I was gonna make a new feature called “LoveHKFilm.com Time Machine,” but seeing as how pretty much every Hong Kong film I talk about in this blog is going to be something that’s already on DVD, I decided to scrap the idea altogether. Besides, I’ve got enough new features every week on this now almost-daily updated blog, so why bother adding  a category that isn’t necessary?

The inaugural Time Machine post was going to focus on Crazy N’ the City, so here it is sans categorization.

Crazy N’ the City did not make my top list of Hong Kong Films of the 2000s, but with good reason — I hadn’t seen it. I know I’m a movie reviewer by trade, but some films simply slip through the cracks, especially stuff that comes out in another country altogether. The year Crazy N’ the City came out, I’m pretty sure I was regularly watching Korean romantic comedies and horror films (don’t ask) instead of my beloved Hong Kong cinema. Well, I finally saw the film awhile back, and I can now say that I totally understand why Kozo and the Readers ranked it so high. I don’t know where I’d rate it, but I really liked it, all the same.

My Wife is 18 director James Yuen’s Crazy N’ the City isn’t a perfect movie, but its imperfections are part of the charm, I think. It leaves you wanting more, but perhaps in the right way. There’s a real part of me that wishes the film was entirely about the characters played by Eason Chan and Joey Yung, instead of splitting time with Francis Ng’s character, too. Basically, I wanted more screentime for them to not only delve into their relationship as partners, but also their personal lives separate from each other — whether it’s Joey’s character trying to romance a handsome motorcycle cop or Eason’s friendship with the underage girls who have crushes on him.

It’s not that Francis Ng doesn’t deliver yet another great performance (he does), but his role as a man driven simple/crazy by his past sins requires a great deal of suspension of disbelief, particularly in light of a romantic entanglement that happens late in the film. Still, I have a feeling that he’s an essential ingredient in the film. Remove him and perhaps all the things I wanted to see more of in the film don’t work so well.

I know this isn’t much of a review. Check out Kozo’s for that, but it is definitely a strong recommendation.

If you have a chance, blind buy Crazy N’ The City or rent it on Netflix. You won’t be sorry.

Who is Charlie Chan, and why does he remain such a controversial figure? Created by Earl Derr Biggers in the early 1920s, the Honolulu-based Chinese detective appeared in six widely popular mystery novels. And beginning in 1931, the Fox Film Corporation spearheaded the creation of an even more successful “Charlie Chan” film series – running nearly fifty movies in total – first starring Swedish actor Warner Oland and later American actors Sidney Toler and Roland Winters in the title role. Beloved by Depression-era viewers nationwide and hailed as a progressive depiction of a Chinese character amidst a sea of crass Orientalist stereotypes, Charlie Chan was far from the controversial figure he is today. Since the late 1960s, revivals of Chan, particularly on the silver screen, have drawn protests and condemnation from the Asian American community. Despite the tremendous success of the character prior to the end of World War II, Charlie Chan eventually lost his status as a beloved matinee icon, as his name alone became a kind of shorthand for the racist stereotyping of Asians in the popular American imaginary. In less than a half-century’s time, Chan has gone from celebrated hero to an object of scorn and ridicule. What accounts for his precipitous fall from grace? And how is it that an ostensibly moribund character such as Charlie Chan can persist in his refusal “to go gentle into that good night”?

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Aaron Kwok’s reaction to Murderer’s script.

Murderer is the kind of film that makes me both relish and regret my position as a movie reviewer. For those of you who’ve seen this turkey of a film, “relish” might be an easy reaction to understand, thinking that I would love, love, love to mock this movie. But “regret”? Maybe you’d think I mean that in terms of regretting to have to sit through it, but that’s not what I mean by “regret” at all.

While I recognize some films are work-for-hire/totally commercial enterprises, I would hope that most movies are labors of love for the filmmakers involved. Why dedicate a good chunk of your life to something you don’t feel strongly about? Why even bother? A quick glance at the “Making of” Featurette included on the Murderer DVD confirms that director Roy Chow (not to be confused with Rey Chow), writer Christine To, and two-time Golden Horse winner Aaron Kwok devoted countless hours to preparing for this movie.

And after all that hard work, here I come — the snobby film critic — ready to pan their precious creation into oblivion. To tell you the truth, I actually don’t like being in that position. Writing reviews is sometimes difficult, but negative movie reviews are probably some of the easiest reviews to write, as it’s fairly easy to list all the ways you didn’t like a given film. But with that “passion” there’s also the potential to be just plain catty or unnecessarily personal in a review, and I really try to avoid that. I haven’t been perfect; there are plenty of reviews where I’m just a little too snarky, but otherwise, I do try my best to stick to the film at hand.

