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Beijing born Hu Jin Quan, better known as King Hu, worked as an actor, scriptwriter, set decorator and assistant director after joining the Shaw Brothers Studio in 1958. Hu slowly worked his way up as the director of “Sons of the Good Earth” (1965) under the influence of director Li Han Hsiang. Besides launching the film career of its star Cheng Pei Pei, Hu’s highly acclaimed wuxia film “Come Drink with Me” (1966) would put him on the world map. After leaving Shaw, he directed “Dragon Inn” (1967) in Taiwan which became a phenomenal cult classic in Southeast Asia.

Hu continued to achieve more fame with films like “A Touch of Zen” (1971), “The Valiant Ones” (1975), “Raining in the Mountain” and “Legend of the Mountain” both in 1979. Although his later films were less successful commercially, he returned from California to direct “Swordsman” (1990) and “Painted Skin” (1992). Actually, producer Tsui Hark‘s team had to finish...

Renowned Chinese filmmaker Jia Zhang-ke held a masterclass during Fica Vesoul, offering insights into his journey, the evolution of independent cinema in China, and the socio-political role of filmmaking. Known for capturing the realities of contemporary China, Jia spoke candidly about his early influences, creative challenges, and his vision for the future of cinema.

From VHS Tapes to Independent Filmmaking

Jia’s passion for cinema began in his school years, watching films in small VHS cabins outside the official circuit. This early exposure to Hong Kong and Taiwanese cinema, including King Hu, Johnny To, and Ann Hui, shaped his cinematic sensibilities. However, his true awakening came in 1991 when he watched Chen Kaige‘s “Yellow Earth“, a film that revealed to him how cinema could express social reality beyond traditional storytelling.

His first feature, “Xiao Wu”, was made without script approval or official authorization—a defining moment in his commitment to independent filmmaking.

Some years ago, I asked my friend Victor Fan to suggest a book that could work as an introduction to the cinema of China, Hong Kong and Taiwan at the same time, and his rather quick answer was “Chinese National Cinema” by Yingjin Zhang. A few years after that, now that I have finished the book, I have to extend a big thank you to him, because this book not only fulfilled my request, but is actually one of the best publications about the history of cinema I have ever read. Let us take things from the beginning though.

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In a prologue that is somewhat intricate, but definitely less complicated than usual in academic books, Yingjin Zhang on the issue of defining Chinese National Cinema under the complicated historical background of what the book calls the Three Chinas: China, Taiwan, Hong Kong.

By the time of The Sword’s release in 1980, the wuxia genre had begun to fall out of favor in the Hong Kong in favor of kung-fu movies and more contemporary-set action films that would define the province’s genre cinema for the next two decades. In many ways, Patrick Tam’s film, with its blend of melodrama, weapons-based action, and wire-fu choreography, is a throwback to the genre’s heyday. Nonetheless, the director, a leading figure of what would become the Hong Kong New Wave, complicates the story with an emotional dimension rare to even the most florid wuxia of years past.

The Sword opens with the forging of a mystical blade for a legendary swordsman, Fa Chin-shu (Tien Feng), who’s warned by the blacksmith that the weapon will ultimately be his undoing. The action then shifts to a far younger warrior, Lee Mak-yin (Adam Cheng), who sets...

“Strange Tales from a Chinese Studio” is a collection of close to 500 Chinese stories written by Pu Song Ling of the Qing dynasty. These fictional tales mostly touch on the themes of rebirth, reincarnation, ghosts, gods and the supernatural. Many filmmakers have adapted numerous of his works into films and TV series since then. Loosely based on a story of the same name and filmed in China, King Hu‘s “Painted Skin” was also his last film.

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One night, a reasonably well off but failed scholar Wang Shun Sheng (Adam Cheng) runs into a pretty young woman, You Feng (Joey Wong) on his way home. Since she is a runaway, he takes pity on her and takes her home. Just when he is about to have his way with her, the sun comes up and she starts to panic. Nonetheless,...

Hk cinema had a tendency to employ many people during a film production, but “The Swordsman” must be a unique case. King Hu, Ching Siu-Tung, Tsui Hark, Raymond Lee, Ann Hui and Andrew Kam are referred as directors and Wong Ying, Edward leung, Tai Foo-ho, Lam Kee-to, Lau Tai-muk and Kwan Man-leung as scriptwriters. Btw, this is not an omnibus, just a compact movie based on a novel by Louis Cha titled “The Smiling, Proud Wanderer”. Of course, there is a story here, since King Hu was originally credited as the director, but allegedly left the project midway, and the film was completed by a team led by producer Tsui Hark. Ann Hui was also part of the team, although uncredited, and since we tend to be completionists here at Amp, we decided to include “The Swordsman” in her project.

