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Clearly due to the ongoing Tony Leung hype, Netflix has now dug up this rather mediocre film from 2011, which grossed a not-so-impressive $27.2 million at the Chinese box office in the first half of 2012 – on an estimated budget of $15 million – but was at least the highest-grossing Chinese-language film at the time behind eight Hollywood blockbusters. Apart from two festival screenings, the film never made it to Europe or the USA.

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The Hong Kong/Mainland co-production is so disappointing because at first glance it gives cause for optimism. Derek Yee is an experienced director who has a number of successful films, including “People’s Hero” (1987), to his credit. Then there is a basically splendid cast. Alongside Mr. Leung, other actors include Lau Ching-wan, the always great Zhou Xun, Paul Chun, Lam Suet and, in a not so small role, Wang Ziwen, who...

Hong Kong film industry veteran and longtime assistant director Albert Mak directed a few films back in 2000 with his last solo directing effort being “Forget Me Not” (2010). However, he is also known as an associate director to filmmaker Johnnie To in the film “Drug War” (2012). Released during the Chinese New Year 2024, Mak returns as director in the wacky comedy action heist film “Rod N Roll” which is just perfect for the occasion.

Taxi driver Robby (Gordon Lam Ka Tung) lives in a small apartment with his frustrated pregnant wife and his nagging mother. Unreliable and timid, loser Robby lives day to day and avoids the conflicts at home. On the other hand, his good friend Fai (Richie Jen) is an honest man who runs a small elderly home business. But he is forever in financial trouble and the recent rent increase makes his life even more difficult. Nonetheless, these two middle-aged men are kind,...

Stars: Louis Koo, Michelle Ye, Stanley Fung, Lam Suet | Written by Szeto Kam-Yuen, Nicholl Tang Nik-Kei | Directed by Soi Cheang

Accident opens on a seemingly innocuous occurrence, as a short-tempered man worries that he will be late while stuck behind a car with a flat tyre. As the man takes drastic action to drive around the car, the unfolding scene results in a chain reaction that ends with his death. What may seem like an accident for the man – revealed to be a Triad elder – is actually a carefully orchestrated assassination courtesy of the Brain (Louis Koo).

With a team made up of the voice of reason known as The Woman (Michelle Ye), the increasingly forgetful Uncle (Stanley Fung), and the unfortunately nicknamed Fatty (Lam Suet), the Brain has built a career from making his hits look like unfortunate accidents. Director Soi Cheang showcases the planning process in fascinatingly methodical ways,...

Following the canon of “All About Ah-Long”, Johnnie To directed another family drama that is filled with violence and pessimism, although this time, in tamer fashion, particularly due to the extensive (for a Milky Way film) dialogues and some notions of black humor.

on Amazon by clicking on the image below

Triad boss Michael has just been released from prison and checks into a rundown motel, grandiose-named International Hotel, run by widow June, who also takes care of her young son Tony. Michael shows his colors quite early on, with him fighting with three taxi drivers in an event that bring in the police, until June tells the story as it is and has him released. Michael, who is in search of his ex-wife and the money she owes him, soon starts taking a liking to June, and gradually, the three end up resembling a family. Neither the cabbies,...

The late Benny Chan directed “The White Storm” back in 2013 starring Lau Ching Wan, Louis Koo and Nick Cheung. In “The White Storm 2: Drug Lords” (2019) which starred Andy Lau and Louis Koo, Herman Yau took over as director. Now in 2023, Yau is back in this in-title-only third installment again featuring Koo, Lau Ching Wan and Aaran Kwok, the newcomer to the series. All these actors play different characters altogether but the themes of war against drugs, royalty and brotherhood are still there but told in a new storyline.

Check also this article The 20 Best Asian Action/Martial Arts Movies of 2023

The year is 2021 and Kang Su Chat, a Thai-Chinese drug lord who runs his operation in Hong Kong has his men fish up a few barrels containing heroin off the coast. As they leave the docks after unloading their precious cargo, the police show up which results in an intense firefight.

Film Unlimited in Hong Kong has revealed the first look teaser trailer for a new Hk action film called Rob N Roll, from filmmaker Albert Mak. This is set to open in Hong Kong cinemas in January 2024, though no other international dates have been announced. Hong Kong pop star Aaron Kwok plays the lead character - a bucktoothed professional wrestler and robber who plans a major heist. The heist goes haywire when he meets two disillusioned middle-aged men. Gordon Lam co-stars as a taxi driver who unintentionally foils the heist, along with his friend played by Richie Jen. The trio ends up on the run from the cops and other criminals out to find them. The film's cast also includes Maggie Cheung Ho-yee, Nancy Wu, Lam Suet, Leung Chung-hang, and Calvert Fu. This is a quick teaser with just a few glimpses of the action to whet our appetites. It doesn't look so bad,...

