Is this the control tower of Hong Kong International Airport, or a screenshot from Thunderbirds?
Grant Watson
@fictionmachine.bsky.social
Rotten Tomatoes-accredited film critic. Award-winning playwright. Noted international education analyst. Serviceable theatre director. Has multiple sclerosis. www.fictionmachine.com
NEW REVIEW! Anime legend Kawamori Shoji (Macross) really doesn't like what the kids are doing on social media, as can be seen in his new feature Labyrinth. fictionmachine.com/2026/08/05/r...
REVIEW: Labyrinth (2025)
Japanese high schooler Maezawa Shiori finds herself trapped inside her smartphone. While she journeys, Alice in Wonderland-style, in search of an exit, a more selfish and driven copy of her runs am…
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I took a cheap research trip to Tokyo but the downside is I now have a nine hour transit in Hong Kong International Airport in the middle of the night.
It's been really hot and really humid in Tokyo this week, and my MS doesn't cope well with the heat. Symptoms flare up and get worse. Particularly affected has been my right hand, which is always numb. 1/-
NEW REVIEW! If you only read one review of an art house Iranian documentary this year, why not read this one? Past Future Continuous is screening at this year's Melbourne International Film Festival. #MIFF2026 fictionmachine.com/2026/08/03/m...
MIFF REVIEW: Past Future Continuous (2025)
While this review does not spoil the plot of the film, it does discuss the content of the film in a manner more direct than usual for this website. You may wish to watch this slightly challenging, …
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I've been here for six days, and I still cannot fully comprehend the taste of Nope. Bubblegum cherry cola?
Laputa: Castle in the Sky, the first Studio Ghibli feature film, turns 40 today.
"The earth shook. I still have diarrhea." (From the diary of director Ozu Yasujiro, 9 Jan 1951.)
Taiwan's Indigenous peoples are the original owners of this land. Yet new settlers referred to them as "savages" and "mountain compatriots." Name rectification came in 1997 through a constitutional amendment. Aug 1 declared Indigenous Peoples' Day in 2005. Siraya just recognized as the 17th tribe.
Mark Harrison@mhar4.bsky.social · 6d agoThe outcome of many decades of campaigning by Siraya people and a milestone for indigenous reconciliation in Taiwan. The PRC rejects the concept of indigenous and defines all 17 tribes as a single "ethnic minority" and would dismantle all this if it annexed Taiwan. focustaiwan.tw/society/2026...
Whereas the hill *I* will die on is that clickbait opinion pieces are the weakest kind of journalism.
The Guardian@theguardian.com · 4d agoThe hill I will die on: Games are the opposite of fun, and I’d ban them for anyone over 12 | Emily Watkins
NEW REVIEW! Sun Kun's short film The Wind in Ash is like a perfectly formed Chinese realist drama in miniature. It is screening as part of International Shorts 1 at #MIFF2026. fictionmachine.com/2026/08/01/m...
MIFF REVIEW: The Wind in Ash (2025)
Sun Kun’s thoughtful, measured short film The Wind in Ash is a perfect independent Chinese drama in miniature, elegantly telling in 18 minutes what could easily be expanded to more than 90. T…
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I once flew across the country just to watch a play. I have now flown to another country just to read a magazine.
Happy 22nd birthday to the Daigo Parry. I always play this when it turns up in my feed just to hear that crowd go wild.
Fighting Game Anniversaries@fganniversaries.bsky.social · 5d agoEvo Moment #37, also known as the Daigo Parry, occurred at the 3rd Strike semifinal match at EVO 2004 22 years ago today. It had Daigo Umehara's Ken making a comeback against Justin Wong's Chun-Li by parrying Houyokusen with only 1 HP left & countering it to win the match.
A reproduction of issue 1 of the Cinematograph (aka Katsudoshinkai), Japan's first-ever film magazine, from 1909. The man pointing on the cover is a "benshi", a performer paid to narrate the silent films and give cultural context to the audience.
