Mandarin

Letterboxd Review by Voc_17 ★★★½
Chu Yen-Ping was Taiwan’s factory comedy filmmaker, he shat out films quickly with an extreme tonal whiplash between scenes of broad comedy, action and pathos, he is a junk food artist and it’s hard to make a case for him as being an effective filmmaker dramatically. However, I’m going to try and make a case for this film and by extension him because I kind of liked this movie a decent amount. Hsu Pu-Liao was a popular stage comic who Chu wanted to place within a Chaplin type narrative, although whole Chaplin’s tramp was very poor he was never as downright miserable as Hsu is in this. The film will go especially early on from a broad but amusing comic setpiece to the stronger dose of pathos possible within a single cut, it’s bizarre but after awhile I felt it kind of working. Read More »

A housewife whose life only revolves her husband finds herself being cheated. She becomes angry and neurotic and can’t accept the fact at all. Finally, she realizes that the only choice she has is to compromise and to forgive, but it was already too late.Read More »

The film is about the relationship between Hong, a drug dealer, and Annie, his hostage. 10 years ago Annie’s father was a dentist who worked with drug dealing gangsters however their plan went wrong when a mob boss was killed by police. His henchman Hong kidnapped ten-year-old Annie to Burma where he raised her as his daughter. Years later they ended up becoming lovers due to Stockholm Syndrome. Before they could be married Hong faces one last job.Read More »

synopsis
It seems too good to be true when young unemployed Yu Jiayin is introduced to a tutoring job by an old classmate. She and the father of the girl she tutors fall in love. He already has a wife, although she is ill and lives in the countryside away from him and their daughter. Jiayin’s father shows up, wanting money and making trouble.Read More »

Written and directed by the multi-talented King Hu, The Valiant Ones (1975) is set in the Ming-dynasty China, a time when Japanese pirates were wreaking havoc along the nation’s coast. Its heroes engage in epic battles and tragic sacrifices, fully illustrating the themes of loyalty and martyrdom. The film’s fierce action, choreographed by Sammo Hung, works synergistically with Hu’s camera angles and tight-knit editing. Also impressive are its settings in the hills, islands, and rough, turbulent sea of Hong Kong, accentuating Hu’s awe-inspiring wuxia aesthetic.Read More »

Quote:
Based on renowned novelist Kenneth Pai Hsien-yung’s novella, Jade Love is regarded as the best film adaptation of all of Pai’s work. Set in 1940s Southern China and told through the eyes of a 10 year old boy, Jung, the film relates the story of Jung’s beautiful nanny Jade and her mysteriously reclusive “younger brother” Ching Sheng. Jade is a middle-age woman who’s sweet and graceful appearance belies her unfulfilled inner life. The film represents complex desire within a tragic story and explores the situation of women in traditional Chinese society. It depicts female psychology in a classical, realist style within a nuanced and exquisite atmosphere.Read More »

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Ang Lee’s “Lust, Caution” is first languid, then passionate, as it tells the story of a young woman who joins a political murder plot and then becomes emotionally involved with her enemy. It begins at a 1942 Mah-Jongg game in Hong Kong, when erotic undertones become clearly audible to us, and then flashes back to Shanghai, 1938, during the Japanese occupation of China. One of the rich ladies at the game table is revealed to have been a college student, and not really the wife of a wealthy (but unseen) tycoon.Read More »

Synopsis
During the Ming Dynasty, Tsao Sui Yan(Donnie Yen), the power-hungry and ruthless eunuch leader of East Chamber, craves his own kingdom. He intends to destroy the rebelling clans by using a traitorous secretary’s children as bait. Two do-gooders by the name of Chow Wai-On(Tony Leung) and Yau Mo-Yin(Brigitte Lin) save the innocent children from the fiendish clutches of the East Chamber, only to find refuge at the Dragon Inn. Ultimately, the two warring factions – the rebels led by Chow Wai-on and Mo-yan Yau, and the East Chamber group led by Tsao – end up in the rundown Dragon Inn right in the middle of the desert. Jade King(Maggie Cheung), the beautiful owner and proprietor of Dragon Inn, hopes to cash in on the incident. But problems arise when Wai-on, desperate for the quickest route of escape, attempts to marry Jade in hopes of prying her for information about an escape route; and the two clans go head-to-head in a no-holds barred finale battle.Read More »

Also known as The Lights of Ten Thousand Homes, this political melodrama was produced by Kun Lun Studios, a private studio founded in 1946 employing many leftist and progressive filmmakers. Kun Lun was also responsible for the 1947 film, The Spring River Flows East. The screenplay is by Yang Hansheng, who also wrote San Mao Liulang ji (The Winter of Three Hairs), yet another Kun Lun production.Read More »