china

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FIGHT AGAINST EVIL Review: Xiao Mie fights crime in an intense action thriller

Xiao Mie (As God, Fighting for the Motherland) grew up in movie sets in company of film deities such as Jet Li (My Father is a Hero, Legend of the red dragon) or Chow Yun Fat (Hard Boiled, The killer) and being directed at a very young age by legendary filmmakers such as Corey Yuen (Above the Law, Ultraforce) or Wong Jing (God Of Gamblers, City Hunter), is undeniable that there´s no better film school than have been blessed with the chance of learning the craft from the best, This, combined with his exceptional qualities and overwhelming charisma, has made Xiao Mie become, in his own right, one of the most visible faces of action cinema coming from China. FIGHT AGAINST EVIL, was small production released in 2021 highly influenced by the forays into cop films by Wilson Yip (Ip Man, SPL) with Donnie Yen (Flash Point, Kung Fu Jungle) […]

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HUNT THE WICKED 缉恶 TRAILER: Andy On and Xiao Mie join forces in upcoming action thriller for IQIYI

Chinese streaming platform Iqiyi, gives a hint to the audience with the trailer of their upcoming action thriller from director Feng Huo Sui-Qiang (Blind War, The comeback) starred by Xiao Mie (Fighting the motherland, As God) and Andy On (Special ID, Kung Fu League) The sypnosis shared by the platform tells about the story of a brilliant detective, Huang Mingjin and genius criminal, Wei Yunzhou, through multiple encounters and life-and-death games, revolving around the core secrets of a mysterious and sinister city. As the police and ruthless criminals engage in the process of punishing evil, how each of them makes their choices is explored. Awaiting them is not only a test but also a judgment. The trailer guarantees a brutal action experience on the screen showing the two main characters as bitter enemies that need to fight together for a same goal. Promising a fest of glorious violence that must […]

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BAN DRUGS (破冰) Review: A full-packed action cop thriller that comes short on reaching the intended spectacularity

Starring Sammy Hung, son of HK movie deity, the one and only Sammo Hung, this police action thriller of very simple international title (although its original Chinese title is no better, “Break the Ice”, however both titles are related with the plot), follows the adventures of a workaholic police officer (Sammy Hung) with marital problems and obsessed with catching a dangerous elusive drug dealer, that risks his integrity and his dear ones to have the job done. The final result is a small low budget VOD production in the wide and vast chinese streaming service world, that presents a non-stop action feature full of repetitive and anodine ballistic action and brief glances of fighting sequences, so brief that we can´t barely appreciate whether are worth it or not. Besides that, the director even attempts to innovate with POV sequences videogame style that only ruins the rythm of the sequences. The […]

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FIGHTING FOR THE MOTHERLAND Review: Small Wins Leading to the Ultimate Victory

Historic action film that tells the heroic deeds of Xin Qiji, poet and chivalrous hero from the Song Dynasty who took up arms to recover the lost lands and expel the Jin Army, in order to recover the Central Plains region, pacify the north, and serve for national reunification. Jet Li´s protegee, the charismatic and talented Miu Tse leads the cast of this epic heroic tale that fills the screen of brutal violence, and grandious battle scenes, that despite some cheap CGI shots, offers a craftily well made spectacle, with good production values that indicates that there was a more than decent budget involved, however, the film suffers from a painful generic score, that prevents it from create a cinematic memorable atmosphere that could had brought this heroic deed to a higher level reaching that unforgettable memorability that the best films of the genre dispose. But anyhow, the film brings […]

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EIGHTEEN ARHATS OF SHAOLIN TEMPLE Review: Violence in the Serve of Justice

Exciting Martial Arts adventure that recreates a heroic deed based on real events, which tells how a group of Shaolin monks faced a group of bloodthirsty Japanese pirates to liberate a village. Growing up as Jet Li´s sidekick on marvelous films such as “My father is a Hero”or “Legend of the Red Dragon“, must be the closest thing in real life to being Robin for Batman, but also there should also be no better school to become a full-fledged action hero. its been almost 30 years since those endeavors as prodigy child, and there’s no doubt that this privileged early childhood education that he received alongside one of the biggest legends of martial arts cinema, has helped Miu Tse to forge himself as one of the top action heroes of modern action cinema that comes from china. Despite Miu Tse leads the cast of this adventure, the truth is that […]

