Jackie Chan in Police Story 2

This is a true sequel, with the same cast returning to play the same characters from the original film, but things would get much looser in future installments of the Police Story franchise. In New Police Story (#5), Jackie Chan plays Chan Kwok-ming and in Police Story: Lockdown he portrays Zhong Wen, who is a Mainland copper rather than a member of Hong Kong’s finest. Here he is still Chan Ka-kui of the most dedicated, but not necessarily smartest officers on the Royal HK force. A lot has changed since 1988, but the fight scenes will still fire up fans in Chan’s Police Story 2, which opens today in a spiffy 4K restoration at the NuArt in LA.

Chan is a dedicated cop, but his enthusiasm sometimes gets the best of him. That resulted in some spectacular property damage in the first film that temporarily has him busted down to traffic cop, even though he collared (and beat the heck out of) the bad guy, crime lord Chu Tao. Rather gallingly, Chu is granted early release on supposedly compassionate grounds. Not surprisingly, he frequently has his goons stalk our man Chan. He can generally handle them, but it will complicate his investigation into a gang of explosive extortionists. Their thuggish harassment of his girlfriend May will also tax their relationship beyond the breaking point.

Like Police Story Uno, the first sequel features some amazing fights. The playground jungle gym fight scene is absolutely vintage Jackie Chan, but the climatic beatdown (with fire-bombs) at the gang’s post-industrial hideout is a truly a dazzler. However, the second film also has much better straight police procedural material, including a nifty sequence in which Chan and the HKPD’s surveillance team shadow a suspect.

Chan is definitely Chan in PS2, as well as his character, Chan ka-kui. Arguably, the first three films in the Police Story franchise are probably most responsible for his international persona (along with Armour of God). He gives up his body for our entertainment, but he also gives as good as he takes in the classic action sequences. Yet, he also develops greater rapport with Maggie Cheung, who is so sweet and innocent as poor May. This time around, their chemistry together is genuinely endearing.

Of course, it still the spectacularly moves and unbelievable stunts that make Story 2 such an enduring fan favorite. At this point in his career, Chan would do anything to please—and the proof is in this film. Required viewing for any martial arts and HK action fan, Police Story 1 and 2 both open today (3/8) in LA, at the Landmark NuArt.

Jackie Chan in Police Story

Back in 1985, Jackie Chan was a proud Hong Konger, rather than a Mainland suck-up. That year saw the release of his first outing as Chan Ka-kui, a model officer of the Royal Hong Kong Police Force. In fact, his boss will make him the poster-cop for the department’s recruitment campaign, but his subsequent witness protection assignment brings no end of trouble in Chan’s Police Story, which opens today in a shiny new 4K restoration at the NuArt in LA.

Viewers should have an idea of what to expect from PS1 from the opening action scene. Basically, an entire hillside squatters’ camp is leveled to the ground when Chan chases the slimy crime boss Chu Tao through it. However, Chan is just getting started (as director, character, and action star).

Chu manages to elude Chan’s grasp, but his new assistant Selina Fong is not so fortunate. She has no intention of testifying against her boss, but when the HK brass announces her cooperation, they basically force her hand. Naturally, they assign Chan the supercop to lead her security detail. Unfortunately, Fong will not believe the truth about Chu until it is almost too late, but she will create tons of problems for Chan during the second act, when his naïve girlfriend May mistakenly assumes something intimate is brewing between the cop and the reluctant witness.

If you enjoy fight scenes than Police Story 1 is truly your catnip. Although the film has plenty of Chan’s signature brand of goofy humor, the melee gets pretty brutal, with combatants landing hard on pelvises and tailbones. Much glass is broken during the course of the film, but it all culminates spectacularly in a barnburner of beatdown in a shopping mall, which is just so eighties.

Throughout Police Story, Chan is determined to please and entertain, regardless of the wear and tear on his body. He definitely takes a beating and keeps on ticking. This is classic Chan and Chor Yuen is a classic movie villain as Chu. Frankly, Maggie Cheung is a bit under-employed as May, but Brigitte Lin vamps it up old school as Fong, the pseudo-femme fatale.

