News

Get in touch to send in cinephile news and discoveries. To keep up with our latest features, sign up for the Weekly Edit newsletter and follow us @mubinotebook on Twitter and Instagram.NEWSGoodbye, Dragon Inn.The Tamil Film Active Producers Association has filed a writ petition to ban social-media film reviews for the first three days of the theatrical release, claiming financial losses due to negative “review bombing.” Theater owners have likewise proposed banning YouTubers from recording audience reactions in cinema lobbies and parking lots.The McL Cinema in Hong Kong’s Diamond Hill district has shuttered after just two years of operations, the seventh theater in the city to have closed this year. Insiders are bracing for the hit to the local film industry’s reputation and financial stability that could follow. For the past decade, Hollywood executives believed that brief theatrical windows would boost subscriber numbers for their streaming services.

Queer East Festival: On The Road will head out across the country from September to December, offering its biggest tour yet and showcasing a remarkable line-up of contemporary feature films, documentaries and shorts as well as special events that highlight a wide range of LGBTQ+ stories from East Asia, Southeast Asia and their diaspora communities.

Founded in response to the systemic lack of East and Southeast Asian representation on stage, screen and behind the scenes, Queer East Festival was formed in 2020 and has made its mark across the UK with its bold programmes of LGBTQ+ cinema and visual arts, growing in popularity and size year-on-year, and celebrating its fifth anniversary this year.

Queer East Festival’s ground-breaking film programme challenges conventions and stereotypes giving audiences an opportunity to explore the contemporary queer landscape across East and Southeast Asia. With its fifth anniversary edition, Queer East Festival reaffirms a commitment to...

Each week we highlight the noteworthy titles that have recently hit streaming platforms in the United States. Check out this week’s selections below and past round-ups here.

Am I Ok? (Stephanie Allyne and Tig Notaro)

A romantic comedy that functions best as a fable of friendship and self-reflection, Am I Ok? is the kind of lightweight, amiable movie that just barely earns the emotional beats at the heart of its story. Set in Los Angeles, it follows the converging life events of two best friends, Lucy (Dakota Johnson) and Jane (Sonoya Mizuno), soul sisters with opposite personalities who tell each other everything—except for the big secrets they’ve been harboring from each other. How they respond to hearing them fuels Stephanie Allyne and Tig Notaro’s gentle and wobbly feature debut. – Jake K-s. (full review)

Where to Stream: Max

Dad & Step-Dad (Tynan DeLong)

Following the stellar comedy Free Time,...

The general consensus is a pirate movie will contain lots of epic sea battles and hidden treasures. Well “The Valiant Ones” may contain treasure of the stolen kind but there is barely a sighting of a ship throughout, despite the coastal setting. Yet this is a King Hu feature so put that initial concern to one side and prepare to rediscover one of his less prominent works as Eureka entertainment release it in a new 4K scan.

on Terracotta by clicking on the image below

Pirates are attacking the coast of China and the Emperor (Chao Lei) tasks General Zhu Wan (Tu Kuang-chi) to assemble a small group to defeat them. Under the command of General Yu Dayou (Roy Chiao), they include the husband and wife sword fighters Wu Ji-yuan (Wing Bai) and Wu Ruo-shi (Feng Hsu). As they learn more about their opponents, it becomes evident...

Donnie Yen's underappreciated career features hidden gems worth exploring for action movie enthusiasts. Yen's diverse filmography ranges from intense martial arts battles to romantic comedies and even horror movies. Yen's charismatic performances in movies like "Heroes Among Heroes" and "Dragon Inn" showcase his star power.

The career of martial artist and actor Donnie Yen was chock-full of absolutely incredible underappreciated movies that action, fighting, and Kung Fu enthusiasts should be sure to check out. A highly skilled performer who always gave his all to every role he pursued, when watching a Yen movie, viewers were always sure to be in for a good time. From crazy action-based comedies to outrageous horror movies, Yen has had a vast and interesting career that was worth delving into for some hidden gems.

While there were so many great Donnie Yen movies and he may have gained recognition for his portrayal of the...