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Get in touch to send in cinephile news and discoveries. To keep up with our latest features, sign up for the Weekly Edit newsletter and follow us @mubinotebook on Twitter and Instagram.NEWSMy Life as a Dog.Amid concerns over new provisions for AI, IATSE members have voted to ratify their new three-year contract with AMPTP, which includes a historic 40 percent raise for television and theatrical costume designers.Meanwhile, Teamsters Local 399 “remain far apart” on terms after five weeks of bargaining, reporting that “this was the first week in which we saw the employers take this process seriously.” Their current contract will expire on July 31, after which the union could strike.The Swedish motion-picture industry is calling for a change to the state’s “first-come, first-served” funding process, which most recently distributed all available funds in one minute and seven seconds.Germany plans to nearly double its national film funding...

Cheng Pei-pei, the Chinese-born actress best known for her role in Ang Lee‘s Oscar-nominated film Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon, has died. She was 78. According to Variety, Cheng passed away on Thursday, July 18, in the San Francisco Bay Area from a degenerative brain disease. She has donated her brain to medical research. Born on January 6, 1946, in Shanghai, China, Cheng moved to Hong Kong in 1962 at the age of 16 and began training at Shaw Brothers Studio, which helped popularize kung-fu movies. Being able to speak Mandarin and having a background in ballet and dance, Cheng made her feature film debut in the 1964 film Lovers’ Rock and soon became a major star in martial arts and action movies. Her breakout role came in the 1966 action film Come Drink With Me, directed by King Hu. The movie was named as Hong Kong’s submission for the international feature Oscar but was not nominated.

Cheng Pei-pei, the pioneering Chinese actress dubbed the “Queen of Swords” and considered among the first female action stars who made her name in the Shaw Brothers classic Come Drink With Me and later had a memorable turn as the villain Jade Fox in Ang Lee’s Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon, has died. She was 78.

“It is with a heavy heart that we announce that the rumors are true. Our mother, Cheng Pei-pei, passed away peacefully at home surrounded by her loved ones on July 17,” Cheng’s family said in a statement posted to Facebook. “In 2019, our mom was diagnosed with a neurodegenerative, atypical parkinsonism syndrome – unofficially, corticobasal degeneration (CBD). It is a rare disease with symptoms similar to Parkinson’s disease, however, current treatments cannot slow the progression. She chose not to make this news public so that she could deal with her condition in private and spend her...

Cheng Pei-pei, who memorably starred in Ang Lee’s Oscar-nominated film, Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon, died Thursday at 78 in the San Francisco Bay Area from a degenerative brain disease.

Cheng was born in Shanghai in 1946, moving to Hong Kong in 1962. There she began working with the iconic Shaw Brothers studio, which is widely acknowledged as popularizing kung-fu movies. Her feature debut was drama film Lovers’ Rock, and using her training in ballet and dance, she soon became a major star in martial arts, action, and swordplay movies .

The 1966 action film Come Drink With Me, directed by King Hu, was her breakout role. It was named as Hong Kong’s contender for the Oscars, but not nominated.

Cheng moved to San Francisco in the 1970s, attending business school at the University of California Irvine while raising four children. The children went on to their own show business careers.

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Cheng Pei-pei, the Chinese-born action film icon who starred in Ang Lee’s Oscar-nominated “Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon” and King Hu’s seminal wuxia feature “Come Drink With Me,” has died. She was 78.

Cheng, considered a pioneer of martial arts roles for female actors, died in the San Francisco Bay Area on Wednesday. She had long suffered from a degenerative brain disease and has donated her brain to medical research.

Born in Shanghai on Jan. 6, 1946, Cheng moved to Hong Kong in 1962. With her ballet and dance training, she was soon working with the iconic Shaw Brothers studio. While her feature debut was drama film “Lovers’ Rock,” she became a major star in martial arts, action and swordplay movies following her breakout role in 1966’s “Come Drink With Me,” directed by King Hu. The film set the tone for a sequel (“Golden Swallow” in 1968), an unrealized remake by Quentin Tarantino and...

Johnnie To Kei-fung (born 22 April 1955) is a Hong Kong filmmaker. Popular in his native Hong Kong, To has also found acclaim overseas. Intensely prolific, To has made films in a variety of genres, though in the West he is best known for his action and crime movies, which have earned him critical respect and a cult following, which includes American filmmaker Quentin Tarantino.

His films, often made in collaboration with the same group of actors, screenwriters and cinematographers, frequently explore themes of friendship, fate and the changing face of Hong Kong society. Sometimes described as “multifaceted and chameleonic” due to his ability to switch tones and genres between movies, To is nonetheless seen as having a consistent style, which involves mixing subdued realism and social observation with highly stylised visual and acting elements. To has cited King Hu as the director who has influenced his work the most. To heads...