Even Jackie Chan’s biggest fans will admit the narrative is just whatever and some of the gags are shamelessly shticky. However, the big action centerpieces are still impressive. It is also quite a vivid reminder of how analog the world was during the mid-1980s. In the case of Hong Kong, it was also freer back then. Indeed, Police Story helps us remember how great the eighties were, back before Jackie Chan sold his soul to the Mainland regime. Highly recommended for all action fans, Police Story 1 and 2 both open today (3/8) in LA, at the Landmark NuArt.

Maggie Cheung at Metrograph: 2046

It is the sequel to end all sequels. Frankly, it is hard to imagine they were conceived together, yet Wong Kar-wai reportedly was already planning it while he was filming the masterful In the Mood for Love. They might sound radically different on paper, but the same longing and regret is present throughout Wong’s 2046 (trailer here), which screens as part of the Metrograph’s retrospective series Maggie Cheung: Center Stage.

In one sense, 2046 might seem like a ringer in the Cheung series, because she only appears in brief flashback scenes, but her absence thoroughly dominates the film. Chow Mo-wan has returned from Singapore and Cambodia, picking up his literary and journalistic career as best he can. He never saw Cheung’s Su Li-zhen again, but her memory clearly haunts. In fact, his unresolved feelings make him incapable of maintaining a healthy relationship.

Chow and Su used to meet in room #2046 of his residency hotel, so he requests the same number in Mr. Wang’s seedy, but assignation friendly Oriental Hotel (we are still in the mid-1960s here). However, he will settle for #2047. At first, #2046 is occupied by Lulu, a.k.a. Mimi, a callback from Wong’s Days of Being Wild. When she precipitously moves out (a not-so uncommon practice in Wang’s establishment), Bai Ling moves in. Chow definitely notices her and can often hear her entertaining through the thin walls (and vice versa).

For a while, they carry on an ambiguous something, but he can never give her what she needs. He also assumes the role of a flirtatious Cyrano figure for Wang Jing-wen, the owner’s eldest daughter, who conducts a secret long distance love affair with a Japanese man her father disapproves of, due to national prejudice. Chow cannot even make things work with the second Su Li-zhen, a mysterious professional gambler who saves his skin in Singapore.

Yet, Chow himself duly notes, the women who lose patience and exit his life often turn up in his fiction, particularly his science fiction stories, “2046” and “2047.” In this dystopia universe, 2046 is ambiguously both a time and a place of stasis, reachable by a train staffed with sexually compliant automatons (two of whom look like Wang Jing-wen and Lulu). Heartsick lovers often travel there to revisit past memories, but nobody ever came back, until Tak (a dead ringer for Wang’s Japanese lover) embarks on a return trip.

When seen in close succession, Mood and 2046 pack a mean one-two combination punch. We definitely miss Cheung’s Su, but that is the whole point. We also fall hard for Bai Ling, Wang Jing-wen, and the second Su, yet we understand exactly why Chow is so emotionally hobbled.

Even with his Errol Flynn mustache, “Little” Tony Leung Chiu Wai just radiates broken-hearted weariness. He has panache, but he cuts a rather gloomy, existential figure. However, it is Zhang Ziyi who really gives viewers a kick in the teeth as the radiate but heart-rending Bai Ling. Arguably, Faye Wong covers an even greater spectrum as the more upbeat Wang Jing-wen and the exquisitely tragic gynoid. Carina Lau makes the most of her diva turn as Lulu, but Gong Li is an outright showstopper as the Singapore Su. Nobody else could wring so much intrigue and dark romance out of such limited screen time.

Production on 2046 was inconveniently interrupted by the SARS outbreak, but you would not know it from the finished film. It is seductively sad in a way that flows naturally from Mood, even during its flights of fantastical speculation. Without question, it features some of the best screen thesps of our time, working with one of the most distinctive international auteurs and accomplished cinematographers (Christopher Doyle, with an assist from the skilled Kwan Pung-leung), all of whom are working at the peaks of their creative powers. Very highly recommended, 2046 screens twice today (12/18) at the Metrograph, as part of Maggie Cheung: Center Stage.

