Mama Hung
A full journey from the beginning of "Swordplay" movies in Shanghai, growth in Hong Kong cinemas in the 60's and 70's and Ang Lee's epic "Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon" in 2000. The series also features interviews with such luminaries including John Woo, Chu Yuen, Lau Ka Leung, Gordon Lau Ka Fai, Sammo Hung, David Chiang and Cheng Pei Pei.
After finishing the open examination for Form 5 students and applying for an adult identity card, Yoyo, eighteen, departs for London to meet a guy introduced by her well-meaning parents in Britain. The guy, named Cheung, is in his thirties. Yoyo's and Cheung's grandfathers were wartime buddies. They swore to have their unborn babies get married when they grew up. However, the babies turned out to be both women. The two women are now mothers. They come across each other again and want to make their fathers' wish come true, so they arrange for Yoyo and Cheung to meet in London. Yoyo and Cheung promise to get marry in order to please their mothers. But on the wedding day, they also sign a divorce agreement which is effective one year after their marriage.
Taking place in Hong Kong of 1962, a melancholy story about the love between a woman and a man who live in the same building and one day find out that their husband and wife had an affair with each other.
A young man adopted by a renowned swordsmith, discovers that his real father was killed by a powerful bandit called Lung. Leaving to seek revenge, he runs foul of a group of vicious desert scum, losing his right arm in the process. After being nursed back to health, he eventually learns to compensate for his loss and returns to confront the man who murdered his father.
Stephen Chow plays an angel-type being in this movie, in where he bets the other people in Heaven that he can change the ways of 3 misguided souls and make them better people. Ressurected as a monk, he must stop a prostitute, a beggar, and an all around bad guy from being what they are (and have been for generations). To add to all of this, he must do this in 3 Heaven days!!!
When a new teacher (Sharla Cheung) arrives, she finds herself caught up in the affairs of the students from her class. Jimmy Lin is harbouring an unrequited crush on childhood friend Athena Chu. However, he is too shy to reveal his feeling to her when he discovers that she has fallen for the cool kid in class, Nicky Wu. Meanwhile, another student Dicky Cheung has gotten himself into trouble with the triads after failing to pay a debt owed to them. With so much going on, how will Sharla Cheung find a way to solve the troubles of her students and get them to study hard to pass their exams?
Set in World War II, Casino Tycoon chronicles the story of Benny, a young graduate played by Andy Lau, who flees Hong-Kong during the Japanese invasion and heads for gambling haven Macau. Once in Macau, he impresses a local business man who has ties to organised crime, he slowly builds his way up in the ranks of the Macau underworld which ultimately leads to trouble.
Joe, a police officer, has a happy life with his wife, who's pregnant. But one day when he gets a tip that a bank is about to be robbed, he rushes to it but killed. The hostage Gucci then holds the loot. Joe becomes a vampire when a black cat jumps on his body and is hit by lightning. Not until he is sent to the hospital when he passed out, does he notice he's dead and needs electric recharge to be alive. In order to keep his wife from being sad, he doesn't tell her the truth. Even when his best friend Fung and Gucci find it out, he asks them to keep in secret. To get back the loot, the robbers seize both Gucci and Joe's wife, forcing Joe to bring the loot to exchange them. Along with Fung, Joe goes to rescue Gucci and his wife, while his wife delivers a baby. After a severe fight against the robbers, Joe finally wins but drops down as he runs out of his electric power...
The story of Ho, a chinese peasant/slave worker who escapes to Hong Kong and becomes one of the most feared crime bosses in Hong Kong.
Sing, a dumb, lovable mainlander with supernatural powers comes to China to visit his uncle Tat. When it's revealed that Sing can see through objects, Tat employs him as "The Saint of Gamblers," and proceeds to set him loose in the gambling world.
Chingmy starts noticing some very odd things about the neighbors and it turns out they they are evil spirits needing the blood of 49 humans. Cheung Man is one of these spirits - but a kind hearted one who falls in love with Natalis Chan
Ling Sie-Cheong, a businessman whose boss permits him to occupy a luxurious but long vacant house, rent-free, Ling not being aware that the palatial residence was where an entire family was murdered but has remained upon the premises as ghosts and, shortly after Ling and his parturient wife (Pat Ha) move into the home, she suffers serious pregnancy complications through ghostly interference and is subsequently hospitalized.
