September 29, 2011

Ip Man: The Legend is Born (Herman Yau, 2010)

Unimpressed by Ip Man: The Legend is Born trailer, the film didn’t make it into my preliminary list of ten films for the Fantasia Festival therefore, mere hours before the showing, cutting it close to showtime, I quickly decide on a secondary list of ten films for the festival, bringing my total up to twenty films so far. Once I […]
April 19, 2010

The Lookout (Scott Frank, 2007)

In The Lookout, after a violent car accident, a promising young man, disabled by a memory condition, is persuaded into robbing the local bank he works in.
March 11, 2013

Fists of The White Lotus (Lieh Lo, 1980)

After Executioners from Shaolin, Fists of the White Lotus confronts our heroes with Pai-Mei’s brother hell-bent on exacting revenge for Pai-Mei’s death.
December 16, 2013

The Lady Assassin (Quang Dung Nguyen, 2013)

The Lady Assassin, a martial arts blockbuster, is my first Vietnamese film. A light Sunday night screening at this year’s Fantasia Festival, it was attended by a notable number of people from Montreal’s Vietnamese community. Billed as a Vietnamese wu xia, in the film, a princess sold in marriage is taken in by a team of high-flying, ass—kicking, thieving assassins […]
November 26, 2010

Brass Knuckle Boys (Kankuro Kudo, 2008)

Brass Knuckle Boys is a Japanese comedy about an old Japanese punk-rock music band from the ’70s and ’80s looking to extend their 15 minutes of fame.