Film review: A OR B [幕后玩家] (Pengyuan Ren, 2018)

A shady investment manager Zhong Xiaonian (Xu Zheng) wakes up one day to find that the safe where he kept records of his dodgy dealings, and a vital USB stick containing access to all his funds, has been ransacked. Even worse, there’s no way for him to exit his bedroom. He’s locked in, and every day at 9am, he must choose one undesired consequence (A), or another (B), or else both will happen.

This plot conceit, which has more than a passing resemblance to the Saw movies, is executed, for the most part, in a suitably compelling manner. In order to rise to his position at the top of the company, Zhong has screwed over many people and made some powerful enemies, and as he tries to plot his escape from the locked room, he’s also trying to ascertain the identity of the person who’s doing this to him.

A rude gesture at the MCU

This blog is rated 12A for implied strong language and references to violence and torture.

Those with a passing interest in British film certification will have noticed that they’ve recently adopted a new turn of phrase as part of their catalogue of film ratings reasons: ‘rude gesture’.

It’s been flagged for several films, including Pacific Rim Uprising, Rampage and Walk with Me. The former two are 12A and the latter is a PG, which suggests to me the BBFC can’t quite decide if using the middle finger is a 12A or PG-rated offence.

Remember Me (and my country's classification issues).

Me after watching Timothée Chalamet's fantastic musical skills in Call Me By Your Name!

I watched Pixar's latest creation, Coco, on Friday, and was utterly charmed by it. Funny, colourful, inventive, and featuring an exquisite score and some moments that had my eyes flooding with tears, it's a return to form after some phoned-in sequels (Finding Dory, Cars 3).

The IFCO Annual Report for '16 Illustrates the Utility of Having the '16' Rating.

The IFCO released their Annual Report for the last calendar year and it's very brief compared to the BBFC ones.

Four Adjectives for Four Classification Issues

That Harry Styles movie, Dunkirk got its BBFC rating today, and as with Christopher Nolan's last six feature-length films, it's a 12A:

What stood out for me is that the short insight, for the four things in the film that render it 12A-worthy, each feature a different adjective:

- sustained threat (as was used in the short insight for Nolan's The Dark Knight, still by far the most complained about movie in recent years to the BBFC)

Second Guessing the Most Complaints the BBFC Got in 2016

The BBFC’s 2016 Annual Report is set to be dropped any day now (2015's one came out late June last year), and for me, it’s basically like waiting for Christmas. Of course I’ll do an extensive coverage of the Report when it comes out, as I did with the 2015 one, but for now, I thought I’d guess which films the BBFC got the most complaints about.

Note that these are my predictions for public feedback, not my own thoughts about the BBFC’s performance in 2016, which I have outlined in this blog post already.

01. 10 Cloverfield Lane (12A, people will say it should have been a 15)

When the BBFC is wayyyyy more wordy than the IFCO.

Ireland's insight for why Spider-Man: Homecoming is a 12A is pretty straightforward:

Very similar to their insight for Wonder Woman, a 12A for 'moderate action violence' in Ireland and 'moderate violence' in the UK. Notice how in that case, the Irish used one more adjective than the BBFC did. Another movie which got a 12A in the UK for 'moderate violence', not-so-Magnificent Seven, has a wordy AF IFCO insight, 'intense sequences of Western action and killings'.

So this demonstrates that generally, the Irish like to use more words than the BBFC, right? Right?

Well, here's Spider-Man: Homecoming's BBFC short insight, which is detailed, bordering on verbose:

A few interesting things:

1) Obscured strong language? I remember in The Hunger Games: Catching Fire, when Johanna tells the the Capitol 'f_ck you' and it's bleeped out, so maybe something like that? (Tho the BBFC just called that strong language, rather than 'bleeped strong language'.)

2) The IFCO have mild ticked in the sex/nudity box, yet the BBFC consider the sex references in Spider-Man: Homecoming moderate. This is very interesting, as the BBFC are generally more lax on sex references than the IFCO (Eddie the Eagle is a PG over here and a 12A in Ireland). The only time (to the best of my knowledge) that the Ireland have rated something lower than the British for sex references is the boob-groping in Your Name. So maybe the sex references is something like that?

3) The BBFC consider the threat moderate, yet the Irish didn't flag it. So either the BBFC are being too cautious, or the IFCO are too hardened.

I will be able to judge which insight was more appropriate when I see the film!

