Year - 2001

Mae Bae. Makala (Mamee Napakpapha Nakprasitte) is a very hot tour guide, but she lives with a really jealous King Cobra that bites at the slightest provocation. Chanachom (Akara Amarttayakul) is a handsome and successful businessman, recently returned from overseas, married with... » MORE

2002. Nicolas Tse is the head cop in a special, secret ghostbusting crime unit, and his partner, played by Sam Lee, is a ghost. But when Lee reincarnates, he needs to find someone new -- and ends up with fresh-faced traffic... » MORE

Accidental Spy, The. Jackie Chan is once again in globetrotting mode, this time hitting all the tourist destinations in Istanbul. Having been there myself just recently, spotting all the locations was half the fun. Which is a good thing, since the movie itself... » MORE

Angel Cop: Final Crisis. If you asked who you had to sleep with to get a decent part in a Hong Kong film, the answer is most decidedly not Jackie Chan, since Elaine Ng, recent mother of his illegitimate child, ended up in this... » MORE

Avenging Fist, The. There are a lot of problems with this science fiction spectacle film, beginning with the fact that it was originally intended to be based on the "Tekken" arcade game, until Namco got wind and got ready to sue. No doubt... » MORE

Bakery Amour. When Lok To's (Michelle Reis) new neighbors move in, Uncle Jet (Francis Ng) finds the previous tenant has been stealing all of her mail, including 99 letters from her boyfriend in Paris. Her boyfriend has given up, but Uncle Jet... » MORE

Beijing Rocks. Hey, Beijing really does rock in this movie about a wimpy Hong Kong pop musician (Daniel Wu) whose rich folks send him to Beijing for inspiration. He gets in trouble, instead, and ends up going on the road with some... » MORE

Bloody Cops. Bloody awful, more like. Veteran actor Roy Cheung, who can often turn in memorable and exciting supporting performances, is dull as white toast as the star in this mystery about a murdered teacher stuffed in a box. Roy Cheung is... » MORE

Born Wild. Tide (Daniel Wu) and Tan (Louis Koo) are fraternal twins -- even in the womb, they were always competing, always boxing. All grown up, Tan is found dead and Tide, who hasn't seen his brother since he turned 18, meets... » MORE

Bullets of Love. A Hong Kong/Japanese co-production starring Leon Lai as a cop and Asaka Sato as his girlfriend lawyer. When he captures and she puts behind bars one half of the dynamic criminal duo "Day and Night," a hitwoman is hired to... » MORE

Cheaters, The. Overly complicated heist plot about a crack team of professional thieves who decide to ride the coattails of a big time conman (Simon Lui) who has joined a corporation in order to steal HK redevelopment plan dollars. I'm not entirely... » MORE

City of Desire. Sandra Ng stars as a daughter returning to Macao to take over her father's business. Only trouble is, his business is prostitution, and it isn't pretty. Alex Fong is her childhood friend who wants to settle down with her, Anthony... » MORE

Clueless. Enjoyable supernatural thriller about buddy cops (Hacken Lee and Tsui Kam-Kong) investigating cases involving the supernatural. First they have to stop a serial rapist who can leave his body while sleeping to attack women, then Hell's hitmen show up and... » MORE

Comic King. Eason Chan and Julian Cheung are a comic book artist and writer who work to create their own best selling series of comics. They interact with their own creations, including their dramatic hero, played by Nic Tse. The first part... » MORE

Cop on a Mission. Daniel Wu stars as a cop who goes undercover and finds he likes it there more than he should. Eric Tsang does his best Robert DeNiro as Al Capone impersonation as the Triad boss he's trying to bring down. And... » MORE

Cop Shop Babes. Eason Chan is pretty entertaining sometimes as the slob in a buddy picture, where the other buddy is a straight man, or at least more handsome. The mistake here, is pairing him with Jerry Lamb, who is even worse. The... » MORE

Crazy for Pig Bone in Pot. A scruffy loser wanders into a fancy subdivision in Shenzhen and finds a large house that appears to be empty, the owners on vacation. He invites his girldfriend over, but in the meantime, the owner's sex-crazed wife (Emily Kwan) returns... » MORE

