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The Other Tony Leung

A collection of 11 posts

Midnight Diner (Tony Leung Ka-fai, 2019)

The Other Tony Leung

Midnight Diner (Tony Leung Ka-fai, 2019)

I am, as I suspect many people are, afflicted with an unquenchable fondness for movies about food. Close-ups of meat sizzling, the sound of tea being poured into a china cup, the crispy crunch of vegetables being chopped, it all triggers some kind of ASMR-like pleasure center deep in the

Chasing the Dragon II: Wild Wild Bunch (Wong Jing & Jason Kwan, 2019)

Chasing the Dragon II: Wild Wild Bunch (Wong Jing & Jason Kwan, 2019)

Don’t let the title fool you: in fine Hong Kong tradition Chasing the Dragon II has no relation whatsoever to Chasing the Dragon, a 1970s-set crime epic starring Donnie Yen and Andy Lau that came out a couple of years ago. The only thing the two movies have in

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

Cold War (Longman Leung & Sunny Luk, 2012)

Longman Leung and Sunny Luk

Cold War (Longman Leung & Sunny Luk, 2012)

In a slick chrome and black Hong Kong, two halves of the police force war with each other over methods and tactics. One one side: the operations department – active, aggressive, channeling the “we break the law to enforce the law” ethos celebrated in HK films since at least the mid

The Taking of Tiger Mountain (Tsui Hark, 2014)

The Taking of Tiger Mountain (Tsui Hark, 2014)

Tsui Hark’s latest film, The Taking of Tiger Mountain, like his previous two films shot in 3D, is the latest in a string of works linking traditional genres to contemporary digital technology, recasting gong’an crime fiction and King Hu-era wuxia in the language of modern CGI-spectacle with his

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,

He Ain’t Heavy, He’s My Father (Peter Chan, 1993)

He Ain’t Heavy, He’s My Father (Peter Chan, 1993)

Peter Chan Ho-sun’s 1993 comedy is a variation on Back to the Future, with Tony Leung (Chiu-wai) sent back 30 years to see what his father, Tony Leung (Ka-fai), was like when he was young, though it presents a very different take on the past and our relation to

Tai Chi Zero and Tai Chi Hero (Stephen Fung, 2012)

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

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

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

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