Herman Yau tackles political and social issues, re-proposing the classic atmospheres and themes of Hong Kong Triade cinema in “The Mobfathers,” a gritty and satirical tale of power struggle and a nod to Hong Kong’s troubles with the China-manoeuvred elections.

on Amazon

The film begins immediately in full swing, with a violent brawl in which Chat (Chapman To), the head of the Metal gang, is arrested and locked up in Stanley prison, just as his beautiful wife discovers she is expecting a baby; an event that for wrong timing fails to divert the course of fate. In fact Chat, with a 5-year sentence, is going to miss the birth and early years of his son and has no other options than to leave his trusty lieutenant Luke (Philip Keung) in charge of the boys of the gang, and also to take care of his wife and child.

Throughout his career, the works of Johnnie To have always had a distinct European touch, especially those regarding gangsters, killers and heists, a blend of Eastern and Western influences you might say. Unsurprisingly, To himself had been toying with the idea to emphasize the connections in a future project, until he finally got the chance to do so from French producers Michèle and Laurent Pétin, who had been planning to collaborate with the filmmaker for quite some time. “Vengeance”, as their project was called, combines To’s sense of style, location and timing, especially regarding action scenes, but also tells a very interesting story about the overall point of revenge, and how it forever leaves a mark on people. The film would premier at Cannes Film Festival in 2009 and would go on to receive many favorable reviews, praising the performances and the direction, with some even calling it a masterpiece.

This is foremost a big budget movie adaptation of the Japanese slash-and-hack video game series “Dynasty Warriors” published by Koei Tecmo which in turn was based on “Romance of the Three Kingdoms”, a Chinese historical novel written by Luo Guan Zhong. The first game came out in 1997 and so far it has spawned nine sequels. Incidentally, both this movie and the game franchise share the same Chinese title of “True. Three Kingdoms Unrivalled”.

The story here concentrates mainly on the cruel, defector ruler of the Han Dynasty, Dong Zhuo (Lam Suet), his General, Lu Bu (Louise Koo) and three blood brother warriors Liu Bei (Tony Yang), Guan Yu (Han Geng) and Zhang Fei (Justin Cheng). When we first meet Dong and his army, they are engaged in a fierce battle with the Yellow Turbans, losing ground. Fortunately for him, the three warriors step in and help him to defeat the rebels but to their surprise,...

Ricky Ko is a Hong Kong film director. Time (2021) is his directorial debut, with its premiere at Hong Kong International Film Festival. Before this, he worked as an assistant on a number of films, including Herman Yau’s Ip Man: The Final Fight (2013).

On the occasion of his film screening at International Film Festival Rotterdam, we speak with him about the cast of veterans he had for the movie, the impressive intro of the movie, friendship, shooting movies for the audience, Hong Kong cinema and other topics.

How do feel that you have completed your first feature film?

It is a very nice sentiment. I have been working in the film industry for more than 20 years, and finally I managed to become a director. I feel really happy.

How was the transition, from an assistant to the main director?

It was really smooth actually, I did not have any particular shooting with the movie,...

The efforts to present films that reach the standards of the golden age of Hk action cinema, and particularly of the works of Jackie Chan and Johnnie To, are quite numerous during the latest years, with a plethora of Chinese productions moving in that path. Lui Koon-nam and Frankie Tam in this case tried to combine the two styles, in a rather difficult effort. Let us see how they fared.

Through a rather impressive series of introductory scenes, which include Xiao Wu, the protagonist of the story, escaping from a wooden crate he is locked into, and feature actors like Nicholas Tse and Suet Lam, we are introduced to the rather labyrinthal story. The aforementioned is an undercover cop who has infiltrated a small drug ring, but has gotten a little too much into the whole thing, even dating the boss’s daughter, Xi Chen. When the boss is killed,...

Combining intense action with deep, sociopolitical context is quite a hard endeavor, but this is exactly what Johnnie To achieved with “Breaking News” as he deals with the media, apart from one of his trademark themes, gangsters and the police.

After the clash of the police with a band of ruthless criminals led by the ingenious Yuen ends up with a sound defeat of the former, the media are all over the officers of the law, particularly since one of them was caught on camera surrendering to the robbers, and actually being one of the few that manages to survive. Hard-nosed inspector Cheung and his crew are initially tasked with catching the criminals, but as soon as Superintendent Rebecca Fong becomes in charge of the case, she tries to take them off the case, as her purposes are completely different: To promote police work by having the...

A prominent commercial filmmaker in Hong Kong since the mid-80s, the career path and status of Johnnie To is distinctive from contemporaries such as John Woo, Tsui Hark, and Wong Kar-wai. Solely committed to his national cinema, he made a point of never venturing to Hollywood and even formed his own production company, Milkyway Image, in 1996. Only in the mid-2000s when films like Breaking News (2005) and Election (2006) premiered at the Cannes Film Festival was Johnnie To given auteur consideration by Western critics and audiences. Even then, it was only his crime and action genre work, characterized by their elegant style and directorial control, that found critical success and was seen as commercially viable for international markets. With over 50 features under his belt, Johnnie To has a massive oeuvre not bound to any single mode and while he is one of contemporary cinema’s greatest formalist filmmakers, his fluency in visual storytelling transcends genre.

