three from hong kong
Dec. 8th, 2025 06:57 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
jazzfishThe Cinematheque is doing a Hong Kong New Wave action series, which means I finally get to see a bunch of movies I've heard about for ages.
City On Fire, Ringo Lam (dir.)
An undercover cop would rather not be an undercover cop anymore, but his police captain uncle guilts him into infiltrating a gang that's planning a big jewelry heist. Things go wrong, and there's lots of melodrama and bullets.
This is the movie that Tarantino ripped off to make Reservoir Dogs. That's not entirely true; he only ripped off the last half-hour. I have a lot of respect for the tight focus of Reservoir Dogs, but I've mostly gone off Tarantino's dialogue at this point. And honestly the leads in City On Fire are better written, and maybe better acted as well.
There's gunplay, but less than I'd been expecting. Much is made of the fact that the guns that the undercover cop is selling to the criminals are Extremely Illegal. There's also way more rampant sexism than I'd been expecting. I literally did not realise that the woman the undercover cop was harassing was his girlfriend/fiancee, and he was serious about her, for at least two scenes.
Chow Yun-Fat is -so- young in this. "And that other actor looks really familiar," I kept thinking. Turns out it's Danny Lee, the other lead from The Killer. I wish he'd done more exported stuff.
I'm glad I saw this. I wouldn't go out of my way to watch it again, I don't think, but I wouldn't object if someone else wanted to see it.
Peking Opera Blues, Tsui Hark (dir.)
I had no idea whatsoever what I was in for with this. That's the beauty of the Cinematheque's double features: sometimes you get a movie that there's a good reason you've never heard of, and sometimes you get Sunset Boulevard.
There's really no way to explain the plot in any reasonable wordcount. It's 1913, just after the first Chinese revolution. There's a (female) musician turned jewel thief whose stolen jewels have ended up with a theatre troupe; there's a general's daughter who is actually a Secret Agent For Democracy; there's the daughter of one of the theatre troupe owners who just wants to act on stage. Paths cross. Hijinks ensue.
It's ridiculous. There's a scene where the three women and two (male) Secret Agents (who are sort of half-heartedly romantic interests for the two non-Secret Agent women) end up spending the night in the actress's room, and having to hide under insufficent blankets etc when her father comes in to check on her. It is ridiculous and stupid and no one in the theatre could stop laughing.
Most of the movie is this kind of madcap slapstick romp. About two-thirds of the way in it suddenly gets Very Dramatic, and then for about ten minutes it gets Really Really Dark, but it's (mostly) back to madcap slapstick for the finale. There's a startling amount of sexual harassment and threatened assault. We're getting it through the women's perspective, though, so it feels appropriately gross, and is consistently shut down.
The script suffers from the storylines being all over the place. I mentioned the half-hearted romantic interests above. The missing jewels get carted off with a minor character at about the halfway point. At the end of the movie, these characters, who've helped each other and explicitly grown quite fond of each other, scatter to the five winds, in a deeply unsatisfying "i'm sure we'll all meet again" scene.
Still, a good time. Would absolutely watch again, and not -only- for Brigitte Lin looking damn good in a suit.
The Killer, John Woo (dir.)
This is one of the few Hong Kong action movies I've actually seen before, several times. It's great. Chow Yun-Fat plays an assassin with a heart of gold, who's taking on One Last Job to get enough money to pay for new eyes for a singer who he accidentally blinded in a previous hit. Danny Lee is the Maverick Cop who's trying to track him down. There's lots of bullets, lots of Woo's trademark doves, lots of melodrama.
It works so very well. It's gorgeous and well-shot, and Chow and Lee radiate movie-star charisma from every seam of their well-tailored suits. All the minor characters are great as well. The villain in particular manages to be both completely comprehensible and completely despicable.
There's enough humor to leaven the melodrama; the scene where Lee and Chow are holding guns on each other while the blind singer chats with them both and makes tea manages to be both hilarious and tense at the same time. (Meanwhile, outside, Lee's partner has been detained by another resident of the building. He finally asks "Do you always spend this much time talking to the garbageman?" and she answers "Oh, no, but someone paid me $1000 to talk to you. Wait, where are you going? We're not finished talking yet!")
There's no Tarantinoesque/Marvelesque banter during the fight scenes, either. This is a movie that takes itself seriously. These guys are fighting for their lives. Even the standoff in the singer's apartment has real stakes to it. I appreciate trusting the material to support itself, and not undercutting it for cheap laughs.