Maggie Cheung at Metrograph: In the Mood for Love

Four years after Comrades: Almost a Love Story, Maggie Cheung once again starred as half of a not quite-romantic couple, whose lives would be symbolized by romantic pop music. Unfortunately, Sinatra’s “Change Partners” was not on either Su Li-zhen or Chow Mo-wan’s playlists when they discover their respective spouses have been carrying on a secret affair. As they struggle with this realization, they start to develop feelings for each other. However, everything will conspire against a turnaround-is-fair-play affair, most especially themselves in Wong Kar-wai’s In the Mood for Love (trailer here), one of the first straight-up classics of the 2000s, which screens as part of the Metrograph’s retrospective series Maggie Cheung:Center Stage.

Both Su (or Mrs. Chan, depending on the custom of those addressing her) and Chow move into spare rooms in adjacent flats on the same day. Coincidentally, both have been left by their partners to handle the move on their own. Renting rooms in strangers’ flats might sound grim, but this is 1962 Hong Kong. Real estate is just as scarce as it is now, but there was less wealth to drive development. Nevertheless, many look back on this time with nostalgia, as a uniquely social period in their lives, but for Su and Chow, it will be far more complicated.

Both Su’s husband and Chow’s wife travel abroad, which affords them ready alibis, but also means their exclusive gifts for each other are tell-tale signs. Since both betrayed spouses are intelligent professionals, they pick up on the clues rather quickly, but they are unsure what to do about it. Meeting secretly, they “rehearse” confrontations with their unfaithful partners are try to simulate key moments in the affair, for the sake of their own understanding. They also discover shared interests, including a fondness for wuxia novels. The audience can tell they would be perfect together, but reserved early 1960s HK society would not see it that way.

Wong never directly shows us Mr. Chan or Mrs. Chow, only affording them voiceovers and back-of-the-head shots, like Charlie in Charlie’s Angels and Robin Masters in Magnum P.I. It is a very effective strategy for controlling viewers’ perceptions and emotions, but we can’t help wondering what do these people look like that they could tempt their lovers into cheating on Maggie Cheung and “Little” Tony Leung Chiu Wai? Seriously, together they make one undeniably photogenic couple.

Regardless, Mood is an achingly romantic film, but it has a decidedly dark edge. Su and Chow are the aggrieved parties, but they do not necessarily always act with the best of intentions. They are both inclined to brood, yet we still cannot help wanting to see finally consummate their yearnings.

Wong always makes it clear how the confined spaces and nosy neighbors constantly undermine their forbidden feelings for each other. He regularly frames his co-leads through cramped passage ways and narrow doorways, powerfully evoking a sense of claustrophobia. He also crafts some arresting images in the process. Frankly, Mood is one of a precious few films, whose dazzling auteurist style actually brings us into the hearts and head-spaces of its characters, rather than keeping viewers on the outside looking in.

In terms of chemistry, Cheung and Leung are just stunning together. Reportedly, Mood and Comrades are two of a handful of films that really mean something personal to Cheung, which will make perfect sense to viewers judging from what is on the screen. They both give career-defining performances, but Rebecca Pan humanizes the messy situation even further as Mrs. Suen, Su’s well-intentioned but conservative mahjong-playing land lady.

Thanks to the stylistically dissimilar yet somehow consistently compatible cinematography of Christopher Doyle and Mark Lee Ping Bing (not to mention Cheung’s elegant cheongsam wardrobe), Mood always looks absolutely beautiful. The exquisitely sentimental love songs of Zhou Xuan, Nat King Cole, and traditional Cantonese Opera also make it sound wonderfully old-fashioned. It is easily one of the best films of 2000 (with its only real competition coming from Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon). Very highly recommended, In the Mood for Love screens this Sunday (12/18) and Wednesday (12/21) at the Metrograph, as part of Maggie Cheung: Center Stage.

Maggie Cheung at Metrograph—Comrades: Almost a Love Story

Early last year, the Mainland Communist government finally lifted its strict censorship of this ostensibly nonpolitical award-winning romantic vehicle for Maggie Cheung. The prohibition never really made sense, so it was often chalked up to Hong Kong-Mainland differences. However, it is easy to suspect the characters’ sentimental affection for Taiwanese Mandarin singer Teresa Teng, who was quite outspoken in her support for the Tiananmen Square democracy protestors, had a direct bearing on the decision. As usual, the government denied its people something good. Without question, Maggie Cheung gives a career-defining performance in Peter Chan’s Comrades: Almost a Love Story (trailer here), which screens as part of the Metrograph’s retrospective series Maggie Cheung: Center Stage.