Watch too many movies and chances are you can predict the outcome within the opening minutes. Wuxia can feel often feel like this and so the enjoyment comes in the journey and not always the destination, as satisfying that inevitable confrontation might be. “The Swordsman of all Swordsmen” thus comes as a surprise with a twist in the expectations that focuses on the honor and chivalry as much as the notions of revenge. It's a perfect opportunity to revisit it with Eureka Entertainment releasing a restored version onto Blu-ray.

on Terracotta by clicking on the image below

As a young boy, Tsai Ying-jie (Tien Peng) witnesses the slaughter of his family by Yun Chun-chung (Tsao Tsien) and his accomplices in search or the Spirit Chasing Sword. Growing up into a swordsman in his own right, he seeks to exact revenge from those responsible. An encounter with Flying...

Get in touch to send in cinephile news and discoveries. For regular updates, sign up for our weekly email newsletter and follow us @NotebookMUBI.NEWSGoodbye, Dragon Inn.It’s getting harder to go to the movies. IndieWire surveys the state of cinemagoing in the US region by region as multiplexes continue to shutter. From downtown Detroit, the closest first-run theater is now in Canada.More than 500 pro-Palestinian demonstrators staged a sit-in at MoMA on Saturday, protesting the museum trustees’ alleged investments in weapons used by the Israeli military in Gaza. The museum closed its doors to the public and rescheduled planned programming.After confirming that three sitting representatives of the far-right AfD party had been invited to tomorrow night’s Berlinale opening ceremony, amid public outcry, the festival has now disinvited them.REMEMBERINGRocky II.The tributes to Carl Weathers continue to roll in after his death last week at the...

Acclaimed Iranian director Mohsen Makhmalbaf will serve as jury president at the 30th Vesoul International Film Festival of Asian Cinema (Viffac), which runs from February 6-13.

Held in France, this year’s edition will spotlight Taiwanese cinema and Malayalam-language films from India. A total of 92 films from 29 countries will be screened.

Makhmalbaf’s works include A Moment of Innocence (1996), which won a special mention at the Locarno Film Festival, as well as Kandahar (2001), which won the Ecumenical Jury prize at the Cannes Film Festival.

Other jury members at Viffac this year include Taiwanese director Zero Chou, winner of the Golden Bear at the Berlinale in 2007, Iranian actress Fatemed Motamed-Arya and Japanese actor Shogen.

There are 17 films across the fiction and documentary competitions, which come from China, Korea, India, Iran, Kazakhstan, Uzbekistan, Sri Lanka, Thailand, Bangladesh, Nepal and Taiwan. There are two world premieres, five international premieres, six European premieres and four French premieres.

Mostly known for elevating the wuxia genre in unprecedented heights, with films like “A Touch of Zen” and “Dragon Inn”, King Hu has also implemented his impressive aesthetics to this 1979 film, which lingers between the thriller and the ghost story, as usual including Zen Buddhist philosophy. Eureka Entertainment presents this epic in all of its 191 minutes, in a fully restored edition, in stunning 4K.

Legend of the Mountain is screening at Five Flavours

The story is adapted from a Song Dynasty folk tale and revolves around Ho Yunqing, a young scholar who is tasked by an eminent monk to transcribe a Buddhist sutra said to have immense power over the spirits of the afterlife. To execute his work in peace, he travels to the abandoned premises of an ex-general deep in the mountains, where he encounters a number of strange people. These include Mr Tsui, the man who welcomes him in the area,...

The holidays are upon us, so whether you looking for film-related gifts or simply want to pick up some of the finest the year had to offer in the category for yourself, we have a gift guide for you. Including must-have books on filmmaking, the best from the Criterion Collection and more home-video picks, subscriptions, magazines, music, and more, dive in below.

Giveaways

In celebration of our holiday gift guide, we’ll be doing a number of giveaways! First up, we’re giving away My First Movie Vol. 2, a three-part ‘lil cinephile series by Cory Everett and illustrator Julie Olivi, featuring My First Spaghetti Western, My First Yakuza Movie, and My First Hollywood Musical.

Enter on Instagram (for My First Yakuza Movie), Twitter (for My First Hollywood Musical), and/or Facebook (for My First Spaghetti Western) by Sunday, November 26 at 11:59pm Et. Those that enter on all three platforms...

