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One Shot invites close readings of the basic unit of film grammar.Women.“I swear you are my only beloved wife!” the text on the computer screen reads, above a drawing of two hearts skewered by a single arrow. This message, rendered with the program AtariArtist on a Taxan Crt monitor, is Derek’s (Chow Yun-fat) response to a pointed question from his wife, Bao-er (Cora Miao): “Will there be more like her?” Bao-er refers to Derek’s affair with a younger woman, which has led the couple to separate. Now, Bao-er interrogates him from out of frame, in bed, in a reunion that signifies both a lapse in judgment and an effort to model a wholesome family dynamic for their young son. Derek’s computerized response, which gradually loads during a strained pause in their conversation, willfully evades the question. “Does this look like a poem?” he asks...

Ann Hui is one of the foremost auteurs in Hong Kong cinema, the filmmaker behind some of the territory’s most thoughtful and touching productions about immigrants and social outcasts. But over the years she has also directed more commercial films, including “Love in a Fallen City”, produced by major studio Shaw Brothers. The film stands out in her filmography as more commercial and traditional than her usual fare, but it also paves the way for some of her later masterpieces.

Love in a Fallen City is screening at Vesoul International Film Festival of Asian Cinemas

The story centers on Bai Liu-Su (Cora Miao), a divorcée living in Shanghai in the early 1940s and having to face the pressure of her declining aristocratic family, who shame and despise her for her failed marriage. Encountering the charming and womanizing businessman Fan Liu-Yan (the irresistible Chow Yun Fat), she follows him to...

Ann Hui is one of the foremost auteurs in Hong Kong cinema, the filmmaker behind some of the territory’s most thoughtful and touching productions about immigrants and social outcasts. But over the years she has also directed more commercial films, including “Love in a Fallen City”, produced by major studio Shaw Brothers. The film stands out in her filmography as more commercial and traditional than her usual fare, but it also paves the way for some of her later masterpieces.

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The story centers on Bai Liu-Su (Cora Miao), a divorcée living in Shanghai in the early 1940s and having to face the pressure of her declining aristocratic family, who shame and despise her for her failed marriage. Encountering the charming and womanizing businessman Fan Liu-Yan (the irresistible Chow Yun Fat), she follows him to Hong Kong to escape her spiteful siblings.

Wayne Wang’s Dim Sum: A Little Bit of Heart, the filmmaker’s follow-up to his existential noir riff Chan Is Missing, again focuses explicitly on the Chinese American community in San Francisco. But where his debut feature found its protagonists constantly scrambling about the city, Dim Sum is set almost exclusively within, or just outside, the domestic space. Echoes of Ozu Yasujirō, specifically Late Spring, ring throughout Wang’s melodrama, whose tender, empathetic, and often funny examination of a loving, codependent mother-daughter relationship is reminiscent of Ryū Chishū and Haru Setsuko’s characters’ in Ozu’s masterwork.

Dim Sum, too, is a film of extended silences and often mundane conversations, and of emotions coursing beneath placid surfaces across settings where old customs collide with new ones. Wang makes evocative use of Ozu’s signature pillow shots throughout, reflecting elements of a Chinese community through shots of Chinatown and its...

In his third directorial effort, Taiwanese filmmaker Edward Yang once again told a story about the relationship of people within the urban space, in this case, as with many of his other works, the city of Taipei. Along with his previous movies, it further manifested Yang’s reputation and inclusion as a founding member of what film scholars called the “Taiwanese New Wave” which represented a farewell to the old ways of making movies, formally and thematically. Apart from “The Terrorizers” being awarded upon its screening at the Locarno Film Festival, it would continue to receive many more honors, along with critics praising it as a work reminiscent of the movies by Italian filmmaker Michelangelo Antonioni, especially “Blow-Up” which seems to have inspired the narrative strand revolving around the young photographer played by Mao Shao-chun.

“The Terrorizers“ is screening at Five Flavours Asian Film Festival

The story, which deals with...

Filmmakers from Ukraine, Syria, and Tanzania to receive FilmAid Award

The Ukranian group DocuDays, known for its human rights documentaries, will be honored by international film organization FilmAid at its annual benefit on Oct. 12 in New York City. DocuDays is currently building the War Archive, a database of testimonies and evidence of crimes from the war against Russia.

Syrian American actor and filmmaker Jay Abdo (pictured) and young Tanzanian filmmaker Martha Ngwada will also be honored at the event.

Abdo stars in “Neighbors,” a film coming to theaters in December. Ngwada, a former stand-up comedian, is mentoring new filmmakers through FilmAid and making short films about sexual and gender-based violence and other issues affecting young Tanzanians.

“We haven’t done anything like the War Archive before, but we just felt that it was really important. These materials could be used during war crime investigations and for future documentary films,” says DocuDays’ Julia Kartashova,...

Criterion is releasing two masterpieces of Asian cinema this March, Ann Hui’s “Boat People” and Masahiro Shinoda’s “Pale Flower” and on the occasion, we are offering 2 of our readers in the UK the chance to win one of the two titles. All you have to do is comment to this post with your name and city of residence. The draw will take place on March 11.

Masahiro Shinoda directs a title that thrives on one of the most impressive noir atmospheres ever to be presented on film. To achieve this level, Shinoda implements all kinds of cinematic aspects, particularly during the gambling scenes, which emerge as the most impressive in the movie. The Ozu-esque visual approach (Shinoda worked as his assistant after all) is enriched with a number of panoramic shots and an approach towards the introductions of each character through the view of the rest of the people on each scene,...

