Released in 2005, Hard Candy, by first-time feature-film director David Slade and first-time feature-scribe Brian Nelson (they followed it up with the vampire movie, 30 Days of Night), is a difficult movie to recommend. The acting by the two principals - Patrick Wilson and Ellen Page (playing Jeff Kohlver and Hayley Stark, respectively) - is terrific; the plot is chilling; the movie is taut, tense, believable; but well, you decide. Fourteen-year-old Hayley Stark strikes up an Internet chat-room relationship with 32-year-old photographer Jeff Kohlver, and the two finally decide to meet in person.

She suggests a daylight meeting at a coffee house named Nighthawks. They talk a bit, then she suggests that they go back to his house - he agrees. Jeff offers her a drink and she points out that accepting a drink from a stranger is not a good idea - so she mixes the drinks. Then he passes out and wakes up tied to a table and Hayley informs him that she's going to castrate him. Why?

Hayley is convinced that Jeff is a serial paedophile and that he's also responsible for the disappearance of a young girl. For weeks she's been tracking him through various chat rooms and now she's sprung her trap. Jeff denies it all, but while he's tied down Hayley searches his house, and discovers enough evidence to convince her (and us). On the surface, Hard Candy is a revenge picture - Little Red Riding Hood turns the tables on the Big Bad Wolf - and on that level it works well: Men who take advantage of young girls deserve the appropriate punishment; and Jeff may also be a murderer. Is castration the appropriate sentence? I leave that up to you.

But the movie doesn't allow the viewer to make an easy judgement; we are never absolutely sure if Jeff is guilty. And while Hayley prepares to pass her sentence, she tortures him, he begs for mercy, she lets him beg, she tortures him some more - and she seems to enjoy it. In fact, without spoiling anything for you, the movie glorifies her actions.

I found it a bit disturbing to watch a very sexy girl (note that the actress was a young woman, not actually 14) getting her jollies from torturing a man, even one who may be a paedophile-murderer. Watching the movie, I thought of some other 'guilty' men being tortured in the name of justice; and I wondered what would I say or do if I found myself in the same situation.

Good movie, yes, but because of the challenging themes, I recommend it with reservations; and it's definitely not one of those after-school specials for the kiddies. Hard Candy has a running time of 103 minutes and is rated 'R' (for disturbing violent and aberrant sexual content involving a teen, and for language).

Elizabeth

The prequel to Elizabeth: The Golden Age (2007) was released in 1998 and covers the early reign of Queen Elizabeth I. Written by Michael Hirst and directed by Shekhar Kapur, Elizabeth doesn't stick to the historical facts of the monarch's early years, but what it does get right is show us how a young girl, with little to recommend her for the job, accepts the till-death-do-we-part role, learns as she goes, and succeeds despite all that is thrown against her.

The plot-assassination attempts, royal, political and religious intrigue, romantic entanglements; treachery, betrayal are deeply satisfying, but the movie is also stunning to look at, and brilliantly acted. Cate Blanchett (of The Lord of the Rings trilogy, The Talented Mr. Ripley, Charlotte Gray, Veronica Guerin,The Aviator, Babel, The Good German) is again brilliant as the young Elizabeth; and with Geoffrey Rush, Joseph Fiennes, Vincent Cassell, Sir Richard Attenborough and John Gielgud, the film delivers excellence in spades. The director, Shekhar Kapur (who also helmed The Four Feathers, The Bandit Queen and the sequel, Elizabeth: The Golden Age), not only creates a sumptuous look to the film, with his use of rich colours and exquisite period detail, but also layers in the darkness that pervades the young Queen's life and the era the movie is set in. Running at 124 minutes, and rated R (for violence and sexuality), Elizabeth is highly recommended (especially if you plan on seeing the sequel).

The Seven Samurai

Like Kurosawa, I make mad films. Okay, I don't make films. But if I did, they'd have a samurai. From One Week by Barenaked Ladies. Much to the apparent disapproval of whoever graded my A' Level literature exam, I have a somewhat unfortunate tendency to stick quotes in places where they really shouldn't go.

As Galileo said, however, 'Nevertheless it moves.' And the quote at the top points to the continued cultural significance of the Japanese director, Akira Kurosawa, one of the true giants of the cinema. Seven Samurai (1954) is probably Kurosawa's best known work, and is widely considered one of the greatest films ever made (and certainly the archetypal action movie). Later remade as the Hollywood western The Magnificent Seven, Kurosawa's great movie tells the story of an ad hoc group of ronin (masterless samurai) in mediaeval Japan, hired to protect a village threatened by a gang of bandits. The Samurai and the villagers are separated by a strict caste system, and the movie presents a study of the implications of social duty and conformity - everyone, for the most part, knows what they are supposed to do, and does it.

One exception to this is the clownish seventh samurai, Kikuchiyo, who, we learn, has defied his origins and invented his own samurai background; he was born a farmer's child, just like the villagers. It is through this wiser and nobler-than-he-seems 'samurai' that the villagers and samurai, and we, get to develop a fuller understanding of the movie's situation.

But Seven Samurai is an action movie, and Kurosawa's mastery of film technique is evident in his treatment of battle. Part ballet and part rugby scrum, the film's battle scenes are both fluid and hectic, and the viewer is drawn in by their immediacy and vitality.

Innovative use of slow-motion, sweeping camera work, unusual perspective and sound effects, among other things, point to the fact that Kurosawa is the godfather of this particular genre, though his vision and effect are far wider than that. If caste and its discontents represent one of the great conflicts of this movie, others are that between East and West - between individualism and collectivism - and between the past and the present.

We are left to draw our own conclusions, but Seven Samurai suggests that the way forward (and backward) is an Aristotelian middle way. I should also mention that this fantastic movie is also fantastically long, running at more than three hours in its original form. But it doesn't feel like it. If you like this one, you might want to check out John Sturges' The Magnificent Seven (1960) or Kurosawa's Ran (1985).

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- Bruce Alexander and Omar Francis