Film: The Gorge. Year: 2025. Genre: Action/Sci-fi/Romance. Rating: PG-13. Director: Scott Derrickson.

The Zone. The Shimmer. The Gorge. Mapping the lineage of mysterious geographical anomalies in stories leaves a mountain of proposed metaphors on what films like Stalker (1979) and Annihilation (2018) reveal about the human condition: , desire, , memory and . The Gorge, the latest entry in the niche genre of ‘Zone-based sci-fi,’ is far less interested in those philosophical matters of the mind, instead opting to probe affairs of the heart. The major reveal is not what or who’s behind the titular chasm’s mystery but that the film shares more in common with The Hunger Games series than Tarkovsky’s classic. Simply, The Gorge (2025) reads like The Gorge (2015).

Miles Teller and Anya Taylor-Joy star as Levi Kane and Drasa, two elite snipers privately contracted to guard opposing watchtowers that overlook a highly secretive, fog-covered gorge. Contact with the outside world and each other is strictly forbidden. Without revealing too much, curiosity and isolation overcome mission protocol as Kane and Drasa quickly engage in long-distance flirting, playing telephone with magnified scopes and an infinite supply of notepads. Early on, perfunctory table setting introduces the two highly skilled personnel as loners with nothing to lose, establishing their willingness to work such a remote post and preexisting desperation to make human contact. As it turns out, distance is just a test to see how far love can travel.

Reanimating the decade-old YA genre mashup trend, director Scott Derrickson (Sinister, The Black Phone) dutifully adheres to the story’s blend of action/sci-fi horror tropes with romance narrative trappings. The similarities don’t stop there. Lovers divided, here literally, by shadowy powers beyond their purview. An imposing matriarch (Moore in Mockingjay, Winslet in Divergent, now Sigourney Weaver) pulls the strings by exercising complete control over our leads. There’s even an eclectic soundtrack peppered with current indie rock acts, notably a from The Dead Weather scoring the end credits. Of course, Teller and Taylor-Joy aren’t playing teenagers navigating a dystopian-set love triangle but career professionals whose love language includes assassination, PTSD and kill shot records. Still, the comparisons uncanny, the results surprisingly enjoyable.

Despite its dated narrative DNA and farfetched dialogue, The Gorge is a welcome, familiar retreat. A bygone relic that couldn’t care less about current world affairs, the film’s unfussy politics and lightweight storytelling make for a modest, entertaining balm that shouldn’t have been relegated to a streaming-only release. Yes, the necessary shifts in tone stay about as far away from each other as the two lovers at first, firmly separating the romance and action between set pieces. The uninspired creature design and visual effects lack specificity, the entire film sagging from anonymous jargon like “Hollow Men” and “cloakers,” with no real humanized character moments between Kane and Drasa.

But if that bothers you at all, you’re expecting too much. The Gorge is happy to do away with such pretense, letting Teller and Taylor-Joy’s adequate chemistry carry the romance and action with just enough charisma and athletic aplomb. Above all else, Derrickson’s B-movie genre exercise succeeds with simplistic clarity and commitment to its contrasting genre demands. Despite a streaming burial by Apple, The Gorge will hopefully cross the great expanse of the platform’s algorithm as a slight but slickly made tale of love and human connection knowing no bounds.

The Gorge Review: How Far Does Your Love Travel? was originally published in Story Lamp Reviews on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

TV Show: Squid Games. Year: 2021–2025. Genre: Conspiracy Thriller/Dark Comedy. Creator: Hwang Dong-hyuk

The whole world was shocked due to the plot, acting performances, the idea and the twists that were on the first season of this Korean series.

Nobody could imagine that it would be the magnificent project shocking the entire community around the World! For sure, the director, script-writers and all the members of the team had to prolong Squid Game for the second season (and right we know it’s gonna be 3).

In this article, we’ll look through the pros and cons of this series, talk about the synopsis of the season and make a conclusion about is it better than the previous season?

Synopsis

For those, who forgot the plot of the first season, it’s gonna be the quick reminder how it ended.

So, the Squid Game season 1 finale reveals that the game’s mastermind is a filthy rich man named Oh Il-nam, who created the games as a way to experience excitement of life before he passed away. He offered Gi-hun to play one more game and walk away with a fortune if he could kill a random stranger on the street. Gi-hun refused, and Il-nam passed away of a heart attack.

Gi-hun came back to his life in Korea and tried to move on from the experience. However, he was haunted by the memories of the game and the people he lost. He eventually made a decision to return to the Squid Game island to try his best to stop it from happening again.

Remembered? The question is, what the plot of the second season?

It’s truth, thag Gi-hun was preparing the plan about how to get back to the game and stop it for good. The second season tells us the story after 3 years since the previous end. Seong Gi-hun has been using his billions of dollars to track down the games’ face-slapping recruiter (who offered the desperate people to play the game and then offered the card to participate and become the part of Squid Game) to try and lead him back to those who run the games. Likewise, Hwang Jun-ho is doing the same thing, sailing around trying to find the island to reunite with his brother, who actually is the Front Man.

The two characters join forces and the plan eventually becomes that Gi-hun will be kidnapped and return to the island attached with a tracker in his tooth and a mercenary team he hired, run by Jun-ho, will follow him to enter the island.

From this point, we as the viewers will see the journey how it happened, how Gi-hun showed up in the game again, and more of it.

On the top of that, it’s gonna be new games provided to us, fresh faces of actors and already the known ones.

It’s time to talk about why you should or shouldn’t consider this series for watching.

