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The Art Gallery of NSW has just announced a series of ten (free!) screenings here in Sydney focusing on the careers of four of Chinese cinema’s leading actresses, from the 1930s to today: Ruan Lingyu, Anna May Wong, Maggie Cheung and Zhao Tao. Films screen every week from 20 June to 26 August.

From their blurb on the website:

In 1930s China, the term mingxing (bright star, 明星) captured the allure of a new public figure: the screen diva. … (read more)

So, I’m one of the teeming millions that picked up the new iPad last week, and its amazing screen propelled me into looking for books to read on it. If you’re in the same situation, I hugely recommend picking up the PDF version of David Bordwell’s excellent book Planet Hong Kong — if you haven’t seen the original version, it’s a wonderful overview of HK cinema by film theorist, professor, prodigious blogger and HK cinema fan David Bordwell.

The original … (read more)

OK, so the English-language title is a bit of a mouthful. Perhaps it’s inevitable, when we’re on the second remake; director Tsui Hark’s already taken a tilt at this story once, with 1992’s star-studded New Dragon Gate Inn. The original, King Hu’s Dragon Inn (1967) is a classic from a director whose influence on wuxia film is immense — we’re still seeing echoes from his films from the ’60s today.

Anyway, it’s a new Tsui Hark wuxia/swordplay film, and … (read more)

Today, I am going to continue with part 2 of my article, picking up where we left off yesterday:

Lover’s Concerto (2002): This romantic melodrama is a tearjerker. Its main cast, including Cha Tae-hyun, Son Ye-jin and the late Lee Eun-ju (Taegukgi), all gave likeable performances. While the story is not particularly original, the film is an example of an ordinary story told well. Viewers who like crying should have some tissues ready.

Memories of Murder… (read more)

Since I first discovered the wonderful world of Korean cinema in 1999, I have seen an impressive number of great Korean films. So as I started working on a top 10 list to contribute to this year’s Korean Blogathon, I actually found it incredibly difficult to narrow the number down to ten. Because of this, I have decided to do something a bit different instead – a list of my favourite Korean movies from A to Z.

I hope … (read more)