Crazy N' The City (product link) Crime / Comedy A fun and terrific film! Francis Ng steals the show here, but the entire cast does well. Just full of so many nice touches, like the picture of Francis' "twins"! James Yuen has done a fine job with this film, too bad he followed it up with the underwhelming "Heavenly Mission" the folllowing year. Easily one of the top 5 films of the year 2005.
The best Hong Kong action film of the year, so far (which pretty much means the best action film period this year)! Benny Chan continues pumping out annual action films, with "Invisible Target" being his 5th since 2003, and with the exception of maybe "New Police Story", this one is easily his best. Nicholas Tse does admirable work here, as does Wu Jing who seems to be great at playing villians. The action is high in quantity, and generally high in quality, except for a few bad-looking uses of CGI. The only other main flaw would be some of the dramatic moments don't work as well as they intend to, but the action more than makes up for that. Practically one action set piece after another, until the finale in the police station which features Nic Tse and Shawn Yue taking on Wu Jing!! To put it simply, "Invisible Target" wipes the floor with any of Hollywood's wannabe' action movies this summer, and the new Donnie Yen/Wilson Yip collaboration, "Flash Point", looks to only further that notion. Recommended!!!
The Boxer From Shantung (product link) Martial Arts / Action/Adventure "The Boxer From Shantung" is an excellent early 70's classic Kung Fu/Chinese boxing film, and it remains one of my favorite Shaw Brothers films to date. Chen Kuan-Tai does a great job as the main character, Ma Wing-Jing; and David Chiang is also good in a brief supporting role. Chang Cheh was on point for this type of film, and I prefer these Chinese boxing pieces which take place in the 1920's over some of his earlier wartime period pieces like "The Heroic Ones". The choreography is also very good for its time, and the characters are also well established (something which Corey Yuen's loose remake "Hero" failed to do). It tells a classic rags-to-riches sort of story in good fashion, and like most of Chang Cheh's work. It ends with a grand finale of the "hero" taking on hordes of enemies in a violent bloodbath. Highly recommended!!
Beyond Hypothermia [Thundermedia] (product link) Girls With Guns / Action/Adventure The very first film to come from Johnnie To's Milkyway Image production company, the film is a relatively standard story of a female assassin from Cambodia (Wu Chien-Lien) who meets a noodle vendor (Lau Ching-Wan) in Hong Kong. Amidst the action, the two subtley fall in love, and Wu Chien-Lien's character hopes to change her life and live peacefully with Lau Ching-Wan. However, the bodyguard of a mob boss she assassinated in Korea is out for revenge, and he tracks her down in Hong Kong, where the film culminates in a Glock-bursting finale! Overall, the film is quite a bit better than your standard female assassin film, and with some great action. It is definitely a good film to kick off Milkyway Image, however it's not as good as it gets later on from Milkyway! Produced by Johnnie To, and directed by Patrick Leung.
Bangkok Dangerous [2000] (product link) Action/Adventure / Crime This Thai action film from Hong Kong directing brothers Danny and Oxide Pang is a departure from their usual output of horror films. It features a decent amount of well-polished action, as well as a fairly well-written script and a good performance from lead actor Palawit Mongkolpasit. The action isn't delivered with quite the panache of most Hong Kong films, or other Thai films Ong-Bak and Tom-Yum-Goong, but then again the film focuses heavily on the story aspect as well as the action. Overall though I'd say that it's certainly worth a purchase and I doubt that the U.S. remake will be as good.
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