Hong Kong Cinema

[therewillbeblus]

Going through my kevyip again recently, I found that Woo’s A Better Tomorrow I and II and Bullet in the Head were by far the longest-kept films unseen by me. Not sure what I’m waiting for, but I’ve had these files in my possession since I was in college like 15 years ago, and every time I get close to finally sitting down to watch them I usually just throw on The Killer or Hard Boiled for the nth time. Maybe this prompt will inspire me to get to change that

[feihong]

Once a Thief (John Woo, 1991)

After the exhausting brutalities of Bullet in the Head, who could blame Woo for making a lark like this, an adventure comedy set in Paris with a cast who seem mostly to be having fun. A trio of art thieves, Chow Yun-Fat, Leslie Cheung, and Cherie Chung, try for one last score before retirement, only for betrayal, injury, and a love triangle to come between them. It’s Hong Kong, so the humour is broad and juvenile. The action, while extravagant by any reasonable standard, by Woo’s standard is toned down. What’s really surprising is that the plot is nonsensical. While par for the course with HK, it’s strange for Woo, who usually has a strong grasp of storytelling fundamentals. I’m wondering if this was more improvisatory than his other work. This is minor Woo. It’s a nice break from the intensity of his filmography, but it’s never the quite the fun, cool hangout picture it promises. The humour is wacky and arch without being funny, the heists breezy to the point of being weightless, and the three leads act like children who’ve never grown up. Woo is often a slick stylist, but his style is animated by intense melodrama more than the kind of light melodrama of this film. So the film isn’t as fleet or stylish as you’d expect. Still, there are plenty of fun moments and cool visuals, like a car chase becoming a kind of ballet, or an acrobatic dance scene involving a wheel chair.

This was in the tradition of other New Year's comedies, like Tsui Hark's The Chinese Feast, or Stephen Chow vehicles like All's Well, Ends Well. The elements you identify as part of the "minor" complexion of the movie are all part of the genre tropes common to that kind of film. So the comedy is broad because it's meant to reach whole families, attending the picture together, to reach across language and dialect barriers. And in Hong Kong Chow Yun-Fat was valued as much for his off-the-cuff goofy comedy as he was for his dramatic chops––partly because his comedy––unlike Stephen Chow's earlier rhyming Cantonese wordplay––was all behavioral, all made physical and attitudinal. So even if you didn't understand the Cantonese or Mandarin language tracks it might have been screened in, you could get the humor of Chow's attitude through his performance.

I didn't appreciate the film so much myself, until I saw it in a theater. In that context, the values the picture intends to foreground come through far more strongly––the high spirits seem higher; the camaraderie is more palpable; the locations and the special moments in the picture (Leslie & Chow's acrobatics, the car chases, etc.) seemed to really reach out to people in the crowd seeing the film. Most surprising to me, the comedy, I found, suddenly worked very well. The audience I watched it with absolutely loved the scene where Chow and Leslie are doing football signs and pitching plastic explosive balls to each other––and the ending fight was a huge hit––when Chow leaps out of the wheelchair there was a gasp in the theater, followed by a lot of applause. Chow's last-minute capitulation to the others brought a huge laugh, and his undercranked montage as the couple's au pair afterwards brought the house down. I point this out to say that I was surprised––and won over––by the way the film entertained an audience. Other Woo movies better sustain a more private appreciation, but this one is mostly meant to play to the cheap seats, and when it does, the deliberate construction of entertaining spectacle is more obvious, and I found that the film worked far better than I previously imagined it to. Thematically, I think the idea that the characters are children who get to never really grow up is the point, so far as Woo's concerned. I don't think the film wholly earns the point, except that in the last couple of times I've seen it, I really had no objections to the idea. It might be better to say that the kids in the film were robbed of a childhood in order to become cat burglars, and now that they're grown up, they have a chance to have a sort of "adult" childhood together. They take that chance, and Woo seems to have no objections to the arrangement, and no desire to upend it with real-world concerns. All of which is very concordant with the general thrust of other New Year's comedies. And Hong Kong audiences tended to love the goofy and the digressive back then.

