Reviews

SOLD Review: Jennifer Li Runs, Hides And Fights In Her Brutal New Directorial Short Debut

Tautly, carefully-crafted fourteen minutes of near non-stop, intense action and drama ensue in Jennifer Li’s directorial debut, Sold. A stunt performer by trade, Li’s inaugural filmmaking feat which recently had its Graduation screening, is the result of time well spent at the Emily Carr University of Art and Design. Li takes the mantle here with Sold, wearing multiple hats behind the lens, including that of actor for the film’s perilously inclement three-day shoot. For this, we get the story of Ming (Jennifer Li) woman who volunteers to deliver money to pick up a camera for her dear friend, Kiki (Leifennie). Her trip finds her at a remote farm whose seemingly affable sole occupant named James (Kyle Toy) finagles her into coming into his questionable abode, and the result is as terrible as you would expect. What you don’t see coming is the “why?” of it all, but that comes about […]

ASSASSIN CLUB Review: Camille Delamarre’s Hit-Or-Miss Killer Thriller, Well… Misses

Lee B. Golden III

Assassin Club arrives on Digital from May 16, and is available on DVD and Blu-Ray beginning June 6. It wasn’t that long ago when actor Henry Golding’s coming out party in the action cinema arena took the reins for Paramount Pictures as the name and face of the studio’s most recent stake in the G.I. Joe franchise for an origin story centered around the character, Snake Eyes. The movie had all the trimmings and maybe even the potential to be an outstanding film, or possibly more memorable than it has been for some who remain fond of its spirited efforts in some aspects, and instead, you’ll hardly hear a lingering whisper from action fans about the film – not exactly a flex if you’re Golding and you’re next stake in the genre is another film that proves to be just as mid. That’s where director Camille Delamarre comes in, having […]

FOGGY MOUNTAIN Review: Peter Pham’s U.S. Debut Punches In With An Action-Packed Revenge Thriller

Lee B. Golden III

Actor and martial artist Peter Pham’s relationship with U.S. distributor Well Go USA has been brewing for some time now, after emerging online with select action shorts in the last several years. This growth eventually led to the production and premiere of Brennan Lane’s hit short film, Mayhem, taking nicely to the virtual crowd for the SDCC Kung Fu Extravaganza back in 2020. That was the year filmmaker Phan Anh’s martial arts thriller, Foggy Mountain, would finally hit the world sales floor through Arclight with the burgeoning star set to finally stake his claim in a feature setting outside of Vietnam. With the film’s current release made instant last week on Well Go’s niche martial arts streamer, Hi-YAH!, genre fans can now gauge Pham’s Western debut in the action arena which now pairs him among a cadre of company headliners like Jackie Chan, Donnie Yen, Marko Zaror, Philip Ng, Saori […]

Streaming Sleepers: Sammo Hung’s HEART OF DRAGON Delivers Endearing Drama With Hearty Classic Action

Lee B. Golden III

The mid-80s delivered peak Hong Kong action. It marked an era of post-Bruce Lee film fandom that helped pave the way for stars to rise and become some of the biggest influences and staples of their industry. This inevitably included Jackie Chan and Sammo Hung, whose careers would explode from the 70s and onward with the two joining up once more for 1985 action drama, Heart Of Dragon. The story kicks off with an explosive action sequence that later reveals Chan’s role as Ted, a freshly-minted police detective. His job is one thing though, while it’s another to maintain not only his teetering relationship with his girlfriend Jenny and chasing his real dream as a sailor, but also the care and oversight of his brother, Danny, who has the mental capacity of a child and is often taken advantage of by his younger peers, and abused by adults as a […]

APOCALYPSE LOVE Review: Vera VanGuard’s Indie Puppet Sci-Fi Thriller Bolsters With Charm And Delight

Lee B. Golden III

What would you do for love even if the world ended?… I guess that’s one key question explored as we follow the latest travails of lovelorn and grieving would-be hero Tom in Apocalypse Love, a show of indie cinematic puppetry by actress and director Vera VanGuard for whom puppetry has been one of her many specialties for some time now. Here, she plies her trade for an hour-long story of romance and action with a hands-on cast (literally) of characters, with just little special effects work to pepper things up. Alas, leading the way is aforementioned hopeless emo romantic Tom, still morning the death of his girlfriend BB a year since then. Desperate to avoid dying alone, Tom exhumes BB’s corpse and puts it in a body bag. Little does he know that he just prevented the possible worst from happening, right when the world falls under attack by weed-smoking […]

