https://www.scmp.com/rss/301182/feed Sean Tierney lived in Hong Kong for almost two decades. He taught about local films at numerous universities in Hong Kong and was lucky enough to appear in several local films, usually holding a gun and scowling. He now lives in the US, where he continues to do the same thing. en https://assets.i-scmp.com/static/img/icons/scmp-meta-1200x630.png https://www.scmp.com Sean Tierney Sean Tierney The Hong Kong film industry’s output in the 1980s and 90s was kinetic, breathtaking, bursting with innovation and energy. Films of the era insisted on packing everything possible into the run time, as if they knew something we didn’t: the city’s economy was booming and filmmakers enjoyed the kind of artistic freedom and backing that was, like the period itself, never going to last forever. One of Hong Kong’s most memorable cinema fads of the era became known as Girls with Guns and, like all the... https://www.scmp.com/postmag/culture/article/3315907/girls-guns-hong-kong-cinema-staple-bygone-era?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/postmag/culture/article/3315907/girls-guns-hong-kong-cinema-staple-bygone-era?utm_source=rss_feed Sun, 29 Jun 2025 23:00:12 +0000 Sergio Leone is best known as director of classic "spaghetti Westerns" — among them The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly (1966), and Once Upon a Time in the West (1968). He is also known as the man who made Clint Eastwood an international star. But one of the Italian filmmaker's more overlooked productions deserves a place alongside those other canonical works. Once Upon a Time in the Revolution (1971) is one of those rare movies whose dichotomies amplify rather than hinder its quality. Part of what... https://www.scmp.com/magazines/48hrs/article/1643389/art-house-sergio-leones-last-western?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/magazines/48hrs/article/1643389/art-house-sergio-leones-last-western?utm_source=rss_feed Wed, 19 Nov 2014 14:47:09 +0000 A writer and his family agree to spend the winter as caretakers of the Overlook Hotel. Jack Torrance (Jack Nicholson, above) has taken the position so he can work on his next book. His wife Wendy (Shelley Duvall) and son Danny (Danny Lloyd) spend their days exploring the place. Snowbound in an idyllic landscape, and ensconced in a beautiful and empty hotel in the off season, they spend the months together in solitude, connected to the outside world only by radio. And rapidly descend into a... https://www.scmp.com/magazines/48hrs/article/1622112/art-house-shining-unsettling-stanley-kubrick-masterpiece?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/magazines/48hrs/article/1622112/art-house-shining-unsettling-stanley-kubrick-masterpiece?utm_source=rss_feed Wed, 22 Oct 2014 15:04:48 +0000 Like Giuseppe Tornatore's award-winning Cinema Paradiso (1988), the director-writer's The Best Offer is an examination of the ways that people's lives, emotions and the choices they make define who they are, what they do and what they can be made to do. The movie centres on a renowned art expert and auctioneer who leads a life of professional devotion and behavioural rigidity. Virgil Oldman (made effortlessly watchable by Geoffrey Rush) finds, assesses, catalogues and auctions fine art and... https://www.scmp.com/magazines/48hrs/article/1594549/best-offer-explores-strangeness-and-deceit-art-world?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/magazines/48hrs/article/1594549/best-offer-explores-strangeness-and-deceit-art-world?utm_source=rss_feed Wed, 17 Sep 2014 15:49:37 +0000 Miloš Forman's Amadeus (1984) stars Tom Hulce and F. Murray Abraham. The actors' biggest roles until then had been supporting ones: Hulce had played a fraternity pledge in National Lampoon's Animal House, while Abraham was a mid-level drug dealer in Brian De Palma's brutal remake of Scarface, starring Al Pacino. These are not the usual pedigrees of actors whose work goes on to win awards, critical praise and a well-deserved place in cinematic history. A sweeping, rich and poignant film,... https://www.scmp.com/magazines/48hrs/article/1549605/art-house-amadeus?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/magazines/48hrs/article/1549605/art-house-amadeus?utm_source=rss_feed Wed, 09 Jul 2014 14:31:32 +0000 There wasn't much to be merry about in a Japanese prisoner of war (POW) camp in 1942, during the Christmas season or any other time. Allied prisoners were considered worthless by their captors, who saw surrender as a fate literally worse than death. This was, at least partially, the Japanese rationale for their brutal treatment of prisoners. The threat of such violence is a constant presence in Merry Christmas, Mr Lawrence, and is presented in a matter-of-fact way that allows the viewer to... https://www.scmp.com/magazines/48hrs/article/1534756/art-house-merry-christmas-mr-lawrence-shows-brutality-japanese-pow?