What proved the saving grace to the careers of these action stars – and also a way to turn the self-caricature, normally a loss, into a win – ended up getting bigger than just any one of them. It gave them a moment of relevance to get some action films of theirs made, but it won’t last long.
Great cinema Black Mask is not, nor an achievement in martial arts filmmaking it is not either, too frequently hampered by shoddy mise en scène and editing. The story is not much to write home about either, eschewing the love triangle potential between Tsui Karen and Yeuk Laan with the most anticlimactic death scene possible…with still half an hour to go.
Welcome to Fistful of Film Fury, Sound on Sight’s new regular column exploring the world of martial arts film (The term world is taken seriously in this case, as shall be demonstrated in the weeks and months to come.). Fighting movies have been one of the most sought-after genres since the 1970s. The expansion of its popularity came in the aforementioned decade and was in large part due to the jaw-dropping output from the Shaw Brothers Studios in its heyday.
The Expendables 2 Written by Richard Wenk and Sylvester Stallone Directed by Simon West USA, 2012 Of the myriad problems with the horrifically tedious first instalment of The Expendables, one of the most prominent was the incompetent execution of its action sequences. Prone to an absurd cut frequency, confusing spatial relations, terrible CGI blood effects …
Not long ago, Sound on Sight’s editor Ricky D emailed myself and fellow contributor Michael Ryan for the purpose of compiling some of our individual favourite martial arts pictures to celebrate The Raid‘s theatrical release across North American this Easter weekend. I would never consider myself to be a scholar of the genre, but it …
The release of The Raid: Redemption has made us revisit our favourite martial arts flicks and pick five favourite films to suggest for Sound on Sight readers. Before I give my five picks though, I would like to turn the floor over to a man who has been a friend of mine since grade seven at Oxford …
With the release of The Raid: Redemption, I’ve asked Sound On Sight contributors Edgar Chaput and Michael Ryan to help me put together a list of 15 classic martial arts films that we consider essential viewing. Here are my five choices. 11- The Blade (Doa) Directed by Hark Tsui Inspired by the 1967 Shaw Brothers …
Anyone who follows my Twitter feed would have noticed that I posted a tweet stating that one of the secret/last minute additions to the Fantasia Film Festival would be Ti West’s latest horror flick The Innkeepers. You see every year I pretty much guess what all the “secret” screenings will be. Two years ago I …
Some new tills for famous Kung Fu choreographer turned director Tony Ching Siu-tung’s martial arts driven fantasy The Sorcerer and White Snake has been released. The film which stars one of my all time favorites Jet Li, is based on the oral Chinese folktale “Legend of the White Snake”. Here is the short plot description …
Horror, fantasy, Hong Kong action, animation, strange documentaries, gored-up science-fiction, Japanese Pink films and martial arts flicks are just among the many genres Fantasia has covered in its fourteen years of programming. Famous for being the largest genre film festival in North America, Fantasia is packed with Canadian, North American and worldwide feature-length premieres as …
It has been confirmed that Brice Willis will be joining fellow action icons Sylvester Stallone and Arnold Schwarzenegger in The Expendables. The film, slated for a 2010 release, is based on a group of mercenaries who are trying to take out an evil South African dictator and shot like your typical 80’s-style action flick. Directed …
The Warlords 2007, Hong Kong/China Directed by Peter Chan Written by Xu Lan, Chun Tin-Nam, Aubery Lam, Huang Jian Xin, Jojo Hui, He Jiping, Guo Jun Li, James Yuen Starring Jet Li, Andy Lau, Takeshi Kaneshiro, Xu Jinglei 127 minutes, English 35 mm Generally speaking, when an action star attempts a role that requires delivering …
Fantasia Festival is North America‘s premiere (and largest) genre film festival. It is also my favorite film festival and so I could not wait to share the highlights of this years line up. Here is a sneak peek at what we will be reviewing in the upcoming week of our podcast. CRUSH AND BLUSH – …