Dance of a Dream. Comparisons to the Japanese film SHALL WE DANCE are inevitable in this film about a girl (Sandra Ng) who becomes infatuated with a dance instructor (Andy Lau) and decides to learn to dance. But where SHALL WE DANCE soared as... » MORE

Dark War. A pretty-boy hit man (Peter Ho Yun Tung) gets a job at a hotel in the Philippines run by an old timer played by Yasuaki Kurata, and kills for only ten bucks a hit. Turns out it's because he's the... » MORE

Day Off. I feel like I know all the plot elements by heart, now, they are so familiar in Hong Kong cinema: the story of a hitman (Nick Cheung), a loner, who had a terrible childhood. He never sees the man who... » MORE

Dead End. Pinky Cheung, on the run from her past, goes down to the harbor to commit suicide. Jackie Lui is there, too, drinking away his depression with Heineken. He saves her, and ends up taking her in. The two have nowhere... » MORE

Doctor No.... The good doctor Rock (Stephen Ma) can't remember whether he is a killer or not, but he starts out chained to violent prisoner Blackie Ko when he overpowers the guard and drags the helpless doctor to freedom. Blackie helps him... » MORE

Dummy Mommy without a Baby. It's not that I hated this light situation comedy about a woman who pretends to be pregnant in order to keep her job, it's just that there isn't anything special about it. I remember a time when Hong Kong comedies... » MORE

Enemy, The. The only enemy this cop has is his own sorry-ass pathetic self. After busting a Triad kid, he discovers the kid is dating his former girlfriend (Josie Ho) who dumped him right before they were to marry. She falls into... » MORE

Espirit D'amour. From the pen of veteran TROUBLESOME NIGHT actor Simon Loui comes an anthology film in much the same style as early entries in the TN series. Three stories about love between ghosts and humans, the first in an office, the... » MORE

Every Dog has its Date. There's something inherently sick in this film about a girl (Michele Reis) who can't find a good man, until a fluke accident changes her beloved dog into one (Nick Cheung). He has to learn how to walk, talk, and use... » MORE

Extreme Challenge. The Power Net Show is sponsoring a tournament to determine their next big spokesman. The fights are all set up like a video game, on platforms over water or mountains. Only difference is, no one seems to have any particularly... » MORE

Eyes, The. A teacher decides to take his college students on a study trip to the Mountain of Death. It must be an adult education class, some of the cast looks plenty old. They stay at a mansion that one the student... » MORE

Fall for You. Francis Ng is a down and out painter living the bohemian lifestyle in Paris among his artsy friends. Kristy Yang is a woman who has devoted her entire life to marrying a millionaire who also loves her, and does anything... » MORE

Feel 100% 2. I wasn't expecting to like this film but it turns out its quite funny. Concerning two best friends who fall in love, one with a beautiful bartender whose old boyfriend (Eric Kot) comes back and threatens to ruin the whole... » MORE

Feng Shui and Gambling. A boy whose father loses the house in a gambling game then commits suicide, and whose mother shortly thereafter dies after coughing up blood, has special power to be able to win at games of chance. He grows up and... » MORE

Fighting for Love. Tony Leung Chiu-wai and Sammi Cheng star as two cranky people who get into a car accident with each other, and then are drawn together and fall in love. Plods along at the usual pace for yuppie romances, then becomes... » MORE

Final Romance. Two lovers promise to meet on Valentine's Day at a wishing tree in the snowy mountains of Japan, but instead its their brother (Edison Chen) and sister (Amanda Strang) who meet, carting their siblings remains as per their last requests.... » MORE

Final Winner. Jackie Lui is a mean, tough, unscrupulous triad baddie, Michael Tse is a nice righteous one. He and his brothers form the smallest, wimpiest triad gang I've ever seen, their elder brother teaches them forbearance instead of action, and the... » MORE

Fing's Raver. A drug scare flick about the terrible effects of 'fing' drugs on a persons family, on their character, and also on the inside of their skull ("My God...it's pock-marked and scarred!"). Sam Lee plays a young tough whose brother gets... » MORE