Cited as King Hu’s last pure wuxia film, 1975’s The Valiant Ones is set during the Ming Dynasty of the 16th century in a time when China’s coastlines were under constant harassment from Japanese wokou. As an opening narration explains, these pirates operate nearly unchallenged thanks to their fighting prowess and the corruption of Japanese consuls, Chinese officials, and even the Ming emperor (Chao Lei) himself. Despite the collusion, the monarch must keep up appearances of solving the problem, and so he commissions General Zhu (Tu Kuang-chi) to assemble a group of warriors to combat the pirates. Zhou in turn hires a brilliant captain, Yu Da-you (Roy Chiao), to lead the unit, along with a handful of fighters that includes a husband-wife duo (Wing Bai and Hsu Feng) who could each take on an entire platoon of bandits.

Whether or not Hu felt he was leaving behind the wuxia genre,...

The general consensus is a pirate movie will contain lots of epic sea battles and hidden treasures. Well “The Valiant Ones” may contain treasure of the stolen kind but there is barely a sighting of a ship throughout, despite the coastal setting. Yet this is a King Hu feature so put that initial concern to one side and prepare to rediscover one of his less prominent works as Eureka entertainment release it in a new 4K scan.

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Pirates are attacking the coast of China and the Emperor (Chao Lei) tasks General Zhu Wan (Tu Kuang-chi) to assemble a small group to defeat them. Under the command of General Yu Dayou (Roy Chiao), they include the husband and wife sword fighters Wu Ji-yuan (Wing Bai) and Wu Ruo-shi (Feng Hsu). As they learn more about their opponents, it becomes evident...

Rom-coms often follow straightforward narrative structures, and one classic pattern involves the introduction of a prince or princess, charming or not, who disrupts the peace of a regimented or constrained life. This storytelling form inevitably strikes a chord with us, the majority of audiences, to varying degrees. Let's face it, whether casually scrolling through Insta or Tinder, getting dressed for yoga class or a night out, everyone seeks an unexpected twist in their lives, in 1977 as well as today. Furthermore, such pivotal moments often lead to a Cornelian choice, between reason and chance, wisdom and whimsy. This is precisely where Tuan Wan-lu finds herself.

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Everything started when Wan-lu, a young and carefree student crashed into journalist Meng-chiao. Love at first sight, end of the story. But that was without reckoning on Ku Yu-lan, her childhood sweetheart and prospective husband seemingly approved by her family,...

Watch too many movies and chances are you can predict the outcome within the opening minutes. Wuxia can feel often feel like this and so the enjoyment comes in the journey and not always the destination, as satisfying that inevitable confrontation might be. “The Swordsman of all Swordsmen” thus comes as a surprise with a twist in the expectations that focuses on the honor and chivalry as much as the notions of revenge. It's a perfect opportunity to revisit it with Eureka Entertainment releasing a restored version onto Blu-ray.

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As a young boy, Tsai Ying-jie (Tien Peng) witnesses the slaughter of his family by Yun Chun-chung (Tsao Tsien) and his accomplices in search or the Spirit Chasing Sword. Growing up into a swordsman in his own right, he seeks to exact revenge from those responsible. An encounter with Flying...

King Hu's place in the history of world cinema as the man who reinvigorated and evolved the wuxia genre is well cemented, and “Raining in the Mountain”, which was selected as one of the Best 100 Chinese Motion Pictures by the Hong Kong Film Awards in 2005, is another testament to the fact.

Raining in the Mountain is screening at Vesoul International Film Festival of Asian Cinema

The story is set in a remote Buddhist Monastery during the 16th century, whose ageing Abbot is about to retire and announce his successor. The Abbot invites three outsiders to advise him on the matter, but all three of them have their own agendas. Esquire Wen, a wealthy patron of the monastery, has brought with him White Fox, a legendary thief who poses as his concubine and another sidekick, to help him steal the legendary scriptural text of “The Mahayana Sutra,” hand-copied by Tripitaka.

Acclaimed Iranian director Mohsen Makhmalbaf will serve as jury president at the 30th Vesoul International Film Festival of Asian Cinema (Viffac), which runs from February 6-13.

Held in France, this year’s edition will spotlight Taiwanese cinema and Malayalam-language films from India. A total of 92 films from 29 countries will be screened.

Makhmalbaf’s works include A Moment of Innocence (1996), which won a special mention at the Locarno Film Festival, as well as Kandahar (2001), which won the Ecumenical Jury prize at the Cannes Film Festival.

Other jury members at Viffac this year include Taiwanese director Zero Chou, winner of the Golden Bear at the Berlinale in 2007, Iranian actress Fatemed Motamed-Arya and Japanese actor Shogen.

There are 17 films across the fiction and documentary competitions, which come from China, Korea, India, Iran, Kazakhstan, Uzbekistan, Sri Lanka, Thailand, Bangladesh, Nepal and Taiwan. There are two world premieres, five international premieres, six European premieres and four French premieres.

Taiwan and India in the spotlight at the 30th Vesoul Iff of Asian Cinema

The 30th Vesoul International Film Festival of Asian Cinema will feature 92 films, including 52 never-before-seen films from 29 countries, under the banner of commitment!

