At one point in The East is Red (1993), a lovely concubine is actually revealed to be an albino ninja in a diaper, who during his escape leaps into the air and blends into the moon on the horizon. He then gets slashed but, with his last breath, opens his mouth and spits out a messenger pigeon... Seriously, if that ten or fifteen seconds of film doesn't have you sold, then read no further. That pretty much sums up the appeal of the film, and that is not even close to being the wackiest fantasy action moment that the film contains.

The East is Red is also Swordsman 3, though viewing the first two films isn't necessary at all. You even get a nice little recap of the second film's ending at the start of East is Red. The first Swordsman film was an uneasy marriage between stately and elegant veteran martial film director King Hu (Come Drink With Me, A Touch of Zen...Read the entire review

When I wake up and start my day, I like, if at all possible, to watch COPS. There are scarcer better ways to start your day than watching some mulleted white trash drunk, shirtless, getting tasered by a Michelin Man-shaped officer who was out of breath the first five steps into the chase. It gives you a great sense of, ‟There but for the grace of God, go I‟ and truly makes having a bad day that much harder. You can always reflect back on what you watched in the morning and say, ‟At least I'm that guy.‟

Anyway, I don't know if Hong Kong gets COPS today, but I do know that in the 1970's if they wanted to watch some ‟true crime‟ tales they had to look no further than the local cineplex. Which brings me to the Shaw Brothers anthology series of Criminals films, each one promising to deliver stories of felonious misdoings rip...Read the entire review

There once was a glorious era for Hong Kong's Category III exploitation cinema when it seemed the boob-chopping serial killers, drooling rapists, wire-fu sex scenes, and sultry starlets steaming up the screen was in no short supply. But, it became one of the genres that faded in the mid-90's. Luckily, for the trenchcoat crowd, directors like Cash Chin (The Eternal Evil of Asia, The Fruit is Swelling, Sex & Zen 2) knew that there was still an audience out there for some good old gratuitous nudity and bad taste violence.

Taking its cues from many creepy loser films but perhaps most notably Killer Snakes due to a striking physical resemblance between the two stars, Naked Poison (2000) is about oily pervert Min (Sammuel Leung), a gangly geek who lives with his herbalist grandparents. Min is the kind of guy who is keen on taking upskirt pics of girls on the commuter ferry and a...Read the entire review

Bangkok Dangerous is a completely derivative action film. A Thai take on the whole Hong Kong gunplay/heroic bloodshed style of films that John Woo made his name with, Bangkok Dangerous would mark the debut of the Pang Brothers, who would go on to further acclaim directing The Eye.

The plot borrows its story basics from any number of "hitman with a heart of gold" films, most notably Wong Kar Wai's Fallen Angels which also featured a main character who was a deaf hitman with a lovely, underworld gun moll contact. Our hitman hero is Kong (Pawilat Mongkolpisit), a relatively quiet and unassuming young man, who after a childhood of being picked on because of his disability, befriends Aom (Patharawarin Timkul) and Joe (Pisek Intrakanchit) at a gun range. Recognizing his talent or sharpshooting (Kong's deafness means he doesn't have the involuntary reflex of twitching or blinki...Read the entire review

First-time (according to the imdb, anyway) director Kenji Uchida's Stranger of Mine (2005) is a light comedy, but not the sort that goes for frequent gut-busting gags. It is a bit of a romance, only no one really gets the girl. It is a bit of a crime film, though all the cons are foiled and the gangsters don't really get violent. So, its got a little bit of this and that, so I'll go with the ‟light film‟ tag.

The hook, the gimmick, of Stranger of Mine is that the story follows five characters over the course of one night, their stories intertwining, revealing little surprises and giving new insight into what you've seen before. For instance, in one story we see two characters having a long chat in a bedroom. Much later in a another characters segment, the bedroom scene is repeated from the new characters point of view- hiding underneath the bed.

We begin with ...Read the entire review

There is a limit to how far you can take a one-joke movie. "Men Suddenly In Black" goes beyond that limit.

The one joke is this: take a sex farce about husbands on the make for some quick adulterous action, and play it out like a snazzy action thriller. It's cute at first, obnoxious not too long after that, and all too tiresome before we even get to the halfway point. Director/co-writer Edmond Pang Ho-Cheung, who previously made "You Shoot, I Shoot" (and who also wrote the novel on which the cult favorite "Fulltime Killer" was based), finds his film slowly draining of the very energy that's supposed to drive it, as it becomes increasingly clear that muddled comedy and a rambling storyline is all we're going to get.

