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I think July Rhapsody was my introduction to Ann Hui's films -- and I can't remember WHY I checked it out. I had already (just) been won over by Johnnie To (but not by WKW), not sure where I was with regard to exploring Stanley Kwan. I just regret that I encountered her work a few months too late to get some of her films on DVD (such as Romance of Book and Sword and its part 2 -- these had already sold out of the DVD version, leaving only the VCD versions available). I remain mystified as to why Ann Hui has never really gotten the respect she deserves in the West.

I love Hua Shan. Portrait in Crystal, Soul of the Sword, and Bloody Parrot are favorites for me. He is a really twisted director.

As for Sun Chung, I second the Sexy Killer recommendation, but would add to that Big Bad Sis, which is pretty divine sleaze, and some of his wuxia films: Deadly Breaking Sword and Rendezvous with Death. The Kung Fu Instructor is also and good one. Avenging Eagle never wholly worked for me--it has some of Sun Chung's strengths, but it seems too much like a video game populated with level bosses. Whereas Deadly Breaking Sword is demented, heady, and a little free-associative in its plotting.

Umetsugu to me never rises above the restrictions of his genres. He seems to me a patently unambitious filmmaker. That said, Hong Kong Nocturne is very lush melodrama.

Thanks, all the recommendations are much appreciated.

I also hope to jump into the discussion of New Wave directors eventually, at the moment I'm only pretty familiar with Wong Kar Wai, though I've seen 1 or 2 films by Ann Hui, Stanley Kwan, and Mabel Cheung. I'll definitely check out July Rhapsody after the praise given here, and I have several other films by New Wave directors I aim to watch soon.


One of my recent obsessions in HK cinema has also been the production company Cinema City. Of course they're most well known for producing the Aces Go Places series (working my way through this right now). They're also responsible for a bunch of my other favorite 80s films. Each film I've seen from them has been a great example of how Hong Kong could really channel all that manic energy usually associated with action into other areas. Some favorites include Tsui Hark's All the Wrong Clues and the follow up from Teddy Robin, All The Wrong Spies(which I mentioned earlier), Yuen Woo-Ping's Mismatched Couples and Chor Yuen's Diary of a Big Man. I also really enjoyed Tsui Hark's Working Class though I had somewhat false expectations from its delighful but terribly misleading trailer.

I haven't disliked a single movie I've seen from them yet, and since their output is fairly small, I'm thinking of going through their entire filmography year by year.

Michael Kerpan wrote:I remain mystified as to why Ann Hui has never really gotten the respect she deserves in the West.

Hard to judge how relevant this is as I haven't actually seen any of her films yet, BUT the article that got me interested in the first place made me wonder if it might have to do with the apparently uneven nature of her filmography; HK Film Archive programmer Law Kar says she's basically had to jump at every possible opportunity at directing just in order to stay in the business, and consequently only been able to do her more "personal" work "from time to time". Now with the continuing prevalence of the auteur theory in the West, that sort of disparity might rub non-specialised Western critics the wrong way (as opposed to someone like Wong, whose entire oeuvre is much easier to market as that of an "auteur"). Pure speculation here.

(On a tangent, I've always found it ironic that it's still de rigeur to look down on contemporary directors who openly admit to preferring the "studio system" way of working, while glorifying certain old ones, who would never make the grade now, as proto-auteurs - but this is old hat already isn't it)

While her uneven output certainly causes problem, I wouldn't be surprised if the main reason she isn't more admired in the world of cinephilia is that she isn't all that admired in Hong Kong: a common complaint I've heard countless times is that she makes films "for Western viewers" (and, implicitly, Westernized HK critics). I'd almost say I've noticed a pattern in the reception of her films: she'll do a few films that gain her traction with critics in the West... but then, domestically, she'll hit a slump with HK audiences, which inversely leads her to "jump at every possible opportunity at directing" and an uneven run... and suddenly, the critical good will seems to be gone.

