by ·Comments Off on Moon Warriors (1992, Sammo Hung)

Royals Maggie Cheung and Kenny Bee (Shanghai Blues) are in trouble, pursued through the bamboo forest by enemies sent by throne-stealer The 14th Prince, until whale(!) warrior Andy Lau helps them out. They visit the Lord of Lanling for advice and pick up his daughter Anita “Moony” Mui. But the wicked prince (Kelvin Wong of Supercop the same year) has a spy in Maggie Cheung, who attacks our heroes in a black disguise. Things settle down, Andy goes home and the 13th Prince is set to marry Moony, when baddies attack Andy’s village and murder babies, and Maggie double-crosses 14th and he kills her in front of the others. This is all too much violence to stand, so Andy’s orca Sea-Wayne whups 14th’s fuckin’ face, then the tomb of the ancestors smooshes his head in. Almost everyone dies, but Andy and his whale are okay, so there really should’ve been a sequel.

by ·Comments Off on Police Story 3: Supercop (1992, Stanley Tong)

Some of the most daredevil action ever filmed, with the all-time flimsiest setup (the cops say drug smuggling is out of hand, requiring some kind of “super cop,” so Jackie Chan is called in). Maggie is left behind to be annoying alone, while Jackie springs a criminal from prison to gain his trust, then Michelle Yeoh pretends to be Jackie’s sister and saves their asses when they get busted while undercover. It’s a 1992 action movie, which means there are bazookas, and really too many things get blown up. But damn, Yeoh jumps a motorcycle onto a moving train.

by ·Comments Off on Police Story 2 (1988, Jackie Chan)

After Drunken Master, why not play some more Jackie Chan? This is even more of a corny goofball movie than the first one, idiot characters and extended fart jokes, but it comes alive when the action hits. In fact the best part is the opening montage of all the action from part one without the comedy.

Baddie Chu is out of jail already after faking an illness, and Jackie’s busted down to traffic cop. Maggie is threatened personally, and the entire city is threatened generally by a group of mad bombers. Jackie defies authority to save the day. Good product placement for Canon and Mitsubishi. All the actors playing bombers and cops are in a hundred other Jackie Chan movies. Watched on the fourth of July, not knowing it ends in a fireworks factory.

by ·Comments Off on Irma Vep (1996, Olivier Assayas)

This is still the movie I remember from 20-some years ago (filmmaker J-P Leaud is remaking Les Vampires, Maggie Cheung is adrift between crew members, they both get too into their own madness), but I remember it being really excellent, and as the years go by, you forget the specific characteristics that made it so excellent, so it’s nice to rewatch and re-experience that. Every scene is good, but I took no notes, got no screenshots, so let’s watch it again sometime. Fun that Leaud cast Cheung based on Heroic Trio, which they watch together on DVD, and I just watched last month.

by ·Comments Off on The Heroic Trio (1993, Johnnie To)

I tried to discover Johnnie To’s early frontiers with A Hero Never Dies, but succeeded with this one – it’s a Tsui Hark-style HK movie, with the horrible comedy and dialogue and crazy action crystallizing into weird perfection.

Opens with a couple agreeing to buy a neglected, secluded house, the deal interrupted by the supercop husband leaping out a window to catch a thief stealing the realtor’s car. He is Damian Lau (just off the Royal Tramp movies), and doesn’t realize his wife Anita Mui (star of Rouge) is the masked superhero known as Wonder Woman, who’s investigating a wave of babynappings, orchestrated by an Evil Master with growling henchman Anthony Wong.

Meanwhile, friendly bounty hunter Maggie Cheung gets a killer introduction jumping her motorcycle over a cop barricade. And Invisible Woman Michelle Yeoh is… wait, she’s working for the bad guys helping steal the babies, and a baby is killed during the first big fight… this trio isn’t so heroic. But Michelle is sad about her inventor boyfriend dying, and she realizes she’s Anita’s long-lost sister, then they all team up to take down the master.

As a train explodes through a building, a dynamite-tossing Motor Maggie leads the fight vs. flying-guillotine-armed Anthony Wong on a landmine-rigged street. There’s too much awesome, looney tunes shit happening to keep close track of plot details, but Anthony must have survived since he returns in the sequel.

The Visible Woman:

Anthony, before his face gets messed up by the Trio:

by ·Comments Off on Green Snake (1993, Tsui Hark)

Extremely fun movie, opening with a powerful monk capturing an evil old man who’d been training for 100 years to ascend to human form, and I don’t know a whole lot about Chinese mythology but supermonk (Vincent Zhao, who took over the Once Upon a Time in China series after part 3) seems kinda like the bad guy. This is confirmed towards the end when he’s singlemindedly pursuing his enemies while carelessly destroying temples and drowning monks as collateral damage.

Green and Supermonk:

Supermonk has a tentative alliance with two snake sisters. White Snake (Joey Wong, lost in the huge cast of Eagle Shooting Heroes, also in the Chinese Ghost Story trilogy) is older and more powerful, while Green Snake (Maggie Cheung, at the tail end of her period of starring in ten films per year) is more bold and curious. They seduce some local guy (Wu Hsing-Guo), who will die along with White in the climactic supermonk-caused catastrophe.