Three

Stars: Louis Koo, Wei Zhao, Wallace Chung, Siu-Fai Cheung, Suet Lam, Hoi-Pang Lo, Michael Tse, Adrian Wong, Kathy Wu | Written by Ho Leung Lau, Tin Shu Mak | Directed by Johnnie To

When a cop, a wounded crime boss and a doctor are thrown together in the hustle and bustle of an emergency room, a hospital descends from a pristine sanctuary to an explosive battleground. Bullets fly in a when the crime boss’s gang turn up to try and rescue him, and the cop must prevent innocent lives from being caught in the crossfire.

Johnny To’s hospital-set thriller is a Die Hard-esque tale that instantly recalls the John Woo classic Hard Boiled and yet is in no way similar in story and action. Like a number of his films before this, To takes his time building his film – introducing his characters, exploring their motivations etc. – before finally getting...

Get in touch to send in cinephile news and discoveriesNEWSLam SuetThis year's Asian Film Awards are most notable for giving beloved Hong Kong character actor (and Johnnie To axiom) Lam Suet the award for Best Supporting Actor (for Trivisa). We were also happy to see that Tsui Hark (still madly inventive with this year's Journey to the West: The Demons Strike Back) was given the Lifetime Achievement Award.Chinese actress Li Li-hua has died at the age of 92. While not very well known in the West—except perhaps in the obscure Frank Borzage film China Doll (1958)—Li's work for the Shaw Brothers studio and, later, Golden Harvest, minted many classics, including Li Han-hsiang's The Magnificent Concubine (1962), and Storm Over the Yangtse River (1969), as well as King Hu's The Fate of Lee Khan (1975).For those who aren't able to travel to the Locarno Film Festival but are able to...

New films from Feng Xiaogang and Park Chan-wook shared the spoils in Hong Kong last night, as the 11th Asian Film Awards presented top honours to I am not Madame Bovary, naming the mainland Chinese drama Best Film. Its star Fan Bingbing won the Best Actress prize, while the film’s unique cinematography by Luo Pan was also rewarded. Erotic South Korean drama The Handmaiden won four awards in total, including Best Supporting Actress for Moon So-ri, Best Newcomer for Kim Tae-ri, Best Production Design and Best Costume Design. Tadanobu Asano was named Best Actor for Harmonium, while Hong Kong favourite Lam Suet won Best Supporting Actor for Trivisa. Na Hong-jin took home the Best Director award for his supernatural thriller The Wailing, and...

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

Feng Xiaogang’s comedy won best film, actress and cinematography, while The Handmaiden picked up four awards.Scroll down for full list of winners

Feng Xiaogang’s I Am Not Madame Bovary won best film, best actress for Fan Bingbing [pictured accepting her award] and best cinematography at the Asian Film Awards in Hong Kong on Tuesday night (March 21).

Fan plays a rural woman battling the authorities to restore her honour in the comedy-drama, produced by Feng’s Dongyang Mayla, Sparkle Roll Media and Huayi Brothers. Luo Pan was awarded best cinematography for the film, which was mostly shot in a circular frame.

Park Chan-wook’s The Handmaiden picked up the most awards of the evening – four in all, including best supporting actress for Moon So-ri and best newcomer for Kim Tae-ri. The erotic period drama was also awarded best production design (Ryu Seong-hie) and best costume design (Cho Sang-kyung).

Best director went to Korean filmmaker Na Hong-jing for supernatural horror...

The nominees for the 11th Annual Asian Film Awards were announced last week.

The ceremony is to be held in Hong Kong after a long stint in Macau. The reason for this changeover is to pay homage to the 20th anniversary since the handover of Hong Kong. This year, 34 films received nominations. Out of those 34, 21 are of Chiniese-origin, and 20 are South Korean, making South Korean films the second most nominated.

Some of the best releases of 2016 are up against each other this year. Park Chan Wook’s, “The Handmaiden,” although it did not receive a nod for best film nor best director, it did receive a levy of other nominations including: best supporting actress (Moon So-ri), best newcomer, best screenplay, best editing, best costume design, and best production design. Another strong Korean film up for several awards is “Train to Busan.” This outrageously popular zombie-horror film is up for five...

The latest Chinese film to sneak into North American theatres with little fanfare, targeting immigrant communities with single multiplex screens in a handful of major metropolitan markets, is the new film from prolific Hong Kong director Johnnie To. His first crime film since 2013’s Blind Detective (yet to see a Us release) and his first film set in a hospital since his 2000 farce Help!!!, To’s latest is a bottle episode, a side-swipe at a psychological thriller about a cop, a crook and a doctor battling to see who can best exemplify humanity’s hubris in the face of chance and fate. This conflict between free will and universal randomness lies at the heart of most of the films To has made in the twenty years since he established the Milkyway Image studio, uniting both his crime thrillers and his romances, though rarely has it been stated so explicitly.Taking...