After “Come Drink With Me” Hong Kong director King Hu probably could have stayed with Shaw Brothers Studio, but instead left the country for Taiwan where he would form his own company and in the years to come, make some of the best movies of his career. While the budget and conditions had certainly changed, Hu continued exploring the themes of his last feature in “Dragon Inn”, arguably his most popular movie aside from “A Touch of Zen”. As one of the most referred to entry in the wuxia genre, it not only provided cinephiles with great fight choreographies, great performances and a wonderful setting, with the architecture of the inn itself being the star of the show, “Dragon Inn” also proved how the genre would blend a highly entertaining formula with a very interesting and (after all these years) still quite appealing social commentary about the relationship of subject and ruler.

Summer is long gone and it’s time to look beyond the blockbuster. Our latest study of recent books about or related to the world of filmmaking is full of artistic titans––Sofia Coppola, Whit Stillman, Clint Eastwood, Christian Petzold, Kore-eda Hirokazu, Wes Anderson. This column also boasts a lengthy rundown of noteworthy novels, many of which will surely be brought to large and small screens in years to come.

Archive by Sofia Coppola (MacK)

In recent years this column has covered several books focused on the iconic, inimitable Sofia Coppola, including a hardcover career overview and interview collection. Archive is constructed from the personal collection of the writer-director of The Virgin Suicides and Marie Antoinette herself. And as one would expect from a filmmaker known for her sense of style, fashion, and design, the result is positively gorgeous. It is packed with photos, ephemera, collages, and text––nearly 500 pages’ worth.

Mainland China, July 2021: Another day another online movie made its way to the massively popular video streaming platforms there to catch the roving eyes of the viewers looking for a quick fix. Produced by Henan Guanglan Culture and starring a bunch of unknown actors, at least outside of China anyway, Tencent Video's “Longmen Town Inn” or “Dragon Gate Town Inn” in Chinese, is one such production like many countless more.

on Amazon by clicking on the image below

Set in a nameless desert, the simple plot concerns Wu Long Jian Xian (Chu Xiao Long), a peerless swordsman who has to fight off challengers from other cults eager to take him down in order to claim the top position in Jianghu. Ultimately this leads to a standoff at Broken Soul Cliff in which he is the sole survivor and thereupon he also decides to live in seclusion.

Whether new or old, the best Donnie Yen movies showcase the actor's incredible fighting prowess and his equally captivating qualities as a dramatic performer. With over 35 years of experience in the martial arts movie genre and proficiency in multiple martial arts styles, Yen is already a legend. The martial arts actor's career only continues to grow, especially after his introduction to a certain iconic Hollywood franchise with John Wick: Chapter 4. As Yen's fans excitedly await his appearance in the highly anticipated film, they can also look back at some of the best films in his career so far.

Proficient in a number of different martial art styles, and inspired by the movies of Bruce Lee, Donnie Yen started his career in 1983 and has become one of the most accomplished martial arts actors in movie history. As fans will see with John Wick: Chapter 4, on top of his acting skills,...

After last month kicked off with Sight and Sound unveiling of their once-in-a-decade greatest films of all-time poll, detailing the 100 films that made the cut that were led by Chantal Akerman’s Jeanne Dielman, 23, quai du Commerce, 1080 Bruxelles, they’ve now unveiled the full critics’ top 250. While the discourse up until now has featured many wondering why certain directors were totally absent and why other films that previously made the top 100 were left out, more clarity has arrived with this update.

Check out some highlights we clocked below, the full list here, and return on March 2 when all ballots and comments will be unveiled.

The films closest to making the top 100 were Rio Bravo, The House Is Black, and Vagabond, which tied for #103. Four directors absent in the top 100––Terrence Malick, Paul Thomas Anderson, Hou Hsiao-hsien, and Jacques Demy––have two films each in the top 250: The Tree of Life...

In the heyday of big-screen entertainment Thailand was home to some 700 standalone single-screen theaters. By 2019 only one of them survived in Bangkok. It was the Scala, a thousand-seat cinema that opened its doors on New Year’s Eve 1969 and closed them 51 years later, in July 2020, when it was shut, razed to the ground, and turned into a shopping mall. Scala, Ananta Thitanat’s heart-shaking documentary, is a chronicle of its demolition, but also a tribute to the mystical power it held over generations of patrons, told by the people who worked there and were eventually hired to dismantle it. Few films since Tsai Ming-liang’s Goodbye, Dragon Inn have captured the magic of a movie theater with the same awe Thitanat pours into Scala. Her feature debut, truly one of the finest premieres at this year’s Berlinale, is an engrossing obituary that feels joltingly alive in its struggle to rescue a place from oblivion,...

