News

’The Dream, The Bubble, And The Shadow’ is from ‘Ip Man’ director Wilson Yip.

Hong Kong-based One Cool Pictures is launching a string of new titles featuring Louis Koo, Jennifer Yu, Kay Tse and Lim Min Chen as it returns to Hong Kong Filmart, the company’s first physical market since 2019.

The Dream, The Bubble, And The Shadow, directed by Wilson Yip, produced by Soi Cheang and starring Koo, reunites the same team behind 2017’s Paradox from the Spl franchise, which won Koo the best actor award at the Hong Kong Film Awards and Asian Film Awards.

The upcoming suspense...

After impressing Hong Kong cinephiles with his debut, Stanley Kwan continued to explore the mentality of women through their interactions with men, an effort which led him to the international scene, as “Love Unto Waste” premiered at Locarno, before netting awards for Best Supporting Actress (Elaine Jin) and Best Screenplay from Hong Kong Film Awards.

Billie, a model who always wears sunglasses and asks to borrow money from men, and her two friends, Jade Screen Lau, an actress, and Jane Chiu, a singer, have come to Hong Kong from Taiwan, in order to become famous. One night at a karaoke bar, they meet Tony Cheung, the playboy son of a rice wholesaler, who is accompanied by Miss Chung, a girl who works at his company and seems to have a thing for him. Despite the fact that the meeting is rather eventful, with Tony getting drunk and...

With a prodigious output during its peak, it isn’t hard for some Hong Kong features to fade into obscurity. It’s only with recent re-releases that we are getting the opportunity to revisit them. On researching “Fatal Vacation” for this review, I was surprised to read about the controversy that surrounded its production. With a relatively unusual subject matter for the industry, it veers into exploitation territory more in common a with “grindhouse” movie than regular Hong Kong fare.

Bob (Eric Tsang) runs tours of the Philippines for Hong Kong tourists, assisted by Candy (Irene Wan). In true Hong Kong fashion, he bribes the local airport staff and alters the itinerary to make quick money. At a nightspot, his party are captured by rebels and taken hostage to be used as negotiation for the release of one of their captured brethren. When the government refuses to...

Big-budget action blockbusters “Raging Fire” and “The Rescue” headlined Emperor Motion Pictures’ (Emp) star-studded announcement at FilMart on Tuesday, which also saw many familiar Hong Kong faces returning for locally focused projects.

Emp also highlighted its mainland Chinese projects at the event, including “Two Tigers,” a black comedy produced by and starring Vicky Zhao Wei and directed by Li Fei, and “Caught in Time,” a crime thriller produced by Han Sanping, the producer-director who previously headed state-controlled China Film Group. “Caught in Time” is directed by Lau Ho-leung and stars Daniel Wu, who has not appeared in a Chinese film since 2015.

New Emperor title “Raging Fire” reunites director Benny Chan and singer-actor-turned-celebrity chef Nicholas Tse for the first time since their last collaboration, 2011’s “Shaolin.” The film, which recounts the rivalry of a former cop and his mentor, also stars Donnie Yen; Yen also is a producer.

Emp’s “The Rescue...

Watching a critic becoming a director is always an interesting endeavor, and much more in Freddie Wong, who seems to have dealt with a number of other capacities in cinema before he shot his own film. The movie in question is “The Drunkard”, a film based on the homonymous novel by the late Liu Yichang, who is is considered the founder of Hong Kong’s modern literature.

The story revolves around Lau, an author and article writer who struggles to maintain his integrity and sustain himself financially in the midst of the economic boom Hong Kong experienced in the late 1950s and early ’60s. As the wuxia wave started to take over all aspects of art and particularly cinema and literature, Lau found himself being criticized for the lack of action in his works, and subsequently, fired. Having no alternative, and after a script he wrote for a movie is stolen,...

Nicolas Cage, accompanied by Australian actress and producer Nikki Whelan, trod the red carpet on Saturday night as part of the opening festivities at the third edition of the International Film Festival and Awards.

Set as a talent ambassador, Cage held small group seminars earlier on Saturday. On Sunday he will hold a masterclass.