[Mr Sausage]

Going through my kevyip again recently, I found that Woo’s A Better Tomorrow I and II and Bullet in the Head were by far the longest-kept films unseen by me. Not sure what I’m waiting for, but I’ve had these files in my possession since I was in college like 15 years ago, and every time I get close to finally sitting down to watch them I usually just throw on The Killer or Hard Boiled for the nth time. Maybe this prompt will inspire me to get to change that

I was in something like the same position. In highschool, when I was big into Woo, I wanted nothing more than to watch the two I wrote up, and yet I had no access. When I finally did have access, in college, I had moved on to other things, Woo wasn’t so urgent, so I put off seeing them, and then just kept putting them off for like 15 years. Funny, considering how important Woo became for me as a movie lover. He was my gateway into foreign and arthouse cinema, and also how I learned about both the auteur theory and the general idea that art expresses meanings and values, and that you can interpret art to find coherent, developed ideas and themes in it. Basic stuff, I know, but revelatory to a 14-year-old who like most kids consumed his media passively. Funny that Woo could be so fundamental, and yet fall so easily by the wayside.

[Mr Sausage]

So the comedy is broad because it's meant to reach whole families, attending the picture together, to reach across language and dialect barriers.

[...]

Thematically, I think the idea that the characters are children who get to never really grow up is the point, so far as Woo's concerned.

Something I didn't touch on in my capsule is the bizarre experience of these things sitting side-by-side with John Woo ultraviolence. For the longest time, the movie is happy-go-lucky with a cast who behave like children in adult bodies...and then the first gunfight hits halfway through, and Chow Yun-Fat and and Leslie Cheung, without pause, start mowing people down in great spurts of blood. It's jarring. And the movie stays like that the rest of the way through, playing the hammy crowd-pleaser in one scene, then showing bad guys executing innocents in cold blood during robberies. Tonal incongruence is the Hong Kong way, sure, but it struck me all the more here since it's A. so delayed in the narrative, and B. John Woo violence.

The audience I watched it with absolutely loved the scene where Chow and Leslie are doing football signs and pitching plastic explosive balls to each other

Oh, that whole sequence in and around the bank vault is amazing, and one of the moments (and there are a few) where the humour hit perfectly in addition to being an ingeniously staged action scene. I guess what I wanted overall was something more To Catch a Thief or The Thomas Crowne Affair, something playful but cool, not clownish.

[therewillbeblus]

I still want to know the story of what 'happened' to MI: 2, which was Woo basically trying to do To Catch a Thief and failing miserably. I feel like there's a buried DC out there that might be watchable

[bad future]

Probably worth mentioning in this thread that I imported the recent Taiwan blu-ray of Mabel Cheung's An Autumn's Tale featuring a new 4k restoration, and I think it looks fantastic. I'd only previously seen it on a download, the source of which I'm honestly unsure of so I don't know if it's representative of all previous releases, but that had a sort of greenish cast to it, while the new transfer is more naturally balanced and warm, with the most autumnal of the outdoor scenes still having a golden quality. No idea which is more faithful to the intended look -- I definitely preferred the new one but could see a case for the green grade enhancing the atmosphere of a grimy, uninviting New York lacking the comforts and community of home. Texture is obviously greatly improved. A quick side by side comparison also showed the new one to have more info in the frame in most shots, on varying sides, but the compositions didn't strike me as obviously wrong or unbalanced on either version.

English subs seemed good to me (as someone who only speaks English anyway) and it's such a heartbreakingly lovely film, loneliness giving way understated romance within a wonderfully textured immigrant's experience of NYC. Could see Criterion or Eureka picking this up, which would definitely be a cheaper option.

[Mr Sausage]

I still want to know the story of what 'happened' to MI: 2, which was Woo basically trying to do To Catch a Thief and failing miserably. I feel like there's a buried DC out there that might be watchable

While the studio meddling on Hard Target, and Woo's dissatisfaction with the whole experience, was well documented, I've never heard anything about trouble on the MI:2 set.

Woo apparently remade Once a Thief as a pilot for Canadian tv, but I don't have the nerve to watch it. And I like Woo's North American period more than most. Hard Target, Broken Arrow, and Face Off, while not a patch on the HK stuff, are still terrific 90s American action films. But I can't bring myself to watch his tv movies.

[beamish14]

M:I-2 was conceived and shot as an R-rated film, which was unpalatable to Paramount. It was in post-production for an inordinately long period of time, as multiple editors stepped in, and the last 45 minutes are an incomprehensible mess. I’m amazed that Woo worked with Paramount again on Paycheck, but perhaps the title is a good hint.

