Saturday, April 12

Movie review: Ninja Strikes Back

This slice of Bruceploitation not only steals elements from the Little Dragon's filmography, but cribs notes and methods from other movies such as Goldfinger as well. The end result is a picture that really can't be considered good in the true cinematic sense of the word, but is a fun enough time.

Full review here

Tuesday, May 8

Movie review: The Golden Lotus: Love and Desire

Not really knowing where it wants to go, the Category III sex romp Golden Lotus is neither arty or tasteful enough to be considered erotica, nor is it sleazy enough to appeal to the hardcore raincoater crowd. Instead, the audience is treated to a product that is the opposite of sexy: just plain boring.

Full review here

Movie review: Beginning of the Great Revival

Beginning of the Great Revival was a huge hit in Mainland China. Now, if I wasn't a cynical bastard, I would say that it was due to the star power and stirring story. But, since I am that friendly neighborhood semi-drunken reviewer that fanboys all over the world have come to know and hate, I would say it was due to the government keeping Western blockbusters like Transformers out of local theatres and giving mandatory days off from work and free tickets to a proletariat growing increasingly concerned with the way their country is headed.

Full review here

Wednesday, April 25

Movie review: The Little Drunken Masters

Based on the success of Jet Li's My Father is a Hero, some Hong Kong producers scrambled over themselves to get more "kiddie fu" films splashed across the jade screen. Not surprisingly, most of these releases came off as cheap attempts to squeeze a couple more coins from the audience.

Full review here

Movie review: Crazy Stone

Despite having a low budget and being shot on HD video cameras, this 2006 production was a hit both on the Mainland and in Hong Kong. Certainly, having Andy Lau serving as a producer helped, but director Ning Hao's free-wheeling and breezy style factors in a lot here, making what could have been a stale comedy/heist movie "insipred" by pictures like Ocean's Eleven into a release that actually turns out to be funny, even to pasty white semi-drunken and fully grizzled reviewers such as yours truly.

Full review here

Saturday, April 21

Movie review: The Raid: Redemption

2009's Merentau was a great martial arts movie which showed a lot of promise from the film's young star and director, Iko Uwais and Gareth Evans. Their 2011 followup, The Raid: Redemption, not only meets the expectations that Merantau set up, it exceeds them in spades.

Full review here

Movie review: Heaven and Hell

This Lunar New Year release from legendary Shaw Brothers director Chang Cheh sports a large cast with many of the Shaw's biggest stars of the time, including Alexander Fu Sheng and David Chiang, and an inventive storytelling technique seldom seen inside of the old-school kung fu realm. As a whole, however, Heaven and Hell never really fully gels together, making this a picture that shows a lot of promise during portions of its' running time, but never being able to deliver something truly special.

Full review here

Sunday, April 15

Movie review: China Dragon

From the addled mind of Chu Yen-Ping, who is, in this reviewer's humble opinion, one of the worst directors to come out of Asia in the past twenty years, comes China Dragon, a film that will surely test the cinematic mettle of anyone stupid enough to actually sit down and watch the whole thing.

Full review here

Friday, April 13

Movie review: Beyond Our Ken

Writer/director Edmond Pang has emerged as one of the more talented film-makers currently working in Hong Kong. Beyond Our Ken is no exception. What on the surface would normally be a dumb romantic comedy turns out to be an interesting take on making and breaking relationships.

Full review here