Bruce Lee The Way of the Dragon (Bruce Lee, 1972) Much more satisfying than Lee’s previous two films, The Big Boss and Fist of Fury. The plot is still deathly simple: Lee is sent by his uncle to Rome to defend a Chinese restaurant against a gang of thugs trying to force a sale. But Lee, this time serving
It's a Drink, It's a Bomb Lo Wei Capsule Reviews Brothers Five (1970) — December 3, 2010 Cheng Pei-pei (Come Drink With Me, Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon) plays the daughter of a kung fu master who has sworn to reunite the separated children of the title so they can take revenge on the villain who killed their father and whose gang
Stephen Fung Tai Chi Zero and Tai Chi Hero (Stephen Fung, 2012) It hooked me from the prologue, flashing back in time to the birth of the main character (not yet the “hero”) Lu Chen. Told silent-movie style, it rushes through the early stages of his life with a mix of narration and captions and title cards at breakneck pace, which only
Herman Yau Ip Man: The Final Fight (Herman Yau, 2013) If Herman Yau’s first Ip Man film distinguished itself from the other recent movies about the man by focusing intensely on the intricacies of the Wing Chun style, this one does so in the detail historical backdrop it creates for its main character. The opening shot, a long digital
Chang Cheh Ten Tigers of Kwangtung (Chang Cheh, 1980) Well, there’s actually 15, if you count the five descendants of the Ten Tigers. Which could make this a bit confusing, but Chang Cheh gives us some friendly faces and nicely spaced exposition to emphasize that this is actually a very simple story. In the present, a guy and
Chang Cheh The Duel (Chang Cheh, 1971) Every time someone talks about David Chiang in The Duel (aka The Duel of the Iron Fist), they use his full name: Jiang Nan, “The Rambler”. The film’s other star, Ti Lung (paired with Chiang again and again through the early 1970s) finds himself caught up in an overly
Herman Yau The Legend is Born: Ip Man (Herman Yau, 2010) Oh yeah, another movie about Ip Man. This one covers his early years, growing up in a kung fu school, his first romance, years in college, and such. The emphasis, more than in any of the others, is on the specifics of the Wing Chun technique itself, with a whole
Peter Chan Wuxia (Peter Chan, 2011) Known in the US as Dragon, the actual title of Peter Chan’s 2011 film is Wuxia, the name of a genre of both film and literature, a word that is a compound of “wu” (military) and “xia” (chivalry, more or less). Wuxia stories are stories of warrior heroes, knights-errant,
Tsui Hark New Dragon Gate Inn (Raymond Lee, 1992) This was nominally directed by Raymond Lee, a cog in the Film Workshop machine, working as a planner or nominal director for several Tsui Hark and/or Ching Siu-tung projects. Tsui was pumping out movies like a madman in the early 90s, with 18 producer credits between 1990’s Swordsman
Wilson Yip SPL: Sha Po Lang (Wilson Yip, 2005) A rote cop/Triad story somewhat elevated by a serious commitment to operatic melodrama on the part of director Wilson Yip and composer Chan Kwong-wing. Sammo Hung is the gangster, Simon Yam the veteran cop willing to break all the rules to capture him. Donnie Yen is the new guy
Ann Hui Zodiac Killers (Ann Hui, 1991) A somewhat misleading title, as the movie doesn’t have anything to do with a Zodiac, or really even any Killers. Instead this 1991 film is a portrait of Chinese students in Tokyo leading desperately miserable lives. Directed by the great New Wave filmmaker Ann Hui, it was apparently [http:
John Woo Red Cliff (John Woo, 2009) Five years after his last American film, 2003’s Philip K. Dick adaptation Paycheck, and a long, troubled and expensive shoot plagued by last minute casting changes, John Woo finally released the first half of his epic two-part film Red Cliff. It proved to be a critical and commercial success
