Sean Gilman

A film critic in Tacoma, Washington. Bylines at The Criterion Collection, the Mubi Notebook, Frame.land, InReview Online, Seattle Screen Scene and more.

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John Woo

Thrice a Thief (Ralph Nelson, 1965 and John Woo, 1991 & 1996)

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Obayashi Nobuhiko

Beijing Watermelon (Obayashi Nobuhiko, 1989)

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King Hu

The Valiant Ones (King Hu, 1975)

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

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

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Wong Jing

Casino Raiders (Wong Jing & Jimmy Heung, 1989)

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Somai Shinji

Sailor Suit and Machine Gun (Somai Shinji, 1981)

Heo Myeong-haeng

The Roundup: Punishment (Heo Myeong-haeng, 2024)

The man with the cinder block fists is back, and this time he’s learning what the internet is. For the last three years, Ma Dong-seok (aka Don Lee) has been making sequels to his hit 2017 film The Outlaws, in which he plays a large cop working his

Liu Jian

Art College 1994 (Liu Jian, 2023)

I wrote about Liu Jian’s Have a Nice Day back when it played the Seattle International Film Festival in 2017. Thanks to SIFF’s arcane embargo policies, I was limited to exactly 75 words. Here they are: The second feature from director Liu Jian is an animated network-noir

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Johnnie To

The Mad Monk (Johnnie To, 1993)

Ward Serrill

Dancing with the Dead: Red Pine and the Art of Translation (Ward Serrill, 2023)

Eliot Weinberger’s seminal study, 19 Ways of Looking at Wang Wei, takes for its subject a single poem and looks at a number (19 plus several more in later editions) of different translations of that poem over the course of the 20th century. The approach allows Weinberger, in only

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Ann Hui

Visible Secret (Ann Hui, 2001)

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Jimmy Wang Yu

Beach of the War Gods (Jimmy Wang Yu, 1973)

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Joseph Kuo

The Mystery of Chess Boxing (Joseph Kuo, 1979)

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Yang Bingjia

Eye for an Eye 2 (Yang Bingjia, 2024)

Xu Haofeng

100 Yards (Xu Haofeng & Xu Junfeng, 2023)

The following is a re-edited and slightly-modified version of the review I wrote for InReview Online's coverage of the Toronto International Film Festival in the fall of 2023. Xu Haofeng makes movies for people who enjoy and understand the finer points of martial arts choreography. His

Patrick Tam

My Heart is That Eternal Rose (Patrick Tam, 1989)

The following is a re-edited and slightly-modified version of the review I wrote for InReview Online's coverage of the Fantasia International Film Festival in the summer of 2023. One or two festivals ago, I can’t remember which—this time of year they all blend together,

Patrick Tam

Nomad (Patrick Tam, 1982)

The following is a re-edited and slightly-modified version of the review I wrote for InReview Online's coverage of the New York Asian Film Festival in the summer of 2023. One of the finest films of the Hong Kong New Wave, Patrick Tam’s Nomad plays at

Strange Tales

2023 Fall Festival Compilation

As I put together in 2022 and again for last Spring, here is a collection of the reviews I wrote for InReview Online's coverage of various film festivals from around the world. For publication here, the reviews have been re-edited and occasionally expanded. Check out the rest

Chris Huo

Chris Huo

Reviews: The Sniper (2021) – January 30, 2025 The Sniper: The King of Snipers (2023) – March 4, 2026 Second Life (2024) – October 15, 2024 The Sixth Robber (2025) – December 24, 2025 List: Chris Huo Movies

Herman Yau

Death Notice (Herman Yau, 2023)

The fourth 2023 Herman Yau film to come across my digital transom (I’m still searching for the fifth film he released last year, Customs Frontline) is the one most like an actual movie. While The White Storm 3 was a depressing rehash of undercover cop movie tropes (before exploding

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Ching Siu-tung

The Heroic Trio and Executioners (Johnnie To & Ching Siu-tung, 1993)

Kimi Takesue

Onlookers (Kimi Takesue, 2023)

Onlookers is an observational documentary by American filmmaker Kimi Takesue. Over a quick 72 minutes in a series of static shots almost entirely lacking in dialogue, she paints a portrait of a small Laotian village, one whose gorgeous riverside landscapes and picturesque monasteries serve to attract tourists from around the

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Obayashi Nobuhiko

The Girl Who Leapt Through Time (Obayashi Nobuhiko, 1983)