September 2005

There's a charity auction of a signed MISSION IMPOSSIBLE: 2 DVD by John Woo on eBay. All proceeds will go to the Larchmont Charter School. The auction ends on Sep-12-05 15:09:18 PDT.

>> Make your bid on eBay now.

Note: Thanks to Isabel Jordan of Silent Partners Inc. for highlighting this auction.

GREAT NEWS! Warner Home Video (Japan) will release Tsui Hark's SHANGHAI BLUES and Benny Chan's THE MAGIC CRANE on DVD for the first time ever on 03 November (incidentally, it's also Brigitte Lin Ching Hsia's birthday!). I'm especially delighted with the release of SHANGHAI BLUES as it's long overdue. More significantly, SHANGHAI BLUES was the first movie produced by Tsui Hark's FILM WORKSHOP.

Shanghai Blues	The Magic Crane

Unfortunately, both DVDs contain the Cantonese and Mandarin audio tracks in mono only. Only Japanese subtitles are available.

August 2005

I've been highly anticipating this movie and I finally watched it yesterday on opening day in Singapore. In a nutshell, the movie is set in the early years of the Manchu Dynasty and an edict has outlawed the learning of martial arts. A group of mercenaries armed to the teeth is employed by the Manchus to enforce the edict, destroying village after village concealing martial arts exponents. A survivor from the previous attack escapes to a certain 'Martial Village' and warns of an impending attack. He sets out with two villagers to Mount Heaven to seek help from a group of pugilists living in recluse...

Before watching this movie, I had read reports that Tsui Hark trimmed his original 4 hour movie into a 153 minute version for theatrical release. And as a result, the editing is choppy and character development suffers and pacing becomes inconsistent. It's all TRUE.

After the movie is over, you don't feel anything for the characters. They are like cardboard characters. Editing was the pits too. The swordsfighting scenes is the only saving grace for this movie. The best being Donnie Yen's duel with the chief villain in a narrow corridor. Other than that, everything else is mediocre. I had more kicks with ERA OF VAMPIRES than SEVEN SWORDS.

But I'll give Tsui Hark another shot when the 4 hour version is released on DVD. And there's also the SEVEN SWORDS TV series. Hopefully, I can find redemption there.

July 2005

Tsui Hark arrived in Singapore on 24 July with Donnie Yen and Charlie Young to promote his new wu-xia epic, SEVEN SWORDS. Check out my field report with pix and video clips.

The trailer for Tsui Hark's SEVEN SWORDS is online and it is even English subtitled. View it now:

High bandwidth | Low bandwidth

Tsui Hark's latest movie, SEVEN SWORDS opens in Singapore on 4 August. One of the cinema chains here, Eng Wah Organization, has set up an English language microsite for the movie which has a synopsis, characters' profile and a stunning gallery. Click on a thumbnail to access its respective page:

Main	The Story
The Characters	Galleries