Mohsen Makhmalbaf, Iranian director with 60 international awards to his credit, is President of the Jury. Other members include Taiwanese director Zero Chou, winner of the Golden Bear at Berlin 2007, Fatemed Motamed-Arya, the most awarded Iranian actress in the history of Iranian cinema, and Japanese actor Shogen, cinema ambassador at the Sea-Okinawa Pan-Pacific International Film Festival.

The 17 films in the fiction and documentary competitions come from China, Korea, India, Iran, Kazakhstan, Uzbekistan, Sri Lanka, Thailand, Bangladesh, Nepal and Taiwan. Four are French premieres, six European premieres, five international premieres and two world premieres.

Feature Film Competition :

China: All Ears by Liu Jiayin – China (Tibet): The Snow Leopard by Pema Tseden – Korea: Work to...

Mubi has unveiled their December 2023 lineup, featuring notable new releases such as Rodrigo Moreno’s The Delinquents, Argentina’s Oscar this year; the Lily Gladstone-led drama The Unknown Country; Rodrigo Sorogoyen’s The Beasts; and the José González documentary A Tiger in Paradise. Additional highlights include films from Olivier Assayas, Takeshi Kitano, Jean-Luc Godard, Kelly Reichardt, Steven Spielberg, Martin Scorsese, the Shaw Browers, Lars von Trier, Arnaud Desplechin, and more.

Check out the lineup below and get 30 days free here.

December 1st

The House that Jack Built, directed by Lars von Trier | Chaos Reigns: The Films of Lars von Trier

Breaking the Waves, directed by Lars von Trier | Chaos Reigns: The Films of Lars von Trier

The Element of Crime, directed by Lars von Trier | Chaos Reigns: The Films of Lars von Trier

Europa, directed by Lars von Trier | Chaos Reigns: The Films of Lars von Trier

Epidemic, directed...

Mostly known for elevating the wuxia genre in unprecedented heights, with films like “A Touch of Zen” and “Dragon Inn”, King Hu has also implemented his impressive aesthetics to this 1979 film, which lingers between the thriller and the ghost story, as usual including Zen Buddhist philosophy. Eureka Entertainment presents this epic in all of its 191 minutes, in a fully restored edition, in stunning 4K.

Legend of the Mountain is screening at Five Flavours

The story is adapted from a Song Dynasty folk tale and revolves around Ho Yunqing, a young scholar who is tasked by an eminent monk to transcribe a Buddhist sutra said to have immense power over the spirits of the afterlife. To execute his work in peace, he travels to the abandoned premises of an ex-general deep in the mountains, where he encounters a number of strange people. These include Mr Tsui, the man who welcomes him in the area,...

While his features are praised for their inventive and stylish fight sequences, costumes and other aspects, one of King Hu's trademarks was the influence of Buddhist philosophy in his works. Destiny is perhaps the most significant motif linking all of his works, with many of his characters fulfilling their fate in the form of a prophecy or their principles, which is the fight against corruption within the world. King Hu has created tales that might be staged in the distant past, albeit one spiced with fantasy elements, but in the end they also reflect the present with its reliance on narratives to make sense of events and actions. In one of his last projects “The Wheel of Life”, which he co-directed with Hsing lee and Pai Ching-jui, we are told three tales from different periods in time, showcasing the influence of fate on people and the world around them,...

Perhaps one of the most legendary titles in the genre, King Hu's iconic martial arts epic “Come Drink with Me” was a revelation when it first premiered in the mid-60s. Being one of the first films to adapt a stylish bent to the martial arts scenes while still keeping it's artistic touch, the film essentially launched Shaw Brothers as a studio for adrenaline-charged, hard-hitting action films.

Come Drink With Me is screening at Five Flavours

In the middle of the countryside, a group of bandits takes the imperial envoy Chang hostage in order to demand the return of their leader. Although she is really a girl, the renowned fighter Golden Swallow who claims to be Chang's brother, arrives to secure his release. Tracking them down, she takes on the bandits in their hideout at a Buddhist temple, massacring dozens before she's wounded by a poison dart. Subsequently, she...

After “Come Drink With Me” Hong Kong director King Hu probably could have stayed with Shaw Brothers Studio, but instead left the country for Taiwan where he would form his own company and in the years to come, make some of the best movies of his career. While the budget and conditions had certainly changed, Hu continued exploring the themes of his last feature in “Dragon Inn”, arguably his most popular movie aside from “A Touch of Zen”. As one of the most referred to entry in the wuxia genre, it not only provided cinephiles with great fight choreographies, great performances and a wonderful setting, with the architecture of the inn itself being the star of the show, “Dragon Inn” also proved how the genre would blend a highly entertaining formula with a very interesting and (after all these years) still quite appealing social commentary about the relationship of subject and ruler.

Hailed as one of the biggest epics of the wuxia genre, “A Touch of Zen” is a true masterpiece of the category that stands apart particularly due to its technical prowess and high symbolism. The script is based on a short story titled “The Magnanimous Girl” by Pu Songling that was published in 1679.

