Year - 2002
Beauty and the Breast. Since last year a movie had great success showing two men developing a new type of bra (La Brassiere), I suppose having two men develop breast enhancement cream is the next logical step. And when they actually grow breasts, well,... » MORE
Chinese Orthopedist and the Spice Girls. Another shot on video cheapie from Small Siu and B&S Creative Films Workshop, and not even the presence of mid-level talent like Cecilia Yip, Kenny B, and Shing Fui On can save it. Four girls live it up and get... » MORE
Colour of Pain. A hit man from Japan (Kenya Sawada) gets a bullet in his brain while on assignment in Hong Kong and can't go home again (apparently since the airport metal detectors would go off and people would have questions). With nothing... » MORE
Conman 2002. Nick Cheung stars as the unluckiest man alive. When he starts dating the sister of a top gambler (Stephen Fung), the gambler decides to use his bad luck to make him his student. Some moments are mildly amusing but gambling... » MORE
Crazy Marriage. A romance about a Literature teacher (Kam Woo-seong) who, based on the evidence of his friends, refuses to even consider marriage. Especially now, when he still lives with his mother and makes very little income. But he meets a girl... » MORE
Crime of Beast II. Category III sex kittens Grace Lam and Sophia Ngan star, but, no doubt due to costs, only one gets naked. ... » MORE
Dare Ya!. A documentary about the Cantonese hip-hop group LMF (LazyMuthaFuckahs, for the uninitiated). Bandmember talking heads tell us why they love getting high and playing video games while the documentary utterly fails to provide any context as to why we should... » MORE
Deadly Past. Deadly boring. A woman kills her rich husband and sets up her former lover, just out of jail, to take the rap. When someone who saw her kill (Ben Ng) tries to blackmail her, he sets in motion events that... » MORE
Deals with the Dark. Sam Lee and Samuel Leung star, along with Ronny Cheung, a regular in the TROUBLESOME NIGHT films (never a good sign). Shot on DV. The three skinny punks are complete losers and deep in debt with the local loan shark.... » MORE
Demi-Haunted. Eason Chan stars as Buster, an acrobat in a Chinese Opera troupe, never given a starring role and always chastized for his laziness by the troupes star (played by Anthony Wong). When his previous incarnation, a female opera actress (Joey... » MORE
Devil Eye. A group of friends goes to Thailand and witness a murder, but do nothing. Soon after the ghost starts haunting them. Things take a turn for the idiotic when one of the girls videotapes her own murder, but the police... » MORE
Devil Face, Angel Heart. Daniel Wu and Lam Suet are assassins, and they are also brothers. Stephen Fung and Sam Lee are cops on their trail. When the triad boss's wife takes a shine to Wu despite the fact that he is horribly disfigured,... » MORE
Devil Snake Woman. Diana Pang Dan and Sophie Ngan starring together in a Snake Woman film. How can it go wrong? Oh, let me count the ways! Shot on video and unsubtitled. A child medusa leads snakes against a group of tribal, spear-weilding... » MORE
Devil Touch. Tang follows up last year's SHARP GUNS, a movie filled with intricate ploys, clever strategems, and byzantine betrayals, with DEVIL TOUCH, which tries to be just as clever but doesn't quite pull it off. When a department head (Michael Tao)... » MORE
Distinctive. Shot on video. A group goes out to a village in the country to track down legends of a mythical beast, called "The Distinctive." A reward has been offered for photos, even more money for hide. The group goes hunting,... » MORE
Dry Wood, Fierce Fire. Miriam Yeung and Louis Koo turn on the charm in this romantic comedy, to no noticable effect. About twenty minutes into the picture, the subtitles drop off of the DVD. Nothing I had seen thus far made it look like... » MORE
Dumbly Agent. Kent Cheng heads up the cast in this story of a security agency run by a woman being driven out of business by the man who heads up the competing agency. But the dedication and loyalty of the guards, including... » MORE
Eye, The. Angelica Lee plays a young blind woman who gets corneal implants to restore her vision. Unfortunately for her, it also gives her the ability to see ghosts, and even more chilling, the strange visitors who come to take the dead... » MORE
Fashionoholic. Shot on video. A candidate for the worst Hong Kong video I have ever seen. A woman gets a job at a clothing store, and has an affair with the owners husband. But who cares about the plot? It's a... » MORE
Fat Choi Spirit. Andy Lau is the Mahjong Master, Gigi Leung is his crazy but determined girlfriend, Louis Koo is his geeky brother, and Lau Ching-Wan is a hip-hop Mahjong con man. This movie is a love poem to Mahjong. Fans of the... » MORE
Fighting to Survive. There was a time when mere mention of comedian Dayo Wong was enough to make me break out into hives. But not anymore -- I take back everything bad I ever said about him -- this movie is a gem.... » MORE
Freaky Story. Three airline hostesses have a several day layover in the Philippines. They stay at a nice hotel, and are eager to hit the town to pick up some guys. But the only ones they manage to attract is a guy... » MORE
Frugal Game. Two unemployed families, one consisting of Eric Tsang, Miriam Yeung, and Dodo Cheng, the other led by Wayne Lai, compete in a television game show, 'Frugal Game,' to spend the least amount of money possible in one week's time. Eason... » MORE