Forever and Ever. What the ---? A Hong Kong movie which approaches the topic of AIDS with sensitivity and sincerity? Well I never thought I'd see the day. Chris Lee plays Fu, a young man with hemophilia who gets a transfusion of AIDS-infected... » MORE

From the Queen to the Chief Executive. Under British rule, minorities convicted of committing crimes punishable by the death penalty if they were older were sometimes detained "by the Queen's pleasure," without ever actually being sentenced. Now, on the eve of the handover, a dedicated lawyer and... » MORE

Fulltime Killer. A killer who can't stand flickering flourescents hunts down a killer who gets off his game when he hears country western music, both problems I can readily identify with. Tok (Andy Lau) wants to be the number one killer, O... » MORE

Funeral March. Yee (Charlene Choi) has cancer and is going to die. She visits Duan, a funeral director (Eason Chan) to plan her funeral beforehand. As these "terminal illness romances" go, they naturally fall in love. This one mixes up the genre... » MORE

Gambler's Story, A. Francis Ng is a compulsive gambler, Shooky Kwan a down on her luck nightclub madam in debt. Their paths cross several times, and they fall in love as they try their fortunes in Macao. The film is very clever in... » MORE

Gangs 2001. This is a surprisingly entertaining film about the horrors of Rave scene drugs such as ecstasy, reminiscent of those old American drug scare films of the fifties. The young bunch (the 'gang' of the title, I suppose) go to Shenzhen... » MORE

Gimme Gimme. Maybe I need to be younger to enjoy this but I found this adolescent drama about two friends who both fall for the same girl to be rather slow moving and lacking in any really dramatic scenes. The friends are... » MORE

Glass Tears. A remarkable film about the grandfather of a runaway girl, enlisted by the girl's parents to help track her down. He falls in with the girl's friend, named P, who is a brash, stubborn, independent herself. Together they try to... » MORE

Gold Fingers. There are no gold fingers whatsoever to be found in this story of an undercover cop infiltrating the triads. Once there, he befriends another undercover, generally laments about being undercover, and gets rippingly drunk and confesses to his girlfriend about... » MORE

Goodbye Mr. Cool. This update of STORY OF A DISCHARGED PRISONER follows a former triad leader (Ekin Cheng) after his release from prison. He tries to start a new life, working at the cafe of an old friend (Lam Suet), but his old... » MORE

Haunted School. The story begins with a 'Cryptkeeper' type narrator (a hopping vampire), introducing the tale. Lots of paper flutters everywhere, there's lightning and thunder, and the camera zooms and floats and turns all over the place. Spooky music plays. And then... » MORE

Headlines. The story of three reporters at one newspaper and the stories that they break. The new guy (Daniel Wu) writes a successful story about poor orphans, the top reporter (Maggie Cheung Ho-Yi) gets close with a young triad punk to... » MORE

Her Name is Cat 2: Journey to Death. This film bears no relation whatsoever to HER NAME IS CAT. Some pre-credits action has Almen Wong copping a TOMB RAIDER vibe as she steals a gold Buddha from a Thai temple. This is never mentioned again, and has nothing... » MORE

Heroes in Love. Three short stories by new directors, all dealing in some way about love. The first by Wing Shya tells the story of a lesbian who kidnaps a girl and holds her in her bedroom above a shoestore in the hopes... » MORE

Hit Team. Not since THE KILLER saved his corneas for Jenny have we seen heroes so concerned about saving up for a major medical procedure. This time, it's undercover cop Chin Kar-Lok who needs some extravagant multimillion dollar back surgery. And it's... » MORE

Hong Kong History Y. Last year, two of the most amusing Hong Kong movie titles were HONG KONG HISTORY X, named after the U.S. film AMERICAN HISTORY X, and HONG KONG PIE, named after AMERICAN PIE. Not that either of the films had anything... » MORE

Horror Hotline...Big Head Monster. Francis Ng is a producer of a radio call-in show about supernatural phenomenon. When a reporter (Josie Ho) and film crew from the U.S. show up to get an in-depth story, they follow the lead of a particularly strange caller,... » MORE

