Rated PG Newsletter - Issue 05

After next week, the 25th annual New York Asian Film Festival will conclude with a showing of Dear You on July 26, 2026. It will be my final review for the event, possibly going live the same day as it premieres. It has been a great pleasure of mine in this otherwise dismal year to watch and cover all of these films. I somehow managed to tackle 14 of them, topping my record from last year. I don’t know if I’ll go that wild for 2027, but I intend to keep providing coverage as long as I am able.

As you can likely guess, this meant I didn’t spend much time doing anything else this week. Just general job searching, writing news for Nintendo Wire, and a couple of movies not related to NYAFF. I also started Devil May Cry 4: Special Edition because I hate myself. It’s certainly much better than Devil May Cry 2, but Capcom definitely didn’t have its head around creating HD games back in 2008.

Games This Week

As is tradition, I’ll start with the games I played this week because I didn’t spend a lot of time playing many. I didn’t have it in me to really commit to anything, so my time was spent fooling around with extra modes in Devil May Cry 3, then starting Devil May Cry 4. Vergil was an interesting playthrough in 3, but Capcom expanded his moveset well for 4’s Special Edition release. He’s a lot faster, deadlier, and generally breaks the game.

Devil May Cry 4, though… I’m still not a fan. I had played the original version on Xbox 360 back in 2008 and remember being gob smacked by the visuals. They still hold up all these years later, carried by strong art direction and clean design. Some of the character faces are weird, but generally speaking, that’s the element that has held up. Well, the cutscenes, too, considering they were mo-capped by U’Den Flameworks. That introduction scene where Nero is kicking all kinds of ass in the alleyway is incredible.

Level design and storywise, however, Devil May Cry 4 just falls apart. You can tell Capcom was scrambling to get the thing done, not helped by the fact that management only gave the team a year to finish the game. It’s amazing it even plays as well as it does, but this one clearly needed more time in the oven. It’s really not surprising that Capcom wouldn’t personally return to the series for more than a decade following the original’s release, even if it sold decently well.

Films This Week

With most of my watching for NYAFF behind me at the start of the week, I decided to watch Project Hail Mary now that it is available on streaming. I found it to be incredible, with a wonderful soundtrack, great acting, superb usage of special effects, and a wonderfully uncynical approach to its themes. I can understand why my friend Frankie considers it his favorite movie of 2026 so far: it’s just a wonderful movie.

While waiting for the final screener to arrive from NYAFF later in the week, I threw on the first film from HBO Max’s discovery queue. That wound up being How to Make a Killing, and… well, I wouldn’t say it was a mistake to watch, but it definitely wasn’t great. The film feels like a remix of American Psycho if you removed all the criticism of capitalism and played things very straight. Glenn Powell is pretty decent as the leading man, not to mention Margaret Qualley and Jessica Henwick playing as foils to his madness, but there’s nothing unique about the movie. It’s one of those “put it on and forget it” type of deals, which is kind of sad. There’s a lot of potential to be wrung out of its premise.

Closing off the week, I checked out the 4K restoration for Mr. Nice Guy included in Arrow’s Jackie Chan set. The print looks immaculate now, but I’m not so sure about the film. It has incredible action set-pieces, but truly awful acting and a beyond sorry excuse for a story. You don’t need those elements to make a good action film, but even going as far back as Snake in the Eagle’s Shadow, you’ll see that Jackie and crew tried their best to wrap the action around a semblance of plot. There is basically nothing here, with director Sammo Hung going for more of a demo-reel vibe than anything. I was amused, and the stunts are truly spectacular, but I wouldn’t call this a mid-career highlight or anything.

Upcoming Week

Tomorrow, I’ll be in NYC to attend Daniel Wu’s press conference for Cold War 1994. I’m not sure if I’ll get to ask any questions, but I intend to record the event to see if there is anything I can report on. The day after, I’ll be back in the city to interview Angela Yuen about her role in Gamer Girls. It sucks that I’ll have to get two train tickets, but I managed it last year with interviews for the event. I love talking with creatives, be they actors, directors, developers, etc, so I’m okay with the cost. You only live once.