2011 - FLYING SWORDS OF DRAGON GATE - sort of a remake of Dragon Gate Inn

Filmmaker Tsui Hark's sort of update of Dragon Gate Inn which came out in the mid 1960's and was directed by one of the best wuxia filmmakers King Hu.  Tsui Hark brought his usual vigorous staging over the top action and crazy visual effects while updating the plot to fit his style of storytelling.

 

Hark cast Jet Li who was pushing 50 when this film came out.  Li still was pretty agile of course it didn't hurt that he was assisted by the wild wire work that the Asian stunt arrangers like to use during the action scenes.  As usual with Hark the film was loaded up with not one but in this film three gorgeous Asian female actors, Zhou Xun, Chris Lee and Gwei Lun-mei.  As in many of Tsui Hark's films the women are equally as good at  sword fighting as the men.

 

Flying Swords of Dragon Gate involves the Emperor's main consort (mistress) attempting to eliminate the Emperor's harem in order to retain power.  One of the harem's consorts flees into the desert where she ends up at the Dragon Inn and is protected by Jet Li.  Throw in a roving gang of outlaws, soldiers loyal to the main consort, a mystical desert dust storm which threatens to blow the Inn off the face of the earth and you have a lot of opportunities for Tsui Hark to top one action scene after another.  Just for good measure there is also a hidden city buried in the desert made out of gold for the outlaws to loot when the pacing of the film slows down which it never does.

I usually enjoy Hark's films.  Watching one of his films usually guarantees you are in for a pretty entertaining time.  Hark is definitely one of the masters of the action genre and at age 75 he's still working.

This film was written by Tsui Hark, Zhu Yali and Ho Kei-ping.  The running time is kind of on the long side at 125 minutes, but it's never dull. 

1995 - LOVE IN THE TIME OF TWILIGHT, a love story among other things

A big favorite of this blog, Tsui Hark films a love story/fantasy/comedy/ghost story/time travel film.  Hark mashes together about every film genre he can think of.  The main plot seems to be a love story about a young couple who can't stand each other but will eventually fall in love in the future.

 How do we know this?  Nicky Wu plays a bank teller named Kong who meets a woman who is a member of the Peking Opera.  The woman is Charlie Yan playing a character named Yan-Yan.  Early in the film Kong is killed during a bank robbery but comes back as a ghost who needs Yan-Yan to help him relive the last two weeks of his life so he can prevent getting killed. Since this is a Tsui Hark film, this is just the jumping off point for him and this story.

The film has a crazy time travel plot which probablaly puts any of that Back to the Future time travel stuff to shame.  Hark also indulges in some weird low brow humor involving toilets and vomiting.  The sets are colorful and the actors appear to enter into the spirit of this nutty story.

 

Needless to say Hark brings that dynamic and sometimes overly dynamic style of his to this film.  This is yet another entertaining film from the master director who appears to be having fun orchestrating all this chaos

The running time is 103 minutes the writers were Sharon Hui and Tsui Hark

1993 - GREEN SNAKE, a visually stunning film from Tsui Hark

The producer/director and writer Tsui Hark takes an ancient Chinese legend and applies his dynamic style to it for another incredible film.  This fantasy involves two giant snakes, a white one and a green one who can assume the form of  beautiful women.  The white snake falls in love with a human while the green snake attempts to understand the human emotion of love.  But this is just the jumping off point for some amazing visuals as only a director like Tsui Hark can stage them.

The snake women are played by Maggie Cheung and Joey Wong and Hark really cranks up the eroticism that these two women give off.  No wonder the human played by Wu Hsing-kuo is unable to resist them.

 

Hark and his production team also integrate some excellent special effects which for a change serve the story instead of being allowed to overwhelm the film.  Something that has been a major problem with American special effects films for some time.

  

 Green Snake also combines sensual photography and impressive set design which adds to it's  unique mood.

A fascinating Chinese fantasy film from one of Hong Kong's most creative directors.

The running time is 99 minutes.

2018 - DETECTIVE DEE: THE FOUR HEAVENLY KINGS, the third in the Detective Dee series

This is the third film is Tsui Hark's revival of the Detective Dee character and probably the lesser of the three films.  This film still has all the wacky action scenes and over the top CGI that is expected from Hark when he gets involved in a fantasy film.  

This time Dee must guard something called the "Dragon Taming Mace" from the Empress of China who fears that Dee will use it to overthrow the Tang Dynasty. To be honest the film is so confusing I'm not even sure what "The Four Heavenly Kings" are.

As expected the incorruptible Dee must work to stop the Empress and expose a cult of magicians that wants to take over China, and so it goes.

 

This is entertaining foolishness on a big budget.  No one knows better than Tsui Hark how to use CGI and very wild and rapid editing to make his stories an entertaining blends of fantasy and action which as usual borders on the insane side of film making when he's involved.

Written by Chang Chia-lu and Tsui Hark.  The running time is 132 minutes, probably a little on the long side.

1983 - ZU WARRIORS FROM THE MAGIC MOUNTAIN, crazy Chinese fantasy film

 Just reading the plot synopsis for this film lets you know immediately that you are in for something very weird and special.  A Hong Kong fantasy with action and humor.