I recently spent a quite Monday night watching Well Go USA’s newest release, The Midnight After. Fate meets Armageddon when an overnight bus ride turns the lives of eleven strangers upside down. In the mere blink of an eye they find themselves completely alone in the world with no explanation of how or why. Having no one else to turn to, they eventually began to lean on one another as they fight to survive and figure out what’s happening.

Unlike many other post-apocalyptic films, The Midnight After didn’t have any measure of fear or a race against time. In fact, their world seemed deathly calm, which only added to the fascination of it all. I was quite absorbed into the plot and realized quickly that it was important to pay attention to the small details because they were essentially pieces of a larger puzzle. I thought I...

Well Go USA Entertainment has announced that Fruit Chan’s genre-bending The Midnight After will be available on DVD and digitally on 21 June 2016.

The film premiered at the 2014 Berlin International Film Festival and was the recipient of numerous prestigious nominations, including Best Picture, Best Director, and Best Cinematography at the Hong Kong Film Awards, where it also won in the Best Original Score category.

Based on a cult internet novel by Hong Kong writer “Mr. Pizza“, The Midnight After follows a group of 16 bus passengers who find that, in the time between entering and emerging from a traffic tunnel, the city was struck by an apocalyptic event.

The innovative Chan sculpts a blend of horror, comedy, mystery and sci-fi, flinging his unique cast of characters into increasingly bizarre scenarios.

The film received critical praise for its tone, most notably the blasé manner in which characters respond to the otherworldly circumstances they find themselves in.

Cast:

Louis Koo

Wallace Chung

Zhao Wei

Lam Suet

Lo Hoi-Pang

Timmy Hung

Michael Tse

Director: Johnnie To

Plot:

Da Yi (Wallace Chung) has just been released from prison and he re-encountered brother Le who he worked with eight years ago. They decided to work together to do an assignment again. Meanwhile, in order to trace the mastermind behind the crime eight years ago, policeman Yong (Louis Koo), has been tracking down Da Yi. After Da Yi and gang managed to seize some narcotics, the police began to chase after them. Vicki Zhao’s role is a doctor who finds herself in a crossfire between the police and gangsters. Currently it is still unknown how her character will play out in the story. (Vicki was rumoured to be an assassin before the official conference. Guess they’ve changed the script? Because even now the script is still in the process of being finalised.

Stars: Donnie Yen, Baoqiang Wang, Shengyi Huang, Yu Kang, Simon Yam, Suet Lam, Singh Hartihan Bitto, Mark Wu, Hoi-Pang Lo | Written by Fung Lam, Mark Wu | Directed by Wing-Cheung Law

Any film that opens with a massive car crash and thens sees Donnie Yen, now defrosted following the accident, take a massive piss (not the Only one in the movie either may I add) right out in the open, is guaranteed to be an attention grabber! If that’s not enough, Iceman is filled from the get-go with amazing wire-fu stunts mixed with some eye-popping CGI.

A reimagining of the 1989 kung-fu movie The Iceman Cometh, which starred Yuen Biao and Maggie Cheung – originally shot in 3D but only released on DVD and Blu-ray here in the UK in a 2D version – Iceman tells the story of a Ming Dynasty warrior transported to modern-day Hong Kong…

After being sent on a...

Ding Sheng, director of Little Big Soldier and the lacklutre yet highly lucrative Police Story 2013 (aka Police Story: Lockdown in the Us), trades Jackie Chan for Andy Lau in Saving Mr. Wu, a high-stakes hostage thriller based on real events that went down in Beijing. Wealthy Mr. Wu (Andy Lau) is targeted by a gang of phoney cops and before he knows what is going on he has been kidnapped. Liu Ye is the legit copper looking to save the day, while Wang Qianyuan is chief bad guy. Lam Suet and Wu Ruofu also appear.Here's the official synopsis:Mr. Wu (played by acclaimed film star Andy Lau) is kidnapped in Beijing by Zhang Hua (Wang Qianyuan) and three accomplices, all disguised as cops and demanding a ransom...

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

Exclusive: The New York Asian Film Festival (Nyaff) has announced a special focus on two Japanese film legends, Ken Takakura (Black Rain) and Bunta Sugawara (Battles Without Honor), who both passed away last November.

“Both made a career of playing tough yakuza characters, and have been referred to as Japanese equivalents to Clint Eastwood. This will be the first retrospective/tribute outside Japan since they passed away,” Nyaff co-director Samuel Jamier told ScreenDaily.

“With this programme, the festival wants to salute the end of an era, when two superstar actors could be successful both within and outside the studio system.”