His presence helped compensate for a couple of high-profile mainland Chinese talent absentees, presumably summoned North for the Huabiao Awards taking place in China the same evening.

The breezy opening event included a specially composed song and dance routine, a whirl of clips from films that will unspool over the coming week, and an elaborate ticket-slotting set-piece.

International guests in attendance included director of Copenhagen Pix Film Festival Jacob Neiiendam; director of Tallinn Black Nights Film Festival Tiina Lokk; director of Sydney Film Festival, Nashen Moodley; artistic director of Chicago International Film Festival, Mimi Plauche; director of Busan International Film Festival,...

Sammo Hung is one of the greatest Screen Fighters, Directors and Choreographers in Martial Arts cinema history. Started his early career as an extra in Shaw Brothers productions, then became of fight choreographer on a few of there movies.

It was when he started his career with Raymond Chow at Golden harvest Studios, that Sammo started to show what he could do in terms of action in-front and behind the camera. Sammo Hung has made some of the finest movies of all time and also bringing us some incredible talent such as Yuen Biao, Angela Mao, Lam Ching Ying, Michelle Yeoh and many more.

This is a list of 30 Sammo Hung movies you should check out, this list is also for new fans of the genre. So i hope you enjoy the list and i also mention some other Sammo Hung movies at the end of the page.

1.Hapkido (1972)

Director:...

Originally released back in 2011, “The Loan Shark” saw Malaysian director C.L. Hor following up on “The 3rd Generation” and his martial arts outing “Kinta” with a slice of tough though stylish undercover cop crime drama. While shot and set in Malaysia, the film features an interesting cast of familiar Hong Kong faces, including enduring character actors Sam Lee, known for roles in cult favourites such as “Biozombie” and “Dog Bite Dog”, and Johnny To regular Lam Suet (“Election”), singer Rosanne Lui and actress Irene Wan, popular in the 1980s after key roles in the likes of “Rouge” and “Everlasting Love”, and recently in “Triad”. Taking the main lead is local model turned actress Jojo Goh, who stars as Mun Mun, a young woman who along with her brother Ah Lung (Sam Lee) has a great hatred of loan sharks after their father is hounded to death. Fast forward a few years,...

There’s no denying that recent years have been lean times for fans of triad and Hong Kong gang action, though there’s finally a splash of neon light at the end of the tunnel with the aptly named “Triad”. Appropriately for such a uniquely local and Hong Kong genre, the film was produced by the same team responsible for the “Lan Kwai Fong” duology and “Girl$”, and was written and directed by Daniel Chan, who also helmed Wong Jing’s soon to be seen “Young and Dangerous” reboot. As expected, the film showcases a cast of young up and coming talent as the rising gangsters, headlined by Sun Boyz singer William Chan (“Overheard”) and including Derek Tsang (“The Thieves”), Deep Ng (“The Viral Factor”) and Michelle Wai (“Lives in Flames”), plus veterans Patrick Tam (“The Detective 2”) and Irene Wan (“Exodus”). The plot charts the rise of young William (William Chan...

Cast: Sammo Hung, Teresa Mo Sun Kwan, Tommy Wong Kwong Leung, Irene Wan Pik Ha, Helena Law Lan, Frankie Ng Chi Hung, Billy Chow

Director: Ringo Lam

Sammo Hung stars in this 1991 modern day action movie. Not as well known as some of his other work, but this is still an enjoyable movie.

Plot

After Sergeant Lau has been murdered, his partner Pitt vows to get the killer. By a series of investigations, Pitt finds a witness Fatty, who’s persuaded to testify against the killer, Tiger. But Tiger is bailed by Kim, a lawyer. Then Tiger firebombs Fatty’s house, making Fatty move into Pitt’s home and gain a friendship with Angel, Pitt’s sister who is a reporter. Tiger strikes back again and catches Pitt and Fatty. May, who’s beguiled to Hong Kong and forced to be a prostitute by Kim, comes to rescue the two men.

