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CJ Sheu

Tomatometer-approved critic
Biography:

CJ Sheu is a Taipei-based film critic in English and Mandarin, and a scholar of contemporary American fiction. You can say hi to him on Twitter: @cj_sheu.

Reviews

Movies TV Shows
Sinners (2025) 97% EDIT “It’s a fascinating genre film executed so well that it feels like it’s pushing the boundaries of what a genre film can be, though the only thing that actually does this is the epic oner.” – Review Film Review Nov 6, 2025 Full Review Much Ado About Nothing (2012) 87% EDIT “an aesthetic spectrum from Amy Acker’s performance as Beatrice and Whedon’s modern acting direction for his Shakespearean lines (good), to the bleached-out images caused by the unholy marriage of flat all-natural lighting and the poorly chosen digital” – Review Film Review Nov 3, 2025 Full Review Omniscient Reader: The Prophecy (2025) 25% EDIT “Despite my enjoyment, I must concede that making the dozens of viewers in my position the target audience can hardly be called a sound adaptation strategy.” – Critics at Large Aug 7, 2025 Full Review PTU (2003) 65% EDIT “It’s irony-poisoned beauty.” – Review Film Review Jun 29, 2025 Full Review Whisper of the Heart (1995) 95% EDIT “Whisper achieves what we hope the best children’s fantasy does.” – Critics at Large Jun 10, 2025 Full Review The Terrorizers (1987) EDIT “[W]hat I’m calling the main subplot, about depressed novelist Zhou Yufen (Cora Miao) and medical laboratory scientist husband Li Lizhong (China-appeasing actor-comedian Lee Li-chun), ... is a very accurate and tragic portrait of the Taiwanese STEM bro[.]"” – Review Film Review Apr 28, 2025 Full Review Like You Know It All (2009) EDIT “The patriarchal dichotomization of women makes an apparent equal a rara avis, makes men desperate to keep her, to own her—and also makes them weak in her eyes and less likely to succeed. As the title suggests, Goo knows nothing.” – Review Film Review Jan 10, 2025 Full Review An Impossibly Small Object (2018) EDIT “The entire [third] act is shot in the same magical realist style that makes the first act such a success, and the ending, though answering exactly zero questions, re-balances the tone, giving the film a sense of closure.” – Critics at Large Jan 1, 2025 Full Review La Chimera (2023) 95% EDIT “Not just Arthur, the film itself is immersed in the past.” – The News Lens International Nov 12, 2024 Full Review Gavagai (2018) 85% EDIT “Cerebrally intriguing but somniferously monotonous, watching Gavagai feels just like reading the first half of this sentence.” – The News Lens International Nov 5, 2024 Full Review My First Film (2024) 89% EDIT “Anger’s coming of age isn’t about arriving at the answers, but about knowing how to ask the questions.” – The News Lens International Oct 31, 2024 Full Review Clytaemnestra (2021) EDIT “We know that Clytaemnestra’s pressure cooker will explode; the fun is in seeing how the cracks form.” – The News Lens International Sep 23, 2024 Full Review Benediction (2021) 92% EDIT “Transcendent performances and visionary direction make for a numinous final film by Terence Davies.” – The News Lens International Sep 6, 2024 Full Review Showing Up (2022) 89% EDIT “Reichardt is one of the few directors who truly knows how to use Williams, and the resulting portrait is detailed, deep, and compassionate.” – The News Lens International Aug 26, 2024 Full Review The Idea of You (2024) 80% EDIT “The film in general has a reasonable proximity to realist logic, but it’s still a rom-com, so there’s at least some fantasy involved. . . . It’s just a really good film.” – The News Lens International Aug 20, 2024 Full Review Hit Man (2023) 95% EDIT “As the object of desire, what Powell gives is less chemistry than capybara, but that’s okay, because Arjona’s performance is so hot that I was surprised the screen didn’t start smoking.” – The News Lens International Aug 1, 2024 Full Review Civil War (2024) 81% EDIT “If beauty is the sole standard for their work, then the film’s view of war photography is as an aesthetic death cult.” – The News Lens International Jul 15, 2024 Full Review Godzilla Minus One (2023) 99% EDIT “Almost all the men are veterans who’ve seen the horrors behind the old lie, Dulce et decorum est pro patria mori (“It’s sweet and fitting to die for one’s country”). . . . “Not having been to war is something to be proud of[.]”” – The News Lens International Jun 26, 2024 Full Review Soviet Bus Stops (2022) EDIT “Indelible bus stops and a retro soundtrack from behind the Iron Curtain can’t hide the fact that this film is essentially a 57-minute commercial for the two photography books from which it’s adapted.” – The News Lens International Jun 12, 2024 Full Review Ida (2013) 95% EDIT “It’s a religious test, as suggested when Wanda replies to Ida’s request to seek her buried parents, “What if you find there’s no God?” Well, there is a God, and He’s lovingly observing Ida through the film’s perfectly framed static compositions[.]” – Review Film Review Jun 12, 2024 Full Review Challengers (2024) 88% EDIT “Tashi’s beautiful, but the boys aren’t attracted to HER. What they want is to be near her greatness, to have it, to be great; they don’t want to be in her, they want to BE HER.... No, the real source of sexual chemistry is between the boys.” – The News Lens International May 31, 2024 Full Review Hotel by the River (2018) 96% EDIT “So that’s the plot, and it only exists so that the characters can hold forth on gender dynamics in the second act. But before that, we get to luxuriate in the muted winter beauty of the river scenery, accentuated by the crisp black-and-white digital image” – The News Lens International May 24, 2024 Full Review The Fall Guy (2024) 82% EDIT “We *notice* the action artifice, and it draws our attention to the unseen real-life stunt doubles performing the action we’re seeing—this, of course, being a key theme of the film, a love letter to stuntpeople. Our reality makes the artifice authentic.” – Review Film Review May 13, 2024 Full Review Eileen (2023) 81% EDIT “The film’s story and character arcs are broadly predictable, and there are few noteworthy plot details to speak of. ... Once logic goes out the window, it doesn’t come back.” – The News Lens International Apr 26, 2024 Full Review The Woman Who Ran (2019) 98% EDIT “Though only one woman has run in The Woman Who Ran, it seems like every woman wants to.” – The News Lens International Apr 18, 2024 Full Review
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