Before Ip Man, there was Master Huo. As the centuries-long reign of the Qing Dynasty draws to a close, China faces growing military pressure from the outside world, making it increasingly difficult for citizens to maintain their former way of life. Tensions rise to a boiling point when Japan’s plot to seize martial arts stronghold […]
Based on the classic wuxia novel Demi-Gods and Semi-Devils by Louis Cha (known worldwide by his pen name Jin Yong), SAKRA stars Donnie Yen as Qiao Feng, the respected leader of a roving band of martial artists. After he is wrongfully accused of murder and subsequently exiled, Qiao Feng goes on the run in search […]
As the title suggests, this is a vibrant, delirious, and demented sensory overload which is part sci-fi action film, part absurdist comedy, part existential crisis, and part dysfunctional family drama. Throughout its hyperkinetic multiverse storyline stands the steady, mercurial presence of Michelle Yeoh, playing world-weary laundromat owner, Evelyn, in a career-defining performance. It would be hard […]
Low-budget horror flick with an effective, devilish, gruesome streak and great action – sort of Clive Barker meets Albert Pyun. Director Peaary Teo leans into the film’s twisted mix of neo-noir, ghost story and devil worship, leaving room for gifted martial artist D.Y. Sao (a USA national wushu team member and Simu Liu’s fight trainer […]
The first part of a time-hopping South Korean sci-fi opus which draws on many familiar elements but is more than equal to the sum of its parts. There are extended CGI-driven alien battles involving spaceships and cities being destroyed which could easily be from the latest Marvel blockbuster. These scenes are interspersed with a period-set, […]
Another DTV Ip Man spin-off, which follows very similar straight-to-streaming efforts like director Li Liming’s double-bill of 2019’s Ip Man: Kung Fu Master – in which Dennis To returned to the titular role – and its 2020 prequel, Ip Man: Crisis Time, plus Fu Li-wei’s 2019 film, Ip Man and Four Kings. Miu Tse (the wushu kid from the 1990s Jet Li classics New […]
