Sean Gilman - The Chinese Cinema (Page 10)

The Chinese Cinema

Sign in Subscribe

Sean Gilman

A film critic in Tacoma, Washington. Bylines at The Criterion Collection, the Mubi Notebook, Frame.land, InReview Online, Seattle Screen Scene and more.

A Better Tomorrow

Philip Yung

Reviews: Where the Wind Blows (2022) – November 16, 2023 Capsule Reviews: Port of Call (2015) – September 30, 2015 Podcast: The George Sanders Show Episode 70: VIFF Report #1 – September 28, 2015

Frankie Chan Capsule Reviews

Frankie Chan Capsule Reviews

The Prodigal Son (Sammo Hung, 1981) — June 26, 2013 Lam Ching-ying is one of the great supporting actors of kung fu cinema, and this is a great showcase for both his acting and fighting. He plays an opera actor (specializing in female roles, as Lam himself did when he was

Good Men, Good Women

Frankie Chan

Reviews: Burning Ambition [https://www.thechinesecinema.com/burning-ambition-frankie-chan-1989/] (Frankie Chan, 1989) – January 25, 2022 Capsule Reviews [https://www.thechinesecinema.com/frankie-chan-capsule-reviews/] : The Prodigal Son (Sammo Hung, 1981)— June 26, 2013 Carry On, Pickpocket (Sammo Hung, 1982)— July 27, 2017 Outlaw Brothers (Frankie Chan, 1990) – January 25, 2022

Burning Ambition (Frankie Chan, 1989)

Burning Ambition (Frankie Chan, 1989)

This is the first Frankie Chan-directed film I’ve seen, after knowing him only from his supporting roles in Sammo Hung’s The Prodigal Son and Carry On Pickpocket and for his work as a composer for dozens of classic martial arts films (The 36th Chamber of Shaolin, The Five

The Legend of Fong Sai-yuk II (Corey Yuen, 1993)

The Legend of Fong Sai-yuk II (Corey Yuen, 1993)

The second part of the story, released four months after the first, brings back most of the cast and shifts the setting from Canton to the headquarters of the Red Flower Society. Jet Li’s Fong is apprenticed to the leader of the group, whose ostensible aim is the restoration

The Legend of Fong Sai-Yuk (Corey Yuen, 1993)

The Legend of Fong Sai-Yuk (Corey Yuen, 1993)

The Inspector Wears Skirts Series (Wellson Chin, 1988–1992)

The Inspector Wears Skirts Series (Wellson Chin, 1988–1992)

The Inspector Wears Skirts (1988) A Girls with Guns riff on the Police Academy series, with Sibelle Hu and Cynthia Rothrock training a group of Female Commandos led by Kara Hui and Sandra Ng. The training sequences are rote, with important lessons learned about teamwork and community. Most of the

The Seventh Curse (Lam Nai-choi, 1986)

The Seventh Curse (Lam Nai-choi, 1986)

Maybe the most 1980s Hong Kong movie ever made. Part of the “Don’t Go To Thailand” [https://mubi.com/notebook/posts/don-t-journey-to-the-west-shaw-brothers-horror-at-the-metrograph] horror tradition, wherein an urbane Hong Konger travels to the jungle, does something stupid, and ends up with a horrible magic curse that manifests itself in increasingly

Project S (Stanley Tong, 1993)

Project S (Stanley Tong, 1993)

This sequel to Police Story 3: Supercop, also known as, appropriately enough, Supercop 2, focuses on Michelle Yeoh’s character from that film, with the same director (Stanley Tong) and Jackie Chan reprising his role in a single scene (in which he foils Eric Tsang’s jewel robbery attempt while

Chen Yu-hsun

Reviews: The Village of No Return (2017) — July 3, 2017 My Missing Valentine (2020) — August 23, 2021 Capsule Review: 10+10 (2011) — October 1, 2012

Devils on the Doorstep

Ohku Akiko

Reviews: My Sweet Grappa Remedies (2019) – March 10, 2022 She Taught Me Serendipity (2024) – July 18, 2025 Capsule Reviews: Tremble All You Want (2017) — July 19, 2018 Hold Me Back (2020) — August 2, 2021 List: Ohku Akiko Movies

Hamaguchi Ryūsuke Capsule Reviews

Hamguchi Ryûsuke

Hamaguchi Ryūsuke Capsule Reviews

Happy Hour (2015) — March 12, 2017 Would have been better to be able to see it all at once, in a theatre, but as it was, on my TV and spread out over five days, it’s pretty remarkable. All the performances are great, but I’ll go with Kikuchi

Tsui Siu-ming Capsule Reviews

Good Men, Good Women

Tsui Siu-ming Capsule Reviews

Mirage (1987) — March 22, 2021 The cinema is sending a few dozen stuntmen, a couple hundred extras, a few old trucks, a bunch of horses, and way too many explosives to the desert to fuck around and find out what happens. “Why not let the pictures show the difference between

Ricky Lau Capsule Reviews

Good Men, Good Women

Ricky Lau Capsule Reviews

Mr. Vampire (1985) — July 15, 2013 Fun. Added January 15, 2022: The first time I watched this, I remember thinking there wasn’t nearly enough Lam Ching-ying in it, that he was sidelined for a bunch of mediocre Ricky Hui hijinks. And I didn’t remember Moon Lee at all.