Human Pork Chop. Based on the "Hello Kitty" murder, just like THERE IS A SECRET IN MY SOUP, and in fact in addition to sharing details about the crime in question, even share the same plot device of opening the film with the... » MORE

Killing End. Dick (Andy Hui) and Junk (Simon Loui) are CID agents who cross some of the top triad bosses in Hong Kong and soon find themselves out of options and with nowhere to hide. In most movies it seems the cops... » MORE

La Brassiere. It's the Hong Kong WHAT WOMEN WANT, with Lau Ching-Wan and Louis Koo as men hired to design the ultimate bra. Most of the women in the office are fawning over them, except Gigi Leung, who will never respect a... » MORE

Lan Yu. A gay couple meet, separate, then meet again in this slice of life drama from director Stanley Kwan. Chen Handong (Hu Jun), a successful Beijing businessman, meets the not yet in college Lan Yu (Liu Ye) and they build a... » MORE

Leaving in Sorrow. I enjoy watching independent Hong Kong productions, but admittedly, they are rarely good. Because of low budgets, their technical accomplishments are necessarily limited. Their only strength then lies in selecting interesting subject matter and scripting appropriately. LEAVING IN SORROW has... » MORE

Legend of a Professional. Anthony Wong is a ruthless killer, though as he says, "I only kill those who deserve killing," so I guess that makes it alright. He meets a tough street girl, Josie Ho, and pays her to pretend to be his... » MORE

Legend of Zu. Great fantasy films are few and far between. And those that are great, are almost always deeply flawed. The original vision in such enchanting pictures such as THE DARK CRYSTAL and LEGEND continue to amaze, despite the fact that the... » MORE

Ling's Story. Well, it's like this. Ling is an administrative assistant in an office, but the economy isn't doing too well, her boyfriend withdrew all their savings and gambled it away to try and pay of his debts, failed and disappeared, and... » MORE

Love au Zen. A young stock broker drops out of life and moves to Lantau Island to study under a Zen Master, leaving his girlfriend of five years. His best friend is dumped at the altar by his girlfriend and joins him on... » MORE

Love on a Diet. When Eddie Murphy put on a fat suit for THE NUTTY PROFESSOR, he was striking a chord with American audiences everywhere, for whom extreme obesity is a well understood part of society. The scenes he did playing all the roles... » MORE

Lunch With Charles. Lau Ching-Wan, no, I'm sorry, "Sean Lau," as he is credited here, stars in this Canadian picture about a man whose wife moved to Vancouver for work while he stayed behind in Hong Kong. Finally, she throws down the gauntlet... » MORE

Maniacal Night. A movie in the tradition of Jonathan Demme's AFTER HOURS and Sabu's POSTMAN BLUES, though much lighter in spirit. A Japanese man (Taguchi Hiromasa) in Hong Kong on the eve of the handover hires a prostitute at incredible cost because... » MORE

Martial Angels. Hsu Chi and Sandra Ng head up a cast of superthieving, computer-hacking babes who have to steal a new computer super virus from a high tech vault in order to save Hsu's lover from the Russian Mafia. Fun, campy action... » MORE

Master Q 2001. It seemed like such a great idea. Take some of Hong Kong's old and beloved comic characters, then do the WHO FRAMED ROGER RABBIT treatment on them and have them interact with stars like Nicholas Tse and Cecilia Cheung. Only... » MORE

Merry-Go-Round. Eric Tsang and his two kids, one a teenage boy, the other a little girl, open up a noodle shop for a few short months. During that time the two kids learn alot about themselves, make friends, fall in love.... » MORE

Midnight Fly. Anita Mui goes to Paris to get away from her philandering husband, and befriends a young Japanese girl who is in love with a married man. The two decide to extend their vacation and go to Morocco, and while there... » MORE

Mist in Judge. The movie follows three plot threads which only barely intersect -- there's a serial killer on the loose. Terence Yin in the obsessed cop trying to track him down. And Ti Lung is the triad boss who gets involved only... » MORE

My Life as McDull. Here, at last, is an animated film, Hong Kong style. Based on a popular Hong Kong cartoon series, McDull has a firm sense of place unmatched in any animated film I've ever seen before. It is Hong Kong, it's concerns... » MORE

