Category Archives: Cinema Screenings

This week in cinemas: ‘The Bodyguard’ (HK/China)

Posted on March 31, 2016 by Justin

Action cinema fans, pay attention. Veteran action director and martial artist Sammo Hung has settled into the director’s chair for the first time since 1997 (Mr Nice Guy, Once Upon a Time in China and America), and the results arrived in Aussie cinemas tomorrow.

The Bodyguard sees Sammo both direct and star as a retired soldier from Beijing now living in a remote town near the Russian border, and his collision with organised crime. Zhu Yuchen, Li … (read more)

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This week in cinemas: ‘The Boy and the Beast’ (Japan)

Posted on March 3, 2016 by Justin

Opening today in Aussie cinemas (both in an English dub and in the original Japanese with subtitles at some locations) is the new animated film The Boy and the Beast from Japanese director Mamoru Hosoda (The Girl Who Leapt Through Time, Summer Wars, Wolf Children).

The film follows a young boy, Ren, who runs away from home after the passing of his mother only to find himself taken into the Beast Kingdom and unable to return. There, … (read more)

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This week in cinemas: ‘Monkey King 2’ (China/HK)

Posted on February 2, 2016 by Justin

This week in Aussie cinemas is a film that will bring joy to the hearts of those brought up on hours of Monkey!, or with an appreciation for its source material, the classical Chinese novel Journey to the West. An entirely fitting Lunar New Year release for the year of the monkey, really.

Following up rather more quickly on 2014’s long-in-gestation Monkey King, Filmko Entertainment and director Cheang Pou-soi bring us Monkey King 2, based on … (read more)

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This week in cinemas: ‘Ip Man 3’ (Hong Kong)

Posted on January 17, 2016 by Justin

This week in Aussie cinemas we have the third and likely final (though Donnie Yen said that of the second film, too!) installment of the Ip Man series of films from director Wilson Yip and martial arts superstar Donnie Yen.

(For completeness, here are our reviews of Ip Man (2008) and Ip Man 2 (2010))

Continuing the story of the Foshan-born, Hong Kong-based martial artist most famous for taking the young Bruce Lee on as a student, this film has … (read more)

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This week in cinemas: ‘Our Times’ (Taiwan)

Posted on November 21, 2015 by Justin

This week in Aussie cinemas is Taiwanese rom-com Our Times (我的少女時代), the feature film directorial debut of television producer Frankie Chen.

It’s another entry in the fairly recent last-days-of-high-school 90’s nostalgia subgenre of romance films, focusing on the relationship between schoolgirl Lin Zhen Xin (Vivian Sung) and school tough guy Xu Tai Yu (Darren Wang). Dino Lee and Dewi Chien round out the cast.

Here’s a trailer:

The film opened last Thursday 19 November and is showing at Hoyts cinemas… (read more)

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This week in cinemas: ‘SPL II: A Time for Consequences’ (China/HK)

Posted on July 27, 2015 by Justin

Slicing its way into Australian cinemas this week is the long-awaited sequel to modern HK classic SPL (which arrived in 2005, a fact that’s definitely making this writer feel old). The first film, which starred Donnie Yen, Sammo Hung, Wu Jing and Simon Yam, felt like Hong Kong reclaiming its place at the forefront of martial arts cinema after a slow decline since the early ’90s. It was slick and simple action cinema, powered by HK’s formidable fight choreography (directed … (read more)

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This week in cinemas: ‘Northern Limit Line’ (South Korea)

Posted on July 15, 2015 by Justin

Arriving in Australian cinemas tomorrow July 16 is South Korean naval drama Northern Limit Line, based on the events of the 2002 Second Battle of Yeonpyeong between North and South Korean patrol boats along the disputed sea boundary between the two. According to this Variety piece, it’s now the highest grossing local film of 2015 in South Korea — and we’ve got it in cinemas here for a little while.

Written and directed by Kim Hak-soon and starring … (read more)

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Giveaway: Passes to see ‘Cult Japan’ at QAGOMA (Brisbane) (Closed)

Posted on July 12, 2015 by Justin

Brisbane readers might know that the Gallery of Modern Art are currently screening a program of films dear to our hearts here at HC, entitled Cult Japan. And as usual for QAGOMA’s cinema seasons, they certainly haven’t done things by halves.

The program covers a huge swathe of post-war Japanese cinema with a particular focus on the weird and wonderful, from Ghibli anime classics like Nausicaä, through Seijun Suzuki’s powder-blue yakuza flick Tokyo Drifter to modern cult cinema … (read more)