Ohku Akiko Capsule Reviews

Ohku Akiko Capsule Reviews

Tremble All You Want (2017) — July 19, 2018 Tremble All You Want features yet another unrequited school crush[1], this one seen in flashback as 24 year old Yoshika is still obsessed with a boy she had a couple of fleeting interactions with a decade before. Now working as an

Hamaguchi Ryūsuke

Devils on the Doorstep

Hamaguchi Ryūsuke

Reviews [https://www.thechinesecinema.com/tag/hamguchi-ryusuke/]: Wheel of Fortune and Fantasy [https://www.thechinesecinema.com/wheel-of-fortune-and-fantasy-hamaguchi-ryusuke-2021/] (2021) — November 2, 2021 Capsule Reviews [https://www.thechinesecinema.com/hamaguchi-ryusuke-capsule-reviews/]: Happy Hour (2015)— March 12, 2017 Asako I & II (2018) — October 3, 2018 Drive My Car (2021) — November 2, 2021 List:

Joseph Kuo Capsule Reviews

Joseph Kuo Capsule Reviews

Shaolin Kung Fu (1974) — January 12, 2022 Has almost nothing to do with Shaolin and really not much kung fu either, at least of the philosophical variety you’d find in more reputable films. Instead it has a whole lot of fighting: quick and brutal, if not especially gory. The

Return of the 18 Bronzemen (Joseph Kuo, 1976)

Return of the 18 Bronzemen (Joseph Kuo, 1976)

Probably the most confounding entry in the excellent Joseph Kuo boxset from Eureka. Not so much because of the film, which is certainly unusual, but because it is so obviously merely the first part of a multi-film story (despite its title it is not in fact a sequel to The

Joseph Kuo

Reviews: The Swordsman of All Swordsmen (1968) – May 20, 2023 The Shaolin Kids (1975) — January 13, 2022 The 18 Bronzemen (1976) — January 13, 2022 Return of the 18 Bronzemen (1976) — January 14, 2022 7 Grandmasters (1977) — January 6, 2022 The 36 Deadly Styles (1979) — January 7, 2022 The Mystery of

The 18 Bronzemen (Joseph Kuo, 1976)

The 18 Bronzemen (Joseph Kuo, 1976)

Finally an honest-to-God Shaolin film from Joseph Kuo, and of course it’s not one that has the word “Shaolin” in the title. Focusing on the Temple’s site as a center of pro-Ming resistance to the nascent Qing Dynasty, it otherwise follows a typical Kuo revenge plot: like in

The Shaolin Kids (Joseph Kuo, 1975)

The Shaolin Kids (Joseph Kuo, 1975)

Like Joseph Kuo's Shaolin Kung Fu, this has very little to do with the mythology around the Shaolin Temple, nor does it feature any kids, at least of the non-grown up variety. Nor is it a kung fu film in the vein of the Shaolin cycle Chang Cheh

The World of the Drunken Master (Joseph Kuo, 1979)

The World of the Drunken Master (Joseph Kuo, 1979)

Solid bit of Yuen-sploitation from Joseph Kuo, a prequel that dares to answer the question nobody anywhere ever asked: why does Beggar So, the Drunken Master, drink so much? Yuen kids Yat-chor and Cheung-yan handle the choreography, while patriarch Yuen Siu-tien appears very briefly in the opening moments, performing on

The 36 Deadly Styles (Joseph Kuo, 1979)

The 36 Deadly Styles (Joseph Kuo, 1979)

There was a weird cutaway scene early in Joseph Kuo’s 7 Grandmasters that struck me as a mistake, a bit of the story thrown into the middle of another storyline, the context and meaning of which wouldn’t become clear until much later in the film. It was jarring

7 Grandmasters (Joseph Kuo, 1977)

7 Grandmasters (Joseph Kuo, 1977)

With the start of the new year I’m finally digging into Eureka’s Joseph Kuo boxset. The only other Kuo film I’ve seen thus far is a dubbed version of The Mystery of Chess Boxing. Right away here the limitations of Kuo’s independent production in Taiwan, as

Schemes in Antiques (Derek Kwok, 2021)

Schemes in Antiques (Derek Kwok, 2021)

The latest film from director Derek Kwok does exactly what it says in the title: there are antiques and a lot of schemes surrounding them. An mystery adventure film that has some of the same energy as the Detective Chinatown series, Schemes in Antiques has been out for a few