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  1. Tell Me Something (US Version) Tell Me Something (US Version) Eun-ha Shim (Actor) | Jang Hang-Seon (Actor) | Suk-Kyu Han (Actor) | Chang Yoon-hyun (Director)
    Black on black, Tell Me Something is a liquid-slicked Korean thriller that took lessons from the Brian DePalma/Dario Argento giallo school of faceless murderers re-enacting old traumas through corpse-mutilation, while auditing courses in the Basic Instinct sex-thriller night school program. The result is a movie full of lacquered darkness, creeping dread, and enough sick kicks for just about any viewer. Black garbage bags of mismatched body parts start popping up around Seoul like poisonous mushrooms after the rain. Disgraced Detective Cho (Han Seok-Gyu) is handed the reins of the investigation and given a chance to redeem himself. A witness, fragile flower Suyeon (Shim Eun-Ha), comes... [read more]
  2. Anna and the King (Widescreen; Special Edition) (US Version) Anna and the King (Widescreen; Special Edition) (US Version) Jodie Foster (Actor) | Chow Yun Fat (Actor) | Randall Duk Kim (Actor) | Bai Ling (Actor)
    Anna and the King is a big budget Hollywood confection - a little sweet in places but pretty to look at. Not to Thailand's taste, director Tennant was forced to film his adaptation of The King and I in Malaysia, building one of those gargantuan planet-consuming sets that Old Hollywood used to give audiences on a regular basis. Authenticity isn't much on the director's mind, despite claims to the contrary. This is an acting pageant with impressive costume and set design. The real King Mongkut (played here by Chow Yun-fat) was the best loved of Thailand's rulers, almost a deity, who brought peace and prosperity to the country. The idea that an English governess inspired him to greatness is... [read more]
  3. The Corruptor (Platinum Series) (US Version) The Corruptor (Platinum Series) (US Version) Mark Wahlberg (Actor) | William L. Petersen (Director) | Oliver Stone | Ann Dowd (Producer, Writer)
    The general dismissal of The Corruptor from 90s moviedom is part result of critical arrogance ("If it's Chinese it must be John Woo") and part audience miscalculation on behalf of the filmmakers. Really, what audience has the patience for a Chinese Donnie Brasco set in a Chinatown that isn't a cynical chic reference a la Chinatown but an actual, complicated community? Starting with a basic good cop/bad cop premise the movie gives us Detective Nick Chen (Chow Yun-fat) introduced in an obligatory, overheated lamp store shootout. He's a hero cop because he's a corrupt cop in the pocket of Uncle Benny and his right hand reptile Henry Lee who runs a discriminatory criminal empire out of... [read more]
  4. Romeo Must Die (US Version) Romeo Must Die (US Version) Jet Li (Actor) | Delroy Lindo (Actor) | Aaliyah (Actor)
    The genetic link between kung fu and blaxploitation is an eternal mystery. Why did African-American audiences like to see small Chinese men in silk pajamas whup up on hordes of no-goodniks? There have been attempts to fuse the two trends into one unstoppable movie (Enter the Dragon with Jim Kelly and Bruce Lee) but when blaxploitation proper died, so did the dream. Shabam! Cut to 1999 and witness the ultimate blaxploitation kung fu flick flying in out of nowhere: Romeo Must Die. Jet Li's trans-pacific leap into Hollywood, both feet flailing, is given a hip hop soundtrack, an R&B co-star (Aaliyah), and set in an Oakland, CA gangsta milieu. African-American/Asian tensions are literalized in a... [read more]
  5. Bangkok Dangerous (1999) (VCD) Bangkok Dangerous (1999) (VCD) Pawarith Monkolpisit | Premsinee Ratanasopha | Pang Brothers