Midnight Whisper is a radio talk show in which listeners call in to discuss their lives. One evening a gentleman calls in to say that he has been in love with a woman for a very long time – but that his love seems hopeless – she has become the mistress of another man for the love of her daughter. The daughter then calls in to say that the man is lying and that her mother is a terrible woman. Finally, the next day the distraught mother calls in to tell her story. Kung fu diva Moon Lee Choi-fung star in this rare melodramatic turn as Lee Siu-hong, a troubled Mainland Chinese lass who runs away from home to become a Hong Kong prostitute. As her desperate mother (Josephine Koo Mei-wah) scours the colony's pleasure quarters, we see flashbacks of the girl's unfortunate past.
A Fiction Writer and her sister travel to the country to work on a new novel. But, local thugs and a murder complicate matters.
A martial artist must train incessantly to defeat the brutally powerful thief called Centipede.
Taking place in 1941, Love in a Fallen City centers on Pai (Cora Miao), a young woman who has been ostracized by her family for divorcing her rich husband. A local match-maker, Mrs. Hsu (Helen Ma), takes pity on Pai and decides to bring her to Hong Kong, under the guise of employing her as the Hsu's nanny, but in reality to introduce her to Fan (Chow Yun-Fat). Pai and Fan seem to hit it off, but Fan's refusal to marry Pai soon sours things. However, as the Japanese begin to invade Hong Kong, the two begin to realize their true feelings for each other.
Leslie is Simon, a mild mannered guy starting a new job and taking care of his mom and dad. He catches a glimpse of a pretty girl named Monica at the MTR station--and it's love at first sight. But she's going through a tough breakup with a guy who's married. She does get over it and the two become a couple. But not only does her ex return, Simon is constantly interrupted by a perky rich girl Anita, who spends lots of money on him, is annoying, but is just looking for company. This strains Simon and Monica's quest for love, but finally she puts Simon to a test, once again at the MTR station...
The Occupant is about a young woman (Sally Yeh) who is trying to write a book/thesis on chinese superstitions. So she arrives in HK and rents a really cheap apartment. In the meantime, she befriends Raymond Wong's shady salesman desperate for a little R&R and Chow Yun Fatt's cop. Well, her apartment is haunted by the spirit of a deceased singer, hence the cheap rent.
The story follows a "loveable" rascal as he gambles and gets into various bits of trouble with outlaws and rebels. He eventually gets into a situation where he has to impersonate the eunuch servant of an elderly eunuch who is an evil martial art master. This gets the rascal involved with the emperor who is studying martial arts. The whole movie revolves around a quest for all the copies of a special Buddhist text.
Chen is a dedicated social worker who has allowed her job to dominate her personal life. Inadvertently, she neglects her devoted husband Lo-Wei and their young son. Although he dislikes his wife's patients ("they're just street trash"), Lo-Wei is tolerant of his wife's workaholic situation and he takes the opportunity to develop a strong unity with his son, Chia-Pu. Then, Lo-Wei's sister offers to babysit the child while the parents respond to an emergency case. While they're gone, one of Chen's "delinquents" breaks into the house and rapes the sister. During the assault, baby Chia-Pu climbs out of the window and falls to his death. Lo-Wei is over-the-edge with grief. His brain snaps. He withdraws into himself, except at night when he stalks the "street trash," gruesomly killing them...
Hong Kong Hong Kong (or "Man and Woman" as it literally translates) is the story of a young woman, Man Si Sun, who has arrived illegally in Hong Kong from mainland China, and Kong Yuen Sang, a young man who is a gambler and wannabe boxing champion.
Celebrated director Chu Yuan helms "Descendant Of The Sun", a Superman meets Hercules a la old style martial art film. Derek Yee is a magic solar baby sent Earthbound by a benevolent god, raised by an old carpenter, has martial art superpowers and "green kryptonite" loses them during solar eclipses. That's when the evil baby counterpart shows up. Demon-paced martial arts action by Jackie Chan's kung-fu classmates Yuan Pin and Yuen Hua compliments Toho Studio style special optical effects.
In “82 Tenants” the widow Zhang and Bing, her new young consort, want to sell an apartment house to a property developer but old man Zhang's will provided that the current tenants can stay there as long as they want or the building survives. So it is clear who the villains are—joining the greedy couple is Chao who has purchased all the land around the building but needs this final piece so he can know everything down and build a money spinning edifice. One the other side are the tenants, a disparate group whose grudgingly and occasionally antagonistically shared communal life, while not ideal, is certainly better than not having a place to live.