Mijke de Jong’s Along The Way was the only film to officially receive a physical screening.

Vanja Kaludjercic, festival director of the International Film Festival Rotterdam (IFFR), struck an upbeat note on the closing weekend of the 51st edition which included the physical world premiere of Mijke de Jong’s Along The Way, at cinemas in Rotterdam, Amsterdam and Groningen.

She hailed the efforts made by her festival team in putting together an online edition for a second year in such challenging circumstances. The entire festival had to be re-thought as an online event at short notice when in late December,...

Adilkhan Yerzhanov’s “Assault” and “Kung Fu Zohra” from Mabrouk El Mechri are among the lineup at International Film Festival Rotterdam’s (IFFR) 51st edition.

The films were among 10 features selected for the Big Screen competition, which aims to bridge the gap between popular, classic and arthouse cinema.

IFFR also boasts the Tiger Competition for emerging talent and Ammodo Tiger Short competition for shorts.

Among the 14 titles selected for the Tiger Competition, Roberto Doveris will present “Proyecto Fantasma,” Morgane Dziurla-Petit will deliver “Excess Will Save Us” and David Easteal will show “The Plains.”

The festival, whose full lineup was announced on Friday, will run as a virtual festival on IFFR.com from Jan 26-Feb. 6 for the second year in a row due to the Covid-19 pandemic. Festival director Vanja Kaludjercic revealed that the lockdown in the Netherlands had enforced some changes in previously announced elements of the program. For example,...

After a hiatus as theaters in New York City and beyond closed their doors during the pandemic, we’re delighted to announce the return of NYC Weekend Watch, our weekly round-up of repertory offerings. While many theaters are still focused on a selection of new releases, there’s a handful of worthwhile repertory screenings taking place.

Metrograph

Tsai Ming-liang’s masterpiece Goodbye, Dragon Inn has been restored and begins a run, while also streaming on their site. “Holidays at Metrograph” has a delectable selection: Eyes Wide Shut, Carol, Phantom Thread, Elle, and Whit Stillman’s Metropolitan.

Film Forum

Newly restored, Powell & Pressburger’s I Know Where I’m Going! is now playing, while The Harvey Girls and a 16mm print of Lady Windermere’s Fan screen this Sunday.

Roxy Cinema

A prints of Speed Racer screens on Sunday.

IFC Center

Peas in a pod? A Clockwork Orange and Willy Wonka are available for a double feature,...

Each week we highlight the noteworthy titles that have recently hit streaming platforms in the United States. Check out this week’s selections below and past round-ups here.

Goodbye, Dragon Inn (Tsai Ming-liang)

Though far better known by its English title, the appropriately elegiac Goodbye, Dragon Inn, Tsai Ming-liang’s 2003 masterpiece bears a rather different name in Mandarin (rendered here via pinyin): Bú sàn, which roughly translates to “never leaving,” or—if one prefers the Sartre connotation—“no exit.” It forms the root of two distinctly contradictory Chinese idioms, which perfectly encapsulate the lamentation and beauty of Tsai’s film: Tiān xià méi yǒu bù sàn de yán xí, the infamous “all good things must come to an end,” and Bù jiàn bù sàn, which more or less means “even if we don’t see each other, don’t give up and leave,” or “I’m not leaving until I see you.

The end of summer and start of fall has seen the release of several books that qualify as major entries in film studies—specifically Fun City Cinema and Inland Empire—along with some wild, wooly appreciations for the likes of Shaun of the Dead and Kevin Smith. Read on for details about these and much more.

Fun City Cinema: New York City and the Movies That Made It by Jason Bailey (Abrams Books)

Billed as a visual history of a century of filmmaking in New York City, Fun City Cinema is the book NYC deserves, Jason Bailey without question the right author for the job. As he showed in books on Richard Pryor and 1970s detective pictures, Bailey is adept at analyzing why certain films and individuals make such a deep impact on the cultural and artistic landscape. Fun City Cinema might be his most ambitious yet—large-scale, photo-heavy, and...

