A decent enough little love story, that purports to follow 40 years of Hong Kong history as seen by a die hard communist sympathizer, and it’s effects on his family who are best friends with some Taiwanese who have diametrically opposed viewpoints. It is cute, and comes out as a nice love story, but it is pretty cursory in it’s history. At least it does show some of the downsides that happen to his family for all his devotion to the people, but still it does come to a too pat ending from it. Certainly a film targeted at a Mainland audience, and at getting through the Chinese censor board. And this one certainly seems to follow a similar formula to Chiu’s Golden Chicken films, with their telling of Hong Kong history through the skewed eyes of one of the protagonists.

Anthony Wong Chau Sand plays Zhou (Left) a pro-communist idealist in Hong Kong who works as a projectionist showing only mainland cinema fair. Zhou loves communism and it’s for the people attitude, which means he will give everything away, and not think about his family, who live with him in a broken down place on a rooftop, surrounded by TV antennae and wires. He very much loves his wife Ying (Teresa Mo Sun Kwan) who always wants more, but always is resigned to her husband giving everything away, and doing more for his communist buddies than he does for his family. Zhou also always wants to go to Tianamen, but is always giving the money away so it will never happen. They also have a son Chong (Ronald Cheng Chun Kei when he grows up) who doesn’t do much, not liking school, and wanting to make money, but not too smart about it. Zhou gives everything to his leftist buddies, but their real best friends are the Taiwanese family that move in next door, and the father works at the snack shop in front of the theater, and the daughter Min (Karen Mok Man Wai when she grows up) is always Chong’s love, but he never does anything about, even when the family moves to better place, and she goes away to America for college, even missing her leaving because he is always late.

REVIEW CONTAINS SPOILERS…

(more…)

Any Lily Ho Li Li film I will certainly see, and especially another martial arts film, and this one does not disappoint. This is another fun Shaw classic. This is a classic tail of revenge, though with a female martial arts protagonist, and the fight being with the intersection of two families, and the downfall caused by some evil men they took in. Well worth checking out, and the end fight is really something to see. And cool to see a 32 year old actress helming this film.

A mother and her son ride on horses in mourning clothes heading to her family home, but on the way they are laid on by 4 brigands, and their young leader tries to rape the mother, and ends up killing her, though the son manages to escape. He heads to his mother’s family and finds his aunt, Feng Fei Fei (Ho Li Li). He parents are at the house of their best friends, whose son Feng Fei Fei is engaged to, and has been since they were little children. She and her nephew head out to get the brigands, and they find them and fight them, and she has almost killed the one who killed her sister, when she sees his jade and realizes it is her fiancee, so she backs off to wait for her parents to see what to do. The brigands head back to their parents, where the son knows his over protective mother will spoil him and keep him safe.

REVIEW CONTAINS SPOILERS…

(more…)

I had really been looking forward to this one since I heard about it, I mean a Finish directing mixing the epic national Poem of Finland the Kalevala and Chinese and Tibetan mythology is certainly an interesting goal, but I must say I came out a bit disappointed. First it seems to be a Wuxia film, intertwined with an ancient story in China and Finland and the characters modern incarnations in modern FInland. Maybe it is just my unfamiliarity with the myths involved, or that it seems like it will be much more of an action film than it actually is (there are very few actual action sequences in fact), or the fact that the smithing scenes in fact seem to have nothing to do with smithing, and more about melting things down and watching them take different shapes based on the characters past, no actual smithing involved. Not only that but the script is a bit overly complicated, and sometimes doesn’t make sense, like some people are re-incarnated from the past, so they are not affected like normal people, but some characters aren’t affected and it is never explained. I just didn’t feel most of it came together very well. It had good elements, but didn’t really work as a whole. Really the high point is the gorgeous Zhang Jing Chu and her amazing fight scene with her fan blades on a pole is really worth checking out, but the rest of the film just didn’t feel very satisfying.

Kai (Tommi Eronen) is a mediocre blacksmith living out in the country on the outskirts of Helsinki whose girlfriend Ronja (Krist Kosenem) has left him. Before Rongja leaves she takes some of Kai’s smithing things at an antique shop named Sang Fu, owned by 2 researchers who are studying the Kalevala named Berg (Markku Peltola) and Weckstrom (Elle Kull). The poem is a mythic poem about the struggle between good and evil, with a hero smith named Seppo, who created a machine called the Sampo with the power to be a source of happiness or to bring hell on Earth. In Chinese mythology, the evil Nocktress had nine sons named after all the vices of the earth, except the 9th who has no name and who has stolen the Sampo to bring hell on Earth. Back in the past Sintai (also Tommi Eronen) is the son of Seppo, and he is destined to defeat the demon 9th son, but in doing so he will never again be reborn, nor will the demon, and he is OK with that, but wants to live one night as a normal man. Sintai’s best friend is Cho (Dang Hao) who lives in a village near the swamps where the demon is waiting, and Sintai goes to his friends village to live one night as a real human, and let the armies advance on their own.