Golden Chicken. Sandra Ng is a not particularly good-looking prostitute who makes a living by working twice as hard as anyone else. Trapped in an ATM booth overnight with a would-be thief (Eric Tsang), she tells the story of her life in... » MORE
Happy Family. Hot off a string of energetic and exciting films (FROM THE QUEEN..., NIGHTMARE IN PRECINCT 7, KILLING END), Herman Yau switches over to romantic comedy with less than admirable results. Nick Cheung stars as a successful businessman who is unlucky... » MORE
Haunted Office. Three intertwining horror tales revolving around a single office high rise. In the first one, Karen Mok takes a job at a company where every year, ghosts force a handful of workers to kill themselves. The second story involves Jordan... » MORE
Heartbreak Motel. I wish this VCD had subtitles because what I saw of it looks quite nice. An anthology of stories that take place around guests of the Heartbreak Motel. Simon Loui stars as one of the guests, and it looks like... » MORE
Hollywood Hong Kong. A young prostitute who dreams of Hollywood visits a soon to be demolished shanty town and teaches its inhabitants about love, happiness, and especially, amputation. Ensnared by her charm are an enterprising young pimp (Wong Yau Nam) and the obscenely... » MORE
Hooker's World. Here's a twist on the hooker-with-a-heart-of-gold cliche: the PIMP with heart of gold! Ronny Cheung is the kind hearted pimp who sends a girl to vice cop Simon Loui for a little action. When she ends up dead, Loui becomes... » MORE
If U Care. Eason Chan is a complete dick who gets into a car accident, which gives him magical powers to empathize with whomever he touches with his hand. All this empathy, along with the sudden appearance of his childhood sweetheart Gillian Cheung,... » MORE
Inner Senses. A great concept, poorly executed. Leslie Cheung is a psychiatrist who does not believe ghosts exist, and explains them away as a construct of our overactive brains. Karena Lam, on the other hand, is a girl who sees dead people.... » MORE
Interactive Murders. Andy Hui is a retired police officer called in to help a frustrated police team headed by Alex Fong crack a kidnapping case in which the criminal uses the Internet and streaming video to broadcast his demands. He also uses... » MORE
Irresistible Piggies. While part of the appeal of HK movies is their often insensitive nature, being politically incorrect is not enough to make a successful picture. Written and produced by Wong Jing, the avatar of adolescence, Irresistible Piggies concerns four homely women... » MORE
July Rhapsody. Jackie Cheung is a dissatisfied poetry teacher, Anita Mui his tired wife, and Karena Lam the student that he feels pulled towards despite the fact that she would unravel the life he has lived so far. A life mostly of... » MORE
Just One Look. A nostalgic coming of age film set on the small island of Cheung Chau in the 60s and 70s starring a gaggle of young cantopop stars (Charlene Choi, Gillian Cheung, Shawn Yue, and Wong Yau Nam). It should be painfully... » MORE
Killing Skill. Mark Cheng, Lily Chung, Law Ka Ying These days, low budget filmmakers who still use film apparently have to shoot in the Phillippines to cover costs. Lily Chung is a "guitar killer", determined to kill all the drug traffikers in... » MORE
Lion Roars, The. Louis Koo plays an ineffectual scholar poet, the classic Chinese male hero archetype. Cecilia Cheung is a super-strong woman. Neither can find a suitable mate until fate throws them together and they marry. A nice premise completely underminded by a... » MORE
Love is Butterfly. Four stories about love and soft drinks. Starring Loletta Lee, Charmaine Sheh, Rachel Lee, and a soda vending machine. Each of the four parts is named after a beverage, like "Escaping Sprite" or "Forever Coke." One of the girls is... » MORE
Love Undercover. I like Daniel Wu, and even here, when he's completely on autopilot, he retains some charm. Miriam Yeung, however, continues to confuse me by starring in movies without having any charm or ability. She mugs for the camera for nearly... » MORE
Loving Him. Terminal diseases are all the rage in HK Cinema lately, but few of the films are any good, or in the case of this year's SUMMER I LOVE YOU, even coherent. But this one is an exception -- a good... » MORE
Mago. She's the primal deity, the one, of the primordial goddess myth of Korea. Everyone wants a piece of her. Hey, leggo my Mago! She splits into twelve muses, naked women (don't ask, the whole story is told in hallucinogenic flashback... » MORE
Marry a Rich Man. Sammi Cheung has just one dream -- to marry a rich man. Richie Jen is her rich man of choice. Will it work? Or can there be love without money? Can she love a poor man? Like last year's LOVE... » MORE
May & August. The Rape of Nanking as seen through the eyes of two orphans, named May and August. The movie tries to do a lot on a small budget and comes off looking like a fairly decent Hallmark made for TV special.... » MORE
Mighty Baby. The official sequel to LA BRASSIERE, the old cast is back (Lau Ching-Wan, Louis Koo, Gigi Leung, and Carina Lau) are joined by Rosamund Kwan and Cecilia Cheung with a new directive: make the ultimate baby product. A few laughs,... » MORE
