The Four 3 (四大名捕 3) (2014)

Hong Kong’s Gordon Chan concludes his Chinese X-Men franchise with sound, fury, and a flurry of carebear stares!

Firestorm (风暴) (2013)

Firestorm is a Blockbuster of the Year take on Hong Kong heist films

Young and Dangerous Reloaded (古惑仔:江湖新秩序) (2013)

Teen recruits to the Hong Kong mafia find themselves embroiled in a triad's power struggle.

The gimmick: It's a straight up remake with smart phones, DVD monitors, and flash drives while characters spout 80s lingo and act out 80s gangster film character arcs.

Not postmodern and anarchic anachronistic enough to justify a remake.

Read my full review at Fridae, first published on 9 January 2013.

Cold War (寒战) (2012)

This police procedural has the HK police force scrambling to combat a group of well-organised terrorists who have a mole in the force.

The gimmick: opposing interests, political manoeuvring, and grandstanding and everyday politicking within the force is of more consequence and more entertaining than their search for the terrorists.

Watch for: highly sophisticated, intellectual writing in a police thriller.

Read my full review at Fridae, first published on 14 November 2012.

The Thieves (도둑들) (2012)

Think of this Korean-Hong Kong co-production as an Asian remake of Soderbergh's Ocean's series.

The gimmick here: reintroducing the darker elements of the heist genre while maintaining much of the zany comedy.

Watch for: a blend of the strong suits from Korean comedy and melodrama and Hong Kong action direction.

Read my full review at Fridae, first published on 12 September 2012.

Love in the Buff (春嬌與志明) (2012)

The gimmick for Love in a Puff (2010) and its sequel is the mash-up of the sexually frank romcom and the sitcom with young adults about nothing in particular at all.

The twist in the sequel: the premise is exactly the same even though this is a break-up movie. Or if you wish, a Hong Kong take on the remarriage romcoms Hollywood used to make in the interwar years.

Read my full review at Fridae, first published on 16 May 2012.

Fairy Tale Killer (追凶) (2012)

I'm being very charitable when I say Fairy Tale Killer is Oxide Pang's homage to the nonsensical, plainly illogical nature of John Woo's action films, transplanted to the murder mystery.

You'll laugh, you'll groan, you'll be shocked speechless at how an emotionally crippled cop spends an entire film solving a series of murders masterminded by a pair of idiot savants.

Who in Hong Kong film, apparently mean drooling, educationally subnormal morons. Yes, it's that ridiculous.

Read my full review at Fridae, first published on 9 May 2012.

Nighfall (大追捕) (2012)

This starts off almost like a dining room mystery: an opera singer is found mutilated and burnt at the bottom of a cliff, and one obsessive cop who never lets his cases go is assigned to it.

The rule of good murder mystery writing is to keep it simple. The director-writer team throws in increasingly baroque details that leave you embarrassed to watch. The end result is way overdone.

We suggest Johnnie Toh's Milky Way productions stick to their reworkings of film noir and leave everything else alone.

Read my full review at Fridae, first published on 4 April 2012.

A Simple Life (桃姐) (2011)

A middle aged bachelor takes care of his amah when she retires and enters a nursing home.

This is the closest Hong Kong auteur Ann Hui gets to making a weepy Hallmark movie and extolling the virtues of benevolence and loyalty that typify old school Chinese.

Watch for: Ann Hui's very understated scriptwriting. Mind you, this could easily have been a shrill story about ageing and the plight of domestic servants in Hong Kong. Not that the territory doesn't need a shrill poke about these issues.

Read my full review at Fridae, first published on 14 March 2012.

Sleepwalker (梦游) (2011)

The lesson learnt here is: Forget about making horror films in China. They're banned anyway.

One Pang Brother's attempt to make a horror film that won't be banned in China. Instead, they end up making a half-assed psychological thriller that's equally parts half-assed crime thriller and half-assed horror.

It doesn't help that he's a painfully limited horror director in the first place. You can skip this without prejudice.

Read my full review at Fridae, first published on 2 November 2011.

