Blog Archives

Well, we’re a little late with this one, and we’re terribly sorry — a new Jackie Chan film should be an event, exploding on to the screen with jawdropping stunts and inspired action choreography. With ceiling fans, clock towers and pachinko parlours. Instead, my copy of The Myth has sat on my shelf a while, looking sorrowfully at me while I passed it over in favour watching of Shaw Brothers classics.

But no more. I picked it up the other … (read more)

Three… Extremes is both an obscure and a completely appropriate title for this cross-cultural horror film anthology. Obscure because, as titles go, usually you can kind of work out what you’ll be watching or at least the genre it’s going to be presented in, just from the title. This title, however, doesn’t give away a lot up front. I mean, what’s with the ellipsis? Three dot dot dot Extremes. Yeah okay. Clever way to label it a sequel to Three… (read more)

They say you can’t have it all and in Ming Dynasty China the eunuchs certainly didn’t! OK, I must apologise for that lapse in comedic judgement. But the ball is in my court. Oh, please make me stop. Anyway this lack of a certain, um, something may explain why they were mad for power and painted Evil Eyebrows on their noggins to give them that extra mad-as-a-cut-snake villain look. Certainly works here for Donnie Yen’s character!

Yen is part of … (read more)

If the idea of one of those ponderous European romantic dramas – only Asian! – appeals to you, then look no further than Stanley Kwan’s disappointing latest effort. A woman leads her life (which is, naturally, only ever defined in terms of her relationships with men) set against the background of this event and that event; and if it sounds like I am failing to pay proper respect to the impact of World War 2 and the Cultural Revolution on … (read more)

Okay, everyone knows that the surprise is that there’s no surprise: the age-defying dumplings are filled with foetuses. Chan shoves that fact in our face right up front, with no coy pretence, so we know this is not a mystery with a horrifying secret to be revealed in the final scene. So, given that the whole plot is given away in the first few minutes, what keeps us watching?

Well, gentle readers, what keeps us watching is that Chan is … (read more)

This is one of those movies that just gets better and better the more you think about it. Johnnie To has actively sought to bring a realistic representation of the triad to the screen, to subvert the glamourised manner with which the Hong Kong cinema (To included) has portrayed its local gang culture, and lay bare its true nature. These kind of revisionist gangster movies have always been the best, and Election reminded me of The Godfather Part 2 and … (read more)

Apparently, this one was made in a break in the filming of Ashes of Time, with mostly the same cast, and mostly the same characters, but absolutely none of the same seriousness. It’s more wacky than a firkin* of very wacky things, and will make your brain revolve at speed.

There’s no way to adequately describe most of this, except to say that the costumes are lavishly satinned, the performances are lavishly over-the-top, and seeing this will possibly answer … (read more)

Men Suddenly in Black is a one-joke yet consistently funny spoof of Hong Kong gangster movies. I should probably make it clear from the outset that I have virtually no standards when it comes to the send-up comedy genre, as I find the jokes that don’t work frequently funnier than the ones that do. So if you load your movie with transparently stupid references to other movies and genre conventions, you’re unlikely to get an entirely bad review out of … (read more)