The Chinese Cinema

Jevons Au

Trivisa (Jevons Au, Frank Hui, & Vicky Wong, 2016)

Trivisa is the latest product of Johnnie To’s Milkyway Image studio (at least, until his new film opens here on June 24th). Directed by the young trio of Jevons Au, Vicky Wong, and Frank Hui, it’s a crime story set on the eve of Hong Kong’s handover

Strange Tales

The 50 Best Chinese Language Films of the 21st Century

When Film4 published a list of their “100 Must-See Films of the 21st Century [http://www.film4.com/special-features/top-lists/100-must-see-films-21st-century] ” and only bothered to include two Chinese films (Yi yi and In the Mood for Love , of course), I countered with this list on letterboxd of 100 Must-See Chinese

Devils on the Doorstep

Hong Sangsoo

Don’t Take Pictures: The Films of Hong Sangsoo — January 29, 2018 Hong Sangsoo: Director of the Decade — November 30, 2019 Reviews: The Day a Pig Fell Into the Well (1996) — January 6, 2018 The Power of Kangwon Province (1998) — January 7, 2018 Virgin Stripped Bare by Her Bachelors (2000)

Sammo Hung

My Beloved Bodyguard (Sammo Hung, 2016)

Sammo Hung’s long-awaited return to the director’s chair (known as “The Bodyguard” here in the US and “My Beloved Bodyguard” everywhere else), his first since 1997’s Once Upon a Time in China in America, finds the now 64 year old star playing a recently retired security agent

Xu Haofeng

The Final Master (Xu Haofeng, 2016)

A dour myth of kung fu in the years before the Japanese war. Director Xu Haofeng excises most of what’s interesting in such tales in favor of a less-complicated-than-it-seems plot about a city’s martial arts schools governed by arbitrary and pointless rules, vague intimations of the historical period

Strange Tales

Chinese Cinema Today

A couple months ago I was asked to write this brief overview of the state of contemporary Chinese language cinema for the Estonian arts magazine Sirp [http://www.sirp.ee/]. You can read this essay in Estonian on their website [http://www.sirp.ee/s1-artiklid/film/merineitsi-kasvaja-ja-varisevad-maed/], and here, with

Yang Qing

Chongqing Hot Pot (Yang Qing, 2016)

The latest Chinese import to grace Seattle Screens is an absurdist thriller about trio of friends who own a failing underground (literally) restaurant and who accidentally tunnel into a nearby bank vault. After a tense prologue that recalls any number of Hong Kong gangster thrillers, men in black wearing Journey

Roy Chow

Rise of the Legend (Roy Chow, 2014)

Every generation gets the Wong Fei-hung they deserve. A fin-de-siècle doctor and martial arts instructor, the real life Wong has been inspiring cinematic incarnations for most of the history of Hong Kong’s film industry. The first was in a series of productions running form the late 1940s to the

Johnnie To

A Moment of Romance III (Johnnie To, 1996)

For his final film before launching the Milkyway Image studio, Johnnie To took a super-generic script, applied a Steven Spielberg visual aesthetic, and almost made an FW Murnau movie out of it. A rarity for To, it's a period film, a romance set during the second World War,

Yuen Woo-ping

Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon: Sword of Destiny (Yuen Woo-ping, 2016)

A straight-to-Netflix multinational English language collaboration that is the sequel to the highest-grossing foreign language film in American history, Sword of Destiny reunites star Michelle Yeoh with the action choreographer from the first film, Yuen Woo-ping. Belonging more rightly to the CGI-driven Chinese wuxias of the 2010s (and the cheaper

Zhang Yimou

The Great Wall (Zhang Yimou, 2016)

The Great Wall, an experiment in co-production between Hollywood and China, opens with the spinning globe of the Universal Studios logo, its computer-generated image rotating slowly as it zooms in on the eponymous defensive fortification, helpfully orienting the hoped-for American audience by showing them where exactly the nation of China

The Odd One Dies

30 Essential Wuxia Films

With the highly-anticipated release of two King Hu masterpieces on home video by the Masters of Cinema organization, as well as the critical success of Hou Hsiao-hsien’s The Assassin last year, it seems like the wuxia film is making some inroads into the Western critical consciousness. So I thought

Johnnie To

The Fun, the Luck, and the Tycoon (Johnnie To, 1990)

