A good cover cop movie (are all Hong Kong police cover cops?). The plot is straightforward but smooth, the fighting and car chasing scenes are really exciting. There are some nice character moments too so I enjoyed it a lot.
If you were stranded on a desert island with one castmate, who would it be? I think maybe Jiang Wen. He’s taken to teaching me Mandarin. I kind of go up to him between scenes and between takes and just – “How do you say this? How do you say that?”
Terrible chinese new year comedy. The movie is composed with 4 sub-plots about “men who have nothing good to do helping women who need men’s help”. I don’t use those words lightly, but I think the idea is sexist and one of the story about a blind girl is really ableist.
Even Donnie Yen’s bad wigs and the fact that his character’s sub-plot is the most positive one won’t justify this film.
Born in Guangzhou, China, Bow-sim Mark started seriously training in Wushu during high school, specializing in Tai Chi and Northern Shaolin. At the time, women who studied martial arts were almost unheard of. However, her talents caught the attention of the Great Grandmaster Fu Wing Way, one of the most decorated martial artists in China and founder of Fu Style Tai Chi. He ended up taking her in as his private student.
In 1984, Mark won a gold medal at the first International Tournament of T’ai chi ch’uan in Wuhan City. In 1995, she was named Black Belt magazine’s Kung-Fu artist of the year. Before Mark immigrated to the U.S., she was already famous all over China not just because she was a talented female martial artist, but because she was also better than most men in her craft.
“Everything is harder for a woman,” Mark told NextShark with some help in translating from her daughter Chris Yen. “If a man has to work at 100% to excel, a woman must work at 150%! Not just in martial arts but in any field in order to be taken seriously.”
Mark with Donnie Yen and his sister, Chris Yen.
After teaching at her master’s school for 10 years, she emigrated to Boston, Massachusetts in 1975 where she became one of the first people to introduce Wushu to the West.
“There were only a few Chinese kung-fu schools in Chinatown and mostly karate schools around the suburbs,” Mark said. “My school was the first Chinese ‘Wushu’ school and at the time, Wushu was not known yet in the West.”
As a successful martial arts master who’s had students open up schools themselves, Sifu Mark broke down what makes a good teacher. She notes that while there are many styles of Tai Chi, all tai chi can be judged by six characteristics and six requirements:
“The characteristics are that the movement should be circular, relaxed, calm, continuous, and done with intent and energy. The requirements are that the spine is naturally straight, the shoulders and elbows are sunk, the chest is empty, the movement originates in the waist, the pelvis is at a natural angle, and yin and yang are clear.”
This movie has a simple “cops catching bad mafia head” plot, a messy end, a pretty Donnie Yen who didn’t look like 32 but 23, and… panty shot??? His movies are indeed 80% fetish fuel.
I watched the notorious Snowman today. I think I died a little (not in a good way)
This movie is a bad comedy so terrible that I actually lol-ed for how cringe-worthy it is. I have no idea what’s wrong with the writer of this film, because they apparently managed to shove the holy trinity of bad pee/fart/poop jokes in one movie but totally forgot to move the actual plot which is “wronged ancient royal assassian accidentally being sent to the modern world, trying to figure things out while chased by old enemy”.
The movie also tried too hard to sell the (very bad) 3D effect (which was trendy back than). As a result, it made the final fight look fake and unimpressive, which is a huge failure considering they hired Donnie Yen to, you know, actually fight.
My brother told me Donnie Yen is in it (a good brother always helps his sister fangirling) so I watched it. Even though I’ve only watched the original Highlander, I like this movie a lot. I can’t believe it has such a low score on IMDB. Maybe the fans don’t like it? Anyway, I do think it has a decent story, even with all it’s flaws. The fighting is nice too (Donnie is the martial arts choreographer).
A Force Sensitive Phasesixer 