The truth is that the Hong Kong New Wave, in general, were people trying to break into the studio system. Hui, Tam and Fong (perhaps Yim Ho as well) are different in that making mainstream films (at least in the terms the HK box-office dictated) didn't seem to be their end-games, and it lead to interesting career trajectories as the "Second Wave" rolled around: Hui tried her hand at more commercial fare starting with Love in a Fallen City, but her comfort with the mainstream studios is debatable, and her best films are usually when she tries to sneak in something more personal (Song of the Exile, Ordinary Heroes, July Rhapsody). Tam briefly tried his hand at more commercial fare with those two crime films, which were quite good, but he eventually just decided to give up directing and stick to editing; I'm sure he could have kept a career going had he wanted to, but it seems his heart wasn't in it. Fong didn't even seem to bother trying to keep up with the changing tides, and pretty much quit right when the indie studios started turning into majors. This is different from a lot of their peers, Tsui Hark being the most infamous example, who seemed to relish being given mainstream attention and resources, and were willing to tone down their excesses to do it. These three, rather, really anticipated the "Third Wave" of the 1990s - Stanley Kwan, Wong Kar Wai, Fruit Chan - who were able to get away with making small, personal "indie" films.

Recently been browsing the Kung Fu Cinema Forums, seems that quite a few films over there are "independents" or at least from small studios that don't seem to have been mentioned much from the materials I've been reading, and seem to have their strongest presence on US DVD. I plan on checking some of these out, but I was wondering what people here thought of these films. Is the primary appeal of these generally on the fight choreography and the overall craziness of the films, or are there other appeals? I'd also be curious if there are any English language sources that have wrote about these filmmakers in any detail, and if these films are primarily kung fu films, or if other genres have flourished outside the big studios.

I also recently finished Stephen Teo's book Chinese Martial Arts Cinema: The Wuxia Tradition. Thought it was really great and full of rich information. Especially useful was the vast amount of information on early Wuxia films that aren't readily available. Takes the first 5 chapters just to cover everything up to King Hu, then uses the last 2 to go over Chor Yuen, HK New Wave, and recent post-Crouching Tiger developments. I also found the writing on the earlier films was very readable, and I usually have trouble reading about periods of filmmaking that I've seen 0 films from.

The reading I've been doing recently has also given me a strong interest in exploring certain Taiwanese filmmakers, though even less information seems available in this area. Not sure if it would be better to start a separate topic, or perhaps expand this one to "Chinese Language Cinema" or something of the sort since they seem to deal in so many similar genres and have a fairly large influence on each other.

YnEoS wrote:Recently been browsing the Kung Fu Cinema Forums, seems that quite a few films over there are "independents" or at least from small studios that don't seem to have been mentioned much from the materials I've been reading, and seem to have their strongest presence on US DVD. I plan on checking some of these out, but I was wondering what people here thought of these films. Is the primary appeal of these generally on the fight choreography and the overall craziness of the films, or are there other appeals? I'd also be curious if there are any English language sources that have wrote about these filmmakers in any detail, and if these films are primarily kung fu films, or if other genres have flourished outside the big studios.

I also recently finished Stephen Teo's book Chinese Martial Arts Cinema: The Wuxia Tradition. ...
The reading I've been doing recently has also given me a strong interest in exploring certain Taiwanese filmmakers, though even less information seems available in this area. Not sure if it would be better to start a separate topic, or perhaps expand this one to "Chinese Language Cinema" or something of the sort since they seem to deal in so many similar genres and have a fairly large influence on each other.

It depends on the film. Also one has to define "independent" studios as well, especially for Hong Kong and Taiwan (for HK usually it is not Shaw Brothers or Golden Harvest ). For example Seasonal is often written as independent and you have some great films from Snake in the Eagle's Shadow (1978) to Drunken Master (1978) to The Butterfly Murders (1979), but they often later are paired with Golden Harvest so would you consider All for the Winner (1990) an independent? Also when do you consider an upstart to no longer be independent like Milkyway?

Sometimes the filmmakers would work for the bigger companies and do independent films as well on the side. For example Wu Ma co-directed Magnificent Wanderers (1977) for the Shaw Brothers and did Along Comes a Tiger (1977) in Taiwan (available in R1/Rarescope with nice commentary with Don Wang Tao). You see actors do this quite a bit like Gordon Lau helping out the Lau Kar-wing helmed independent films.

Independents usually took whatever the popular genre (martial arts, gambling, horror, later Cat III) was and went with it so you saw tons of Hong Kong and Taiwanese films copy MA, horror and other. But yeah there are tons of hidden treasures among them (Drunken Dragon anyone) and a lot of mediocre or worse.

If you consider Win's Movie Productions independent, they started the whole gambling movie phenomenon (obviously not the first films on gambling, but the success of Casino Raiders and especially God of Gamblers helped create countless films of this type).

Have you got Stephen Teo's book on Johnnie To yet? Great English-language book, though he unfortunately just concentrates on the action movies. I'm a big To fan.