I’d love to see a reconstruction of what Woo intended for
M:I-2 but I’m not holding my breath

[therewillbeblus]

And I like Woo's North American period more than most. Hard Target, Broken Arrow, and Face Off, while not a patch on the HK stuff, are still terrific 90s American action films.

I feel the same way. I didn’t care for Broken Arrow when I was a kid (other than the great final death scene), but I bet I’d appreciate it more now. Face Off, on the other hand, is a classic, face waterfalls and all. I’ve always felt its narrative structure to be underappreciated, particularly the prison infiltration segment.

[Mr Sausage]

Setting a slow motion gunfight to Somewhere Over the Rainbow is some kind of sublime madness.

[feihong]

Probably worth mentioning in this thread that I imported the recent Taiwan blu-ray of Mabel Cheung's An Autumn's Tale featuring a new 4k restoration, and I think it looks fantastic. I'd only previously seen it on a download, the source of which I'm honestly unsure of so I don't know if it's representative of all previous releases, but that had a sort of greenish cast to it, while the new transfer is more naturally balanced and warm, with the most autumnal of the outdoor scenes still having a golden quality. No idea which is more faithful to the intended look -- I definitely preferred the new one but could see a case for the green grade enhancing the atmosphere of a grimy, uninviting New York lacking the comforts and community of home. Texture is obviously greatly improved. A quick side by side comparison also showed the new one to have more info in the frame in most shots, on varying sides, but the compositions didn't strike me as obviously wrong or unbalanced on either version.

English subs seemed good to me (as someone who only speaks English anyway) and it's such a heartbreakingly lovely film, loneliness giving way understated romance within a wonderfully textured immigrant's experience of NYC. Could see Criterion or Eureka picking this up, which would definitely be a cheaper option.

This. Wow. Been looking at different re-releases of An Autumn's Tale on blu ray for years, wondering if any were more than an upconvert.

Thanks for letting us know! I'm getting this one right away.

[Mr Sausage]

On the Run (Alfred Cheung, 1988)

A cop’s soon-to-be-ex-wife is gunned down in a restaurant moments after he’s left it. The cop, Yuen Biao, hunts down the female assassin, an expert marksman, but finds himself on the wrong end of a police conspiracy that forces both him and the assassin to go on the run. An interesting buddy dynamic, a cop and the woman who killed his wife, but it’s underused, the inherently fraught nature of their relationship brushed aside quickly in favour of developing camaraderie. The movie isn’t as pulse-pounding as it ought to be. It never drags; the dramatic scenes, especially between Yuen Biao and Patricia Ha’s assassin, are well-written and often effectively shot. But the film moves in fits and starts, from brief action scene to brief drama scene, so that the tension and excitement flattens between them. It’s still quickly paced, but only rarely is it tense or nail-biting. What it is, however, is coherently told with a consistent and appropriate tone, a rarity for HK thrillers. This is a grim and often gruesome movie, modeling itself on noir but understanding noir mostly as a series of downturns full of shocking violence. This movie might hold the record for most characters shot in the head. The most impressive thing in the film, tho’, is Patricia Ha’s performance as the assassin. She projects steely-eyed intensity better than most action stars, but she modulates it beautifully, sometimes showing psychopathic chill, sometimes a subtle wryness, and in a few scenes a sad gentleness. I wonder why she wasn’t a bigger star. This isn’t an HK classic, but it is an interesting and effective movie with one standout performance.


Raging Fire (Benny Chan, 2021)

Generic police thriller. You know the drill: incorruptible (but thoroughly violent) cop with a pregnant wife pursues a group of criminals with combat and/or police training, and whom we come to find out he has history with. You’ve seen it all before, and you’ve seen it filmed exactly this way, all orange and teal, with hyperactive editing and camera shakes. If it reproduces a boring Hollywood style, it also models its action on the John Wick movies and Michael Mann's work, especially Heat. The action scenes are wonderfully done and extremely exciting, coupling Donnie Yen and co’s excellence in action with the rougher, more brutal and physically exhausting quality the John Wick films have popularized. The final bank robbery is less exciting only because it’s directly ripping off the same scene from Heat, but can’t sustain the comparison. Still, when the action kicks off, the movie’s engrossing; whenever anyone’s talking, it’s on autopilot.