After “Come Drink With Me” Hong Kong director King Hu probably could have stayed with Shaw Brothers Studio, but instead left the country for Taiwan where he would form his own company and in the years to come, make some of the best movies of his career. While the budget and conditions had certainly changed, Hu continued exploring the themes of his last feature in “Dragon Inn”, arguably his most popular movie aside from “A Touch of Zen”. As one of the most referred to entry in the wuxia genre, it not only provided cinephiles with great fight choreographies, great performances and a wonderful setting, with the architecture of the inn itself being the star of the show, “Dragon Inn” also proved how the genre would blend a highly entertaining formula with a very interesting and (after all these years) still quite appealing social commentary about the relationship of subject and ruler.

The hybrid event has set two world premieres and six international premieres.

The New York Asian Film Festival (Nyaff) has named most of the 60-plus films it will screen for its 20th edition, a hybrid event running August 6-22.

The festival’s two world premieres will include Japanese director Yu Irie’s political satire Ninja Girl and among the six international premieres will be The Book Of Fish, a South Korean homage to black-and-white cinema by Lee Joon-ik, and Nasi Lemak 1.0, from Malaysian director Namewee.

The festival’s 29 North American premieres will include virtual screenings of Tough Out, Xu Hui-jing...

With a seemingly endless amount of streaming options—not only the titles at our disposal, but services themselves–each week we highlight the noteworthy titles that have recently hit platforms. Check out this week’s selections below and past round-ups here.

Chained for Life (Aaron Schimberg)

“Do you feel like the story is exploitative?” a journalist asks actress Mabel (Jess Weixler) about the new film she’s starring in, early into Aaron Schimberg’s brilliant second feature Chained for Life. In a meta-melodrama that constantly seesaws between fiction and reality, sprawling across a labyrinthine and multi-layered narrative that seamlessly jumps from one textual plane to another, I found myself wondering whether the question was in fact leveled at Schimberg’s own work. – Leonardo G. (full review)

Where to Stream: Mubi (free for 30 days)

Education (Steve McQueen)

In Education, the fifth and final film in Steve McQueen’s Small Axe anthology,...

Though far better known by its English title, the appropriately elegiac Goodbye, Dragon Inn, Tsai Ming-liang’s 2003 masterpiece bears a rather different name in Mandarin (rendered here via pinyin): Bú sàn, which roughly translates to “never leaving,” or—if one prefers the Sartre connotation—“no exit.” It forms the root of two distinctly contradictory Chinese idioms, which perfectly encapsulate the lamentation and beauty of Tsai’s film: Tiān xià méi yǒu bù sàn de yán xí, the infamous “all good things must come to an end,” and Bù jiàn bù sàn, which more or less means “even if we don’t see each other, don’t give up and leave,” or “I’m not leaving until I see you.”

From title on down, Goodbye, Dragon Inn, one of the greatest films in the history of cinema, construes itself not as the simple paen to a dying artform as which it is often perceived,...

Get in touch to send in cinephile news and discoveries. For daily updates follow us @NotebookMUBI.NEWSThe death of the great John le Carré reminds us of the power of secrets—the oldest of narrative devices. Thankfully, there’s a brand new festival launching, focused entirely on secrets. Spyflix will showcase stories from classic espionage and hacking adventures to thrillers, investigative documentaries, true crime, and detective stories. Spyflix is accepting submissions (for awards with cash prizes) now through February 28th, 2021, and will start screenings April 18th, 2021.The Sundance Film Festival has announced its 2021 lineup, which includes the latest Sion Sono, Theo Anthony, Christopher Makoto Yogi, and Ana Vatz.The country submissions for International Feature Film at the 2021 Academy Awards—currently scheduled for April next year—are keeping us on our toes. Beginning, which will be coming to Mubi next year, is Georgia's submission, and Jallikattu, a bold genre favorite from our Toronto coverage last year,...

The first film I saw when Metrograph opened a few years back was a first-time viewing of Tsai Ming-liang’s Goodbye, Dragon Inn on 35mm, so it’s a bittersweet full circle experience as the new restoration of the film will be premiering as part of their Virtual Cinema lineup this month. A masterful, spiritual tribute to the power of movie-going and the theatrical experience, the nearly wordless film is set inside a soon-to-close movie theater presenting its final screening: King Hu’s epic Dragon Inn.

