The Chinese Cinema (Page 12)

The Chinese Cinema

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Good Men, Good Women

Chen Sicheng

Reviews: Detective Chinatown 2 [https://mubi.com/notebook/posts/contemporary-chinese-cinema-lunar-new-year] (2018) — February 28, 2018 Detective Chinatown 3 [https://www.thechinesecinema.com/detective-chinatown-3-chen-sicheng-2021/] (2021) – May 12, 2022 Capsule Reviews: Detective Chinatown [https://www.thechinesecinema.com/good-men-good-women-capsule-reviews/] (2015) — February 13, 2018

Once Upon a Time in China Capsule Reviews

Unknown Pleasures

Once Upon a Time in China Capsule Reviews

Bu Wancang: Dream of the Red Chamber (1944) — July 29, 2014 Very different from the musical version Li Han-hsiang made in 1977 with Brigitte Lin and Sylvia Chang. Directed by Bu Wancang, a mainstay of the Shanghai film industry, sometime between 1943 and 1945 (I’ve seen multiple dates for

Winners & Sinners

Bruce Lee

Bruce Lee: The Man, the Legend, the Arrow Films 4K Box Set – October 19, 2023 Reviews: The Big Boss (Lo Wei, 1971) – October 19, 2023 Way of the Dragon (Bruce Lee, 1972) — May 2, 2014 Game of Death (Robert Clouse, 1978) — July 14, 2020 Tower of Death (Ng See-yuen, 1981)

Jackie Chan Capsule Reviews

Jackie Chan Capsule Reviews

Drunken Master (Yuen Woo-ping, 1978) — June 13, 2013 Much better subtitled than dubbed (obviously). Even still, the subs translate Jackie Chan’s character’s name as “Freddy Wong,” which kind of obscures one of the most interesting things about the film: that it’s a total subversion of the Wong

The Untold Stories Capsule Reviews

Unknown Pleasures

The Untold Stories Capsule Reviews

Tony Au: Dream Lovers (1986) — March 12, 2017 Chow Yun-fat plays a conductor who, just as he moves into a new place with his longtime girlfriend, Cher Yeung, begins having weird dreams of himself as a Qin Dynasty terracotta figure. At the same time, Brigitte Lin begins having visions of

I Wish I Knew Capsule Reviews

Unknown Pleasures

I Wish I Knew Capsule Reviews

Wang Xiaoshuai: Chinese Portrait (2018) — June 12, 2019 The highest profile director in the 2019 Austin Asian American Film Festival⁠ is probably Wang Xiaoshuai, a key figure of the Sixth Generation of Chinese filmmakers, but nonetheless one whom I only know from his cameo in Jia Zhangke’s The World.

Stray Dogs Capsule Reviews

Unknown Pleasures

Stray Dogs Capsule Reviews

Kevin Chu Yen-ping: Fantasy Mission Force (1983) – July 6, 2024 “How beautiful you are, when you kill.” Honestly an incredible double feature with Rambo. Hsiao Chu-chen: Our Time, Our Story (2002) — August 17, 2020 An excellent doc about the New Taiwan Cinema, told by the people (filmmakers and critics) who

A Better Tomorrow Capsule Reviews

A Better Tomorrow

A Better Tomorrow Capsule Reviews

Sunny Chan: Men on the Dragon (2018) — July 7, 2018 Four middle-aged men work at a Hong Kong telecommunications company. In order to woo a potential client, the company signs them all up for a dragon boat race (basically an 18-man crew competition). As the company is laying off workers

Winners & Sinners

Jackie Chan

Reviews: Winners & Sinners (Sammo Hung, 1983) — June 4, 2013 Project A (Jackie Chan, 1983) — August 2, 2015 Heart of Dragon (Sammo Hung, 1985) – June 8, 2023 Police Story (Jackie Chan, 1985) — March 8, 2018 Project A 2 (Jackie Chan, 1987) — August 11, 2015 Dragons Forever (Sammo Hung, 1988) – April

Xin Yukun

Reviews: Wrath of Silence [https://mubi.com/notebook/posts/contemporary-chinese-cinema-seattle-s-china-stars] (2017) — June 19, 2018 Capsule Reviews: The Coffin in the Mountain [https://www.thechinesecinema.com/tricky-brains-capsule-reviews/] (2014) — May 22, 2015

How Long Will I Love U (Su Lun, 2018)

How Long Will I Love U (Su Lun, 2018)

It’s been awhile since we had a Chinese release of interest here on Seattle Screens, but this time-travel rom-com certainly fits the bill, the kind of clever, unique popular cinema that the Mainland film industry will hopefully start churning out in greater numbers, as opposed to cartoonish action films

It's a Drink, It's a Bomb

Raman Hui

Reviews: Monster Hunt [https://www.thechinesecinema.com/monster-hunt-raman-hui-2015/] (2015) — January 21, 2016 Monster Hunt 2 [https://mubi.com/notebook/posts/contemporary-chinese-cinema-lunar-new-year] (2018) —February 28, 2018