Had an hour to kill, so checked out the Artizon Museum. Did not expect to find one of the casts of Boccioni's Unique Forms of Continuity in Space. This is probably my favourite sculpture.
I just walked past a Final Fantasy X 25th anniversary popup store, and feel old.
OLD REVIEW! I actually wrote this review some years ago but never ported it over to FictionMachine before.https://fictionmachine.com/2026/07/31/review-legend-of-the-fist-the-return-of-chen-zhen-2010/
REVIEW: Legend of the Fist: The Return of Chen Zhen (2010)
In the 1972 film Fist of Fury Bruce Lee introduced the world to Chen Zhen, a skilled martial artist from Shanghai who avenges his master’s death against a villainous Japanese dojo master. While Lee…
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Why have I come all the way to Tokyo? To visit the library.
Hosoda Mamuro exhibition at the Tokyo Creative Museum, to commemorate the 20th anniversary of The Girl Who Leapt Through Time. Summer Wars remains my favourite.
NEW REVIEW! Good morning from Japan. Akimoto Kenichiro's energetic and vividly colourful All You Need is Kill is the best science fiction film I have seen this year. fictionmachine.com/2026/07/30/r...
REVIEW: All You Need is Kill (2025)
During an alien invasion of Earth, one individual finds themselves trapped in a time loop – living the same day over and over as they learn how to fight back. If the premise of the anime feat…
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Here's a photo I took today on Miyake Island. That's an active volcano.
RIP Higashino Keigo, Japanese author. Winner of the Naoki Prize, the Honkaku Mystery Award, the Edogawa Rampo Prize, and the Yoshikawa Eiji Literature Prize. Author of The Devotion of Subject X, Salvation of a Saint, Malice, A Death in Tokyo, and many others. He was 68 years old. Fuck cancer.
Delve into the making of Ridley Scott's Legend (1985) in this new 6,000 word essay, now available on FictionMachine. fictionmachine.com/2026/07/27/b...
“Black as midnight, black as pitch” | Ridley Scott’s Legend (1985)
When Ridley Scott commenced his feature directing career in 1977, it was with the critically acclaimed period drama The Duellists. He followed it up in 1979 with the science fiction horror film Ali…
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RIP Bill Oddie, who is probably best known in Australia for all the episodes of The Goodies that the ABC used to show on afternoon TV, along with Dr Who. And of course, also famous for birdwatching.
RIP Tom Chadbon, who famously played private detective Duggan in the 1979 Doctor Who serial "City of Death", and returned seven years later to play Merdeen in "The Trial of a Time Lord".
Between 1930 and 2014, Warner Bros made more than 1,000 Looney Tunes and Merrie Melodies animated short films. I figured I'd start writing about some of them. fictionmachine.com/2026/07/26/l...
LOONEY TUNES: The Sheepish Wolf (1942)
In 1930, based on the success of Walt Disney Productions’ Silly Symphonies animated shorts, Warner Bros started to produce its own rival range of films. Utilising the company’s extensiv…
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NEW REVIEW! Both superb and absurd, Nakamoto Yu's comedy Break Free sees a struggling yakuza turn to dance. It recently had its North American premiere at the Fantasia Film Festival. fictionmachine.com/2026/07/27/f...
FANTASIA REVIEW: Break Free (2026)
Yakuza enforcer Kunio (Fujii Akito) struggles to make a living. His Mikami clan is broke, competitor factions are moving in on his territory, and strict anti-yakuza laws are making it impossible to…
fictionmachine.com
NEW REVIEW! An Italian-Canadian Christmas dinner is interrupted when the family's grandmother arrives; she has been dead for quite a while. As someone who married into a large Italian family, Michael Gabriele's horror comedy really struck a chord with me. fictionmachine.com/2026/07/26/f...
FANTASIA REVIEW: Unholy Night (2026)
Unholy Night is currently my favourite surprise film of 2026. I went into this Canadian horror comedy with fairly limited expectations – it follows a zombie outbreak at an Italian family Chri…
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