Backed up by Shaw Brothers, and featuring Chow Yun-fat in one of the protagonist roles, Stanley Kwan’s feature debut was a crowning success, both in the box office and in the Hong Kong Film Awards, where, despite its failure to win any, it was nominated for nine awards.

As the story begins, Bao-er, fed up with her Derek, her husband’s cheating, decides to divorce him. To adapt to her new life as a single woman and mother of young boy Dang Dang, she seeks solace with a group of friends in similar situations, who call themselves the ‘Happy Spinsters Club’. Despite the seemingly happy front that her “sisters” put on, underneath it all each of them secretly yearns for a man in their lives, with them frequently arranging (group) dates. In the meanwhile, Derek moves in with his new girlfriend, Sha Niu, who is much younger that Bao-er but much more immature also.

Often considered the final instalment of an unofficial “Trilogy of Vietnam” and following “The Boy From Vietnam” and “The Story of Woo Viet” (1981), “Boat People” goes to Vietnam in search of the reasons behind the diaspora that started in the late 70s, following the defeat of South Vietnam and that director Ann Hui had examined in the previous two movies.

“Boat People” was presented in Cannes in 1983 where, due to the connections between France-Vietnam, was removed from the Official Competition and relegated to “Surprise Film” and what a surprise it was! The film caused a stir and for a long time after having been misread as a strong anti-Communist statement.

The movie is narrated from the perspective of the central character, a photo reporter from Japan, called Akutagawa (George Lam). It’s him that we spot at the very beginning of the film, frantically photoshooting the military...

Hong Kong auteur Stanley Kwan will be featured as the filmmaker-in-focus at the Hong Kong International Film Festival. It will run a retrospective screening of 13 Kwan-directed films, including the director’s cut of “Center Stage.”

“[Kwan] has developed a highly personal aesthetic style in his [portrayal] of the female psyche while capturing the nuanced transformation of the city and the era,” said Albert Lee, executive director of the Hkiff Society, in a statement.

On staff at Television Broadcasts until 1979, before becoming an assistant director to New Wave filmmakers Ann Hui and Patrick Tam, Kwan has a career spanning more than 40 years. The retrospective retraces the steps of Kwan’s cinematic journey starting from his 1985 directorial debut “Women.” Starring Chow Yun-fat and Cora Miao, the drama earned 10 nominations at the Hong Kong Film Awards including best film and best director.

Kwan quickly established himself as a director with a niche in female sensibilities...

If you are a real fan of Asian movies, you have already know how prominent some movie stars are when it comes to acting. From scenes of shivering action to heart-warming love scenes, these actors are brilliant in all, and obviously, they are one of the significant reasons for those movies to be successful.

Charming Chow Yun Fat is one of those actors who have left their signature marks in every movie they have worked in. A loving heart in romances to courageous martial arts master in action-packed movie scenes. Fat has performed with excellence in different shades, and as a result, a few movies have been crafted that can make anyone fan of this amazing actor. This article mentions a few great Chow Yun Fat movies that you must watch if you are a die heart movie lover.

All About Ah-Long

Directed by Johnnie To, this fascinating movie starts...

In his third directorial effort, Taiwanese filmmaker Edward Yang once again told a story about the relationship of people within the urban space, in this case, as with many of his other works, the city of Taipei. Along with his previous movies, it further manifested Yang’s reputation and inclusion as a founding member of what film scholars called the “Taiwanese New Wave” which represented a farewell to the old ways of making movies, formally and thematically. Apart from “The Terrorizers” being awarded upon its screening at the Locarno Film Festival, it would continue to receive many more honors, along with critics praising it as a work reminiscent of the movies by Italian filmmaker Michelangelo Antonioni, especially “Blow-Up” which seems to have inspired the narrative strand revolving around the young photographer played by Mao Shao-chun.

The story, which deals with the lives of three couples living in the Taiwanese capital,...

Often considered the final instalment of an unofficial “Trilogy of Vietnam” and following “The Boy From Vietnam” and “The Story of Woo Viet” (1981), “Boat People” goes to Vietnam in search of the reasons behind the diaspora that started in the late 70s, following the defeat of South Vietnam and that director Ann Hui had examined in the previous two movies.

“Boat People” was presented in Cannes in 1983 where, due to the connections between France-Vietnam, was removed from the Official Competition and relegated to “Surprise Film” and what a surprise it was! The film caused a stir and for a long time after having been misread as a strong anti-Communist statement.

“Boat People” screened at Five Flavours

The movie is narrated from the perspective of the central character, a photo reporter from Japan, called Akutagawa (George Lam). It’s him that we spot at the very beginning of the film, frantically...

Love in a Fallen City. Photo courtesy of Celestial Pictures.Almost as long as there’s been a Chinese cinema, there have been Shaw Brothers. The three oldest brothers, Runje, Runde, and Runme, founded the Tianyi Film Company in Shanghai in 1925. Shortly thereafter, Runme and the youngest brother, Run Run, opened a branch of the company in Singapore, eventually expanding to Hong Kong. The Shaw empire crashed with the Japanese invasions, first in Shanghai in 1937 and then Singapore and Hong Kong in 1941. But after the war, thanks to the “more than $4 million in gold, jewelry and currency (they buried) in their backyard”1 they were able to re-open, first in Singapore and then, in the late 1950s, in Hong Kong. Shaw Brothers, with its massive Movietown production lot, became the dominant movie production house in the colony, vanquishing its rival MP & GI (later named Cathay) by the end of the 60s.