RETURN TO SEOUL Review: Lost Between Two Cultures

Mike Garcia

Freddie is a restless 25-year-old girl, born in Korea but adopted and raised in France, who embarks on a trip to Korea in search of her biological family. In her baggage she carries a great existential emptiness and an uprooting sullied by rancor that turns her odyssey into a tumultuous journey to nowhere in search of her real identity. This Cambodian/French co-production is a moving tale about those people caught between two different cultures but unable to fit in any of them, that are perfectly reflected in the wonderful performance of French/Korean newcomer actress Park-Min, who shines spreading her character´s emotions on the screen, perfectly guided by the crafty direction of French/Cambodian filmmaker Davy Chow, that presents a very interesting premise divided into two clearly differentiated parts, in which the viewers become accomplices of the protagonist in her emotional eviction and her vital ravings, which on more than one […]

OSKFF 2023 Review: Chang Peng-I’s NIGHT ORCHID (1983)

Lee B. Golden III

Taiwanese cinema is something else. To say the least, my proximity to this particular market has been scant in the twenty-seven years since Asian genre cinema gained its second foothold in the mid-nineties, so when I talk about just how fucking lit a film like Chang Peng-I’s Night Orchid is, it’s about as raw a reaction as you’ll get from me. The film sort of dives right into the middle of nowhere, during a deep conflict pitting swordsmen and warlords against one another in a story penned by none other than screenwriter and literary legend Gu Long, which takes off from a pre-existing TV series featuring Robin Hood-like character Chu Liu-xiang, played by Adam Cheng. Cheng takes the mantle once more, here joining actress Brigitte Lin who plays Su-su, a mysterious damsel he saves from a ritualistic sacrifice. There’s an air of foul play in the midst as Chu and […]

OSKFF 2023 Review: Chen Hung-Min’s VENGEANCE OF THE PHOENIX SISTERS (1968)

Lee B. Golden III

Chen Hung-Min’s 1968 directorial debut lends another poetic treat for curious audiences sitting in for this year’s Old School Kung Fu Festival spotlighting Taiwanese classics. Vengeance Of The Phoenix Sisters is the name with eighty-seven minutes of straightforward action and drama with just a few frills and snags but nothing that takes too much away from the institutionalized efforts to revitalize and restore this bygone action adventure. Chinese opera and silver screen stars Yang Li-hua, Liu Ching, and Chin Mei take on the respective roles of Xieufeng, Qingfeng, and Zhifeng in a story that leaps forward fifteen years following the deadly massacre of a former sheriff and his wife at the hands of three criminals he once jailed. Chen’s story takes off with Xieufeng front and center as she desperately begs her master and uncle, Zhenhai, for his blessing after years of training, hereby promising not to waste the skills […]

DOG TAGS Review: Vinegar Syndrome Relives the Vietnam Trauma in an Uncut 4k Spectacular Release

Mike Garcia

Following their quest for dusting off shelves in abandoned videostores in search of gems buried in the sands of oblivion, the guys from Vinegar Syndrome, have brought back from the swamps of a lost vietnam jungle, Romano Scavolini´s cult classic, “Dog Tards”, a violent and twisted vietnam war feature that drags the audience to a hostile jungle to accompany a special unit of the american army in the rescue of a group of POW soldiers, however, things gets complicated when a mysterious captain assign them a new mission: locate a downed helicopter within enemy lines, that contains classified information, but once the soldiers reach the helicopter they find out that is really filled with gold, that´s when what started as a rescue mission, turns into a descend to hell paved by greed and betrayal. Dog Tags is a fascinating violent tale that captivates the audience with its suffocating and desperate […]

OSKFF 2023 Review: Joseph Kuo’s THE SWORDSMAN OF ALL SWORDSMEN (1968)

Lee B. Golden III

While I’ve known the name Joseph Kuo, his 1968 wuxia feature, The Swordsman Of All Swordsmen, is a freshman venture for me into classic Taiwanese cinema. It delves into the time-honored revenge tale of a child orphaned at a young age when his parents are murdered by a quartet of killers looking to acquire his father’s sword, all leading up to our protagonist’s key story kicking off twenty years later when he arrives in a village and ultimately acquires his first of four targets who just happened to be harassing a street performer and his daughter at the time. Accommodating the film’s pristine digital restoration, the cinematography is fantastic from top to bottom, and with a story and pacing steady enough to keep the viewer interested. Tien Ping’s portrayal of Tsai Ying-Jie lends the audience an anti-hero you can root for and empathize with, and who emotes really well on […]

