Go watch some Hong Kong action movies!
How about an HK action movie film fest?
I found out that Videos To Go has both ‘Once a Thief’ and ‘Legend of Fong Sai Yuk,’ which is great news.
Now, these titles don’t mean much to you because you haven’t seen any HK movies, right?
Well, one is a John Woo flick starring Chow Yun Fat and the other stars Jet Li. Both are totally style packed. All the action is fully like choreography. But what’s best is the camera work, acting and direction. They walk all over most of our flicks. CYF is a GREAT leading man. He’s a little chubby even. It’s not all that often (never?) that we get exposed to great Asian leads. Plus he’s very smooth. Jet Li is like Bruce Lee without the anger. He’s serene and action packed out of love not hate.
But what’s great about HK flicks and FSY in particular is the Ladies. Asian ladies rock. They kick butt on the guys and are often allowed to upstage and lead as well. They do have some weird cross-dressing conventions where the plots often have the leading ladies dress as guys and kick butt for awhile. HK ladies have noble honor and dering-do like our ladies can’t begin to imagine.
Then there’s the action itself. It’s not like anything we’ve seen before. Set up and done differently for different reasons. Great camera work. The metaphors are mostly different, too. Lots of flags and colors, paper, confetti, very odd situations. Like FSY has plenty of vertical Foo: fighting while climbing or falling. Also a freakout scene I shouldn’t tell you about but here’s a little: running fight scene on the heads and shoulders of a crowd. Fast, light, nimble: mindboggling.
Well, that’s my pitch! I’m itchin for some action. In fact I think we’ll rent Jet Li’s first English flick tonite: Black Mask.
Of course ALL HK MOVIES ARE TEN TIMES AS SWEET ON THE BIG SCREEN!
There’s no such thing as an HK movie that you’ll say ‘rental’ about. They were all made to go big.