A Touch of Zen is screening at Five Flavours

Gu is a talented painter and scholar who still lives with his mother, who worries about him being unambitious, unmarried and his decline to apply for a civil servant position. Eventually, a young girl named Yang and her mother settle in an abandoned house nearby, which everybody considers haunted. Gu's mother however, does not seem at all bothered by the fact and she proceeds in an effort to arrange a marriage between Gu and Yang. The girl declines but she and Gu strike a peculiar friendship, after she...

by Yann Benarrous

Is it really worthwhile for me to comment further? Just imagine throwing into a defective Thermomix in no particular order Bruce Lee's early classics, (not-the-best) Blaxploitation undercover stories, few OSS177 and other cheap cold war spy fictions with just a drop of Nunsploitation to spice it up. Tempting, isn't it? No surprise to see the B-movies undisputed ruler Quentin Tarantino resurrecting this underground piece for an interview to the Straight Times while promoting “Kill Bill”.

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Obviously, the name Cleopatra Wong is directly inspired form Jack Starrett's “Cleopatra Jones” (1973), just like the introductive “They call her… “ is a common pattern of the Exploitation scene, the most famous probably being the Spaghetti Western “They Call Me Trinity” (1970). Moreover seeing the coming-from-nowhere-soon-returning-to-nowhere leading actress Doris Young getting renamed Marrie Lee is certainly making her a sibling of King Bruce,...

Martial arts movies combine action and storytelling, pushing the boundaries of cinema with their high-energy sequences and choreographed performances. Iconic filmmakers like Jackie Chan, Chang Cheh, and Yuen Woo Ping have made significant contributions to the martial arts genre. Martial arts movie franchises stand out due to their multifaceted nature, covering a wide range of genres and employing various techniques, from wirework to complex camera rigs, all supported by months of rigorous training.

Martial arts movies have a rich and enduring legacy in the world of cinema, with influential directors and actors paving the way for the genre's evolution. From the early classics to contemporary trends, martial arts films have not just captivated audiences with high-energy action; they have also pushed the boundaries of storytelling through the art of combat. Iconic filmmakers of the genre like Jackie Chan, Chang Cheh, and Yuen Woo Ping have made a huge impact on the genre,...

This year's Special Screenings section features two classics directed by the masters of Taiwanese cinema – Tsai Ming-liang and Hou Hsiao-hsien. The screenings of films, restored in 4K, will be a nostalgic trip down the memory lane to the magic tales that have already earned an indisputable cult status and entered the canon of Asian cinema.

The process of digital restoration allows festivals to return to classic titles and bring them back to audiences to revisit and reevaluate through the lens of time passed. The feeling that the world is changing and that cinema follows in its steps will be one of the key emotions accompanying the screenings.

Tsai Ming-liang's “Goodbye, Dragon Inn” is not just a tribute to King Hu, whose retrospective is one of this year's Festival highlights, but also a symbolic goodbye to the golden era of the classic wuxia films that have been kindling the emotions of Asian audiences for many decades.

Hong Kong cinema is associated with action films which most often bring to mind male protagonists. Most undeservedly so since, thanks to the characteristics of Hong Kong martial arts films, women have been successfully surmounting their male counterparts with training, agility, and wits in them for many decades. The masters, such as King Hu and Tsui Hark, were well-aware of it. They were among the ones who discovered outstanding artists whose roles were ahead of their times and set out new directions for the development of popular cinema.

Hong Kong is not just about action cinema, but also brilliant comedies and dramas, and sharp tales with social overtones, in which fascinating, complex female characters are also present. The Hong Kong Heroines section brings back strong heroines and the great roles of stars, including Cheng Pei-pei, Sylvia Chang, Cherry Ngan, and Maggie Cheung. The section presents Hong Kong cinema from the...

Mainland China, July 2021: Another day another online movie made its way to the massively popular video streaming platforms there to catch the roving eyes of the viewers looking for a quick fix. Produced by Henan Guanglan Culture and starring a bunch of unknown actors, at least outside of China anyway, Tencent Video's “Longmen Town Inn” or “Dragon Gate Town Inn” in Chinese, is one such production like many countless more.

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Set in a nameless desert, the simple plot concerns Wu Long Jian Xian (Chu Xiao Long), a peerless swordsman who has to fight off challengers from other cults eager to take him down in order to claim the top position in Jianghu. Ultimately this leads to a standoff at Broken Soul Cliff in which he is the sole survivor and thereupon he also decides to live in seclusion.

Arrow’s recent box sets Shawscope Volume One and Volume Two highlighted the golden age of Hong Kong’s Shaw Brothers studio, spanning roughly from the mid-1970s to their pivot toward TV in 1986. Now, Shout! Factory’s Shaw Brothers Classics: Volume 1 focuses on the studio’s rapid commercial ascendency at the end of the ’60s with their then-new, harder-edged take on martial arts cinema.

