Fans of Chinese cinema will understand that Western influences are often woven into Eastern features and that history is integral to their storytelling. With so much culture behind them, it’s easy to get lost in the possibilities for movie ideas – so it makes sense that Asia’s most famous novel now gets a look in for international audiences. Romance of Three Kingdoms, Luo Guanzhong’s 14th century novel, has remained a huge influence in China throughout history both as a historical and romantic tale but the film adaptation presents us with what’s expected out of China – action, and lots of it.

Within the first five minutes of Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince, the sixth film to be adapted from J.K Rowling’s ultra-successful series of novels, a trio of Death Eaters cause London’s millennium bridge to come crashing down into the river Thames. “Surely everyone would have survived,” was my immediate thought, as I reminded myself that this film franchise began with a children’s novel. Yet when a close up is given on the following day’s newspaper, the headline unmistakeably reads ‘Death Toll Rises in Bridge Collapse’.

If you thought seeing British comedian Sacha Baron Cohen wrestling a fat naked man in 2006′s Borat was shocking, you ain’t seen nothing yet. Cohen’s latest character Bruno, a flamboyant Austrian ‘fashionista’, manages to make Harvey Milk look like a giant prude in comparison. In fact, Bruno’s quest to become the most famous Austrian star “since Hitler” is shocking, vulgar and shamelessly defamatory. It’s also downright hilarious.

But who’d expect anything less from the man who brilliantly characterised Borat, a Kazak reporter whose ignorance and intolerance was matched only by the American public featured in the faux documentary, Borat: Cultural Learnings of America for Make Benefit Glorious Nation of Kazakhstan. When the film went on to make a box-office return as sizable as its title, it was only a matter of time until the next character from Cohen’s British TV series, Da Ali-G Show, was given the cinematic treatment. Four years later, and Cohen is back serving up monstrous laughs in a far more outrageous, yet decidedly more calculated, film than Borat.

‘Hilarious’ isn’t usually a word I’d associate with a hangover. Laughing, I can promise you, is the last thing you’ll see me doing when experiencing the throbbing headache and god-awful queasiness that comes the morning after a big night out. That said, ‘hilarious’ is by far the best word used to describe director Todd Phillips (Old School, Road Trip) latest lowbrow comedy The Hangover. Don’t be put off by its clichéd Vegas bachelor party premise; The Hangover boasts a script that bleeds more humour than a clown with haemophilia. Even at the peak of its vulgarity, which certainly sees the film make good use of its MA15+ rating, this is a solid comedy binge-fest you won’t regret in the morning.

Coco Avant Chanel has all of the elements to be a potentially brilliant film. French? Check. Period drama? Check. Fabulous frocks and Audrey Tautou in the lead role? Check and check. But at first glance something seems to be lacking in this biopic about the revered French fashion designer Gabrielle ‘Coco’ Chanel.

“I used to have a beautiful wife and all my own teeth. Life changes… and not always for the better,” or so says retired magician Clarence (Michael Caine) in Is Anybody There? It’s a wise statement and a valuable thought to take on board – and it isn’t the first, or last, poignant moment of the movie.

Death can be a messy business, but for those paid to clean it up, it can also be a lucrative one. Sunshine Cleaning, the name of Amy Adams and Emily Blunt’s crime scene cleanup business in the film of the same name, aims to put a light-hearted spin on such a gloomy profession. Not only does this work on their clients within the film, it surprisingly works on the audience too. Driven by top-tier performances from Adams and Blunt, Sunshine Cleaning is a charming drama/comedy that gives life added sparkle by lifting the dirt on death.

Contrary to its ballsy title, My Year Without Sex is a humble Australian drama that richly deals with tribulations of life that most Hollywood dramas have in the past deemed too insignificant to be of interest. Yet director/writer Sarah Watt, in her first feature since the similarly themed Look Both Ways, proves that a film which looks at life just how it is served can make for absorbing cinema. That said, those who got to the movies in order to escape reality might be wise to steer clear, as the extraordinary remains exactly that. Yet the film’s subtle use of humour, genuinely warming characters and honest observations elevates this compassionate drama beyond the middle-class it so truthfully depicts.