NYAFF 2018: Dante Lam Mini-Retrospective

Despite having already premiered in New York earlier this year in a smattering of local cinemas, the screening of Dante Lam’s latest film, the Chinese mega-blockbuster Operation Red Sea, was one of the most hotly anticipated events of this year’s…

Film Canon : The Heroic Ones [1970]

There are many Revisionist Westerns and there are many Revisionist chanbara, but there are very few, if any, Revisionist wuxia. While Western and Japanese filmmakers have freely interrogated their national heroic ideals of the cowboy and the samurai, grappling with…

Movie Review: ‘The Mermaid’

Despite The Mermaid proving to be a massive commercial and critical success in China, I hope that this bizarre, hilarious surrealist comedy proves equally potent in the U.S. market, whose status quo for comedy features has proven static as of late.…

The Film Canon: The Killer (1989)

The assassin sits alone in the church, quite, contemplative, and silent. Lightning flashes in the flickering glow of the candles as he studies the face of the Virgin Mary. A man sits next to him. “Do you believe in God?”…