The earliest film in the set is, fittingly, Chang Cheh’s The Assassin, from 1967. Made hot on the heels of Chang’s (and the studio’s) breakout feature The One-Armed Swordsman from the same year, The Assassin furthers the filmmaker’s interest in moving the martial arts film away from its erstwhile emphasis on female heroes who are prone to musical outbursts and flowery romances as they are violence and toward the sort of male-centric revenge narratives that dominate the titles collected here.

One-Armed Swordsman...

Having been one of the contributors to the script for King Hu's “Come Drink With Me” while also serving as an assistant director for Hu himself, it should come perhaps as no surprise Taiwanese filmmaker Ting Shan-hsi would follow in the same tradition as his mentor. In the busy 1970s world of wuxia, he created several entries within the genre, with an astonishing nine feature films under his belt three years after his debut. As it also became obvious, the genre needed to explore further territories, with some of its conventions feeling stale and predictable, Shan-hsi decided it was about time to venture into fantasy and other genres. “The Ghost Hill” is the result of this tendency to spice up the wuxia conventions, with some elements indeed working to its advantage, while others not working quite as well.

The Ghost Hill is screening at Old School Kung Fu Fest

For twenty years,...

After the commercial success of wuxia-titles such as “Dragon Inn”, it was obvious there was an audience for swordplay and high drama. Many directors jumped on the trend, with many features being truly extraordinary and many rightfully forgotten, with Joseph Kuo's genre entries being from the first category. While having made a career for himself directing drama, Kuo employed this experience and many of the elements used by filmmakers such as King Hu to create his first major venture into wuxia, namely “The Swordsman of All Swordsman”. It is a movie which looks and feels very much like a typical genre entry, but at the same time Kuo's approach to themes such as revenge and honour is quite skillful and certainly deserves a closer look.

The Swordsman of all Swordsmen is screening at Old School Kung Fu Fest

Traumatised by witnessing the gruesome murder of his parents and the rest of his family,...

Wong Kar-wai isn't a filmmaker particularly known for his sense of humour. His work is many things: romantic, sumptuous, sensual, atmospheric. When he does attempt comedy, it's often tied to one character, an oddball outlier who provides a humorous foil to one of his stony-faced protagonists. The last thing you would expect his name attached to is a wacky parody wuxia movie less in line with King Hu and more on the same page as a Zucker Brothers production, and yet, from the spare change of the enormously expensive and troubled production behind his own “Ashes of Time”, “The Eagle Shooting Heroes” exists.

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Jet Tone Films was established after the release of Wong's first two sensitive tough guy movies (“As Tears Go By” and “Days of Being Wild”), and its initial efforts went towards adapting Jin Yong's classic wuxia novel,...

You could argue that no one has done more for cinema in Asia, and more for global cinema from Asia, than Sammo Hung.

There was proof of that on display at the Asian Film Awards on Sunday night (Hong Kong time) when the veteran filmmaker and martial arts master was handed a lifetime achievement award and a highlight reel traced his 200-plus film career back to the 1960s and showed the audience flashes of the genius that has driven Hung’s career ever since.

From child star to getting bashed by Bruce Lee in the opening scenes of Enter the Dragon; from an assistant to the great Hong Kong action director King Hu to the stunt director who help guide Jackie Chan and helped invent the action comedy genre and on to the star and director of a string of hits of his own, Hung has helped shape the action...

Born Chan Kong-sang on April 7th, 1954, in Hong Kong, here is how the famed martial artist and actor would go on to become known as Jackie Chan in the United States. At the beginning of his film career, Jackie Chan received small parts in King Hu's wuxia movies Come Drink With Me and A Touch of Zen before later appearing in Bruce Lee's Fist of Fury and Enter the Dragon as a stuntman. Chan's career then catapulted into the mainstream with the release of martial arts comedy Drunken Master in 1978, cementing his signature mix of stunts and slapstick.

In English-speaking areas of the world, Chan Kong-sang became known as Kung Fu expert Jackie Chan. According to the autobiography I Am Jackie Chan, the "Jackie" forename originated from Chan's brief stint as a construction worker in Australia during the early 1970s. A fellow worker called Jack took Chan under his wing,...

The newest season of the "Gundam" franchise, titled "The Witch From Mercury," has been an odd one. Rather than a tale of interstellar conflict, it's a high school story about teenagers who fight each other in school-sanctioned robot duels. It's the first "Gundam" series to star a female protagonist, and it borrows heavily from the surreal anime classic "Revolutionary Girl Utena." As always, there are fans out there who do not take kindly to that kind of thing — fans who believe that "Witch From Mercury" is a "Gundam" series in name only, made to appeal to casual viewers rather than the serious nerds who make up the franchise's real audience.

These embittered "Gundam" fans are wrong. "Witch From Mercury" is hardly the first weird "Gundam." In fact, "Gundam" has always been weird. This is a series whose characters have names like "Full Frontal" and "Biscuit Griffon." It is a series...