The Oscars and the Razzies for the BBFC, 2016

The Razzie shortlist was leaked and I see Cara Delevingne didn’t make the Worst Supporting actress shortlist, once again illustrating that the Razzies don’t deliver on their promise of honouring the worst of the year (which Blahra undoubtedly was), but instead, jumping on the bandwagon of critically panned films and knocking A-listers down a peg or two.

Anyway, I digress. I’m a massive BBFC nerd (you don’t say), and they release an Annual Report every June or so, and I love poring over it, because they discuss high-profile and contentious decisions at each age category. I’m just as fascinated as to why something’s a PG rather than a U as I am why something’s a 15 rather than an 18, and the equal exposure they give to all the ratings, as well as revealing which films got the most complaints each year, makes for fascinating reading.

That report is compiled by the BBFC, and I thought I’d do my own personal Razzies and Oscars of the BBFC for films that came out last year, just to add another dimension/point of view to BBFC reviews!

Before I discuss some decisions I strongly agreed (the Oscars) and disagreed (the Razzies), I will blather about some random thoughts which don’t fit into either category. My current eighth favourite film of 2016, High or High Water, was rated 15 for ‘strong language, violence, sex’. I have no qualms with the age rating, nor the first two classification issues. The ‘strong sex’ in question, however, gave me false hope; I was hoping it might feature dishy Chris Pine. Instead, it was his on-screen brother, played by Ben Foster, being ridden. Not the BBFC’s fault, I know, and says more about my dirty mind than their choice of lexicon. But I felt quite let down. 

At least the sex scene in Hell or High Water could be classified as strong, however brief it was. In 2016 I caught up with a couple of films that featured in awards season for the previous year, two of which were Wild Tales and 45 Years. Argentinian film Wild Tales was an anthology of six short films, wonderfully inventive and blackly comic. 45 Years, a film about a wife who discovers her husband’s secret in the week building up to their 45 year anniversary, was less gripping, but anchored by an amazing performance by Charlotte Rampling. Two completely disparate films, connected by one thing: their BBFC insight promised me strong sex. What strong sex?? I’ve seen raunchier 12s!

In terms of short insight which did deliver on what it said on the tin, the starkest case has to be, to this date, still the only 18-rated 2016 release that I’ve seen (although this will surely change with the release of foreign films Elle and The Handmaiden), The Neon Demon. Rated 18 for ‘strong bloody images, sexual assault, necrophilia’, no one could argue it didn’t have each and every one of those three articles. The last one, in particular, must have been the main reason the film obtained its adult certificate. Jena Malone’s acting in the scene in question was brilliant and I thoroughly commend her for her dedication for making that 18-rated scene so credible, however aberrant the act.

Now, onto the prizegivings!

The BBFC Oscars

My BBFC game (level 3)

Short insights with the word 'threat' in them.

I have no life.

My BBFC game (level 2).

Simon won the first level, congrats geezer!

Now I've made it a bit more taxing. As with the previous round, don't cheat and go on the BBFC website, that sucks the fun out of it. :P But by all means google the plot synopsis as that could help (altho some search engines show you the rating when you do that, hmmm).

Quantity not Quality in BBFCInsight.

In addition to its eye-catching trailer, one of the things which caught my interest regarding pulpy neo-noir Nocturnal Animals was its BBFCInsight, which featured no less than five causes for ascertaining its 15 certificate:

Just for the sake of completeness of trivia, here are a few other 15 certificate films with 5 classification issues:

In terms of 12A-rated feature length films, the title that I can find with the most classification issues is Tim Burton's Dark Shadows:

As noted in the extended information, threat was an issue too, but the moderate violence, horror, gore and threat were all closely related, and the BBFC examiners (justly) assumed that by highlighting three of those issues, the four was almost a given.

Ironically, what got me to view the very charming Luck-Key wasn't the plot synopsis, but the fact that it had four issues for its 12A certificate. There's some BBFC nerdiness for ya.

Below are four more 12As which had four classification issues, two of which feature the lovely Hailee Steinfeld:

EDIT: 17 November 2016:

season 4 of Nashville has 6 category-defining issues at 12:

And War on Everyone, and Goat, respectively, have not five but six and seven reasons for getting a 15!

It makes me wonder: if a film reached eight or nine reasons to get a 15 certificate, wouldn't it just make the BBFC examiners' lives easier if they slapped an 18 on it?

As for 18s, Hyena has five classification issues, and bunged together starkly in one sentence, it doesn't make the film sound all that palatable.

If you know of any 12As and 18s with more than five classification issues, do let me know!