Iron Monkey - Platinum Edition: One of the most visually spectacular films ever produced by a Hong Kong studio this is a traditional epic style movie boasting fight choreography by Yuen Woo Ping action director of ""The Matrix"" ""Crouching Tiger Hidden Dragon"" and ""Kill Bill vol 1"" and soon-to-be Hollywood star Donnie Yen. This film is credited by fans and critics as containing some of the most intricte and technically difficult fight action ever shot for the screen. Set in the late Ching Dynasty 'the film depicts the life of legendary herbal doctor Dr Yang whose high-kicking alter-ego ""Iron Monkey"" protects the poor and needy against the barbaric excesses of the corrupt political regieme. Relentlessly pursued by the goverment's most accomplished fighters Yang must utilize all his skills to avoid capture and protect his people. (Dir. Yuen Woo-Ping 1993 Cert. 12) New Dragon Gate Inn: Bursting with enery hyper-kinetic fight-action and stunning imagery 'New Dragon Gate Inn' tells the story of fabled resistance fighter Zhou Huaian and his heroic struggle against despotic eunuch and master swordsman Cao Shao-qin played with considerable menace by martial-arts supremo Donnie Yen. 'New Dragon Gate Inn' is an atmospherically tense action-drama packed to the brim with amazing fight sequences awe-inspiring cinematography and nail-bitting drama. The final fight sequence shot in the Gobi desert is an adrenaline-pumping masterpiece which is undoubtedly one of the most memorable scenes in any Hong Kong movie. (Dir. Raymond Lee 1992 Cert. 18) Once Upon A Time In China 2: martial arts expert Wong Fei-Hung (Jet Li) faces Kung a mercenary rival with skills to equal his own. In addition Canton is convulsed by a struggle between the local representatives of the Chinese government and Europeans who want to control China and Wong ends up in the middle of this fight. The climatic shipboard fight sequences are simply amazing! (Dir. Tsui Hark 1992 Cert. 15)
City Of God (2002): Youth gangs took over the slums of Rio de Janeiro during the 1960s and didn't relinquish their stronghold until the mid-1980s. Only a sucker wouldn't have turned to crime and this is exactly how naive teen Rocket (Alexandre Rodrigues) views himself. His attempts in illegal activity fail as he finds potential victims too friendly. Equally unsuccessful in love he regularly fails to lose his virginity. Blood spills throughout the streets of the Cidade de Deus as gang leader Li'l Ze (Douglas Silva) is challenged by local druglords and a gang of pre-teens known as the Runts. Nominated for Best Director and Best Adapted Screenplay at the 2004 Oscars. (Dir. Fernando Meirelles Cert. 18) Hero (2004): One man will challenge an empire... In pre-Imperial China feared warrior Nameless (Jet Li) is granted an audience with the ruler of the most powerful of the seven warring kingdoms (Chen Daoming). Posing as a minor official Nameless sets about his mission of revenge by relating the tale of how he defeated the three most fearsome of the ruler's adversaries. However nothing is as it seems and Nameless is placed in great personal peril as the king suggests a very different version of events which brought him to the palace... Filled with breathtaking wirework-enhanced martial arts sequences from action choreographer Ching Siu-Tung ('New Dragon Gate Inn' 'A Chinese Ghost Story') truly sumptuous cinematography from the legendary Christopher Doyle ('In The Mood For Love') and an expressive traditional score from Tan Dun ('Crouching Tiger Hidden Dragon') Zhang Yimou's elegant epic features an intriguing 'Rashomon' style flashback structure that will keep the audience guessing until the very end. The most expensive movie ever made in China and a blockbuster upon its' theatrical release in the U.S. 'Hero' showcases the outstanding talents ofa multi-award winning cast including the pairing of Tony Leung and Maggie Cheung as star crossed lovers the coquettish Zhang Ziyi ('Crouching Tiger Hidden Dragon') as a feisty apprentice venerated Chen Daoming lending gravitas as the Emperor-in-waiting and real-life martial arts masters Donnie Yen and Jet Li who co-designed perhaps the greatest duel ever committed to celluloid. Nominated for both an Oscar and a BAFTA 'Hero' is an exceptional example of Asian cinema and ""really is one of the best looking films ever made."" - The Guardian
Released in 1992, Hard Boiled is John Woo's farewell to the kind of blood-spattered cinema of vengeance and redemption with which he had made his name as a director in Hong Kong during the late 1980s. The following year he was in Hollywood filming Hard Target with Jean-Claude Van Damme, and an era had effectively ended. This might explain the elegiac feel Woo brings to his study of two men haunted by the violent consequences of their actions. Chow Yun Fat generates tremendous sullen energy in his portrayal of Tequila, a plain-clothes cop who not only loses his partner in a shoot-out with a gang of underground gunrunners but also discovers that he's unwittingly killed a fellow officer working undercover. Playing opposite him is Tony Leung as the enigmatic Tony, a young police officer who has secretly managed to penetrate the world of illegal arms-dealing in the guise of a cold-blooded gangland assassin. With rival gangs fighting over the weapons trade and Tequila gunning for Tony, unaware of his true identity, Hard Boiled has an unsurprisingly high body count, particularly when the various factions converge on a private hospital, reducing it by the movie's end to a smoking war zone, its corridors strewn with corpses. John Woo's ability to exploit the comic-book profundities of the genre, endowing his set-piece action sequences with a uniquely emotional edge, comes through in the controlled use of slow motion, cut-away details and brooding freeze-frame studies of the central characters. The image of Chow Yun Fat cradling an abandoned baby against his chest while he blasts his way out of the hospital's maternity unit has an enduring sharpness to it. However, a sense of ending runs throughout the movie, as if Woo were acknowledging that, having done everything he could with the format, the time had come for him to move on. And perhaps it had. --Ken Hollings
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