“My grandmother and grandfather were the biggest cinephiles I knew, and we started going to movies together when I was three years old. We would go to the cinema twice a day, everyday. Sometimes we would watch the same film over and over again, and sometimes we would find different cinemas to watch something new. That was a golden age for cinema,” says Tsai Ming-liang.

Get in touch to send in cinephile news and discoveries. For daily updates follow us @NotebookMUBI.NEWSAbove: Wonder Woman 1984. Warner Bros announced the surprising decision this week to have its entire 2021 theatrical slate—which includes Dune, Wonder Woman 1984, and even Clint Eastwood's Cry Macho—on the streaming service HBO Max for each film's first month of release, in addition to a concurrent theatrical release. In other seismic shifts in cinema history, Kodak has sadly discontinued its color internegative stock, a decision that will no doubt have long-term consequences. As John Klacsmann points out on Twitter, this is "the most used stock when preserving 16mm experimental film." Recommended VIEWINGCo-organized with the Taiwan Film and Audiovisual Institute (Tfai) and Taiwan Cinema Toolkit, Anthology Film Archives is presenting a must-see, free series of Taiwanese b-movies, a realm of cinema containing "the down-and-dirty genre films that proliferated in the late 1970s and...

Mostly known for elevating the wuxia genre in unprecedented heights, with films like “A Touch of Zen” and “Dragon Inn”, King Hu has also implemented his impressive aesthetics to this 1979 film, which lingers between the thriller and the ghost story, as usual including Zen Buddhist philosophy.

Legend of the Mountain is streaming on Mubi

The story is adapted from a Song Dynasty folk tale and revolves around Ho Yunqing, a young scholar who is tasked by an eminent monk to transcribe a Buddhist sutra said to have immense power over the spirits of the afterlife. To execute his work in peace, he travels to the abandoned premises of an ex-general deep in the mountains, where he encounters a number of strange people. These include Mr Tsui, the man who welcomes him in the area, the mysterious and beautiful Melody and her mother and caretaker of the monastery, Ms Chang, and...

Get in touch to send in cinephile news and discoveries. For daily updates follow us @NotebookMUBI.NEWSDisney has announced that Barry Jenkins will helm the live-action The Lion King sequel, which reportedly includes "Mufasa's origin story."Speaking of sequels, Chinese authorities have approved the production of a project written by Wong Kar-wai, curiously titled Chungking Express 2020. The synopsis states that at least a portion of the film will take place in 2036, where "young Xiao Qian and May are unwilling to be held back by genetic partnerings, and insist on finding their own ‘destiny’.”Festival season persists: The Cannes Film Festival will be hosting a three-day "Special Cannes" event in October that will feature the screening of four Official Selections, in-competition short films, and the Cinéfondation’s school films. This year's San Sebastian Film Festival concluded with the sweep of Georgian filmmaker Dea Kulumbegashvili’s debut feature Beginning, which received four of seven jury prizes.

Mubi's series Wuxia Dreams: A King Hu Double Bill is showing in the United Kingdom.Above: Dragon InnA nondescript inn, on the arid, soundless edge of the Chinese empire. An abandoned mansion, tucked away in the seemingly quotidian humdrum of village life. The treatment of these two residences in King Hu’s Dragon Inn and A Touch of Zen demonstrates a key creative stroke in the filmmaker’s larger-than-life, heady cinema: turning locations from mere settings for character drama into rich, compelling characters themselves. As figures of the Ming dynasty’s high society spill into the inn and mansion and entangle local residents in broader national conflicts, Hu brings these spaces to life, making deep investments in their narrative significance and meaning. The inn and mansion become locations of political and physical combat, vessels of moral warfare, and sites of genre play, displaying some of the highlights of Hu’s filmmaking arsenal.

King Hu’s “A Touch of Zen” was a notorious production. It took 3 years to complete, with Hu taking various breaks in between shoots for reasons such as waiting months for a set to get an aged look naturally or for some flowers to bloom for a particular scene. Purportedly during one such break, his assistant director Tu Chung-Hsun took it upon himself to make a picture of his own using the same actors that were working on “A Touch of Zen” and had also worked in “Dragon Inn” before that for Hu, which resulted in “ A City Called Dragon”.