    Judging from reviews at hand and feet, Bangkok Dangerous is a technically proficient exercise in style (ya know, in general like) that fails to involve audiences emotionally. Fiddlesticks. Elevation of emotional affect over formal effect has to be expected, I guess, but in this instance I think it makes for unwarranted criticism. Bangkok Dangerous heavily borrows plot and theme from its generic predecessors (Hong Kong gangster/hitman films), but the Pang's are not interested in simply re-staging situations. They succeed in expressing conventional generic elements in new and refreshing ways. Largely through formal variation, they reinvigorate a hackneyed genre that has seen better days. Cold,... [read more]
  6. Shutter Shutter Ananda Everingham | Natthaveeranuch Thongmee | Banjong Pisonthanakun | Parkpoom Wongpoom
    Made in 2004, Shutter is another Thai entry into the popular Asian horror subgenre and comes replete with many of the genre conventions (cliches?) established in films like The Ring. The story is a little different though, and this movie has a lot more depth than many of the more lacklustre Ring knockoffs we've been flooded with over the last couple of years. Our tale begins with a group of friends at a table drinking, gathered together after a wedding. One of them is Tun, a photographer, sitting alongside his girlfriend, Jane. On their way back home (with Jane driving), they have a car accident: slamming into a girl who wanders blindly in front of the car, then into a sign by the roadside.... [read more]
  7. Thunderbolt (US Version) Thunderbolt (US Version) Jackie Chan (Actor) | Lo Wai Kwong | Anita Yuen (Actor) | Michael Wong
    A life-long racing fanatic, Jackie Chan wanted to film a quiet, intimate drama about the lives of a group of illegal car racers in Hong Kong. Gordon Chan wrote the script and everything was ready to go when a gaggle of Japanese investors got wind of the idea and Golden Harvest took advantage of the suddenly-available funds to blow things up into a mega-production with one leg in Hong Kong and one in Japan. The resultant gargantua: Thunderbolt. A swollen shadow of his former self, Jackie plays a non-smiling, non-joking auto mechanic who lives and works on cars with his family in a cluster of transport containers they call home. This is the first time we see Jackie with brothers and sisters... [read more]
  8. Prison On Fire Digitally Remastered (Japan Version) Prison On Fire Digitally Remastered (Japan Version) Tony Leung Ka Fai
    Ringo Lam's Prison on Fire has the last word on the men behind bars genre, closes the book, and sets it alight. By the time this movie is over everything there is to say about violent men being locked up with one another has been said. Loudly. Ringo Lam's brother, Nam Yin, a producer (of the Troublesome Night series) and a gentleman well-equipped with underworld contacts, gave Lam the general outline and plenty of insider details for this cellblock epic. The scriptwriter chopped out the script in seven days, and they were off. Lam was hot off his "Best Director" win at the Hong Kong film awards for City on Fire and Chow Yun-fat was hot off his breakthrough role in John Woo's 1986 A Better... [read more]
  9. SARS Wars (Thailand Version) SARS Wars (Thailand Version) Tep Pho Ngam (Actor) | Taweewat Wantha (Director) | Suppakorn Kitsuwan | Suthep Pongam
    SARS Wars sees the ever expanding Thai film industry take a stab at the zombie sub-genre, which has been given somewhat of an action packed facelift in recent years. Thankfully, unlike a great many of the recent genre films from Thailand which appear to have been shot on video, writer/director Taweewat Wantha actually has a pretty decent budget to work with, resulting in a film with a slick, professional look that even manages some fairly impressive CGI work. The plot is standard stuff, with the denizens of a high rise apartment block under siege after the titular disease mutates into an infectious form that turns its victims into flesh-eating ghouls. Thrown into the mix are a bunch of... [read more]
