Zhong Kui: Snow Girl and the Dark Crystal
Written by Junli Guo, Raymond Lei Jin, and Huanhuan Zhang
Directed by Peter Pau and Zhao Tianyu
Hong Kong, 2015
In recent years the Chinese and Hong Kong film scene has grown exponentially more important with respect its movie output and the lucrative potential that has Hollywood studios salivating, chasing cross-national picture deals which secure distribution rights on the island and mainland. As American, big budget productions have found ways to co-produce projects with the Chinese producers and film on their soil, so too have Chinese and Hong Kong production companies upped their game in an attempt to showcase their own blockbuster inclinations. Zhong Kui: Snow Girl and the Dark Crystal, is another in a long line of Chinese fantasy action movies that offer spectacle and a sweeping story that attempts to rival the best that Hollywood has to offer.
Set many centuries ago in a fictional,...
Written by Junli Guo, Raymond Lei Jin, and Huanhuan Zhang
Directed by Peter Pau and Zhao Tianyu
Hong Kong, 2015
In recent years the Chinese and Hong Kong film scene has grown exponentially more important with respect its movie output and the lucrative potential that has Hollywood studios salivating, chasing cross-national picture deals which secure distribution rights on the island and mainland. As American, big budget productions have found ways to co-produce projects with the Chinese producers and film on their soil, so too have Chinese and Hong Kong production companies upped their game in an attempt to showcase their own blockbuster inclinations. Zhong Kui: Snow Girl and the Dark Crystal, is another in a long line of Chinese fantasy action movies that offer spectacle and a sweeping story that attempts to rival the best that Hollywood has to offer.
Set many centuries ago in a fictional,...
- 8/6/2015
- by Edgar Chaput
- SoundOnSight
This is the eighth film review in the coverage of Montreal's 2010 Fantasia International Film Festival. The least we can say is that Teddy Chen's Bodyguards and Assassins announces us that gone is the time when Hong Kong didn't know how to make good blockbusters.
In October 1905, four days before Sun Yat-Sen, a Chinese revolutionary, arrives in Hong Kong, Chinese empress Cixi had sent assassins. They are led by General Yan Xiao-Guo (Jun Hu) and their job is to kill Sun, because his opposition to the monarchy makes him a "traitor". While he has always financed Li Yue-Tang (Xueqi Wang), the owner of a pro-revolution newspaper, decides to openly declare his full involvement in the revolution. In fact, the British authorities in Hong Kong closed his newspaper, the China Daily and his revolutionary friend, professor Chen Xiao-Bai (Tony Leung Ka Fai), got captured by the assassins.
Moreover, before the arrival...
In October 1905, four days before Sun Yat-Sen, a Chinese revolutionary, arrives in Hong Kong, Chinese empress Cixi had sent assassins. They are led by General Yan Xiao-Guo (Jun Hu) and their job is to kill Sun, because his opposition to the monarchy makes him a "traitor". While he has always financed Li Yue-Tang (Xueqi Wang), the owner of a pro-revolution newspaper, decides to openly declare his full involvement in the revolution. In fact, the British authorities in Hong Kong closed his newspaper, the China Daily and his revolutionary friend, professor Chen Xiao-Bai (Tony Leung Ka Fai), got captured by the assassins.
Moreover, before the arrival...
- 7/26/2010
- by anhkhoido@hotmail.com (Anh Khoi Do)
- The Cultural Post
Chicago – In the opening moments of Peter Ho-Sun Chan’s “The Warlords,” martial arts superstar Jet Li performs one of his bravest physical feats yet. He breaks into tears. This comes as a bit of a shock, considering Li’s status as one of China’s most formidable onscreen ass-kickers. Yet it’s in keeping with Chan’s uncommonly emotional approach to depicting historical events often drained of humanity.
“Warlords” debuted in China one year before the release of John Woo’s overblown epic “Red Cliff.” Both films purport themselves to be antiwar pictures, yet in the case of Woo’s epic, the expensive spectacle is romanticized to such a degree that it fails to impact the audience on a visceral level. When arrows are shot through the sky, Woo follows the arrows from their point of view, evoking the tone of a video game rather than actual warfare. There...
“Warlords” debuted in China one year before the release of John Woo’s overblown epic “Red Cliff.” Both films purport themselves to be antiwar pictures, yet in the case of Woo’s epic, the expensive spectacle is romanticized to such a degree that it fails to impact the audience on a visceral level. When arrows are shot through the sky, Woo follows the arrows from their point of view, evoking the tone of a video game rather than actual warfare. There...
- 7/5/2010
- by adam@hollywoodchicago.com (Adam Fendelman)
- HollywoodChicago.com
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