Monkey Man (R21)

121 minutes, opens on April 4
4 stars

The story: Somewhere in India, the impoverished Kid (Dev Patel) makes a living fighting in underground matches. His meagre earnings go towards a single goal – to find the men responsible for his wretched and lonely condition.

Revenge stories do not get much more brutal or minimalist than this homage to Bruce Lee gongfu, Indian mythology and Bollywood action movies.

Co-written and helmed by and starring British actor Dev Patel, it combines hard-hitting martial arts with a dash of the exploitation crime thriller – the bloodletting and bare skin on display are enough to warrant an R21 classification, for sexual scenes and violence.

Patel’s lone wolf character might fight like a 1970s throwback, but modern touches abound. For example, he fights like a demon because he has demons on the inside.

His sleep is troubled by post-trauma flashbacks that give Kid his obsession with retribution, while the pummellings he dishes out are set to modern electronic dance music.

On a separate note, Patel’s athleticism in fight scenes is breathtaking. He makes Keanu Reeves’ title character from the John Wick film series (2014 to present) look like he moves in slow motion.

It feels as if Patel, in his feature film directorial debut, is showing a middle finger to an entertainment industry reluctant to cast a South Asian male as the lead in a superhero movie, because Kid’s story is an origin tale of a mysterious masked vigilante right out of a Marvel comic book.

Where Patel’s film differs from the Marvel template is the way it is rooted in the politics and culture of South Asia, in contrast to superhero films, which typically prefer to be set in a fantasy United States, fantasy Africa or an alternative dimension.

The monkey man persona Kid adopts is a nod to the Hindu deity Hanuman, while the villains he faces down represent an aspect of the region. With every beatdown Kid delivers, he strikes a blow against systemic corruption, social inequality and religious hypocrisy.

Think of Lee’s character in Fist Of Fury (1972), set in Shanghai in the early 1900s, looking at a sign at the front of the foreign-run park that says “No Dogs And Chinese Allowed”. Patel taps the same vein of righteous anger, while delivering on the promise of a satisfying payback.

Hot take: This stripped-down, high-octane blend of superhero origin story, martial arts thriller and social critique hits as hard as the hero’s right fist.

Godzilla X Kong: The New Empire (PG13)

115 minutes, now showing
2 stars

The story: Some years after the events of Godzilla Vs Kong (2021), the two Titans, Kong and Godzilla, now live in separate zones and so are in no danger of attacking each other. The giant primate resides in Hollow Earth, monitored by the Monarch research organisation, while the scaly one lives above ground. A Monarch outpost on Hollow Earth picks up a mysterious signal, one that will bring the antagonistic creatures into contact. Characters such as Dr Ilene Andrews (Rebecca Hall) and conspiracy theorist and podcaster Bernie Hayes (Brian Tyree Henry) make a return from the previous film, as does director Adam Wingard.

Bad news for Singapore fans waiting for the release of the acclaimed Japanese kaiju feature Godzilla Minus One (2023).

The Oscar-winning film has been held back from cinemas around the world because of legal obligations that forbid the American and Japanese Godzilla movies from being released in the same area at the same time.

So, audiences needing a kaiju fix are left with this, the fifth movie in the MonsterVerse franchise.

The films have so far struggled to reconcile two contradictory elements – the need to put the fighting monsters on screen as much as possible, while keeping the story focused on human affairs.

The MonsterVerse franchise kicked off in 2014 with Godzilla, with the following films introducing Kong (Kong: Skull Island, 2017), a wider bestiary in Godzilla: King Of The Monsters (2019), before bringing the two starring creatures together in 2021’s Godzilla Vs Kong.

The films and Apple TV+ series Monarch: Legacy Of Monsters (2023) have yet to match the quality of Shin Godzilla (2016), a Japanese production that mocked clueless, grandstanding politicians caught flat-footed by a disaster.

Putting human problems at the centre does not sell many Imax tickets, however.

So, this is the overblown, vapid result – a rambling series of plot contrivances aimed at maximising monster brawls. For the second time, Kong and Godzilla, two supposedly deadly enemies, become frenemies to defeat an even more menacing creature.

Dr Andrews is the film’s moral centre, while Hayes is its comic relief, and the entire affair tries to come off as a breezy lost world adventure, especially when the devil-may-care character of Trapper, a veterinarian played by Dan Stevens, enters the picture.

All that human-centred activity crumbles away like a building under the weight of a kaiju, however, when the atomic breath starts blowing.

Hot take: The MonsterVerse franchise lurches on with the fifth instalment in a series too long on spectacle and too short on ideas.

Drift (NC16)

93 minutes, opens on April 4 exclusively at The Projector
4 stars

The story: Jacqueline (Cynthia Erivo) is a refugee from war-torn Liberia struggling to survive on the streets of a touristy Greek coastal city. She meets Callie (Alia Shawkat), a tour guide. Despite their differences, they form a friendship. The film is based on Alexander Maksik’s 2013 novel A Marker To Measure Drift, and adapted for the screen by Maksik and Susanne Farrell. There will be a post-screening question-and-answer session with Singaporean director Anthony Chen at the 7.30pm show on April 6.

Drift marks a couple of firsts for Chen. It is his first feature with dialogue that is not mostly in Mandarin, as well as the first feature he has directed in which he is not listed in the writing credits.

However, it contains ideas that have become attached to his work – the way outsiders find kinship; the need for solitude struggling against the hunger for connection; and the female protagonist with secrets, yearning to be seen for who she is, but who sets protections around herself.

Erivo’s Jacqueline is vulnerable, so she is always on high alert. Much of the drama’s first half is spent seeing the city through the eyes of this wary, intelligent woman as she lives day to day.

Despite having precious few possessions, she strives to keep herself clean and presentable. She lives rough, but self-care is still a priority. Erivo delivers a magnetic performance as the woman holding on to the shreds of her former identity while learning to adapt to a new one in which she is either invisible, or, when noticed, considered a pest.

Chen’s camera watches at a distance as she engages with beach tourists in a low-key manner to make a few euros by giving foot massages. She never tries to elicit pity, nor does she make a nuisance of herself.

The entrance of Shawkat’s ebullient American tour guide Callie gives the film a much-needed shot of optimism – one roots for them to get closer, so that the American, with her first-world resources, can rescue the protagonist.

This is not that sort of story. The story here, as far as Chen is concerned, is the ebb and flow of emotions as the women negotiate boundaries and find ways to communicate. The damage caused by war runs deep in Jacqueline. She bears the sort of damage that makes rehabilitation, or even asking for help, difficult. Flashbacks show life in Liberia for the woman from a comfortable middle-class family before she finds herself adrift in Greece.

There are no easy triumphs for either woman, but by the film’s end, it becomes clear that all one needs is hope, and that, thankfully, is provided.

Hot take: Two strangers, each isolated in her own way, strike up a friendship in a beautiful Mediterranean city.