REVIEW CONTAINS SPOILERS…

(more…)

A ridiculously fun and silly Jackie Chan romp. Absolute silly action, with Jackie playing twins separated at birth in a film that was all done pro bono by the cast and directors to make money to build a new headquarters for the Hong Kong director’s guild. And featuring the amazing Maggie Cheung Man Yuk which means I am there. This is the new Fortune Star all region DVD Remaster, which looks better than the old disc with no compression artifacts, but honestly looks like the print is not too high quality. You must be ready for silliness, because Jackie here plays a bad ass street punk as well as a famous music conductor, and the two keep getting confused for each other. Silly and ridiculous fun.

Just after they are born to their mother (Silvia Chang) and father a wounded prisoner escapes, and grabs one of 2 twin babies, and uses it as a shield to escape. The cop (David Chiang Dai Wai) manages to get the perp, but the baby rolls on a wheelchair into the park and is picked up by a drunken whore who takes him and raise him. We cut to years later, and the boys have grown up separately, not knowing about each other (and both are Jackie Chan Sing Lung). One is Die Hard and is a fighting street punk, working as a mechanic with his best friend Tarzan (Teddy Robin Kwan), and the other is Ma Yau a famous conductor. And they do seem to be psychically connected as Die Hard’s hand twitches as if he is playing the piano when Ma Yau is playing. Die Hard goes with Tarzan to a club to fight a triad boss who is going to force a club singer to sleep with him, and Tarzan wants her (though he is small and ugly), this is Barbara (Maggie Cheung Man Yuk), who is actually a great musician, but has nothing to her name, and Die Hard wants her for his friend, though he saved her. May Yau is coming to Hong Kong for a concert, and gets hooked up with a family friend with Tammy (Nina Li Chi) who is playing as a nurse, but actually works at a gym, and just likes strong guys. Of course the two end up getting mixed up, which even more confuses the girls.

REVIEW CONTAINS SPOILER…

(more…)

I have been looking forward to this film since I heard about. A new hardcore brawler by Donnie Yen Ji Dan, and I finally managed to pick up the Region 3 DVD, and must say I was not disappointed. Sure the story is simple and some could stay stupid, but it is the action that is king here, and this film has it in spades. This film reminds me of the Golden 1980′s and 1990′s of Hong Kong cinema, and I can only hope they start producing more films like this instead of films like the crappy blockbuster Twins films. This is a bad to the bone actioner and an absolute must see for any action fan, even if Louis Koo is in it. Check this out as soon as you can!!!!

Donnie Yen Ji Dan is Inspector Ma, the same one from the 2005 film SPL, with an attitude problem and a penchant for hurting his suspects, though this is a prequel, so he is violent to the point of killing suspects. Ma’s partner Wilson (Louis Koo Tin Lok) is currently currently on an undercover assignment) with an evil gang led by Archer (Ray Lui Leung Wai) Tony (Collin Chou) and Tiger (Xing Hu). Wilson helps make a bust on the gang, but has his leg permanenlty injured in the process, lucky he has his girlfriend (Fan Bing Bing) who takes care of him, but at a party, the baddies get revenge and blow up the place, killing their boss, so Ma is out for revenge, not minding the IA investigation on him.

REVIEW CONTAINS SPOILERS…

(more…)

Another sub par remake of Naked Killer, and one I was suckered into by the lure of the 2 leads, Jordan Chan Siu Chun and the super cute Cherrie Ying Choi Yi, but they are really nothing more than extended cameos. Now the film isn’t awful, you still get the silly female assassin fun, and one scene where they show 2 points (in the beginning and nothing more after that). I actually enjoyed it in a brain dead sort of way. I wouldn’t pay to see this, but I would watch it if I had the chance and nothing else to do. It is stupid fun, with not so great leads, but a remake of Naked Killer is a remake of Naked Killer, and the villainess Jewel Li Fei as the villainess was pure evil (and I loved her in The Patriotic Knights).

The film starts off with 2 cops at a club trying to look inconspicuous as they trail a suspect, these are Darren (Jordan Chan Siu Chun) and Jet (Andy On Chi Kit who is the male lead), and they see a quartet of hot looking women, Yoyo (TIn Sung), Emma (Cherrie Ying), Dora (Viva Wei) and Macy (Meme TIan). Jet recognizes Yoyo, but must leave to follow his suspect. After they leave the women kill a villain after getting him all hot and bothered, and Jet and Darren are brought in to investigate. Jet does a bad identification of Yoyo, because he wants to see her and find out why she disappeared 5 years before, while they were in college and were supposed to have a date, but her whole family was killed, and she has never been seen again.

