmember (2002), Austin Powers: International Man of Mystery (1997), Austin Powers: The Spy Who Shagged Me (1999), Borat: Cultural Learnings of America for Make Benefit Glorious Nation of Kazakhstan (2006), Bridget Jones's Diary (2001), Bring It On (2000), Fantastic Four: Rise of the Silver Surfer (2007), From Russia with Love (1963), Ghostbusters (1984), Goldfinger (1964), Night at the Museum (2006), Ocean's Eleven (1960), Shrek the Third (2007), Snakes on a Plane (2006), The Chronicles of Narnia: The Lion the Witch and the Wardrobe (2005), The Simpsons Movie (2007),
Watch afterBarbie (2023) Blue Beetle (2023), Elemental (2023), Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny (2023), Meg 2: The Trench (2023),
Oppenheimer (2023) Talk to Me (2023), The Nun II (2023),
Talking animals have been an entertainment staple for practically as long as movies have been around. Most classics of the genre, like 1993’s Homeward Bound, aim squarely at children in the audience. Director Josh Greenbaum’s Strays seeks to subvert that approach by weaving dirty jokes and curse words into familiar genre tropes. The result is considerably more grating and unpleasant to watch. Continue Reading →
Westworld (In Mandarin: 西部世界)
Similar2001: A Space Odyssey (1968), 2046 (2004), 28 Weeks Later (2007), A.I. Artificial Intelligence (2001), Alien (1979), Aliens (1986), Austin Powers: International Man of Mystery (1997), Austin Powers: The Spy Who Shagged Me (1999), Back to the Future Part III (1990),
Blade Runner (1982) Dune (1984), Metropolis (1927), Nausicaä of the Valley of the Wind (1984), Predator (1987), Star Trek: Generations (1994), Strange Days (1995), The Matrix Reloaded (2003), The Matrix Revolutions (2003), War of the Worlds (2005),
StudioMetro-Goldwyn-Mayer,
My mother was not much of a movie fan. They just never interested her that much, but when it became obvious that I was obsessed with them by the time I reached preschool age, she did nothing to discourage me. Every once in a while she'd let me know that the feature on the The 3:30 Movie (my primary outlet for watching films in those pre-cable, pre-VCR days) was something that I had to watch. Oddly, her instincts often proved to be correct and I was exposed at a very early (perhaps inappropriately so age to such films as The Producers, Duel and the Joan Rivers-penned TV movie The Girl Most Likely To. . ., all of which would be long-standing favorites of mine. Continue Reading →
A Field in England (In Mandarin: 腐国恶土)
This piece was written during the 2023 WGA and SAG-AFTRA strikes. Without the labor of the writers and actors currently on strike, the movies being covered here wouldn't exist. Continue Reading →
Jules (In Mandarin: 朱爾斯)
SimilarA.I. Artificial Intelligence (2001), Alien (1979), Aliens (1986), Mars Attacks! (1996), Predator (1987), Stalker (1979), The Thing (1982), War of the Worlds (2005),
Watch afterBarbie (2023) Blue Beetle (2023),
Oppenheimer (2023) Rebel Moon - Part One: A Child of Fire (2023), Shortcomings (2023), Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse (2023),
In a media landscape with fewer and fewer options actually targeted toward adults (often tied to the death of the mid-budget movie), audiences take the scraps they're given and make the best of them. This is the space that Jules occupies, a sci-fi fairy tale about the specific loneliness of senior citizens who feel isolated, ignored, and afraid. It’s also a thin, often ham-fisted take on a tale that could have had real legs in more capable hands. Continue Reading →