POWER RANGERS: ONCE AND ALWAYS Review: Finding Power In Forgiveness

Lee B. Golden III

Power Rangers: Once & Always is now streaming on Netflix. As restless as the mid-90s were for me like most kids my age, it was shows like Mighty Morphin Power Rangers that kept me situated, and with a concept and a brand that stood on something far bigger than most of us in the Western world would realize until the advent of the internet and galvanization of fandom made things so much more possible. Fast forward thirty years since the Fox Kids program took off and the show’s legacy remains as fresh as it did then for its target audience, including its latest commemorative induction with Netflix’s one-hour special, Power Rangers: Once & Always, featuring most of the cast of the franchise. Charles Haskell directed the special which centralizes franchise vets Walter Emmanuel Jones and David Yost back into the thick of things in the respective roles of Zack and […]

COLONIALS: Catch The Trailer For The New Sci-Fi Thriller From Epic Pictures

COLONIALS Review: Clunky Green-Screen Indie Sci-Fi That Aims For The Stars

Lee B. Golden III

Colonials is currently available on VOD from Epic Pictures Group. A film like Joe Bland and Andrew Balek’s latest offering, Colonials, wouldn’t be the first kind of project to challenge its directors with something ambitious and demanding. It also wouldn’t be the first of its kind to flounder in almost every way possible, in terms of producing anything outside of forgivable janky family adventure sci-fi, which is, really all I can manage to muster as a compliment at this point. A universe in which our world has become a dystopia amid a war between robotic overlord Grom leading a campaign to dominate humanity with the aid of his army of “Exiles,” and “Colonials” preparing to defend what’s left of mankind, is what sets the stage for our main story of Silas (Greg Kriek), a space colonist and the son of a Colonials commander whose ship gets attacked by exiles forces, […]

RIDE ON Review: Jackie Chan Trots Out Fun Family Drama And Excitement With A Love Letter To His Roots

Lee B. Golden III

Ride On is now available in U.S. theaters from Well Go USA Action star Jackie Chan turned 69 this past weekend, just in time for the arrival of his newest film, Ride On, which stands to invite more brouhaha from fans who’ve long taken note of the last decade or so of blurbs making the rounds of the actor’s retirement from the action genre. Invariably, the requisite cat-and-mouse set pieces and fight sequencing with Chan outrunning goons between punches and kicks with gags are ripe for the taking in Yang’s fifth and latest movie, but the effort toward a poignant, more substantive, and drama-heavy push isn’t wasted. At the core of Ride On is the celebration of industry in Hong Kong cinema, one specifically focused on the stunt community that so notably underscored the field as it did in the eighties and nineties. Vignettes and easter eggs highlighting moments from […]

SAKRA Review: Donnie Yen Pulls No Dragon Palms In The New Operatic Wuxia Epic

Lee B. Golden III

Sakra opens in select theaters on April 14, and on Digital beginning April 18 from Well Go USA. And the award for Cinematic Action Hero with The Greatest Odds on Shortest End Of The Stick (not a real award) this month goes to Qiao Fong, the folkloric Song Dynasty warrior and the TBA leader of the Beggar’s Sect in Sakra, the new wuxia martial arts opera starring Donnie Yen. Wong Jing sits in alongside our star to produce the pic while it is Yen, who, though long-credited as sharing the helm with Big Brother shepherd Kam Ka-wai, gets full frontal billing on this return to this chair as director. Set at a time of turmoil per the work of late literary legend Jin Yong, Sakra begins with the time-honored tale of a baby left in the care of adopted parents and brought up to become a warrior in the beggar’s […]

HIGH & LOW: THE WORST X Review: Fisticuffs And Hard-Fought Friendship Lead The Way For Another Supercharged Sequel

Lee B. Golden III

The last eight years or so of thrills from the hive mind at Japanese brand LDH and the writers of HI-AX have brought forth what stands to be one of the best multimedia action franchises ever created, with Shochiku and Netflix raking in much of the earnings. Credit as of late goes to the shared directorial powers of Daisuke Ninomiya and Norihisa Hiranuma, and action stylist Masaki Suzumura with a window of at least three years since Shigeaki Kubo transitioned the High & Low saga into a new era, one led by “The Rampage” members Kazuma Kawamura and Hokuto Yoshino, along with actor and franchise favorite Goki Maeda who now return for their continuation, High & Low: The Worst X. The story reimmerses you once more into long-established pentaterritorial S.W.O.R.D. whose Oya High confab still flexes its best under the otherwise still nascent leadership of the precocious and rambunctious Fujio […]