[yoloswegmaster]

Looks like the Hong Kong Rescue site has been taken down. I wonder if the guy running it decided to shut it so that he could actually try and catch up with the orders or if a company forced him to shut it down.

[beamish14]

Looks like the Hong Kong Rescue site has been taken down. I wonder if the guy running it decided to shut it so that he could actually try and catch up with the orders or if a company forced him to shut it down.

Oh, yeah, that asshole still owes me a disc of The Killer I bought over 18 months ago

[MV88]

Oh, yeah, that asshole still owes me a disc of The Killer I bought over 18 months ago

He didn’t send my Hard Boiled disc until I filed a claim to cancel the order and get my money back, so I would try doing that if you haven’t already.

[pistolwink]

Looks like the Hong Kong Rescue site has been taken down. I wonder if the guy running it decided to shut it so that he could actually try and catch up with the orders or if a company forced him to shut it down.

For a while I was wondering when he would finish his custom restoration of Bullet in the Head, but it's not like anyone would actually receive a copy anyway.

Has anyone (who hasn't filed a complaint with PayPal) actually received a disc from this guy in the past 2 or 3 years?

[beamish14]

Looks like the Hong Kong Rescue site has been taken down. I wonder if the guy running it decided to shut it so that he could actually try and catch up with the orders or if a company forced him to shut it down.

For a while I was wondering when he would finish his custom restoration of Bullet in the Head, but it's not like anyone would actually receive a copy anyway.

Has anyone (who hasn't filed a complaint with PayPal) actually received a disc from this guy in the past 2 or 3 years?

I just really hope that print he has makes its way to an archive

[feihong]

Looks like the Hong Kong Rescue site has been taken down. I wonder if the guy running it decided to shut it so that he could actually try and catch up with the orders or if a company forced him to shut it down.

For a while I was wondering when he would finish his custom restoration of Bullet in the Head, but it's not like anyone would actually receive a copy anyway.

Has anyone (who hasn't filed a complaint with PayPal) actually received a disc from this guy in the past 2 or 3 years?

I did receive a disc of The Killer. It took a long time, but it did ultimately arrive. There was also a download version that was directly available, which was a better method for all of this, I think. Very sad not to see Bullet in the Head. I've never seen that movie look good before.

[Lemmy Caution]

The dean of old China hands Orville Schell with a long review of two books on the post-1990 relationship between Hollywood and China. Verdict: China won.

He doesnt mention dvd piracy, but the blatant theft of US films for decades, mostly manufactured by military groups and sold with government acquiescence, was an early tip off that China had the advantage and was going to win any content or market access battle.

The US has been very passive overall while China restricts market access, steals intellectual property, subsidizes and protects its home grown industry, monopolizes markets, and generally favors Chinese companies in all aspects.
I wasn't aware of this:

a provision of the National Defense Authorization Act—passed by both houses of Congress and signed by President Biden—making it illegal for US studios to edit their films to appease party censors and gain access to Chinese markets.

Minor fight back. US studios will probably just start censoring their films prior to shooting to circumvent this law, though I'd need to read the wording to understand the likely work-around.

[pistolwink]

Yeah, the issue tends to be less about changing or censoring the films after the fact but rather about self-censorship -- not including things that would upset the Chinese censors in the first place, or including things they hope to appeal to same.

That said, this is already becoming somewhat moot as fewer and fewer Hollywood films are shown in China and homegrown Chinese films take a bigger and bigger part of the domestic box office.

[Mr Sausage]

Forcing people not to censor themselves reminds me of that Christopher Hitchens joke: “Of course I have free will, I don’t have any choice.”

[FrauBlucher]

After watching Boat People, I'd Iike see some more Ann Hui. Any recommendations?

Btw... Boat People needs to be added on the first page under Criterion releases

[yoloswegmaster]

The Story of Woo Viet and A Simple Life are great films to follow up with.

[feihong]

TG Vision/Cargo has released the 1990 original Swordsman movie, directed by too many directors to mention. The film has never looked as good on home video as its more famous sequel, Swordsman II, frequently appears, but these German blu rays of HK new wave movies have seemed to be using pretty good sources for their transfers––albeit making some varied choices with how they present those sources.