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SHEEP WITHOUT A SHEPHERD II AKA FIREFLIES IN THE SUN: Fighting a Rotten System to Save Your Son

Chinese remake of 2002 American thriller drama film directed by Nick Cassavetes and starred by Denzel Washington, “John Q”, but also sequel of 2019 Chinese drama film, “Sheep Without a Shepherd“, that was also a remake of 2013 Indian film starred by Mohanlan and directed by Jeethu Joseph. The film revolves around Lin Rilang, a desperate father whose son is diagnosed with an enlarged heart, that needs to be fixed with an expensive operation. Unable to collect the big sum of money, Lin Rilang hijacks the medical centre at gunpoint, in order to save his son´s life. An intense crime thriller film, that unfolds on its surface a story about the corruption of a rotten system in a society of obedient sheeps, where one man sometimes needs to raise the voice and make the difference in seek of justice. But also, a moving drama about the power of love, on […]

ONE LAST SHOT Review: Storm of Bullets with Sci-Fi flavor

ONE MORE SHOT Review: Storm of Bullets with Sci-Fi flavor

“The Story of Riki” has a big cult following among Hong Kong moviegoers around the globe, and since then, Fan Siu Wong has gained an important place in the hearts of the most nostalgic fandom, however, not many of those fans are aware that Fan Siu Wong keeps kicking ass in the chinese market where he doesn´t seem to lack of job opportunities, although that the only works that we could see from him in the west were Attrition, his adventure with Steven Seagal pretending to be Ip Man, or his own adventure portraying Ip Man.. This recent work, delivers a thrilling action/science fiction adventure, in which Siu Wong plays a Special Forces Team leader who quits his job after a disastrous mission where none of his men survived, but after that traumatic experience, he´s asked to enrolling high-tech military program, where his chance of being a hero is granted […]

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CAPTAIN CHINA Review: Fighting for the Motherhood… And barely surviving…

This film has been mocked and slammed by western media, accused of being a cheap rip-off of Marvel´s Avengers with all the heroes of Chinese Folklore, and is undeniable that the film deserved all the backlash and didn´t deserve any praise, but it wasn´t neither the big happening that seemed that western media tried to make us believe it was, since it was just another low-budget independent film destined to be lost and forgotten in the vast sea of Chinese streaming platforms, that on other hand, probably felt benefited by all that negative that translated into free publicity that would give it some undeserved 15 minutes of fame. Captain China is a mega-popular super idiot… Uh, I mean… A superhero, to whom money and fame has completely gone over the top of his head, (as it happened to Van Damme in the early 90´s) But soon, he falls from grace […]

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THE OUTLAW THUNDER: DRAGON FURY ROAD: The Road Warrior From The East

In a desert post-apocalyptic world ruled by an evil organization named Sirius. A man known as Thunder, general of that organization, makes the choice of picking the side of justice, betraying them with no remorse, in order to fight them back and put and end to their reign of terror and fear, redeeming himself and a painful past that still haunts him, rescuing in the proccess a bunch of girls that were abducted by Sirius with mean intentions. A simple premise that is just an excuse to deliver a brutal martial arts spectacle, exploiting all the keys of post-apocalyptic cinema, ripping off the Mad Max saga, including Fury Road with a spectacular car chase opening sequence, but adding to the equation a non-stop martial arts fest, where Yue Song, as star and director of the film, displays a succesion of bone-breaking fighting sequences where he favors the impact of the […]

THE EIGHT HUNDRED Review: The Heroic Deed that Smashed the Box Office

Set in 1937, this huge chinese blockbuster that smashed the box office in 2020 becoming the highest grossing film worldwide, follows the heroic deed of a group of 800 Chinese soldiers, who resisted the Japanese aggresion in sanghai, defending the Sihang warehouses, carrying over their shoulders the hope of a nation and the dignity of their people, having as ultimate goal, survival as the last win. Director Guan Hu captures onto the screen the harshness and ugliness of war through breathless action sequences, in which we follow the choral cast across a rain of shrapnel and bullets, in a battlefield where death approaches in every corner, giving us an intimate look to those men who bravely risked their lives for their nation, whom actually were just a bunch of young men and boys who their only wish was that hell to end as soon as possible and return home with […]

