Asian Movie Reviews »

Marrying the Mafia (2003) Movie Review

Marrying the Mafia (2003) Movie Review

Nix January 24, 2003

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...

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Another Heaven (2000) Movie Review

Another Heaven (2000) Movie Review

Nix January 21, 2003

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...

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Gorgeous (1999) Movie Review

Gorgeous (1999) Movie Review

Nix January 18, 2003

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...

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Black Mask 2: City of Masks (2001) Movie Review

Black Mask 2: City of Masks (2001) Movie Review

Nix January 13, 2003

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...

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Dream of a Warrior (2001) Movie Review

Dream of a Warrior (2001) Movie Review

Nix January 12, 2003

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...

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Naked Weapon (2002) Movie Review

Naked Weapon (2002) Movie Review

Nix January 7, 2003

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...

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Resurrection of the Little Match Girl (2002) Movie Review

Resurrection of the Little Match Girl (2002) Movie Review

Nix January 6, 2003

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...

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Sympathy for Mr. Vengeance (2002) Movie Review

Sympathy for Mr. Vengeance (2002) Movie Review

Nix December 26, 2002

“Sympathy for Mr. Vengeance” represents an all-too familiar problem with many South Korean films that I’ve encountered of late: It lacks passion. There is a large contingent of South Korean filmmakers who believes the...

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Gojoe (2000) Movie Review

Gojoe (2000) Movie Review

Nix December 13, 2002

I am a sucker for Japanese Samurai movies, but lately I’ve been disappointed by what I’ve seen. “Red Shadow” was lacking in any serious credibility, and as a result I loathe calling it a...

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So Close to Paradise (1998) Movie Review

So Close to Paradise (1998) Movie Review

Nix December 9, 2002

I must admit that the Chinese film “So Close to Paradise” surprised me. At first I found the film to be lacking and uninteresting and its acting to be spotty at times. But as...

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Tales of the Unusual (2001) Movie Review

Tales of the Unusual (2001) Movie Review

Nix December 1, 2002

“Tales of the Unusual” is essentially a “Twilight Zone”-inspired movie about 4 very different stories linked by a common sequence. But where other anthology movies usually have a constant theme (for example, horror or...

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Princess Mononoke (1997) Movie Review

Princess Mononoke (1997) Movie Review

Nix November 30, 2002

I should first say that I have nothing against nature, forests, and all that other good ecological stuff. Hey, plants keep us alive, right? It just so happens that whenever someone attempts to make...

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Enforcer (aka My Father is a Hero, 1995) Movie Review

Enforcer (aka My Father is a Hero, 1995) Movie Review

Nix November 29, 2002

Besides offering us a chance to see Jet Li pretend he knows how to smoke (which he really doesn’t, natch), “Enforcer” (or “My Father is a Hero”, which is the more appropriate title in...

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Happy End (1999) Movie Review

Happy End (1999) Movie Review

Nix November 23, 2002

In this day and age, only a fool would cheat on her/his husband/wife after seeing so many movies where the offender lived (or in some cases, doesn’t live) to regret his/her indiscretion. According to...

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My Boss, My Hero (2001) Movie Review

My Boss, My Hero (2001) Movie Review

Nix November 3, 2002

It probably behooves me not to take everything I see in movies seriously, as cinema is at best fictional versions of the truth, and at worst pure fabrications of some fevered writer’s imagination. Still,...

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My Beautiful Days (aka 24, 2002) Movie Review

My Beautiful Days (aka 24, 2002) Movie Review

Nix November 1, 2002

Far be it for me to tell an established filmmaker what to do, but perhaps the next time director Jong-jae Im decides to make a movie he should choose a protagonist that is actually...

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Sausalito (2000) Movie Review

Sausalito (2000) Movie Review

Nix October 26, 2002

“Sausalito” is a Hong Kong movie starring Chinese actors, but set entirely in San Francisco. The film is essentially a Romance, but not a Romantic Comedy since there’s little comedy to be had. It...

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Two Cops 3 (1998) Movie Review

Two Cops 3 (1998) Movie Review

Nix October 20, 2002

“Two Cops 3″, as the title indicates, is the third installment in a popular series that focuses on two cops as they fight crime side by side. Part 3 has strayed from the previous...

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Mr. Iron Palm (2003) Movie Review

Mr. Iron Palm (2003) Movie Review

Nix October 13, 2002

The South Korean movie “Mr. Iron Palm” is an undeniable Romantic Comedy, and as such its ending is inevitable from the opening frame. We know, for instance, that Korean expatriate Iron Palm (In-Pyo Cha)...

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Public Enemy (2002) Movie Review

Public Enemy (2002) Movie Review

Nix October 10, 2002

Despite a very graphic suicide (a bullet through the head) popping up early in “Public Enemy,” the rest of the film takes a dramatic shift toward comedy. Not long after the suicide, a cab...

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