Panagiotis' Tops of the Fantasia Film Festival...

Fantasia Film Festival: My Top 3 Favourite Films from Fantasia by Panagiotis Drakopoulos

Another edition of Fantasia film festival has ended. This was CBNAH first year covering the film festival. Oz and myself saw a whole bunch films, and even we talked to and conducted some interviews with a few of the guests attending Fantasia. Thanks to all of the staff at Fantasia who helped us out during the festival. So, here’s my top 3 films I watched at Fantasia.

3.) Berserk: Golden Age Arc 2 & 3

Being a big of the manga series, I was waiting to see how Studio 4°C (the animation studio behind these films) would handle the eclipse ceremony. And they didn’t disappoint. Capturing the nightmare scenario of the fall and horrible deaths of the Band of the Hawk. High animation production values with a great soundtrack sticking very close to the original source material. Pick up the films from Viz Media because it’s worth every single penny.

2.) A Company Man

If the Berserk films were a drug induced nightmare, then A Company Man is melancholy dream about a man searching for a normal life. The story is about Hyeong-do (So Ji-sub), who looks like your everyday office worker. But in reality he works for a contract killing company. Hyeong is the best contract killer in the company and he’s soon up for a promotion. But after one mission, he starts feels to bitter and guilty about his job. He tries to resign from his job, but his co-workers want him dead. Extremely violent, but yet poetic. A Company Man is apart a long line of great films from South Korea that blends action and drama extremely well and a powerful ending that will you leave breathless. A Company Man will be out on DVD, Blu-Ray, and On Demand from Well Go USA Entertainment on August 27^th 2013.

1.) OXV: The Manual

I had a tough time trying to write a review for OXV: The Manual because it’s one of the best films I’ve seen in my life. The fictional world of OXV: The Manual is very similar to our world, but with some differences. This world is more focused on the scientific level on a person’s frequency. People who emit a high frequency are blessed with luck and a higher intelligence level. While those with lower frequency are doomed with a life of misery and unhappiness. The film focuses on Zak and Marie. They fist meet each other in elementary school. Zak can’t be with Marie because his frequency is very low compared to hers. Due to their different frequencies they can only allowed to interact for one minute each year. Zak spends the next decade or so trying to figure out how to change his frequency. When he’s able to change the frequency and be with Marie, everything around him starts to fall apart. It’s something I haven’t seen in cinema before. Director Darren Paul Fisher calls this film as the first scientific-philosophical romance, which is true. It feels like a cross between a comic being published in 2000AD and the French New Wave of cinema. It’s something so original in terms of both storytelling and direction. A true hidden gem of the festival and a film that everyone should definitely check out.