Mong Tak Cho: Virgin Power. Direct to video sleaze about a monk with special sex power having a sex competition with a woman. Shot on video, artistically barren, and without a moment of eroticism, this is Category III filmmaking at its lowest point. Porn actors... » MORE
Mummy Aged 19, The. An update of the classic 50's teen angst movie I WAS A TEENAGE WEREWOLF, starring the boy band SHINE (Tsui Tin Yau, Wong Yau Nam). 19 year old Bobo (Tsui Tin Yau), hates his name so much he changes it,... » MORE
My Left Eye Sees Ghosts. Johnnie To puts together another of his formulaic comedies, with some success. This time Sammi Cheng stars as a girl who meets a millionaire on vacation and marries him after three days. Shortly after that, he dies, and she moves... » MORE
My Wife is 18. When did Hong Kong comedies suddenly start to resemble the Carol Burnett Show? MY WIFE IS 18 is only one of many comedies that think comedy is better if the actors are laughing at themselves, too. Unfortunately, when that happens,... » MORE
Naag Devi. A Telugu version of Rajkumar Kohli's 1976 film Nagin, from 2002. You might think the film would benefit from the advances in film production in the 26 years that separate the two films, but instead it achieves a quality in... » MORE
Naked Poison 2. A highlight of Category III sleaze last year was most certainly the darkly nasty NAKED POISON. This is a sequel in name only, but does star the most talented girls from the previous picture, once again taking off all of... » MORE
Naked Weapon. Young girls all over the world are kidnapped, taken to a secluded island, and trained to be assassins by Madame M (Almen Wong). After years of brutal training, which includes murder and rape, the best of the best become professionals.... » MORE
New Blood. Dark, nasty, and bleak horror film about suicidal lovers. One of the victims has an unusual blood type and three donors are rounded up in the middle of the night to give. They end up saving the man, but the... » MORE
New Option. Shawn Yue stars as a police investigator who wants to join the SDU to become a sniper. He also has lots and lots of guns in his apartment. Michael Wong is the head of SDU and has final say who... » MORE
Nine Girls and a Ghost. The hot new nine member girl band "Cookies" get their movie debut in this rather mundane story of a ghost (Edison Chen) who helps the girls in school while they help him discover his identity. Some really poor CGI enhanced... » MORE
Peeping, The. Packed wall to wall with sex, held together by a plot full of double crosses, THE PEEPING would have made a great porno. But although there is a lot of nudity, and a lot of sex, the camera is set... » MORE
Point of No Return. There are about a dozen Hong Kong films titled POINT OF NO RETURN. This is the worst. A direct to video production. Jackie Lui is a cop who enlists Grace Lam to work for him as an undercover to avoid... » MORE
Possessed. The hosts of a radio call-in program about the supernatural (Julian Cheung and Ozawa Maju) begin investigating possession cases to help boost ratings for fear of being replaced as hosts by a Feng Shui master (Lam Suet). When they investigate... » MORE
Princess - D. When computer game designer (Daniel Wu) conceptualizes what he hopes to be his breakthrough game, there is only one thing missing: the star. He meets a young, street tough bartender (Angelica Lee), mixing drinks and handing out ecstacy, and sees... » MORE
Prison on Fire - Preacher. Utilizing the same three prison sets used in TROUBLESOME NIGHT 17 (a cafeteria that doubles as a visiting room, solitary cells, and a group cell), B&S CREATIVE FILM WORKS whips off another shot on video cheapie leaning on the PRISON... » MORE
Psychedelic Cop. This movie has become legendary for its low box office. After a week in the theater, it screened to exactly 10 people, giving it a worldwide standing as one of the poorest performing films of all time. You can joke... » MORE
Return from the Other World. Another shameless grab for your immortal soul by Media Evangelism, who brought us last year's Ultimate Intelligence. This time around a gambler strikes a deal with the Devil, becomes a billionaire, but then hits bottom, and after attempting suicide, sees... » MORE
Reunion. When triad baddies kill their parents, the oldest brother gets his younger brother and sister out of the house and onto the street. They are eventually taken in by an orphanage, are adopted by different families, and grow up. Now... » MORE
Runaway Pistol. The premise of RUNAWAY PISTOL -- an entire movie from the point of view of a gun, as it moves from owner to owner -- is high concept and one might think almost doomed to stupidity. Several American movies have... » MORE
Second Time Around. Leave it to Hong Kong filmmakers to take BACK TO THE FUTURE and make it a gambling movie. Ekin Cheng is the gambler, and he has his eyes on taking the high rollers in Vegas. But things go wrong, and... » MORE
Shark Busters. If there's one thing you will leave this movie thinking, it's, "Who the heck is that white guy who speaks fluent Cantonese?" The answer would be Brian Ireland, a Hong Kong businessman and friend of Danny Lee, making his acting... » MORE
Sleeping with the Dead. Jordan Chan shacks up with the dead whenever he gets the chance in this dark ghost story about a woman who was raped and killed on her birthday and comes back to do in her assailants one by one. Simon... » MORE
Snake Charmer. You've got to love the pitch for this film: COYOTE UGLY meets PHANTOM OF SNAKE. Yes, lets get lots of ladies, running a bar, dancing on it even, then have one of them (Marsha Yuan) turn into a snake woman... » MORE