To my mind, I didn’t find a lot of drawback as a viewer. I mean it. Let’s break it up.

Firstly, the main character that we all loved from the first season is still here and he kept on being as the main figure for the plot development.

Secondly, as I’ve already mentioned, it’s gonna be new games provided to us. It won’t ruin anything if I say, that you’ll see 2 at least new-brand games that will hands down surprise you and make you feel shocked at the same time.

Do you need more? What about the quality of the production ? You don’t need to be the expert to see that. As I’ve mentioned, the Squid Game became the box-office hit around World. That’s why the director couldn’t help but invest more money into the expensive equipment to make it eye-catching. I gotta admit. They’ve done it perfectly.

The biggest addition is the coming of In-ho, whom we know is secretly the Front Man himself, but Gi-hun never figures out all season. To the end of the season, I was still unclear as to why the Front Man would insert himself in these games; it seems really to mirror the storyline of season 1 with that terminally-ill old man doing the same thing. Here, during an eventual player uprising, In-ho brutally betrays some players and puts the mask back on as The Front Man, but again, I still don’t really understand the goal of this, as he could have easily passed away at any point before this, or at least could not have survived without giving himself away.

If we talk about the cons, I also have some thoughts about that.

To be honest, you’ll be able to watch just 7 episodes. For me, it’s too short. I mean let’s compare for awhile. The previous season contained 10 episodes that lasted more than one hour. This time, you have 7 sets and you’ll have to wait the unknown amount of time to get the rest of the answers in 3 season.

Also, some of the new characters were definitely less interesting in comparison to the previous ones. For instance, look at the villain ( I’m not talking about the Front man). I’m talking about Thanos (the guy with the purple hair). Yes, he behaved based on the script and did the good job, but I didn’t feel that he was the sharpest tool in the shed or had the perfect plan how to conquer this game. I felt lack of character-development.

Squid Games Review: season 2 was originally published in Story Lamp Reviews on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

Film: Shortcomings. Year: 2023. Genre: Comedy/Drama. Rating: R. Director: Randall Park.

Shortcomings, the debut directorial feature from actor Randall Park, opens on a Crazy Rich Asians-style crowd-pleaser premiering at a local Asian American film festival. As the credits roll, the audience erupts in applause, giving a standing ovation to the filmmaker pushing representation forward for their community. It’s a celebratory scene for all in attendance but one Ben Tagawa (Justin H. Min), a bitter, aspiring filmmaker himself. Ben wears a chagrined stare like armour against exposure to such lowbrow cinema — deeming it unworthy as “a garish, mainstream rom-com that glorifies the capitalistic fantasy of vindication through wealth and materialism,” groundbreaking cultural portrayals aside. Okay, point taken.

For Ben, everything is too political. Over breakfast with best friend Alice (an effusively charming Sherry Cola), he laments how his long-term girlfriend Miko (Ally Maki) has become politically engaged, dismissing her passion for Asian American issues as a mere trend. When Miko confronts him, with proof, about a long-standing suspicion of a white girl fetish, Ben rebuffs any cultural or political implications about his preferring Western beauty standards. However, in the above diner scene, Alice derides Ben’s gawking at a typical yoga mat-carrying pale Californian. Miko soon abruptly leaves for New York City (Ben also hates NYC despite never spending much time there, surprise!) to pursue an internship, leaving Ben, now in relationship limbo, to reset his dating life and, obviously, hastily pursue his fantasy.

A troubling character study disguised as a growing pains comedy, Shortcomings demands the viewer to follow a profoundly unlikeable man-child whose listlessness, anger and refusal to change only isolate him further. It’s a bold choice for first-time director Park and writer Adrian Tomine, adapting his 2007 graphic novel, who steadily chart Ben’s downfall toward rock bottom. A liar, a hypocrite, a self-acknowledged asshole that can’t find joy in anything; it would be easy to abandon Ben if it were not for Min’s affective, wounded performance, seething with self-hatred, his mental state as fragile as a ceramic plate.

Ben’s outbursts only become more frequent as he interprets any change inflicted upon his social circle, relationship or job status as a betrayal. The film doesn’t excuse this toxic behaviour, as his emotional volatility leads to real consequences for his dating life and mental health. Specifically, a late-stage confrontation finds Ben blinded by jealous rage, launching the political connotations and racial stereotypes previously discarded as inauthentic at a hilariously over-the-top Timothy Simons, branding him a “rice king” — an inverted classifier of Ben’s sexual fixation.

Despite the sour solitude in his self-imposed bubble, Ben isn’t the only person he knows struggling to find their footing in adulthood. The supporting cast greatly buoys Shortcomings against the emotional rot sinking Ben’s life trajectory, with modest attention paid to the women in his life navigating similar problems of identity and race, specifically Alice, whose family’s traditional values clash with her sexuality. Alice, too, rubs up against the stereotypes used by society, or one’s own culture, to pigeonhole us, but unlike Ben, she weaponizes her defiance as a strength. Moreover, she doesn’t resign herself to hostile cynicism.

In keeping with the lead character’s discontent, Park’s debut ends ambiguously. Lacking a neat resolution, Shortcomings wonders where someone can go if they’ve hit rock bottom. The logical direction is up. But after a lifetime of punching down on yourself and others, the film is sensible enough to understand that it takes time and self-reflection to rebuild. Like Ben, the narrative ends in a hopeful mess, uncertain and stranded but ripe with feeling and heart.

Film Review: Shortcomings (2023) was originally published in Story Lamp Reviews on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.