The Apu Trilogy: Pather Panchali / Aparajito / Apur Sansar – In 1955 Satyajit Ray, a young graphic artist in the advertising industry, released his debut feature, a labor of love made independently over the course of two and a half years. Pather Panchali (aka Song of the Little Road, 1955), a portrait of life […]
Bollywood is more than a genre. It’s more than a film industry. It’s a culture in its own right, and Amazon Prime has hundreds available to stream. Which gives subscribers an opportunity to discover a cinematic way of life. In the most general of descriptions, the Bollywood movies of India tend to be long (around […]
For Kung Fu Yoga (China, 2017), Jackie Chan returns to the Indiana Jones-inspired adventure comedy of his 1986 hit Armour of God, albeit as an older, more modest archaeologist adventurer, for this co-production between China and India. Jackie is Professor Jack Chan, ostensibly the same character he played in The Myth, who is lured back […]
It took so long for Hollywood to finally find a way to harness the unique mix of martial arts mastery, dance-like grace, playful humor, and giddy charm that had made Jackie Chan a superstar throughout the rest of the world that he was almost too old to show off the extent of his physical prowess […]
In his first films, the acclaimed Pather Panchali and Aparajito, the great East Indian filmmaker Satyajit Ray eschewed the song and dance interludes that were part of the conventions of domestic Indian cinema. The Music Room (1959) features both song and dance but not in the way of popular cinema. They are integral parts of […]
