The Big Call: Oxide Pang

To read this review, go to: http://www.unseenfilms.net/2018/07/nate-hood-makes-big-call-2018-nyaff-2018.html.

Rating: 7/10

The Empty Hands: Chapman To

To read this review, go to: http://www.unseenfilms.net/2018/07/nate-hood-reads-empty-hands-2018-nyaff.html.

Rating: 6/10

Vengeance: Johnnie To

Watching Johnnie To's VENGEANCE (2009). To is one of my most embarrassing Asian cinema blind spots. I'm pretty sure I've only ever seen his MAD DETECTIVE (2007).

— Nathanael Hood (@NateHood257) August 26, 2018

I like how To seems to understand how dreadfully generic his story is, so he invests instead in truly interesting set-pieces: the grandfather and the 3 killers assembling guns over plates of spaghetti; testing weapons by literally propelling a bike across of yard with bullets.

— Nathanael Hood (@NateHood257) August 26, 2018

Well that was superb. VENGEANCE feels like a natural extension of the early Catholic gunplay movies of John Woo in how it both aestheticizes and valorizes violence while interrogating it as a method of achieving justice.

— Nathanael Hood (@NateHood257) August 27, 2018

This actually felt like a humanist revenge thriller, if such a thing can exist. The attention to detail--the cooking of French pasta, the sterilizing of surgical knives with flaming whiskey, the marking of a victim with stickers-was likewise delightful.

— Nathanael Hood (@NateHood257) August 27, 2018

Rating: 9/10

Unbeatable: Dante Lam

To read this review, go to: https://www.theyoungfolks.com/review/123161/nyaff-2018-dante-lam-mini-retrospective/.

Rating: 7/10

Beast Stalker: Dante Lam

To read this review, go to: https://www.theyoungfolks.com/review/123161/nyaff-2018-dante-lam-mini-retrospective/.

Rating: 7/10

Men on the Dragon: Sunny Chan

To read this review, go to: https://www.theyoungfolks.com/review/122941/what-happened-to-the-new-york-asian-film-festivals-main-slate-a-bewildered-retrospective/.

Rating: 7/10

House of the Rising Sons: Anthony Chan

To read this review, go to: http://www.unseenfilms.net/2018/07/nate-hood-sings-along-to-house-of.html.

Rating: 8/10

Manhunt: John Woo

Watching MANHUNT (2017).

What's this? An opening where two characters talk wistfully about classic movies before an old school shoot-out?

Okay...I see you, John Woo. I see you.

— Nathanael Hood (@NateHood257) May 5, 2018

Who shot this film? It looks like it was done by a film student with a GoPro, a Steadcam, and a six-pack of Red Bull. The editing isn't much better, either.

— Nathanael Hood (@NateHood257) May 5, 2018

Ya know, for a corporate lawyer, this Du Qiu guy sure knows his way around a high speed jet-ski chase/mixed martial arts fight.

— Nathanael Hood (@NateHood257) May 5, 2018

Is it weird that I think the best part of this film was the nepotism? Angeles Woo was FANTASTIC.

— Nathanael Hood (@NateHood257) May 5, 2018

Rating: 4/10

On the Run: Alfred Cheung

Alfred Cheung's On the Run was the last film shown in a 12-hour Hong Kong marathon I attended. And wow, what a downer to end on. Even though both heroes survive and the bad guys die, it was an emotional Pyrrhic victory. The film is desperately sad and even nihilistic. Filmed during a time when Hong Kong began its transition from British to China control and everyone was trying to emigrate abroad, it follows a police officer and the hitwoman hired to kill his wife fighting back against a ruthless homicide division that runs a heroin business on the side. Nowhere is the brutality more poignant than a scene where the two discover that the police officer's young daughter had been killed during a chase. Ghastly stuff, but it's a necessary look into a culture in painful transition.

7/10

Kickboxer's Tears: Da Wei Shen

As far as cheesy action movies go, Da Wei Shen's Kickboxer's Tears scratches an itch. The plot's pretty simple: a famous kickboxer gets killed in the ring, his sister (the legendary Moon Lee) decides to avenge him, challenges a number of Triad-controlled kickboxers, and ends up getting involved in a shootout in an abandoned building. The movie is touted as being part of the "Girls with Guns" sub-genre, but at most there's only a girl with a gun in a single scene. You watch this movie for Moon Lee kicking butt, but also for a skinny nerd character who hulks out in the climactic shoot-out and kills the main bad guy. Fun stuff. But the film isn't particularly interesting visually and features mediocre acting. It's entertaining, but nowhere near essential viewing.