Jokingly referred to as a true story, "Men" tells the tale of four men whose wives are heading out of town for the day, leaving them fourteen hours to get laid. They've been pl...Read the entire review

Absolutely ridiculous yet also pretty darn creepy, "The Hole" finds inspiration in the kind of domestic thriller that would find an otherwise perfectly respectable major actress running around screeching and trying to kill someone with a golf club.

Not to be confused with the 2001 American indie thriller, the 1998 Taiwanese oddball drama/musical, or any number of other films to use the same title, "The Hole" is a 1997 Korean release that falls into the "crazy in-law" category of horror/thrillers. (The title is misleading, as there is no hole, really; the literal translation of the title "Olgami" is "The Trap," which is also weak, but what can you do?)

The crazy in-law here is a mother (Yun So-jeong) who's just a bit too close to her thirtysomething son Dong-woo (Park Yong-woo) for comfort. They cuddle, they play, they show great affection for each other. So much so, in fact, that it's not...Read the entire review

Films from Asia have been getting more and more attention over the lastfew years. The success of Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon seemsto have opened the gates and now movies from the far east are getting theatricalreleases in the US and many more are turning up on DVD. (Many arealso being remade by Hollywood studios that have run out of original ideas,but that's a topic for another time.) From horror to action films,Hong Kong and Japan and creating some very entertaining films. Onearea where the US is still the leader is in the big-budget-summer-blockbuster-flickbut that might not be the case for long. One film that has all thegrandeur and excitement of the best summer action movies comes from Korea. Musa: The Warrior is one of the most expensive movies ever madein Korea, and is more entertaining and exciting than rece...Read the entire review

The Movie:

NOTE: Please be aware that this DVD is a British import and although it is Region 0 and therefore free from region coding, it is in PAL format and in order to view this DVD, you'll have to have either a PAL compatible or Region Free DVD player. [Recommended Region Free Players] It will not play in standard Region 1 North American DVD players.

Rocky (Meng Fei) and Cherry were lovers when they were younger but as time went on he decided to leave their home town and go make his mark on the world. Years later, Rocky returns to hopefully rekindle what he and Cherry once had, but upon his arrival he finds out that she's off and married a swordsman named Willow! Why did she doe this? Because while Rocky was off doing his own thing, a dastardly man named Iron Head showed up in town a...Read the entire review

Before bird flu became the worldwide pandemic threat du jour, we had SARS. It seems a distant memory, those days in 2003 when the disease shut down major cities and threatened to do much worse now seeming so far behind us. For those of us Stateside, SARS was little more than a blip, a headline grabber that always stayed in the vagueness of Over There and Somewhere Else. Which is why the import of a movie like "City of SARS" is quite welcome: it delivers to us a firsthand account from a time and place where dealing with the epidemic was a matter for the vague-free world of Everyday Living, Right Here.

The film, curiously, is an anthology, tying together three wildly separate stories, with director Steve Cheng doing his best to hold it all together. I say "curiously" because the first story is solid enough - and, more importantly, central enough to the heart of the film, thanks to the most effecti...Read the entire review

The Movie:

Directed by Hoh Chi-Hang and starring Michael Tao, Fanny Yuan and Wayne Lai, this X-Files inspired thriller has absolutely nothing to do with the Herman Yau directed series of Category III horror movies that starred Anthony Wong.

The story focuses on a pair of Hong Kong police officers named Sam and Judy (Lai and Yuan) who throw in the towel and resign from the force so that they can go off and start their own private detective agency. Why would they want to branch out on their own? So that they can focus in on the one area where they excel that the normal police force won't go – the paranormal. Sam's wanted to start looking into the weird and mysterious world and his superiors have always reeled him back in when he's tried to travel down that mystical path. While it might sound difficult to get a business like this up and running, thankfully they have a mysteriou...Read the entire review

THE MOVIE:

All's Well, End's Well is a lightweight screwball comedy with a heavyweight cast. Made in 1992, it stars Leslie Cheung (Happy Together), Stephen Chow (Kung-Fu Hustle), and Maggie Cheung (Hero). All are game to take part in the film's over-the-top-style, but they all also had much better things to come.