“A City Called Dragon” is screening at Taiwan Film Festival Edinburgh

The story is set in the Southern Song Dynasty, when China is occupied by the Manchu. The patriots are all holed up in Mount Taihang, using it as a stronghold for their resistance. Shang Yen-Chih is on her way...

In the late ’60s and ’70s, swordplay films across Taiwan and Hong Kong reemerged to a new wave of popularity. King Hu’s „Dragon Inn” (1967) took several box offices by storm and won the Golden Horse Award. By critics, it is regarded as one of the keystones of the genre, which influenced many others. And “Vengeance of the Phoenix Sisters” – by the “Dragon Inn”s editor Hung-min Chen – is one of the notable examples. As Professor Ru-Shou Robert Chen noted, the director followed the genre conventions of the wuxia set up by “Dragon Inn” (with the obligatory figure of the inn) but was also able to leave his trademark. Hung-min Chen found his inspirations also in westerns, and some scenes bear the visual style of Japanese chambara films. The latter has an explanation in the director’s biography – in the early 60s, as a Central Motion Picture Corporation employee, he...

One of the highlights of the last year in the United Kingdom has been the release of several King Hu movies on blu ray allowing one of the true craftsman of Asian cinema to be re-appreciated. Given the prodigious output of his contemporaries, it seems astonishing that his whole canon only amounts to 14 Features, yet some of these are undeniably masterpieces.

Like “Dragon Inn”, this is more of a traditional wuxia movie as opposed to more fantastical works like “A Touch of Zen” but that is not to belittle it in any way.

The plot on the surface is quite simple. A bunch of rebels seek to capture the map that official Lee Khan is carrying, detailing the location of the rebel army. Awaiting him at the Spring inn lies a handful of rebels and a bunch of ex convict waitresses.

Action cinema is not strictly renowned...

The final film is King Hu’s “Inn Trilogy”, and the follow-up to his highly-acclaimed A Touch of Zen, The Fate of Lee Khan once again shows the master filmmaker’s impeccable talent in creating drama out of a single setting. An espionage thriller with a unique wuxia twist and shades of Kurosawa’s Seven Samurai, the film chronicles a tense showdown between warriors on opposing sides of a civil war in a rural inn.

When Lee Khan a dangerous and cunning Mongol official, and his equally deadly sister Lee Wan-erh (Hsu Feng; A Touch of Zen), arrive at the Spring Inn to obtain a battle map that reveals the location of the Chinese rebel army, a group of resistance fighters, including an all-female group of ex-convicts plan to recapture the map, whatever the cost.

As much a pre-cursor to the ‘hangout’ movie as it is an action packed wuxia adventure,...

A 35mm print of King Hu’s Come Drink With Me (1966) screens at Webster University’s Moore Auditorium (470 East Lockwood) Thursday May 23rd, The screening begin at 7:30. Facebook invite can be found Here

The first feature film from master of the wuxia King Hu and his only collaboration with Shaw Brothers, Come Drink with Me introduces us to the character of Golden Swallow, a general’s daughter who finds herself rescuing her brother from bandits. As portrayed by burgeoning Shaw star Cheng Pei-Pei, Golden Swallow is a feminist action heroine for the ages.

Screening from a 35mm print courtesy of the American Genre Film Archive.

Admission is:

$7 for the general public

$6 for seniors, Webster alumni and students from other schools

$5 for Webster University staff and faculty

Free for Webster students with proper I.D.

The post Come Drink With Me – Chinese Action From 1966 Screening in 35mm at Webster University...

Many of us approach our pop culture backwards, in a phenomenon we might well call the Simpsons effect: pop culture recycles and references older pop culture faster than we can fill in our experiences of the originals. Along those lines, many TIFFs ago, I was watching Tsai Ming-Liang's Goodbye, Dragon Inn, in which the eponymous King Hu martial arts film plays for the last time at a gloomy old movie theatre that is about to close. In Goodbye, Dragon Inn, we watch the audience watch Dragon Inn; watch the theatre staff clean the theatre after the last ringing blade has echoed off the screen. We don't watch...

[Read the whole post on screenanarchy.com...]...

