Asian Movie Reviews »
Platonic Sex (2001) Movie Review
It’s really up to you on how much of “Platonic Sex” you want to believe as truth and which parts you want to pass off as either exaggerations for the sake of artistic license...
Read More »
Owls’ Castle (1999) Movie Review
Having more in common with Ridley Scott’s “Gladiator” than the Japanese ninja movie “Red Shadow”, Masahiro Shinoda’s “Owls’ Castle” has the look and feel of a movie “based on true events”. There is a...
Read More »
Saviour of the Soul (1991) Movie Review
“Savior of the Soul”, made in 1991, is the epitome of Hong Kong action cinema cranked out during that particular era. The modus operandi of films in this category involves juvenile high jinks in...
Read More »The Touch (2002) Movie Review
If Michelle Yeoh’s starring vehicle “The Touch” has parts of it that looks familiar, it’s probably not because it shares more than a few surface resemblances to the “Indiana Jones” movies as many reviewers...
Read More »Running Out of Time (1999) Movie Review
Don’t let the cover of the Hong Kong movie “Running Out of Time” fool you. The film, about a dying man (Andy Lau) who challenges a brilliant cop (Ching Wan Lau) to catch him...
Read More »
Junk (1999) Movie Review
Do you know who George Romero is? If the answer is Yes, then can you list all 3 titles of Romero’s Zombies Attack trilogy? If you answered Yes to that question as well, then...
Read More »
Three (2002) Movie Review
The new Asian anthology movie “Three”, in which 3 directors from 3 different countries craft individual tales unrelated to the other 2, should have been called “One”, and the only writer/director who should have...
Read More »Phone (2002) Movie Review
Byeong-ki Ahn’s “Phone” is another in a long line of “Dark Hair Ghost Story” movies, in which a vengeful female spirit, sporting unnaturally long dark hair and unsightly dark, black eyes appear in the...
Read More »What Price Survival (1994) Movie Review
If “What Price Survival” proves anything, it’s that the Chinese, and most Asians in general, consider melodrama as essential as breathing air or having a bowl of rice for dinner. I’m not being facetious...
Read More »Infernal Affairs (2002) Movie Review
Almost everyone familiar with Hong Kong films knows the names Andrew Lau, Andy Lau, and Tony Leung. (Andrew and Andy are not the same person, if you were wondering.) Andrew Lau (“Sausalito”) is a...
Read More »Hero (2003) Movie Review
Much of your ability to appreciate the finer points of Zhang Yimou’s “Hero” depends on your knowledge of Chinese culture and history. This doesn’t mean those of us completely unaware of the country’s monumental...
Read More »So Close (2003) Movie Review
I guess you really couldn’t say that Hong Kong filmmakers are trying to capitalize on the success of “Charlie’s Angels”, since I can think back to the early ’90s when “The Heroic Trio” made...
Read More »Summer Time (2001) Movie Review
Like many South Korean movies made by baby boomers that lived through the democracy movement of the ’70s and ’80s, “Summer Time” owes its core premise to the Kwangju Incident. History informs us that...
Read More »Marrying the Mafia (2003) Movie Review
Showing their newfound love affair with all things organized crime, South Korea has produced a flurry of mafia-related films in recent years. The movies mostly fall into two categories: straight Gang Melodrama and Action...
Read More »
Another Heaven (2000) Movie Review
Joji Iida’s “Another Heaven” is a standard “X-Files”-inspired movie about cops chasing a more-than-human killer, but it makes the mistake of spending too much time trying to be deeper than it is capable. The...
Read More »Gorgeous (1999) Movie Review
Leave it to Jackie Chan to do a romantic comedy and not have a single kissing scene in the entire thing. (Unless you count the film’s outtakes, which play over the end credits; one...
Read More »Black Mask 2: City of Masks (2001) Movie Review
Besides the title and the presence of a man wearing Kato-inspired threads, “Black Mask 2: City of Masks” has little in common with the original “Black Mask” starring Jet Li. The original was produced/co-written...
Read More »Dream of a Warrior (2001) Movie Review
Let me just say that “Dream of a Warrior”, a South Korea/Hong Kong film, is as unfathomably bad as they come. If there is one saving grace to the Sci-Fi Romance it’s the presence...
Read More »Naked Weapon (2002) Movie Review
Imagine my surprise when “Naked Weapon”, a movie written by Jing Wong, the man behind such lackluster fare as “The Duel” and “High Risk”, turned out to be one of the more entertaining films...
Read More »
Resurrection of the Little Match Girl (2002) Movie Review
Sun-Woo Jang’s “Resurrection of the Little Match Girl” is one of the most intriguing failures I’ve come across in a long time. It’s about a food deliveryman who, in what can only be described...
Read More »
