I WAS A SIMPLE MAN FILM REVIEWS
The New Yorker // Named the fourth Best Movie of 2021
“The fusion of the metaphysical and the practical involves some subtly jolting special effects and some serenely majestic staging, bringing generations of selves together in a quiet climactic exaltation that’s among the most daring and heart-stopping scenes in recent cinema.” - Highlights from an All-Virtual Sundance Film Festival by Richard Brody
RogerEbert.com
“100-minute spell of beauty and melancholy, intimate and grand in equal measure, a film that derives its power from the universality of its final destination and the relatability of the pain, love, and regret that pave the guiding road.” - Roxana Hadidi
Variety
“A lovely, loving ode... Yogi’s filmmaking remains pleasingly resistant to Amerindie convention.”- ‘I Was a Simple Man’ Review: A Beguilingly Restful Ghost Story That Moves With the Hawaiian Breeze by Guy Lodge
The Hollywood Reporter
“A healing haunting.” “Captivating.” - 'I Was a Simple Man': Film Review | Sundance 2021 by David Rooney
Indiewire
“Spellbinding.” *Critic’s Pick* - ‘I Was a Simple Man’ Review: Constance Wu Stars in a Hushed and Haunting Hawaii Ghost Story by David Ehrlich
Playlist
“The ensemble cast earns considerable praise” *A-* - ‘I Was A Simple Man’: Hawaiian Ghost Story Recalls Apichatpong Weerasethakul’s Earthly Dreamscapes by Carlos Aguilar
Slash Film
“I Was a Simple Man is a slow-burning walk toward the light, a paean for life, and the land and people that shaped it.” *9 out 10* - ‘I Was a Simple Man’ Review: A Ghostly Constance Wu Guides Her Dying Husband in a Gentle Meditation on Life by Hoai-Tran Bui
I WAS A SIMPLE MAN FILM AWARDS
LA Asian Pacific Film Festival: Grand Jury Prize
San Diego Asian Film Festival: Grand Jury Prize
Hawai‘i International Film Festival: Best Made in Hawai‘i Film
AUGUST AT AKIKO'S FILM REVIEWS
The New Yorker
“Best movies of 2019” - Best Movies of 2019 by Richard Brody
“Transcendently inventive” - Highlights from the 2018 Maryland Film Festival by Richard Brody
Variety
“A soul-deep love letter to a state that Hollywood tends to more glibly romanticize”- Film Review: August at Akiko's by GUY LODGE
FILMMAKER Magazine
“Simultaneously blissful and joyous, becalmed yet full of life, August At Akiko’s channels a “slow-cinema” aesthetic into a pointedly Hawai’ian locale” - Made Visible: The 2018 Hawai’i International Film Festival” BY JASON SANDERS
The Film Stage
“Zhang Hungtai offers a gorgeously understated performance…as magnetic when the man is at his saxophone as it is when he quietly meanders in and out of dreamlike visions that echo an Apichatpong Weerasethakul-esque magical realism.” - REVIEW: August at Akiko’s is a whimsical hawaii-set tale of belonging
AUGUST AT AKIKO'S FILM AWARDS