Li Xiao-jun has come to Hong Kong from the northern provinces to earn money, so he can marry his hometown sweetheart. However, in 1986, the go-go mega-city is a hard place for a guileless Mandarin speaker. It seems a bit easier for Li Qiao, a brash, Cantonese fluent scammer from Guangzhou. Yet, life seems to be in the habit of disappointing her. Initially, she assumes she will just make a quick buck off the rube, referring him to an English tutorial school for a commission, but somehow he sticks in her life.

They start out as almost frienemies, but soon evolve into friends with benefits, which causes the engaged Xiao-jun considerable guilt (and Li Qiao as well). When Li’s intended finally joins him, Li Qiao duly befriends her. Of course, fate, timing, and chaos involving her aging Triad sugar daddy constantly conspire to keep the almost lovers separated.

You just haven’t seen bittersweet until you have seen Comrades (a term used with some irony). The pseudo-couple experiences dozens of near-misses, but Ivy Ho’s elegant screenplay never feels contrived. Frankly, that really is how the world works when you are a marginalized economic migrant. Yet, there is always something admirable about the Lis and their friends, because they are so doggedly working to better their lives.

If you have ever considered Cheung an icy screen presence, this is also the film to melt your preconceptions. She just basically rips viewers hearts out as the exponentially-more-vulnerable-than-she-lets-on Li Xiao. The chemistry she shares with Leon Lai (as Xiao-jun) is absolutely devastating. Frankly, the same can be said of her rapport with Eric Tsang as the mobbed-up Pao Au-yeung, which is another reason why the film packs such a sustained emotional wallop. For comic relief that naturally takes a melancholy turn, noted cinematographer Christopher Doyle (working solely in front of the camera) steals several scenes as Jeremy, the foul-mouthed English teacher.

The kicker is the lyrically romantic soundtrack, featuring dozens of Teresa Teng’s fan favorite love songs and the dreamily jazzy themes composed by Chiu Jun-fun and Chiu Tsang-hei. In a way, Comrades is a sweeping tale, encompassing the Chinese immigrant experience in mid-1980s Hong Kong and mid-1990s New York, but it also feels intoxicatingly hushed and intimate, thanks to Chan’s sensitive but assured hand on the helm. It is a modern classic that is almost mandatory for any Cheung retrospective (the same is probably true for Lai and Tsang). Very highly recommended, Comrades: Almost a Love Story screens this Saturday (12/18) at the Metrograph, as part of Maggie Cheung: Center Stage.

Maggie Cheung at Metrograph: The Heroic Trio

Granted, Anita Mui was playing a completely different Wonder Woman, but Gal Gadot still has a tough act to follow. The Cantonese superheroine also had her own super-team, but they will not realize it until come together at the eleventh hour. Frankly, Warner Brothers might as well scrap their upcoming reboot, because who is going to care after the Metrograph reminds us of the spectacle that is Johnnie To’s The Heroic Trio (trailer here), which screens as part of their retrospective series Maggie Cheung: Center Stage.

Wonder Woman fights crime, as well she should, as the alter ego of Tung, the wife of incorruptible Inspector Lau. Ching Ching, a.k.a. Sam, a.k.a., a.k.a. Third Chan, a.k.a. Invisible Girl is a reluctant criminal, bound to serve a supernatural eunuch determined to revive China’s imperial governance through infernal means. That leaves Chat or Thief Catcher or Mercy, a bounty hunter somewhere in between. She is played by Maggie Cheung, who rocks the wardrobe and flashes plenty of action chops.

There is a crime wave sweeping Hong Kong and not even the police chief’s family is safe. At the behest of Evil Master (the name tells you all you need to know), Sam (let’s use her shortest name) has abducted eighteen newborn infants, with one more to go. One of those so-called “princes” will become the new emperor, while the rest will be mutated into ogre-like killing machines, like the finger-eating Ninth Chan.

Wonder Woman is out to stop the abductions, using inside information gleaned from her husband. Upon learning his infant son is the next target, the chief hires Thief Catcher to capture Sam, but this turns out to be a costly decision when the mercenary makes a small tactical mistake. It very nearly costs her life as well, but both Wonder Woman and Sam intercede to save her. Eventually, Sam is going to join them in the fight for justice, once Ninth Chan gives her that extra bit of heart-breaking motivation.