“72 Martyrs” is another film released to tie in with the 100th anniversary of the Xinhai Revolution, a turning point in modern Chinese history which played a vital role in bringing down the Qing Dynasty. The film was directed by Derek Chiu, who previously tackled the period through his Sun Yat Sen biopic “Road to Dawn”, and deals in particular with the Huanghuagang Uprising (also known as the Yellow Flower Mound Revolt), an event which famously saw the titular 72 patriots dying for their cause. As with other recent historical offerings, the film has a prestigious cast made up of new faces and acclaimed stars, including Zhao Bing Rui, Tse Kwan Ho (“The Miracle Box”), Eric Tsang (“Bodyguards and Assassins”), Wang Jian Chang, Liu Kai Chi (“The Stool Pigeon”), Irene Wan (“Exodus”) and Elanne Kong (“Rebellion”), with a cameo appearance from Alan Tam. The film is set in 1910 in Guangzhou, with the...

Toronto International Film Festival

HONG KONG -- Blue Beard gets his comeuppance in Pan Ho Cheung's "The Exodus" ("Chu Aiji Ji"), a suave black-comedy thriller about men-killing women. The Hong Kong director's 6th feature has climbed onto the festival bus that takes off in Toronto, gears up for competition at San Sebastian and will make stops at Pusan and Tokyo.

"The Exodus" opens with a surreal non-dialogue sequence accompanied by a haunting adagio by Mozart and a mesmerizingly long take that lasts a full five minutes, with a photo of Queen Elizabeth II occupies the first frame (a pre-1997 setting that also signifies female sovereignty). The camera gradually tracks down a corridor to reveal "snorkelers" hammering a man into a bloody pulp, but the scene's symbolic significance does not hit home until later.

Back in the present, Sergeant Tsim Kin Yip (Simon Yam) interrogates suspect Kwan Ping Man (Nick Cheung), arrested for filming women in toilets. Kwan claims to be investigating a "syndicate of men-killing women" who make their crimes look like natural or accidental deaths. Yip dismisses him as a lunatic -- until his statement goes missing and he retracts his words.

Despite warnings from his superior Mdm. Fong, Tsim latches on to the case, causing a growing rift with his wife Amy (Annie Liu). Kwan goes missing, and is found dead. Tsim tracks down Kwan's foxy ex-wife Pun Siu Yuen (Irene Wan), but his ardour for investigation dissipates when Pun seduces him. Meanwhile, Amy's buried past, including the ritual meaning of her collection of figurines, begins to surface.

Since "Isabella", Pang has been straining at seriousness. The film's music is composed with a classical resonance and the pace and editing has slowed down, with non-dialogue, geometrically-composed and arty long takes replacing his early, frenetically edited, spoofy and coarsely wacky romps.

A sense of women's omniscience and omnipotence is effectively conveyed. The characters' interactions are mostly captured stealthily in long and medium shots through a window or from a height, to simulate the view from a surveillance camera. The dominant visual tone is steely blue and gloomy green, with occasional outbursts of red – evoking on a sensory level the predominance of yin. Actors display a deliberate opacity of expression that enhances the mysterious lurking beneath the mundane.

Tsim is initially depicted like a "Twilight Samurai" who'd rather go home to his wife than drink with the boys. So his infidelity is too sudden and unconvincing, unless Pang's is trying to make the point that men are by nature corrigible, which puts him on as morally dodgy grounds as the inference that women have a murderous axe to grind.

Is this radical feminism or the paranoia of a misogynist? The film does not delve into such issues. It's more of an exercise in polished structure and clever twists. Pay attention to the dialog or you won't get the ending.

EXODUS

Filmko Entertainment/Making Film

Director: Pang Ho Cheung

Writers: G C Goobi, Jimmy Wan, Pang Ho Cheung

Producers: Stanley Tong, Cheung Hong Tat

Executive producers: Harvey Wong, Song Dai

Director of photography: Charlie Lam

Production designer: Man Lim Chung

Music: Gabriele Roberto

Editor: Stanley Tam

Cast:

Tsim Kin Yip: Simon Yam

Amy Cheung Fong: Annie Liu

Pun Siu Yuen: Irene Wan

Kwan Ping Man: Nick Cheung

Maggie Shiu: Mdm. Fong Chi Tsing

No MPAA, running time 94 minutes...