The 7 biggest movies to catch at Shanghai cinemas this month

Image: courtesy Warner Bros Pictures (Pokemon Detective Pikachu)

Every month we round up the best films hitting Shanghai's cinemas. The highlights for this month? A live-action remake of Disney's Aladdin, an Oscar-winning epic that explores the social and political canvas of 1970s Mexico City and a Godzilla reboot all hit the big-screen in May.  

Capernaum

Image: courtesy Sony Pictures Classics

A young boy, Zain, stands up in court in Lebanon. He has already done time for stabbing someone, and now he wants to sue his parents for giving him life. No one really knows how old he is, but a medical examiner estimates 12. Nadine Labaki’s drama might first seem like a satire – small children are jailed; others are married. But while there are elements of didactic political fable, there’s a heartbreaking realism at the root of this portrait of Lebanese poverty, which nevertheless thrills with compassion and heart.

📍On general release now.

See You Up There (Au revoir là-haut)

Image: courtesy Gaumont Film Company

Winner of five César awards, including Best Director, Best Adaptation and Best Cinematography, See You Up There starts a few days before the Armistice, when artist Édouard Péricourt saves accountant Albert Maillard's life. Condemned to live, the two misfits mount a scheme selling monuments of invented war heroes. Based on Pierre Lemaitre's 2013 novel The Great Swindle, this sumptuous period drama explores a society that wants to honour the dead but ends up forgetting the living.

📍On general release now.

Roma

Image: courtesy Netflix

If ever there was a grumble over this gorgeous, Oscar-winning epic, it’s that more people couldn’t see it on the big screen, particularly here in China. Now finally in Mainland cinemas, director Alfonso Cuarón's richly textured masterpiece unhurriedly explores the social and political canvas of 1970s Mexico City, where he grew up in a middle-class neighbourhood called Roma. A sober and autobiographical elegy about his childhood and the women who raised him (one hardworking live-in maid in particular), Roma is cinema at its purest and most human.

📍On general release from May 10.

Pokémon Detective Pikachu

Image: courtesy Warner Bros Pictures

When ace detective Harry Goodman mysteriously goes missing, his 21-year-old son decides to go find out what happened. Aiding him is his father's former Pokémon partner, Pikachu (voiced by Ryan Reynolds), who is somehow able to communicate with him and only him. The two join forces on an adventure through the neon-lit streets of Ryme City, where both humans and Pokémon peacefully co-exist. But the duo soon uncovers a plot that plans to destroy this peaceful co-existence between the two species and threaten the Pokémon universe.

📍On general release from May 10.

Aladdin

Image: courtesy Walt Disney Pictures

Disney brings Aladdin to a whole new world in this live adaptation, with Will Smith attempting to fill the very big shoes left behind by Robin Williams. Aladdin (Mena Massoud) is a scrappy street kid who finds a magical lamp that, thanks to the genie living within it, has the power to grant him his deepest desires. 

Not so coincidentally, he also happens to fall in love with the lovely Princess Jasmine (Naomi Scott). But when the Grand Vizier-slash-evil sorcerer Jafar (Marwan Kenzari) discovers the power of the magical lamp, he decides to try to take it away from Aladdin. For those of you already familiar with the animation, Aladdin should tread some pretty familiar ground (but we'll nevertheless still be catching it in cinemas).

📍On general release from May 24.

Godzilla: King of the Monsters

Image: courtesy Warner Bros Pictures

If monsters are your thing, then there's quite a few in this upcoming sequel to 2014's Godzilla reboot. A crypto-zoological agency called Monarch faces off with creatures of titanic proportions including the mighty Godzilla and other similar monsters like Mohtra, Rodan and now his ultimate nemesis, a three-headed beast called King Ghidorah. When these ancient supersized monsters start vying for supremacy, humanity's very existence is put under threat.

📍On general release from May 31.

Thomas & Friends: Big World! Big Adventures!

Image: courtesy Mattel Creations

Nearly a year after screening at English theatres abroad, Thomas and his friends finally chug their way to the Mainland where fans of the beloved show can enjoy watching the trains on their exciting cross-continental adventures as well. This time, Thomas ventures off from his home island Sodor to see the rest of the world. In this film, the locomotive travels through five continents across deserts, through jungles and over dangerous mountains where he also encounters a train engine named Nia, a female locomotive from Kenya who becomes his travelling companion.

📍On general release from May 31.

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