Cheng (Kara Hui Ying Hung), a beautiful martial arts ace, battles to keep her inheritance from the ruthless Yun Wei (Johnny Wang Lung Wei), but her efforts are sabotaged by Yu Tao (Hsaio Ho), her wayward and irrepressible great-nephew. Following a frenzy of spectacular comic mishaps, the hapless duo are setup and imprisoned and the deeds to Cheng's estate are stolen. She is held hostage after a doomed attempt to reclaim the papers back from Yu Wei's place, and the stage is set for a savage fight to the death.
This mystery-tinged 'Martial Arts World' epic was one of director Chu Yuan and novelist Ku Lung's last together for the Shaw Studios, but it's another action-filled winner. Liu Yung and Sun Chien (the Korean kicking 'Venom' from Chang Cheh's internationally popular series) team to investigate the martial arts murders of a supposedly mortally wounded swordsman, only to find deception, death, double-dealings, imposters, and one deadly duel after another. No less than three choreographers are on hand to handle the multitude of magnificent martial arts.
Actors David Chaing and Alexander Fu Sheng join director Chang Cheh and the rest of the Five Deadly Venoms crew for a supernatural martial arts epic that takes the action to another plane of reality entirely. When a fallen angel descends to the Earth on a mission to storm the underworld, a love shared between angels and humans offers telling testament to the power of a lucky ghost. In the battle that follows, both the living and the dead will discover that a war waged in hell could have consequences that resound forever
One of Shaw Brothers' most productive directors, Sun Chung's action films had strong tension, snappy editing and slow motion which influenced up and coming martial arts director John Woo. Starring kung-fu comedienne Wang Yu, a ballistic kid on a mission to clear his father's name, The Kid With A Tattoo features plentiful ripsnorting martial arts by Jackie Chan's long time kung-fu classmates Yuen Hua and Yuan Pin, and Shaw Brothers' best martial arts fighting villain Wang Lung-wei.
Gordon Liu as the Master Killer has taken a vow not to use his superior fighting abilities, but he is put to the test when he must transport a valuable map across dangerous territory. Features amazing fight scenes choreographed by the Lau Brothers.
Police corruption is the theme of this brutal harbinger of the bleak "new wave" crime thriller. Pai Piao, Danny Lee, and "Venom" Sun Chien star as idealistic police school graduates who run afoul of such vicious, murderous depravity that the cop who is killed first could be considered the lucky one.
Biggie (Roy Chiao) and Tiny (Richard Ng) grow up together. They fight all the time. Biggie is a detective and Tiny is a thief. Biggie has the satisfaction of catching Tiny and putting him behind bars. When Tiny is released, he is approached by Daigau who wants Tiny's help to steal the world famous diamond.
Liu Chia-Liang returns to the success of his first directed film, "The Spiritual Boxer", which also stars the original film's bumbling ghost controller, Wang Yu. Hoping to make the lightning of success strike in the same place, Liu had his two brothers Lau Kar Wing and Gordon Liu not only act but also help with the fights. The end result is a martial arts film masterpiece filled with breathtaking action and set pieces.
When a once infamous criminal decides to give up his lifestyle and return the many treasures he has stolen to their rightful owners; he is promptly murdered by his partners in crime. To avenge his death is his son, with the deadly "mantis fist".
As an expert of the 'Cross fists' technique, a reclusive kung fu master Li Pai perfects a lethal maneuver called the 'Shaolin Handlock' while an old wolf-in-sheep's-clothing friend Fang Yun-piao pays the unwitting Li a visit. Armed with the deadly Handlock maneuver, Cheng-ying & Kun Shih joins forces to exact revenge on the evil Ling Hao after the truth is unraveled.
Li Han-Hsiang's adaptation of the classic Qing Dynasty novel will take viewers to the heightened pleasures of love and the despairing depths of betrayal. Timeless beauty Brigitte Lin Ching-hsia appears as Chia Pao-yu in her first attempt at a gender-bending role, an art she will wield complete mastery over in later films. Pao-yu is in love with his cousin, Lin Tai-yu (Sylvia Chang), but his family has other marital plans for him that will leave both broken-hearted.
The Third Master is considered to be the greatest sword master of the day. His displays of skill and strength bring armies of challengers to his door, seeking the title for themselves. Not to be defeated, the Third Master fights evil, saves damsels in distress, and duels rival swordsmen to the death.
Shaw Brothers Exploitation Flick, 5th installment in "The Criminals" series.