So Close. A pair of sister assassins (Shu Qi and Vicki Zhao) are hired by a businessman to kill a few of his associates, putting him in charge of the corporation. Meanwhile, an exceptional forensics detective (Karen Mok) will stop at nothing... » MORE
Stewardess, The. Director Samuel Leung continues his dialog on Japan - Hong Kong relations, carried through many of his previous pictures (COLOUR OF PAIN, MANIACAL NIGHT) Here, Sam Lee is a young man who meets a beautiful Japanese stewardess (Kasugai Seina) and... » MORE
Summer Breeze of Love. Sometimes these movies make me feel old. This time around we watch the end of summer, with friends Gillian Cheung and Charlene Choi of the canto pop band TWINS falling in love and maturing a tad. Gillian falls for a... » MORE
Summer I Love You. Love means never having to say you're sorry I injected you with an experimental hormone that makes you age prematurely. Candy Lo and Richie Yen star in this twist on the ultimate love affair, meeting on ICQ then suddenly trying... » MORE
Time 4 Hope. The next time I see an autobiographical movie of someone's life, I sincerely hope they are either more interesting or just lie a lot. As it stands, this is the story of Yuen Kai-Chi, (played by Nick Cheung) an unlikable... » MORE
Tiramisu. Karena Lam is a dancer, Nic Tse a mailman. They have a chance encounter, and she is thinking of him when she suddenly gets flattened by a passing bus. Now her ghost is back, inhabiting his body so she can... » MORE
Touch, The. After TOMORROW NEVER DIES Michelle Yeoh was on top of the world. But instead of continuing her Hollywood career (which knowing Hollywood would have been restricted to very stereotypical asian woman roles anyway), she began her own new production company... » MORE
Trek, The. Apparently the jungle is a lot more dangerous than last time you visited. And it's not the animals, particularly. It's the insects. Basically, they have a tendancy to rip your face off or swarm over your lower half and devour... » MORE
Troublesome Night 13. Thirteen was never so unlucky as now, when it has the misfortune of being attached to the end of a Troublesome Night title. This time around, the filmmakers apparently decided to take a nice vacation to Thailand to film themselves... » MORE
Troublesome Night 14. Here's a novel experience -- I was actually entertained by some of this entry in the neverending series. The Bud family grows by one when Helena Law's ex-husband, "Budcasso," sends her a wedding invitation and offers her shares in his... » MORE
Troublesome Night 15. Eric Tsang lends his star power to this fifteenth installment, but does little to improve it. In his past life, he betrayed his village to the invading Japanese, and after killing a man's wife and child in front of him,... » MORE
Troublesome Night 16. It had to happen -- here's a meta-TROUBLESOME NIGHT episode, which begins with the cast discussing with the director ideas for the next TN movie. When the boys try to escape the brainstorming session by climbing out the bathroom window,... » MORE
Troublesome Night 17. The Troublesome Night series goes to prison in this episode, about a wrongly accused man (Sam Lee) who hangs himself in prison to prove his innocence. Meanwhile, his girlfriend (Theresa Mak), in despair, kills herself in her apartment. Now the... » MORE
Troublesome Romance. A doctor (Alex To) operates on his wife and accidentally kills her. Under investigation because of her large insurance policy, he decides to jump off the roof, where he meets a girl (Grace Ip) planning to do the same thing... » MORE
Twilight Zone Cops: My Spirited Wife. Michael Chow is on the trail of a serial murderer who rapes and kills his victims in gardens around Hong Kong. He obsesses endlessly over the case and even gets a vengeful ghost to help him solve it, but the... » MORE
U-Man. 2002 is the year of fantastic Anthony Wong performances. With one notable exception. U-MAN stars Wong and Sam Lee as undercover cops who have to infiltrate a catholic girls school to find some stolen money. Wong disguises as a priest,... » MORE
Untold Story: Sudden Vanished. Wayne Lai gets his own little digital video franchise, 'UNTOLD STORY.' It has nothing to do with the famous Herman Yau UNTOLD STORY films. Instead, it's basically the X-FILES. Wayne Lai and Fannie Yuan are cops who resign from the... » MORE
Visible Secret 2. Eason Chan and Jo Koo star as newlyweds who don't have much time together before Chan has an accident and goes into a coma. When he awakes, he meets his old friend (Cherrie Ying) who helps him investigate his wife,... » MORE
Wall, The. Two young gangbanger buddies trying to prove themselves kill their target, but only one gets caught. More than a decade later, Jordan Chan gets out of prison and looks to start a new life, while his old friend, played by... » MORE
Wesley's Mysterious File, The. Now, although I recognize bad SF, that doesn't mean I don't still enjoy it. Typically, I'm pretty forgiving of SF films, though gaping logical flaws get on my nerves. MEN IN BLACK was bad SF. No explanation, gaping plot logic,... » MORE
Women from Mars. Michael Wong, Ekin Cheng, and Cheung Tat-Ming treat women poorly and have their penises removed as punishment from Hell. They have a limited time to find women to tell them they love them or lose their penises forever. Everyone worked... » MORE
