Blog Archives

The Wuxia Stories: Heroes of Ancient China (DVD box set) (1970)

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Posted on February 10, 2008 by Justin

Now that Siren have a large catalogue of releases from the celebrated Shaw Brothers studio in Hong Kong, they’ve started boxing them up into box sets, all the better to tempt you with. Wuxia Stories is the first one, showcasing five films from Shaws’ prolific swordplay director Chu Yuen and one from Cheng Kang, father of action director Ching Siu Tung.

For those readers who aren’t aware of it, wuxia refers to a particular genre of Chinese film and literature, … (read more)

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The Magic Blade (1976)

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Posted on March 11, 2007 by Justin

This is a hard film to write a synopsis for — while every word of the one above is true, it doesn’t really do The Magic Blade justice. While directors Chang Cheh and Lau Kar-leung were making the transition from the swordplay and wuxia films with traditional actors to kung-fu films with actors trained in martial arts, Chor Yuen made a long series of films based on the novels of Ku Lung. These are proper wuxia films, but with more … (read more)

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Wing Chun (1994)

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Posted on November 27, 2003 by Penny

Yim Wing Chun (Michelle Yeoh) is a female martial arts expert who lives with her aunt, Abacus Fong (Yuen King Tan), a tofu-seller with a knack for saying exactly the wrong thing at exactly the wrong moment. Wing Chun’s unwomanly ways are the despair of her father, and local men keep trying to put her in her place. She deals with one such unfortunate by telling him that if he can destroy her tray of tofu she will do as … (read more)

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