Directed by the incomparable Tsui Hark.  The film jumps from one outlandish scene to another.  The special effects were contributed by a team of American technicians which included Robert Blalack who had received an Academy Award for special effects on Star Wars of all things.

 

This is an extremely influencial film in Asian cinema and was clearly a source of inspiration for John Carpenter's Big Trouble In Little China.

 

Written by  Shui Chung-yuet and Sze-to Cheuk-hon, running time 98 insane minutes.

2014 - THE TAKING OF TIGER MOUNTAIN - good Chinese action film

 Hong Kong filmmaker Tsui Hark's take on the battle between the People's Libertation Army (PLA) of China and a Chinese warlord played by an almost unrecognizable Tony Leung Ka-fai.  The warlord has been terrorizing the local population from a fortress located in a place called Tiger Mountain.

The film has a lot of thrilling action set pieces as only Tsui Hark can deliver and at times was clearly filmed during the winter which must have been a very miserable experience for the actors.

Tsui Hark is good a delivering action scenes and if there is a complaint it's that the movie runs 141 minutes which is a little on the long side.

The film was written by Tsui Hark, Wu Bing, Dong Zhe, Lin Chi-an and Li Yang.

Action filmmaking at it's best.

2005 -SEVEN SWORDS or heads will roll and arms and torsos and other body parts.

Tsui Hark's redo of The Seven Samurai with a lot more violence.  This is one of those wuxia films where the characters slice and dice each other for a couple of hours.

Probably one of the more conventional films I've seen from Hark.  Seven Swords is well made and has very good action, it's just been done before and done way too many times.

This film is a clear attempt by Hark for a hit film something he hadn't had for a while.  Hark had announced during the making of Seven Swords that this was to be a six film series but there hasn't been a sequel since he released it. 

The lack of follow up films is probably for the best.  Even Tsui Hark couldn't stay interested in this story.

153 minutes, the film was written by Tsui Hark, Cheung Chi-sing and Chun Tin-nam.

1986 - PEKING OPERA BLUES, action comedy from Tsui Hark is a masterpiece of entertainment

Another highly entertaining film from Tsui Hark frequently called the Steven Spielberg of Hong Kong although you could make a pretty good argument that it should be the other way around.

The film is unusual in that it has three women as the leads.  Most interesting is the presence of Brigitte Lin a woman who frequently played androgynous roles in Hong Kong cinema. 

This is Tsui Hark in the prime of his box office period perfectly combining his action style with some broad farcical comedy.  Peking Opera Blues was a big success for him.

I am deliberately avoiding discussing the plot to this film or any details of Peking Opera Blues, this is one of the top films coming out of Hong Kong cinema in the 1980's from a master filmmaker. 

104 minutes.

1988 - KNOCK OFF, Tsui Hark deconstructs/sends up/spoofs, the Hong Kong action film.

The incredible plot to Knock Off, has something to do with planting mini bombs in pairs of blue jeans which in turn can be used to terrorize the United States by threatening to detonate their pants or something like that.

The film stars the you asked for it action team of Jean Claude Van Damme and Rob Schneider.  Van Damme is supposedly playing a fashion designer and Schneider is supposedly an undercover CIA agent, no credibility stretching here.

The real star of the film is Tsui Hark.  Once again Hark uses his super charged film technique to take a series of action scenes and stage and film them in the most kinetic way possible.  Hark's technique completely overwhelms the film as it escalates into a series of elaborate action pieces ending with a see it to believe it scene on a ship involving cargo containers rolling around the deck attempting to crush Van Damme.

Tsui Hark traffic manages another action scene.

Clearly the concept was to make an action/comedy film.  However someone should have spoken with Hark before the filming because he is definitely marching to his own drummer on this film.

A fascinating mess.

91 minutes.

2001 - THE LEGEND OF ZU aka ZU WARRIORS, Tsai Hark's elaborate Chinese fantasy

Tsui Hark directed and produced one of the most elaborate digital effects fantasy films I have ever seen.  It's visually stunning and stunningly incoherent as a film. 

The story:

In the floating Zu Mountains good and evil have been at war for thousands of years.  Now the Blood Demon is releasing his blood clouds has he prepares his final assault on Zu.  Meanwhile "White Brows" has summoned "King Sky" and "Red" to keep the Blood Demon inside the blood cave.  Unfortunately Red has become possessed by "Amnesia" a flower demon and now wants to destroy Zu.  "Enigma" and "Hollow" will unite in Ying and Yang with their divine swords to stop the blood demon's blood clouds.

 That's just half of the plot I actually figured out and that took some work.

What the Legend of Zu is really about is Tsai Hark letting his imagination run completely out of control with digital computer effects.  Watching what Hark has created is one of the most visually overwhelming experiences I have ever sat through.

 I believe Tsai Hark was attempting to translate traditional visual storytelling into some kind of new kinetic graphic expression.  For all the CGI that is used in Hollywood films, no one has had the guts to push it to this extreme and this film came out 10 years ago.

This was an expensive Hong Kong film production that failed to find and audience.  I can imagine watching this film in a theater was probably an overwhelming and exhausting experience for the average film goer.

 The Legend of Zu is an important film and also a fascinating failure at the same time.

104 minutes, written by Tsai Hark and Lee Man-choi.