Beauty and the Breast. Since last year a movie had great success showing two men developing a new type of bra (La Brassiere), I suppose having two men develop breast enhancement cream is the next logical step. And when they actually grow breasts, well,... » MORE
Chinese Orthopedist and the Spice Girls. Another shot on video cheapie from Small Siu and B&S Creative Films Workshop, and not even the presence of mid-level talent like Cecilia Yip, Kenny B, and Shing Fui On can save it. Four girls live it up and get... » MORE
Colour of Pain. A hit man from Japan (Kenya Sawada) gets a bullet in his brain while on assignment in Hong Kong and can't go home again (apparently since the airport metal detectors would go off and people would have questions). With nothing... » MORE
Conman 2002. Nick Cheung stars as the unluckiest man alive. When he starts dating the sister of a top gambler (Stephen Fung), the gambler decides to use his bad luck to make him his student. Some moments are mildly amusing but gambling... » MORE
Crazy Marriage. A romance about a Literature teacher (Kam Woo-seong) who, based on the evidence of his friends, refuses to even consider marriage. Especially now, when he still lives with his mother and makes very little income. But he meets a girl... » MORE
Crime of Beast II. Category III sex kittens Grace Lam and Sophia Ngan star, but, no doubt due to costs, only one gets naked. ... » MORE
Dare Ya!. A documentary about the Cantonese hip-hop group LMF (LazyMuthaFuckahs, for the uninitiated). Bandmember talking heads tell us why they love getting high and playing video games while the documentary utterly fails to provide any context as to why we should... » MORE
Deadly Past. Deadly boring. A woman kills her rich husband and sets up her former lover, just out of jail, to take the rap. When someone who saw her kill (Ben Ng) tries to blackmail her, he sets in motion events that... » MORE
Deals with the Dark. Sam Lee and Samuel Leung star, along with Ronny Cheung, a regular in the TROUBLESOME NIGHT films (never a good sign). Shot on DV. The three skinny punks are complete losers and deep in debt with the local loan shark.... » MORE
Demi-Haunted. Eason Chan stars as Buster, an acrobat in a Chinese Opera troupe, never given a starring role and always chastized for his laziness by the troupes star (played by Anthony Wong). When his previous incarnation, a female opera actress (Joey... » MORE
Devil Eye. A group of friends goes to Thailand and witness a murder, but do nothing. Soon after the ghost starts haunting them. Things take a turn for the idiotic when one of the girls videotapes her own murder, but the police... » MORE
Devil Face, Angel Heart. Daniel Wu and Lam Suet are assassins, and they are also brothers. Stephen Fung and Sam Lee are cops on their trail. When the triad boss's wife takes a shine to Wu despite the fact that he is horribly disfigured,... » MORE
Devil Snake Woman. Diana Pang Dan and Sophie Ngan starring together in a Snake Woman film. How can it go wrong? Oh, let me count the ways! Shot on video and unsubtitled. A child medusa leads snakes against a group of tribal, spear-weilding... » MORE
Devil Touch. Tang follows up last year's SHARP GUNS, a movie filled with intricate ploys, clever strategems, and byzantine betrayals, with DEVIL TOUCH, which tries to be just as clever but doesn't quite pull it off. When a department head (Michael Tao)... » MORE
Distinctive. Shot on video. A group goes out to a village in the country to track down legends of a mythical beast, called "The Distinctive." A reward has been offered for photos, even more money for hide. The group goes hunting,... » MORE
Dry Wood, Fierce Fire. Miriam Yeung and Louis Koo turn on the charm in this romantic comedy, to no noticable effect. About twenty minutes into the picture, the subtitles drop off of the DVD. Nothing I had seen thus far made it look like... » MORE
Dumbly Agent. Kent Cheng heads up the cast in this story of a security agency run by a woman being driven out of business by the man who heads up the competing agency. But the dedication and loyalty of the guards, including... » MORE
Eye, The. Angelica Lee plays a young blind woman who gets corneal implants to restore her vision. Unfortunately for her, it also gives her the ability to see ghosts, and even more chilling, the strange visitors who come to take the dead... » MORE
Fashionoholic. Shot on video. A candidate for the worst Hong Kong video I have ever seen. A woman gets a job at a clothing store, and has an affair with the owners husband. But who cares about the plot? It's a... » MORE
Fat Choi Spirit. Andy Lau is the Mahjong Master, Gigi Leung is his crazy but determined girlfriend, Louis Koo is his geeky brother, and Lau Ching-Wan is a hip-hop Mahjong con man. This movie is a love poem to Mahjong. Fans of the... » MORE
Fighting to Survive. There was a time when mere mention of comedian Dayo Wong was enough to make me break out into hives. But not anymore -- I take back everything bad I ever said about him -- this movie is a gem.... » MORE
Freaky Story. Three airline hostesses have a several day layover in the Philippines. They stay at a nice hotel, and are eager to hit the town to pick up some guys. But the only ones they manage to attract is a guy... » MORE
Frugal Game. Two unemployed families, one consisting of Eric Tsang, Miriam Yeung, and Dodo Cheng, the other led by Wayne Lai, compete in a television game show, 'Frugal Game,' to spend the least amount of money possible in one week's time. Eason... » MORE
