You have to be careful with the English titles with Chinese language films. Take Hong Kong’s The Calling of a Bus Driver (2020), written and directed by Patrick Kong. With a title like that one would expect to see some … Continue reading REVIEW: The Calling of a Bus Driver (2020)
Nothing in global cinema is more culturally specific than comedy. I have written in the past about the Hong Kong comedy style known as ‘mo lei tau’, a sort of nonsensical and deliberately silly combination of wordplay, non-sequitur, and slapstick … Continue reading REVIEW: 92 Legendary La Rose Noire (1992)
The 1980s saw a new wave of fantasy pictures in Hong Kong, ones that combined pre-existing elements of Chinese wuxia with a Hollywood-inspired use of visual effects. The poster child for this wave is almost certainly Zu: Warriors from the … Continue reading REVIEW: The Peacock King (1988)
Johnnie To’s first – and, to date, only – international co-production does not quite scale the levels of inventiveness found in his Hong Kong-specific works, but Vengeance remains a beautifully staged and operatic action thriller. French chef Francis Costello (Johnny Hallyday) arrives … Continue reading REVIEW: Vengeance (2009)
When mid-level drug boss Timmy Choi (Louis Koo) is captured by mainland Chinese police – led by the stoic Captain Zhang (Sun Honglei) – he turns traitor on his underground empire, leading the cops into a complicated sting operation to shut … Continue reading REVIEW: Drug War (2013)
Hong Kong’s Johnnie To has been directing films since 1980, but you can really divide his career into two phases. One, a journey-level career in making relatively derivative features heavily inspired by existing genre conventions. Then, from 1999, a more … Continue reading REVIEW: Loving You (1995)
Taiwanese director Tsai Ming-Liang is, I think, one of the world’s most interesting filmmakers. It is not simply that he produces interesting and deepful artful narrative features including Rebels of a Neon God and Goodbye, Dragon Inn. He also makes a broad range … Continue reading REVIEW: Walker (2012)
Ng Kau-Sau (Josie Ho) was a champion badminton player, but her poor attitude and aggressive style saw her career shattered. Now she’s overweight, depressed and working in her brother’s restaurant – until a chance encounter involving a meteorite and a … Continue reading REVIEW: Full Strike (2015)
Kei (Simon Yam) leads a small band of Hong Kong-based pickpockets, while enjoying his off hours taking pictures of the city with a Rolleiflex camera. While taking photographs one afternoon, he captures the image of a woman (Kelly Lin) seemingly … Continue reading REVIEW: Sparrow (2008)
For a while there in the early 2000s Sammi Cheng was one of the biggest stars in Hong Kong cinema. Every year brought about another high profile romantic comedy, more often than not pairing Cheng with superstar Andy Lau. While … Continue reading REVIEW: Magic Kitchen (2004)
