Now well over 60 years old, Jackie Chan remains a charismatic actor with some impressive moves that he puts on display in Bleeding Steel (China, 2017), a colorful but awfully silly science fiction action thriller from writer/director Leo Zhang. Jackie plays a Special Forces officer whose duty takes him from his dying young daughter to […]
There may be no more sensual director in the world than Hong Kong’s Wong Kar-Wai, and In the Mood for Love (Hong Kong, 2000) is one of his richest and most melancholy works, a shadow dance of would-be lovers sketched in suggestions and intimations. Maggie Cheung and Tony Leung Chiu-Wai star as next door neighbors […]
Directed by the insanely prolific Hong Kong action veteran Wong Jing, Chasing the Dragon (China, 2017) is the filmmaker’s crime epic, a historical drama that charts the rise and fall of two notorious gangsters who thrived in the rampant corruption enabled by Britain’s colonial rule of Hong Kong in the 1960s. The title is slang […]
Johnnie To, the reigning king of the crime movie and the romantic code of gangster brothers within the mercenary world of organized crime, delivers another perfect little genre piece with Vengeance (Hong Kong, 2009). French pop legend Johnny Hallyday stars as Costello, a retired pro who comes to Macau to take revenge on the men […]
Johnnie To took over the crown of Hong Kong’s king of crime thrillers after John Woo left for Hollywood and The Mission (1999) is the film that put him on the throne. The story is a generic gangster stuff: a middle-aged mob boss (Eddy Ko) survives an assassination and his brother / right hand man […]
Ringo Lam made his name as Hong Kong cinema’s grittier, leaner alternative to John Woo’s flamboyant action films with Prison on Fire (1987) and City on Fire (1987), the latter most famous as one of the primary inspirations of Quentin Tarantino’s Reservoir Dogs (the heist, the undercover cop, and the image of the multi-gun stand-off […]
Snake in the Eagle’s Shadow / Drunken Master (Twilight Time) Boyish, baby-faced Jackie Chan trained at the famed Peking Opera Academy, had an early career as a stunt man, supporting player and fight choreographer in scores of Hong Kong films, and was unexpectedly chosen as “the next Bruce Lee” in a series of stiff, serious […]
Come Drink with Me (Hong Kong, 1966) is a landmark of Hong Kong cinema and a classic of the wuxia pian (“martial chivalry” genre), a genre that director King Hu redefined with this delightfully spry mix of action, humor, and costume spectacle. Cheng Pei-Pei stars as the pixie-ish Golden Swallow, a determined young female warrior […]
Sword Master (Hong Kong, 2016) – Before he stepped behind the camera, director Derek Yee was the star of scores of martial arts dramas, among them the 1977 Shaw Brothers epic Death Duel. He directs the remake, which is produced by Tsui Hark, which evokes the romantic chivalry of the wuxia genre in a lavish, […]
Three (Hong Kong, 2016) – Johnnie To is one of the top directors of action thrillers and crime drama in the world and if Three is not one of the director’s most dramatic, it is entertaining, consistently engaging, and executed with an impressive precision that turns good ideas into ingenious set pieces. Set almost entirely […]
