聊斋艳谭之五通神

　　地狱空荡荡，恶魔在人间。十五年前，一群身份各异的罪恶权贵将都马市染黑成一座“地狱岛”，高中生晓笛惨遭权贵凌辱致死；十五年后，这些背后操盘者接连惨死，死状惨烈。曾目睹十五年前命案的方天阳与警官方正楠深入调查，惊觉这桩匿名杀人案不只是单纯的复仇，更是一场迟到的控诉。桩桩命案，层层黑幕，那张权力、金钱、欲望织就的黑色秘网背后究竟藏着多少不为人知的罪孽？

　　安吉拉是27岁的普通女孩，生活平淡无奇。有天，她意外发现与自己亲近的人都死于非命。梵蒂冈教徒得知此事后，对安吉拉展开了一系列调查。可这次调查却引出了安吉拉背后古老的邪恶力量……

　　当一架客机困在一堆喷发的火山中时，乘客和机组人员必须设法求生——在不降落的情况下。但在岩浆和火山灰的持续打击下，机上的人产生了恐惧和不信任，威胁生命的不只是火山，人人必须学会合作，才能在火海飞行中活下去……

　　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.