I WAS A SIMPLE MAN FILM REVIEWS
The New Yorker // Named a top five film 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