Chor Yuen Heaven Sword and Dragon Sabre, Parts I & II (Chor Yuen, 1978) It took me way too long to realize this was an adaptation of the same material as Kung Fu Cult Master (aka Lord of the Wu Tang), a crazy Jet Li wuxia film from 1993 directed by Wong Jing, one that I’ve seen three or four times. The problem
Chang Cheh Five Shaolin Masters and Shaolin Temple (Chang Cheh, 1974 and 1976) Five Shaolin Masters circles back and starts at the beginning of another 1974 Chang Cheh film, Heroes Two, with the destruction of the Shaolin Temple, but then goes off in the other direction. A narrator helpfully informs us that the Chen Kuan-tai character in that film went south and met
Chor Yuen The Sentimental Swordsman (Chor Yuen, 1977) An exceptionally well-written wuxia film, one in which the characters are motivated by psychology rather than fulfilling roles as mere mythological character types, where the tsunami of exposition that swamps so many other films in the genre is distilled into action with the expeditious use of a MacGuffin (a mysterious
Pan Anzi For a Few Bullets (Pan Anzi, 2016) Opening yesterday here in Seattle after debuting a week ago in China, For a Few Bullets is a goofy adventure film, a mishmash of references as haphazardly assembled as its not-quite-Leone title. Set in 1940, it’s a treasure hunt chase movie, with a con man enlisted by a Chinese
Chang Cheh Heroes Two (Chang Cheh, 1974) Chang Cheh’s take on the Fong Sai-yuk character has Alexander Fu Sheng playing him as a good-hearted but dim-witted boob who is quite easily gulled into capturing one of the few survivors of the destruction of the Shaolin Temple, Chen Kuan-tai’s Hung Hsi-kuan, and handing him over to
King Hu Dragon Gate Inn (King Hu, 1967) I keep saying The 36th Chamber of Shaolin is the Stagecoach of martial arts movies, but that’s wrong, this is. Or rather, they both are, but they represent two perfect forms of distinct subgenres of the martial arts film. 36th Chamber is the kung fu training film, where the
Chor Yuen Heroes Shed No Tears (Chor Yuen, 1980) I’ve only seen a few Chor Yuen films, so I don’t know how much this is a signature of his, but with this movie he seems to be exploring what would have happened had Josef von Sternberg made a wuxia film. Or at least Von Sternberg’s set
Lau Kar-leung The Spiritual Boxer (Lau Kar-leung, 1975) The most interesting thing about this, Lau Kar-leung’s first film as a director after a distinguished career as action choreographer and stunt man, is the prologue, which takes a sidelong glance at the Boxer Rebellion, in which groups of disaffected Chinese men, apparently convinced that through rigorous kung fu
Chang Cheh The One-Armed Swordsman (Chang Cheh, 1967) Probably not the first superhero origin story movie, or even the first great one, but it’s the earliest one I can think of and it remains one of the best in that now ubiquitous genre. After a bloody prologue, in which a man is killed protecting his master from
King Hu Come Drink With Me (King Hu, 1966) There’s the ending, and then the ending after the ending. And then there’s the ending after the ending that undermines the other two endings by trying to play the moral of the film both ways by espousing the rejection of bloody vengeance, but giving the audience the violent
Chor Yuen Intimate Confessions of a Chinese Courtesan (Chor Yuen, 1972) As angry and passionate an attack on institutional prostitution as anything you’ll see from Mizoguchi or anywhere else, director Chor Yuen uses all the opulent romanticism of the Shaw Brothers style at its peak to expose the twisted black heart of the brothels that casually make up the background
Lau Kar-leung Dirty Ho (Lau Kar-leung, 1979) A twist on the master-student narrative, where the student, a petty thief and scoundrel (‘Dirty’ Ho Jen, played by Wang Yue) has to be tricked into following the master (Gordon Liu), who himself turns out to be a Manchurian prince. The Manchus are almost always the villains in these stories,
