Sunmin Park Movies

Director Roger Spottiswoode adapts Roméo Dallaire's harrowing autobiography concerning his experiences as the leader of a 1994 U.N. peacekeeping mission to Rwanda that failed to prevent the slaughter of 800,000 Rwandans. Dispatched to Rwanda in 1993 to oversee a fragile cease-fire, charismatic Lieutenant General Romeo Dellaire (Roy Dupuis) finds his mission complicated by lack of funding, too much bureaucracy, and a ramshackle crew assembled from military units from dozens of countries. Everyone seems to have a different agenda, and as the peace agreement between the Tutsi-led rebels and the French-supported Hutu-led government begins to deteriorate, appeasing speeches are undercut by shadowy massacres. When an unknown group shoots down the president's plane, Kigali goes up in flames as part of a clandestine yet long-planned campaign against the Tutsi minority. Hindered by an inadequate mandate, Lieutenant General Dellaire watches helplessly as the Hutu militia gains power and civil war gives way to genocide. ~ Jason Buchanan, Rovi

Legendary anime director Katsuhiro Otomo (Akira, Steamboy) makes his second foray into the world of live-action with this fantasy film based on a manga by Yuki Urushibara. Mushi-Shi (which was also made into an anime television series) follows a shaman named Ginko (Jo Odagiri) as he wanders feudal Japan healing people afflicted with "mushi," insect-like creatures that burrow their way into human bodies and cause mysterious illnesses. Otomo underscores the film's supernatural elements -- which borrow heavily from traditional Asian mythology -- with a slow, contemplative tone and cinematography of the lush Japanese countryside. ~ Sandra Bencic, Rovi

Spanish filmmaker Alejandro Amenabar's first English-language production is a creepy period ghost story that continues in the vein of his earlier art house hit Open Your Eyes (1997). Nicole Kidman stars as Grace, a devoutly religious mother of two ailing children who has moved with her family to a mansion on the English coast while awaiting her husband's return from World War II, though he has been declared missing. Their children, Anne (Alakina Mann) and Nicholas (James Bentley), both suffer from a rare photosensitivity disease that renders them extremely vulnerable to sunlight, prompting Grace's rule of having only one door open in the house at a time. When Anne begins claiming to see ghosts, Grace at first believes her newly arrived family of eccentric servants to be responsible, but chilling events and visions soon lead her to believe that something supernatural is indeed going on. The Others was released only a few months prior to Vanilla Sky (2001), the American remake of Alejandro's Open Your Eyes (1997), ironically starring Kidman's then-estranged husband Tom Cruise. ~ Karl Williams, Rovi