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Once upon a time there was a film industry that wasn't dominated by the comic book behemoths of D.C. and Marvel. Where a comic book style movie felt fresh, innovative and where the Hong Kong production line hadn't been stripped bare in the service of mainland blockbusters with a patriotic core. “Black Mask” in many respects is a last hurrah of an industry about to go through immense change. As Eureka Entertainment bring it to blu-ray, it's time to revisit this Frankenstein's monster of a collaborative effort between several unique talents.

on Terracotta by clicking on the image below

Tsui Chik (Jet Li) is a former member of the 701 Squad, a surgically enhanced team of super soldiers that feel no pain. After their team is shut down he escapes and hides out as a librarian. His only friend is Inspector Shek who knows nothing of his past.

Eureka Entertainment announced today that they will be releasing Jet Li’s martial arts extravaganza Black Mask on Blu-ray on April 23rd.

Influenced by Bruce Lee’s role as Kato in The Green Hornet, Black Mask stars Jet Li as Tsui Chik, “a librarian who leads a quiet, unassuming life – or, at least, that’s what he wants people to believe. In truth, he was once a member of the 701 Squad, a group of elite combatants produced by a failed super-soldier project. In-kind with his former comrades, his central nervous system has been altered to render him impervious to pain. When several of his fellow test subjects resurface and embark on a crimewave under the leadership of their former commander Hung Kuk (Patrick Lung), Tsui is forced to use his extraordinary abilities once more. Donning a costume, he sets out to face his past – as the vigilante known as the Black Mask.

It was just a couple of weeks ago that New York's Museum of the Moving Image presented the retrospective Yesterday, Today, Tomorrow: The Cinema of Patrick Lung Kong. Yesterday, as Kevin Ma reports in Film Business Asia, Lung died at his home in the Us at the age of 79. "Making Cantonese-language films at a time when Mandarin-language films dominated Hong Kong cinema, Lung was a stylish storyteller whose films were considered ahead of their time. Often ending his films with didactic monologues, Lung was far from being a subtle storyteller. However, he was praised for tackling social issues that other filmmakers wouldn't touch." » - David Hudson...

It was just a couple of weeks ago that New York's Museum of the Moving Image presented the retrospective Yesterday, Today, Tomorrow: The Cinema of Patrick Lung Kong. Yesterday, as Kevin Ma reports in Film Business Asia, Lung died at his home in the Us at the age of 79. "Making Cantonese-language films at a time when Mandarin-language films dominated Hong Kong cinema, Lung was a stylish storyteller whose films were considered ahead of their time. Often ending his films with didactic monologues, Lung was far from being a subtle storyteller. However, he was praised for tackling social issues that other filmmakers wouldn't touch." » - David Hudson...

It’s not every day a director comes on stage in Buddhist monk’s garb and slippers, but such was Patrick Lung Kong’s refreshingly idiosyncratic appearance Saturday night at Queens’ Museum of the Moving Image, two days into a two weekend retro of his work. To his right was Tsui Hark, who himself reshaped the Hong Kong film industry multiple times: with 1986′s Peking Opera Blues, a breakthrough moment for international recognition of Hk martial arts fare, 1992′s Once Upon a Time in China, and as producer on John Woo’s 1986 A Better Tomorrow, among many other instances. 1967′s The Story of […]...

It’s not every day a director comes on stage in Buddhist monk’s garb and slippers, but such was Patrick Lung Kong’s refreshingly idiosyncratic appearance Saturday night at Queens’ Museum of the Moving Image, two days into a two weekend retro of his work. To his right was Tsui Hark, who himself reshaped the Hong Kong film industry multiple times: with 1986′s Peking Opera Blues, a breakthrough moment for international recognition of Hk martial arts fare, 1992′s Once Upon a Time in China, and as producer on John Woo’s 1986 A Better Tomorrow, among many other instances. 1967′s The Story of […]...

An early review of David Cronenberg's first novel, Consumed, has gone up at Film International. Also in today's roundup of news and views: Adrian Martin on Leslie Cheung in Wong Kar-wai's Days of Being Wild (1990), a Midnight Eye interview with Ayumi Sakamoto (Forma), James Marsh on F.W. Murnau's Faust (1926), Jonathan Rosenbaum on David Bordwell on Carl Theodor Dreyer, John Woo's tribute to Patrick Lung Kong, Sophia Takal (Green) on The Expendables 3 and more reviews of Ted Hope's new memoir. » - David Hudson...