Master of the "swordplay thriller" genre, Chor Yuen and renowned kung-fu choreographer Tang Chia tell the fabulous tale of the "Fastest Swordsman in the World" facing the "1000 Face Devil" and no less than seven murderers.
Part 1 : 'Gun Snatchers' - Two criminals wanted for murder are turned in by one of their own. Part 2: 'Arson' - A Triad revenge plan to burn down a nightclub goes wrong and results in the deaths of five people.
An anthology film featuring three true-crime stories that took place in Hong Kong in the early 1970's. Part 1: Hidden Torsos' A woman and her daughter are murdered by her abusive boyfriend. Part 2: 'Valley of the Hanged'-A man murders his wife and her lover. Part 3: 'The Stuntmen' - A gang boss is murdered by his wife's lover
A doctor suspects black magic on his hospital after experiencing some bizarre incidents and sends for two doctors (who are a couple) from Hong Kong. The wife is very skeptical and places volunteer for a spell. It became obvious that here is an evil wizard who stay young by including drinking human breast milk. A Shaw Brothers production.
A magician makes money by charging people to cast love spells on the objects of their affection. Complications arise when he decides that he wants a customer's bride for himself.
A horror anthology. In the first, a man and his pregnant wife help an old woman bury a covered pot in a field. Believing that the pot contains treasure, they kill the old woman, only to find that it contains nothing but bones. The pregnant woman goes into labor over the dead woman's body, and blood from that event drips onto the corpse. The baby, when born, is fully able to bite his father's finger off and kill him. The second episode concerns an adulterous couple who, when discovered by the woman's husband, nail him up in a box and try various means to dispose of him, all of them somehow lacking finality. The final episode concerns a man who is wrongly accused and executed for a murder he did not commit. Using a bit of magic as he dies, he is able to return to his home for a few days as a very vigorous ghost.
Chiao Tzu Wei hires a killer under the premise that the local government (run by the local kung fu school) is corrupt and extorting the people of the town. The killer happens to be Hsieh Chun (aka Hsiao Hu) who left town ten years ago. (When Hsieh Chun opens up a suitcase full of knives, you know that there is going to be tons of killing!). Thinking that the local kung fu school is bad, he goes over there to fight them. There is some reuniting of lost friends and some love between two of them. The bad guys are constantly double crossing everyone and this leads to total mayhem and carnage. The final fight scene (which is actually several fight scenes going from one to the next) is incredible, especially the blood soaked finale between the evil Japanese leader of the opium ring and the two brothers.
Li Ching is the Seventh Sister, an angel who comes down from heaven to see what life in Hong Kong is like. In Hong Kong, she runs into Zili(Chin Feng), a reincarnated version of her deceased lover, Dong Yong. Zili, with help from cook Uncle Bull(the warm, portly Peng Peng), do their best to watch over homeless kids in an run-down orphanage. However, a heartless tycoon named Xu Caifa wants the land where the orphanage is and he's willing to go to extremes to get it. Armed with omnipotent powers, spirit, and help from her "celestial sisters", Seventh Sister works to defend Zili, Uncle Bull, and the orphans from Xu Caifa.
A young Kung Fu student (Shih Szu) seeks a reclusive teacher so that she may learn to defeat the evil Black Demon. She doesn't realize that the servant woman she befriends (Cheng Pei-Pei) is actually the kung fu master she seeks. After Black Demons henchmen attack, the master reveals herself and eventually takes on the student to train her so that they may both defeat the villian. A love triangle complicates things when another student (Lo Lieh) asks for training as well.
Feng Fei Fei, an excellent swordswoman, seeks revenge with her nephew for the murder of her old sister, who got killed by some rogues on her way home. She soon finds out that the murderer is the son of her father's best friend and her future husband.
Soon-to-be legendary director Chu Yuan had just joined the Shaw Brothers when he helmed this thriller of bickering bandits. Audiences loved watching three pairs of cunning male and female crooks trying to steal a million gold taels from the Fu Lai Treasury House...not knowing that one of them is actually an undercover hero. Even without him, there's no honor amongst thieves, so the double-crosses and deadly duels come fast and furious, all choreographed by Hsu Erh-niu.