Suffice to say, this disc is the best Swordsman has ever looked on home video, but it clearly could be better. The color separation looks especially good, and there is more detail and depth in the picture than ever before. There is grain, but here's where it seems to have fallen down, because the film looks, even in its best moments, like it's been softened and then digitally re-grained. This is a shame, because the film looks so much better than it has in the past, in terms of lighting, color, movement, etc. There's also a real luster to a lot of the film which gets revealed here, and––even more fascinating––it seems to become possible to trace the likely director behind certain shots and sequences throughout the film. certain compositions, certain directorial traits, appear to rise out of the somewhat obviously different approaches to mis en scene throughout the movie. I don't know for sure, of course, but I remember reading Ann Hui claiming King Hu shot some initial footage, but only for a couple of days, I think? There are a few shots right after the credits of soldier traveling to and camping under a waterfall which have the feel of King Hu––a telephoto framing, taking in all the figures at once, some somewhat deliberately artificial blocking of the actors, and the use of nature––all King Hu techniques, rarely the focus of Tsui Hark movies. I could see Tsui firing Hu over the lack of camera movement, the far-back framing. Then there are some sequences as Ling and Kiddo arrive at the mansion siege, where the complex compositions, the use of a bonfire as a dominant motif, and the complex staging of large groups of figures in crowded, visually-dense sets (here what's apparently maybe a silkworks in the manor, giving rise to shots through webbed strands and big rolls of silk), the way groups of characters thunder around noisily, back and forth, while characters are introduced coming down from roofs, etc...all of this feels very Tsui Hark. Then as Kiddo and Ling settle into the manor and Kiddo bathes, well, these scenes are very reminiscent of Ching Tsiu-Tung's compositions and stylistic approaches on A Chinese Ghost Story. There's that tracking shot moving around the barrel as Kiddo bathes, there's the dialogue, cutting on simple medium-closeups alternating, with center framing. Then the scenes of the Highlanders, with their strong backlighting, and the very exaggerated, highly mobile shots in the 5-way standoff finale (with, it turns out, incredibly rich, glowing gold lighting) look so much like the work of Raymond Lee. And the boring shots of the boat siege? Andrew Kam, all the way. Those are my guesses. From what I recall, Ann Hui denied having directed sequences herself? I believe she said she was principally a liaison with King Hu. Anyway, none of this is definite, of course, but I think the better visual quality helps me to recognize that.

I don't know if it's worth it to get this edition, which is pricey, and which––even though it's an improvement––hardly presents the film in the best light it could be done in. There are no signs of an upconvert––the movement is very clear, with no ghosting; characters just look a little too soft, and colors––while unprecedentedly intense––could be, you feel, much more vivid. Certainly, the Korean blu ray of Swordsman II, sourced from something true hi-def, is much more brilliantly colored. I think you'd have to love the movie like I do before this version becomes worthwhile. I kind of doubt this one will turn up in some trilogy set from Eureka any time soon. And I do genuinely love the film, maybe moreso than the more widely beloved sequel. Unlike the filmmakers, perhaps, I feel like the casting is perfect in this first picture––and that the recasting is severely flawed in the sequel, save the addition of Brigitte Lin and the retaining of Fennie Yuen––which were the only really good choices in the second film. For me, Sam Hui is ideal to play Ling, and preferable to Jet Li, because he's a) a credible, kooky drunk, has b) the genuine sexual chemistry the films require with his costars, and c) he has a god-damn sense of humor which really makes this first movie a cut above the second film. The second film badly needs this sense of humor, and Jet Li and Michelle Reis are just far, far broader and coarser than Sam Hui and Cecilia Yip. The initial pairing has a wonderfully sly, screwball rhythm, mixed with genuine chemistry. You get right away the complex relationship Ling has with Kiddo––something almost entirely jettisoned in the second film. You can tell Ling knows how serious Kiddo is about him romantically, and he feels like he has to constantly fend off her advances, in order to remain loyal to his master. In the end of the film, when Ling defeats Kiddo's father, grabs Kiddo, and pulls her onto the horse with him, he seems not only to be severing the master-and-pupil relationship, but also the father-and-daughter one besides––ostensibly freeing them for romance, if they can ever get it together in the sequel. But I think Jet and Michelle drop the ball here pretty significantly. And Cheung Man makes a genuinely mysterious Highland princess––whereas Rosamund Kwan approaches the role in the sequel with all the appeal of a middle-manager, conducting a company-wide performance review (that's a little harsh––I like Rosamund, and she works hard in the sequel, but she is so straightforward and uncomplicated a presence, hiding nothing in her best roles––whereas Cheung Man is especially good at playing mysterious, unknowable, hidden characters). Watching it this time around, it became interesting to notice casting details I'd never really paid attention to before. For instance, the initially nameless master Ling meets early in the film, who presents him with the martial arts dropout philosophy he'll ultimately adapt in the films, is Han Ying-Chieh, longtime martial arts coordinator for King Hu (and the titular "Big Boss" of Bruce Lee's film). And the other bit I'd never appreciated before is when Blue Phoenix captures Kiddo in the Highlanders refuge, and tries to put the moves on her. Before the film has her putting on a case of the "not-gays," Fennie Yuen plays the scene with a gusto unusual for HK actors doing controversial love scenes. The film treats this as Kiddo's male drag disguise working on Blue Phoenix, but I wondered as I watched when it was Fennie Yuen first started dating women in public, and whether or not Tsui might be slyly or more openly referencing Fennie's real life in the scene? Was the identity confusion a bit they worked out for the film, or was it in the Jin Yong novel? Just the kind of question you can have when the film finally looks good enough that you can notice the subtle details of it. I still hope Eureka releases this one, but I'm a little skeptical they will. This edition appears to have been taken not from any new restoration, but from an older master––there are pops and scratches throughout (though not glaring), and I kept wondering if the softness of the picture might have come from the original source, before they added the grain to the picture.

