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Posts Tagged ‘Peter Pau’

Warriors of Virtue

Tuesday, April 18th, 2023

“Virtue be yours!”

There are several reasons I wanted to do a Ronny Yu retrospective, and coming in at around #3 (but maybe it should be higher) is the existence of this, his first American production, which is (to date) his only movie about kung fu kangaroos. WARRIORS OF VIRTUE is a crazy fuckin PG-rated family action adventure fantasy that mixes some of the elegant imagery and mythology of Yu’s previous work with a bizarre mix of NEVERENDING STORY and TEENAGE MUTANT NINJA TURTLES. It could be argued to be Yu’s worst movie, or his most unusual one. It’s totally derivative, yet there’s absolutely nothing like it. It’s hard to imagine it happening in any year besides 1997, and also it’s hard to imagine it happening in 1997. But it happened. I was there.

I mean I wasn’t in the magical world of Tao where it takes place, or on the soundstage in Beijing where it was filmed, but as a BRIDE WITH WHITE HAIR devotee at the time I did pay to see WARRIORS in the theater, and I’ve been fascinated by it ever since.

It’s the story of ordinary American kid Ryan Jeffers (Mario Yedidia, JACK), and it’s one of those depictions of youth that seems like it was concocted by a 150 year old who lives in a containment unit on Mars but has read some old magazine articles and thinks he has a pretty good idea what life must be like for the kids these days. To this guy it makes sense to open the movie with a dog dropping toast through a window to Ryan as he excitedly reads a stack of comic books in the bathroom. (read the rest of this shit…)

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Posted in Reviews, Action, Fantasy/Swords, Martial Arts | 13 Comments »

The Phantom Lover

Monday, April 17th, 2023

THE PHANTOM LOVER is sadly not a documentary about me and how much I love the movie THE PHANTOM, but it’s the next best thing – a 1995 Hong Kong romantic melodrama. It has no martial arts, but it’s director Ronny Yu and cinematographer Peter Pau doing another lush, operatic fantasy about forbidden, doomed lovers, like THE BRIDE WITH WHITE HAIR. And like THE OCCUPANT it has a set of young characters learning about and having their lives influenced by the tragedy when they visit the site years later.

In this case the location is not an apartment building, but a magnificent Beijing theater. In 1936 it’s fire-damaged and cob-webbed enough that the broke-ass fledgling Sprout Troupe think they can afford to rent it for their musical Flaming Blood.

Ten years earlier the theater was known from here to Tianjin, Shanghai as the home of the great Song Danping (played by the groom of the Bride With White Hair, Leslie Cheung), brilliant actor, beautiful singer, dreamy heartthrob, definitive essayer of Romeo (cheesy musical version). Hungry up-and-comer Wei Qing (Huang Lei, CJ7) bribes the caretaker with chocolates to tell the story, and it takes up the first half of the movie. Danping was in love with Du Yunyan (Chien-lien Wu, EAT DRINK MAN WOMAN), daughter of one of the local rich dudes (Wong Bing, THE FOUNDING OF A REPUBLIC), and she would meet him in the theater after hours for romantic interludes. (read the rest of this shit…)

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Posted in Reviews, Romance | 4 Comments »

Bride of Chucky

Monday, January 1st, 2001

I don’t know why it took me this long, but I’ve finally seen the most recent Chucky picture. This one came out on the tenth anniversary of Die Hard as well as the original Chucky picture so it is very special to me.

As some of you know, over there in Japan they are making cartoons for adults, and what they’re doing with Bride of Chucky is doing the same thing for puppets. I think many adults have always wanted to watch a puppet movie but they were too embarrassed unless it had alot of blood and a respectable brand name like Bride of Chucky. (read the rest of this shit…)

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Posted in Comedy/Laffs, Horror, Reviews, Romance, Thriller | 4 Comments »

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  • Recent commentary and jibber-jabber

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