Anyway, it’s been over a year since the movie was released in theaters, but since most people outside of Hong Kong haven’t necessarily seen Murderer or even heard about it, I have to be careful about spoilers. For those of you who do not want to be spoiled about the plot, continue no further. Some would say that you need to come into the film totally unspoiled to appreciate the twist, but I went in having a somewhat vague notion (Kevin told me, but I forgot the details) and it wasn’t a problem. Actually witnessing the scene play out was nothing less than breathtaking. I’m not kidding. So, for those of you who’ve seen the film and for those of you who haven’t but would like to be spoiled, please feel free to follow me down the rabbit hole…

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The “Muscles from Brussels” delivers a bravura performance in JCVD, a genre-bending 2008 film from French Algerian director Mabrouk El Mechri. Now I realize that me saying that the film boasts Jean Claude Van Damme’s finest acting turn may sound like sarcasm or faint praise when talking about the man who rose to fame in films like Bloodsport, Kickboxer, and Cyborg, but, it’s not meant to be thinly-veiled diss at all.

This movie was a brave and smart choice for Van Damme to make; let’s just hope he can follow it up with something that’s equally as interesting. Otherwise, his “comeback” will be short-lived indeed. If not, there’s always this to remember him by:

But let’s get back to the reason I posted this in the first place — a random movie quotation. Filled with fourth-wall breakages galore, clearly meant to evoke Godard, JCVD contains a number of funny references to Van Damme’s life and career. One relevant bit of Hong Kong cinema-related verbiage comes when a character openly questions why Van Damme hasn’t worked with John Woo since 1993’s Hard Target. Siding with his idol, the man gets indignant about Woo’s “behavior.”

“If it weren’t for you, he’d still be filming pigeons in Hong Kong!”

 Funny? Accurate? Quoteworthy? You be the judge.

Dr. Woo approves this blog post.

Maggie Q, looking a heckuva lot like Jim Lee-era Psylocke

Maggie Q is my girlfriend’s father’s employee’s ex-girlfriend. What’s that make us? Absolutely nothing. Nevertheless, my interest was piqued when I recently learned that the former Maggie Quigley will be starring in the CW’s adaptation of Luc Besson’s La Femme Nikita (1990).

This marks the third official remake* of the original French film starring Anne Parillaud. The first, Point of No Return (1993), was directed by John Badham and starred Bridget Fonda. The second, a 1997 TV series that ran for five seasons on the USA channel, starred Peta Wilson, who later appeared as Mina Harker in a movie so bad that it made Sean Connery quit acting altogether.

Although I don’t have much to say about her Hong Kong work, I did find her to be a welcome presence in 2006’s Mission: Impossible III and 2007’s Live Free or Die Hard. Here’s wishing Maggie Q the best of luck.

The show hits TV screens in the United States on September 9th. The Nikita trailer is HD and thus too big to embed, so here’s an alternate preview clip from the CW.

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* And how could I forget 1991’s The Black Cat, a presumably unofficial remake starring HKFA Best New Artist, Jade Leung?

When LoveHKFilm.com returns from its hiatus, it probably won’t add star-ratings to its reviews. This issue has been discussed internally a couple of times, but when all was said and done, Kozo stood firm on the current format. Honestly, I don’t really have an opinion one way or the other. If he wants ‘em, let’s do it. If he doesn’t, that’s fine with me.

Of course, it would likely be a huge logistical nightmare if we were to implement star-ratings.

Not only would it be a massive headache going through the entire back catalog of reviews and applying a star-rating to each film, but what do we do about movies we’ve changed our minds about? For example, I gave Justice, My Foot! a lukewarm review after first seeing it, but after watching it again, I liked it better and put it on my Hong Kong Cinema Recommendations List. So should I award a star-rating based on my old opinion or tweak my review to match how I currently regard that funny Stephen Chow film?

And what about movies that were reviewed by people who no longer work for the site? Do we leave ‘em as is or try to track them down? Or how about trying to rate movies that are neither great nor horrible? The difference between a two-star film and two-and-half star film would probably not have any mathematical basis whatsoever. And most important, what about movies like Murderer that simply defy a ratings system altogether?

Sonny (not Sanney) says, “Murderer should get 40 stars on a 4-star scale.*

Aside from spicing up LoveHKFilm.com’s Rotten Tomatoes page how would ratings benefit the site?

