Period Wuxia Revival - The Chinese Cinema

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Period Wuxia Revival

A collection of 11 posts

Last Hero in China (Wong Jing, 1993)

Paid-members only

Last Hero in China (Wong Jing, 1993)

The Bare-Footed Kid (Johnnie To, 1993)

Paid-members only

The Bare-Footed Kid (Johnnie To, 1993)

Kung Fu Cult Master (Wong Jing, 1993)

Paid-members only

Kung Fu Cult Master (Wong Jing, 1993)

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 Once Upon a Time in China Series

The Once Upon a Time in China Series

With the fall 2021 release of Criterion’s Once Upon a Time in China boxset, I put all my reviews of the series together here in one convenient place. Once Upon a Time in China (Tsui Hark, 1991) Tsui Hark is the John Ford of Chinese cinema, and Once Upon

The Bride with White Hair (Ronny Yu, 1993)

The Bride with White Hair (Ronny Yu, 1993)

All the same comic book mythology elements as so many other post-Zu: Warriors from the Magic Mountain wuxia films, A Chinese Ghost Story, Swordsman II, and Ashes of Time in particular, but director Ronny Yu slows the pace down, both in plot and editing, which allows more time to take

New Dragon Gate Inn (Raymond Lee, 1992)

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

The Blade (Tsui Hark, 1995)

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

Ashes of Time (Redux) (Wong Kar-wai, 1994)

Ashes of Time (Redux) (Wong Kar-wai, 1994)

As with My Blueberry Nights and 2046, a person trying to escape their own past romantic disappointments becomes witness to the stories of other people, and thus learns to cope with their own issues. Like Chow Mo-wan in In the Mood for Love, Ouyang Feng (Leslie Cheung) has lost the

Swordsman and Swordsman II (Ching Siu-tung, 1990 and 1992)

Swordsman and Swordsman II (Ching Siu-tung, 1990 and 1992)

Swordsman II is a film I’ve known for years, having first encountered it during the Jet Li repertory boom of the late 90s (my theatre used to run HK double features all the time, this is where I first saw it, paired I think with Dr. Wai and the