The fest will also have a focus on Japanese director Daihachi Yoshida (The Kirishima Thing), as “one of the most vivid, original storytellers from Asia”.

Yoshida will be in New York for the North American premiere of his crime drama Pale Moon, which was in Competition at the Tokyo film festival last October.

In Korean...

Hong Kong-based Sun Entertainment Culture is unveiling several new projects at Filmart, including romantic drama Concerto Of The Bully, starring Ronald Cheng and Janice Man.

Fung Chih-chiang has scripted and will direct Concerto Of The Bully, which is based on his novel about a street punk who kidnaps a gifted songwriter who never forgets anything she has heard.

Peter Kam, who won a Berlin Silver Bear for best music for Isabella in 2006, has written the score of the film, which is currently in pre-production.

Sun is also introducing Fire Lee’s Robbery, which stars Derek Tsang, J. Aire and Lam Suet in a story about a series of bizarre events at a corner convenience store.

The Cantonese-language drama is in post-production for release later this year.

Sun has also invested in Wilson Chin’s ‘girls with guns’ action drama, Special Female Force, starring Anita Chui, Jeana Ho and Eliza Sam.

Chin previously...

From the Toronto International Film Festival, Adam Cook and Daniel Kasman continue our series of festival dialogues. Johnnie To's Don't Go Breaking My Heart 2 had its world premiere in Tiff's Special Presentations section.

Adam Cook: Here we are again, talking To. It's frustrating how many times I've encountered a dismissive attitude towards Johnnie To's romantic comedies. I realize even the director himself disassociates from them, but, and especially with his most recent works, the rom-coms have been as formally intricate and as impressively crafted as his more revered crime films. As everyone was praising Drug War, it was Romancing in Thin Air that stood out for me. Before that there was Don't Go Breaking My Heart (written on here by Ignatiy Vishnevetsky), an impossibly entertaining love triangle in the big city movie, that while over the top and silly, had some of To's most impressive images...

Listen up Hollywood. Over the past few years we have had to endure some of the most ill advised, money grabbing, logic defying, tiresome, pointless and downright shoddy remakes ever committed to film. Isn’t it about time you gave us something back? From Soi Cheang, the director of Shamo and Dog Bite Dog, comes the new suspense thriller, Accident. Louis Koo (Overheard) takes on lead duties as a paranoid hitman who designs his hits to look like freak accidents. The film co-stars Michelle Yip, Lam Suet and Stanley Fung, with Johnnie To acting as producer. It’s a sombre affair, measured and moody. A courtly approach, intricate and contemplative. Soi Cheang sets his dominoes up in methodical fashion and Accident is blessed with some memorable set pieces, set-ups enhanced by the director’s laboured approach. As with the Final Destination series, guessing how events will play out is half the fun.

After its world premiere in Berlin last month, Hong Kong is poised to experience Fruit Chan's post-apocalyptic thriller The Midnight After when it screens as one of the official opening films of the 38th Hong Kong International Film Festival on Monday ahead of its 10 April theatrical release.Starring a host of Hong Kong's finest performers, including Simon Yam, Lam Suet, Kara Hui, Wong You Nam and Janice Man, it tells the story of a bus load of strangers who emerge from a tunnel to discover the city is totally deserted. Regrouping in an abandoned restaurant, these 16 strangers might be humanity's only hope for survival.To whet our appetites ahead of the release, Golden Scene has released a dozen character images, giving us a glimpse of...

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

Fruit Chan is easily one of the most interesting filmmakers working in Hong Kong today. Since he came to fame with his 1997 directorial effort Made In Hong Kong, he has made a number of films that have a very distinct Hong Kong flavor. His latest film, The Midnight After, appears to be his most ambitious project to date. It stars Wong You Nam, Simon Yam, Kara Hui, Janice Man, Lam Suet and Sam Lee in a post-apocalyptic Hong Kong. Synopsis: A night like any other in the streets of Hong Kong: in the midst of the tangle of night-owls, cars and vendors, a group of passengers climbs aboard a minibus that is to take them from Mongkok to Tai Po. The group is as diverse...

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

The tail-end of a film festival, that last stretch of endurance-testing early mornings and packed days, tends to make taking in the last bundle of films all the more difficult. Having already overdosed on the bloated selection of movies at a fest such as the Berlinale, the films begin to blend together: the ones you saw during the first few days are distant memories, and the ones happening before your eyes have to work extra hard to compete for prioritized positions in your cinema-stuffed-consciousness.

This periphery position reshapes, and, eventually, crystallizes the festival viewing experience in its varied entirety. I find that sillier, more entertaining films tend to stand out at this point, as they more easily re-spark one's (unwillingly) fading attention span. Perhaps that's why I enjoyed Fruit Chan's The Midnight After so much, despite its own unwieldy length and over-the-top tonal schizophrenia (a sort of Miike level of wacky,...