One plus, I think, is that it means that readers would be able to look at any given review and see whether we generally liked or disliked the film. And despite the fact that “The Skinny” usually covers that ground, I definitely see the upside of what a rating could do.

But suppose we did implement something like this in the farflung future, what would be the best format?

Of course, there are the four-star and five-star ratings systems The world-famous two thumbs up/two thumbs down method is off-limits because Roger Ebert trademarked that. And recommendations like “See it/rent it/skip it” sound a little too “consumer reports” to me rather than anything attempting to be real film criticism.

Y’know, if we wanted to be cute about it, we could make up a five-愛 rating.** While it might make sense that Chungking Express gets 愛愛愛愛愛 from LoveHKFilm.com, if we gave The Wesley’s Mysterious File a 愛 rating, that would imply that we “love” it a little. Well, we don’t.

Personally, as a former junior high teacher, a sometime teaching assistant, and a future professor, I’m pretty comfortable with the ABDCF grading scale.

What do you think?

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* Can I just say that I really enjoyed screencapping stuff from Murderer? It’s like a gift that keeps on giving. The fruits of my labor will be on the blog soon.

**If you can’t see the symbol for some reason, it’s supposed to be the Chinese character for “love” that graces our website banner.

Leon Lai calls to check on Norelco products at his local Walgreens in Fire of Conscience

Judged solely on the basis of its action sequences, Fire of Conscience is, to my mind, an overwhelming success. From the restaurant shootout to the human bomb showdown to the flaming garage of doom finale, this Dante Lam-directed film contains the kind of tense, teeth-clenching action scenes that make you flinch, groan, and maybe even cheer with every act of violence shown onscreen. While the martial arts choreography of something like Ip Man 2 might be more athletically impressive, the thrills and spills of Fire of Conscience are far more involving.

It’s just too bad the rest of the movie isn’t quite as compelling.

Richie Ren does a fairly decent job as the nice guy cop who isn’t so nice, but I’m not sure what to make of Leon Lai’s performance. What’s with the beard? I know it’s supposed to illustrate how a good cop has fallen on hard times, but it looks ridiculous. I know that’s not a very “film critic-y” thing to say, but it does have relevance to the rest of the film. The “Making of” featurette on the DVD makes it sound like the beard restricted Lai’s facial movements. And perhaps that’s why he seems so wooden in the film. And if that’s the case, why bother with the facial hair at all?

Maybe Lai couldn’t grow adequate facial scuzz. Still, if it isn’t helping his acting, then it just seems distracting. I wouldn’t say Leon Lai is bad in the film, I just like my actors to be a little more expressive, that’s all.

As to the rest of the film, there are a handful of subplots sprinkled throughout the story, but your mileage will vary on which ones you find interesting. For the record, I liked Liu Kai-Chi’s myself.

And one last thing: I don’t know whether the director meant it as a comic bit of misdirection or if it was merely an unintentionally humorous moment, but I laughed out loud when Leon Lai glances at something, and we get a close-up of an electric razor. Obviously, it turns out not to be a reference to that scraggly beard, but I don’t know how any audience familiar with Leon Lai’s normal look wouldn’t make the same connection.

Don’t be swayed by the man’s innocent act. He’s dangerous. And, uh, young, too.

[Periodically, Ronin on Empty will be taking a look back at some Hong Kong cinema classics, albeit with a specific emphasis on “Great Moments” — i.e. classic scenes that no Hong Kong cinema fan (old or new) should miss. Of course, “classic” will not only entail super-cool, gobsmacking moments, but also the downright ridiculous stuff, too. The numbers — #1, #2, etc. — are not indicators of ranking, but merely a way to keep a running tally of how many “great moments” we can list here. Readers are welcome to send in their own fave scenes as well.]

While studies say we’ve become increasingly numb to movie violence in recent years, I would argue that there are some filmic displays of violent acts that stick with you long after the film has ended. Perhaps Joe Pesci’s demise in Casino (1995) really got to you. Maybe the torture porn gore of the Saw and Hostel series was too much for you. Or maybe you even flinched at what that carpenter had to suffer in Mel “I’m not racist, I’m insane” Gibson’s The Passion of the Christ (2004).

