The Grandmaster (2013)

I can’t remember much of a cinema release for Wong Kar-wai’s The Grandmaster (2013); it felt like its mixed reception resulted in an underwhelming reputation. Unexpectedly a martial arts movie for fans of Wong Kar-wai’s arthouse melodramas, it might have been too much of an arthouse melodrama for fans of martial arts movies. I was […]

Drunken Master II (1994)

Over the closing credits of Drunken Master II (1994; aka The Legend Of Drunken Master), as tradition with a lot of Jackie Chan movies, we see out-takes of the stunts and action sequences. And it helpfully confirms that Jackie Chan did indeed throw himself onto an actual bed of fiery coals in the factory climax, […]

The Mission (1999)

Johnnie To is someone whose movies I’ve wanted to dig into more, with him and his company Milky Way having an international reputation for Hong Kong action cinema. Though To has a prolific and diverse output of genres, people tend to talk most about his crime movies, usually about cops and triads. I’ve seen a […]

A Better Tomorrow (1986)

The iconic image from A Better Tomorrow (1986) is Chow Yun-Fat as the triad gangster Mark wearing dark sunglasses and lighting a cigarette with a flaming bank note, a counterfeit note incidentally. Lesser known is the sight of Yun-Fat wearing a pilly sweater with a pattern of beaded colours in a night club and still […]

Throw Down (2004)

Director Johnnie To said in an interview that he “didn’t want any antagonists” in the Hong Kong film, Throw Down (2004). This is intriguing to hear – no antagonists in a neo-noir martial arts movie set in the backstreets, gambling dens and smoky bars of Hong Kong? And that is specifically about the fighting form […]