So anyways, the film is recommended, but the disc is probably still "for lovers only." I imagine their disc of Swordsman II, coming up in a couple of months, will be something more people want. But I think people should sometime give the film a chance, regardless. The film's reputation is that it's convoluted or incoherent, but I found it much more coherent than the sequel, replete with good humor, sophistication the sequel mostly lacks, and a thematic payload that really delivers, and which sets up the sequel. Actually, the sequel is a lot more coherent once the themes of the original picture are revealed––though once you know what they're trying to get across with the series, then the ways Jet and Michelle and Rosamund let down the sequel in their performances of Sam, Cecilia, and Sharla's roles becomes really apparent.

[Mr Sausage]

Beast Cops (Dante Lam, 1998)

When I was a teen, one of the Chinese tv stations in Toronto would sometimes broadcast HK films in the evenings or early mornings, and among the various interesting things I saw, this was one. Watching it again now, it's a strange, vibrant movie. It has no plot to speak of. There's a situation, familiar to anyone who's ever watched an HK gangster flick, with a young up-and-comer making trouble in what used to be a violent but navigable system. But it's at best a subplot. The rest is a formless hangout picture, with Anthony Wong's chatty, humourous, semi-corrupt cop showing the ropes to a violent, rigid transfer who happens to be his boss (Michael Wong, who's constantly lapsing into the English he's obviously more comfortable with). Funnily, instead of an odd-couple type deal, Anthony Wong rubs off on his boss so immediately that the latter becomes his roomate, knocks up a prostitute, and takes MDMA at triad party spots. The movie is never an out-and-out comedy, but it is full of lively banter and character interaction that, eventually, has to intersect with the triad bullshit, after which it culminates in some bracing violence. Maybe the film's chief strength is its location photography. It's shot entirely on the streets on Hong Kong, full of lights, noise, vendors, and nightlife. It's an electric social portrait filled with memorable locations, like a blue-lit gambling den set amidst concrete pillars that've disintegrated down to the wire mesh, or an apartment crammed with incongruous objects like pinball machines and convenience store refrigerators. Complementing this is the movie's wonderful style, which like so much HK cinema is visually alive. The camera is constantly moving, tracking in and out, shuttling around objects, following people and things to arrive in perfect and yet unpoised compositions. It's wonderful to look at. And the action abandons the elegant, choreographed nature of typical HK action for something frenzied, shaky, and chaotic. Lam throws in a few odd conceits, like the film sometimes pausing for the characters to give talking head interviews as tho' this were a documentary, none of which has any obvious motivation except that Lam seemingly wants to try everything. I had a blast with this weird, formless, charming, brutal movie.