Strange Tales 2024 Festival Compilation As I've done for the last couple of years, here is a collection of the reviews I wrote this year for InReview Online's coverage of various film festivals from around the world (Rotterdam, Cannes, the New York Asian Film Festival, Venice, Toronto, and the New York
Ryoo Seungwan Veteran 2: I, the Executioner (Ryoo Seungwan, 2024) I couple days ago, I wrote about the upcoming film The Shadow Strays and introduced it by hyping up all the incredible action movies we’ve seen coming from around the world over the last several years. It was by no means meant to be an exhaustive list, but in
Mark Lee Ping-bing Let the Wind Carry Me (Chiang Hsiu-Chiung & Kwan Pun-Leung, 2009) New York City has once again been blessed with a killer film series at the Metrograph. “Daring Motion” is dedicated to the cinematographer Mark Lee Ping-bing, best known for his collaborations with Hou Hsiao-hsien, but who has also worked with Wong Kar-wai, Tran Anh Hung, Kore-eda Hirokazu, Jiang Wen, and
Soi Cheang Twilight of the Warriors: Walled In (Soi Cheang, 2024) Even though it sounds like one of those straight-to-iQiyi action movies, Twilight of the Warriors: Walled In is in fact one of the most highly anticipated Hong Kong films in years. As a star-studded period piece, it might have fallen in to the trap of so many recent films in
Devils on the Doorstep Japan Cuts 2024 - Part 3 It’s taken me a bit longer than I’d hoped to roll out this third and final installment of my Japan Cuts coverage. Mostly because I was enjoying watching the Olympics so much this past weekend. But in a wild coincidence, both of the movies I’m reviewing here
Devils on the Doorstep Japan Cuts 2024 - Part Two The 2024 Japan Cuts may have already concluded, but I’m still catching up with some of the films that played there. I hope to have another of these dispatches by the end of the week, to cover Somai Shinji’s Moving and Ishii Gakuryū’s August in the Water.
Devils on the Doorstep Japan Cuts 2024 - Part One If you’re a subscriber to The Chinese Cinema, you know that the posts have been sparse over the last month or so. That will happen occasionally, as I get commissions that require some weeks of research and writing to put together, and I hope you all will continue to
Anno Hideaki Shin Godzilla: Orthochromatic (Anno Hideaki & Higuchi Shinji, 2016) It’s hard to believe it’s been eight years since Shin Godzilla. I guess a lot of things have happened in the world since 2016, but it doesn’t really seem all that long ago. Anno Hideaki and Higuchi Shinji have since proceeded to reinvent the sci-fi films of
Devils on the Doorstep Sōmai Shinji Reviews: Sailor Suit and Machine Gun (1981) – May 7, 2024 Moving (1993) – July 30, 2024 Capsule Reviews: Typhoon Club (1985) – June 6, 2024
Guan Hu Guan Hu Reviews: Mr. Six (2015) – January 4, 2016 The Eight Hundred (2020) – April 21, 2022 Black Dog (2024) – May 24, 2024
Somai Shinji Sōmai Shinji Capsule Reviews Typhoon Club (1985) – June 6, 2024 Sōmai's A Brighter Summer Day? Maybe, maybe not. Yang seems more interested in exploring the ways the world has failed his kids. Somai more in expressing the varieties of malformation in the junior high school mind. Someday, a real rain will come.
Ann Hui July Rhapsody (Ann Hui, 2002) The Cantonese title for Ann Hui’s July Rhapsody translates roughly as “A Man at 40”, the English title apparently being a riff on the May-December concept, although specifically focusing on only one person in the age gap relationship, the man halfway through his life. The movie itself is more
Ding Sheng Nothing Can't Be Undone by a Hotpot (Ding Sheng, 2024) Ding Sheng’s latest film, his first since A Better Tomorrow 2018, his lamentable update of the John Woo classic, is the second Mainland Chinese caper/heist film with the word “hotpot” in the title that was distributed in North America by China Lion Films that I’ve seen. Chongqing
Zhang Lü Zhang Lü Capsule Reviews Gyongju (2014) – March 13, 2014 A post-Hong film, but more vibes-based and death-haunted than anything Hong had done up to that point ten years ago when it was made. Reminded me as much of Kiohara Yui's Remembering Every Night, released last year, as it did Hong. Zhang Lü
