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Cinemai

Views, news, and reviews of films, from the latest releases to classic oldies.

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Donnie Yen’s stand-out appearance in John Wick: Chapter 4 is an excellent opportunity to raise Hong Kong’s global prominence, and the city’s government must step up to take it.

  • Believer 2 may be one of the worst sequels for a long time, but Korean cinema has produced a number of great follow-up films down the years
  • We rank the 10 best Korean movie sequels, from Voice, starring Kim Ok-bin, to K-horror film Memento Mori and The Roundup with Ma Dong-seok
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Zhang Mo directs Last Suspect, a legal thriller set in an unnamed Chinese-speaking hellhole in Southeast Asia, which sees a lawyer attempt to save her daughter by exonerating a convicted murderer.

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Featuring stand-out performances from Michelle Wai and Elaine Jin, Ready or Rot is a pleasant and touching romantic drama that is a vast improvement on its prequel, 2021’s Ready or Knot.

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A father sets out to avenge his son’s death at the hands of a crime gang in a film with Woo’s trademark camera work, and stunts that will prompt gasps.

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Industry insiders say the Archie comics have long had a cultural impact in India, giving readers their first taste of American life and even influencing some Bollywood films.

Lisa Lu is best known internationally for films like Crazy Rich Asians. In Hong Kong, she made an indelible mark as a general in The 14 Amazons. Before that, she had a prolific screen career in America.

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Once called the Marilyn Monroe of Hong Kong, actress Cherie Chung rose to fame during the 1980s and appeared in almost 50 films – before walking away from it all at the age of 31.

Ann Hui’s Elegies, a documentary about Hong Kong’s contemporary poetry scene, focuses on interviews with Hong Kong poets Huang Canran and Liu Waitong – and obliquely touches on the city’s ‘situation’.

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Starring Wallace Chung, Francis Ng and Eddie Cheung, Chinese crime thriller Death Stranding, the latest film from Hong Kong’s Danny Pang, is a dull and illogical tale of corruption and revenge.

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Satoshi Kon only completed four feature films, but his work inspired fellow filmmakers including Darren Aronofsky, whose films Black Swan and Requiem for a Dream were influenced by Kon’s Perfect Blue.

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Disney celebrates 100 years of family classics with Wish, the story of a young girl whose wish for her grandfather is shrugged off by the king. Then she meets a falling star who can also grant wishes.

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Ah Kam, a 1996 film by Ann Hui starring Michelle Yeoh and Sammo Hung, combined realistic drama, melodrama and triad action. Seen as experimental, it was overshadowed by an injury Yeoh sustained on set.

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K-drama actress Park Eun-bin hit the big time with her title role in Extraordinary Attorney Woo, but her stardom didn’t happen overnight. She began acting when she was five years old.

Tom Blyth plays a younger version of Donald Sutherland’s Coriolanus Snow in The Hunger Games: The Ballad of Songbirds & Snakes – but what else is he up to?

Ridley Scott’s Napoleon has stunning battle scenes, cinematography that looks like oil painting, and a brilliant Joaquin Phoenix in the title role, while Vanessa Kirby is resolute as Empress Josephine.

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A year after a deadly Black Friday stampede in a New England town, a knife-wielding killer appears as Thanksgiving nears, and a bloody banquet of slayings begins. Expect a sequel, if not a franchise.

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Hong Kong’s First Feature Film Initiative was founded in 2013 to spot new directing talent and help fund their first features. We look at the performance of the 13 films funded in the FFFI’s first 10 years.

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Filipino director Cathy Garcia-Sampana’s Hong Kong-shot film Hello, Love, Goodbye put her on the city’s radar. Now, her new short film is showing the city’s artistic and cultural sides.

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Hong Kong family drama Time Still Turns the Pages, by writer-director Nick Cheuk, uses student suicides as the cue for a poignant tale of emotional torture, regret and redemption.

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The Hollywood star’s God’s Own Cashmere label elevates the grunge fashion staple with gemstones to keep you buttoned up in the best possible way – and Bruce Springsteen, Gwen Stefani and Joey King are all fans

Michael Wong’s early films in Hong Kong saw the Chinese-American actor treated like a foreigner, and typecast as a cop after starring as one in the Michelle Yeoh vehicle Royal Warriors.

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Cantopop singer Ronald Cheng has had a colourful past – he was once arrested for putting a flight attendant in a headlock – but now he is one of Hong Kong cinema’s most beloved comedy stars.

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As actor Patrick Dempsey is named 2023’s Sexiest Man Alive, we look back at the other stars who have been given the prestigious, tongue-in-cheek title over the years – and discover a few surprises

The dynamic that develops between the characters played by Brie Larson, Teyonah Parris and Iman Vellani is the only saving grace for The Marvels, a tired, clichéd and sometimes baffling film.

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Chinese actress Zhou Dongyu talks about filming Gen Z drama The Breaking Ice in freezing conditions, being discovered by Zhang Yimou, challenging herself and her hopes for ‘a better Chinese cinema’.

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Chen was inspired to make his latest drama while pondering life in London’s pandemic lockdown. Read on for his thoughts on China’s youth, the state of Asian cinema and what Singapore’s films are missing.

Actor, producer, martial artist – Sammo Hung has loomed large in Hong Kong’s film industry since the 1960s. We bet you don’t know about some aspects of his long movie career.

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After the double whammy of Oppenheimer and Killers of the Flower Moon, we’re getting a bit sick of posterior testing cinema marathons – but these epics are all hailed as classics

Rowan Atkinson plays British spy Johnny English, who travels to Hong Kong to prevent an attack on a Chinese premier, in a film meant to court Chinese audiences but which was packed with stereotypes.

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His fighting skills helped get him roles in Deadpool 2, Mortal Kombat and now its sequel – now the martial arts star is ready to direct his first movie – a biopic of his dad