An early review of David Cronenberg's first novel, Consumed, has gone up at Film International. Also in today's roundup of news and views: Adrian Martin on Leslie Cheung in Wong Kar-wai's Days of Being Wild (1990), a Midnight Eye interview with Ayumi Sakamoto (Forma), James Marsh on F.W. Murnau's Faust (1926), Jonathan Rosenbaum on David Bordwell on Carl Theodor Dreyer, John Woo's tribute to Patrick Lung Kong, Sophia Takal (Green) on The Expendables 3 and more reviews of Ted Hope's new memoir. » - David Hudson...

The series "Yesterday, Today, Tomorrow: The Cinema of Patrick Lung Kong" opens tomorrow at New York's Museum of the Moving Image and runs through August 24. Wong Kar-wai is an admirer of Lung's, notes Nick Pinkerton in Artforum, while Andrew Chan argues that Lung's "directorial career (which stands alongside his long filmography as an actor) remains a powerful example of how sociopolitical agendas, commercial impulses, and aesthetic ambitions can serve one another." A few quick notes on events on the other coast: An Alec Guiness series, a 15th anniversary screening of Mike Judge's Office Space and a weekend with Alain Resnais's Je t'aime, je t'aime (1968). » - David Hudson...

The series "Yesterday, Today, Tomorrow: The Cinema of Patrick Lung Kong" opens tomorrow at New York's Museum of the Moving Image and runs through August 24. Wong Kar-wai is an admirer of Lung's, notes Nick Pinkerton in Artforum, while Andrew Chan argues that Lung's "directorial career (which stands alongside his long filmography as an actor) remains a powerful example of how sociopolitical agendas, commercial impulses, and aesthetic ambitions can serve one another." A few quick notes on events on the other coast: An Alec Guiness series, a 15th anniversary screening of Mike Judge's Office Space and a weekend with Alain Resnais's Je t'aime, je t'aime (1968). » - David Hudson...

It's a safe bet that the vast majority of regular readers of Twitch are very familiar with John Woo and Tsui Hark's A Better Tomorrow, the 1986 classic of Hong Kong action cinema. But it's an equally safe bet that far fewer are aware that A Better Tomorrow was a remake of a film which was made nearly 20 years earlier, the 1967 film The Story of a Discharged Prisoner. That film was made by Patrick Lung Kong, an important and immensely influential pioneer of Cantonese-language movies, who in addition to writing and directing 14 films in the 1960s and 1970s, was also a prominent actor whose career spanned from the late 1950's to the early 2000s. He was a major influence not only on Woo...

[Read the whole post on twitchfilm.com...]...

Following on from the first part of our interview with Gallants director Clement Cheng, which you can find here, below is the continuation of that interview.

Clement touches on few different subjects, including his follow up to Gallants, Merry Go-Round, which has is yet to find UK distribution.

Gallants is released on DVD in the UK on the 25th of July.

What are your wider inspirations, beyond obviously The Shaw Brothers?

My favourite directors are definitely Quentin Tarantino, Paul Thomas Anderson, Clint Eastwood and Robert Zemekis. They are people that have a great influence on me. I can just watch their movies over and over again and I don’t get bored with them. When you watch them you discover new things and when you watch it again it reminds you of what life should be and what you want to be as a human being. And on top of everything they’re very entertaining.

We at Mubi think that celebrating the films of 2010 should be a celebration of film viewing in 2010. Since all film and video is "old" one way or another, we present Out of a Past, a small (re-) collection of some of our favorite of 2010's retrospective viewings.

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Bouteille cassée (Father Piet Verstegen M. Afr., 1952)

One morning, TO1..., comrade Möller's phone rang and a young woman with a refreshingly spunky voice said something like, Hi!, I'm that student your friend told you about—the one who's working on a documentary about the White Fathers retirement home. Today I'll have a look at the order's film collection—do you have time to come along? I could need your advise and the monk who takes care of it as well. Of course he had time—and finally the opportunity to see some of the works discussed in a hefty tome he'd bought almost...