Kara Hui - The Chinese Cinema

The Chinese Cinema

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Kara Hui

A collection of 7 posts

Blades of the Guardians (Yuen Woo-ping, 2026)

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Blades of the Guardians (Yuen Woo-ping, 2026)

Who Cares (Max Lee Chiu-chun, 1989)

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Max Lee Chiu-chun

Who Cares (Max Lee Chiu-chun, 1989)

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 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 Bold, the Corrupt, and the Beautiful (Yang Ya-che, 2017)

The Bold, the Corrupt, and the Beautiful (Yang Ya-che, 2017)

The winner of this past year’s Golden Horse Awards Best Picture is shockingly bad. Generally considered the top awards body for Chinese language film, The Golden Horse has a sterling reputation, though perhaps that is unearned. Looking back over recent winners reveals more than one questionable decision (2013’s

The Midnight After (Fruit Chan, 2014)

The Midnight After (Fruit Chan, 2014)

The end of the world, maybe. A late-night minibus, packed with commuters traveling from (if my geography is correct) the center of the city to one of its satellite neighborhoods, seems to drive instead into the Twilight Zone: everyone else in Hong Kong seemingly disappears, and then the passengers themselves

Wuxia (Peter Chan, 2011)

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,