News

Due to the vagaries of rights acquisition, it has taken Arrow Video three volumes of its indispensable Shawscope series to offer the movie that started it all in terms of Shaw Brothers Studio’s ascent to the top of the Hong Kong box office: Chang Cheh’s groundbreaking 1967 wuxia The One-Armed Swordsman. As such, it can be easy to take for granted Chang’s ultraviolence and grim thematic undertones given how many later, more refined efforts from Chang and other filmmakers have already been released.

Nonetheless, The One-Armed Swordsman’s economy of pacing and visceral transmission of its hero’s rage give the film a power undiminished by the host of copycats that flooded the Hong Kong market over the next decade. Jimmy Wang Yu’s maimed warrior, Fang Kang, cuts an instantly iconic profile: hair bound in a fin-like top knot and beard honing his jaw to a point,...

After finally being given a chance at the director's chair with 1973's “The Bamboo House of Dolls,” director Kuei Chih-hung became known as one of the better choices to helm the sleazier side of genre fare while working at the Shaw Brother's studio. Efforts ranging from “The Killer Snakes” to “Corpse Mania” and “Bewitched” only confirmed this feeling and he became responsible for similar efforts in his career at the studio. It's therefore odd to see him responsible for this early obscurity as his third film, 1974's “Ghost Eyes,” is more restrained than his later features but still manages to be quite enjoyable and worthwhile.

Check also this interview

After meeting up at work, manicurist Bao Ling (Chen Szu Chia) starts to talk with new customer Shi (Sze Wei) and an accident forces her to visit him at his optometrist shop. After being given contact lenses to replace her previously broken glasses,...

In much of the same way that his earlier film “Hex” emerges as a bizarre updating of a popular foreign genre film before putting his own spin on things, “Curse of Evil” is director Kuei Chih-hung's updating of the 1953 genre title “The Maze.” Although originally started by director Fung Wong before taking over completely, this over-the-top movie features a roundtable collection of Shaw Brothers stars and contains just enough of Keui's trademark wackiness to be a highly enjoyable genre effort.

Attempting to honor their traditions, the Shi family Madam, (Lang Wai) her granddaughters Yulan, (Tai Liang-chun) and Yumei, (Lily Li) as well as her brother Wang, (Tin Leung), his wife, (Angelina Lo) their kids Jinhua, (Fei Ai) and Mingming, (Lau Nga-lai) alongside head-servant Uncle Quan (Wong Ching-ho) and maid Qiao (Yau Chui-ling) are bewildered at the run of bad luck the family has recently undergone. As the events continue...

We are saddened to hear of the passing of Time's inimitable critic, Richard Corliss (1944 - 2015), pictured above. Visit David Hudson's roundup at Keyframe Daily for coverage. In the past week there's been more additions to the Cannes Film Festival lineup, including new movies by Apichatpong Weerasethakul, Naomi Kawase and Gaspar Noé.When Manoel de Oliveira died earlier this month, word spread that he had made a film that would be released only upon his death, Memories and Confessions. Now word has come that its premiere screening will be on the 4th of May in Porto.Above: We're on the fence whether we should be excited for this, but the trailer for M. Night Shyamalan's The Visit certainly has us intrigued.New York's essential film listing site Screen Slate has turned to Kickstarter to help fund its project. Speaking of New York, this May the Museum of the Moving...

Carrie, 1976 USA

Written by Lawrence D. Cohen (based on Stephen King’s novel)

Directed by Brian De Palma

The Killer Snakes (she sha shou), 1975 Hong Kong

Written by Kuang Ni

Directed by Chih-Hung Kuei

Killer Snakes is a Shaw Brothers Hong Kong exploitation from director Chih-Hung Kuei. To use the obvious terminology Kuei was prolific, unorthodox and unafraid of filth. Over his thirty year career he made thirty-eight films but, it is perhaps Killer Snakes (1975) that’s become one of his more notable cult favorites. At it’s least tasteful moments it falls nicely into the arena of soft exploitation. Complete with seedy crooks, snake mutilations, S&M, bondage and in one (shall we say- creative) scene a willing snake finds it’s way into a prostitute. Yet, there is a softer and more interesting side to this slithering cinema.

