Masters of Cinema have recently released two of director King Hu’s influential martial arts epics featuring excellent restorations commissioned by the Taiwanese government. The Blu-rays provide informative supplements to give context to Dragon Gate Inn (1967) and A Touch of Zen (1971/75).
Criterion make available Edward Yang’s legendary, little-seen masterpiece of the New Taiwanese Cinema, A Bright Summer Day, in a superb 2-disk extras-rich Blu-ray edition.
Genre, of course, is not limited to the fantastic — science fiction, fantasy, horror. Contemporary and historical dramas can also fall within genre boundaries. Prisoners (Denis Villeneuve) Denis Villeneuve’s thriller was much-praised by critics and audiences alike, and yet it struck me as a genre movie desperate to convince its viewers that it was actually […]
Sometime during the Ming Dynasty, two wandering soldiers arrive in the southern city of Guancheng. Armed with unusually long swords, they fight their way past the four martial arts schools which reign in the city. One of the pair is captured, while the other escapes and goes into hiding. He is Liang Henlu (Song Yang), […]
West of the Tracks (Tie Xi Qu) would be a remarkable film under any circumstances. But the fact that it was the first project of a young filmmaker, Wang Bing, essentially working alone with a digital video camera, shooting over a period of two years, then editing over several more years (the film appeared at […]