My Schoolmate, the Barbarian. Stephen Fung is a rich, smart kid sent to the worst school in the city, where classroom disputes are settled in a makeshift arena in an abandoned classroom. Nicholas Tse is the reigning fight champion of the school. He takes... » MORE

Nightmare in Precinct 7. Andy Hui is a cop who, after a near fatal shooting, can see dead people. But this isn't a SIXTH SENSE sort of movie where he has to help them now, rather, it is the ghosts who help him. After... » MORE

Para Para Sakura. A few redeeming qualities surface in this cookie cutter romance about, as they inevitably are, a handsome but flawed man (Aaron Kwok) who falls in love with a cute but eccentric woman (Christy Cheung). He's color blind -- she makes... » MORE

Prison on Fire - Plaintive Destiny. Lam Suet takes center stage as a man sent to prison for raping and killing his own daughter. But then, after being subjected to 'penis dragging' and various other abuses by the other inmates, he forces them to listen to... » MORE

Prison on Fire: Life Sentence. Of all the B&S Film Workshop franchises, the PRISON ON FIRE films are consistently the best. This one is about a man who gets life in prison because he stood up to the small time hoods who were threatening his... » MORE

Replacement Suspects, The. Simon Loui pens another genre thriller, this time about three thieves who accidentally kill a policeman while escaping and retreat into a bar, taking hostages. But someone in the bar is another wanted criminal. Or actually, Loui didn't write it... » MORE

Running Out of Time 2. Director To follows up his classic film with a sequel starring Lau Ching-wan and Ekin Cheng. A lighter, more whimsical film which has split early viewers of the film pretty evenly between like and hate. I liked it, though the... » MORE

Sai Teri Maya. A devotional film praising the strength of Sai Baba and celebrating his glory, though you'd have to be pretty devout to overlook the flaws of this slow-moving, silly film that advertises itself as having "a lot of computer graphic scenes".... » MORE

Scaremonger. Sam Lee and Jerry Lamb star in this pathetic horror comedy about a couple writers looking for new stories, who encounter a woman who lures men to her home where they are eaten by her husband. The appearance of Jude... » MORE

Seamy Side of Life -- A Black Chick. As our cheap, shot-on-video exploitation film opens, a young girl is out dancing, and is kidnapped, raped, and locked up until she agrees to become a prostitute. The gang begins giving her drugs until she's an addict. Her grandmother, Helena... » MORE

Sex Medusa. A snake woman (Nomoto Miho) is flushed out of the sewer system by a commando force that uses flame throwers to torch the snakes in the pipes. Why they are doing this is never explained, but she appears topside, as... » MORE

Shadow. Stephen Fung and his pals hang out on the beach picking up women, until one day he runs into a girl he hasn't seen since High School. They look her up and visit only to find she has committed suicide... » MORE

Shadow Mask. I was fully expecting to enjoy this low budget action fest. Cheng Pei-Pei is the villainous Red Goddess, sprung from jail by her gang, and intent on revenge for the man who put her there, Shadow Mask. Only thing is,... » MORE

Shaolin Soccer. Stephen Chiau is a Shaolin monk who wants to popularize martial arts. Ng Man-Tat is a former soccer champ who took a bribe to throw a game twenty years ago and is trying to regain his honor by putting together... » MORE

Sharp Guns. Alex Fong is Tricky On, an expert hitman hired by an old friend to rescue his daughter from kidnappers. He recruits a crack team, including a sharpshooter, a race car driver, and a hand-to-hand combat and torture expert, played by... » MORE

Snaker. One of the first films made in Cambodia since the Khmer Rouge, Snaker (the regrettable Hong Kong DVD version english title of the film, far less eloquent than the translated Cambodian title, The Snake King's Child) is a landmark in... » MORE

Stolen Love. A young architect (Raymond Lam) gets hit by a car and cannot draw anymore unless he is near a mysterious girl (Rain Li) that he believes he has seen before, somehow. She finds him familiar as well, and both of... » MORE