Streaming Sleepers: Wes Chatham Delivers A Knockout In THE PHILLY KID

Lee B. Golden III

Director Jason Connery’s fourth feature came to me as a recommendation years ago from a friend who works in the Thai film industry, and happened to be a fan of Wes Chatham upon seeing 2012 indie action drama, The Philly Kid. I honestly don’t know how the marketing for this particular film was so I can’t really allege anything, but the film was pushed and release in the U.S. at the time from After Dark Action, an imprint of After Dark Films, and I eventually saw it in 2014 on Digital Download. Fast forward nearly a decade later, and the film is currently streaming on Prime, which I thought would make for an ample opportunity to help get some eyes on this particular gem which sees Chatham in the role of Dillon, an ex-champ wrestler now out on parole after a ten-year stint in prison over the accidental death of […]

FIST OF THE CONDOR Review: Ernesto Diaz Espinoza’s Martial Arts Spiritual Touts A Star Still Reaching His Peak

Lee B. Golden III

Fist Of The Condor will commence the Alamo Drafthouse Fantastic Fest Presents series, opening exclusively in select Alamo Drafthouse locations on April 4 in the U.S.. Marko Zaror also will attend special screenings and live Q&A events at the Manhattan and Staten Island locations in New York City on April 4 and April 5, respectively, prior to the movie’s streaming release as a Hi-YAH! Original on April 7. Visit wellgousa.com for more information. The longstanding partnership between John Wick: Chapter 4 co-star of late Marko Zaror and Chilean writer/director Ernesto Diaz Espinoza continues its reign to this day, as the duo puts itself in a position to stay the course with martial arts adventure, Fist Of The Condor. The first in a coming trilogy of films, the film is split into chapters which explains why it is that earlier plans proposed included a possible web series to start with. Totaling […]

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JOHN WICK: CHAPTER 4 Brings A Whole New Meaning To The Word Action!

Joe Hallett

This weekend audiences around the World were treated to the return of Mr Wick in the fourth continuation of the John Wick saga. The brain child from actioners Chad Stahelski and David Leitch of 87 Eleven Action design and based on the character created by Derek Kolstad, a character that we have all come to love and root for while he goes on his violent revenge rampage against the organisation only known as “The Table”. The hype surrounding this film escalated after release on character posters and one in particular sparked much interest and debate as we got to see action star Scott Adkins in a very different way compared to his typical Boyka style characters, playing “Killa Harken” who has a much larger frame than Adkins usual characters. Alongside main man Keanu reprising their roles were of course Laurence Fishburne, Ian McShane and the late Lance Riddick with new […]

HUNT CLUB Review: Mena Suvari Leads A Paint-By-Numbers Survival Thriller That Remarkably Holds Its Own

Lee B. Golden III

Hunt Club will release on Digital and DVD beginning April 4 from Uncork’d Entertainment Directed by Elizabeth Blake-Thomas, survival action thriller Hunt Club stars Mena Suvari as Cassandra, a charming and precocious woman who is suddenly abandoned by her girlfriend at a diner where it just so happens that father/son duo Carter (Casper Van Dien) and Jackson (Will Peltz) are enjoying a morning meal. After a respite chat and recovering with seemingly newly formed friendship among the group, Cassandra and the fellas convene with several other individuals as they make their way to a remote game hunting ground where Cassandra has been auspiciously invited. It also stands to be seen if she’ll get to purloin a proposed money prize of about six figures if she wins the game, so not for nothing either if she gets to earn some cash opposite her competitors. Of course, for most of the runtime […]

Make Believe Seattle 2023 Review: In POUNDCAKE, Everyone Wants A Slice Without Weighing The Costs

Lee B. Golden III

Catfight was an amusing and entertaining dark comedy to watch, and my first introduction to the work of director and actor Onur Tukel. Fast forward to 2023 and I’m now inclined a little more to keep the helmer’s resumè in my purview per his penchant for fun-poking satire, knowing full well what his target audience is, especially with his latest horror nod, Poundcake. This film comes after just about everyone who’s ever had an opinion about anything. The prime focus here is placed surrounding the web of discourse that takes place as hype and hysteria set in New York City with the accumulating body count left by a serial killer: a brooding, portly, gimp mask-wearing chain murderer who targets cis white men, in some instances raping them until they die. Numerous conversations about the incidents arise between several podcasts and guests with various hosts putting their spin on the crime […]