REVIEW CONTAINS SPOILERS…

(more…)

Yet another movie about the horrible life of an undercover cop, though this one even with the great Sam Lee is an absolutely terrible film. What was producer Andre Lau Wai Keung thinking? This is terrible!! Even the badly shot HD photography is not the issue though, the story is bad, and completely contrived with too many coincidences and horrible flashbacks which are only shots and not scenes, the performances suck, and you never really like anyone. Shawn Yue is a horrible actor, and is at his worst here. This is a total waste, and you should not waste your time.

We start in quick flashback to see that Feng (Shwan Yue) was an undercover cop who busted some triads, but 4 years later is not doing too well as a cop. He is always doing drugs with his drug dealer friend Fai (Sam Lee Chan Sam) who has just done a major deal with some big time drug dealers, and working on a case of a skeleton that the cops find, and he throws up and passes out over. Then when out doing drugs with Fai, who he has just found out is married, a guy comes up for a smoke and sees they are doing drugs, and he is a cop. Feng doesn’t stop the cop, so Fai grabs the gun and shoots him. The guys girlfriend might have seen them, but they run. They burn the car, but Fai’s drugs are in their so the drug dealers as well as the cops will be after him, and he asks Feng to get him $50,000 so he can run.

REVIEW CONTAINS SPOILERS…

(more…)

This Johnnie To Kei Fung produced film starts off very well, with a great story, some great characters and a great setup, but the last act of the film doesn’t work so well, has some lame happenings and kind of ends with a whimper. I usually love Milkyway films, but this was a bit of a letdown to me, that even the high end cast could not hold together.

The follows 2 groups, a Hong Kong police Special Unit, which doesn’t act as a normal police unit, but instead acts as a surveillance unit led by Dog Head (Simon Yam Tat Wah), and a group of thieves led by another surveillance man Shan (Tony Leung Ka Fai). Dog Head (in a fat suit and quite disheveled) is followed by a new recruit who lets join the team, and nicknames Piggy (Kate Tsui Tsz Shan). Shan and his team included Fatty (Lam Suet), Iceman (Berg Ng Ting Yip) and a third (Lai Yiu CHeung) who do well time robberies to steal jewels, and fence them through the wife of Shan’s old master who has been in prison for 17 years. The Special Unit is put on the case to find and follow Fatty and then the team.

REVIEW CONTAINS SPOILERS…

(more…)

Damn this is a really good film, and one I would have completely missed out on if not for the Kung Fu Cult Cinema Message Boards, I would have totally missed out on this one if not for them. Previously I had never really like Eason Chan in anything, but he is really good. This is what Hong Kong cinema is all about, or at least used to be. And with this film if you hadn’t seen photos from it, or a trailer, you would really be in suspense because for the first 20 minutes I really thought I had picked up the wrong film, but with a quick twists this film goes completely someplace else, and goes there with aplomb. This film is really an absolute must see, with some great performances and a well done story. It even ends how it should. And I must say I think this film is much better than Cheang’s later Dog Bit Dog, which was stylish, but not this well done throughout.

Yui (Eason Chan Yik Shun) is a male nurse who lives with his lovely girlfriend Ching (Nicki Chow Lai Kei in a great emotional performance), but their relationship is not doing so well. He never learned to swim, so they can’t go where they were supposed to on vacation, and he leant a bunch of money to a friend (Kenny Kwan Chi Bun) who used it to buy a car, so he can’t even pay for his part of his vacation. Still they agree to go on vacation, but when they are about to leave, they go downstairs, and Yui’s car has been stolen, and he freaks out, while Ching still wants to go, and they end up breaking up. He heads for the police station to report his missing car, while she packs her stuff in the apartment to leave. On the way, he looks into his bag, and finds 2 wrist walkie talkies which he has seen with her, and she bought for their trip, and he decides to go back, but as he gets close to the apartment he sees his car, and jumps out to get in, but when he opens the trunk he finds a man who has been shot, and is quickly surrounded by a mainland Chinese gang led by Wah (Wang Zhiwen), and they know he is a nurse and take him with them to work on their wounded friend.

REVIEW CONTAIN SPOILERS…

(more…)

An interesting Taiwanese Lesbian Drama, that has great atmosphere, and is almost suffocating in the characters repression, though it does have some lift at the end. The film is beautifully shot, and keeps the film interesting as the story unfolds, but the real message of the film does not really come through. More than anything the film seems to be about self destructive behavior and not letting them destroy you, not allowing yourself to self destruct based on things out of your control, but it never really comes together, and the pat ending kind of pulls that away. Oh well, the leads are gorgeous to watch, even if the film doesn’t have too much substance. This is a lesbian film that never really deals with the main characters being lesbians, they just =are, and that is accepted, and that is a progressive attitude, that does serve well, but also lessons some of the impact.