A young tutor, miss Chen, is sent to home school in a dysfunctional household head by a wealthy patriarch. She befriends his ambulatory disabled young daughter Ming Chu and becomes embroiled in her struggle to walk again. She also has problems and with her angst ridden artist brother, they search for their birth mother and their cruel spoiled half-brother. Meanwhile at home, the tutor's own fellow border house mates (a single mother Shen Chiu Meng and her nightclub singer son Chiang Hui) also possess guarded secrets that gradually resurface as Chen unwittingly becomes a catalyst for those in her life as they all converge towards the bridging of deep rooted familial gaps and resolving past estrangements.
Su Fen, a young and frail girl, looked forward to her wedding with her fiancé, Li Kuo-liang. The happy couple's bliss was cut short when war broke out. Kuo-liang was summoned to fight at the front lines. In his absence, Su Fen discovered she had tuberculosis.
Huangmei Opera movies like The Pearl Phoenix are unique to 1960's Hong Kong culture, a product of the Swinging Sixties but considerably more in touch with their Chinese roots. This one is complete with a gender-bending tale where the male lead is played by female and the female lead poses as a man, plus movie queen Li Ching and the singing voices of Ivy Ling Po and Jing Ting. Sit back and enjoy!
It's a powerful melodrama about a thwarted romance in 1930s Tientsin, China, during the Japanese occupation, and it stars Linda Lin Dai, one of the era's most popular stars. It was part of Golden Horse's 100 Greatest Chinese-Language Films.
Jimmy Wang Yu plays a young kid who heads off to Dragon Valley to meet the childhood friend who was promised as his bride. When he gets there, he finds that the family of the bride might not be an entirely honest bunch of people though. What is the story behind their feud with the monks at the Temple Of The Red Lotus, for a start?
A scholar woos the daughter of an important family, while outwitting rebels who try to capture her.
FAIRY, GHOST, VIXEN (1965) consists of three fanciful tales that may be loosely classified as ghost stories, but they're presented and designed more along the lines of traditional fairy tales. They're beautifully staged and photographed and have a timeless quality about them with a moral at the end of each.
A Huangmei opera produced by Shaw Brothers about a carp spirit who transforms into an identical copy of a beautiful woman to win the heart of a lonely male scholar.
Comedy of Mismatches begins with widow Sun who single-handedly raises her son Yu Lang (Chin Feng) and daughter Zhu Yi (Li Hsiang Chun). One day, Mother Sun sends her children to the temple, where Yu Lang encounters Hui Niang (Pat Ting). Artist Xu Ya is also at the temple, praying that his daughter Wen Gu (Carrie Ku) will find a good husband. Soon after, Wen Gu encounters nobleman's son Pei Zheng (Wai Mao) and the two fall in love at first sight.
A woman in an arranged marriage falls in love with her husband's brother.
The noted actress Li Li-hua, star of more than sixty films since 1947, beautifully portrays the drugged, then disgraced wife of a peddler in the waning days of the Ching Dynasty. To make matters worse, she’s soon framed for her husband’s murder by her rapist - the son of the local magistrate! And even that isn’t the end of her woes. It’s best to have a box of tissues nearby as two expert directors ratchet up the emotional suspense in this consummate tearjerker.
The winning couple of Linda Lin Dai and Peter Chen Hu light up the screen in the delightful Shaw Brothers musical Love Parade!
This Classic Seductive tale of two snakes who assume human forms will send chills of pleasure down viewers' backs. The Lovely Linda Lin Dai (Les Belles, The Kingdom And The Beauty) and margaret Tu Chuan (The Dream of The Red Chamber) play the two sister serpents, Pak Su-cheng and Ching Ching. Su-cheng meets Hsu Hsien (Chao Lei) one day and recognizes him as her savior in another life 1,000 years ago. She marries him to reward him but the snake-human union brings about problems beyond imagination.
Perhaps the most notorious concubine in Chinese history, Yang Guifei set a pudgy standard of beauty in her days of glory during the Tang dynasty. The Emperor Minghuang was so besotted with the woman that when An Lushan stages his rebellion against the empire, the ruler takes Yang Guifei along with his imperial entourage in an escape to the mountainous area of modern-day Sichuan, and sanctuary of sorts. But the concubine had roused the jealousy of the court and unfortunately for her and to the great sorrow of the king, her brother and others among the king's retainers demanded she be strangled to death while they were still in the mountains. This is the story told in this interesting Taiwanese adaptation by director Li Han-hsiang (Li Hanxiang).
The Swordswoman of Huangjiang was a popular book that started with the decision to get revenge on her father's death. She left her birth town to travel through the country, fighting for justice. The story's been adapted by Chen Kengran into a thirteen part film series of which this is the only remaining episode.