Golden Chicken. Sandra Ng is a not particularly good-looking prostitute who makes a living by working twice as hard as anyone else. Trapped in an ATM booth overnight with a would-be thief (Eric Tsang), she tells the story of her life in... » MORE
Happy Family. Hot off a string of energetic and exciting films (FROM THE QUEEN..., NIGHTMARE IN PRECINCT 7, KILLING END), Herman Yau switches over to romantic comedy with less than admirable results. Nick Cheung stars as a successful businessman who is unlucky... » MORE
Haunted Office. Three intertwining horror tales revolving around a single office high rise. In the first one, Karen Mok takes a job at a company where every year, ghosts force a handful of workers to kill themselves. The second story involves Jordan... » MORE
Heartbreak Motel. I wish this VCD had subtitles because what I saw of it looks quite nice. An anthology of stories that take place around guests of the Heartbreak Motel. Simon Loui stars as one of the guests, and it looks like... » MORE
Hollywood Hong Kong. A young prostitute who dreams of Hollywood visits a soon to be demolished shanty town and teaches its inhabitants about love, happiness, and especially, amputation. Ensnared by her charm are an enterprising young pimp (Wong Yau Nam) and the obscenely... » MORE
Hooker's World. Here's a twist on the hooker-with-a-heart-of-gold cliche: the PIMP with heart of gold! Ronny Cheung is the kind hearted pimp who sends a girl to vice cop Simon Loui for a little action. When she ends up dead, Loui becomes... » MORE
If U Care. Eason Chan is a complete dick who gets into a car accident, which gives him magical powers to empathize with whomever he touches with his hand. All this empathy, along with the sudden appearance of his childhood sweetheart Gillian Cheung,... » MORE
Inner Senses. A great concept, poorly executed. Leslie Cheung is a psychiatrist who does not believe ghosts exist, and explains them away as a construct of our overactive brains. Karena Lam, on the other hand, is a girl who sees dead people.... » MORE
Interactive Murders. Andy Hui is a retired police officer called in to help a frustrated police team headed by Alex Fong crack a kidnapping case in which the criminal uses the Internet and streaming video to broadcast his demands. He also uses... » MORE
Irresistible Piggies. While part of the appeal of HK movies is their often insensitive nature, being politically incorrect is not enough to make a successful picture. Written and produced by Wong Jing, the avatar of adolescence, Irresistible Piggies concerns four homely women... » MORE
July Rhapsody. Jackie Cheung is a dissatisfied poetry teacher, Anita Mui his tired wife, and Karena Lam the student that he feels pulled towards despite the fact that she would unravel the life he has lived so far. A life mostly of... » MORE
Just One Look. A nostalgic coming of age film set on the small island of Cheung Chau in the 60s and 70s starring a gaggle of young cantopop stars (Charlene Choi, Gillian Cheung, Shawn Yue, and Wong Yau Nam). It should be painfully... » MORE
Killing Skill. Mark Cheng, Lily Chung, Law Ka Ying These days, low budget filmmakers who still use film apparently have to shoot in the Phillippines to cover costs. Lily Chung is a "guitar killer", determined to kill all the drug traffikers in... » MORE
Lion Roars, The. Louis Koo plays an ineffectual scholar poet, the classic Chinese male hero archetype. Cecilia Cheung is a super-strong woman. Neither can find a suitable mate until fate throws them together and they marry. A nice premise completely underminded by a... » MORE
Love is Butterfly. Four stories about love and soft drinks. Starring Loletta Lee, Charmaine Sheh, Rachel Lee, and a soda vending machine. Each of the four parts is named after a beverage, like "Escaping Sprite" or "Forever Coke." One of the girls is... » MORE
Love Undercover. I like Daniel Wu, and even here, when he's completely on autopilot, he retains some charm. Miriam Yeung, however, continues to confuse me by starring in movies without having any charm or ability. She mugs for the camera for nearly... » MORE
Loving Him. Terminal diseases are all the rage in HK Cinema lately, but few of the films are any good, or in the case of this year's SUMMER I LOVE YOU, even coherent. But this one is an exception -- a good... » MORE
Mago. She's the primal deity, the one, of the primordial goddess myth of Korea. Everyone wants a piece of her. Hey, leggo my Mago! She splits into twelve muses, naked women (don't ask, the whole story is told in hallucinogenic flashback... » MORE
Marry a Rich Man. Sammi Cheung has just one dream -- to marry a rich man. Richie Jen is her rich man of choice. Will it work? Or can there be love without money? Can she love a poor man? Like last year's LOVE... » MORE
May & August. The Rape of Nanking as seen through the eyes of two orphans, named May and August. The movie tries to do a lot on a small budget and comes off looking like a fairly decent Hallmark made for TV special.... » MORE
Mighty Baby. The official sequel to LA BRASSIERE, the old cast is back (Lau Ching-Wan, Louis Koo, Gigi Leung, and Carina Lau) are joined by Rosamund Kwan and Cecilia Cheung with a new directive: make the ultimate baby product. A few laughs,... » MORE