Angela Mao Hapkido (Huang Feng, 1972) An early supporting role for Sammo Hung as he and Angela Mao (the film’s alternate title is the somewhat awesome Lady Kung Fu) travel from Japanese-occupied Korea to China in 1934 to establish a martial arts school, teaching the newly invented style of “Hap Ki Do” which looks like
Luo Li Emperor Visits the Hell (Luo Li, 2012) The Dragons & Tigers Award for Young Cinema at the Vancouver International Film Festival has an illustrious history. Handed out every year since 1994, previous winners include such now-vitally important filmmakers as Hong Sangsoo, Jia Zhangke, Hirokazu Kore-eda, Liu Jiayin, Lee Changdong, and Wisit Sasanatieng. Winning the award this year,
Sammo Hung The Iron-Fisted Monk (Sammo Hung, 1977) Sammo Hung’s debut film as a director, while heavily steeped in the 1970s Shaw Brothers style, already shows evidence of his distinct personality as a filmmaker. Based, like so many kung fu films, on a bit of folklore involving the struggle of the Southern Chinese to resist their new
Sammo Hung Pedicab Driver (Sammo Hung, 1989) This 1989 film once again finds Sammo Hung mixing tones in a highly unusual way, as what appears to be a light-hearted farce about human taxis turns into a very dark indeed exploration of human trafficking and prostitution in the lower class Macao underworld. Sammo plays the garrulous leader of
Sammo Hung Winners & Sinners (Sammo Hung, 1983) More a straight comedy than any of the other Sammo Hung films I’ve seen, though it does contain some interesting stunts. An amiable hangout movie, with Sammo and his buddies just playing around with goofy jokes and the barest necessities of a plot. Sammo and his four ex-con friends
Sammo Hung Encounters of the Spooky Kind (Sammo Hung, 1980) Sammo Hung plays a regular guy whose reputation as The Boldest Man in Town makes him susceptible to all kinds of dares, leading him to an escalating series of encounters with the dead in this smash hit, one of the first major films to combine kung fu, horror, and comedy.
Tsui Hark The Butterfly Murders (Tsui Hark, 1979) Tsui Hark’s audacious debut film is a horror mystery about killer butterflies that has more in common with Roger Corman or Dario Argento than the Shaw Brothers. It begins with a lengthy narration, describing how the world came to an end in two battles where most of the martial
Sammo Hung Warriors Two (Sammo Hung, 1978) One of Sammo Hung’s first films as a director, this period kung fu film is very much in the Shaw Brothers mold. It most resembles Lau Kar-leung’s masterpiece The 36th Chamber of Shaolin, also released in 1978, both in its plot and its middle section, an extended series
Tsui Hark Zu Warriors (Tsui Hark, 2001) Last night I was flipping around Hulu and found two movies with similar titles. One is labeled Zu: Warriors from the Magic Mountain, which is the title of Tsui Hark’s 1983 fantasy epic, and the other is called Zu Warriors: The Legend of Zu which is Tsui’s 2001
Sammo Hung Eastern Condors (Sammo Hung, 1987) It occurs to me that I’d never actually seen Sammo Hung in a starring role before. I’d seen him as a supporting actor and bit player, and as a director and fight choreographer, but never as the lead. At least not since his late-90s TV series with Arsenio
Hong Sangsoo Oki’s Movie (Hong Sangsoo, 2010) This remains my favorite of Hong Songsoo’s movies, most of which are marked by an unusual structure, in which elements, situations, and/or characters from the first part recur later in the film, in ways that deepen, comment upon or subvert what has gone before. Oki’s Movie is
Andrew Lau Infernal Affairs (Andrew Lau & Alan Mak, 2002) In the midst of a lengthy binge on Johnnie To movies, preparing for a They Shot Pictures episode we hope to record this weekend, I’ve tried to fit in a few other Hong Kong films that I thought might have influenced or been influenced by To’s work. I
Johnnie To The Johnnie To Whimsicality Index All 41 of the films by Johnnie To and/or Wai Ka-fai that I’ve seen, by Whimsicality Score over time. Whimsicality Score is how whimsical I think the film is on a scale of 0–100. The recent film with the lowest Whimsicality Score I can think of right
