Plot
A Hong Kong variation on Robin Hood. The corrupt officials of a Chinese village are continually robbed by a masked bandit know as “Iron Monkey” named after a benevolent deity. When all else fails, the Govenor forces a traveling physician (Donnie Yen) into finding the bandit. The arrival of an evil Shaolin monk, brings the Physician and Iron Monkey together to battle the corrupt government.Read More »
Hong Kong
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Woo-ping Yuen – Siu nin Wong Fei Hung ji Tit Ma Lau AKA Iron Monkey (1993)
1991-2000AsianHong KongMartial ArtsWoo-ping Yuen -
Johnnie To – Heung joh chow heung yau chow aka Turn left turn right (2003)
2001-2010AsianHong KongJohnnie ToRomanceQuote:
This movie is a great adaptation from the book by the renown artist Jimmy from Taiwan. Not only faithfully materializing the conception from the poetic illustrations in the book, the movie also adds witty dialogs and funny buffoon performance of the supporting roles for the whole story, which does not exist in the original. The movie debuted as number 1 in the box offices of Singapore, Malaysia, Hong Kong, and Taiwan. The original book has been sold for more than tens of thousands copies in more than five languages.Read More » -
Han Hsiang Li – Jin yu liang yuan hong lou meng AKA The Dream of the Red Chamber (1977)
1971-1980Han Hsiang LiHong KongMusicalRomanceQuote:
Li Han-Hsiang’s adaptation of the classic Qing Dynasty novel will take viewers to the heightened pleasures of love and the despairing depths of betrayal. Timeless beauty Brigitte Lin Ching-hsia appears as Chia Pao-yu in her first attempt at a gender-bending role, an art she will wield complete mastery over in later films. Pao-yu is in love with his cousin, Lin Tai-yu (Sylvia Chang), but his family has other marital plans for him that will leave both broken-hearted.Read More » -
Johnnie To – Yesterday Once More (2004)
2001-2010ComedyCrimeHong KongJohnnie ToRomance blossoms again for a divorced jewel-thief couple as they try to rekindle the love they once had for each.Read More »
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Tseng-Chai Chang – Mian Ju AKA Sex for Sale (1974)
1971-1980DramaEroticaHong KongTseng-Chai ChangLin, a handsome guy from a small village comes to Hong Kong to seek his fortune, only to find himself at a job interview, where he is asked by a beautiful woman, Du Pi to remove his clothing. Being an ambitious sort, the complies, and soon finds himself caught up in a very strange reality. Treated like a slab of meat by powerful women, who demand more than he can give, Lin ultimately disappoints everyone in his life, and moves from place to place, and bed to bed. Older women, young women, even a miserable old woman with no legs (!) expect not only sex from this guy, but also love, devotion, and total submission. Soon, he finds himself alone, and is forced to move in with a sexually confused man, who he finds out too late, is his only true friend.Read More »
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Chung Sun – Feng lei mo jing AKA The Devil’s Mirror (1972)
1971-1980Chung SunFantasyHong KongMartial ArtsIn his feature debut, Sun Chung – one of the most interesting filmmakers at Shaw Brothers – helms this wild tale of two martial arts clans who each possess an amazing mirror with supernatural powers. The mirrors are coveted by the evil Jiuxian Witch (Li Chia-hsien), leader of the Bloody Ghouls Clan (sure, name your clan that and how do you expect them to turn out?), who plots to use them to enter the tomb of Emperor Wu and ransack his magical treasure. A gang of masked ninjas – in reality, captive swordsmen poisoned by the witch’s “Corpse Worm Pills” – steal the first mirror from one-legged clan chieftain Bai Tian Xiong (Wang Hsia), whose duplicitous lieutenant, Leng Yun (Tung Lam) drives a wedge between him and rival Chief Wen (Ching Miao). Nobody suspects he is working for the Bloody Ghouls Clan and sneaking off for occasional hot, between the sheets action with the sexy, three-eyed, super-witch. Eventually, star-crossed lovers Bai Xiaofeng (Shu Pei-pei) and Wen Jianfeng (Liu Tan) team-up to see justice is done.Read More »
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Ray Yeung – Suk Suk AKA Twilight’s Kiss (2019)
2011-2020DramaHong KongQueer Cinema(s)Ray YeungQuote:
Twilight’s Kiss presents the story of two closeted married men in their twilight years. One day Pak, 70, a taxi driver who refuses to retire, meets Hoi, 65, a retired single father, in a park. Despite years of societal and personal pressure, they are proud of the families they have created through hard work and determination. Yet in that brief initial encounter, something is unleashed in them which had been suppressed for so many years. As both men recall their personal histories, they also contemplate a possible future together. Inspired by an oral history of older gay men in Hong Kong, Ray Yeung’s film looks inside a closeted world rarely seen on film. Wendy Ide of Screen International praised it as “a delicate little wisp of a romance which plays out in fragile moments and shared glances.”Read More » -
Wei Lo & Chia-Hsiang Wu – Tang shan da xiong AKA The Big Boss (1971)
1971-1980ActionChia-Hsiang WuHong KongMartial ArtsWei LoCheng is a city boy who moves with his cousins to work at a ice factory. He does this with a family promise never to get involved in any fight. However, when members of his family begin disappearing after meeting the management of the factor, the resulting mystery and pressures forces him to break that vow and take on the villainy of the Big Boss.Read More »
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Xinyuan Zheng Lu – Ta fang jian li de yun AKA The Cloud in Her Room (2020)
2011-2020ArthouseDramaHong KongXinyuan Zheng LuQuote:
It’s winter and 22-year-old Muzi has returned to her home town of Hangzhou for a visit, a new year is around the corner. Her parents are long since separated, her father has a wife and young daughter and her mother is dating, though the old family apartment is still furnished as was. Muzi befriends an older bar owner and her university boyfriend comes looking for her, although no relationships here are straightforward. It takes time to work out how everyone connects to Muzi anyway, there are no explanations or introductions and one scene can shift into another without warning, creating ellipses along the way; it’s less about telling a story than capturing a mood, the same sense of melancholy stasis that settles even over the sudden outbursts of feeling. Yet the camera is always active, eagerly seeking out unusual perspectives and subjective impressions: the damp rock in the vast underground cavern, the lights in the winding corridor of the karaoke bar, the mist that forms by the river at night, the texture of pubic hair in bathwater. In black and white, the urban spaces seem even emptier; when the black and white is inverted, the city looks like a far-of planet and maybe that’s the point. “Every time I come back, it’s more different than before.”Read More »