Stephen Fung The Adventurers (Stephen Fung, 2017) Almost thirty years after A Moment of Romance, Andy Lau still looks impossibly cool riding a motorcycle. He does it here as the lead of a small gang of jewel thieves in Stephen Fung’s heist movie, his first film since the lunatic double punch of 2012’s Tai Chi
Tsui Hark Once Upon a Time in Hong Kong: The Cinema of Tsui Hark Tsui Hark has been the central figure in Hong Kong and Chinese language cinema for the past 40 years, responsible for at least a dozen different masterpieces as director and/or producer. He’s often likened to Steven Spielberg, though more for the universal popularity of his films and their
Wu Jing Wolf Warrior 2 (Wu Jing, 2017) Somewhat surprisingly, Wu Jing’s Wolf Warrior 2 is smashing box office records across China, on pace to overtake last year’s The Mermaid as the number one Chinese film of all-time. Wu is probably the greatest Chinese martial arts star of his generation, best known here in the US
Benny Chan Meow (Benny Chan, 2017) From Mao to Meow: Revolution in Contemporary Chinese Cinema Pop will eat itself. “A cat is never on the side of power.” — Chris Marker Last summer veteran Hong Kong director Benny Chan brought us the year’s best martial arts film with the High Noon variation Call of Heroes. This
Karl Maka Karl Maka Capsule Reviews Dirty Tiger, Crazy Frog (Karl Maka, 1978) — July 21, 2017 The first of only two movies released by Gar Bo Films, the production company started by Sammo Hung and Lau Kar-wing. The company collapsed when several of its key collaborators left to form Cinema City and dominate 1980s Hong Kong
Ann Hui Our Time Will Come (Ann Hui, 2017) The most anticipated, and almost assuredly the best, World War II film of the summer, by one of the greatest filmmakers of the past forty years, opens here tomorrow exclusively at the Pacific Place: director Ann Hui’s Our Time Will Come . Based on true events in the resistance against
Chen Yu-hsun The Village of No Return (Chen Yu-hsun, 2017) Settling down for Village of No Return, I was expecting another mediocre Chinese genre film, an effects-driven action comedy along the lines of Vampire Cleanup Department or Mojin: The Lost Legend, amiable thanks to a star turn from Shu Qi and a supporting role by Eric Tsang, but ultimately weightless.
Chan Chi-fat Weeds on Fire (Chan Chi-fat, 2016) One of the three new films playing at SIFF this weekend as part of their miniseries commemorating the 20th anniversary of the Handover of Hong Kong from Britain to China, along with Mad World and Cook Up a Storm, Weeds on Fire was one of the surprise hits of 2016
Wong Chun Mad World (Wong Chun, 2016) For more than a hundred years, all over the world, what is taken to be serious cinema has been defined more often than not by content. Films for grown-ups are supposed to be sober examinations of the social and political issues of the day. These are the movies that win
Hong Sangsoo Between Work: A Conversation on Claire’s Camera and The Day After Evan Morgan: The sun’s out, palm trees are in sight, and we’ve temporarily traded in soju for sancerre. Hong Sang-soo is en vacance again. I don’t know about you Sean, but I’m always happy to see Hong in the literally and figuratively breezy mode that he
Michael Hui The Contract (Michael Hui, 1978) I guess the BBC asked a bunch of people for their top ten comedy lists. They didn’t ask me, but as I’m completely incapable of resisting the siren call of list-making, I made one anyway and put this film in at the bottom, ahead of favorites like Trouble
Raymond Yip Cook Up a Storm (Raymond Yip, 2017) One of only two Hong Kong films to be playing at SIFF this year is this cooking movie from star Nicholas Tse and director Raymond Yip. It’s a Lunar New Year film, opening a week after the holiday both at home and abroad, to avoid box office competition from
Pang Ho-cheung Love Off the Cuff (Pang Ho-cheung, 2017) Love Off the Cuff starts with a horror movie, a tale set in the recent past about a village terrorized by a monster that eats children. As creepy as it is ridiculous, it functions as a none-too-subtle allegory for the crisis at the heart of the relationship between Cherie (Miriam