Meantime we get colorful sets, giant snake tails, ludicrous side plots, tons of flying, great staging and action.

Wu Hsing-Guo, resurrected:

Previous stories and films based on this folktale have been named White Snake, so the titular focus on the younger sister indicate Tsui’s and Farewell My Concubine writer Lillian Lee’s intention to turn tradition on its head.

by ·Comments Off on Police Story (1985, Jackie Chan)

A pretty bad mid-80’s cop movie with average acting and horrible comedy. But oh man, when the action scenes start, there is nothing better. Cars barrel down a hill right through a shanty town, Chan uses cars as weapons and shields, and it ends with a jump/fall so great they show it three times. Plot-wise, Chan has to protect Brigitte Lin from gangsters before she testifies. He does a poor job gaining her trust (having a disguised fellow cop pretend to attack so Chan can save her) then does a poor job explaining her presence to his indignant girlfriend Maggie Cheung.

Fake-attack:

Movie puts forth the Clint Eastwoody idea that gangsters can’t be convicted in the courts because the system is corrupt, so it’s best to kill them straight away. But oh man, the action scenes. Non-action highlights include an endless court scene with all dialogue in Cantonese except the oft-repeated English phrase “I object,” and a dogshit moonwalk.

That’s Maggie on the left:

Won best picture/choreography at the HK Film Awards (vs. fellow nominee Mr. Vampire, heh), got at least five sequels. Maggie was still three years away from As Tears Go By, Brigitte starred in Peking Opera Blues the following year, and baddie Yuen Chor directed over 40 films in the 1960’s and 1970’s.

by ·Comments Off on As Tears Go By (1988, Wong Kar-Wai)

Maggie Cheung has health problems, comes to stay with her older cousin Andy Lau, a loanshark enforcer who acts completely recklessly along with his fuckup buddy Jacky Cheung. This movie and Days of Being Wild could definitely have swapped titles.

Ronald Wong (sort of an HK Bud Cort) manages to get out of the gangster life, marries, is given a bunch of money. Jacky fails hard in every direction though, tries to quit and run a food stand but ends up where he came from: getting the shit beaten out of him until he’s rescued by Andy. These two have their moments of brilliance, but by refusing to play the gangster game by the rules, soon everyone is tired of their shit. Crazy Tony (Alex Man) is set up as the “bad guy” who wants our heroes dead, but that’s all our heroes deserve, and soon what they get. Meanwhile, a bit of a love story has developed between Maggie and Andy, set to a Chinese version of “Take My Breath Away” and a 1980’s synth score. But just when Andy thought he was out, the bastards pulled him back in, then shot him in the head.

Jackie on right:

Ang Wong only has two scenes, but makes an impression:

by ·Comments Off on Center Stage (1991, Stanley Kwan)

Kwan has made 15 movies in the last 25 years, only three of which I’ve heard of, nominated for whole piles of awards. Shot by Hang-Sang Poon (Kung Fu Hustle, Zu Warriors) and produced by none other than Jackie Chan.

I’ve had access to a high-quality director’s-cut DVD of this, a movie on Rosenbaum’s top-100 list, for some time now. Never got around to watching it because the idea of a 2.5-hour bio-pic on a Chinese silent film actress I’ve never heard of wasn’t too appealing, however highly recommended the film. But I finally, reluctantly watched it, and of course found it brilliant and beautiful.

True, it’s a bio-pic about Ruan Ling-yu, played by Maggie Cheung (between Days of Being Wild and Ashes of Time) and filmed in sensuous color. And it’s probably as full of invented details and dialogue as most bio-pics, but it also seems to take an approach of serious study interwoven with the fiction, for instance showing clips from Ruan’s actual films when available, recreating scenes with Maggie from the Ruan films that are now lost, and always distinguishing between the real and fictional film clips with subtitles. Sometimes it backs up from the fiction completely, interviewing Maggie and the other actors as themselves, commenting on the characters and the story, and sometimes the making of this film itself. Somehow this distance doesn’t detract from the drama of the story, but adds to it in a creative and informative way that makes me wonder why all bio-pics don’t use this approach.

My favorite sequence:
color: Maggie and Tony in character shooting a scene in New Woman
b/w: the film crew surrounding Maggie and Tony, now as themselves
b/w: that scene of the actual film New Woman
color: Maggie/Tony in character watching the scene

It would’ve helped if I’d known more Chinese film history, or history in general (the Japanese are bombing Shanghai?), but otherwise I enjoyed it an awful lot. Maggie Cheung always seems smarter and more aware than other actors (not others in this movie, but actors in general). This movie uses some of the same songs as her Wong Kar-Wai movies, making it feel like Maggie is in some kind of 1930’s color-cinema time-loop.

Maggie/Ruan is friends with actress Lily Li (Carina Lau, Mimi/Lulu in 2046), and married to Ta-Min (Lawrence Ng of New Dragon Gate Inn), but falls in love with Chu-Sheng (Tony 2 of Ashes of Time/Eagle Shooting Heroes), which leads to scandal and suicide. Her funeral is staged with the actors recreating poses from still photos taken at Ruan’s funeral sixty years earlier.