As a film, Heroic Trio is pretty darned nuts. To basically calls and raises John Woo, cranking the fog machine up to eleven and including at least one scene with birds. If you are the pedantic sort, this film just might make your head explode, but it has massive guts. Kids die in this movie—like, a lot of them. Yet, it is still great fun, in large measure thanks to Cheung. She plays the prima donna bounty hunter to the hilt, preening for the press and laying down ultra-stylish beat-downs.

All three heroines definitely got the memo and they came to play. Michelle Yeoh gets to be the most tragic, whereas Mui develops some pleasing chemistry with Damian Lau as the clueless Inspector husband, but they all kick butt and exude a dangerous Irma Vep-like allure. Lau is indeed solid in support while Anthony Wong radiates evil as Ninth Chan. It is always strange to see him in these early thuggish roles, knowing he would evolve into an actor of tremendous gravitas and an outspoken activist.

The term “over the top” does not do justice to the lunacy of The Heroic Trio, but it is tough to beat the combination of Cheung, Yeoh, and Mui. They just don’t make superhero movies like this anymore. Highly recommended for fans of any and all involved, The Heroic Trio screens this Thursday (12/15) at Metrograph, as part of Maggie Cheung: Center Stage, along with other unforgettable Cheung films, including Ashes of Time Redux, Irma Vep, and fittingly Center Stage.

Irma Vep at AFA

She was the Catwoman of 1915 Paris. She was the leader of Le Vampires, which had nothing to do with the undead. Instead, they were a band of Parisian Apaches, who were completely unrelated to Native Americans. Credited with single-handedly launching thrillers as a cinematic genre, Louis Feuillade’s character and Musidora, the actress who played her, remain icons a century later. It takes guts to do her jumpsuit, but some have tried. The original Gaumont serial and subsequent films it inspired will screen as part of a mini tribute to Irma Vep and Musidora this week at Anthology Film Archives.

In contrast to the silent film programmed, series curator Michelle Handelman’s own short film Irma Vep, the Last Breath feels very installational. Starring transgender performance artist Zackary Drucker, Handelman literally puts Vep on the couch for a session of psychoanalysis that really holds a mirror up to the audience and our fascination with Vep’s fetish trappings. It should find an appreciative avant-garde audience when it screens this Thursday (10/22) at AFA—and you know who you are.

Not just anyone can slip into the catsuit and become Irma Vep, but Hong Kong action superstar Maggie Cheung is an icon in her own right. Casting her takes liberties with the character’s nationality, but it still makes sense. At least, that is what the past-his-prime auteur of Olivier Assayas’s late 1990s meta-riff thinks and it still makes perfect sense today. Fortunately Assayas was able to get Maggie Cheung to play Maggie Cheung playing Irma Vep in the 1997 Irma Vep (trailer here), which also streams on Fandor.

Thanks to cats like Tarantino, the West has just started embracing the films of John Woo and Johnnie To. Cheung is suddenly getting offers from around the world, including Rene Vidal’s ill-conceived comeback project, a remake of Les Vampires. Since Cheung speaks English, but not French, communication with be difficult. The under-funded production is in such a constant state of bedlam, Cheung has largely been palmed off on Zoe, the stressed out lesbian wardrobe specialist. One look at Cheung in costume and she falls for her hard. It is hard to blame her. In fact, Cheung herself seems to be falling under the influence of her character, or at least she gets a little methody slinking about the corridors and fire escapes of her hotel.

In addition to Les Vampires, Irma Vep openly engages in dialogue with Truffaut’s Day for Night, with Cheung serving as an analogue for Jacqueline Bisset, while also slyly commenting on her own action image of the era. Most fittingly, Jean-Pierre Léaud provides an apostolic link between the films. While he is unexpectedly restrained as the arrogant but anti-social Vidal, this still might be the funniest performance of his storied career.

However, Maggie Cheung is the uncontested star of the film, truly making the legendary role and outfit her own. Even in a secondary language, her presence shines through. She is smart and forceful, but also somewhat shy and hesitant, as one would expect from a famous stranger in a strange hipster land.