6/10

Cheap Killers: Clarence Yiu-leung Fok

Clarence Yiu-leung Fok's Cheap Killers is the most insanely over-the-top, scuzzy, grimy, and cheesy action film about gay hitmen I've ever seen. Not that it's a big list, but it's definitely at the top. Not just that, but it's now officially one of my favorite Hong Kong movies ever. Where else could you see a hitman get anally-raped by over a dozen men, become catatonic, get nursed back to health by his "best friend," and then go on a shooting rampage against his female ex-lover who's become the head of the local triad? Where else can you see a seduction scene ripped right out of a softcore porno involving a garden hose, a bucket, and white clothing? Where else can you see somebody get harpooned through the chest yet still keep fighting? Nowhere. It also helps that the film has one of the most gloriously triumphant final frames of its decade.

8/10

Expect the Unexpected: Tat-Chi Yau

Tat-Chi Yau's Expect the Unexpected is a painfully mediocre film that's basically Friends with the Hong Kong police. It's practically a soap opera where the various cops fall in and out of love while navigating a brutal group of armed robbers. In between the twee romantic interludes we see shockingly gruesome scenes of murder and death, the most significant being a scene where the cops discover one of the gang's old hideouts: an unassuming residential apartment. When they enter, they find that they had raped and murdered the occupant: a new mother. Not just that, they had thrown her newborn infant into the washing machine and turned it onto the spin cycle. The only reason why I'll remember this film is the ending, a scene that comes out of nowhere where all the happy cops get brutally gunned down in a street shootout with the surviving gangsters. What a twist?

5/10

Fong Sai-yuk: Corey Yuen

Corey Yuen's Fong Sai-Yuk has one of the most gloriously over-the-top villain deaths in cinematic history. The government stooge trying to kill the heroes--members of the Red Flower Society, the ethnic-Chinese secret society striving to overthrow the Manchu-led Qing Dynasty--gets killed himself by having an arrow stuck with a stick of lit dynamite that had been kicked towards him by a second fighter nail him in midair. It's gloriously over-the-top and ridiculous, but so is the whole film. Jet Li is at the top of his game here as the eponymous Chinese folk hero. The fight choreography is superb and there's a delightful lesbian subplot where the wife of a royal official falls in love with Li's mother while dressed in drag. The scene where Li's mother literally sweeps her off her feet and the wife looks up in rapturous awe is one of the best in the movie, a not insignificant feat considering how incredible the rest of the movie is.

8/10

Organized Crime & Triad Bureau: Kirk Wong

If there's one thing I learned from Kirk Wong's Organized Crime & Triad Bureau, it's that due process and procedure for cops is for wimps! If you've nabbed a suspect you know if part of a triad, then beat him, assault him, strip him naked and torture his genitals. Who cares? You gotta do what you gotta do! In all seriousness, as a police procedural the film is decent yet laughably disposable when compared to other procedurals of its era--the police are basically superheroes, as best shown in one scene where a hitman tries to kill a witness at a court hearing and two of the cops jump their way across the room like wuxia heroes, flipping and kicking the idiot into submission. But it is a pleasing piece of entertainment. And there are even occasional moment of beauty, like when the lead gangster and his girlfriend discover a tarp filled with rainwater while on the run from the cops. They poke holes in the bottom of the tarp and dance around in the water, laughing and smiling like we've never seen them do before.

7/10

Zombiology: Enjoy Yourself Tonight: Alan Lo

To read this review, go to: http://www.audienceseverywhere.net/43189-2/.

4/10

Mad World: Wong Chun

To read this review, go to: http://www.audienceseverywhere.net/43189-2/.

8/10

With Prisoners: Kwok Kuen Wong

To read this review, go to: http://www.audienceseverywhere.net/nyaff-main/.

7/10

Center Stage: Stanley Kwan

Many of my thoughts on Stanley Kwan's Center Stage can be found in the below article. But in short, I think that Kwan's meta-cinematic experimentations kept the film from establishing a genuine emotional connection between his subject and the audience. Still great, though.

http://moviemezzanine.com/center-stage-jackie-essay/?utm_content=buffer1c378&utm_medium=social&utm_source=twitter.com&utm_campaign=buffer

8/10

Green Snake: Tsui Hark

I don't really have a proper review for Tsui Hark's Green Snake, merely a succession of impressions.

--Green Snake is like falling down an endless flight of stairs while Maggie Cheung pelts you with bricks.
--Green Snake is like a 5-film franchise edited down to just the lively bits.
--Green Snake is like getting a glimpse into an alternate reality where filmmaking developed different timing, pacing, and editing norms.

I'm pretty sure the copy of the film I saw had some scenes edited out: there were multiple times when the film would cut to a different shot for a millisecond before cutting to something completely different. But even if the plot was presented entirely as Hark had intended, I still think it would be better appreciated as a kinetic experience than a narrative one. It's an exhausting, bruising sit. But definitely worth it.

7/10

Keeper of Darkness: Nick Cheung

To read this review, go to: http://theyoungfolks.com/review/nyaff-round-up-5-keeper-of-darkness-2015-the-laundryman-2015-the-tag-along-2015/82201.

6/10