A girl making a living exposing herself on a webcam named Jade (Taiwanese idol Rainie Yang, who is nothing but super cute here), and decides to she needs a tattoo to spice up her act, and bring in more money, to pay for her and her grandmother. She ends up going to a slightly older tattoo artist named Takeko (Isabella Leong). Takeko is a wizard of a tattoo artist with her whole arm tattooed with skulls and spider lilies, illustrating the road to hell. Takeko takes care of her mentally ill younger brother (John Shen Jiang Huang). Jade comes into the tattoo parlor and wants the tattoo of the spider lilies that is actually on human flesh on the wall, as it was a tattoo that he first love had, and she invites Takeko to watch her web cam.

REVIEW CONTAINS SPOILERS…

(more…)

A fun little film with a funny premise, but doesn’t seem to have too much depth to it, and the main interesting plot point, never really pans out, in fact it fizzles about as heavily as it could. Cool to see a young new group of actors up and coming, but they seem to have about as much depth as the shallow college losers they portray. I guess it is worth checking out, especially if you like to see Japanese AV star Manami Amamiya’s breasts, and her doing some actual acting, but overall not too much to this film.

This is the story of four loser college buddies (Wong Yan Nam [who speaks Japanese], Lawrence Chou Chun Wai [the brains of the outfit], Derek Tsang Kwok Cheung [the lover boy] and Jeffrey Chau [the fat one who wants to lose his virginity]) who hear about a class mate of his Kar Lok (Tsui Tin Yau) who was kicked out of film school for having set up a movie entirely to get a cute woman to make out with him. So they decide to get some money together to make a fake AV film with a hot Japanese AV star, Manami Amamiya, so they can have sex with her, and they take out a student loan (from Chin Kar Lok) to do it.

REVIEW CONTAINS SPOILER…

(more…)

Yes, I am a total sucker for Chinese Soap Operas, and this one was no exception. I know it done on the cheap with video, but I really get into the characters and I love the action and amazing locations in China they always shoot in. And this was of course the reason I have not had so many reviews in the last month (well this and working 7 days a week for months on end). This is a great and enjoyable martial arts soap opera, and sharing elements from all classic martial arts epics, the evil eunuch, the bad ass martial artists, evil villains, beautiful evil women. Sure it is a soap opera, with all that entails. High melodrama, and you will always be rooting for the two leads to finally get together, but always waiting for it. I really grew to like the good guys, and loath the bad guys, and was just dying to see the 2 leads together, so this show really sucked me in, and kept me watching. Well worth checking out, even if I didn’t know who most of the actors were.

In Ming Dynasty China and Evil Eunch named Wei Zhongzian has taken all the power from the emperor and holds the land with an iron thumb. His minion, Meng Shentong out attempting to kill Li Shenghan a beautiful leader of the evil Tianmo Religion, when a righteous swordsman Jin Shiyi comes past and attempts to rescue her. The 3 have an epic battle, and the 2 heroes are badly wounded, but just manage to escape, but with the evil Eunch right on their tail.

We then cut to 20 years later, and Jin Shiyi has married and retired to an island, and his son is now a martial artist named Jin Zhuliu who his Shiyi is sending out to China and the world of Jiang Hu to earn his place, but he also has a few other things in mind. He doesn’t his son the whole story with Li Shenghan, but he does send him to see her grave. He also doesn’t tell him about how she saved him by giving him the first half of the book of poison, which saved him, but is currently killing him and making him evil, and he needs the second half or he will die, which he has his main apprentice JIang Haitan out searching for. While searching for Li Shenghan’s grave, Jin Zhuliu quickly runs into a beautiful female martial artist named Zi Hongyin, who will end up playing a major role in his life, and she tries to trick him. Then when searching for her again he runs into another girl, a young cure girl (with a terribly annoying voice) named Zhong Yan Yan, who is the princess of the gang of thieves, and quickly falls for him and wants him to take over from her grandfather Yong Hao as the leader of the gang of thieves.

REVIEW CONTAINS SPOILERS….

(more…)

A decent though not great film, with a good performance by Francis Ng Chun Yu, and some great cameos, but I never do care as much about Eason Chen Yik Shun or his character who is not all too interesting, and doesn’t really bring the film along. Certainly better than average, but still a pretty mainstream story of the real life of cops in Hong Kong and the people they know and run into while working in Wan Chai.

Eason Chan Yuk SHun is Chris Chan a 7 year beat patrol cop, for him it is just a job and nothing more. He doesn’t put in too much effort, nor worry about things too much. His party retired, and he is given a rookie parter, the super cute Man Liu (Joey Yung Tso Yi) who has too much energy and enthusiasm, while he tries to show her the ropes. She is always willing and eager, even on the smallest jobs. And he has to stop her from giving a ticket to a local crazy named Shing (Francis Ng Chun Yu). Shing was an architect and later owned a brassiere shop, but years earlier his wife was pregnant with twins and had a miscarriage and left him, disappearing, and he lost it, and almost killed himself, and is now taken care of by his sister who runs a newsstand. He has a new neighbor move in (Meng Zhang) who does massages in the apartment above his (but not erotic ones). The cops start to get their hand’s full because someone is murdering woman during the rain.