  10. POLICE STORY 3 SUPER COP - Digitally Remastered (Japan Version) POLICE STORY 3 SUPER COP - Digitally Remastered (Japan Version) Jackie Chan | Stanley Tong (Director)
    It was risky from the start. Jackie was tired of starring in, directing, producing and choreographing year-long mega-productions. Golden Harvest wanted to shorten his shoots and get more than one movie a year out of him. Enter stuntman and self-taught director, Stanley Tong. Leonard Ho liked Tong's first and only film, Stone Age Warriors, and tapped him to direct the third installment of Chan's popular Police Story series. Tong demanded total authority - and he got it. First he hired Michelle Yeoh, a former action star who had married and retired from movies in 1986. Divorced and depressed Tong thought the role would be just the thing to cheer her up, so he made her Jackie's co-star, much to... [read more]
  11. Danny The Dog AKA: Unleashed (Hong Kong Version) Danny The Dog AKA: Unleashed (Hong Kong Version) Jet Li (Producer, Actor) | Morgan Freeman (Actor) | Bob Hoskins | Phyllida Law
    Generally speaking, Jet Li's western films have been hampered by the filmmakers' indecision as to how to handle Li's onscreen persona. Since English is not Li's first language, he is typically relegated to playing a stone-faced killer required only to beat the crap out of everyone he sees. It would seem that producers fear Western audiences would have a hard time accepting Li in a sensitive role. In Unleashed (aka Danny the Dog in Europe and Asia), Li plays yet another martial arts murder machine, but this time there's a surprisingly competent story and a strong supporting cast to back him up. Li plays Danny, an orphan raised as a personal attack 'dog' by a Cockney loan shark he calls Uncle... [read more]
  12. A Bittersweet Life (Normal Edition) (Japan Version) A Bittersweet Life (Normal Edition) (Japan Version) Lee Byung Hun | Kim Young Cheol | Shin Min Ah | Eric Mun Jung Hyuk (Shinhwa)
    In many respects, Kim Ji-woon's A Bittersweet Life is the anti-thesis of a traditional Asian gangster film, and the script seems to take most of its hints from American revenge movies like Tony Scott's recent Man on Fire and The Punisher, albeit without the idiotic nature of the latter film. Narratively, the film resembles the Kevin Costner 1990 picture called, appropriately enough, Revenge (which, coincidentally, was also directed by Tony Scott). None of this makes A Bittersweet Life any less original; if anything, Kim seems keenly aware that he's not re-inventing the wheel, and uses the audience's knowledge of similarly themed films to his advantage. Lee Byung-hun (Joint Security Area) is... [read more]
  13. X-Men 2 X-Men 2 Famke Janssen | Ian McKellen | James Marsden | Patrick Stewart
    X-II: X-Men United -Uncanny Sequel Everybody has read them or heard about them the huge variety of super heroes from the Marvel house of ideas that also gave birth to the unique team called "X-Men" who form the center of this review. "X-2: X-Men United" continues to show the international group of gregarious mutants in search for others of their kind with their mentor Professor X (Patrick Stewart). This time they have to team up with Magneto a.k.a. Erik Magnus Lehnsherr (Ian McKellen) to face the threat of new villain William Stryker (Brian Cox) who wants to wipe out mutant kind. Besides introducing Nightcrawler a.k.a. Kurt Wagner (Alan Cumming), the producing team this time also presents... [read more]
  14. Around The World In 80 Days Around The World In 80 Days Jackie Chan | Steve Coogan | Jim Broadbent | De France Cecile
