Stars: Ryan Gosling, Kristin Scott Thomas, Vithaya Pansringarm, Gordon Brown, Yayaying Rhatha Phongam, Tom Burke, Sahajak Boonthanakit, Pitchawat Petchayahon, Charlie Ruedpokanon | Written and Directed by Nicolas Winding Refn
Written and directed by Nicolas Winding Refn (Drive, Bronson), Only God Forgives was released earlier this summer to critical acclaim, but a mixed response from audiences across the globe. Some found the dark, mysterious and artistically minded style and pacing of the film to be beautiful, creepy, entertaining and thought provoking, while others found it to be patronising, obnoxious and, dare I say it, hollow.
It takes a certain kind of film to divide opinion so heavily, and this film is that certain kind of film. Winding Refn, here, has crafted a surrealist thriller that uses its long and personal shots of violence and landscape to fill in for its purposeful lack of dialogue. The cast is a remarkable assembly, with Ryan Gosling at the forefront,...
Written and directed by Nicolas Winding Refn (Drive, Bronson), Only God Forgives was released earlier this summer to critical acclaim, but a mixed response from audiences across the globe. Some found the dark, mysterious and artistically minded style and pacing of the film to be beautiful, creepy, entertaining and thought provoking, while others found it to be patronising, obnoxious and, dare I say it, hollow.
It takes a certain kind of film to divide opinion so heavily, and this film is that certain kind of film. Winding Refn, here, has crafted a surrealist thriller that uses its long and personal shots of violence and landscape to fill in for its purposeful lack of dialogue. The cast is a remarkable assembly, with Ryan Gosling at the forefront,...
- 12/3/2013
- by Chris Cummings
- Nerdly
Stars: Ryan Gosling, Kristin Scott Thomas, Vithaya Pansringarm, Gordon Brown, Yayaying Rhatha Phongam, Tom Burke, Sahajak Boonthanakit, Pitchawat Petchayahon, Charlie Ruedpokanon | Written and Directed by Nicolas Winding Refn
Nicolas Winding Refn is a director who has taken the ‘Show Don’t Tell’ mantra to the nth degree. Valhalla Rising saw him center an entire movie on a character that was unable to speak. His 2011 film Drive focused around a stoic stunt driver who was clearly a man of few words. Refn’s style is almost Kubrickian – not so much in his technique – but how he has little regard for pleasing the audience. They feel less like exercises in filmmaking and more so vehicles for Refn to experiment with. Personally Refn is one of my favorite directors working today as I adore his film’s unique structure. From his Pusher trilogy to Bronson to his latest effort Only God Forgives they...
Nicolas Winding Refn is a director who has taken the ‘Show Don’t Tell’ mantra to the nth degree. Valhalla Rising saw him center an entire movie on a character that was unable to speak. His 2011 film Drive focused around a stoic stunt driver who was clearly a man of few words. Refn’s style is almost Kubrickian – not so much in his technique – but how he has little regard for pleasing the audience. They feel less like exercises in filmmaking and more so vehicles for Refn to experiment with. Personally Refn is one of my favorite directors working today as I adore his film’s unique structure. From his Pusher trilogy to Bronson to his latest effort Only God Forgives they...
- 7/24/2013
- by Dan Clark
- Nerdly
‘Only God Forgives’ review: Nicolas Winding Refn’s ‘darkest and most oblique’ film (photo: Ryan Gosling in ‘Only God Forgives’) In Nicolas Winding Refn’s surrealist revenge thriller Only God Forgives, Julian (Ryan Gosling, of Refn’s Drive) and his brother Billy (Tom Burke) run a Muy Thai boxing academy in Indonesia. The place is a front for a drug-smuggling operation. Both brothers are criminally sadistic, but Billy is truly unhinged. In the first ten minutes of Only God Forgives, he attempts to buy sex with the twelve-year-old daughter of a brothel owner. When denied this particular fetish, Billy rapes and arbitrarily murders a young female prostitute. The police arrive on the scene led by captain Chang (veteran actor and Thai fighting master Vithaya Pansringarm), but as portrayed in Only God Forgives, Chang is an avenging angel, endowed with the ability to know the truth and mete out justice either swiftly or brutally — or both.
- 7/21/2013
- by Tim Cogshell
- Alt Film Guide
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