On a side note: Dragon Dynasty is coming out with an R1 A Chinese Odyssey today. I have the Mega Star boxset (with book), but the subtitles are horrible. I am hoping this release is an improvement. Any idea on how the BD's subs are?

LoveHKfilm is doing their Top 100 Hong Kong Films of All Time poll throughout November. I'm a huge fan of their previous decade lists. This one seems a bit less exciting for me, since I'm more interested in which films make the list rather than how they rank against each other. Of course this all time list does allow for films from 70s, 60s and earlier to show up since they don't have their own decade lists. But I don't think we'll see any huge surprises for earlier films, probably just some of the more popular films.

Anyways it should be fun regardless, and hopefully there will be a few surprises. At the very least it will probably be a good list for newcomers to Hong Kong films that might be a bit overwhelmed by the decade lists. I encourage anyone here with an interesting in Hong Kong films to vote.

YnEoS wrote:LoveHKfilm is doing their Top 100 Hong Kong Films of All Time poll throughout November. I'm a huge fan of their previous decade lists. This one seems a bit less exciting for me, since I'm more interested in which films make the list rather than how they rank against each other. Of course this all time list does allow for films from 70s, 60s and earlier to show up since they don't have their own decade lists. But I don't think we'll see any huge surprises for earlier films, probably just some of the more popular films...

An interesting criterion...

However, if it’s a post-1997 China or Hong Kong film, you can vote for it provided that it received some form of release (video or theatrical) in Hong Kong. The easiest way to handle this qualification: Was it made after 1997 and did it get a Hong Kong DVD release? If so, it’s fair game.

I don't think there will be any big surprises, but it will be fun to look over. My top 20 (or 10) has not changed much since I posted the link to my top 50. But if it changes I'll post it here. I do wonder what films post-97 (especially Mainland and co-production films) will make this. Bodyguards and Assassins? I liked Red Cliff quite a bit, but I don't really think of it as a HK film.

The last couple of weeks I have watched God of Gamblers II, God of Gamblers III, God of Gamblers Returns (aka God of Gamblers 2). I think I am a little tired of Wong Jing . These are fun films and when Jing directs I wonder how much influence he has on the film compared to either Stephen Chow or Chow Yun-fat.

My favorite God of Gamblers movie is All For the Winner. So freaking hilarious.

The results from LoveHKfilm's top 200 HK films of all time poll have been up for a while, but they just did their full list/statistics post going over all the results, which can be found here.

Overall I feel like it's a really great list and I was pleasantly surprised to see a lot of 70s, 60s, and 50s films make the cut. Of course no big surprises and discoveries for the earlier decades, but but for anyone looking to get an introduction to Hong Kong films, I feel like this list would be quite a good entry point.

Jean Lukitsh is publishing a series of e-books on the early history of martial arts films. Previously she posted her insightful research on her Electric Shadows blog on KungFuCinema.com. Now all that research is being re-organized chronologically in 5 Volumes. Volume 1 is out right now. Below is a description of each planned volume.


Volume One: Shanghai 1920-1941, Ren Pengnian and Wu Lizhu, and the Mingxing and Tianyi studios (Zhang Shichuan, Zhang Huichong, Hu Die, and the Shaw brothers). Now on Amazon.

Volume Two: Hung Chung-ho and Chin Tsi-ang, White Rose Woo and Zhang Huimin, Fan Xuepeng and Wen Yimin, Yam Yu-tin, Yuen Siu-tin, and Fen Juhua. Sidebars: Special effects and Hua Mulan.

Volume Three: Hong Kong 1937-1980, Sek Yin-tse, Yu So-chow, Connie Chan and Josephine Siao, and Suet Nei. Sidebars: Cantonese wuxia films and Bruce Lee.

Volume Four: Wu Pang, Kwan Tak-hing, Shek Kin, Tso Tat-wah, Yam Yin, Lam Kau, Lau Cham and Lau Kar-leung, and Tang Chia.

Volume Five: China 1980-1994, Cheung Yim Yam and Yuen Wo-ping, Jet Li, Yu Chenghui and Yu Hai, and Wu Jing. Sidebar: Donnie Yen.

Interesting! Do you know if there's an option for those of us who don't own a Kindle?

There are Kindle apps for computers, smartphones, and tablets that will enable you to read Kindle books without actually owning a Kindle. If you're not in the US, though, you may not actually be able to purchase the book.

