Anthony Chan

Summary: Martyr Sun Zhongshan was captured by the Japanese and his comrades were all killed. Only Hua managed to survive and escaped, Hua was desperate to rescue Sun and he wrote to inform five legendary men in Canton for help. Soon after the delivery of the letters, Hua was taken by the Japanese. Luckily, the five men received the letters and came to Shanghai. They turned out to be: Killer Alan, a womanizer who thought himself to be charming and handsome; Indiana Chong, a whip expert; Witty Sung Shiyou, an extremely clever and whimsical mastermind; Flash Jian, an amazing person with an unusual memory; Superman Qiang, an exceptional man with fortune-telling power. And they are the renowned “Five Tigers of Canton”.Read More »

The pop-star leads from Hou’s first feature, Cute Girl, are reunited in the director’s follow-up, a brisk work of bubble-gum romance that begins to experiment with the rules of the genre. This time, Taiwanese singing sensation Feng Fei-fei plays Hsing-hui, a trendy photographer visiting a seaside village in Penghu with her successful boss/fiancé. When she happens upon a flute-playing medic blinded in an ambulance crash (Kenny Bee), sparks fly, songs are sung, and she’s left with the tough decision of who to say “I do” to. Despite the eye-rolling premise, Hou infuses the film with enough formal ingenuity (long takes, telephoto lenses, on-location shooting) that a case can be made for its auteurial significance.Read More »