Following up on the smash hit that was All About Ah-long, Johnnie To went back to television for a two-part film called The Iron Butterfly. I haven’t been able to track it down, but it looks to be a modern cop/Triad thriller, with Anthony Wong and Mark Cheng

Johnnie To

All About Ah-Long (Johnnie To, 1989)

After an auspicious, if commercially unsuccessful, debut with the New Wave wuxia The Enigmatic Case in 1980, To spent the early 80s working in Hong Kong television. In 1986 he returned to film working under Raymond Wong Bak-ming at the Cinema City studio, where he made the popular, if not

Raman Hui

Monster Hunt (Raman Hui, 2015)

An effects-based comic wuxia directed by Raman Hui, a Hong Kong native who has spent most of his career working on animated Hollywood films, most notably on some Shrek and Kung Fu Panda shorts and as co-director on Shrek the Third. This appears to be Hui’s first Chinese film

Wilson Yip

Ip Man 3 (Wilson Yip, 2015)

Ip Man 3 is the third film directed by Wilson Yip starring Donnie Yen in the title role as the master of the Wing Chun style of kung fu. Ip is best known as one of Bruce Lee’s teachers, and his notoriety and fame to this day is largely

Guan Hu

Mr. Six (Guan Hu, 2015)

Playing this week at the Pacific Place is Mr. Six, a gangster drama which earned star Feng Xiaogang the Best Actor award at this past Golden Horse Awards (which are held annually in Taiwan and honor Chinese-language film). Feng plays Mr. Six, an aging Beijing street tough, now in his

Wu Ershan

Mojin: The Lost Legend (Wu Ershan, 2015)

International treasure Shu Qi stars in this blockbuster effects-driven film out of China, opening this week at the Pacific Place. One of a trio of grave robbers, Shu Qi and her compatriots Chen Kun and Huang Bo find themselves roped into a scheme to dig up a MacGuffin from an

John Woo

The Crossing (John Woo, 2015)

Here are reviews of the two separately released parts of The Crossing. The Crossing — August 13, 2015 The first part of John Woo’s latest epic (the second part was recently released in China to little fanfare, but isn’t available here yet) is a romantic war movie in the

Miike Takashi

Yakuza Apocalypse (Miike Takashi, 2015)

Playing this Friday and Saturday at midnight only comes the latest from prolific Japanese lunatic Miike Takashi. The limited late night time slot gives a hint of what to expect, even if you’re unfamiliar with Miike’s work, much of which amounts to highly imaginative reworkings of familiar genres,

Jia Zhangke

Mountains May Depart (Jia Zhangke, 2015)

Jia Zhangke’s Mountains May Depart is one of the more polarizing films of the year. It marks a radical shift in Jia’s formal technique, abandoning the long-shot/long-take aesthetic that has made him one of the preeminent examples of 21st Century Asian Minimalism. Instead, working with his longtime

Hou Hsiao-hsien

The Assassin (Hou Hsiao-hsien, 2015)

Hou Hsiao-hsien’s latest, his first film since 2007’s Flight of the Red Balloon, is set in the late Tang Dynasty period, starring Shu Qi as a young woman who returns home after ten years as a killer-in-training to wreak vengeance on the local ruler. The film follows a

Hong Sangsoo

Right Now, Wrong Then (Hong Sangsoo, 2015)

While lacking the formal experimentation that distinguishes Hong Sangsoo’s best work (Oki’s Movie, The Day He Arrives) or the sheer giddy pleasure of his funniest movies (Hill of Freedom, In Another Country), Right Now, Wrong Then has a precision and focus that assures that, despite a certain conventionality,

Han Yan

Go Away, Mr. Tumor (Han Yan, 2015)

The goofy, cutsy, CGI-driven, Chinese fantasy cancer melodrama we didn’t know we needed. The clash of tones in Go Away, Mr. Tumor I imagine would be unbearable for most, especially audiences trained on Hollywood rules about tonal and generic consistency, but it was a smash hit in China and

John Woo

Princess Chang Ping (John Woo, 1976)

Before he hit it big with 1986’s A Better Tomorrow, John Woo was a journeyman director for hire on the margins of the Hong Kong film industry. He worked mostly in slapstick comedies such as the Chaplin homage Laughing Times with Dean Shek, or the hit Ricky Hui film