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Bérénice Reynaud on The Greatest Chinese Films

Feb 27, 2017 / Reprint /

Bérénice Reynaud is a pioneering explorer of Chinese film, someone who since the 1980s has led readers in the West to new discoveries and understanding about Chinese directors, their work and the system in which it is produced. Read More

Filmmaker Johnny Ma Wants You to Fall in Love With ’90s Chinese Cinema

Feb 2, 2017 / News /

Editor’s note: This article originally appeared on the site of the Toronto International Film Festival, in conjunction with TIFF’s annual Canada’s Top Ten Film Festival. A Chinese “psychic” once told me… or, more specifically, it was my uncle, who used to run the Beijing department of the “People with Specials Powers” (as it was called Read More

Film Review: ‘Sword Master’ Wields a Dull Blade

Dec 9, 2016 / News /

Based on a novel by the wuxia icon Gu Long, "Sword Master" tells the story of a virtuoso swordsman, weary of the toll taken on his spirit by violence and bloodshed, who is pulled out of the monastic life he tries to adopt. It is also a remake of "Death Duel," a classic and lurid Shaw Brothers production from 1979, in which Yee appeared as the protagonist. Ergo, it is additionally something of a personal project. Read More

Film Review: ‘Old Stone’ is Neorealist Noir

Nov 30, 2016 / Reviews /

"Old Stone" (Lao Shi/老石), the debut feature by Chinese-Canadian director Johnny Ma, makes a kind of hybrid neorealist noir, something akin to the rising, ultra-unreal (chaohuan) sensibility, through the story of a hapless taxi driver, the titular Lao Shi, whose desire to act morally is at every turn thwarted by an inhuman system. Read More