Cheung and Assayas would marry in 1998, divorce in 2001, and make the film Clean in 2004, so Irma Vep would clearly be the start of a significant relationship. It is also a heck of a star turn for Cheung. Along with Stanley Kwan’s Center Stage, it helped position Cheung as a serious screen thesp, beyond a mere action star. Although its grungy edges are a bit distracting at times, there is a freshness and vitality to it that still stands up. Recommended for fans of films about films, Irma Vep screens this Friday (10/23) as part of the Vep-Musidora retrospective at Anthology Film Archives.

Ten Thousand Waves, Now Installed at MoMA

There are two goddesses now gracing the walls of MoMA.  Mazu was a traditional Chinese marine deity thought to protect seafarers, while Ruan Lingyu (widely hailed as “the Chinese Greta Garbo”) starred as the saintly fallen mother in Wu Yonggang’s silent classic, The Goddess.  The term “character” might not be particularly apt, but both appear as figures in Isaac Julien’s Ten Thousand Waves, a nine screen video installation now installed at the MoMA (behind-the-scenes video here).

Waves was originally inspired by the tragic deaths of twenty-three Chinese cockle pickers, illegally laboring along the northern shore of England for the gang that had smuggled them into country.  Afraid to abandon their work for shelter, they were washed away by a flash storm.  Julien incorporates footage of the rescue attempts mounted by the local British emergency response team.  It might have provided Wave’s impetus, but it is probably the least visually intriguing element of the project.

Julien hopscotches around quite a bit, both thematically and across the nine screens suspended in the MoMA atrium.  For younger patrons, following the darting images, much like a tennis match, is a good deal of the show.  For amateur Sinologists, it is quite fascinating to see the large scale images of contemporary, extremely go-go Shanghai alongside footage of the Red Cadres marching about during the Maoist era mass movements.

However, the most dramatic and cinematic portions of the installation feature Jia Zhangke’s muse (and wife) Zhao Tao appearing as Ruan Lingyu, recreating scenes from The Goddess and appearing ghostlike in the penthouse floors of Shanghai’s gravity defying skyscrapers. Proclaiming her the “definitive and defining actress of our day and age” right here in a review of A Touch of Sin might have sounded somewhat bold at the time, but seeing her expressive countenance shining forth upon the multiple screens in MoMA rather supports the claim.  After all, as the undisputed actress of her era, Ruan should only be entrusted to someone of similar stature.

Of course, Zhao was not the first to portray Ruan on film.  In Stanley Kwan’s Center Stage, she was portrayed by Maggie Cheung, who also appears in Waves as Mazu. Cheung’s iconic looks are well suited to the marine goddess, bringing to mind some of the imagery from her classic films, particularly Wong Kar Wai’s Ashes of Time (Redux), which Julien seems to deliberately evoke.  Watching her float past Zhao’s Ruan through Shanghai’s stratosphere on MoMA’s large suspended screens is almost dizzying.

Some of the audio recordings get lost in the open space of the Marron Atrium (the same space where Marina Abramović faced the public) and subtitles would have helped convey greater meaning in several points.  Nonetheless, Zhao and Cheung have undeniable screen presence regardless of the context or medium. 

More than a mere meditation on migration or globalization, Waves presents a dramatic contrast between China’s presumed futures (that envisioned by the leftist affiliated Ruan in the 1930’s and those essentially driven mad by ideology in the 1970’s) with the strange hybrid-capitalist reality of today, with Mazu looking on as the goddess grieving the age-old values thrown by the wayside. Given its super-star power and some very cool green-screened images, Ten Thousand Waves is considerably more cinematic than most video installations.  Recommended for fans of Chinese cinema that happen to be in the neighborhood, Ten Thousand Waves runs through February 17^th at MoMA.

Goddess: Center Stage

She was one the biggest stars of her generation but the press was out to get her.  Eerily, Ruan Lingyu’s short life paralleled the trajectories of her most tragic roles.  Her career was marked by scandal, making her story a natural for big screen adaptation.  Mixing narrative with documentary snippets, Stanley Kwan She was one the biggest stars of her generation but the press was out to get her.  Eerily, Ruan Lingyu’s short life paralleled the trajectories of her most tragic roles.  Her career was marked by scandal, making her story a natural for big screen adaptation.  Mixing narrative with documentary snippets, Stanley Kwan sympathetically profiles Ruan in Center Stage (trailer here), which fittingly concludes the Asia Society’s Goddess film series tomorrow.