The Korean War has been a fertile ground for epic war features over the past few decades. Predominantly these have emerged from South Korea where the war is part of the national subconscious. Chinese cinema had tended to focus more on the impact of World War 2 and its aftermath until the release of “The Battle at Lake Changjin” in 2021. A huge success at the box office and another in the current trend of “Melody” blockbusters that incorporate patriotic themes in amongst the entertainment. With the endeavor requiring three directors, it comes as no surprise that the sequel was shot back-to-back to make the most of the production costs.

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The 7th Company headed by Qianli (Wu) accompanied by his brother Wanli (Jackson Yee) attack the airfield protected by the American 1st division, supported by the artillery battalion headed by Yang...

After starring in and directing the hugely successful “One Armed Boxer Vs the Flying Guillotine / Master of the Flying Guillotine” (1976) Jimmy Wang Yu was back with both arms and fighting yet another version of the famed Shaw Brothers flying guillotine in this low-budget Taiwanese clone.

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Nicknamed the Silver Spear, Lung Fei Yung is a ruthless assassin for hire and he only kills people who deserve to die. Apparently during a massacre ten years ago, a trio of powerful experts known as The Devil’s Three was responsible for the downfall of one hundred and twenty members from eight kung fu schools. Now for some unknown reason, a certain female clan leader has decided to have them killed and trusting that Lung the Spearman is the only one who can do the job, she promptly hires him.

Lung easily dispatches...

Get in touch to send in cinephile news and discoveries. For daily updates follow us @NotebookMUBI.NEWSKing Lear.Jean-Luc Godard, groundbreaking French-Swiss filmmaker across six decades, died last week at age 91. In the week since, a number of tributes have been shared: among them, Blair McClendon in n+1, J. Hoberman in The Nation, Manohla Dargis in the New York Times, and Richard Hell in Screen Slate. Alternatively, you can find a 2002 essay on Godard by filmmaker and theorist Peter Wollen on Verso's blog, watch a 1988 conversation between Godard and critic Serge Daney, or read this list Godard contributed to the British film journal Afterimage in 1970. Shadow and Act founder Tambay Obenson is fundraising to launch Akoroko, a new platform devoted to African film and television. The platform intends to combine film journalism with “consultation, cataloging, and curated film streaming.”Two posters (below) for the 61st New York Film Festival feature photographs taken by Nan Goldin.

‘The Heroic Mission’ is named and inspired by two titles of To’s films during the 90s: The Heroic Trio (1992) and The Mission (1998). The imagery of ‘hero’ created by To in most of his films represents a fated statement: ‘We all came with a mission’. Influenced by the film directors King Hu, Sam Peckinpah and Akira Kurosawa, To enjoyed his international breakthrough with a film noir signature and gangster films. To specialises in angling at different characters in daily life and portraying their inner struggles and conflicts between desire and making choices. To once said, ‘I can see two to three faces of a person.’ Three films have been selected in this programme and each tells a different story about heroism.

Presented jointly by UK-China Film Collab and Trinity CineAsia, this programme provides a wider context of the societal changes in Hong Kong in recent decades. It wishes to...

Before the Shaw Brothers burst onto the Hong Kong film scene with "Come Drink With Me" in 1966, there wasn't a lot of leeway through which martial arts could be portrayed on film. The most popular films in the genre up to that point leaned heavily on melodrama and the superhuman feats of their heroes, often with the help of special effects or animation. They were certainly fun, but they lacked the gravity to carry the genre into the modern age.

All that changed, however, with "Come Drink With Me." The film, which marked the legendary King Hu's second time in the director's chair,...

The post Come Drink With Me Was a Major Step For the Martial Arts Genre appeared first on /Film.

If you’re looking to take a summer film analysis course for free, David Bordwell and Kristin Thompson have graciously offered that opportunity. The invaluable film theorists, who previously hosted a selection of their digital books on PayPal, have now made them available at no cost in protest of Peter Thiel’s campaign contributions to J. D. Vance and other Maga cretins. “[We]e see no reason to add to PayPal’s revenues, not even the few cents it receives from a purchase here,” notes Bordwell on his site.

Freely available books include On the History of Film Style, in which Bordwell “scrutinizes the theories of style launched by André Bazin, Noël Burch, and other film historians” and looks at a wide-ranging span of cinema; Planet Hong Kong, an essential text featuring analysis on works from Wong Kar-wai, King Hu, Stephen Chow, Johnnie To; and many more. There are also books...

“Winter Vacation” is a Chinese Independent film, an absurdist comedy, with a stark streak of pessimism. Winter Vacation is an extremely arty film too, with long static visuals punctuated with explosions of intelligent humour that can be laughed out loud. All the generations feature in this mini odyssey into perplexed ennui of an Inner Mongolian town. Children, teenagers, middle-aged adults and the elderly are all in a state of existential angst, all going nowhere with nothing to do; they’re all bored out of their minds. Traditionally, the Chinese winter vacation is a time of the year when families get together for a big celebration. With the itinerant nature of migrant work in China, family members can travel hundreds, if not thousands of miles to re-join their families for this celebration. Li Hongqi deconstructs this celebration and family relations, where in this mysterious town, the celebration seems to be occurring at some unknowable distance.

