Heroic Bloodshed - The Chinese Cinema

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Heroic Bloodshed

A collection of 11 posts

My Heart is That Eternal Rose (Patrick Tam, 1989)

My Heart is That Eternal Rose (Patrick Tam, 1989)

The following is a re-edited and slightly-modified version of the review I wrote for InReview Online's coverage of the Fantasia International Film Festival in the summer of 2023. One or two festivals ago, I can’t remember which—this time of year they all blend together, I wrote

The Tiger Cage Trilogy (Yuen Woo-ping, 1988-1991)

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The Tiger Cage Trilogy (Yuen Woo-ping, 1988-1991)

Golden Job (Chin Ka-lok, 2018)

Golden Job (Chin Ka-lok, 2018)

In the wake of the 1997 Handover, when Hong Kong turned from a relatively independent British colony to a Special Administrative Region of the People’s Republic of China, the Hong Kong film industry, which had been for most of the previous 30 years or so one of the glories

The Mission (Johnnie To, 1999)

The Mission (Johnnie To, 1999)

After a few rough years at the start of his Milkyway Image studio, producing great movies that never really caught on at the box office, and constantly at odds with his subordinate directors, in 1999 Johnnie To just decided to give up the pretense and begin directing most of his

Mr. Six (Guan Hu, 2015)

Mr. Six (Guan Hu, 2015)

Playing this week at the Pacific Place is Mr. Six, a gangster drama which earned star Feng Xiaogang the Best Actor award at this past Golden Horse Awards (which are held annually in Taiwan and honor Chinese-language film). Feng plays Mr. Six, an aging Beijing street tough, now in his

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 Big Heat (Johnnie To, 1988)

The Big Heat (Johnnie To, 1988)

So here we come to the first film in the genre that Johnnie To would become best known for: the urban crime thriller. Released a mere seven months after his first big hit, The Eighth Happiness, The Big Heat finds To working with Tsui Hark for the first and only

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,

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

My Heart is that Eternal Rose (Patrick Tam, 1989)

My Heart is that Eternal Rose (Patrick Tam, 1989)

A Triad love story movie that stars Kenny Bee, Joey Wong, Tony Leung, Gordon Liu, and Ng Man-tat. Directed by Patrick Tam and (partially) shot by Christopher Doyle and produced by John Sham (one of Sammo Hung's Lucky Stars). If only one of Chang Cheh’s stars like

Infernal Affairs (Andrew Lau & Alan Mak, 2002)

Infernal Affairs (Andrew Lau & Alan Mak, 2002)

In the midst of a lengthy binge on Johnnie To movies, preparing for a They Shot Pictures episode we hope to record this weekend, I’ve tried to fit in a few other Hong Kong films that I thought might have influenced or been influenced by To’s work. I