Chow Yun-fat - The Chinese Cinema

The Chinese Cinema

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Chow Yun-fat

A collection of 15 posts

Thrice a Thief (Ralph Nelson, 1965 and John Woo, 1991 & 1996)

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Thrice a Thief (Ralph Nelson, 1965 and John Woo, 1991 & 1996)

Treasure Hunt (Jeffrey Lau, 1994)

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Treasure Hunt (Jeffrey Lau, 1994)

Peace Hotel (Wai Ka-fai, 1995)

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Peace Hotel (Wai Ka-fai, 1995)

The Tiger on the Beat Series (Lau Kar-leung, 1988 & 1990)

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The Tiger on the Beat Series (Lau Kar-leung, 1988 & 1990)

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

Cold War 2 (Longman Leung & Sunny Luk, 2016)

Longman Leung and Sunny Luk

Cold War 2 (Longman Leung & Sunny Luk, 2016)

Picking up right where their 2012 hit film, which featured an all-star cast and swept the Hong Kong Film Awards, left off, Longman Leung and Sunny Luk present another suspenseful tale of corruption and double-dealing in the highest echelons of the Hong Kong police department, its two institutional halves at

The Fun, the Luck, and the Tycoon (Johnnie To, 1990)

The Fun, the Luck, and the Tycoon (Johnnie To, 1990)

Following up on the smash hit that was All About Ah-long, Johnnie To went back to television for a two-part film called The Iron Butterfly. I haven’t been able to track it down, but it looks to be a modern cop/Triad thriller, with Anthony Wong and Mark Cheng

All About Ah-Long (Johnnie To, 1989)

All About Ah-Long (Johnnie To, 1989)

After an auspicious, if commercially unsuccessful, debut with the New Wave wuxia The Enigmatic Case in 1980, To spent the early 80s working in Hong Kong television. In 1986 he returned to film working under Raymond Wong Bak-ming at the Cinema City studio, where he made the popular, if not

A Better Tomorrow (John Woo, 1986)

A Better Tomorrow (John Woo, 1986)

After an up and down decade as a director for hire, working alternately in the wuxia and wacky comedy genres, John Woo finally hit it big in 1986 when he teamed up with Tsui Hark and the Cinema City studio to remake Patrick Lung Kong’s 1967 drama The Story

The Eighth Happiness (Johnnie To, 1988)

The Eighth Happiness (Johnnie To, 1988)

Following up on the Cinema City romantic comedy Seven Years Itch, To re-teamed with producer-writer-star (not necessarily in that order) Raymond Wong Bak-Ming for an ensemble film designed for release during the Lunar New Year holiday, a week-long (more or less) celebration that is the highlight of the Hong Kong

A Better Tomorrow III: Love and Death in Saigon (Tsui Hark, 1989)

A Better Tomorrow III: Love and Death in Saigon (Tsui Hark, 1989)

I don’t know all the behind-the-scenes details about this, I’m not sure that anyone aside from Tsui Hark and John Woo really knows for sure, but as I understand it the story is this: following the breakout success of the Woo-directed and Tsui-produced 1986 film A Better Tomorrow,

Once a Thief (John Woo, 1991)

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,

Prison on Fire (Ringo Lam, 1987)

Prison on Fire (Ringo Lam, 1987)

A conventional yet effective prison drama from director Ringo Lam, who appears to have cornered the market on “On Fire” movies with this and City on Fire, also from 1987, along with the next year’s School on Fire. All three were made at the Cinema City studio, where Lam

A Better Tomorrow II (John Woo, 1987)

A Better Tomorrow II (John Woo, 1987)

After its formation in 1980 by actors Dean Shek, Karl Maka, and Raymond Wong, the first film released by Hong Kong studio Cinema City & Films Co. was 1981’s Laughing Times, a comedy starring Shek as “the Chinese Charlie Chaplin” that is a kind of mashup of The Kid

Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon (Ang Lee, 2000)

Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon (Ang Lee, 2000)

I still think this is a pretty great movie, almost 15 years after it proved to be a surprise hit, thanks in no small part to Sony Pictures releasing it uncut in its intended form (ahem, Harvey Weinstein). That it lost Best Picture to Gladiator is one of the underrated