Hash Import 2026 05 18 12 34

Redemption (2019)

★★ — Redemption (2019)

Redemption is a Chinese thriller from director Jie Xu, working in a confined, single-location style that places most of its dramatic weight on a small ensemble of characters brought together under duress. The premise, a masked captor interrogating a man about a suspicious death, sits within a tradition of Chinese mystery thrillers that grew steadily in popularity through the 2010s as domestic genre cinema expanded beyond historical epics and action blockbusters. Xu is not a widely documented name in international film coverage, and the production details here are sparse, suggesting a modestly scaled, independently produced work. Feng Weili and Yang Zhigang lead the cast in what is essentially a chamber piece built around confession, corruption, and concealed motive.

A-Z World Movie Tour Mozambique It’s hard to find much to love in Resgate beyond its looks. The story treads familiar ground. A man gets out of prison hoping for a fresh start, only to be dragged back into crime, losing everyone he cares about along the way. By the end, he escapes with nothing but scars. It’s a well-worn path, and this film doesn’t bring anything new to it. The plot moves predictably from one tragic beat to the next, offering no surprises, no depth, and little emotional payoff. The lead, Mulatto, plays the haunted ex-con with a cold, closed-off intensity, but that doesn’t quite translate into a compelling character. He’s not easy to root for. He's distant, emotionally flat, and lacking the charisma or vulnerability needed to carry a film like this. The supporting cast are underwritten, their fates feeling more like checkboxes than real losses. There’s no real sense of connection, so when tragedy hits, it lands with a shrug. Where the film truly shines is in its visuals. The cinematography is stunning. Using rich, bold colours, striking compositions, and a strong sense of place that brings the streets and landscapes of Mozambique vividly to life. The camera lingers on textures, light, and movement in a way that feels almost poetic. The soundtrack, too, is excellent, blending local rhythms with moody, atmospheric tones that elevate the mood. It’s just a shame the story and characters couldn’t match the beauty of the surface. A pretty shell, but hollow at its core.

Rating: ★★ | Year: 2019 | Watched: 2025-07-27

View on Letterboxd →

Related on Movies With Macca

Invasion of the Body Snatchers (1956)

Don Siegel’s Invasion of the Body Snatchers (1956) arrived at a strange crossroads in American cinema: too modest to be a prestige picture, too unsettling to be a forgettable B-movie. Adapted from Jack Finney’s serialised novel The Body Snatchers and shot at Allied Artists on a budget barely

Fantastic Planet (1973)

René Laloux’s Fantastic Planet (1973) is one of those films that doesn’t really fit anywhere: too cerebral for kids, too odd for animation festivals, too steeped in European political theory for the Saturday-morning slot, and too visually fearless to ignore. A 72-minute French–Czech co-production designed by the

Viy (1967)

Viy (1967) is a strange and almost solitary object in Soviet cinema: a horror film, an actual horror film with monsters and demons and supernatural set-pieces, in a national cinema that mostly didn’t make horror at all. Officially endorsed by Mosfilm and based on a Nikolai Gogol folktale, it

Alice in Wonderland (1951)

Disney’s Alice in Wonderland (1951) is the studio’s middle-period work par excellence: technically polished, commercially tested, narratively cautious, and just slightly off. Made between two of Disney’s commercial successes (Cinderella in 1950, which had rescued the studio from one of its periodic financial near-misses, and Peter Pan

Read more

Invasion of the Body Snatchers (1956)

Fantastic Planet (1973)

Viy (1967)

Alice in Wonderland (1951)