Story of Freemen, The. A war photojournalist takes a picture of a beautiful hitwoman (Joey Man Yee-Man) as she assassinates someone from a rival gang, and they immediately fall in love. A tough cop tries to find the murderer and bring down her "dragon... » MORE

Stowaway. A group of illegal immigrants try to make the journey from China to England and go through sheer hell to do it. I can only imagine it isn't always this hard to smuggle people into the west, otherwise there'd be... » MORE

There Is a Secret In My Soup. Based on a true story -- a bunch of punks kidnap a girl, torture her, rape her, kill her accidentally, then stuff her remains in a Hello Kitty doll. The Hello Kitty copyright owners were none to amused by all... » MORE

Thou Shall Not Commit. A cheap and nasty little film about a jealous man (Anthony Wong) who suspects his wife (Maggie Cheung) is sleeping with a younger man, and is willing to go to great lengths to prove it. A pawn in his game... » MORE

Troublesome Night 10. In TN 8, we briefly see Bud Gay in his office at a trading company. This time around, the story concerns Gay and his co-workers as their boss (Wayne Lai) takes them on a holiday to Cheung Chau, a common... » MORE

Troublesome Night 11. Bud Gay and his co-workers are at it again. This time they volunteer to help clean garbage off the beach to meet girls. And while there, one of the girls gets possessed by a woman who was slain by her... » MORE

Troublesome Night 12. Bud Gay and Bud Yan are back again, this time in Shenzhen, helping a couple girls with their new beauty parlor. To increase business, their friends (the landlord and his pal, Mr. Nine and Onitsuke, who have been in TN... » MORE

Troublesome Night 8. Simon Loui is Bud Pit, an out of work movie maker. He moves his family to the New Territories to save on the rent. So we put up dramatic non-scares like a crummy landlord, a barking dog, taoist prayer slips... » MORE

Troublesome Night 9. Picking up right where TN 8 left off, Bud Pit (Simon Loui) has finally found a job, working nights on a casino boat. Maggie Cheung Ho-Yi is a gambling addict who is trying to get rich for love (not quite... » MORE

Ultimate Intelligence. Good lord. Or should I say Lord, since this evangelical film is all about God's love. I wouldn't be surprised if they had priests at the exits during its theatrical run to baptize new converts. When a young man gets... » MORE

Ultimatum. This one starts promising with a nice CGI shot following a bullet across a restaurant, through an open flame, into a man's neck, out the back, and into the glass door behind him, which shatters. But it's a trick --... » MORE

Vampire Combat. Every hundred years or so the planets align and this evil demon guy can pop up and take over the world, provided he has the right sacrifice. A few hundred years ago, his plans were foiled by former disciples, and... » MORE

Vampire Controller. Here's a throwback to the old hopping vampire comedies of the eighties, which even tries to add a little hopping-vampire lore. Two sifus, two disciples, driving two different groups of corpses through the woods, stop at the same temple for... » MORE

Visible Secret. Shu Qi sees dead people in this mystery/romance which also stars Eason Chan as a somewhat dopey, lovestruck guy intent on wooing her. Things get stranger and stranger for Eason as his romance blossoms, until he can no longer tell... » MORE

Women's Private Parts. At first I was pretty bored by this documentary about women's sexuality. The first thirty minutes play like a particularly risque episode of the daytime talk show THE VIEW. But it gets better from there, beginning with an interview with... » MORE

Wu Yen. Emperor Qi (Anita Mui, cross dressing as a man) is fated to marry the beautiful chief Wu Yen (Sammi Cheng). But a fox fairy (Cecilia Cheung) comes between them, causing an ugly facial blemish to appear on Wu Yen's face,... » MORE

You Shoot, I Shoot. Eric Kot is a hitman out of work due to the recession, who ends up reinvigorating his business by adding a cameraman (Cheung Tat-Ming) to film his hits. A very funny satire which takes aim at the movie industry in... » MORE

Young Ones, The aka Half Past 15 Years Old. Definitely not the hilarious British comedy series of the same name, this film follows the lives of four near sixteen year old girls as they cause trouble in school and have troubles at home. One is molested by her uncle,... » MORE