Review of Far North (2008) by Mike M — 21 Dec 2008

After his Hollywood misstep "The Return", "Far North" finds Kapadia back on the path he should be following: it's a distinctive, quasi-mythic yarn that mostly forsakes dialogue for striking sights and telling, atmospheric sounds.

Not all the casting works: while Bean looks authentically battered by the freezing Arctic winds - living in Sheffield will do that to a guy - he's probably just a bit too big a name for the part, a concession to producers' demands, and Krusiec, for the most part, resembles a super-cute Asian-American princess who's been sent north to work on her triple axles.

It's the combination of large-scale spectacle and storytelling that holds you, with its flurries of harsh, unexpected violence, at least one of which results in the freakiest screen sex scene since "The Devil's Advocate".