Film
Movie theaters, reviews and showtimes in Chicago, plus articles, trailers and more
- Home
- Box Office
- Listings
- Trailers
- Features
Bookmark this page- Edition:
Heaven's Burning (1997)
Director: Craig Lahiff
Movie review
From Time Out Film Guide
It takes a while for this road movie thrillerto take off, as the director labours through an opening section which lays out how Japanese honeymooner Midori (Kudoh) happens to find herself on the run (and loving it), chased by bank robbers and her 'disgraced' ex-husband, with only a hot-rodder (Crowe) as reluctant helpmate. In a film of blunt genre strokes, Kudoh's transition to kooky 'liberated' chick is as rudimentarily sketched as the reactions to her foreignness are awkwardly played out. Nevertheless, director Lahiff manages to balance the action and human interest, using trans-port truck metal and the horizontal swaths of the Australian landscape to emulate the sweep and gleam of the American prototype, and undercutting the machismo through the sympathetic playing of Kudoh and, especially, Crowe.Author: WH
Cast & crew
Director: Craig Lahiff
Producer: Al Clarke, Helen Leake
Cast: Russell Crowe, Youki Kudoh, Kenji Isomura, Ray Barrett, Robert Mammone, Petru Gheorghiu full cast
Genre(s): Thrillers
Duration: 99 mins
Most popular on this site
Features
Gray's anatomy
James Gray wants to push buttons—again.
The next big thing?
Gigantic Releasing tries to rethink indie distribution…without movie theaters.
Red Diva: Lyubov Orlova, First Lady of Soviet Cinema
So you think you can dance, comrade?
Puppet master
Coraline director Henry Selick takes stop-motion animation into 3-D.
Socratic method
Laurent Cantet's approach on the set matches the message of his film.
Wander woman
Kelly Reichardt's Wendy and Lucy puts a Bush-era spin on the road movie.
Oscars
Read our interviews with the nominees, our reviews of the nominated films and more.
What do you think?
Post your review now