The script, written by Raymond Wong (who also stars), centers around one family, and takes them from the eldest son's wedding anniversary to the anniversary of his parents a couple of months later. Structured around three brothers, All's Well, End's Well has three concurrent story lines: Wong's marital woes, brought to a head by his cheating; Chow's womanizing and the strange, film-obsessed woman (Maggie Cheung) who turn...Read the entire review

THE MOVIE:

Andy Lau is Sun, a reporter who has let his relentless pursuit of the story blind him to the humanity that the news is built on. When he is diagnosed with a life-threatening illness, he decides that the best course of action is not treatment, but getting one last, glory-making story. Enter Gump Chung-Shun (Kenny Bee), a money man in Singapore who was just caught stealing from his clients, sending negative ripples across the Asian economy. Sun goes to find Chung-Shun, and ends up becoming his hostage. Out in the wilderness, the bad guy teaches the wannabe good guy about the dangers of living life with regret, and once they are home, Sun completes his lesson by taking care of Chung-Shun's prostitute girlfriend, Chu (Theresa Lee). He learns to appreciate W...Read the entire review

THE MOVIE:

In 1964, a freak typhoon strands two people on an island near Hong Kong, and a lack of available lodgings puts them in an empty house together overnight. Yau-Shing (Tony Leung Ka Fai) is a married businessman whose wife isn't very passionate, and Wai-Sum (Anita Yuen) is a modern young woman two weeks from her wedding. One thing leads to another, and the two hapless travelers end up in bed together. The next morning, as Yau-Shing attempts to sneak out quietly, the first of many Three's Company-style scenarios sparks off a thirty year relationship that sees the two lovers returning to the same room the same time every year. Thankfully, we don't see every reunion, but skip ahead several years each time, leading us up to 1994, when I Will Wait For Yo...Read the entire review

Iron-Ox: The Tiger Killer (1974, aka The Angry Fist): The film begins with Meng Leung (Wong Goon-hung) meeting his crippled kung fu teacher and explaining that he has taken his masters manuals, completed three years of training, and become a martial master. I guess it was some kind of kung fu correspondence course. Perhaps Meng Leung also learned refrigerator repair. It is now his duty to fulfill his master's wishes and become the resident badass of justice in the province.

Problem is, Meng Leung's woman, Ellen (yes, the dub gives everyone else a Chinese name except for the girl) doesn't want to marry a guy who is getting into fights all the time. Struggling with this, he takes a dive and goes on a drunk after her flirty cousin comes around. Meng Leung's master gets into a tussle with Ellen's cousin and his buddies, who all happen to members of the 5 Tigers, a non-corrupt martia...Read the entire review

The Movie:

NOTE: Please be aware that this DVD is a British import and while it is coded as Region 0 it will only play on PAL compatible DVD players. In order to view this DVD, you'll have to have either PAL compatible DVD player or a Region Free DVD player. [Recommended Region Free Players] It will not play in standard Region 1 North American DVD players.

Ronnie Yu's original The Bride With White Hair is widely regarded as a classic of the Hong Kong new wave – a sublime blend of supernatural, horror, romance and mystery, it was simply a beautiful film to look at and which told an interesting story at the same time. The film did big box office and proved itself a hit, and so a sequel was rushed into production, once again with the lovely Brigitte Lin and Leslie Chung in the lea...Read the entire review

THE MOVIE:

When I first received the disc for 49 Days, I was unfamiliar with the film, so I turned the box over to read the description on the back. What I found was a long, jumbled summary that didn't make a lot of sense. The best I could figure was that it was some kind of crime and/or legal thriller with supernatural elements. I blamed the incoherence of the summary on bad translation.

I was wrong.

The reason the box description of 49 Days makes no sense is because the movie makes no sense. In fact, I give whoever put the package together credit for getting as close to sorting it all out as they did.

Let's see if I can do better.

Lau Shing (Stephen Fung) is leaving his provincial village to go to the big city, where he will set up a business ...Read the entire review

"You can have the most delicious food, the prettiest clothes, and everyone will adore you. All the riches of the world will be yours in return for a small sacrifice – You will lose everyone you love. Any happiness they bring will be fleeting. Are you willing to accept this?... Once you have agreed, this will become your destiny for life. It can never be changed unless time flows backwards, winter falls in the spring, and the dead come back to life. Remember, all the riches of the world will be yours in return for this promise."

The Movie:
Ang Lee did it with Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon, and Zhang Yimou did it twice over with Hero and House of Flying Daggers. Both filmmakers acclaimed for their serious dramatic work made huge intern...Read the entire review

The Movie

In the Massive Book of Silly Ideas, I'd probably place a futuristic rendition of Pinocchio somewhere within the first three pages. But since Carlo Collodi's classic tale has been "in the public domain" for so many years, you're bound to find your share of "what were they thinking?" adaptations. Aside from the flashy (yet ultimately eyesore-ish) CGI animation, Pinocchio 3000 earns a spot right next to 1965's Pinocchio in Outer Space and Roberto Benigni's harrowingly misguided Pinocchio misfire from a few years back.

So now comes P3K, an international effort that brings together French, Spanish, and Canadian animators in an effort to turn everyone's favorite wooden boy into a new-fangled cyberkid.

Yes, this new Pinocchio is, of course, a robot, but very little else has changed from the story you're probably sick to death of by now: Pinocchio must ...Read the entire review