REVIEW CONTAINS SPOILERS…

(more…)

I am a huge Lau Ching Wan fan, and it is so good to see him back, and in a great vehicle for him, where he is basically parodying himself. The film is of course not a gritty realistic film, but it does show some of the pitfalls of the film industry, and is a great look into the pitfalls of the Hong Kong film industry, and is also a really cute love story, and a great story of one mine finding his redemption and brining himself back from an unhealthy place. This is really one of the most enjoyable Hong Kong films I have seen in a while and I highly recommend it for everyone.

Lau Ching Wan plays Poon Ka Fai, a TV actor who had previously won the best new actor award, and now plays bit parts and has such an attitude that his career is basically going away, though he is a great actor, and has a great deal of knowledge about the craft. At every job Poon lays into the director and crew about how they could do things better, and what they are doing wrong, and berates a young beautiful extra that can’t keep her eyes off him named Faye Ng (Huo Siyan). She tries to attach herself to Poon, but he blows her off, but inevitably runs into her again.

REVIEW CONTAINS SPOILERS…

(more…)

You can tell that Susie Au is a music video director, because this movie is visually stunning, though the point or many of the happenings are never quite explained, and the one that is, doesn’t really seem to be the focus of the film. Really the film sits on the shoulders of the lead actress in her dual roles, Zhou Xun, and she is cute, and interesting to watch, though the film does fall a bit flat at the end, since most of the plot is never explained. Still it is worth watching just for the style and visuals. The DVD is region 3 though, so you will need an all region player to watch it.

The film starts off with a fight by a modern jiang hu fighter D (Daniel Wu) who is being watched by a local mob boss Brother Cat (Jeff Chang), and his favorite follower Ming Ming (Zhou Yun), a modern martial arts princess, dressed in black, who fights with beads from her scarf that she fires like bullets. Ming Ming quickly seduces D, and in the tub in between sex, they talk, and he tells her that she looks just like someone he knows, and that the only thing he wants in life is $5 Million and to go to Harbin, so she vows to do it. Ming Ming gets $5 Million from Brother Cat, and also steals a wooden box, with something important to Cat in it, so she can give them to D, and she runs, with Cat’s man Mousey (Chan Bo Yuen) in pursuit. Ming MIng runs with the money and runs into Tu (Tony Yang) a man who runs, and tells him to meet her at the dock, but on the way he runs into Nana (also Zhou Yun) who he mistakes for Ming Ming, though she has orange died hair and clothing, and is not a martial artist. He takes her and the money to a astrologist, where Nan learns that D is in Shanghai, and since she is in love with him (and the one that D knew) she wants to go, so when Tu hijacks her, she decides to pretend as Ming Ming in her pursuit of D. And Ming Ming heads to Shanghai to find D as well, and give him the money and the box.

REVIEW CONTAINS SPOILERS…

(more…)

This was the second of 2 films I ripped to my iPhone for a trip back East, and I watched it on the way back, and damn if I didn’t make a fool of myself. I spent the entire time laughing out loud uncontrollably. This mockumentary is brilliant and hysterical, and I really hope it is only the start of more things to come from Daniel Wu as a director. This is not only a total send up of the music industry in Hong Kong, but also a documentary since it interviews many luminaries including Jacky Cheugn Hok Yau, Miriam Yeung Chin Wah, Karen Mok Man Wai, Nicholas Tse Ting Fung, Josie Ho Chiu Yi, Candy Lo Hau Yam and others. THIS IS REALLY A MUST SEE FOR ALL FANS OF HONG KONG MUSIC AND THE FILM INDUSTRY AS WELL. HONESTLY OF THE FUNNIEST FILMS I HAVE SEEN IN A LONG TIME!

Daniel Wu, Terence Yin, Andrew Yin and Conroy Chan decided to make the boy Band Alive in 2005, and this is the story of their almost rise to fame, but is more a mocking look at the industry and how it works than a true story of this bands rise, as honestly they stink. They can barely keep a tune, can’t dance, and haven’t managed to release an album yet.

REVIEW CONTAINS SPOILERS…

(more…)

Unfortunately this film is only a sequel to the first 2 My Wife is a Gangster film in name only, and the fact that it has a bad ass , martial arts weilding gangster chick, and it is a silly comedy, the story does not follow at all,and Eun KYung Shin nevers shows up. Not only that but the 2 leads have no chemistry, and I never believed the love story, it came from no where, and is totally not understandible. That being said this is still a fun popcorn action film. And not only that Shu Qi is as gorgeous as ever, and here as the daughter of a Hong Kong Triad Kingpin she has never been cooler. Sure much of the humor is from misunderstandings in translation, but you get some laughts, but not real chuckles. This film is a decent action film, not great but decent. And if youa re a Shu Qi fan you know you will see it anyway.