Action cinema back in the golden era of Hong Kong cinema was encapsulated with an anything goes ethos. You would get almost guerilla style film-making techniques with a complete aversion to safety and what you subsequently got on screen was the result. “Devil Hunters” concludes with one such stunt that will leave the mind boggling at how nobody got sued! It’s also a classic example of B-movie filmmaking with it fitting comfortably into the female fighting flicks that followed the success of Michelle Yeoh and “Yes Madam”. With a lot of these poorly put togethe,r will this stand out from the crowd or just be remembered for the finale?

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A transaction between two sets of mobsters is interrupted by the police headed up by Superintendent Tsang (Alex Man) and Madam Tong (Sibelle Hu). Bing (Moon Lee) also interferes, and her interaction allows them to escape.

“They call me Drunken Cat”

King Hu’s Come Drink With Me (1966) will be available on Blu-ray March 22nd from Arrow Video. It can be pre-ordered Here

Years before Shaw Brothers’ kung fu films made them the biggest film studio in Hong Kong, local audiences flocked to their wuxia pian films: mythic tales of swordfighting (and often gravity-defying) heroes fighting for honor. In his final film for the studio, Come Drink With Me, director King Hu (A Touch of Zen) broke fresh new ground in martial arts storytelling, and catapulted fresh-faced lead actress Cheng Pei-pei to stardom in the process.

When the Governor’s son is taken hostage by bandits, a mysterious swordsman named Golden Swallow (Cheng) is hot on their trail to ensure the son’s release. What the bandits don’t realize, however, is that Golden Swallow is actually a woman, and that the hostage is her brother.

Mijke de Jong’s Along The Way was the only film to officially receive a physical screening.

Vanja Kaludjercic, festival director of the International Film Festival Rotterdam (IFFR), struck an upbeat note on the closing weekend of the 51st edition which included the physical world premiere of Mijke de Jong’s Along The Way, at cinemas in Rotterdam, Amsterdam and Groningen.

She hailed the efforts made by her festival team in putting together an online edition for a second year in such challenging circumstances. The entire festival had to be re-thought as an online event at short notice when in late December,...

Adilkhan Yerzhanov’s “Assault” and “Kung Fu Zohra” from Mabrouk El Mechri are among the lineup at International Film Festival Rotterdam’s (IFFR) 51st edition.

The films were among 10 features selected for the Big Screen competition, which aims to bridge the gap between popular, classic and arthouse cinema.

IFFR also boasts the Tiger Competition for emerging talent and Ammodo Tiger Short competition for shorts.

Among the 14 titles selected for the Tiger Competition, Roberto Doveris will present “Proyecto Fantasma,” Morgane Dziurla-Petit will deliver “Excess Will Save Us” and David Easteal will show “The Plains.”

The festival, whose full lineup was announced on Friday, will run as a virtual festival on IFFR.com from Jan 26-Feb. 6 for the second year in a row due to the Covid-19 pandemic. Festival director Vanja Kaludjercic revealed that the lockdown in the Netherlands had enforced some changes in previously announced elements of the program. For example,...

After a hiatus as theaters in New York City and beyond closed their doors during the pandemic, we’re delighted to announce the return of NYC Weekend Watch, our weekly round-up of repertory offerings. While many theaters are still focused on a selection of new releases, there’s a handful of worthwhile repertory screenings taking place.

Metrograph

A Kurt Russell retrospective—featuring Escape from New York, The Thing, Used Cars and more—is underway, while Tsai Ming-liang’s masterpiece Goodbye, Dragon Inn has been restored, which paves way for a wuxia series featuring films by King Hu, Ang Lee and more.

IFC Center

A Clockwork Orange and Princess Mononoke are available for a double feature, if you’re fucking insane, while a double feature of Scorsese’s Italianamerican and American Boy is underway.

Roxy Cinema

On Friday our friends at Screen Slate are presenting a print of the Japanese nunsploitation...

“Golden Swallow” is, technically, a follow-up to King Hu’s 1996 gem “Come Drink With Me” in which Chang Pei Pei played Xie Ru Yan, nicknamed Golden Swallow. Two years later, Chang Cheh cast her in the titular movie, which was named after her character, although Xiao Pang, the Silver Roc (Jimmy Wang Yu) is now the main focus. However, she still gets a fair share of screen time and there is even a love triangle among her, Xiao Pang and the righteous swordsman Han Tao.

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Poisoned by a dart during a combat at the start of the movie, Xie Ru Yan is lucky to escape death as Han Tao, the Golden Whip, comes to her rescue and nurses her back to life in his mountain hideout and he even teaches her a few swordplay moves. One day, Han’s best friend Flying Fox, Hu Zhen...