Tag Archive
Megaforce
The initial financial failure of Disney’s Tron (directed by Steven Lisberger) was attributed to the enormous expectations based on the egregious expense of the project because of the complicated computer effects. Tron was simplistic story-wise, and the replication of the feel of a video game would become commonplace not long after its 1982 release. The […]
Style Over Stupid: Vol. 1, Black Dynamite vs. New York, I Love You
I’d imagine it’d be hard to convince someone to give you money for what amounts to a film school exercise. Not so much for the actors who will probably have a ball playacting and indulging their most deliberately childish ideas. Take, for example a movie like Gus Van Sant’s 1998 remake of Psycho, a thoroughly […]
The Forbidden Kingdom
Shoehorning a white teenager into a Chinese period piece just to make Americans feel like they’re not watching a foreign film is a deeply cynical move. Pretending the kid can perform martial arts, even in his dreams, is just plain foolish. But the strangest aspect of The Forbidden Kingdom, is that it misses the point […]
The Rundown
The Rundown has furious action sequences, at a pace not seen since Jackie Chan’s First Strike, is edited like a Robert Rodriguez movie, so you can’t see the seams, and Christopher Walken trying to explain The Tooth Fairy to people who don’t speak his language. The surrounding material is a mishmash of clichés, but The […]
Shaolin Soccer
In 1997, when ownership of Hong Kong was returned to China from the United Kingdom, more than a transfer of land took place. Many filmmakers and actors, who sensed the upcoming political change, had already left to pursue careers in the US where they anticipated they would have more freedom to make the kinds of […]
Naked Killer
The Hong Kong equivalent of Jerry Bruckheimer, writer/producer/director Wong Jing has been cashing in on trends for so many years, it’s no wonder that his movies are completely dated within a year. Watching films like City Hunter, where Jackie Chan dresses up as every character from the Street Fighter 2 video game, or the inane […]