Tsui Hark The Lovers and Love in the Time of Twilight (Tsui Hark, 1994 and 1995) The Lovers starts as your typical guy-falls-in-love-with-girl-dressed-as-a-guy rom-com, then turns into hallucinatory elemental melodrama. Starring Nicky Wu and Charlie Yeung, Tsui here presents a fairly faithful version of the oft-told legend of The Butterfly Lovers [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Butterfly_Lovers], a story somewhat akin to European legends like
Stephen Chow Journey to the West: Conquering the Demons (Stephen Chow & Derek Kwok, 2013) I see a lot of complaints that this, the latest from Stephen Chow, is “no Kung Fu Hustle (or Shaolin Soccer)” which, yeah sure, it’s a different kind of movie than those. Those were the culmination of 15 years of Chow’s comedy style, which burst on the scene
John Woo Once a Thief (John Woo, 1991) If Cherie Chung hadn’t retired after making this movie, and maybe had gone on to star in some Wong Kar-wai movies, would she be better known today? She was one of the key Hong Kong actresses of the 1980s, beginning with her debut in Johnnie To’s first film,
John Woo Heroes Shed No Tears (John Woo, 1986) Sharing a title and nothing else with Chor Yuen’s 1980 wuxia epic, this was John Woo’s project immediately preceding his breakthrough A Better Tomorrow and only released after that film’s success. It’s easy to see why Woo had initially decided to leave this shelved. It’s
Tsui Hark The Blade (Tsui Hark, 1995) The Hong Kong New Wave burst onto the scene in the late 1970s with a radical new approach to the genres that had dominated the local film industry for the previous decade or so, specifically for our purposes here, the martial arts film. Countering the elaborate costume epics of Shaw
Tsui Hark Seven Swords (Tsui Hark, 2005) Tsui Hark’s next major film after a CGI-driven remake of his own Zu: Warriors from the Magic Mountain in 2001, this is a less effects-driven wuxia epic than a riff on Seven Samurai with a Chang Cheh influence (the Northern Chinese medieval warfare of The Heroic Ones comes to
Tsui Hark Young Detective Dee and the Rise of the Sea Dragon (Tsui Hark, 2013) The anarchist prankster Tsui Hark who burst onto the Hong Kong scene over 30 years ago with Dangerous Encounters—First Kind and We’re Going to Eat You still lurks underneath layers of glossy CGI as the eponymous detective, in order to counteract their poisoned tea, orders all 1,200
Peter Chan Comrades, Almost a Love Story (Peter Chan, 1996) A descendant of Pál Fejős’s 1928 Lonesome, about two people who find love in the urban crowd and then lose it. The crowd here is Hong Kong in 1986 and the people are Maggie Cheung and Leon Lai. Freshly emigrated from Northern China, Lai barely speaks Cantonese or English
Corey Yuen She Shoots Straight (Corey Yuen, 1990) Neither “She Shoots Straight” nor the its alternate title (“Lethal Lady”) capture the film very well. It’s a film about family, specifically the kind of family where everyone is a cop. This family just happens to have a lot of daughters and only one son. Joyce Godenzi stars as
The Odd One Dies The Aces Go Places Series (1982-1989) Aces Go Places (Eric Tsang, 1982) — November 20, 2013 The first of the smash hit action/comedy series that was one of the first big successes of the Cinema City studio that dominated 80s Hong Kong. Pioneering Cantopop star Sam Hui plays a master jewel thief who helps a bumbling
David Chung Royal Warriors (David Chung, 1986) I’m a little unclear on whether or not this 1986 film is In the Line of Duty or In the Line of Duty 2. Wikipedia says it’s the second one, after 1985’s Yes, Madam!. The IMDb says it’s the first one and uses “In the Line
Johnnie To Drug War (Johnnie To, 2012) From the beginning, it explains that this is not your typical heroic bloodshed Triad film, concerned more with codes of honor and brotherhood and the mirroring of good and evil than anything else. No, instead this is going to be a straight police procedural, with no metaphysical mumbo jumbo: “You’
Tsui Hark Working Class (Tsui Hark, 1985) A Cinema City film in all but name, as Tsui Hark directs for his own production company, Film Workshop, this comedy with pop star Sam Hui (of the Hui Brothers and the Aces Go Places series) and rock star Teddy Robin Kwan. Tsui himself rounds out the trio of workers