There are two divas in Stage, Ruan and Lily Li, played by two divas of a later generation: Maggie Cheung and Carina Lau, respectively.  A gifted actress, Ruan is often called the Greta Garbo of Republican China.  She gained fame as a romantic heroine, but is now best remembered for her more politically charged films.  Unfortunately, she fell for the wrong man at an early age.  Arguably, it was a mistake Ruan significantly repeated once, perhaps twice.  Ultimately, her ne’er do well ex would serve as the media’s willing tool.

Stage can be quite maddening, because it recreates scenes from many of Ruan’s films that are now considered lost.  Many of them look like they were really darn good, but we can only hope they eventually turn up in a mysterious film vault someplace.  Naturally, Kwan also gives the audience a behind-the-scenes look at the surviving classics, Goddess and New Women, which kicked off the Asia Society’s retrospective last month.

Cheung is not a bad likeness for Ruan, perfectly expressing her brittle vulnerability.  Her Ruan struggles to maintain a placid façade, but she obviously feels the sleights of others on a very deep level.  Indeed, screenwriter Peggy Chiao clearly ascribes a great deal of her success as an actress to her remarkable empathy.  It is a star turn from Cheung, justly awarded best actress at the 42^nd Berlinale.

Kwan’s talking head segments, both archival and original black-and-white interviews with cast and crew, give the film a stop-and-start rhythm that can be distracting.  Still, much of this commentary is rather interesting stuff, including the final sit-down granted by Li Lily, Ruan’s friend and fellow diva (represented in the Goddess series with Daybreak).  Cheung’s sympathetic take on Ruan adds an intriguing meta-dimension to the film.  Her candid segments also serve as a reminder how striking she is, considering how pale and drawn she often looks when appearing in character as Ruan.

At well over two and a half hours, Stage truly brims with ambition.  Sort of the HK equivalent of Jessica Lange’s Frances Farmer bio-pic, it is a finely crafted period production that should satisfy Ruan’s fans with its earnest ardor for their star.  Viewers will come to feel like they understand the exquisitely morose idol, yet suspect there is something about her that will always remain unknowable.  Anchored by a great lead performance, Center Stage is highly recommended for fans of Ruan, Cheung, and Hong Kong cinema in general when it screens tomorrow (12/8), wrapping up the Goddess film series at the Asia Society.

Goddess: Ashes of Time Redux

Ouyang Feng is an agent for freelance swordsmen looking for some dirty work.  You could call him a cutthroat’s cutthroat.  Likewise, when it comes to love, he is a cynic’s cynic.  If you suppose a woman was the cause of his hardened heart, you would be correct.  It is a logical guess, considering Wong Kar Wai’s Ashes of Time Redux (trailer here) screens this Friday as part of the Asia Society’s film series Goddess: Chinese Women on Screen.

Instead of adapting Louis Cha’s epic novel The Eagle-Shooting Heroes, Wong conceived of an original pseudo-prequel that can be fully appreciated without prior familiarity with its inspiration.  Every year, the swashbuckler Huang Yaoshi pays a visit to his friend Ouyang’s desert home.  Both are men with complicated pasts.  For his latest visit, Huang brings a bottle of supposedly enchanted wine that is said to induce forgetfulness.  Huang imbibes.  Ouyang does not.

After Huang disappears, apparently under the effects of the potent drink, Ouyang carries on with business.  However, his next clients are somehow involved with his soul-sick friend.  Clan leader Murong Yang recruits Ouyang to murder Huang in retribution for spurning his sister, Murong Yin.  Soon thereafter, the sister tries to hire Ouyang to murder her compulsively controlling brother.  In a hallucinatory evening (which is par for the course in Ashes), Ouyang realizes Yin and Yang are the same divided person.

The seasons pass, but it is hard judge time in the desert.  Ouyang recruits a wandering swordsman to defend the village from a band of outlaws.  His skills are formidable, but he is rapidly losing his sight.  The man’s one desire is to see his native land once again before going completely blind.  Eventually, Ouyang also yearns for home, where the woman he once loved lives as his brother’s wife.