Killer Snakes– at it’s core– is a character tale...

The Killer Snakes

Written by Ni Kuang

Directed by Kuei Chih-Hung

Hong Kong, 1975

The story of a man or woman pushed to the edge of endurance by pressures of their socio-economic status, prejudice, personal enemies, their own past mistakes and plain bad luck and who opt to fight back with disproportionate force has been told many times already. Most people are already pretty familiar with this sort of tale of the outcast who is trampled on, figuratively and literally, only to avenge his lot on the inconsiderate souls who stupidly chose to kick them while they were down. As is so often the case with films’s which tread on familiar territory, the question becomes what the filmmakers can do to freshen things up. The Killer Snakes, from director Kuei Chih-Hung, uses this very idea of a young man standing up for himself and standing on others who did him...

Once again our good friends at the New York Asian Film Festival are showing their generosity to Dread Central readers. They've offered a pair of tickets each to screenings of Boxer's Omen or Asura during the fest. Read on for the details of how you can win!

The 2012 Nyaff runs June 29th-July 15th. Here are the dates/times of the screenings you can win tickets to - just click on the title to enter, and don't forget to include your name and contact info:

Boxer's Omen - Friday, June 29th at 12:00 Midnight at Walter Reade Theatre

(Hong Kong, 1983) There is nothing else in the world like this black magic martial arts movie that looks like the last 10 minutes of 2001: A Space Odyssey if you replaced the flashing colors and swirling stars with writhing maggots and bright green pus. And then you made your actors eat it.

Directed by: Kuei Chih-hung

Starring: Philip Ko,...

The 35th edition of the Hkiff takes place next month and compared to last year, this year's fest will have a little less local films premiering. In the Hong Kong Panorama section, only six films will be screened, which is half the number of last year’s output. This year, Johnnie To’s Don’t Go Breaking My Heart will be the opening film along with Quattro Hong Kong 2, a sort of the continuation to the last year’s Quattro Hong Kong, which is categorized as a tribute film to the city of Hong Kong. This year's quartet of filmmakers includes: Apichatpong Weerasethakul, Brillante Mendoza, Ho Yuhang and Stanley Kwan. Here's more info on the short film project. Don’t Go Breaking My Heart is probably one of the most anticipated Johnnie To films in recent years - the romance includes a stellar cast comprised of Louis Koo, Daniel Wu and Chinese actress Gao YuenYuen,...

The Hong Kong International Film festival 2011 unveiled its lineup today. There is no Indian selection in the 35th edition of the festival, which will be held from March 20-April 5, 2011.

Don’t Go Breaking My Heart directed by John Johnnie To and Quattro Hong Kong 2 directed by Brillante Mendoza, Ho Yu-hang, Apichatpong Weerasethakul and Stanley Kwan will be screened as the opening films of the festival.

Kim Longinotto’s documentary Pink Saris, based on the gang of Sampat Pal Devi of Uttar Pradesh will be presented in Humanitarian Documentary Competition.

The festival will screen 335 films from 56 countries. Wai Ka-fai of Hong Kong is the Filmmaker in Focus this year while retrospectives of Abbas Kiarostami, Shibuya Minoru and Kuei Chih-hung will be presented. The festival presented a mini-retrospective of Guru Dutt last year.

Rarely has half a year's wait been so richly rewarded. Early in August 2009 Jack Stevenson had promised a review copy of his forthcoming book "Scandinavian Blue," to be published by McFarland & Company, and dealing with a highly Ferronian subject: "The Erotic Cinema of Sweden and Denmark in the 1960s and 1970s." Still, I had nearly forgotten about it, when it finally arrived this March: But whatever the reasons for the delay, I'm sure they were good. Because as it turns out, Stevenson's book is not just an exhaustive and long-overdue study of a chapter in film history that by now mostly lives as a cliché of semi-trashy sixties liberation memorabilia, but doubles as one of the most timely political essays around.

Which is not to say it doesn't deliver as a connoisseur's chronicle of erotic esoterica, delving deeply into the more demented side of sexually charged filmmaking. Entire chapters are...