Thank you, never knew that!

I forget -- has anyone mentioned that Bordwell's (updated) Planet Hong Kong is available as an e-book for $15?

So I got two of the Celestial Shaw Brothers blu-rays now available in Japan. Aimed at my favorite of the films available, so that it didn't feel like too much of an unjustifiable waste if the films came out looking atrocious. So I got Come Drink With Me and Heroes of the East.

There are Japanese subtitles on both discs, but no English.

Picture Quality: I'm no expert on blu-ray compression and encoding. But Come Drink With Me looked exquisite. Beautiful grain structure, solid colors, great depth of field. The stunning detail brought out many fine details that weren't readily apparent on any previous DVD of the film, such as the thin clouds of brown dust that rise from the ground when Cheng Pei Pei fights the gang outdoors in the temple.

Some of the reconstructed shots refused to pull into focus. But the image looks as good as it will ever get. There's great clarity and depth, even in the night-for-night scenes. When the camera pans left or right, the changing depth of the compositions looks breathtaking, and the suspense of the action scenes is hugely heightened.

There's only one audio track, which is Cantonese. Unfortunately, it appears to be the remixed track Celestial used for its initial HK DVD release. Some lines sound like they were recorded in an echo chamber. By and large the sound is very good, and the soundtrack music is cleaner-sounding than on any of the DVD releases.

Heroes of the East is all over the place, and it's hard for me to tell exactly why. The film was shot with plenty of image-compressing widescreen lenses and the early portions of the film depicting courtship and married life are rendered in thick, nearly David-Hamilton-style soft-focus. Even so, there appears to be uneven levels of DNR applied to the image. The film only demonstrates the healthy grain of Come Drink With Me in isolated closeup shots and bright, outdoor location photography. Once the film segues to Japan, the sharpness and depth of the film increase considerably, and many of the later sequences look sharp, deep and wonderful. The film seems to have been given some of the "red shift" sometimes applied to Japanese local product--faces in the film are bright pink even in scenes where they haven't been fighting.

The audio, though, boast two separate mono tracks; the first in Cantonese, and the second in Mandarin. These tracks sound great.


Apart from the lack of English subtitles, though, these releases boast waaaaay more visual information than has been available on any DVD release. They reveal more of the flaws in the restored films than the DVD versions do, and Heroes of the East has a few visual problems of its own, but the gains are big as well. It's possible to see the wide range of different fabrics and textures on display in Come Drink With Me, the depth of the dense Arthur Wong compositions in Heroes of the East, and the films look in general so much more film-like than they have in the past.

Come Drink With Me should be Mandarin. The subs on the US DVD are awful!

It's also one of the few Shaw masters that looks like film, not pasty DVNRed video.

I hated those subtitles on the Dragon Dynasty DVD. The subs on the IVL disc were way better, but I'm pretty sure I sold that disc long ago.

The films that toured in the "Heroic Grace" Shaw Bros retrospective are the ones that had 35mm remasters.

Heroes of the East was one of them, I thought; Come Drink With Me definitely was. Other ones I recall were

King Boxer
The Magic Blade
The Five Venoms
Dirty Ho
Executioners of Shaolin.

There were many others in the tour, and there was a larger list of 35mm remasters back in 2002. Does anyone still have a copy of it?

But initially Celestial had every authoring problem known to humankind when they began transferring Shaw Bros films to dvd. So who knows what kind of masters are available to blu-ray producers.

Next I'll order King Boxer and Mighty Peking Man, and see what they're like.

Yeeah! Awesome!

Thanks, Cold Bishop!

I forgot I saw Intimate Confessions of a Chinese Courtesan in 35mm, at the Egyptian, about 5 years ago. That looked gorgeous. It'd make a great blu-ray--any of the Chor Yuen movies would be really interesting to see on blu-ray. Hopefully Paramount Japan will take this program further.

The DVD of King Boxer suffered from frame cuts - not good when its a film reliant on fast cutting.

Which disc had the frame cuts? The Dragon Dynasty disc? The IVL disc?

Are you sure Come Drink with Me is Cantonese-only? A poster at Blu-ray.com (who appears to be Chinese, based on their posting history) says it's Mandarin-only, which is backed up by Paramount Japan's website.

It is probably Mandarin only. I'm not an expert. It sounded Cantonese to me when I first watched. When I watched it today, it did sound more like Mandarin. And I can't read the Japanese language menus.