IP MAN: KUNG FU MASTER Review: Kung Fu As The Ultimate Weapon For Truth And Justice

Chinese film industry continue turning their most beloved martial arts historical figures into pulp characters, sometimes even bordering on the superhero genre, but overall looking to exploit this figures beyond of what they really were, to bring them to the olympus of legends, where the wide variety of possibilities is unlimited, and all them stop being historical figures to transform into fictitional characters that inhabit universes that those kung fu masters could never imagine, bringing to moviegoers around the world endless hours of evasive entertainment. Since Wilson Yip and Donnie Yen teamed up to turn Ip Man in a cinematic hero, the character has become a recurrent figure for martial cinema of late that comes from the mainland, and alongside another historical masters as Wong Fei Hung or Huo yuanjia, has reached the status of eternal cinematic iconic hero. For Ip Man: Kung Fu Master, Dennis To reprises the main […]

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KNIGHTS OF VALOUR Review: Revenge as Unique Way of Survival

This new adaptation of an excerpt from the classic of Chinese literature, ‘The Romance of the Three Kingdoms’, brings the audience back in time to the turbulent years towards the end of Han Dinasty, in an exciting journey to an era of war and destruction to portray into screen a bloody tale of revenge forged by mountain of corpses, fire and death, that begins in spectacular fashion with an epic and bloody war battle in which we know the main characters and their motives, giving way to an obsessive seek of revenge as unique way of survival at the hands of the only survival from that battle, the son of General Guan Yu, who also fell in battle. Throughout the film, we are witness how the revenge begins to take shape, and despite that on its second half the pace seems to drop considerably, it is offset by a thrilling […]

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TEARS OF NO REGRET Review: Sun Wukong Falls In Love And Disgrace To Save Mankind

Set 300 years after the unforgettable adventures of “Journey To The West”, this new reinvention of Sun Wukong as fictional character, introduce us The Monkey King being bewitched by the wraiths and condemned by the spirit of resentment to murder his mentor, the monk Tang Sanzang, but Wukong´s will and inner strentgth allows him to fight back, and get rid of the spell of the wraith that was consuming his soul. After discovering that behind the wraiths there´s a Goddess of heaven and earth, Wukong decides travel 300 years back in time, in order to save the monk and the goddess soul, in a battle to save mankind. Sun Wukong´s possibilities as fictional character are as endless as his own immortality and the Chinese entertainment market is squeezing them to the last consequences. This Fantasy adventure brings back the Monkey King in a fun and original new vision, where the […]

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I AM SOMEBODY Review: Welcome to “ChinaWood”

The Hengdian World studios builded in 1996 and located in china, in the province of Zhejiang, are the largest film studios in the world. A city of cinema considered the Hollywood of the East, or “Chinawood“, where hundreds of television series and movies are shot every day, in which some of the modern classics of Chinese and Hong Kong cinema such as “Hero” or “Crouching tiger, Hidden Dragon”, among many others, have been made. A city that receives everyday hundreds of dreamers with big aspirations to become someone in the difficult and competitive world of entertainment. Written and directed by Derek Yee, the film tell us about the misadventures of a group of aspirants who arrives into Hengdian, looking for the same dream, only having great expectations as introduction letter, finding out by themselves that cities of dreams are paved by broken dreams and disappointments of those who tried but […]

MULAN LEGEND Review: Mulan Beyond Disney

While in the West we are still mired in the controversy of Disney empire’s decision to not release its Mulan in theaters and relegate it to its digital platform at what some consider a very high price. In this messy 2020, the vast chinese streaming platforms have released around six films about the character, and probably there´s so much more to come. This Mulan Legend is not another adaptation of the story that we all already know. the plot is set after the original story and follows mulan already being a general, gathering a bunch of peculiar mercenaries to rescue a kidnapped princess. In this adventure, the plot doesn´t revolve just around Mulan, sharing an equal protagonism with her supporting characters, and being the center of the plot the mission that they have to accomplish. Filled with heroism and unbridled action, the film opens with a spectacular action sequence, under […]