In Hong Kong 2 Triad leaders have a meeting, one is played by the great Ti Lung and named Lim, and the other boss requests that Lim have his half Korean daughter Aryong (Shu Qi 舒淇) to do a sword dance. She is doing it barefoot though, and the bad guys lietenant (Ken Lo Wai Kwong) has one of his minions break a glass and smash it on the floor, cutting her feat, so she flips through the air and puts her sword through the guys hand, and a gang war almost starts. The next day a mysterious woman kills the gang leader, and Aryong is blamed, so Ti Lung is going to send her away, and she agrees to go, but to the place of her chosing, and she goes to Korea in search of her mother. The local Gangster is having trouble with one of his lieutenants is trying to take over from him, so he sends the his lowest underling who also speaks a tiny bit of Chinese, this is the idiotic Ki Chul (Lee Beom-soo 이범수). Gi-Cheol and his 2 idiot henchmen totally misunderstand Aryong, and much silliness ensues until they end up hiring a female Chinese translator named Yeon Hee (Hyeon Yeong 현영), who is terrified by the gangsters and mistranslates Aryongs bad ass talk, where she will kill the gangsters if they don’t find her mother for her.

REVIEW CONTAINS SPOILERS…

(more…)

Jingle Ma can make a really good and beautiful film, so despite my misgivings about Louis Koo Tin Lok, I still picked up this film. And honestly while the film is lacking, and through most of the film I was getting a little pissed off, the film in fact ended well, and was at least enjoyable. The film is a tragic love story between 2 people that just can’t manage to get together for good, even though they are meant for each other, and it is well done once you get over the fact that Louis Koo plays the same character from modern times to back when he was in college, and they do nothing production design wise to show the passage of time. Still a good tragic love story, even if it does feel like their could be something more, I think maybe Louis Koo’s character just seemed a little too lacking through most of the film for me to fully emotionally connect until the ending.

The film starts with Mi (Rene Liu) a successful pianist living a lonely life going to go talk to her childhood friend (Larence Chou Chun Wai) who is a hairstylist on her birthday since she hasn’t gotten a birthday message from her one true love Nam (Louis Koo Tin Lok). Nam and Mi aren’t together anymore, and in fact Nam has been married for 3 years and lives in Singapore, but she still expects her birthday message from her one true love, and it does come, though 2 days late. We then go back in time to find out about these two’s relationship. They met in college, Nam was the roommate of Mi’s childhood friend at a different college, and seemingly totally different, Mi always alone, and Nam always surrounded by women, but still they started a relationship, though never got too close. Mi always kept pushing for them to just be friend’s forever, but Nam loved her and wouldn’t go for it. Then Nam’s eldest sister pushed him to go study in the US, and he went, and tried to push Mi to go, but she stayed at home to take care of her elderly grandmother and father (Richard Ng Yiu Hon).

REVIEW CONTAINS SPOILERS…

(more…)

A simple story of love, infidelity, betrayal and kidnapping, about 5 characters, told in 4 chapters, each focusing on different characters, and slowly revealing more and more of the story, until at the end you know everything that was going on. I quite enjoyed this story, and wanted to know what would happen next. The director has taken a simple premise and made it into a great story by telling it non-linearly (while as a straight story it would have been a bit too simple and boring). I recommend this film, though the dvd I got of it is PAL (luckily my OPPO DVD players seems to play PAL quite well), and the film is non-anamorphic and has a smaller aspect ratio than my widescreen TV, so I had to zoom it using my DVD player to 1.5 instead of using the TV’s zoom. Still for non-anamorphic the disk looked pretty good.

The film starts off following a young waif of a girl named Momo (Lin Yuan) who runs a photo developing business in the bottom floor of an upscale apartment building. She is curios about everything around her and , and goes around snapping pictures of the goings on around her with her cell phone. Momo realizes that the business man John Zheng (Hu Jun), who is married to and has a young boy with his ultra rich bosses’ daughter Rose Feng (the ever lovely Carina Lau), is in fact having an affair with Sharon Liang (Song Jia) who just opened the manicure parlor across from her store. Momo is also interested in one of the security guards of the building Liu Fendou (Liao Fan). Momo also finds some photos of John with Sharon, and tries to see if maybe they are Rose’s. Then things start happening to Rose. Her car is attacked and it is covered by Red paint. Mom follows John and Sharon to Sharon’s apartment and she sees Rose there, and finds out that Rose knows, and realizes her husband doesn’t know if her loves her, and she is resigned to it. Then we jump back in time, and follow the story of John and Sharon.

REVIEW CONTAINS SPOILERS…

(more…)

Wow, this film shows everything that is wrong with big budget Hong Kong action films. A terrible story that is barely passable to a 2 year old, terrible acting, badly shot (the action scenes are too quick cutty and long lens, so it ruins even the good action shots), there is too much ridiculous, and badly done wire fu, and even worse are the horrible digital effects that ruin even the enjoyable action scenes. I mean even the fight scenes between Samo Hung and Yuen Wah is a total let down, and how do you ruin fight scenes with Wu Jing. I enjoy seeing the Twins, but their big action films have gotten worse an worse. DO NOT WASTE YOUR TIME OR MONEY ON THIS FILM!!!!

