Profile: Michiko Nishiwaki

Posted in Profiles

Date of birth: 21 November, 1957 (Funabashi, Chiba, Japan)

Other names: Nishiwaki Michiko; Michiko Nishikawa

Occupation: Actor, stunt performer, bodybuilder.

Style: Gōjū-ryū karate, Shotokan karate, wushu, taekwondo.

Biography: In her adolescence, Michiko Nishiwaki was passionate about sports and fitness. She became a gymnast at high-school; a dancer with a background in classical ballet and traditional Japanese dance; and a martial artist. She has a black belt in Gōjū-ryū karate and has trained in Shotokan karate. When living in Hong Kong, she learned wushu, and taekwondo when she relocated to the USA.

After high-school, she worked in the human resources department of a Mitsubishi bank. When …

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KFMG Podcast S07 Episode 81: Michiko Nishiwaki

Posted in Podcasts

“I look really good for my age… If I were to compete, I would be a winner.”

As a powerlifting champion, three-time ‘Miss Fitness’ winner in Japan and an action film star, Michiko Nishiwaki has been on quite a journey. When she left school to start working in human resources for the Mitsubishi bank in the 1970s, her life goals were similar to many other Japanese women in her position; to find a husband and have children. But for Michiko – obsessed with gymnastics, karate, fitness, singing and the arts from an early age – she decided to take a different …

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Passionate Killing in the Dream (1992)

Posted in Reviews

A loose Hong Kong remake of Irvin Kershner’s 1978 thriller, Eyes of Laura Mars, featuring a strong central performance from Michiko Nishiwaki, promoted from her usual high-kicking supporting badass role to something far more substantial. She plays Sha Sha, a tough, independent fashion photographer working in Thailand who keeps having premonitions involving Chit Chit (Gordon Liu with a mullet) breaking into the apartments of young women and killing them. Chit Chit is a former Thai kickboxer with serious mental illness, who – in shades of Peeping Tom – can now be found stalking the streets and nightclubs of Thailand, taking …

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The Avenging Quartet (1993)

Posted in Reviews

Four years before the Chinese handover, this Hong Kong action film is an exercise in reconciliation in which a spunky HK girl (Moon Lee) helps and summarily becomes roomies with a PLA soldier (Cynthia Khan) who is new in town, looking for her childhood sweetheart (Waise Lee), an art thief on the lam from the mainland. Both are young and single, they share a bed, get drunk and bitch about men, and Cynthia learns a few valuable lessons about consumerism. There may be cultural differences, but at least they share a common enemy: the Japanese. Here, the Japanese are depicted …

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Princess Madam (1989)

Posted in Reviews

This has all the hallmarks of a Godfrey Ho potboiler: pacing issues, histrionics, goofy comedy and acts of extreme violence. First, the good stuff: it’s a buddy cop action comedy with excellent fight scenes designed in the mould of Lethal Weapon only with swapped gender roles – itself quite a refreshing premise – but it’s also a film that never once feels contrived. Focusing on the friendship of Moon (Moon Lee) and Lisa (Sharon Yeung), the two cops are assigned to protect the former PA of a wealthy businessman before she spills the beans on her boss’ criminal connections in court. …

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In the Line of Duty 3 (1988)

Posted in Reviews

Debut starring-role vehicle for young Taiwanese dancer, Yang Li-tsing, renamed “Cynthia Khan” by her new employers, D&B Films, based on a combination of the stars of the studio’s first smash-hit movie, 1985’s Yes, Madam!: that’s Cynthia Rothrock and Michelle Khan, née Yeoh. Cynthia Khan picks up this notable ‘girls with guns’ film series from Yeoh – who starred in the first two films, confusingly known as Yes, Madam! and Royal Warriors – who took early retirement after marrying D&B Films co-founder, Dickson Poon. Cynthia Khan is a great onscreen fighter, but you certainly won’t be mistaking her for her namesakes given her …

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KFMG Podcast S07 Episode 80: Jonathan Eusebio

Posted in Podcasts

“I try to mix it up… To keep me creative, I do as much as I can that’s different.”

There aren’t many stunt coordinators and fight choreographers who can say they have helped to change the course of modern day action cinema like Jonathan Eusebio. His work on the Bourne films alone sparked a movement in Hollywood into more realistic, grittier fight sequences, inspired by his background in Filipino martial arts. He took this style into the Marvel Cinematic Universe, shaping the grappling movements of Black Widow (played by Scarlett Johansson), and adding his flair to films like Doctor Strange and …

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Profile: Jonathan Eusebio

Posted in Profiles

Date of birth: 15 September, 1973

Full name: Jonathan Raymond Eusebio

Nickname: Jojo

Alternate names: Jonathan Eusabia, Johnathan Eusabio, Jonathan Eusabio, Johnny Eusebio, Jonathan Jojo Eusebio, Jonathan R. Eusebio, Jonathon Eusebio, Jon Eusebio, John Eusibio

Occupation: Stunt coordinator, fight choreographer, stunt performer, second unit director

Style: Filipino martial arts, taekwondo, judo, wrestling, kickboxing.

Biography: Jonathan Eusebio is a fight choreographer, stunt coordinator and second unit director, and one of the original members of the Hollywood stunt collective, 87eleven Action Design. He started studying the martial arts from the age of eight, training in taekwondo and later judo and wrestling at school. He majored in biological sciences …

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The Chinese Boxer (1970)

Posted in Reviews

Hugely entertaining and significant film in the evolution of Hong Kong action cinema; the first Shaw Brothers hit to focus entirely on empty-handed kung fu fighting, in stark contrast to the post-modern, swashbuckling wuxia cinema of the 1960s. Shaw’s rivals, Golden Harvest, would quickly go on to perfect the form thanks to their new signing, Bruce Lee, but it was Jimmy Wang Yu who popularised it first. Already a wuxia hero from the One-Armed Swordsman films, this would prove to be Wang Yu’s final film for Shaw Brothers, causing him to eventually break his contract with the studio at the …

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Ip Man: The Awakening (2021)

Posted in Reviews

Another DTV Ip Man spin-off, which follows very similar straight-to-streaming efforts like director Li Liming’s double-bill of 2019’s Ip Man: Kung Fu Master – in which Dennis To returned to the titular role – and its 2020 prequel, Ip Man: Crisis Time, plus Fu Li-wei’s 2019 film, Ip Man and Four Kings. Miu Tse (the wushu kid from the 1990s Jet Li classics New Legend of Shaolin and My Father is a Hero) plays Ip Man as an impulsive young wing chun expert and academic who relocates from Foshan to the bright lights of British-owned Hong Kong in the early 1900s. He …

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