August 2023 | Otaku No Culture

Tian Xiaopeng’s Deep Sea is More Than A Study on Depression

This latest import from China arrives just in time for the summer season, and Tian Xiaopeng’s Deep Sea does not dissapoint!

Deep Sea Poster Main Theatrical Release — © 2023 October Media. All Rights Reserved.

Screening at Fantasia Film Festival 2023 on Aug 6
Please click here to purchase tickets

Potential Spoiler Alert

Shenxiu (Tingwen Wang) is not a happy young girl in Tian Xiaopeng’s movie, Deep Sea. That’s because she’s not being loved; not only is she neglected by her dad and step-mom, making her feel very depressed, but also the relationship with her biological one is deteriorating. Because the film didn’t translate all those text conversations that blitzed by in the opening act, I’m thankful I understood enough to notice.

But to comprehend everything this motion picture presents requires a few more viewings and an updated subtitle file to play along with this movie. Although I had an electronic press kit to help reveal some other details, I’d rather want to discover these facts on my own.

Thankfully, more screenings after Tribecca and Fantasia Film Fest are planned, and I would love to see this on the big screen as the filmmaker intended. Xiaopeng is best known for Monkey King: The Hero is Back (movie review), and while that tale delivers more in the humour department, I believe his sophomore work is darker.

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Enter Disney’s Completely Watered Down Haunted Mansion, If You Dare.

Disney should have turned Haunted Mansion into an anthology series much like the printed material instead of making an one off work.

Spoiler Alert

The only notable difference I saw between the two cinematic presentations of Disney’s Haunted Mansion is where the humour comes from. Instead of making the popular comedian of the time the laughingstock of the show, they’ve been made into supporting characters. Tiffany Haddish, Owen Wilson and Danny DeVito make for a terrific team up, but that isn’t enough to make this film a success.

In this reboot, Ben Matthias (LaKeith Stanfield) and Gabbie (Rosario Dawson) are now the focus. The former was an astrophysicist who lost his wife in a car accident, and the latter is raising a 9-year-old son who misses daddy greatly. It’s implied they separated, but as for whether he’s alive or dead, that’s easy to guess. The latter moved to Louisiana to set up a B&B and hopefully leave that life they lost behind.

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From Oppenheimer to A Compassionate Spy, This Cinematic to Documentary Pairing Tells All

Whether Ted Hall is truly a hero, a spy or just a person in A Compassionate Spy, what we learn is that he’s pretty much America’s unsung hero.

A Compassionate Spy Movie Poster There is one plot hole in Christopher Nolan’s Oppenheimer which needs its own story to tell all. Someone leaked the plans on how to make a nuclear bomb to the Russians! While the film went one way to figure out who is to blame, this documentary deftly examines why Ted Hall instigated the deed. Steve James’ A Compassionate Spy nicely helps us understand what motivated him to do so.

Instead of comparing him to Dr. Strangelove aka How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb, what this film does is examine why this scientist passed on nuclear secrets to the enemy. The Cold War was beginning and to understand why he did it requires understanding the times, and Saville Sax’s involvement in the whole matter. He was part of Hall’s plans to share the information. He was worried his country might turn into another type of Nazi Germany.

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Oppenheimer. A Movie Bursting at the Seams!

The only thing the scientist Oppenheimer truly has to fear is his role as the destroyer of worlds as many a movie trailer showed.

Oppenheimer Movie Poster Chris Nolan‘s movie, Oppenheimer, may feel long, but time went by quickly when I saw it again for the second time. That’s because the time differential from knowing when it’ll happen to searching for that reference regarding black holes kept me glued. Also, this film is not about when that bomb dropped to kickstart the atomic age. Instead, it’s about who J. Robert Oppenheimer is–a brilliant scientist and flawed individual who said, “I have become death, the destroyer of worlds.”

In what this filmmaker enthrals viewers with is how this individual sees the world. It’s a place where particles collide, and how it moves is non-linear. Just how he frames this story is with one overarching narrative with plenty of flashbacks laid in between. It’s easy to follow. And when he juxtaposes moments between the present and the past, what’s presented is like waiting for lit stick of TNT to explode.

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The Man Behind the Madness of Site 13. Nathan Faudree on Finishing This Found Footage Film 20 Years Later.

Sometimes, a movie must be finished despite all odds, and Nathan Faudree talks about why Site 13 had to be made and why H.P. Lovecraft’s vision matters.

Site 13 is now available on VOD.

Nathan Faudree is a man who wears many hats in the entertainment industry, and his work isn’t limited to genre films. He started in theatre and appeared in many performances of William Shakespeare’s plays, like Hamlet. And from there, worked his way into appearing in films to eventually became Fangoria Radio’s Scream King of 2006! From there, he’s had a blast playing cult heroes, terrifying monsters and even did monster noises for Troma’s Poultrygeist. This New York based actor has done a lot.

But to know him also means getting to talk to him, and chatting with him about why he wanted to revisit Site 13, a movie that was filmed two decades ago which never got finished. What he did to make it contemporary is a good thriller, which is Blair Witch meets H.P. Lovecraft.

For our readers who haven’t seen your past work, what can you recommend?

I’m a co-writer of A Wounded Fawn, which came out last year on Shutter, and we were nominated for Fangoria’s Chainsaw Award and made the top 20 list. Prior to that, I was in Kottontail, where I played a killer Easter Bunny.

About your theatre days, did you leave it all behind to work on film?

Actually, I knew that if I didn’t have something lined up to do after playing Macbeth that, I would be catastrophically depressed because that’s the role everyone wants to play. That’s when Site 13 came in. It’s been a few years now, and I miss that world. I’ve appeared in Hamlet, Alls Well, etc., Here, you have this automatic response with the audience and whether that night’s show went off well. You don’t get that with making movies. It’s only just now I’m seeing what people are thinking about my latest.

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