鸭王

　　Two sisters living separate lives on different continents are reunited on a Mediterranean Island. The two barely have time to bond and revive family ties as Kate, the elder, meets a group of locals and agrees to an exciting ride on a hot air balloon. But disaster strikes and as the result of a freak accident, the balloon is carried far out to sea. Their cell phones out of range, and the balloon running out of gas, Kate and her friends are battling for their lives. While, back on land, the younger sister, Liz, has become an unwanted "material witness" to a crime. Matters then take a dramatic twist, one that will mark their lives forever.

　　Set in an underground dungeon inhabited by bundled, ragged human beings, after the nuclear holocaust. The story follows the wanderings of a hero through the situations of survival. People wait for the Ark to arrive and rescue them while their habitat falls apart.　　Delving deep into the dusty and long abandonded vaults of b-cinema in search of lost gems always leaves me with a bittersweet taste. On one hand the discovery of unexpected gems where no one would think them possible is a rewarding experience. On the other hand though it makes one wonder how many of these remarkable low-budget oddities, personal love affairs of directors never quite famous and now all but forgotten, have almost forever slipped from memory?　　n any case what we have here is a little post-apocalyptic gem from Poland that is really better than it has any right to. The dystopian near future of O-BI, O-BA finds a group of survivors of the nuclear war that ravaged the Earth inhabiting an underworld concrete bunker and biding their time as they wait for the mysterious Ark, an air ship of some kind that will come and save them. The Ark proves to be an elaborate hoax, carefully designed to give hope to the malnourished and desperate denizens of the bunker, while in the meantime the dome that separates their miserable existence from the nuclear winter outside is slowly caving in.　　What first striked me about the movie is the design of the bunker and the depiction of the survivors. The survivors are gaunt, filthy and terrible-looking penitents, dressed in rags and aimlessly wandering the neon-lit halls of the bunker like automatons. The bunker is a rundown, seedy place, with bright neon lights peering from all sides like the eyes of malignant beasts.　　On one hand it is a slightly 80's depiction of the dystopian future but the movie never stoops down to MAD MAX cheese. Instead it combines biting political satire with the bleak outlook of a world with no future, black comedy with barbs on apathy, religion and power. The survivors, for example, are fed some kind of flour dropping from a tube that hovers in the air - later on we discover the food supervisor uses books and the Bible itself as filler for this meagre meal. There are many such short symbolic touches, perhaps not life-changing or faith-restoring, yet playful, clever and inspired.　　One thing is for sure; O-BI, O-BA is not your run-of-the-mill sci-fi schlock. It overcomes its modest budget with creativity and has genuine artistic aspirations both from a writing and directing perspective. My opinion is that it should have been filmed in black and white instead of colour though. The director uses atmospheric light and shadow to great effect and it would have registered even better in stark black and white. The blue-green neon on the other hand outstays its welcome after a while. Just a minor gripe in an otherwise solid b-movie with its heart set in all the right places.　　Imagine a less bleak THE ROAD (Cormac McCarthy) being injected with the satire and humour of DR.STRANGELOVE and you're getting there. See it if you can find it.

刑警沈佳明、吴艳和康业在破获一宗跨国重案后，卷入一系列离奇命案。首名死者孙成刚车祸身亡疑点重重，随后女子孔思思也遭遇不测。警方发现两名受害者均与医院器官捐献系统存在关联，而医院器官捐献协调员糜芳、医生马玉茹以及等待器官移植的罗永军兄妹皆被卷入漩涡。就在刑警们分头追凶时，第三名潜在受害者已危在旦夕。吴艳与时间赛跑，阻止了一场高空谋杀，却发现真凶竟藏于最意想不到的身边。