Louis Koo - The Chinese Cinema

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Louis Koo

A collection of 13 posts

Twilight of the Warriors: Walled In (Soi Cheang, 2024)

Twilight of the Warriors: Walled In (Soi Cheang, 2024)

Even though it sounds like one of those straight-to-iQiyi action movies, Twilight of the Warriors: Walled In is in fact one of the most highly anticipated Hong Kong films in years. As a star-studded period piece, it might have fallen in to the trap of so many recent films in

2023 Fall Festival Compilation

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 of

Death Notice (Herman Yau, 2023)

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

The White Storm 3: Heaven or Hell (Herman Yau, 2023)

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The White Storm 3: Heaven or Hell (Herman Yau, 2023)

Warriors of Future (Ng Yuen-fai, 2022)

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Warriors of Future (Ng Yuen-fai, 2022)

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

SPL: Paradox (Wilson Yip, 2017)

SPL: Paradox (Wilson Yip, 2017)

It’s unclear if this film is actually a continuation of the SPL series or if it just started as one and then mutated into its own thing. I thought I saw the characters for “Sha Po Lang” on the title card of the movie though, so I’m just

Meow (Benny Chan, 2017)

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

Wild City (Ringo Lam, 2015)

Wild City (Ringo Lam, 2015)

After more than a decade of semi-retirement, legendary director Ringo Lam returns to the big screen with a thriller that hearkens back to the golden age of the Hong Kong crime film. Lam made his mark in the late 80s and early 90s with a series of action films–gritty,

Aberdeen (Pang Ho-cheung, 2014)

Aberdeen (Pang Ho-cheung, 2014)

Pang Ho-cheung’s ambitious family melodrama chronicles the intersecting lives of an all-star cast, at times grasping towards Magnolia and Yi yi but ultimately settling at an ending so unsatisfying one hopes it’s meant satirically. Which, knowing Pang, it very well might be. It’s an inverted cousin to

Don’t Go Breaking My Heart 2 (Johnnie To, 2014)

Don’t Go Breaking My Heart 2 (Johnnie To, 2014)

Beginning one year after the first film ends, financial analyst Cheng Zixin (Gao Yuanyuan) is still engaged to the winner of that film’s love triangle, reformed alcoholic Qihong (Daniel Wu) (recall that for her he quit drinking and built a skyscraper in the shape of her silhouette). They communicate

Accident (Soi Cheang, 2009)

Accident (Soi Cheang, 2009)

Essentially a Milkyway Image version of The Conversation, a internalized paranoia thriller with metaphysical implications and a visual style that lodge it firmly in the Johnnie To/Wai Ka-fai universe even though they (probably) had relatively little to do with the production. Louis Koo plays The Brain, the leader of

Drug War (Johnnie To, 2012)

Drug War (Johnnie To, 2012)

From the beginning, it explains that this is not your typical heroic bloodshed Triad film, concerned more with codes of honor and brotherhood and the mirroring of good and evil than anything else. No, instead this is going to be a straight police procedural, with no metaphysical mumbo jumbo: “You’