    AROUND THE WORLD IN 80 DAYS Around the World in 80 Days just kind of came and went at the US box office. I guess a lot of people saw this as a "kiddie" movie and decided to skip it -- this reviewer included. That's kind of a shame, because it's the best film Jackie Chan has done since 2001's The Accidental Spy. That might not be saying too much after less-than-spectacular efforts like The Tuxedo, but Around the World in 80 Days is a fun movie that has some good action sequences in it. Oh, you're not going to think this is the second coming of Christ or anything like that, but the film is surprisingly entertaining and worth looking at for any Jackie Chan fan. The movie is a loose re-working... [read more]
  15. Around The World In 80 Days Around The World In 80 Days Jackie Chan | Steve Coogan | Jim Broadbent | De France Cecile
    AROUND THE WORLD IN 80 DAYS Around the World in 80 Days just kind of came and went at the US box office. I guess a lot of people saw this as a "kiddie" movie and decided to skip it -- this reviewer included. That's kind of a shame, because it's the best film Jackie Chan has done since 2001's The Accidental Spy. That might not be saying too much after less-than-spectacular efforts like The Tuxedo, but Around the World in 80 Days is a fun movie that has some good action sequences in it. Oh, you're not going to think this is the second coming of Christ or anything like that, but the film is surprisingly entertaining and worth looking at for any Jackie Chan fan. The movie is a loose re-working... [read more]
  16. The Fluffer The Fluffer Scott Gurney | Michael Cunio
    《蕭公子》 Sean，22歲仔，剛從電影學校畢業，對前途和自己的性傾向都感到同樣的迷惘。他租了經典作《大國民》的錄影帶回家看 ，不料播放出來的畫面，卻是同志四仔巨星Johnny的新鮮火辣作品。Sean如著魔般迷上Johnny，最後竟被他在Johnny的製 作公司找到一份攝影助理的工作，得以日日對住赤裸裸的夢中情人。一日，Johnny狀態欠佳，在鏡頭前突然軟將下來。同 志四仔業內有一個職位叫「蕭公子」，就是專門用其三寸不爛之舌，去服務男主角那九寸不敗之柱，讓他可以雄抖抖上陣 ！Sean陰差陽錯竟被欽點當了做Johnny的「蕭公子」，但在電影裡馳聘基場的Johnny，真人版卻原來是個直漢子。在他眼 中，Sean的舌頭只是一具機（基？）器。這回正是阿郎有心，襄王無夢。 曾在柏林、多倫多、金馬、墨爾本、莫斯科、米蘭、倫敦、奧斯陸等多個影展或同志影展引發轟動的《蕭公子》，將 「出櫃」視為一連串的革命行動，而非一個單一的時刻；這是一個與內心深處的恐同性戀正面衝撞、尋求個人性解放的故 事，闡述了專職拍攝同性戀A片的異性戀猛男、他相交多年在脫衣舞夜總會上班的女友、以及迷戀他的純真同志少男三人之 間的感情關係。 資料來源︰電影雙周刊—Home Entertainment DVD... [read more]
  17. Beautiful Boxer Beautiful Boxer Asanee Suwan | Ekachai Uekrongtham
    Following the trend of recent Thai cinema comes another lady-boy flick, Beautiful Boxer. Like other recent transgender films, Beautiful Boxer has a plot based on a true story; the subject here is ultra-famous champion Muay-Thai boxer Nong Toom, who fought professionally to raise money for a sex change operation. The first 10 minutes of the film opens with a foreign journalist lost and in trouble with some local thugs. Luckily, Nong Toom turns up in the nick of time to apply a deserved beating to the wannabe thugs, before calmly seating herself down at a local cafe to narrate her life story. What heroics! At this point I was thinking that Nong Toom should join the Justice League alongside... [read more]
  18. Warriors Of Heaven And Earth (DVD) (Hong Kong Version) Warriors Of Heaven And Earth (DVD) (Hong Kong Version) Vicki Zhao (Actor) | Jiang Wen (Actor) | Nakai Kiichi (Actor) | Wang Xue Qi (Actor)
    It's really great seeing a movie like Warriors of Heaven and Earth -- something which you have not heard too much about that knocks your socks off. While it may have gotten lost in the hype surrounding Hero, swordplay fans would do well to seek this film out. This mainland production manages to escape most of the cliches of the genre and create a lively story with a heaping amount of action. Warriors of Heaven and Earth's plot is thankfully simple compared to many other movies of the genre, which can come off as too complicated for their own good, especially to western viewers. Jiang Wen plays a solider named Li who becomes a criminal after he refuses to kill civilians. Banished to the... [read more]
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