棄城

　　In “Muzzle: City of Wolves,” Jake Rosser (Eckhart), haunted by PTSD from his days as a K-9 officer, endeavors to lead a peaceful life with his family and retired K-9 companion, Socks. But the tranquility quickly dissolves when a ruthless gang targets them in a brutal attack. Determined to protect his loved ones, Jake and his new K-9 partner Argos delve into a violent underbelly of crime where Jake confronts corrupt officials, uncovers a perilous drug trafficking ring and battles his own inner demons.

　　艾美從又濕又冷的浴缸裡驚醒，發現自己似乎被軟禁在一所廢棄的學校。身邊一片漆黑又恐怖，斑駁的牆壁上有一些詭譎的塗鴉。在她遭軟禁期間，只能與腦中想法相依。身為一名醫生，同時也是妻子和悲傷的母親，始終無法認清兒子因為意外已長眠的事實，並認為兒子也被困在學校裡面。在這充滿敵意、超自然煉獄般的學校，深陷於黑暗與絕望的艾美極力想要找到她的兒子。她不斷打破「學校」的規則，隨著艾美遇到住在「學校」的恐怖邪惡生物，令人畏懼的超自然力量與內心恐懼接踵而至，到底她對抗的是這些恐怖的生物，還是自己的心魔呢?

　　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.

人到中年的車仔擁有一間網吧，但在手機游戲的沖擊下，早已人氣不再；三十未到的電競選手邦少正在面對實力下滑的職業困境；單親家庭長大的霏霏大學畢業超過五年，還未有過一份穩定工作。曾是動作巨星的八爺因為妻子阿蘭出現腦退化，年過70的二人嘗試利用電子游戲來鍛煉大腦。一張全港電競賽的征集海報，讓想要拯救網吧的車仔決定組隊。車仔、霏霏、八爺，三個新手再加上一個急于證明自己的邦少，Happy Hour電競隊正式成立。親情、友情的羈絆化作電競賽場的搏殺，一場不可能完成的戰斗，讓心懷夢想的他們不再抱憾。