I'm so glad I got to see this in a crowd on the big screen.
City On Fire, Ringo Lam (dir.)
An undercover cop would rather not be an undercover cop anymore, but his police captain uncle guilts him into infiltrating a gang that's planning a big jewelry heist. Things go wrong, and there's lots of melodrama and bullets.
This is the movie that Tarantino ripped off to make Reservoir Dogs. That's not entirely true; he only ripped off the last half-hour. I have a lot of respect for the tight focus of Reservoir Dogs, but I've mostly gone off Tarantino's dialogue at this point. And honestly the leads in City On Fire are better written, and maybe better acted as well.
There's gunplay, but less than I'd been expecting. Much is made of the fact that the guns that the undercover cop is selling to the criminals are Extremely Illegal. There's also way more rampant sexism than I'd been expecting. I literally did not realise that the woman the undercover cop was harassing was his girlfriend/fiancee, and he was serious about her, for at least two scenes.
Chow Yun-Fat is -so- young in this. "And that other actor looks really familiar," I kept thinking. Turns out it's Danny Lee, the other lead from The Killer. I wish he'd done more exported stuff.
I'm glad I saw this. I wouldn't go out of my way to watch it again, I don't think, but I wouldn't object if someone else wanted to see it.
Peking Opera Blues, Tsui Hark (dir.)
I had no idea whatsoever what I was in for with this. That's the beauty of the Cinematheque's double features: sometimes you get a movie that there's a good reason you've never heard of, and sometimes you get Sunset Boulevard.
There's really no way to explain the plot in any reasonable wordcount. It's 1913, just after the first Chinese revolution. There's a (female) musician turned jewel thief whose stolen jewels have ended up with a theatre troupe; there's a general's daughter who is actually a Secret Agent For Democracy; there's the daughter of one of the theatre troupe owners who just wants to act on stage. Paths cross. Hijinks ensue.
It's ridiculous. There's a scene where the three women and two (male) Secret Agents (who are sort of half-heartedly romantic interests for the two non-Secret Agent women) end up spending the night in the actress's room, and having to hide under insufficent blankets etc when her father comes in to check on her. It is ridiculous and stupid and no one in the theatre could stop laughing.
Most of the movie is this kind of madcap slapstick romp. About two-thirds of the way in it suddenly gets Very Dramatic, and then for about ten minutes it gets Really Really Dark, but it's (mostly) back to madcap slapstick for the finale. There's a startling amount of sexual harassment and threatened assault. We're getting it through the women's perspective, though, so it feels appropriately gross, and is consistently shut down.
The script suffers from the storylines being all over the place. I mentioned the half-hearted romantic interests above. The missing jewels get carted off with a minor character at about the halfway point. At the end of the movie, these characters, who've helped each other and explicitly grown quite fond of each other, scatter to the five winds, in a deeply unsatisfying "i'm sure we'll all meet again" scene.
Still, a good time. Would absolutely watch again, and not -only- for Brigitte Lin looking damn good in a suit.
The Killer, John Woo (dir.)
This is one of the few Hong Kong action movies I've actually seen before, several times. It's great. Chow Yun-Fat plays an assassin with a heart of gold, who's taking on One Last Job to get enough money to pay for new eyes for a singer who he accidentally blinded in a previous hit. Danny Lee is the Maverick Cop who's trying to track him down. There's lots of bullets, lots of Woo's trademark doves, lots of melodrama.
It works so very well. It's gorgeous and well-shot, and Chow and Lee radiate movie-star charisma from every seam of their well-tailored suits. All the minor characters are great as well. The villain in particular manages to be both completely comprehensible and completely despicable.
There's enough humor to leaven the melodrama; the scene where Lee and Chow are holding guns on each other while the blind singer chats with them both and makes tea manages to be both hilarious and tense at the same time. (Meanwhile, outside, Lee's partner has been detained by another resident of the building. He finally asks "Do you always spend this much time talking to the garbageman?" and she answers "Oh, no, but someone paid me $1000 to talk to you. Wait, where are you going? We're not finished talking yet!")
There's no Tarantinoesque/Marvelesque banter during the fight scenes, either. This is a movie that takes itself seriously. These guys are fighting for their lives. Even the standoff in the singer's apartment has real stakes to it. I appreciate trusting the material to support itself, and not undercutting it for cheap laughs.
I'm so glad I got to see this in a crowd on the big screen.