Rated RG Newsletter - Issue 02

Welcome back to another post in my ongoing weekly newsletter, Rated PG! I’m pretty happy with the name of it for obvious reasons. I’m not sure how many of you read last week’s update, but this past week was a bit more eventful in terms of films. Gaming, surprisingly, took more of a backseat, but mostly because I was stuck playing a single game for the majority of my time. We’ll get to that in a few paragraphs.

The biggest plus for this week is that the New York Asian Film Festival has finally put out its screeners list, of which I have been given access. Expect to see a number of reviews crop up over the next month as I dig through the films that interest me. I like to diversify what I watch, so it won’t be 100% Hong Kong or Japanese films. Last year, I made sure to limit those to two films each while I viewed films from Thailand, Malaysia, Myanmar, and the Philippines. I may have a preference for action cinema, but I do enjoy exploring different genres and seeing what filmmakers want to tell the world.

As for games… this past week was pretty brutal. Prices are continuing to climb, Grand Theft Auto VI is effectively $100, and Sony felt the need to lay off a majority of Bungie because Destiny 2 is sun-setting. On a weekly basis, I wonder if I should pivot entirely away from games, but I still love the medium for its way to engage a player on a level film simply cannot. It’s one thing to see a story play out, but another to actively be a part of that story.

With that said, let’s start with gaming again because I didn’t really play a diverse range of stuff this week.

Games This Week

As I alluded to last week, my time was mostly occupied playing The Adventures of Elliot: The Millennium Tales for review. It should go live on Nintendo Wire within the next few days, but… let’s just say I wasn’t a fan. Despite mixing together ingredients that should cater to me directly, the game simply can’t get out of its own way when it comes to story. It’s also painfully devoid of variety or challenge, though the “Very Hard” difficulty certainly makes even small mistakes deadly.

I put aside Devil May Cry 3 to finish that, but did carve out a little time to replay FEAR 3 with my friend. We beat it a few backs 15 years ago when it released, and I wanted to see how it held up nearly two decades later. The game is fine, but feels entirely disconnected from what came before. I actually prefer it to FEAR 2: Project Origin, but only because it doesn’t even attempt to be the original game. The co-op angle is kind of neat and well incorporated, but having two players destroys any semblance of horror. The game is mercifully short, though, so I can tolerate some lesser elements.

Films This Week

I almost started this section the same way as I did last week’s because I have no creativity anymore, haha. I guess I fall back on cliches a bit too often, but I had quite the productive week when it comes to films. Two of those were entries for NYAFF 2026 (specifically Girlfriends and Gamer Girls), so I will refrain from talking about them today. The other six films range from a Swedish action comedy to a rewatch of an absolute classic.

I started the week by finally seeing Over Your Dead Body, which I did not realize was a remake of a Swedish film. While I wouldn’t call it superb, the movie is a lot of fun and balances its zaniness with some solid performances from Samara Weaving, Jason Segel, and Timothy Olyphant. Segel is, essentially, playing Jimmy from Shrinking, but the dark concept makes for a gleefully bloody time in a movie that never takes itself seriously.

Shocker, then, that the original version would be better. 2021’s The Trip by Tommy Wirkola is essentially the same film, which retroactively made me dislike Over Your Dead Body a little. The concept is that a couple has hit a snag in their relationship, so they both concoct a weekend getaway to kill one another. During this trip, escaped convicts happen upon their house and all hell breaks loose. The Swedish original is a lot more violent, but it also has a subtlety to its humor that Over Your Dead Body misses. I’m also a sucker for anything with Noomi Rapace, which led me to the next film I watched.

Looking to catch up on some of her work that isn’t The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo, I checked out the Netflix production Close. That was certainly a mistake as it’s a complete waste of Rapace’s talents. It does put her as the lead in an action film, which I think is great, but she’s really the only one giving it her all. The general story is a knock off of The Bourne Identity, The Constant Gardener, or any of those early 00s spy thrillers that tried to turn Bond into a gritty, brooding mess. The worst crime is that despite being only 94 minutes long, it feels like an eternity.

The next night, my friend wanted to chat with me, which is where we finished FEAR 3. Afterward, we put on John Woo’s The Killer, and I’m not sure what else needs to be said. Woo and Chow Yun-Fat were an extraordinary combination that created some of the finest Hong Kong action films ever produced. Danny Lee makes an excellent foil to Yun-Fat, and that finale in the church is the thing of legends. I highly recommend grabbing Arrow’s new 4K version, if not for the better subtitles, than for Priscilla Page’s incredible essay.

During my off time, I’m sure you all have realized that I am a writer. I try my best to find work, but I’m rarely successful. Online media has become too saturated, so finding anything is like fending for scraps in a dystopian wasteland. Still, I’ve been helping my good friend Frankie Balboa with an essay he was commissioned to write for Film Movement’s release of the 2025 film Assassin, aka Assassination: 1932. I initially edited what we sent me, but the notes were to include more context from the film, so I had to watch the movie to aid him further. It does have a couple of decent action moments, but the movie is a mess of sloppy storytelling, poor characters, and really weird state propaganda for China. At least I was able to turn that into a decent angle for him.

Lastly, I closed out the week by finally sitting down to watch Good Luck, Have Fun, Don’t Die. I love how absurdist the film is, not to mention it’s great to see Gore Verbinksi not making absolute trash for Disney, but I think the movie is a bit excessive. It runs at 134 minutes when it could have easily been cut down to a clean two hours or even a little less. Still, Sam Rockwell kills it in the lead role, Juno Temple is incredible as the disheveled mother grieving the loss of her son, and I think Haley Lu Richardson has a real shot at becoming an action queen.

Upcoming Week

My plans for the next week are to hunker down for NYAFF and get some viewing done. I have the opportunity to interview some actors, and I’d really like to meet with Daniel Wu. Angela Yuen of Gamer Girls will also be attending, and I’d love to know what type of preparation she did for the film. It might be a great way to pitch an interesting gaming-related interview with a Hong Kong star to outlets.

Gaming wise, I did buy Star Fox for Switch 2, and I’m going to resume Devil May Cry 3. I’m not really sure what other big games are coming out that interest me beyond Splatoon Raiders, but that’s still a month away. My YouTube channel is kind of stagnating, but I will finish out this last year of retrospectives before making any big decisions on that. I think it might be time to pack it in; despite how much I like talking about gaming. The digital landscape is just too bleak.

Thanks, once again, for taking some time out to read this. If you have any thoughts on what you’d like me to cover, I’m all ears. In the future, I do hope to provide some in-depth analyses for films that I otherwise didn’t get the chance too. I do want to pen something for Operation Scorpio ahead of its Blu-ray release in August as I think it’s a rather overlooked 90s HK actioner. Hopefully, more people will learn about it because of that.