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Wu Dang (2012)

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Posted on April 23, 2013 by Justin

An entertaining, family-friendly mishmash of martial arts picture and Indiana Jones-style treasure hunt, Wu Dang shows off some serious talent both in front of and behind the camera, coupled with a stunning setting way up amongst the Taoist temples in the Wudang Mountains.

Vincent Zhao returns to the role of leading man after 2010’s True Legend, which was his first cinema appearance in quite some time, after spending most of the decade prior in television in Hong Kong and … (read more)

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Ip Man 2 (2010)

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Posted on May 31, 2010 by James

This is certainly no tame squeakquel.

More an exuberant throwback to fan-favourite 1980s Hong Kong martial arts movies, with fight scene stacked upon fight scene, shamelessly caricatured gwailo villains, a breezily achieved period setting, and at times (e.g. the fish market) quite thrilling fight choreography. Flawed, without a doubt. Cheesy, yes. The plot is uninspired, the violence unnecessarily excessive at times (Sammo’s face gets a real work out) and there’s emotionally flat filler like the re-introduction of Simon Yam’s character. … (read more)

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Ip Man (2008)

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Posted on February 15, 2009 by Justin

With Ip Man, Donnie Yen takes on his meatiest role yet. He’s played the central hero before (in Iron Monkey and in the miniseries of Fist of Fury, for example) but they’ve all been a bit over the top: period-era takes on the unstoppable leather-jacketed Donnie we know from most of his films. The title character of this film, however, is a quiet young kungfu master of 1930’s Foshan, born into privilege and not a willing participant in … (read more)

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Story of Ricky (1993)

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Posted on November 25, 2005 by Alison

This schlock horror classic, based on a manga called Ricky-oh, will delight fans of extreme violence. Our eponymous hero Ricky (Fan Siu Wong) is banged up in prison for killing heroin traffickers responsible for the death of his girlfriend (the giggling Gloria Yip), and meets a variety of brutal killers all bent on extracting various parts of his well-muscled body, probably to use as decoration. Fortunately, Ricky has super-strength, and fights his way through a roster of bad guys. Quite … (read more)

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