Wolf Warrior I & II REVIEW: Wu Jing fights for the motherland for the sake of entertainment

Back in the 80’s, this type of movies were made by Americans with Chuck Norris or Sylvester Stallone as action heroes, but now the world has changed and that kind of badass war action films, loaded with cheap cinematic patriotism to highlight all the virtues of the action hero are made in China. Some of them are even produced by the goverment with propaganda purposes. Some are big blockbusters as Wolf Warriors, but others are just low budget productios with zero interest that surfaces in the VOD niche. Wolf Warriors is a military action thriller directed by Wu Jing himself, in which he played a Chinese special force soldier that is confronted by a group of dangerous foreign mercenaries who are hired to assassinate him by a vicious drug lord. 90 fast paced minutes of action fest with Wu Jing as action hero, supported by Nan Yu (The Expendables 2) […]

CHEN ZHEN, THE TOKYO FIGHT Review: An action fest with a desperate romance defying two rival nations.

In the chinese movie universe, their most important martial arts historical figures have become in part of their cultural folklore, reimagining their stories countless of times, turning them into superheroes and fictional characters that trascends the passage of time and have overshadowed the real men behind their legend. Is difficult to summarize how many times the story of Chen Zhen (which his real name was Liu Zhensheng) has been adpated into the screen, however, is undeniable that his more iconic incarnations has been the ones performed by Bruce Lee in “Fist of Fury” (1972) and Jet Li in “Fist of Legend” (1994) This new adventure of the character, could perfectly work as prequel of “Fist of Legend”, telling the story of Chen Zhen, when his Master Huo Yuanjia, (another icon in martial arts cinema) sent him to Japan to study engineering in Tokyo´s university, to bring back tho his motherland […]

JIAN BING MAN Review: A superhero meta-comedy with a pancake superhero, a full star cast and Jean Claude Van Damme as final enemy.

Da Peng is a popular Chinese comedian, who had a successful web series on the Chinese internet called “Diors Man”, who had his moment of glory when Conan O’Brien accused him of plagiarism on his show, and for a few months, the two were throwing fun gibes to each other from their respective shows. For this crazy meta-comedy, he became an orchestra man, being the screenwriter, the main actor, and debuted as a director in a major film, surrounding himself of the best of the chinese entertainment industry. The plot of the film revolves around his own persona, basically playing himself, a popular internet comedian, who in order to buy a ten million engagement ring of ten million for his fiancée, accepts the offer of a triad´s leader to shoot a movie, unfortunately, Da Peng gets involved in a scandal where in addition to losing his shame, he loses the […]

FIST OF LEGEND (2019) Review: The Making Of A Hero

Prequel to the Chen Zhen played by Jet Li, in the essential 1994 classic that shares the same title in English with this production, that tells the story about the early adventures of Chen Zhen in Japan, during his days as student in the university of Tokyo, giving us an insight look of the beginning of his love relationship with the Japanese girl who gave him so many headaches in Jet Li’s “Fist of Legend” and making him, once again, the banner of the rights of the Chinese people against the evil Japanese empire, whom are again the villains in a plot loaded with that stale nationalism that looks so good in this type of movies and that positions the audience next to the hero. The little expressive, but brilliant martial artist, Tiger Xu, is in charge on this occasion of embodying the character, relying his performance on his terrific […]

NEZHA CONQUERS THE DRAGON KING Review: Changing Destiny Fantasy Fable

Nezha kills a dragon to save a young lady, provoking the rage of the snake spirit, who vows to kill Nezha and avenge the dragon, setting the world on fire, forcing Nezha to make a big sacrifice in order to save the innocent ones, letting in the hands of the girl he saved from the dragon, the key to save the world, for which she would have to pay an ultimate price. A different and more mature approach of the story, that shows Nezha as a teenager instead of a child, like in previous versions. A fantasy martial arts tale, full of action and romance, in which our hero must deal with the responsibility of having been choosen to learn the path of immortality in a world of mortals. A story that explores the limits of love, and how far, people who has fall into that treacherous trap, are willing […]