Mong Tak Cho: Virgin Power. Direct to video sleaze about a monk with special sex power having a sex competition with a woman. Shot on video, artistically barren, and without a moment of eroticism, this is Category III filmmaking at its lowest point. Porn actors... » MORE
Mummy Aged 19, The. An update of the classic 50's teen angst movie I WAS A TEENAGE WEREWOLF, starring the boy band SHINE (Tsui Tin Yau, Wong Yau Nam). 19 year old Bobo (Tsui Tin Yau), hates his name so much he changes it,... » MORE
My Left Eye Sees Ghosts. Johnnie To puts together another of his formulaic comedies, with some success. This time Sammi Cheng stars as a girl who meets a millionaire on vacation and marries him after three days. Shortly after that, he dies, and she moves... » MORE
My Wife is 18. When did Hong Kong comedies suddenly start to resemble the Carol Burnett Show? MY WIFE IS 18 is only one of many comedies that think comedy is better if the actors are laughing at themselves, too. Unfortunately, when that happens,... » MORE
Naag Devi. A Telugu version of Rajkumar Kohli's 1976 film Nagin, from 2002. You might think the film would benefit from the advances in film production in the 26 years that separate the two films, but instead it achieves a quality in... » MORE
Naked Poison 2. A highlight of Category III sleaze last year was most certainly the darkly nasty NAKED POISON. This is a sequel in name only, but does star the most talented girls from the previous picture, once again taking off all of... » MORE
Naked Weapon. Young girls all over the world are kidnapped, taken to a secluded island, and trained to be assassins by Madame M (Almen Wong). After years of brutal training, which includes murder and rape, the best of the best become professionals.... » MORE
New Blood. Dark, nasty, and bleak horror film about suicidal lovers. One of the victims has an unusual blood type and three donors are rounded up in the middle of the night to give. They end up saving the man, but the... » MORE
New Option. Shawn Yue stars as a police investigator who wants to join the SDU to become a sniper. He also has lots and lots of guns in his apartment. Michael Wong is the head of SDU and has final say who... » MORE
Nine Girls and a Ghost. The hot new nine member girl band "Cookies" get their movie debut in this rather mundane story of a ghost (Edison Chen) who helps the girls in school while they help him discover his identity. Some really poor CGI enhanced... » MORE
Peeping, The. Packed wall to wall with sex, held together by a plot full of double crosses, THE PEEPING would have made a great porno. But although there is a lot of nudity, and a lot of sex, the camera is set... » MORE
Point of No Return. There are about a dozen Hong Kong films titled POINT OF NO RETURN. This is the worst. A direct to video production. Jackie Lui is a cop who enlists Grace Lam to work for him as an undercover to avoid... » MORE
Possessed. The hosts of a radio call-in program about the supernatural (Julian Cheung and Ozawa Maju) begin investigating possession cases to help boost ratings for fear of being replaced as hosts by a Feng Shui master (Lam Suet). When they investigate... » MORE
Princess - D. When computer game designer (Daniel Wu) conceptualizes what he hopes to be his breakthrough game, there is only one thing missing: the star. He meets a young, street tough bartender (Angelica Lee), mixing drinks and handing out ecstacy, and sees... » MORE
Prison on Fire - Preacher. Utilizing the same three prison sets used in TROUBLESOME NIGHT 17 (a cafeteria that doubles as a visiting room, solitary cells, and a group cell), B&S CREATIVE FILM WORKS whips off another shot on video cheapie leaning on the PRISON... » MORE
Psychedelic Cop. This movie has become legendary for its low box office. After a week in the theater, it screened to exactly 10 people, giving it a worldwide standing as one of the poorest performing films of all time. You can joke... » MORE
Return from the Other World. Another shameless grab for your immortal soul by Media Evangelism, who brought us last year's Ultimate Intelligence. This time around a gambler strikes a deal with the Devil, becomes a billionaire, but then hits bottom, and after attempting suicide, sees... » MORE
Reunion. When triad baddies kill their parents, the oldest brother gets his younger brother and sister out of the house and onto the street. They are eventually taken in by an orphanage, are adopted by different families, and grow up. Now... » MORE
Runaway Pistol. The premise of RUNAWAY PISTOL -- an entire movie from the point of view of a gun, as it moves from owner to owner -- is high concept and one might think almost doomed to stupidity. Several American movies have... » MORE
Second Time Around. Leave it to Hong Kong filmmakers to take BACK TO THE FUTURE and make it a gambling movie. Ekin Cheng is the gambler, and he has his eyes on taking the high rollers in Vegas. But things go wrong, and... » MORE
Shark Busters. If there's one thing you will leave this movie thinking, it's, "Who the heck is that white guy who speaks fluent Cantonese?" The answer would be Brian Ireland, a Hong Kong businessman and friend of Danny Lee, making his acting... » MORE
Sleeping with the Dead. Jordan Chan shacks up with the dead whenever he gets the chance in this dark ghost story about a woman who was raped and killed on her birthday and comes back to do in her assailants one by one. Simon... » MORE
Snake Charmer. You've got to love the pitch for this film: COYOTE UGLY meets PHANTOM OF SNAKE. Yes, lets get lots of ladies, running a bar, dancing on it even, then have one of them (Marsha Yuan) turn into a snake woman... » MORE