Director Fruit Chan. His film Dumplings was weird. Hell, even his name is a little weird. That's why it's fitting that his next film, an anthology called The Midnight After, be a little weird. Read on for the first stills and details.

Dig on the massive plot crunch below, and thanks to Twitch for the eye candy.

Synopsis

Imagine that the entire population of the planet has vanished, except for you and 16 other people. Do the moral principles and religious beliefs we live by still apply? If civilization has collapsed, how do we survive? How far would you be willing to go to get life back to normal?

In 2012, a novel which originated as an online serial became a publishing phenomenon in Hong Kong. Lost on a Red Minibus to Taipo by the writer pen-named “Mr. Pizza” was a huge popular success, despite being very different from any other Hong Kong novel ever written.

If it's action overload you're craving, look no further. Whoever edited the trailer for Simon Yam's The Constable is clearly unfamiliar with the word restraint. Out now on Hong Kong DVD and Blu-Ray, Dennis Law's The Constable hits the ground running and doesn't stop. Law isn't known for subtlety either so this looks like it could be absolutely preposterous, the only question is, can Simon Yam keep The Constable from early retirement? Judging by this first look, the answer is a big fat no. Over the top, cheesy fun? It's amazing what a few beers can do... Synopsis: Dennis Law (Bad Blood) tackles fatherly love and righteousness in his latest police movie The Constable led by Simon Yam. A long-time vehicle commander in the police force, Lam Kwok Kuen (Simon Yam) raises a mentally challenged son by himself and is near his retirement days. Despite his age, he...

Berlin Panorama title directed by Fruit Chan.

Fortissimo Films is growing its Berlin slate by adding Fruit Chan’s Panorama world premiere The Midnight After.

Fortissimo takes on world rights outside China and Hong Kong.

The film is a Hong Kong-set thriller about passengers on a late-night minibus who realise they are the only people left alive in the city.

Amy Chin produces and executive producer is Winnie Tsang at Golden Scene Company, which will handle the Hong Kong release this summer.

The cast includes Simon Yam, Kara Hui, Lam Suet, Wong You-nam, Janice Man, and Chui Tien-you.

The deal was negotiated by Fortissimo Chairman Michael J. Werner with Tsang.

Werner commented: “We have had the great pleasure of working with director Fruit Chan in the past and we are thrilled to be reunited with him on his new film, The Midnight After, which is a powerful, evocative, and provocative look at Hong Kong and society in general...

A total of 24 world premieres are included in the Berlinale’s Panorama selection, which has added a number of Asian productions.

Some 36 films from 29 countries will feature in the Panorama section of the Berlin International Film Festival (Feb 6-16), of which 24 will be world premieres.

Most recently invited are works from Norway, Ethiopia, Mexico, India, Iran, Georgia, Greece, Hungary and Austria – with returning filmmakers Elfi Mikesch and Umut Dağ, who opened Panorama 2012 with Kuma, his directorial debut.

New titles include a number of Asian productions. In Ieji (Homeland) by Japan’s Nao Kubota, a farmer’s son, who first fled to the city, explores his home village in the Fukushima district, an area that is actually still a no-go zone following the disaster at the region’s nuclear power plant.

In the South Korean film Night Flight, LeeSong Hee-il presents a duel between two schoolmates. LeeSong previously showed the films No Regret and White Night in Panorama...

No, it's not some strange quasi-remake of stoner favorite cartoon "Josie and the Pussycats!" What we have here are three bits of sales art for the new flick The Apostles featuring Dream Home star Josie Hoi. Dig 'em!

The film is directed by Jo Chien. Lam Suet and Xia Fan also star. The Mandarin horror movie is now in post from All Rights Entertainment.

Synopsis

Lorraine is a young novelist who has been suffering from severe headaches, nightmares, and occasional short-term memory loss from a car accident. Daily medication has become a part of her life. One day a plane crash killed Lorraine’s husband, Kenny. Not long after the accident, a call made by Kenny’s cell phone startled Lorraine. On the other side of the line was a man named Ben. His fiancée, Lynn, was killed in the same plane crash. Kenny’s cell phone was put in...

Director: Danny Pang. Review: Adam Wing. The last time the Pang Brothers scored a hit was in 2006 with fantasy horror yarn, Re-cycle. Their collaborations have fared better than their solo offerings, but with The Detective, Diary and Abnormal Beauty under his belt, Oxide is the more reliable of the two. Danny has made some real clunkers along the way, including snooze-fest Forest of Death and In Love with the Dead. There's no doubting the visual prowess of either brother, but when it comes to great storytelling, fan favourites like The Eye and Bangkok Dangerous are fast becoming distant memories. Psycho-thriller Fairy Tale Killer is written and directed by Danny Pang, in collaboration with Thai director of photography Decha Srimantra (The Eye, Chocolate). In Lau Ching Wan (Mad Detective), Fairy Tale Killer has found a strong lead actor, but Danny also casts Wang Bao Qiang (Blind Shaft), Elanne Kwong (The Child's...