Redux is the restored and reworked de facto director’s cut of Ashes Wong oversaw when he realized how many dubious copies of the film were in circulation.  Featuring fight choreography by Sammo Hung, it is quite stylistically daring by martial art film standards, bordering on the outright experimental.  There is indeed a fair amount of combat, but the action is rendered impressionistically blurred, almost like a series of freeze frames.

As promised, there are also several divas, including Brigitte Lin in sort of a dual role as the Murongs.  Although she is always recognizable, Lin brings a conviction to both personas that keeps the audience off-balance.  Yet, it is Maggie Cheung who really lowers the diva boom as the woman from Ouyang’s past.  Emotionally devastating but never indulgent or showy, it might represent the best second for second cameo ever.  As a bonus, Charlie Young is a genuinely haunting presence as the peasant girl out to avenge her brother.

While the film’s color palette reportedly varies depending on its various editions, any retrospective of cinematographer Christopher Doyle’s work ought to start or finish with Ashes.  The golds and burnt-umbers of Redux are absolutely striking.  Frankly, Ashes Redux is a daring classic of the genre that might be new to a lot of people who might think they have seen it already (like a wuxia Bladerunner).  Highly recommended, Ashes of Time Redux screens this Friday (12/7) at the Asia Society.

HK at BAM: Dragon Inn

It was a dark time in Chinese history, when blood thirsty eunuchs terrorized the land. No, seriously. Operating from his power base in the so-called East Chamber bureaucracy (responsible for intelligence gathering and warfare development), Tsao Siu-yan usurped the Emperor, in terms of practical power if not in official title. Naturally, this did not sit well with the warrior class. Tsao and his fellow eunuchs attempt to entrap one of their more resourceful military rivals using the children of his mentor as bait in Raymond Lee’s wild wuxia epic Dragon Inn, (produced by Tsui Hark, trailer here), which screens as part of BAM mini-retrospective Hong Kong Favorites, co-presented by Subway Cinema.

In the unforgiving desert, only the remote Dragon Inn offers shelter from the baking heat and flash thunderstorms. Like a Ming Dynasty Mos Eisley, an uneasy truce is enforced in the roadhouse by Jade, its sexpot proprietor, whose meat pies are made with Sweeney Todd’s special recipe. Disguised as a man, the Xena-like Yau Mo-yan rescues the children, taking them to the dodgy inn to await Chow Wai-on, their father’s former lieutenant and her prospective lover. However, when the warrior arrives, he turns the jaded Jade’s head. Entering into the intrigue as a wildcard, she devises ways to keep Chow’s party in her inn and get him into her chambers, all while maintaining her Swedish neutrality.

Boasting an all-star cast, Dragon Inn presents Donnie Yen as you have never seen him before: evil and emasculated. Frankly, it is hard to believe it is him pimped out as Tsao. However, it is a familiar role for Brigitte Lin, kicking male butt in Yau’s male garb. Neither is Maggie Cheung (Olivier Assayas’s ex) unaccustomed to playing the sultry femme fatales, vamping it up something fierce as Jade. Indeed, when Lin and Leung square off, it is definitely worth the price of admission (though more of a suggestive ice-breaker than a bone crusher). However, Tony Leung Ka-fai (not to be confused with Tony Leung Chiu-wai who scorched up the screen with Maggie Cheung in 2046 and In the Mood for Love) is a bit bland as Chow. It is hard to see how he could inspire such romantic rival, beyond his willingness to stand up to the eunuchs.

Known as New Dragon Gate Inn throughout Asia, Lee’s film is considered a liberty-taking reboot of King Hu’s 1966 Dragon Gate Inn. It definitely makes use of the Flying Dagger style technological advances, sailing its combatants through the air, every which way. Yet, it is all rendered in the gritty washed out color spectrum of Sergio Leone westerns. The blood is still deep crimson though. In fact, the final showdown is decidedly gory, in a way that is surprisingly macabre. (It also defies logic, but that is neither here nor there.)

New Dragon Inn is more a film for established fans (capable of rolling with its sub-Shaw Brothers visual quality) than a wuxia introductory calling card for the uninitiated. However, for those who want to watch Lin kill people in the air and Leung steam things up on the ground, it definitely all that. Good clean eunuch killing fun, Dragon Inn screens tomorrow (8/1) at BAM as part of the too-short Hong Kong Favorites series.