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/magazines/48hrs/article/1534756/art-house-merry-christmas-mr-lawrence-shows-brutality-japanese-pow?utm_source=rss_feed Wed, 18 Jun 2014 14:56:31 +0000 Welcome to hell's kitchen. Peter Greenaway's The Cook, The Thief, His Wife & Her Lover is a harrowing descent into human depravity, inhuman cruelty and unfettered selfishness. It is also one of the most viciously beautiful films you will ever watch. A richly textured work with layered meanings and a cast of fascinatingly repellent characters, the 1989 film has been called an allegorical critique of Thatcher-era Britain, as well as a biting observation of rampant 1980s consumerism. Albert Spica... https://www.scmp.com/magazines/48hrs/article/1524520/art-house-cook-thief-his-wife-and-her-lover-makes-debauchery?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/magazines/48hrs/article/1524520/art-house-cook-thief-his-wife-and-her-lover-makes-debauchery?utm_source=rss_feed Wed, 04 Jun 2014 15:41:02 +0000 IN PROHIBITION-ERA Chicago, ruthless gangsters controlled bootleg liquor through intimidation and murder. For a young, ambitious immigrant who wanted a piece of the American Dream, the best tool for achieving his goal was the Thompson submachine gun (aka the "Chicago typewriter" or "tommy gun"). Directed by Howard Hawks and Richard Rosson, 1932's Scarface tells the story of one particular mobster's rise to power and fall from grace. Tony Camonte (Paul Muni) works for Johnny Lovo (Osgood... https://www.scmp.com/magazines/48hrs/article/1467138/art-house-scarface-was-based-chicago-gangster-al-capone?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/magazines/48hrs/article/1467138/art-house-scarface-was-based-chicago-gangster-al-capone?utm_source=rss_feed Wed, 09 Apr 2014 14:45:15 +0000 A film about the birth of skateboarding in communist East Germany, This Ain't California had its world premiere at the 2012 Berlinale. Billed as a documentary, it went on to win the festival's dialogue en perspective prize, with the award's jury stating of its editing: "We've rarely been so splendidly manipulated." It turns out they were right in more ways than one. While grounded in the acknowledged truth of an East German skateboard scene, Marten Persiel's "documentary tale" is made up almost... https://www.scmp.com/magazines/48hrs/article/1437252/art-house-cold-war-tale-rebellion-aint-california?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/magazines/48hrs/article/1437252/art-house-cold-war-tale-rebellion-aint-california?utm_source=rss_feed Wed, 05 Mar 2014 15:10:38 +0000 One of the cultural touchstones of our time was created by a college drop-out with the help of local media, law enforcement, and a group of non-professional actors and filmmakers. In 1968, George Romero released Night of the Living Dead and launched the zombie phenomenon. An independent production shot in black and white, costing less than US$120,000 and the first feature film shot in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, this movie changed the world. Five decades and billions of dollars later, flesh-eating... https://www.scmp.com/magazines/48hrs/article/1427900/art-house-birth-living-dead-takes-aim-zombie-genre?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/magazines/48hrs/article/1427900/art-house-birth-living-dead-takes-aim-zombie-genre?utm_source=rss_feed Wed, 19 Feb 2014 15:09:21 +0000 "Leave the gun. Take the cannoli." An epic tale of an Italian-American crime family's struggle to survive the shifting landscape of post-second world war organised crime in America, The Godfather is one of those rare films which has entered popular culture so thoroughly that many of its effects may not even be recognised as such. The modern fascination with organised crime that made American television shows such as The Sopranos popular was started by The Godfather. If you've ever wanted to make... https://www.scmp.com/magazines/48hrs/article/1396686/art-house-godfather-has-influenced-popular-culture-unseen-ways?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/magazines/48hrs/article/1396686/art-house-godfather-has-influenced-popular-culture-unseen-ways?utm_source=rss_feed Wed, 08 Jan 2014 14:13:05 +0000 In 1953, the Korean War ended in an armistice. A fragile peace has held since then, encouraging some to speak of - and work towards - reunification of the two Koreas. Then again, both sides have planned and executed a number of assassinations, espionage missions and military strikes in the intervening years. In 1968, North Korean commandos attempted to assassinate South Korean president Park Chung-hee - the father of current South Korean president Park Geun-hye - at the Blue House (the South... https://www.scmp.com/magazines/48hrs/article/1319266/art-house-shiri?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/magazines/48hrs/article/1319266/art-house-shiri?utm_source=rss_feed Wed, 02 Oct 2013 16:00:00 +0000 The Searchers John Ford's The Searchers (1956) is consistently and deservedly hailed by critics as the greatest western ever made and one of the greatest films of any genre. The story of one man's obsessive search for his kidnapped niece across the expanses of the American southwest, The Searchers skewers and deconstructs the very genre it defines so iconically. The archetypal western pits rugged, virtuous settlers against Native Americans, whose refusal to accept America's 19th-century... https://www.scmp.com/lifestyle/arts-culture/article/1207686/second-sight-searchers?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/lifestyle/arts-culture/article/1207686/second-sight-searchers?utm_source=rss_feed Sat, 06 Apr 2013 16:00:00 +0000