This absolutely horrible story has 2 martial artists in China, Uncle Luck (Sammo Hung Kam Bo) and Lau Hay (Wu Jing) are protecting a sacred bead, but they are attacked by a group of twin thieves, who manage to get it, but lose it when escaping via a parachute from the train, and the bead falls in the bag of a merchant on his way to Hong Kong. Meanwhile the evil Professor Mok (Sek Sau) wants to trade the bead with the super rich and beautiful Lilian (Jess Zhang) for some property she owns, as the bead might be able to cure her little sister Happy (Qui Lier) from incurable cancer. Kay Hay meets Lillian because his twin brother is dyeing of cancer in the same hospital, and he gets her to drive the brother in her Hummer. Uncle Luck decides to call on his old friend Chang Chung (Yuen Wah) to get his daughters the twins, Jade (Charlene Choi CHeuk Yin) and Pearl (Gillian Chung Yun Tung), along with a bunch of other twins that he has sent to work at the circus, and who were in the evil twins organization, but he got them out, and burnt their tattoos off to keep them away from his evil brother. (SOUND STUPID ENOUGH YET?)

REVIEW CONTAINS SPOILERS…

(more…)

I have to say I do like this new more brutal and realistic turn that Hong Kong crime dramas are taking of late, it is almost the Che Kirk Wong school of Hong Kong cinema. And this film just exudes style. It is so well done, starting off with a modernist approach, of starting at the end, we get drawn right into this story, and honestly Andy Lau Tak Wah has never been better, as this uncaring drug dealer, who is in it only for the money, and thinks nothing of the consequences to others. This is a great followup to Yee’s recent ONE NIGHT IN MONTOK which he also wrote and directed, and I have also loved VIVA EROTICA! and C’EST LA VIE, MON CHERIE that he has done (though I could do without some of his other films). Yee is an impressive talent, and he uses all of his skills here, and delivers a powerhouse film about the evils of heroin, and the travails of an undercover cop. I highly recommend this film. And the DVD is gorgeous, as an added bonus, the special features all have removable subtitles in English, which is not the case very often.

The film starts with Nick (Daniel Wu) in his police uniform lying in a red couch, lamenting about life. He talks about how all his life he never understood why people took drugs, that is until Quin and Fan died, then he understood it was because of the emptiness, and he didn’t know which was worse the emptiness or the drugs.

Next we see Nick in the past, and he is organizing a drug transfer in a car, through the streets of Hong Kong, and away from a police dragnet. Then he fields a call, and heads to the hospital to deal with is boss, Quin (Ady Lau Tak Wah) who has diabetes and because of that has failing kidneys. Quin has a family, his wife (Anita Yeun WIng Yee, who the years have not been so kind to), a young daughter in need of surgery, and an older tom boy, who does everything she can to make his life horrible, as well as a sister that wants nothing more than to get into Nick’s pants, though Nick is having none of it. Nick is being groomed to be Quin’s protégé, as Quin’s health is fading, and he needs a kidney transplant, but Nick is not all he seems, as we know he is a cop. He has been undercover for 7 years getting into Quin’s organization while working for a police inspector (Derek Yee Tun Sing). They have enough to arrest Quin, but that isn’t enough, they need to find who his suppliers are.

REVIEW CONTAINS SPOILERS….

(more…)

I love this film, and that is why I watched the Soap Opera based on the same story. I saw this first in San Gabriel when the Garfield theater was still open, and one could still see great Hong Kong movies like this in the theater. This is from director Andrew Lau, and he brought most of the cast from the Young and Dangerous films (while replacing Jordan Chan Siu Chun with Aron Kwok Fu Sing), and adapted from the comic book by Ma Wing Shing. This was the first big computer effects film in Hong Kong, with effects by Centro, that makes this not a normal Wiuxia film, because of the digital fighting effects and green screen shots. Sure the effects are not up to big budget American standards, and they do too many overlay graphics, but they still work, especially many of the fighting and sword effects. And the cast does quite well. Kwok Fu SIng is perfect as the brooding Cloud, and Ekin Cheng holds up his end as the honorable WInd, and of course it is always cool to see Sonny Chiba in anything. The story is simple and enjoyable, with good action and effects, so this is well worth checking out, sure it has no debt or meaning, and you lose a lot when you compress a long story from a comic into 2 hours, but that doesn’t mean this is not a fun popcorn action film. If only the DVD looked better, and was Anamorphic, this is a film that needs a new remastered special edition!

