MovieDB

Reviews

Please login to write a review.

Alex Morgan

•

5 min ago

★★★★★4/5

Just finished watching this. Visuals were stunning but the pacing felt a bit off in the second half. Still worth a watch!

Daniel Cooper

•

2 days ago

★★★★★2/5

I don't get the hype. The plot was predictable and the characters felt flat. It seems like style over substance to me. Maybe I missed something, but I was bored throughout.

+142

Priya Sharma

•

15 days ago

★★★★★5/5

An absolute masterpiece. The director managed to weave complex themes into a compelling narrative without it feeling forced. The cinematography is some of the best I've seen in years. Truly a cinematic experience that stays with you.

Overview

Captain Elliot's Circle (2023) is rated ⭐ 10/10.
Equal parts documentary, essay, and narrative,"Captain Elliot's Circle" is mostly a poetic interaction with an obscure corner of Chinese and British history. Constructed using primary source documents about the taking of Zhoushan, Britain's first choice for a seaport, in the late 1830s,this movie uses Captain Charles Elliot's reluctance to brutalize the Chinese to reflect on the cyclical nature of history and the power structures that move it. The long takes used throughout function to illustrate the dramatically different ways in which people who lived in the mid-19th century perceived time. Additionally, it represents the psychological effect of living on an island regardless of what era you were born in.The last third of the movie focuses on a young woman whose strange day job has taken her far away from the island of Zhoushan generations after Captain Charles Elliot was last there. "Captain Elliot's Circle" was shot on location in Zhoushan and Hangzhou.