Blog Archives

An entertaining, family-friendly mishmash of martial arts picture and Indiana Jones-style treasure hunt, Wu Dang shows off some serious talent both in front of and behind the camera, coupled with a stunning setting way up amongst the Taoist temples in the Wudang Mountains.

Vincent Zhao returns to the role of leading man after 2010′s True Legend, which was his first cinema appearance in quite some time, after spending most of the decade prior in television in Hong Kong and … (read more)

From Melbourne With Love

A survey of the modest collection of obsolete optical media in my apartment reveals 32 Stephen Chow titles, a ratio of at least 5:1 over any other actor or director. Rather than being an irrelevant humblebrag on my part, this elucidates the fact that there is a global audience for Hong Kong’s popular cinema and — more importantly — Chow, whom I still consider its shining star. My take on his most recent film, Journey to … (read more)

Retitled from Jukkalan, after its lead character, to the rather more bombastic This Girl is Badass, this film is omnipresent Thai comedian Petchai Wongkumlao’s (a.k.a Mum Jokmok) seventh movie as director, writer and actor. We don’t get all that much Thai cinema here in Oz, but even casual viewers of the nation’s output — like me — will recognise him as Tony Jaa’s offsider in the modern martial arts classic Ong Bak, open-faced, wide-eyed and occasionally very … (read more)

Failed — or at least distracted — actor Kinuta (Satoshi Tsumabuki) spends his days dismally holed up in front of a slot machine, a poster child for what we in Australia would call pokies addiction. Quiet and vulnerable, he is manipulated into taking a job he can’t turn down and joins a team of smugglers for the Yakuza: moving a truck full of things that need to pass unnoticed, often things that are suspiciously man-shaped.… (read more)

So, a month or so after Tai Chi 0 hit cinemas, its sequel has arrived: Tai Chi Hero, filmed back-to-back with its predecessor on a shared budget. Accordingly, most of what Rhys says in his review of the first film holds true for this one: it’s a 3D action-comedy-adventure film with a steampunk feel to the art direction, solid action choreography from action legend Sammo Hung, and some modern CGI crammed in for today’s effects-hungry audience.… (read more)

Han Gi-su (Lee Min-ki), a street racer in a biker gang in his (relatively recent, judging by his looks!) youth, is a courier who’s good at his job and very, very fast on a motorcycle. One day, he picks up an unusual job: he’s couriering a young lady across the city to a K-pop concert that she’s supposed to be on stage for. As she gets on to the bike and puts on his helmet, though, there’s an ominous beep, … (read more)

Unflinchingly brutal and visually arresting, Yuen Sang-ho’s animated film The King of Pigs — the director’s first feature — definitely made an impression. It scooped up three awards at Busan in 2011, was invited to screen in the Directors’ Fortnight in Cannes in 2012, and this year’s Sydney Film Festival programmed it as the first Korean film ever in competition. Where I missed out on it.… (read more)

The Taste of Money is Im Sang-soo’s seventh film, and a successor of sorts (if not a direct sequel) to 2010′s The Housemaid. I haven’t seen the latter, so I can’t write much about it here, but it seems clear from this trailer that it’s a thriller/melodrama set in the rarefied world of South Korea’s super-rich.

The Taste of Money inhabits the same universe. … (read more)