香港奇案之烹夫

 Dorothy, now an elderly woman haunted by her past, tries to warn her granddaughter Emily before dark forces pull her into Oz, a once familiar land now twisted by horrors.

　　平安时代，百鬼夜行，封鬼仪式正在右大臣藤原安麻吕府邸进行。安麻吕之女日美子（深田恭子 饰）戎装登场，一箭命中靶心，引来全场惊叹。这位被喻为“连鬼都不敢接近”的公主，却令源博雅（伊藤英明 饰）暗自倾心。天现异象，京都骚动，魍魉横行。平安京已有四人遇害，民间出现驱鬼术士幻角（中井贵一 饰），日美子亦在异象后开始梦游。博雅为此替右大臣来请安倍晴明（野村万斋 饰）商谈。与此同时，宫廷供奉的出云三神器之一草薙剑也出现了异动。晴明受天皇所托，与博雅开始调查种种异况背后出云与大和的隐秘渊源。　　博雅和夜弹琵琶的神秘少年须佐（市原隼人 饰）相识为乐友，须佐负伤被日美子所救，三人在右大臣府邸相逢。同一时刻，右大臣主动找到晴明，坦白了十八年前天现异象时，大和攻打出云的事实……　　本片为电影《阴阳师》续作。

　　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.