Children's stories walk hand in hand with murder, right? Well they do in Danny Pang's world, and Fairy Tale Killer is the latest in a long line of atmospheric horror movies from the creator of The Eye. It's been a while since he delivered on his promise, but there are plenty of scares to be found in this gruesome crime thriller about a serial killer that finds inspiration in classic fables. Hardly groundbreaking, but the Pang Brothers are due a return to form. Lau Ching Wan (Life Without Principle) stars as the troubled cop on the case, while Wang Baoqiang (Mr. Tree) becomes the deranged killer responsible for the bloody deaths. Elanne Kwong (Love Lifting), Lam Suet, Elena Kong and Joey Meng are along for the ride, and you can catch it in the U.K. sooner than you think. Fairy Tale Killer arrives on U.K. shores October 7th 2013 courtesy of Terror Cotta.

Johnnie To takes his unique brand of action filmmaking to Mainland China with Drug War, his latest collaboration with writer Wai Ka Fai. A breathless game of cat and mouse between an elite anti-narcotics team and a conniving drug dealer trying to save his own skin, Drug War is a thrilling and surprisingly violent ride that offers an eye-opening look at China's drug trade and the methods Chinese law enforcement agencies use to bring it down. Starring Sun Honglei, Louis Koo, and an assortment of Milky Way regulars including Lam Suet, Eddie Cheung, Gordon Lam, Lo Hoi Pang, Michelle Ye, Philip Keung and Berg Ng, Drug War is available to buy in the U.K. from 28 October 2013. You can check out the trailer below, along with Chris Sawin's review of the movie. We're nice like that... Synopsis: After losing control of his car and crashing into a local restaurant, a...

Johnnie To takes his unique brand of action filmmaking to Mainland China with Drug War, his latest collaboration with writer Wai Ka Fai. A breathless game of cat and mouse between an elite anti-narcotics team and a conniving drug dealer trying to save his own skin, Drug War is a thrilling and surprisingly violent ride that offers an eye-opening look at China's drug trade and the methods Chinese law enforcement agencies use to bring it down. Starring Sun Honglei, Louis Koo, and an assortment of Milky Way regulars including Lam Suet, Eddie Cheung, Gordon Lam, Lo Hoi Pang, Michelle Ye, Philip Keung and Berg Ng, Drug War is available to buy in the U.K. from 28 October 2013. You can check out the trailer below, along with Chris Sawin's review of the movie. We're nice like that... Synopsis: After losing control of his car and crashing into a local restaurant, a...

It’s been at least five days since we carried any news on a big budget martial arts movie, so we had best rectify that right now with some early doors info on a new action/adventure, fantasy movie - starring actress/model and all round babelet Chrissie Chau - The Extreme Fox. Hong Kong acting vets Alex Fong and Suet Lam are also on side to round off the main cast. Right now all we got is a teaser poster and a brief summary of the plot. But that’s enough to be going on with. The Extreme Fox is currently in post production so we expect to see more, hopefully soon! Synopsis: Wang Sheng, a Ming-Dynasty scholar who just failed the Imperial Examination, works together with his fellow villagers through many strange but fantastic approaches to change his hometown’s backwardness and his own fate. He accidentally meets...

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,...

In a summer suffuse with the overblown abstractions of CGI blockbusters, one welcomes a return to concrete filmmaking, and Johnnie To's great Drug War served this purpose perfectly: firm lines, structural plotting, and geometric decoupage makes for a highly material formalism, all deeply tied to the director's first completely Mainland Chinese production.

Like 2011's romcom Don't Go Breaking My Heart, this film is powered by formal play, but the material here is a corrosive but ambiguous thriller about a Mainland Anti-Drug cop (Sun Honglei) chasing down suppliers, transporters, and the moneymen forming a curvilinear connection spanning Hong Kong, going through China to South Korea and ending in Japan. Louis Koo is a loyalty-hopping Hong Konger cooking meth on the Mainland; caught by the police, he is blackmailed under the threat of execution by the State into exposing factories and ratting out his workers, then forced to go undercover with...

Drug War

Written by Wai Ka-Fai, Yau Nau-hoi, Ryker Chan and Yu Xi

Directed by Johnnie To

2012, Hong Kong/China

The name of Hong Kong director Johnnie To resonates strongly with fans of hard edged gangster films and cop stories. For years already he has delivered time and time again with some of the most vivid, gritty and viscerally charged films which populate the genre. His more recent output has occasionally diverged from the action dramas he built his name on, mainly with 2008′s cape flick Sparrow and 2011′s Don’t Go Breaking my Heart with which he branched out into romantic comedy.

Admirers clamoring for a return to the bolder crime films have their prayers answered with To’s latest, Drug War, starring Louis Koo as Timmy Choi, a mid level drug smuggler, and Sun Honglei as police captain Zhang Lei, the man trying to use Timmy’s intel...

