Cheuk Wan-chi is an accomplished director, screenwriter, and stand-up comedian in Hong Kong. She co-wrote Sylvia Chang’s excellent 2004 film 20 30 40 and Pang…
Ma Dong-seok has found his niche. Last summer brought us The Roundup, the sequel to Ma’s hit 2017 vehicle, The Outlaws, and here we already…
One of the more delightful, long-running series in contemporary cinema is Tsai Ming-liang’s Walker films, wherein actor Lee Kang-sheng — dressed in flowing red Buddhist…
Japan is once again on the brink of picturesque collapse in the latest film from anime director Shinkai Makoto. Natural disasters, of course, have long…
Some action movies are best watched in the afternoon, the way they used to be shown on American television in the days before infomercials took…
Real heads know that the truly exciting martial arts movie sequel coming out this week is not Keanu Reeves vehicle John Wick 4, but actress…
A young woman from Tokyo finds herself in a strange town. In the beginning, she is looking for a tourist site, the ruins of an…
The first feature from Chinese filmmaker Wu Lang, Absence shares a title and cast with the director’s second short film, which played at Cannes in…
On the occasion of him winning the Palme d’Or at the 2018 Cannes Film Festival for his film Shoplifters, I called Hirokazu Kore-eda “the Ron…
Decision to Leave piles on the plot twists, but never loses its essential noir romance vibe. Tang Wei remains one of the great actresses of our…
The Night is another minutiae-oriented short from Tsai, meaning found in the details of its mini symphony of Hong Kong. Following up, as it must,…
Festival omnibus films are always a dicey proposition. Collections of films from various directors are inevitably going to be uneven in quality, tone, and style,…
Like The Outlaws before it, The Roundup is a pretty basic cop movie, but director Ma Dong-seok spins it all into irresistible entertainment. In 2017, Ma Dong-seok, fresh off…
Fifty years ago, Chen Kuan-tai stepped out from the background as an extra and stuntman in Chang Cheh’s stock company to take the lead role…
A wealthy man is deemed the prime suspect in the murder of a young woman after he is found in a hotel room with her…
Hansan features plenty rousing naval action, but also drags in its first half and too baldly leans on a propagandist view of history to establish its…
One of the 2022 Fantasia Film Festival’s archival presentations is the new restoration of Wong Jing’s 1982 film Mercenaries from Hong Kong. Already here at…
Blue Island is a similarly interrogative work to the director’s Yellowing, but here taking on a grander and more experimental form. Chan Tze-woon’s Yellowing was…
Daigo Matsui’s Just Remembering features two characters who love Jim Jarmusch’s Night on Earth. At least, they love the first section and, specifically, Winona Ryder’s…
The Mole Song: Final is the third and, well, final part of Takashi Miike’s Mole Song series about an undercover cop infiltrating the yakuza. It…
Jeong Ga-young has spent the past several years carving out a space for herself on the fringes of the international festival circuit with films like…