Sinners (M18)
137 minutes, now showing
★★★★☆
After developing a fearsome reputation as gangsters in Chicago during the 1930s, twin brothers Smoke and Stack (both played by Michael B. Jordan) return to Mississippi. They set about opening a juke joint, a dance hall with live music and liquor banned under Prohibition law. Their activities attract the attention of angry white townsfolk, as well as supernatural forces more evil than racists.
American writer-director Ryan Coogler reunites with Jordan in Sinners, blending prime drama, horror and blues music in what is possibly the most ambitious, inventive and enjoyable big-budget movie of the season.
Those demons are more than merely psychological – they are real and they are horrific.
In Sinners, Coogler’s view of the black experience in the United States is channelled into an allegory about white vampires eager to drain black bodies of their vital energies.
In sweeping shots made for Imax screens, the ethnography of the South is succinctly revealed – shopkeepers Grace and Bo Chow (Li Jun Li and Yao), representing the thousands of Chinese immigrants who settled in the South, being neither black nor white, are the only people to walk freely in a segregated world.
Above The Dust (M18)
122 minutes, opens at The Projector on April 22
This film premiered locally in 2024 at the Asian Film Archive. For those who missed it, here is another chance to watch this poignant look at family relationships tested by the demands of a China racing towards the future. There is the bonus of a Q&A session with Chinese director Wang Xiaoshuai after the May 1, 1pm screening at The Projector. A bilingual (Mandarin-English) moderator will conduct the session.
Wang’s 16th feature visits themes seen in award-winning films like Beijing Bicycle (2001), Drifters (2003) and So Long, My Son (2019). Often censored and banned from working, the rebel film-maker frequently features naive and frustrated young characters with dreams too big for society.
Set in a village in 2008, Above The Dust follows a family with a young boy, Wo Tu (Wenxin Ouyang), yearning for a toy water pistol. Pay your respects after my death and my ghost will find the toy for you, promises the grandfather. After the elderly man’s death, in scenes that blend dreams with reality, the ghost appears as promised, telling stories about his family’s turbulent past in a country racked by forces beyond anyone’s control.
What: Above The Dust screening and virtual Q&A with director Wang Xiaoshuai
Where: The Projector at Cineleisure, 05-00, 8 Grange Road
MRT: Somerset
When: May 1, 1 to 3.15pm (screening), 3.15 to 4.15pm (Q&A)
Admission: $18 (standard), $16 (students, full-time national servicemen, seniors)
Info: str.sg/xwgP
September 5 (NC16)
95 minutes, available on Apple TV+
★★★★☆
During the 1972 Munich Olympics, Palestinian militia Black September stormed the athletes’ village and took the Israeli team hostage. ABC Sports, already on site, pivoted to covering the tragedy over 17 fateful hours, resulting in the first live telecast of a terrorist act.
Scottish documentarian Kevin Macdonald examined Germany’s security failure in One Day In September (1999), while American director Steven Spielberg’s Munich (2005) tracked Israel’s covert response. September 5, however, is unconcerned with such politics.
Directed by Swiss film-maker Tim Fehlbaum, this 2025 Oscar Best Original Screenplay nominee is a detailed procedural set in a single control room. Roone Arledge (Peter Sarsgaard) is the programming president, Geoff Mason (John Magaro) the rookie producer and Marvin Bader (Ben Chaplin) the operations chief. Their German translator Marianne (Leonie Benesch) is the film’s only fictional character.
ABC’s archival footage is montaged into re-enactments that pulse with tension as the crew debates not how to get closer to the action, but whether it should.
The actors bring urgent gravity to their fallible characters’ ethical decisions. Today’s devalued media has much to learn from this gripping true story on journalistic integrity. – Whang Yee Ling
From Singapore stage to Hollywood:Actor Yao brings the South-east Asian experience to SinnersFilm Picks: Kneecap, Mountains May Depart, Seven Veils
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