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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
Hear Me: Our Summer (2024) EDIT “The film sensitively and nuancedly portrays Deaf life and interactions with a light touch ... And all three leads are incredibly attractive. But its final twist leaves a bad aftertaste.” – Review Film Review Mar 17, 2026 Full Review Betty Tells Her Story (1972) EDIT “The second half observes Betty as she tells her story again, and this is where things turn magical.” – Critics at Large Mar 15, 2026 Full Review Sierra EDIT “A surreal silent animated short about a boy who suffers because of his father’s race car obsession, it evokes the idyll of childhood for an only son, only to shatter it when the boy is stuffed into a car tire, replacing its spokes.” – Critics at Large Mar 15, 2026 Full Review Copycat (2015) EDIT “[T]he film makes a convincing case. At just 8 minutes, it’s an aesthetic achievement, too. ... The film literalizes the video essay.” – Critics at Large Mar 15, 2026 Full Review The Windshield Wiper (2021) EDIT “The additive combined effect has a deeply felt power, partly drawn from the use of colors that are rarely found in much contemporary cinema.” – Critics at Large Mar 15, 2026 Full Review Play It Safe (2021) EDIT “You want to other this Black man? Fine, he’ll show you what it *really* means to be inhuman.” – Critics at Large Mar 15, 2026 Full Review The Unseen River (2020) EDIT “I don’t really understand how it does what it does. ... In any case, the writer-director is one to watch.” – Critics at Large Mar 15, 2026 Full Review Heaven Reaches Down to Earth (2020) EDIT “[This] is one of the densest cinematic texts I’ve ever had the pleasure of watching. I could easily give a two-hour lecture on this ten-minute film.” – Critics at Large Mar 15, 2026 Full Review Adieu Bohème (2017) EDIT “[W]hen the thing it says will happen actually happens, it’s romantic and nostalgic, just wonderful.” – Critics at Large Mar 15, 2026 Full Review Berlin Troika (2014) EDIT “The proceedings are a farce of language, physical acting, and a surprising canniness on the part of the two negotiators. Somehow, they come to an agreement, but not by saying things.” – Critics at Large Mar 15, 2026 Full Review Footnotes to a House of Love (2007) EDIT “[A] wonderfully oblique and fragmented yet fulfilling evocation of the feeling of a lived-in space, without at any point giving us a clear picture of anything.” – Critics at Large Mar 15, 2026 Full Review Mind the Steps! (1989) EDIT “Turns out the film is a metaphor for the logic of totalitarian control.” – Critics at Large Mar 15, 2026 Full Review Scenes with Beans (1976) EDIT “It’s frankly amazing just how much pathos can be generated by arranging beans of different colors (and sometimes in various tiny hats) in meaningful combinations that suggest situations and narratives.” – Critics at Large Mar 15, 2026 Full Review Volleyball (Foot Film) (1967) EDIT “For anyone who’s been entranced by running water or a yule log, the attraction of such a film will be familiar. Less expected may be the annoyance of the ball’s being not exactly spherical and so never going exactly where you expect.” – Critics at Large Mar 15, 2026 Full Review Waves '98 (2015) EDIT “The ideal formalism creates evokes the utopian mature of this fantastical place. Of course, it all collapses in the end, but more remains than you might expect. Does any of it make sense? Not a whit. It’s brilliant.” – Critics at Large Mar 15, 2026 Full Review White Turnips Make It Hard to Sleep (2011) EDIT “The filmmaking confidence is grounded in a singular vision: to depict how hard it can be to formally end a moribund phase of one’s life – the difficulty of necessary change.” – Critics at Large Mar 15, 2026 Full Review The Arrival (1999) EDIT “The distortions are a direct cinematic expression of the flux of sensation, a stream of not consciousness but affect.” – Critics at Large Mar 15, 2026 Full Review From the Reports of Security Guards & Patrol Services Part 1 (1985) EDIT “This short gave me more vertigo than Free Solo (2018) did.” – Critics at Large Mar 15, 2026 Full Review Meeting the Man: James Baldwin in Paris (1970) EDIT “The observer always ends up participating in the phenomenon observed, and Baldwin uses this, in more ways than one, to prove his point that the sheer fact and terms of the Black struggle are inconceivable to the white man.” – Critics at Large Mar 15, 2026 Full Review All Too Well: The Short Film (2021) EDIT “[D]espite its name, All Too Well (Ten Minute Version) (Taylor’s Version) (From The Vault): The Short Film (2021) belongs squarely in the genre of the music video. But the level of craftsmanship and resources on display is on par with that of short films.” – Critics at Large Mar 15, 2026 Full Review A Great Ride: Adventures in LGBT Aging (2018) EDIT “Directors Deborah Craig and Véronica Duport Déliz know how to keep things lively.” – The News Lens International Mar 14, 2026 Full Review Memories to Choke On, Drinks to Wash Them Down (2019) EDIT “Memories, Drinks shows how Hong Kong’s turbulent history is still very much with us.” – The News Lens International Mar 14, 2026 Full Review Detective Conan: The Scarlet Bullet (2021) EDIT “Scarlet Bullet ... rigidly adheres to the formula ... This formula can make it a blast to view the film with a large crowd. ... The plot, always hit or miss, is a miss this time[.]” – The News Lens International Mar 14, 2026 Full Review Moonlight Shadow (2021) EDIT “This first act also introduces us to the film’s style: elliptical and dynamic like Terrence Malick, and static and gorgeous like Hou Hsiao-hsien.” – The News Lens International Mar 14, 2026 Full Review What to Do with the Dead Kaiju? (2022) 25% EDIT “Did you think the pretentious epicness stopped there?” – The News Lens International Mar 14, 2026 Full Review
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