The Raid 2: Berandal (2014)

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Posted on April 7, 2014 by Justin

Three years ago, director Gareth Evans’ second film, The Raid arrived in Aussie cinemas with a bang. It’s the first Indonesian film I can remember ever getting a wide release here (and in North America, where it was first retitled The Raid: Redemption and given a soundtrack workover), and it won a great deal of attention from critics and dyed-in-the-wool action cinema fans. Evans had managed to craft a taut, focused genre film fusing well-trodden Hollywood tropes with the harder … (read more)

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GCFF 2014 on now!

Posted on April 3, 2014 by Deni

With the weather the way it’s been (warm and muggy when not raining) it’s not like you need an excuse to go to the beach, but if you do, the great Gold Coast Film Festival is one of the best. It kicks off tomorrow, and again the GCFF’s partnership with Supanova and their commitment to regional and cult film means that there’s some great Asian cinema to be had!

From China, the most recent rendition of that timeless classic The … (read more)

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From Vegas to Macau (2014)

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Posted on March 27, 2014 by Rhys

Sequels, Prequels, Send-ups and Spin-offs: Director Wong Jing finds Chow Yun Fat a new tuxedo amongst his usual box of tricks.

The recent release of From Vegas to Macau harks back to Hong Kong’s gambling fad of the early 1990s. Wong Jing, director of the original God of Gamblers series, offers up a super-silly pastiche of recycled gags that should appeal to fans of classic Hong Kong gambling films. Unfortunately, this time Chow Yun Fat does not play suave gamesman … (read more)

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This week in cinemas: ‘The Raid 2’

Posted on March 24, 2014 by Justin


Alright, so everyone who reads Heroic Cinema regularly knows this one is due out soon; we’ve posted trailers, given away double passes…. but this week’s the week.

Indonesian martial arts film The Raid 2: Berandal (Indonesian for “Thug”, according to Wikipedia) arrives in Australian cinemas this Friday, March 28, and it looks like it’ll make a lot of action cinema fans sit up and take notice.

Directed by Gareth Evans, it’s his follow-up to low-budget locked-building actioner The Raid… (read more)

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Enchanting Shadows: The Films of the Shaw Brothers

Posted on March 14, 2014 by John Snadden

The recent passing of Chinese business tycoon Run Run Shaw was an event well covered by the world’s media. The obituaries for the 106 year old entrepreneur mainly concentrated on his business acumen and life-long philanthropy.

Like many successful industrialists, Run Run Shaw’s public largess would not have been possible without the profits generated by his companies, in particular the Shaw Brothers movie studio.

For more than a twenty year period from the late 1950s, Run Run Shaw helped create … (read more)

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Giveaway: Tickets to see ‘The Raid 2’ (Closed)

Posted on March 12, 2014 by Justin

Arriving in Aussie cinemas (twin hammers at the ready, from the look of the poster!) on March 28 is Indonesian film The Raid 2, director Gareth Evans’ follow-up to his 2011 action flick The Raid.

The original film was an impressive piece of martial arts cinema given its tiny budget and cast of relative unknowns, and Evans suggested in interviews at the time (like the one we did) that the sequel would have the wider scope and … (read more)

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The Wind Rises (2013)

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Posted on February 27, 2014 by Justin

The Wind Rises is Hayao Miyazaki’s first return to the director’s chair in five years (since Ponyo) and — if his statements in interviews are taken at face value — his final feature film in a career spanning six decades in Japanese animation. If that is indeed the case, it is in many ways a fitting swansong: it’s a layered, nuanced film that tells a story that is definitively Japanese yet universal, rooted in history yet filled with flights … (read more)

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Harlock: Space Pirate (2013)

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Posted on February 26, 2014 by Yee-Yin

The Nordic premiere of Harlock: Space Pirate at the last Stockholm International Film Festival packed a full house. This futuristic, intergalactic pirate caper, set around the turn of the 3rd millennium, finds the infamous and (thought-to-be) immortal Captain Harlock (Shun Oguri) commandeering the mysterious spaceship Arcadia, the last of its kind and powered by dark matter — a self-generating energy based substance that comes in pretty handy in spaceship battle damage predicaments.

Earth has been declared a sanctuary in this … (read more)

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