Open Water (15)

Open water is best described as Jaws meets The Blair Witch Project.
Based on a true story, the film tells the story of Susan (Blanchard Ryan) and Daniel (Daniel Travis), a busy married couple on an island vacation. They board a vessel called the Reef Explorer with a group of other scuba divers, traveling 15 miles out to sea. Since they are certified to dive in open waters, the couple break off from the group to go exploring.

The Reef Explorer accidentally leaves without a proper head count, leaving them stranded in shark-infested waters.

Filmed by director Chris Kentis himself (with the assistant of his producer Laura Lau) in the actual ocean without extraneous special effects, Open Water is edge-of-the-seat viewing.

The Terminal (12A)

Academy award winners Tom Hanks (Forrest Gump) and Catherine Zita Jones (Chicago) star in the film Terminal. Under direction of Steven Spielburg (E.T, Saving Private Ryan).

The Terminal tells the story of Vicktor Narvorskith, a visitor to New York City from Eastern Europe, who's homeland erupts whilst he is mid air, en route to America.

Stranded in an airport with a pass port from no where, Vicktor is un authorised to enter USA. He must improvise his days and nights in the terminals international transit lounge until the war at home is over. Vicktor meets and has a romantic love affair with Amelia (Cathherine Zita Jones) a beautiful flight attendant.

Collateral (15)

Max (Jamie Foxx) has lived the mundane life of a cab driver for 12 years. The faces have come and gone from his rear-view mirror, people and places he's long since forgotten.

Vincent (Tom Cruise) is a contract killer who engages Max's services for an entire evening. Soon though, Max comes to learn of Vincent's true nature as his deadly profession comes crashing into his humdrum life. From this point on, there is no turning back for Max.

Director Michael Mann has created some of the most extraordinary American films of the last 15 years, memorable for their intelligent scripts, complex character development, white-knuckle action sequences, innovative music scores, powerhouse acting and a highly personalized visual sense of great geometric precision. Collateral brings together for the first time the biggest movie star of his generation, Tom Cruise, and Michael Mann as well as rising star Jamie Foxx who previously collaborated with the director on Ali. The result is a chilling action piece that centres around the reluctant and highly unusual partnership that develops between Max and Vincent as the struggle for power develops an ever-increasing complexity. DP Dion Beebe (In The Cut, Chicago) brings a steely blue/grey look to the film, shot entirely on HD video.

Hero (12A)

In ancient times China was divided into seven kingdoms. Qin (Daoming Chen), the king of the northern province, is under permanent threat of assassination attempts. His greatest fears are the warriors "Broken Sword" (Leung, In The Mood For Love), "Flying Snow" (Cheung, Crouching Tiger Hidden Dragon) and "Sky" (Donnie Yen). When a man called 'Nameless' (Jet Li, The One) claims to have defeated all three of the emperor's adversaries and used the love between "Broken Sword" and "Flying Snow" to subdue them he is summoned to the palace to tell Qin the story of his surprising victory.

Highlighted by a pageant of breathtaking images, Zhang Yimou's (Ju Dou, Shanghai Traid) exhilarating Hero is at once an epic historical tale, a rousing action movie, and an intimate romance. With its similarly romantic take on the 'wuxia' genre of gravity defying, sword wielding heroes, comparisons to Ang Lee's Crouching Tigers, Hidden Dragon are inevitable but Yimou's wholly intoxicating film is no mere pale imitation. Immaculately conceived (the film employs a daring but satisfying flashback structure) and beautifully composed, this is filmmaking of the very highest order.