No matter. All of those violent scenes pale in comparison to what poor Shing Fui-On (RIP: Big Sillyhead) had to endure in the first installment of the Young and Dangerous series. In the film, LoveHKFilm.com’s favorite actor, Ekin Cheng, plays a young and dangerous (naturally!) triad member named Chan Ho-Nam who has a bone to pick with Brother Sau (Shing Fui-On). For reasons I’ve never particularly understood, Ekin is absolutely obnoxious as Ho-Nam in this first film. Thankfully, his character improved in the sequels. Still, it was this first film in which we were introduced to his altogether unconventional triad weapon of choice — a plastic chair. Prepare to wince at the ferocity!

I’ve embedded the vid so it’ll start at the appropriate scene about forty-five seconds into the clip. Chan Ho-Nam’s insidious hate crime occurs sometime around the 1:03 mark, but be sure to stick around to 1:52 for the hilarious capper to an all-out gang brawl like none you’ve ever seen. I bet gang members in America don’t celebrate a beatdown in quite the same way as the Hung Hing boys. In fact, I’m sure of it.

For reasons I am at a loss to explain I have been on a Western kick for several months now. I’ve read Louis L’Amour’s A Man Called Noon (meh), Ernest Tidyman’s High Plains Drifter (ok), Forrest Carter’s The Outlaw Josey Wales (good), and Cormac McCarthy’s Blood Meridian (awe-inspiring). In terms of films, I started out watching Spaghetti Westerns I’d never seen before — Death Rides a Horse, The Big Gundown, Django the Bastard, My Name is Nobody, If You Meet Sartana Pray for Death, Keoma, and The Stranger and the Gunfighter. I then proceeded to revisit some American Westerns like Unforgiven, High Plains Drifter, The Searchers, Rio Bravo, Silverado, Tombstone, and The Quick and the Dead. I even treated myself to the highly entertaining PS3 game Red Dead Redemption, of which I’ve finally completed 100% of the various missions.

Now, I know none of this has anything to do with Hong Kong cinema. And I probably should have been spending all that time watching the HK films gathering dust on my shelf (Eight Diagram Pole Fighter is still waiting for me), but when I have a passion, I follow it through to the very end — and in a very thorough fashion.

To tell you the truth, I also wanted to watch something that had nothing to do with my research — Asian American lit and film/detective fiction — and nothing to do with my quasi-professional interests either — Hong Kong and Asian cinema. But wouldn’t you know it? Both of those interests seeped into my pursuit of a good Western.

East Meets West: John Wayne as Genghis Khan

While we’re all aware of how Western cinema has taken inspiration from Asian influences — The Seven Samurai became The Magnificent Seven, Yojimbo became A Fistful of Dollars, etc. — I’m also interested in a different kind of Asian-American film connection. I’ve started to become intensely interested in 1) American-made (or Italian-made) Westerns that feature Asian characters and 2) Asian films that appropriate the look, themes, and general feel of the American Western.

Since I believe both Western and Asian cinemas have explored self-generated ideas of The West and The Orient, I call these films “Oriental Westerns.” As  a budding  scholar of Asian American history and lit, I use the term “Oriental” quite consciously, fully aware of the negative implications the term carries in the United States for Americans of Asian descent. But in doing so, I want to emphasize the mutually inclusive myth-making projects of different national cinemas in imagining their own pasts and that of the Other.

Blood Money, aka The Stranger and the Gunfighter

Prior to Kozo’s unexpected, but well-deserved break from LoveHKFilm.com, I submitted a review for a curious Spaghetti Western/Shaw Brothers mash-up entitled The Stranger and The Gunfighter. While I call it a “Eastern Western” in my review, I think “Oriental Western,” despite any negative connotations one might draw from it, might be more appropriate. The film stars Spaghetti Western staple Lee Van Cleef and Shaw Brothers legend Lo Lieh in a movie that predates Shanghai Noon by twenty-six years. I then finally saw the “spicy Thai Western” known as Tears of the Black Tiger and completed a review I’m readying for LoveHKFilm.com’s eventual relaunch. I’ve done a bit more research and put together a list of titles:

Walk Like A Dragon. Dir. James Clavell. Perf. Jack Lord, Nobu McCarthy, James Shigeta, and Benson Fong. Paramount Pictures, 1960.

Red Sun. Dir. Terence Young. Perf. Charles Bronson, Toshiro Mifune, Ursula Andress, and Alain Delon. National General Pictures, 1971.

The Fighting Fists of Shanghai Joe. Dir. Mario Caiano. Perf. Chen Lee, Klaus Kinski, and Gordon Mitchell. Beacon Films, Inc., 1972.