Life Without Principle (夺命金) (2011)

Big Statements are made in this rare Asian portmanteau film - about the greed for money and the chronic lack of it in modern Hong Kong society
I call this film "Don't!" since it involves a yuppie couple buying a flat they can't afford, a banker who sells investment products to ordinary people, and a punter who bets on the market on the eve of the Eurozone crisis.

 I also call this film "Don't!" since it's very tedious, shrill, and angsty.

Read my full review at Fridae, first published on 19 October 2011.

Punished (报应) (2011)

A tycoon in the midst of a major do-or-die business manoeuvre is faced with a kidnap in the family.

Yes, Punished is a Hong Kong noir spin on Akira Kurosawa's High and Low.

Watch this for the superb performances by Anthony Wong as the tycoon and Richie Ren as the detective.

Read my full review at Fridae, first published on 15 June 2011.

I love Hong Kong (我爱HK开心万岁) (2011)

Sinophone cinema has a unique genre called the Chinese New Year movie.

It's sort of analogous to the "holiday movie" that's set exactly on the holiday itself.

If you're in the market for holiday movies, you'll be able to tolerate, even welcome the waves of nostalgia, pithy depictions of community and neighbours, and the loving bond of families that the film throws at you.

Read my full review at Fridae, first published on 1 February 2011.

Lover's discourse (恋人絮语) (2010)

Everyone wants to make a Paris Je'taime these days.

Here, we have 4 quirky short films about love and romance in Hong Kong.

The offbeat storytelling revolves around the moment love is found and lost, and questions the norms of the romantic genre, as it's been written for the past 20 years in Hong Kong.

Read my full review at Fridae, first published on 12 January 2011.

Legend of the fist: Return of Chen Zhen (精武风云: 陈真) (2010)

If you've been paying attention, you'll know the 3 Ip Man biopics starring Donnie Yen were all rip-offs of Fist of Fury.

Now watch Donnie Yen star in an actual sequel to Fist of Fury!

Which at the same time, also manages to rip off Casablanca, in a Shanghai setting!

Read my full review at Fridae, first published on 22 September 2010.

Girl$ (囡囡) (2010)

Kenneth Bi, the go-to director for Hong Kong's films about LGBT and troubled youths, takes on compensated dating in Hong Kong with Girl$.


Bi's story follows a quartet of friends over the period of a month in a stream of consciousness style.

We recommend you watch this in the original Cantonese for the very earthy Hong Kong slang or not at all.


Read my full review at Fridae, first published on 9 September 2010.

The legend is born: Ip Man (叶问前傳) (2010)

Sequelitis strikes as Hong Kong's film industry struggles to churn out Ip Man biopics for a resurgent Chinese audience!

This time round, we learn that before his WW2 experience provided the basis of Fists of Fury, his life as a student in a martial arts school was a rerun of the same thing.


Read my full review at Fridae, first published on 23 June 2010.

Ip Man 2 (葉問 2) (2010)

He wished then that he didn't have that itchy spot on his nose...

Which unsuspecting hoodlum will Donnie Yen beat up and maim this time round?

What's the moral of the high-falutin' speech that will accompany the beating?

Can Sammo Hung still fight, and without using wire-fu?

Read my full review at Fridae, first published on 28 April 2010.

Fire of Conscience (火龙) (2010)

The mirror universe has a Leon Lai too

Has the recession finally forced Hong Kong directors to make better films?

Does Leon Lai's add on facial hair mean he's a better actor now?

Can Hong Kong make good cop shows that don't reference Infernal Affairs?

Read my full review at Fridae, first published on 31 March 2010.

The Storm Warriors (风云 2) (2009)

The Pang brothers revive the 风云 franchise after a long 10 years. Will their CGI flick hold the key to Aaron Kwok's 3rd Golden Horse Best Actor?

Will Simon Yam out-do Sonny Chiba's scenery mastication?

Will Aaron Kwok and Ekin Cheng once again cross their huge swords with each other?

Read my full review at Fridae, first published on 16 December 2009.