Derek Hui This Is Not What I Expected (Derek Hui, 2017) One of two romantic comedies that tried and failed to unseat the powerhouse Fast & the Furious 8 at the Chinese box office this past May Day weekend, This Is Not What I Expected opens here on Friday, a week after its counterpart Love Off the Cuff. It’s a
Zhang Yimou Hero (Zhang Yimou, 2002) There’s a little making-of featurette on the Miramax DVD of Hero[1] that has some decent interviews with the cast and crew along with some breathless Hollywood narration. Maggie Cheung, Tony Leung, and Donnie Yen speak impeccable English, which makes one wonder what might have been if Hollywood wasn’
Hong Sangsoo Yourself and Yours (Hong Sangsoo, 2016) Yourself and Yours isn’t the latest film from South Korean director Hong Sangsoo, that would be On the Beach at Night Alone, which premiered a few weeks ago at the Berlin Film Festival (where it picked up a Best Actress award). But, Yourself and Yours may still get a
Introduction The Chinese Cinema Four years ago, in the spring of 2013, I caught a particularly vicious strain of cinephilia. I’d been a guest on the They Shot Pictures podcast a couple of times, talking about Josef von Sternberg, Yasujiro Ozu and Mikio Naruse, and we decided to sneak in an episode on
Strange Tales 150 of the Best Chinese-Language Films of All-Time I’ve been doing some cataloguing lately, trying to organize my books and movies and make some kind of plan for how I’m going to attack the Chinese Cinema over the next year or so. Three and a half years ago, I started a chronological Johnnie To project [https:
Ding Sheng Railroad Tigers (Ding Sheng, 2016) January is the greatest movie month there is. Not only are we in the lesser metropolises of America finally granted access to tardiest of the previous year’s award hopefuls (see this week’s Silence), but via studio counter-programming logic, we also get Hollywood’s most interesting action films. The
Cheng Er The Wasted Times (Cheng Er, 2016) The Wasted Times was originally slated to be released in October of 2015. The film’s trailer [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qH1HTm51lts] has been playing before presentations of Chinese-language films here in North America for at least that long, but the film kept getting pushed back. There was
Derek Yee Sword Master (Derek Yee, 2016) In 1977, at the age of twenty and appearing in only his third film, Derek Yee got the starring role in Death Duel, a film by prolific Shaw Brothers director Chor Yuen. After helping spark a revitalization of Cantonese language cinema with his hit ensemble comedy The House of 72
Johnny Ma Old Stone (Johnny Ma, 2016) A year or two ago, reports began circulating that chronicled a disturbing phenomenon in contemporary China. The nature of the insurance industry there was mangled such that people involved in car accidents where another person was injured had been incentivized to kill the accident victim, because if they lived the
Feng Xiaogang I Am Not Madame Bovary (Feng Xiaogang, 2016) A comedy of bureaucracy like many a film of the Romanian New Wave, but rather than the drab and bleak institutional ironies of the Eastern Bloc, Feng Xiaogang’s satire is bright and sprightly, bouncing along its tunnel visions for two and a half hours of contradiction made irresolvable by
Chan Tze-woon Yellowing (Chan Tze-woon, 2016) As a documentary about the 2014 Umbrella Movement, in which thousands of young Hong Kongers gathered to Occupy districts throughout the city in protest of the PRC’s decision to not allow the former colony to directly choose its candidates for high office, Yellowing is something remarkable in our time:
Yang Chao Crosscurrent (Yang Chao, 2016) Poetry is the subject of the moment for 2016. Like Volcanos and Asteroids and Mars before it, we’ve been blessed this year with a plethora of films about writers of verse. Jim Jarmusch’s Paterson, Terence Davies’s A Quiet Passion, and Pablo Larraín’s Neruda have all the