The Stranger and the Gunfighter. Dir. Antonio Margheriti. Perf. Lee Van Cleef, Lo Lieh, and Julian Ugarte. Champion Films, 1974.

The Return of Shanghai Joe. Dir. Bitto Albertini. Perf. Klaus Kinski, Cheen Li, and Karin Field. C.B.A. Produttori e Distributori Associati, 1975.

Tampopo. Dir. Juzo Itami. Perf. Tsutomu Yamazaki, Nobuko Miyamoto, and Ken Watanabe. Itami Productions, 1985.

Peace Hotel. Dir. Wai Ka-Fei. Perf. Chow Yun-Fat, Cecilia Yip,and Lau Shun. 1995.

Once Upon a Time in China and America. Dir. Sammo Hung. Perf. Jet Li, Rosamund Kwan, and Xiong Xin-Xin. China Star Entertainment, 1997.

Tears of the Black Tiger. Dir.Wisit Sasanatieng. Perf. Chartchai Ngamsan, Stella Malucchi, Supakorn Kitsuwon, and Sombat Metanee. Five Star Production, 2000.

Shanghai Noon. Dir. Tom Dey. Perf. Jackie Chan, Owen Wilson, and Lucy Liu. Touchstone Pictures, 2000.

Shanghai Knights. Dir. David Dobkin. Perf. Jackie Chan, Owen Wilson, and Donnie Yen. Touchstone Pictures, 2003.

Sukiyaki Western Django. Dir. Takashi Miike. Perf. Hideaki Ito, Masanobu Ando, and Shun Oguri. Sony Pictures Entertainment, 2007

The Good The Bad The Weird. Dir.Kim Ji-Woon. Perf. Song Kang-Ho, Lee Byung-Hun, and Jung Woo-Sung. CJ Entertainment, 2008.

After I finish my dissertation and turning that into a book, this “Oriental Western” idea will likely be the next project I tackle, unless I write one of those Hong Kong cinema books I’ve been itching to try. In any event, there’s a long road ahead of me before I get to tackling The Oriental Western.

Essentially, I’m calling dibs on a book idea that I won’t commence in another five to ten years. And like calling “shotgun,” it’s a binding, iron-clad ruling. So there. Don’t rip me off.

If you can think of any other titles that fit the bill, please let me know in the comments section!

Which one is the real one?

After misplacing my driver’s license and harboring a belief that I needed to get some exercise, I walked to SF Chinatown three days in a row. During those trips, I browsed a number of DVD shops. While certain locations carried legitimate Hong Kong DVDs, I was struck by the number of stores that carried bootlegs. I guess that shouldn’t have been too surprising a fact in itself, but I have to say that the sheer quantity was astounding. After closer investigation, I realized every single Hong Kong film available on a licensed DVD was bootlegged. No official versions in sight.*

The prices, too, were pretty astonishing — 4 for $20 at one store or $4.99 each with a pricing deal based on bulk. I realize people just illegally download them for free, but for Bay Area HK cinema enthusiasts (and Chinese folks) who aren’t hip to technology or don’t want to go to the trouble, this seems like a real temptation. At sci-fi and comic cons you see bootlegs of hard-to-find or out of print films, TV shows, and Holiday Specials, but they aren’t usually that cheap. I’ve seen Chinese bootlegs side-by-side with official DVDs in certain San Jose DVD shops, but the prices weren’t that drastically different. How can legitimate DVD companies compete with this kind of piracy?

In the old days, a bootleg meant a third generation VHS tape at best or a shaky cam version of a movie still-in-theaters, but now the bootleggers just rip them from an officially licensed DVD. The image looks identical…because it is.

Even the box art is getting more sophisticated, coming very close to resembling the real thing.** An untrained eye — or someone simply willing to believe that they can get so much for so little — could easily be fooled, myself included. I guess that means that the days of this kind of box art are over:

Predator-era Arnold would have totally saved The Phantom Menace

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*I’m almost certain that any DVD that had a US Tai Seng edition — Black Ransom and 72 Tenants of Prosperity for example — did not have an accompanying ultra-cheap bootleg version. Why were they the exception?

**To wit,  I once accidentally bought a bootleg of Memories of Matsuko with identical packaging to the official Hong Kong version. It was also selling for the manufacturer’s suggested retail price. Sure, when I got it home, the picture looked great, but the English subtitles were from a COMPLETELY DIFFERENT MOVIE. Strangely, it took me a while to figure that out. I thought, “Man, this dialogue sure is wonky. The director must be going for something really avant garde here.”