Ninja Assassin (2009)

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Ninja Assassin (2009)

A collaborative, gross-out fight-fest from leading cult intellects Silver Pictures and the Wachowskis. This ramps up the ninja film with baroque levels of bloodshed. Digital effects assist in lavishly savouring every severed limb and gush of the red stuff, with each exploding head acting to nullify the senses – the first of which happens even before the main titles. This graphic set-up introduces a 1000 year old Japanese ninja sect – the whereabouts of which is unclear – who are under investigation from a plucky pair of Europol agents due to a high number of prominent political murders. One of …

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The Fearless Hyena Part II (1980)

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The Fearless Hyena Part II (1980)

This was a last ditch attempt by Lo Wei to trade on the rising stardom of his former contract player Jackie Chan, who had absconded to Golden Harvest when this hodgepodge was put together. It’s a horrible cash-in that mixes original scenes of Chan with that of a double (much like Ng See-yuen’s ‘new Bruce Lee‘ film Game of Death II), creating a strange sequel that bears scant resemblance to its predecessor (again, like Game of Death II). Some actors return – Yen Shi-kwan appears to have come back from the dead – with a story concerning the Heaven and Earth fighters …

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Dragon Eyes (2012)

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Dragon Eyes (2012)

Gritty urban decay film, captured with great atmosphere by John Hyams (son of Timecop director Peter Hyams), who stages handheld slug-fests to slow motion and guitar feedback, and drenches cavernous film sets in pools of shadow and spotlight – all very effectively. The story takes on a familiar unknown-avenger bent akin to Yojimbo and sets the action among the contemporary gang warfare of a tough, fictitious inner-city neighbourhood called Saint Jude – the patron saint of lost causes. Vietnamese MMA fighter Cung Le plays the evangelical figure of Hung, fresh from the clink and on a messianic mission to clean up this …

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Little Big Soldier (2010)

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Little Big Soldier (2010)

Given his huge involvement in this film (including producing, choreographing and writing the script), an intriguing maturity has crept into the work of Jackie Chan as he enters his later years. China make a lot of dramas set during the Warring States period, but very few comedies. Although Chan is effortlessly likable, the film is still no less aggrandising than, say, A Battle of Wits, or Hero, or The Emperor and the Assassin, or any other film dealing with the tumultuous story of a pre-unified China. All tell of a bloodthirsty struggle, the influence of the every-man, and the compassionate …

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Kamui (2009)

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Kamui (2009)

Overwrought ninja movie based on a comic book which uncomfortably combines dramatic pretensions with some very silly violence. The bad computer effects not only undermine the film’s shock value but appear to have been lifted from a completely different movie. The results are distracting and take the cartoon-like extremities of a film like Ninja Assassin to new heights of absurdity. Two sequences stand out: a tree-hopping ninja duel and a remarkably crass shark-hunting scene, both of which look horrendous. Kamui (Matsuyama) is a renegade ninja, escaping his former life in a simple fishing village where he has befriended an opportunistic bounder. His buddy …

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Pushing Hands (1992)

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Pushing Hands (1992)

Ang Lee’s first feature film is a gentle culture-clash melodrama which, as a Taiwanese immigrant himself, could be interpreted as partly autobiographical. It is also a film committed to making a poignant sociopolitical statement.

In much the same way that only an outsider can truly identify and analyse a country’s moral and social taboos (he also did this brilliantly with 2005’s Brokeback Mountain), Ang Lee puts western and Chinese traditions under the microscope. He presents a story of corrupted domesticity via the inter-generational subjects of a Beijing-born father-in-law and a stay-at-home New York writer and mother, with her Chinese husband acting …

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Red Cliff (2008)

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Red Cliff (2008)

John Woo returns to China to make his career-defining statement: a two part, five-hour historical war epic of Ben Hur proportions, which neatly balances his talent for Hollywood blockbusters with the sort of chivalrous, all-male swashbucklers he made in the 1970s and 80s. He even throws in some obligatory trademarks: a swooping, majestic flying sequence in which a dove transports covert messages between army camps, and the film ends in a Mexican stand-off with swords replacing guns. He also manages to personalise the super-charged battle sequences with an emotional depth; never an easy thing when dealing with a cast of …

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Project A (1983)

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Project A (1983)

Jackie Chan‘s most treasured and well-crafted film, little can dispel the magic of this rip-roaring adventure. Here, Chan takes the martial arts genre to new heights and is the perfect showman; an auteur who takes the reins in nearly all aspects of production. Alongside Sammo Hung, he is a confident director and, unlike his previous efforts, more conscious of narrative. As fight and stunt coordinator, he is in his element; Keaton-esque with explosions of great physical action. He intertwines the action seamlessly with the story and creates a few absolute humdingers along the way, including a clock tower homage to …

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Iceman (2014)

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Iceman (2014)

Crass remake of the 1989 Hong Kong action fantasy The Iceman Cometh, itself a riff on the Highlander premise. The film’s 3D elements are particularly tedious with all manner of detritus being thrown in the viewer’s face, including, during one particularly apt scene, a toilet full of human feces. The CGI looks hideous but is abominably awful during a climactic weapons duel which would take some talent to look any worse. If the original film hadn’t been such a faultless charmer then perhaps this juvenile by-product may have scraped by without reproach. But as it is, we are inevitably forced …

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The Fearless Hyena (1979)

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The Fearless Hyena (1979)

Jackie Chan‘s first film as director is fun but conventional fare. It’s a secure film from producer Lo Wei who had decided to relinquish all creative power over to Chan in the hope he could replicate for him the same successes he had achieved at Seasonal Films with the smash hit movies Snake in the Eagle’s Shadow and Drunken Master. It is Chan’s frenetic choreography that turns this hotpot on its head – slick, intricate and with a keen slapstick approach. The story of treacherous General Yen killing anti-Ching rebels isn’t too inspiring (Jackie’s grandfather is killed, thus sparking a rather …

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