Twin Dragons
by Ringo Lam
from Dimension
Jackie Chan resurrects the old Corsican Brothers chestnut of identical twin brothers separated at birth who meet up as adults and discover that they share more than blood ties. Poor boy Chan is a mechanic and race-car driver whose black-market activities have made him the target of some nasty mobsters, while jet-setting Chan is a world-famous conductor back in Hong Kong for a concert. In the same vicinity for the first time in years, they can suddenly feel each other's pain, and more. As one Chan jumps a jet boat for a wild escape, the other becomes a spastic victim of the furious ride, thrown around a posh restaurant while drenching his date with drinking water. Though the American cut has been pared of the worst of Chan's incessant mugging (it's about 12 minutes shorter than the original version), it's still overloaded with silly slapstick and cartoonish mistaken-identity gags as the boys swap girlfriends and dance. But wade through the crude comedy and you're rewarded with a gymnastic free-for-all climax in a car-testing workshop, where Chan leaps over, under, and through cars while taking on an army of gangsters before split-screen brothers team up for a bit of marionette martial arts. Tsui Hark and Ringo Lam codirect, Tsui taking the comedy and Lam handling the action, and John Woo makes a cameo as a priest in the wedding finale. --Sean Axmaker
Twins separated at birth encounter each other in Hong Kong. One a young martial arts master uses his Kung Fu skills to prove he is the greatest master of all time, while the other is a concert pianist & conductor.
Genre: Feature Film-Action/Adventure
Rating: PG13
Release Date: 6-SEP-2005
Media Type: DVD
Temptation of a Monk
by Clara Law
from Fox Lorber
Set in 7th century China, Temptation of a Monk stars Joan Chen as a beautiful princess and destructive temptress who wreaks havoc in a young general's life. It tells the epic story of a disgraced man's journey into self-discovery.
The Eighth Happiness
by Johnny To
from Tai Seng
One of Chow Yun-fat's most successful comedies of the 1980s, a fundamentally conventional romp about three bachelor brothers (a cartoonist, a TV cooking instructor, and an aspiring actor) who stumble into romance. But it's spiced up by an unusually rich mix of indigenous Cantonese flavors. The careers of several characters link them to the Chinese opera stage, and the characterizations are stylized in an intentionally "operatic" way. Chow plays a man who pretends to be gay in order to ingratiate himself with women; and his flamboyant camping--complete with limp wrists and Black Lagoon mud packs--is only a little more flamboyant than the other key performances. In the finale, the entire cast appears in traditional makeup and performs a scene from the classic Cantonese opera The Purple Hairpin, with the lyrics satirically altered. The ethnic seasoning here may finally be too exotic for Western tastes: in fact, most of the mile-a-minute wordplay is inaccessible even to speakers of other Chinese dialects. (A few key puns are translated in the helpful subtitles, including a running gag conflating the Cantonese words for "love bite" and "chicken curry.") But the fun of watching Chow Yun-fat strut, squeal, and preen his way through an entire movie transcends cultural barriers. No film performer on earth seems to have more fun earning his living, and the pleasure is infectious. --David Chute
The Legend of the Golden Pearl
from Telavista
Philip Wisely is an explorer an archaeologist and a master of the martial arts. He is employed by Howard Hope a rich and mysterious recluse to search for The Golden Pearl an ancient artifact with extraordinary powers. Wisely's childhood friend David has located the pearl in the remote mountains of Nepal. There in the Temple of Caves beneath an ancient monastery it is guarded by an army of fighting monks and a five year old Buddhist master with uncanny psychic powers. But David steals the pearl being secretly in the employ of Paul Duran Lord of the Hong Kong criminal underworld.System Requirements:Running Time 80 Mins.Format: DVD MOVIE Genre: SPORTS/GAMES/MIXED MARTIAL ARTS Rating: NR UPC: 018619998991 Manufacturer No: 99899DVD
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