Crippled Avengers

Jason Kwan

Reviews: Chasing the Dragon II: Wild Wild Bunch (2019) — June 7, 2019 I Did It My Way (2023) – January 11, 2023 Capsule Reviews: Chasing the Dragon (2017) — April 15, 2018

Crippled Avengers

Ding Sheng

Reviews: Railroad Tigers (2016)— January 5, 2017 A Better Tomorrow (2018) — February 13, 2018 Nothing Can't Be Undone by a Hotpot (2024) – May 14, 2024

The Island (Huang Bo, 2018)

The Island (Huang Bo, 2018)

Opening this week at the Oak Tree is the directorial debut of Huang Bo, a comic actor probably best known here for playing the Monkey King in Stephen Chow’s Journey to the West: Conquering the Demons. In The Island, he’s reunited with one of his co-stars from that

Golden Job (Chin Ka-lok, 2018)

Golden Job (Chin Ka-lok, 2018)

In the wake of the 1997 Handover, when Hong Kong turned from a relatively independent British colony to a Special Administrative Region of the People’s Republic of China, the Hong Kong film industry, which had been for most of the previous 30 years or so one of the glories

Han Yan

Reviews [https://www.thechinesecinema.com/tag/han-yan/]: Go Away, Mr. Tumor [https://www.thechinesecinema.com/go-away-mr-tumor-han-yan-2015/] (2015)— September 3, 2015 Capsule Reviews: Animal World [https://mubi.com/notebook/posts/contemporary-chinese-cinema-2018-year-in-review] (2018)— December 17, 2018

Suburban Birds (Qiu Sheng, 2018)

Suburban Birds (Qiu Sheng, 2018)

The Northwest Film Forum’s commitment to rethinking the movie release calendar continues this week, and part of last week, with the oddball Wednesday-Tuesday run of Suburban Birds, the feature debut of director Qiu Sheng. That the film should play here at all is somewhat remarkable, contemporary Chinese cinema releases

Savage (Cui Siwei, 2019)

Savage (Cui Siwei, 2019)

Cui Siwei’s directorial debut is not, unfortunately, a remake of the classic blaxploitation film Savage (tagline: “On the streets, or in the sheets, he’s. . . SAVAGE!”). Instead, it’s another moody Chinese noir, this one headed by two excellent actors and set in a snowy mountain wilderness. Chang Chen

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

Good Men, Good Women

Wong Jing

Reviews: The Seventh Curse (Lam Nai-choi, 1986) – January 21, 2022 Casino Raiders (Wong Jing & Jimmy Heung, 1989) – May 10, 2024 Last Hero in China (Wong Jing, 1993) – January 10, 2023 Kung Fu Cult Master (Wong Jing, 1993) – April 12, 2022 High Risk (Wong Jing, 1995) – June 24, 2023 Chasing

It's a Drink, It's a Bomb

Lou Ye

Reviews [https://www.thechinesecinema.com/tag/lou-ye/]: Suzhou River [https://www.thechinesecinema.com/suzhou-river-lou-ye-2000/] (2000) — May 8, 2019 Mystery [https://www.thechinesecinema.com/mystery-lou-ye-2012/] (2012) — February 2, 2013 The Shadow Play [https://www.thechinesecinema.com/the-shadow-play-lou-ye-2018/] (2018) — October 1, 2019 Capsule Reviews [https://www.thechinesecinema.com/lou-ye-capsule-reviews/]: Summer Palace (2006)

Taylor Wong Capsule Reviews

Crippled Avengers

Taylor Wong Capsule Reviews

Buddha’s Palm (1982) — July 20, 2019 So much better than any other Taylor Wong movie I’ve seen. I assume that’s indicative of the Shaw-Mona Fong machine at work. Like a parody version of the Cheng Cheh and Chor Yuen Louis Cha adaptations that were popular in the

It's a Drink, It's a Bomb

Chen Kaige

Reviews [https://www.thechinesecinema.com/tag/chen-kaige/]: Legend of the Demon Cat [https://www.thechinesecinema.com/legend-of-the-demon-cat-chen-kaige-2019/] (2017) — February 28, 2019 Capsule Reviews [https://www.thechinesecinema.com/chen-kaige-capsule-reviews/]: Yellow Earth (1984) — January 13, 2019 Farewell, My Concubine (1993) — January 15, 2019 List: Chen Kaige Movies [https://letterboxd.com/theendofcinema/list/

Legend of the Demon Cat (Chen Kaige, 2019)

Legend of the Demon Cat (Chen Kaige, 2019)

Chen Kaige’s Legend of the Demon Cat is not what you’d expect it to be. Well, at least not after the first 20 minutes or so, wherein the eponymous feline wreaks havoc on the lives of Tang Dynasty courtiers, promising buried treasure in exchange for fish eyes and