Blog Archives

Days of Being Wild (1990)

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Posted on April 2, 2010 by Samson

Days of Being Wild is one of the early films by renowned Hong Kong director Wong Kar-Wai. It has all the trademarks of Wong’s later works, such as Chungking Express and In the Mood for Love. But despite being less well-known in the West, Days of Being Wild is certainly no less impressive than any other film by Wong. It is a beautiful movie that features unforgettable characters played by some of Hong Kong’s best actors and actresses working … (read more)

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Election 2 (2006)

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Posted on August 11, 2009 by Samson

With this sequel to the excellent 2005 film Election, Hong Kong director Johnnie To adds yet another great film to his long and impressive list of work. Few other directors have managed to make so many movies and maintain the same high standards in one film after another. Election 2 sees the return of all the characters (at least those who managed to survive) from Election, and guess what; it’s time for another triad election.

It’s been two … (read more)

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Sukiyaki Western Django (2007)

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Posted on October 20, 2008 by Deni

It’s no accident the cowboy and the masterless samurai are cinematic characters practically interchangeable in their native landscapes. The settling of the Americas and the breakdown of the Japanese feudal society were both frontiers, delineations into the brutal unknown where the individual ruled with right of might and lived by wits alone. The cowboy and the ronin both are forbidding, potentially dangerous and almost unreservedly tragic icons of independence in their respective worlds.

It is astride both these worlds that … (read more)

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Election (2005)

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Posted on March 3, 2007 by Ben Jennings

This is one of those movies that just gets better and better the more you think about it. Johnnie To has actively sought to bring a realistic representation of the triad to the screen, to subvert the glamourised manner with which the Hong Kong cinema (To included) has portrayed its local gang culture, and lay bare its true nature. These kind of revisionist gangster movies have always been the best, and Election reminded me of The Godfather Part 2 and … (read more)

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The Cave of the Yellow Dog (2005)

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Posted on March 3, 2007 by Ben Jennings

A German/Mongolian co-production, The Cave of the Yellow Dog is, like its predecessor The Story of the Weeping Camel, a fairly cynical moneymaking exercise which should probably offend me a little more than it does. Using a whisper thin version of the classic rebellious-kid-adopts-animal storyline as a way to indulge the audience in the everyday lives of nomadic Mongolian sheep herders, the movie is aimed with merciless precision at the middlebrow arthouse audience, and should hit its target squarely.… (read more)

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