Comedies from the Czech Republic come with high expectations nowadays, and the period class-farce I Served the King of England, from Oscar winners Jirí Menzel and Bohumil Hrabal, certainly didn’t disappoint. The whimsical humour has a charming and timeless appeal to it, and the wistful philosophy provides amusing diversion rather than real distraction. Served celebrates life’s pleasures, and the appreciation of food, women, money and Pilsner is realised gorgeously in a series of staggeringly opulent visual feasts (including a highly imaginative use of a Lazy Susie). The Prague hospo scene in the 30s and 40s yields beautiful Jugendstil sets, unlimited opportunies for mischief, and a rainbow of stunning costumes. Even when pint-sized protagonist Jan Díte was just earning small beer selling hotdogs at the train station, he knew all he ever wanted to be was a millionaire. Ivan Barnev is impossibly likeable as the crafty but clueless young Díte, who manages to turn an unlikely profit even during the Nazi occupation of Czechoslovakia. The Aryan stud farm is probably the most far-fetched of many picaresque set-ups, but the Germans are pilloried so mercilessly that even the stiffest salutes and purest eugenics – particularly from the excellent Julia Jentsch (The Edukators, Sophie Scholl) – are only laughable to the merry, indomitable Czechs. Highly recommended.

In Retribution, the latest from Kurosawa Kiyoshi, J-horror is given a detective-story twist (or is it the other way around?). A Jane Doe in a stunning red dress is found facedown in a puddle at a riverside landfill, and when loner Yoshioka Noboru (Yakusho Koji from Babel) is assigned to the case, he is startled to find that the evidence seems to implicate himself. The effect of the recent earthquake on the water table might explain how saltwater ended up in her lungs, but the investigation becomes increasingly tenuous when other victims are bumped off in brine. Kurosawa never flinches from Yoshioka’s desperate spiral into doubt and confusion, wisely ratcheting up the tension with slow psychological traps rather than cutting straight to the freaky fx. The upheaval of mental terrain unfolds with damaging consequences, as inexorable and pitiless as the rapid industrialisation and seismic activity of the Tokyo landscape. Recommended, as long as you don’t mind the usual ghost-story logic.—Joe Sheppard