BBP’s Dorianne got to join the TIFF action (literally) this year with two selections from the tail end of the Festival. Check out her thoughts on the final Midnight Madness of 2026 and the biggest Vietnamese film production in history!
Rogue Trooper
Duncan Jones’ Rogue Trooper is probably best appreciated by those who either a) loved the comic, or b) enjoy watching gamers stream shooters. While I tend to like movies with a hefty amount of violence, cartoony or not, this one didn’t hit me where I like to either hurt or laugh. Based on a series of the same name by 2000 AD, the titular character is a genetically engineered super soldier fighting a never-ending war on a toxic planet, accompanied by the personalities of three previously fallen soldiers embedded via “brain chip” into his gun, his helmet, and backpack respectively. When he figures out that he’s in a dire situation because of a traitor, he goes, as the name suggests, rogue.
The director, Duncan Jones, has previously made Moon and Source Code, which have a bit more soul in them (the former particularly,) but Rogue Trooper is ripe with fanboy enthusiasm, so I appreciate he got to do something that gave him joy. And, having suffered through a fair amount of my teenager’s youtubing, I know this would be up other people’s alleys: the visuals are slick, the action non-stop, the dialogue quippy. Just watch your footing: the valley in the animation is pretty uncanny.
Spirit Guardians: The Last Secret of the First Emperor
Nguyễn Phan Quang Binh’s Spirit Guardians: The Last Secret of the First Emperor is notable as the largest production in Vietnamese history, entering the tradition of epic period martial arts films out of Asia. Set during the Đinh dynasty in the 900s, the emperor is assassinated and the location of his body’s burial must remain secret, so groups of his followers take multiple coffins – the real one hidden amongst decoys – out into the wilderness. One of them is a chancellor’s daughter, who should really be staying home and marrying well instead of going on adventures like a boy. But they are beset by an endless number of black-garbed bad guys who want to take advantage of the power vacuum and break apart the empire.
Spirit Guardians has an abundance of impressive fight choreography, a very high body count, and stunning landscapes. But “girl wants to be a warrior but is girl so must be pressured into a good marriage, wow she is very good at fighting, insert romance here” storyline is pretty stale for me at this point, and there wasn’t much more plot than that. But it’s worth a watch for the lush visuals, the detailed attention paid to the set and costuming, and the afore-mentioned fighting.
