[…] Cinema City’s comedies were dominant soon after they first appeared and made fat profits back in ’79. Thus, the company over-expanded, recruiting a large number of directors, including New Wave directors. More than ten directors joined forces with the company all at once. They worked either in a collaboration, such as Tsui Hark [Aces Go Places 3 (83), All the wrong spies (83), Working Class(85)], Kirk Wong or in a satellite alliance, like Dennis Yu [Comedy (84), Musical Singer (85)] and Yuen Woo-ping. The box office reception of these films was only average; some others, for example, Life After Life and Once Upon a Rainbow, even flopped. 1984 could be said to be the heyday of Cinema City, when comedies such as Happy Ghost, Kung Hei Fat Choy and Merry Christmas were produced. It was precisely because of the dominance of Cinema City that the New Wave migrated to the mainstream cinema at an accelerated pace. (source: “Hong Kong New Wave Cinema” by Pak Tong Cheuk). One of...
- 7/18/2021
- by Panos Kotzathanasis
- AsianMoviePulse
Among the most morally repugnant and vile aspects of the exploitation genre in the 1970s was the Rape-Revenge genre, a subset of films focusing on the prolonged, torturous rape of a female protagonist before doling out equally prolonged and vicious vengeance on the perpetrating forces that carried it out. Spearheaded by the likes of films such as the US entries “The Last House on the Left,” “I Spit on Your Grave” and the Italian efforts “Last Stop on the Night Train” and “The Last House on the Beach” among others, the genre made its way to Hong Kong where Dennis Yu produced his take with this underseen but highly effective gem.
Agreeing to a trip to the countryside, Wah (Eddie Chan) and his sister Ling (Patricia Chong) meet up with friends Louis (Paul Cheung), Ken (Ko Chun-man) and Pauline (Wong Siu-ling) and head into the mountains together. While on their journey,...
Agreeing to a trip to the countryside, Wah (Eddie Chan) and his sister Ling (Patricia Chong) meet up with friends Louis (Paul Cheung), Ken (Ko Chun-man) and Pauline (Wong Siu-ling) and head into the mountains together. While on their journey,...
- 5/29/2021
- by Don Anelli
- AsianMoviePulse
Hailed upon its release as a new-wave twist on the traditional Cantonese horror picture, “The Imp” may incorporate a number of characteristics of the movement but also boasts aesthetics that remind of grindhouse movies intensely.
Ah Keung, a man in his thirties, is looking for a fulltime job to support Sau-lan, his wife, and child-to-be, but the interviews he attends are either for jobs he is under qualified (one interviewer is evidently disappointed he does not speak Japanese) or rather unlucky (the man who was supposed to interview him turns up dead in a violent crime). Furthermore, and despite his spouse’s pleads to take up a job at her father’s bra factory (a sample of Yu’s subtle humor) he denies to do so, wishing to be his own man. Eventually, he manages to find work as a night security guard for a mall/office complex. However, as...
Ah Keung, a man in his thirties, is looking for a fulltime job to support Sau-lan, his wife, and child-to-be, but the interviews he attends are either for jobs he is under qualified (one interviewer is evidently disappointed he does not speak Japanese) or rather unlucky (the man who was supposed to interview him turns up dead in a violent crime). Furthermore, and despite his spouse’s pleads to take up a job at her father’s bra factory (a sample of Yu’s subtle humor) he denies to do so, wishing to be his own man. Eventually, he manages to find work as a night security guard for a mall/office complex. However, as...
- 5/20/2021
- by Panos Kotzathanasis
- AsianMoviePulse
Hong Kong is always on the edge of destruction. Almost as long as it has been a city, it has been in crisis. World War II and the subsequent Chinese Civil War saw a massive contraction and then expansion of its population, flooding the then-colony with an nigh unsustainable number of refugees. They were packed into hellishly inadequate housing and given jobs (when they could find them) at the lowest rungs of laissez-faire industry. As one generation transitioned to another and the colony’s economy boomed, massive scandals came to light of corruption and interconnection between the police force and the criminal gangs that dominated the still-nightmarish warrens where the city’s poor still lived. Then, in 1984, the British and Chinese governments agreed that Hong Kong would be returned to Mainland control before the end of the century. This set the clock ticking on the potential end of all that Hong Kongers had built,...
- 3/5/2020
- MUBI
Been meaning to link to this for a few weeks now, but Rupert Owen has posted up the slides from a talk he gave about starting a viable streaming video business. Of course, these would be much better with Owen talking along with them, but still very interesting to flip through and gives much to think about.News worth rejoicing over: Waylon Bacon’s putting together a compilation DVD of his amazing short films. He picked the best picture for the cover, too.Felix Vasquez Jr. of Cinema Crazed recently interviewed two of my favorite documentary people, Vic Zimet and Stephanie Silber of Random Lunacy fame.For the L Magazine, Mark Asch has a quick round-up of some of this year’s SXSW films, including the much anticipated The Ballad of Genesis and Lady Jaye by Marie Losier. Asch says it’s “as intensely familiar to the doc’s core...
- 3/20/2011
- by Mike Everleth
- Underground Film Journal
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