The martial arts world is being ruled by the evil clan leader Lord Conquerer (Sonny Chiba) of Conqueror’s clan, who has defeated almost all of his enemies. The prophet Mud Buddga (Lai Yiu Cheung) who is cursed by the gods for telling too much of the future with painful poison boils, informs Conquerer of his destiny, to find 2 specific children, Wing (Fung) and Cloud (Wan), and he will unstoppable for the next 10 years, and then he gives him a special box which contains a riddle that will serve to tell the future for the rest of his life. COnquerer orders his right hand, the effeminate Jester (Lawrence Cheng Tan Shui) to send out his men to find the children, and the find young Cloud with his father, (Yu Rong Guang) who has made the perfect sword, which only he or his son can use, and hidden it, and Cloud watches dispassionately as his father and whole clan are killed and he is taken away by Conquerer.

Conquer then is going to the Giant Buddha over the fire cave to fight with father (Alex Fong Chung Sun) of the young Wind, 2 years before, Conquerer came and battled him in a field of bamboo, and when he lost took his wife. He has come to battle again, and learned that his wife actually wanted to leave him because he had retired from the martial arts world, but when the wife finds out she was used she runs to her son, and jumps to her death. In the battle the father is losing with his Blizzard blade and he lands in front of the fire cave, and is taken by the fire beast. Conquerer realizes the son is the Wind in the prophecy, and takes him in to train him.

REVIEW CONTAINS SPOILERS…

(more…)

Wow, I have had this film for a while, and just finally watched it. This is a gorgeous and well done intimate Hong Kong art film with 2 top notch performances. Honestly this is not only one of the best Hong Kong films I have seen in some time, but it is actually one of the best films I have seen in some time. This film is completely about these 2 characters and their relationship, and perfectly plays with time, giving you fragments of scenes, that are later played out in full as you, along with the characters learn more of what is going on. And this is a story of redemption, of a man willing to finally make amends for his actions for the past and do better than he has ever done. What a wonderful little film.

Chapman To Man Chat plays Inspector Ma Shing, a corrupt and womanizing cop in Macau. In the opening of the film we see flashes of him, hitting on the young girl Cheung Buk Yan (Isabella Leong) who he claims has eyes like his first girlfriend. We see him sleeping with her as a prostitute. We see her following him, and finally hitting a bottle over his head. And it is at the hospital we learn that the young girl is in fact his daughter…

REVIEW CONTAINS SPOILERS…

(more…)

Literally an all time Classic. He may have made films before this, but this is the film that really put him on the international map. Sure the effects don’t hold up perfectly, but this was 1983, way before computers, and this film looks amazing, and if only his CGI heavy sequel had half the heart of this original film. The big Wuxia craze that has hit the international scene owes so much to this film. Sure the story is overly complicated, but it is so much fun, and has so many great actors who put their all into their roles, even when dangling from cables from the ceiling (All of which can easily be seen on this new Region 3 Fortune Star DVD, which looks great).

Yuen Biao (the most athletic of Jackie Chan’s ‘brothers’ from Opera school) stars as the young soldier Di Ming Qi. He worked as a scout for the Yellow army against his will in the tumultuous 5th century, around the Zu mountains which border Sichuan. His own troops turn against him when the two generals each want him to lead a different way, so he must run. He eventually runs into a Red Warrior from the opposite side of the same town, Fatty (Sammo Hung Kam Bo, another brother of Jackie Chan’s), and they band together to try and get away from the fighting, but eventually they are separated, and Di Ming Qi hides in a cave where strange mythical creatures and he is saved by a lone sword fighter Ding Yin (Adam Cheng), who he follows into a dark and evil land run by and evil cult that sacrifices virgins and is run by the evil Blood Devil.

REVIEW CONTAINS SPOILERS…

(more…)

A far superior sequel, where I actually enjoyed the silliness happening in between the action scenes this time around. Sure once again Jackie Chan is not exactly PC (though Hong Kong film very often is not, look at Once Upon a Time in China 6 about racism against Chinese in American, which is totally racist again Native Americans), but Jackie seems to shine more when playing off of 3 beautiful woman, than he did with Alan Tam as in the first one. The film was in fact cut down and released in the states as Operation Condor. I don’t quite get the whole Condor thing, since he is obviously the same character, but in the first film is known as Asian Hawke. Oh well, he seems to be more of a spy here too. The set pieces and action in this film will absolutely blow you away. They are fantastic! And this Region 3 DVD looks as good as it could. I have no complaints here, pick this box set up.

Jackie Chan returns as Jackie “Condor” an adventurer. He first tries to steal some sacred gems from a tribe, and we get to see him roll down a mountain in a big inflatable ball, and then he returns to Europe for a mission. First he runs into a Japanese woman selling African artifacts named Momoko (Ikeda Shoko) and a blond German woman named Elsa (Eva Cobo) who two Arabs are chasing (though they are obviously white guys in turbans), then he gets called in the headquarters to take orders from the Baron (Bozidar Smiljanic from the first film) who is sending him to recover Nazi gold hidden in the African desert, and he is going with a desert expert, Ada (Carol ‘Do Do’ Cheng Yu Ling).

REVIEW CONTAINS SPOILERS…

(more…)