Review: 'Bacurau' and 'The Wild Goose Lake' are two of the most stylish action thrillers around

Blood gushes, heads roll, revelers dance and motorcycles roar in "Bacurau" and "The Wild Goose Lake," two sensationally entertaining action thrillers that hail from two different countries - Brazil and China, respectively - but whose truer provenance might as well be called Planet Genre. Arriving nearly a year after they first screened at the 2019 Cannes Film Festival, they are superior examples of art house pulp, intricately staged and shot through with rich veins of unease; you'd be hard pressed to find two more brazenly stylish exercises in bang-bang-vroom-vroom.

The differences admittedly outstrip the similarities, which is a testament to the films' distinctness of vision, purpose and style. It also points to the eclecticism of their influences. If "Bacurau" is like a futuristic Sergio Leone western by way of a John Carpenter freakout, then "The Wild Goose Lake" suggests a James M.