Home video fans may want to start looking for second jobs for the summer, because the Criterion Collection is teasing a wealth of goodies in July. The first two that grabbed my eye are King Hu's Dragon Inn, which I got to see once on 35mm, leaving the images happily burned into my brain; and Michael Powell and Emeric Pressburger's A Matter of Life and Death, which I've only seen on television yet is seared into my heart. Both films will make their debut on Blu-ray in "stunning new 4K digital restorations." Sex and baseball are highlighted in two films that, really, only use their respective theme(s) as a jumping-off point. Steven Soderbergh's sex, lies, and videotape...

[Read the whole post on screenanarchy.com....]...

Criterion just announced their selections for July, and surprisingly they’re led by not one, but six films from director Josef von Sternberg and actress Marlene Dietrich. Also getting the Criterion treatment is Ron Shelton’s classic “Bull Durham,” Steven Soderbergh’s breakout hit “sex, lies, and videotape,” as well as classics “A Matter of Life and Death” and “Dragon Inn.”

The biggest announcement, literally, is the six-film boxed set, titled “Dietrich & von Sternberg in Hollywood,” commemorating the collaboration between legendary actress Marlene Dietrich and director Josef von Sternberg.

The Criterion Collection has announced its July titles, including Steven Soderbergh’s Palme d’Or–winning “sex, lies, and videotape” and Ron Shelton’s baseball classic “Bull Durham.” Also joining the Collection are King Hu’s wuxia masterwork “Dragon Inn,” Powell and Pressburger’s endlessly moving “A Matter of Life and Death,” and a new box set celebrating the collaboration between Marlene Dietrich and Josef von Sternberg. Full details below.

“Bull Durham”

“Former minor leaguer Ron Shelton hit a grand slam with his directorial debut, one of the most revered sports movies of all time. Durham Bulls devotee Annie Savoy (Susan Sarandon)-who every year takes a new player under her wing (and into her bed)-has singled out the loose-cannon pitching prospect Nuke Laloosh (Tim Robbins), a big-league talent with a rock-bottom maturity level. But she’s unable to shake Crash Davis (Kevin Costner), the veteran catcher brought in...

Hong Kong film icon Brigitte Lin Ching-hsia, who is rarely seen in public these days, will be on hand to open the 20th edition of the Far East Film Festival in Udine. She will also receive the festival’s lifetime award, the Golden Mulberry.

The opening film is set to be Korean thriller “Steel Rain, an actioner backed by streaming video platform Netflix. There are currently no plans to show it on the big screen again. Also on the opening night agenda is Malaysian drama “Crossroads: One Two Jaga.”

The festival program runs 20-28 April and includes films from 11 East Asian territories, 5 world premieres and a trio of restored titles. Among the classics is Johnnie To’s “Throw Down,” brought back to life by the Italo-Hong Kong company L’Immagine Ritrovata.

New for the 20th edition is the launch of the White Mulberry competitive section. It will include 21 films by first or second time directors.

The Far East Film Festival launches its 20th edition on 20 April with Netflix’s South Korean spy thriller Steel Rain, playing for the very first time on the big screen. The world premiere of Namron’s Malaysian drama Crossroads: One Two Jaga will also screen on Opening Night at the festival in Udine, Italy. A total of 81 films from 11 Asian territories will be screened over 9 days, closing on 28 April with Indonesian war thriller Night Bus. Hong Kong screen legend Brigitte Lin is this year’s guest of honour, with the festival screening 6 of her best-loved films, including Ronny Yu’s The Bride with White Hair, Wong Kar-wai’s Chungking Express and Raymond Lee’s Dragon Inn. Among this year’s highlights include Korean thrillers...

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Mostly known for elevating the wuxia genre in unprecedented heights, with films like “A Touch of Zen” and “Dragon Inn”, King Hu has also implemented his impressive aesthetics to this 1979 film, which lingers between the thriller and the ghost story, as usual including Zen Buddhist philosophy. Eureka Entertainment presents this epic in all of its 191 minutes, in a fully restored edition, in stunning 4K.

The story is adapted from a Song Dynasty folk tale and revolves around Ho Yunqing, a young scholar who is tasked by an eminent monk to transcribe a Buddhist sutra said to have immense power over the spirits of the afterlife. To execute his work in peace, he travels to the abandoned premises of an ex-general deep in the mountains, where he encounters a number of strange people. These include Mr Tsui, the man who welcomes him in the area, the mysterious and...