Although writer-director Khientse Norbu breaks no ground in unfolding two parallel stories about young men seeking fresh horizons, he creates believable characters -- and has the great benefit of living in a country that provides seldom-seen locations at the top of the world.

Distinguished by some unusually fine performances, but the lack of a satisfactory third act diminishes overall result.

Visually the film impresses, with Eduardo Serra's widescreen camerawork evocatively capturing the streets and interiors of London and a rain-swept Venice. Pacing is crisp, with little time wasted on inessentials. Dialogue is often caustically witty, and the relations clearly delineated.

The punishment seems out of all proportion to the "crimes" committed, so that the film becomes no simplistic pro-feminist tract but is, on the contrary, more complex and disturbing.

The film belongs to Eden, who creates a winning personality out of a combination of vulnerability, resourcefulness, toughness and fragility. It's an outstanding juvenile performance.

A visually lush and very Westernized vision of life in a remote Chinese village in the early 1970s.

Overall the charm of the film works its spell, and director Kennedy shows confidence in juggling understated comedy and gently sentimental drama.

Evil is not, as the title would suggest, a horror film, at least not a conventional one. Based on the autobiographical novel by Jan Guillou and set in the mid-1950s, the film relates the experiences of a troubled young man who's enrolled into a hidebound private school.

Filmmaker Hartmut Bitomsky needs nothing more than the cold facts surrounding this awesome weapon to get across a message about the importance of peace.

It's too arty to cut it as a violent action pic and too gore-spattered to appeal to the arthouse crowd.

A film with a terrifically engaging concept that overstays its welcome by quite a stretch.

A piecemeal collection of barely connected scenes and characters, stitched together with videotaped comments from a cross-section of Brooklyn residents.

A mellow, stately, contemplative study of a stoic, brave man, but it doesn't deliver in the action department.

An intriguing but only partly successful co-mingling of film noir and sci-fi.

Thanks to amiable lead performances from Miranda Otto and Rhys Ifans, this not very original Aussie comedy about a man making a fresh start in life is a pleasant enough time-waster.

Distinguished by generally good performances and smart camerawork.

A sporadically amusing but ultimately very slight showbiz story about being married to a celebrity. Most of the jokes and situations are predictable, and the film is saddled with irritating supporting characters.

Precociously inventive horror pic that combines brain-eating zombies with outer space aliens.

Atkinson, who is in almost every scene, boasts a full-on comic personality that on the cinema screen is a bit daunting at times, and it's an open question as to whether the Carrey crowd will go for this seriously eccentric Brit.

Fails on a number of counts, mostly because the individual stories aren't very gripping.

Though Hotel has brilliant moments, and an energetic first half, it falls away badly in the later stages.

This dank, gloomy essay into the supernatural tries hard to create an intriguing mood in which fate guides the lives of its wounded protagonists, but few will be interested in the outcome.

Punches the expected buttons without being entirely convincing.

Melds an insightful observational style with some rather clunky satire and the resulting mix is uneven at best.

Though Pieck is to be admired for the rigorousness in telling this chilling story (on what looks like a near zero budget), the film itself remains resolutely unlikable.

Might spark controversy in mainland China, not only because it deals with a homosexual relationship between a member of the Chinese establishment and a peasant, but also because it touches on events such as the 1989 massacre in Beijing's Tiananmen Square. However, pic is unlikely to raise eyebrows anywhere else.

Amiable rather than genuinely funny.

This potentially intriguing story winds up being dull and at times faintly silly.