So Close. A pair of sister assassins (Shu Qi and Vicki Zhao) are hired by a businessman to kill a few of his associates, putting him in charge of the corporation. Meanwhile, an exceptional forensics detective (Karen Mok) will stop at nothing... » MORE
Stewardess, The. Director Samuel Leung continues his dialog on Japan - Hong Kong relations, carried through many of his previous pictures (COLOUR OF PAIN, MANIACAL NIGHT) Here, Sam Lee is a young man who meets a beautiful Japanese stewardess (Kasugai Seina) and... » MORE
Summer Breeze of Love. Sometimes these movies make me feel old. This time around we watch the end of summer, with friends Gillian Cheung and Charlene Choi of the canto pop band TWINS falling in love and maturing a tad. Gillian falls for a... » MORE
Summer I Love You. Love means never having to say you're sorry I injected you with an experimental hormone that makes you age prematurely. Candy Lo and Richie Yen star in this twist on the ultimate love affair, meeting on ICQ then suddenly trying... » MORE
Time 4 Hope. The next time I see an autobiographical movie of someone's life, I sincerely hope they are either more interesting or just lie a lot. As it stands, this is the story of Yuen Kai-Chi, (played by Nick Cheung) an unlikable... » MORE
Tiramisu. Karena Lam is a dancer, Nic Tse a mailman. They have a chance encounter, and she is thinking of him when she suddenly gets flattened by a passing bus. Now her ghost is back, inhabiting his body so she can... » MORE
Touch, The. After TOMORROW NEVER DIES Michelle Yeoh was on top of the world. But instead of continuing her Hollywood career (which knowing Hollywood would have been restricted to very stereotypical asian woman roles anyway), she began her own new production company... » MORE
Trek, The. Apparently the jungle is a lot more dangerous than last time you visited. And it's not the animals, particularly. It's the insects. Basically, they have a tendancy to rip your face off or swarm over your lower half and devour... » MORE
Troublesome Night 13. Thirteen was never so unlucky as now, when it has the misfortune of being attached to the end of a Troublesome Night title. This time around, the filmmakers apparently decided to take a nice vacation to Thailand to film themselves... » MORE
Troublesome Night 14. Here's a novel experience -- I was actually entertained by some of this entry in the neverending series. The Bud family grows by one when Helena Law's ex-husband, "Budcasso," sends her a wedding invitation and offers her shares in his... » MORE
Troublesome Night 15. Eric Tsang lends his star power to this fifteenth installment, but does little to improve it. In his past life, he betrayed his village to the invading Japanese, and after killing a man's wife and child in front of him,... » MORE
Troublesome Night 16. It had to happen -- here's a meta-TROUBLESOME NIGHT episode, which begins with the cast discussing with the director ideas for the next TN movie. When the boys try to escape the brainstorming session by climbing out the bathroom window,... » MORE
Troublesome Night 17. The Troublesome Night series goes to prison in this episode, about a wrongly accused man (Sam Lee) who hangs himself in prison to prove his innocence. Meanwhile, his girlfriend (Theresa Mak), in despair, kills herself in her apartment. Now the... » MORE
Troublesome Romance. A doctor (Alex To) operates on his wife and accidentally kills her. Under investigation because of her large insurance policy, he decides to jump off the roof, where he meets a girl (Grace Ip) planning to do the same thing... » MORE
Twilight Zone Cops: My Spirited Wife. Michael Chow is on the trail of a serial murderer who rapes and kills his victims in gardens around Hong Kong. He obsesses endlessly over the case and even gets a vengeful ghost to help him solve it, but the... » MORE
U-Man. 2002 is the year of fantastic Anthony Wong performances. With one notable exception. U-MAN stars Wong and Sam Lee as undercover cops who have to infiltrate a catholic girls school to find some stolen money. Wong disguises as a priest,... » MORE
Untold Story: Sudden Vanished. Wayne Lai gets his own little digital video franchise, 'UNTOLD STORY.' It has nothing to do with the famous Herman Yau UNTOLD STORY films. Instead, it's basically the X-FILES. Wayne Lai and Fannie Yuan are cops who resign from the... » MORE
Visible Secret 2. Eason Chan and Jo Koo star as newlyweds who don't have much time together before Chan has an accident and goes into a coma. When he awakes, he meets his old friend (Cherrie Ying) who helps him investigate his wife,... » MORE
Wall, The. Two young gangbanger buddies trying to prove themselves kill their target, but only one gets caught. More than a decade later, Jordan Chan gets out of prison and looks to start a new life, while his old friend, played by... » MORE
Wesley's Mysterious File, The. Now, although I recognize bad SF, that doesn't mean I don't still enjoy it. Typically, I'm pretty forgiving of SF films, though gaping logical flaws get on my nerves. MEN IN BLACK was bad SF. No explanation, gaping plot logic,... » MORE
Women from Mars. Michael Wong, Ekin Cheng, and Cheung Tat-Ming treat women poorly and have their penises removed as punishment from Hell. They have a limited time to find women to tell them they love them or lose their penises forever. Everyone worked... » MORE