Title: Drug War Well Go USA/Variance Films Director: Johnnie To Screenwriter: Wai Ka-fai, Johnnie To Cast: Louis Koo, Sun Honglei, Crystal Huang, Wallace Chung, Gao Yunxiang, Li Guangjie, Guo Tao, Li Jing, Lo Hoi-pang, Eddie Cheung, Gordon Lam, Michelle Ye, Lam Suet Screened at: Review 2, NYC, 7/2/13 Opens: July 26, 2013 In China the penalty for selling more than 50 mg of methamphetamine is death, which may not be the best idea. If you’re about to be caught, what would stop you from trying to kill the cops? You can’t be executed twice! That idea fuels the “Drug War,” Johnnie To’s movie said to be the first actioner to [ Read More ]

The post Drug War Movie Review appeared first on Shockya.com.

Somewhere deep inside of us there's a spot that still hasn't forgiven director Fruit Chan for what he did to our psyche with his disturbing flick Dumplings (we can still hear that crunching). Will his next flick have the same effect?

Screen Daily reports that Hong Kong’s Golden Scene is producing Chan’s (pictured) first Hong Kong-set feature in almost a decade, sci-fi thriller The Midnight After, based on bestselling novel Lost on a Minibus by Mongkok To Tai Po.

Chan plans to start shooting in June with an ensemble cast including regulars from his previous films like Wong You Nam (Hollywood Hong Kong), Chui Tien You (Little Cheung) and Sam Lee (Made In Hong Kong). The cast also includes Hong Kong stars Simon Yam, Lam Suet, Janice Man, Kara Hui and Vincci Cheuk.

The story follows a group of passengers on a minibus who emerge from a tunnel...

Golden Scene and One Ninety Films Co. are set to produce the Hong Kong-set sci-fi thriller "The Midnight After".

Fruit Chan ("Three Extremes: Dumplings," "Made in Hong Kong") will helm the project, based on the story "Lost on a Red Minibus to Taipo" by Mr. Pizza, with shooting to begin in June.

The story follows a group of passengers on a minibus who emerge from a tunnel to discover that every single person has disappeared from Hong Kong.

Then the remaining passengers start to go missing one by one. Wong You Nam, Chui Tien You, Sam Lee, Simon Yam, Lam Suet, Janice Man, Kara Hui and Vincci Cheuk star.

Source: Screen Daily...

Even more foreign horrors are ready to crawl out of the shadows and into your hearts just in time for the Chinese Hungry Ghost celebration. Read on for the first details regarding this two-part terror anthology.

Screen Daily is reporting that Edko Films is ready to unveil a two-part horror feature Tales From The Dark, comprising six segments adapted from stories written by best-selling Hong Kong author Lilian Lee. The six segments will be directed by Fruit Chan, Lee Chi Ngai, Lawrence Lau, Teddy Robin, Gordon Chan and actor Simon Yam in his directorial debut. The project’s ensemble cast will include Yam, Kelly Chen, Maggie Shiu, Yuen Qiu, Josephine Koo, Tony Leung Kar-fai and Lam Suet.

The two parts of the film will be released on July 4 and August 1 to coincide with the Chinese Hungry Ghost Festival.

More on these soon!

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As is no doubt befits the ease of manipulation of film's past through contemporary consumer digital means, Rotterdam this year seems full of “video essays” and art pieces deconstructing or exploring cinema material and history. The proliferation alone prompts my skepticism; browse the festival catalog and see videos that engage with Psycho, Zabriskie Point, Eyes Wide Shut, Easy Rider, Freud's celluloid doppelgangers, Faces, and more.

From the spectral underground comes a real work of cinephilia, and by that I mean something that is neither fetishization of a film object nor an exploitation of the same for other means. Rather, Mary Helena Clark's 16mm Orpheus (Outtakes), which I had the pleasure of seeing at Tiff's Wavelengths program last September and revisiting again in Rotterdam, finds on the cutting room floor the facts, dreams, and possibilities of cinema history and future. Cinephilia as lucid consciousness of what lies beneath, behind, and beyond films.

The Chinese nature gone amok comedy Million Dollar Crocodile is on its way to American DVD in February with a new title that could garner Screen Media Films a phone call from Toho’s legal department: Croczilla.

Starring Reign of Assassins' Barbie Hsu and Hong Kong character actor Lam Suet, Million Dollar Crocodile was released in its native land this past summer. On February 12, 2013, Screen Media Films will be releasing it on Us DVD under the Syfy-riffic new title Croczilla.

Fasten your seatbelts when a rampaging two-ton crocodile with an insatiable appetite is set loose in the city. With the army on the hunt, Croczilla will terrorize innocent people while a sexy model tries to recover millions from its belly. In the tradition of Jaws and Piranha, Croczilla is a wild ride of a creature feature, showing that Japan was just the appetizer!

Seems kind of a shame that a...