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 […]
Cold War 2 (Hong Kong, 2016) is an odd—and oddly entertaining—type of cop thriller: interdepartmental power play directed like an action film. Aaron Kwok stars as the newly-appointed Police Commissioner Sean Lau and Tony Leung Ka Fai is M.B. Waise Lee, his rival for the position in the first film and now on a retirement […]
A lavish but derivative martial arts action drama, Call of Heroes (Hong Kong, 2016) stars Sean Lau (Lau Ching-wan, Life Without Principle) as the sheriff of a village left unprotected by the army as a warlord advances and Louis Koo (Drug War) as the warlord’s sadistic son, a grinning psychopath who kills with impunity until […]
The Bodyguard (2016), originally titled My Beloved Bodyguard, is directed by Hong Kong martial arts legend Sammo Hung, who also stars as a retired special agent in a small town who is roused back into action when mobsters threaten the life of a young girl (Jacqueline Chan). He’s become a kind of adopted grandad; her […]
Phantom of the Theatre (2016) – The Phantom of the Opera looms large in this Hong Kong haunted theater / romantic melodrama set in 1930s Shanghai, where a grand show palace is reopened for the first time since a troupe of acrobats died in a fire 13 years before. An ambitious filmmaker (Yo Yang) wants […]
