Author Archives: Justin

This week in cinemas: ‘Ip Man 3’ (Hong Kong)

Posted on January 17, 2016 by Justin

This week in Aussie cinemas we have the third and likely final (though Donnie Yen said that of the second film, too!) installment of the Ip Man series of films from director Wilson Yip and martial arts superstar Donnie Yen.

(For completeness, here are our reviews of Ip Man (2008) and Ip Man 2 (2010))

Continuing the story of the Foshan-born, Hong Kong-based martial artist most famous for taking the young Bruce Lee on as a student, this film has … (read more)

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Trailer: “Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon: Sword of Destiny”

Posted on December 12, 2015 by Justin

Internet-era home TV juggernaut-tuned-studio Netflix has just unleashed the first trailer for its feature film sequel to Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon, and it would be remiss of us not to mention it here.

The film stars martial arts superstars Michelle Yeoh and Donnie Yen and is directed by veteran action director Yuen Woo-ping. Rounding out the cast is Harry Shum Jr. (from Glee), Jason Scott Lee (Dragon: the Bruce Lee Story), Roger Yuan (Bulletproof Monk… (read more)

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This week in cinemas: ‘Our Times’ (Taiwan)

Posted on November 21, 2015 by Justin

This week in Aussie cinemas is Taiwanese rom-com Our Times (我的少女時代), the feature film directorial debut of television producer Frankie Chen.

It’s another entry in the fairly recent last-days-of-high-school 90’s nostalgia subgenre of romance films, focusing on the relationship between schoolgirl Lin Zhen Xin (Vivian Sung) and school tough guy Xu Tai Yu (Darren Wang). Dino Lee and Dewi Chien round out the cast.

Here’s a trailer:

The film opened last Thursday 19 November and is showing at Hoyts cinemas… (read more)

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Melbourne Giveaway: Free tickets to ‘The Assassin’

Posted on September 27, 2015 by Justin

Attention, Melbourne cinema fans! We have a great giveaway to hand out this week, courtesy of the Cinema Nova on Lygon Street: ten free double passes to see Hou Hsiao-hsien’s The Assassin at a special advance screening on Sunday 11 October at 10am.… (read more)

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Korean Film Festival (KOFFIA) 2015

Posted on July 28, 2015 by Justin

The Korean Film Festival in Australia (KOFFIA) has been one of my favourite festivals over the last few years, and this year is shaping up to be as much fun as ever.

The full program has now been released, along with schedule information for all the cities they’re taking the festivities to, starting in a couple of weeks:

Sydney: Aug 12-20
Brisbane: Aug 25-31
Melbourne: Sep 3-10
Canberra Sep 5-6
Perth: Sep 17-20
Adelaide: … (read more)

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This week in cinemas: ‘SPL II: A Time for Consequences’ (China/HK)

Posted on July 27, 2015 by Justin

Slicing its way into Australian cinemas this week is the long-awaited sequel to modern HK classic SPL (which arrived in 2005, a fact that’s definitely making this writer feel old). The first film, which starred Donnie Yen, Sammo Hung, Wu Jing and Simon Yam, felt like Hong Kong reclaiming its place at the forefront of martial arts cinema after a slow decline since the early ’90s. It was slick and simple action cinema, powered by HK’s formidable fight choreography (directed … (read more)

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This week in cinemas: ‘Northern Limit Line’ (South Korea)

Posted on July 15, 2015 by Justin

Arriving in Australian cinemas tomorrow July 16 is South Korean naval drama Northern Limit Line, based on the events of the 2002 Second Battle of Yeonpyeong between North and South Korean patrol boats along the disputed sea boundary between the two. According to this Variety piece, it’s now the highest grossing local film of 2015 in South Korea — and we’ve got it in cinemas here for a little while.

Written and directed by Kim Hak-soon and starring … (read more)

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Asian Cinema at the Melbourne International Film Festival 2015

Posted on July 13, 2015 by Justin

It’s a little over two weeks until the 2015 edition of MIFF kicks off, and I don’t have enough time this year, sadly, to do a full rundown of every film from Asia showing at the festival like I did for SFF. Nonetheless, it would be remiss of me not to post about a few highlights; here’s a short rundown from my perusal of the program.

It’s jam-packed, as usual: the Accent on Asia stream alone has twenty-two films listed, … (read more)

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