Yuen, Fennie

Twin Warriors

Two young men--Jun-Bo (Jet Li) and Chin-Bo (Chin Siu Ho)--were taken in as boys by the monks of the Shaolin Temple, the famous school for martial arts. Jun-Bo is thoughtful and kind, but is easily swayed to misbehavior by the bullying, rebellious Chin-Bo. Their disobedient ways finally get them evicted in disgrace (after a fight with the entire school), and they wander to a nearby town, where they meet two attractive women, Miss Li (Fannie Yuen) and Siu Lin (Michelle Yeoh, a.k.a. Michelle Khan), who are part of a rebel band fighting a corrupt overlord. Chin-Bo's lust for wealth and status leads him to join forces with the overlord. Chin-Bo's treachery drives Jun-Bo insane; Jun-Bo's gradual recovery leads him to develop the discipline of tai chi, with which he ultimately topples the overlord. This plot summary of Twin Warriors doesn't do the movie justice; hardly 10 minutes go by without another spectacular fight sequence--and one of the great things about Hong Kong action movies is that women can often fight as well as the men. Early on in the movie, Siu Lin is searching for her lost husband; when she finds him, she gets into a knock-down, drag-out fight with her husband's new wife. It's unfortunate that the English language script is poor; though the characters are broad and melodramatic, they don't have to be as goofy as the dubbing makes them. Even so, it's a strong outing for Jet Li and Michelle Yeoh, two of Hong Kong's action superstars. --Bret Fetzer

Fist of the Red Dragon

Yuen Woo Ping choreographer for the fights in THE MATRIX and CROUCHING TIGER HIDDEN DRAGON directs this 1993 period piece about a group of expert fighters who must band together when Southern China's High Officers begin smuggling opium and endangering the lives of the local villagers. Donnie Yen gives an acrobatic performance as the leader of the fighters who goes against the leaders of China in an attempt to restore peace to the common people.System Requirements:Running Time: 91 Min.Format: DVD MOVIE Genre: FOREIGN/LATIN Rating: R UPC: 043396030718 Manufacturer No: 03071

The Legend of the Swordsman

It's not necessary to see the first Swordsman before you see Swordsman II--though some of the characters are the same, the cast is almost completely different. Into the thick of a clan feud in long-ago China comes young swordsman Ling (Jet Li), who has a romantic attachment to the leader of one side of the feud (Rosamund Kwan). However, on the other side is an evil sorcerer, Asia the Invincible (Brigitte Lin), who has found a magical scroll that will give the user formidable powers if the user castrates himself. Not only has Asia done so, over the course of the movie he transforms into a woman. Ling accidentally meets the newly feminine Asia, who remains silent to hide her still masculine voice, and they find themselves in the throes of a powerful attraction. But this much of the plot is only the tip of the iceberg; Hong Kong movies routinely pack enough story for three films into one, and Swordsman II is no exception. What is exceptional is the emotional power of the story, the superb performances, and the spectacular and hyperkinetic cinematography. Lin is completely magnetic and Li is at his buoyant, charismatic best. There's something so delightful and inviting about the special effects in Hong Kong films that it's simply more fun to believe them than not, even if they aren't realistic by Hollywood standards. At their best, Hong Kong fantasies (like A Chinese Ghost Story or Green Snake) become much more than camp. An epic of amazing scope and surprising richness, Swordsman II is quite possibly one of the greatest movies ever made. --Bret Fetzer

Global action megastar Jet Li unleashes all of his devastating martial arts power in this thrilling tale of a reluctant warrior who becomes a timeless hero! A young swordsman, Ling Wei (Li), and other followers of the Sun Moon Sect are making a journey to the mountains to abandon the violent swordsman's life. But upon arrival, they find their people are at war! With their leader, Master Wu, captured and the clan pushed out of their village, Ling must lead a desperate counterattack in hopes of freeing Master Wu and ending the reign of the supernaturally powerful Master Asia and his Highlander clan before it's too late! Packed with incredible martial arts choreography, this endlessly hard-hitting epic is another exciting addition to the phenomenal Jet Li Collection

Swordsman II

It's not necessary to see the first Swordsman before you see Swordsman II--though some of the characters are the same, the cast is almost completely different. Into the thick of a clan feud in long-ago China comes young swordsman Ling (Jet Li), who has a romantic attachment to the leader of one side of the feud (Rosamund Kwan). However, on the other side is an evil sorcerer, Asia the Invincible (Brigitte Lin), who has found a magical scroll that will give the user formidable powers if the user castrates himself. Not only has Asia done so, over the course of the movie he transforms into a woman. Ling accidentally meets the newly feminine Asia, who remains silent to hide her still masculine voice, and they find themselves in the throes of a powerful attraction. But this much of the plot is only the tip of the iceberg; Hong Kong movies routinely pack enough story for three films into one, and Swordsman II is no exception. What is exceptional is the emotional power of the story, the superb performances, and the spectacular and hyperkinetic cinematography. Lin is completely magnetic and Li is at his buoyant, charismatic best. There's something so delightful and inviting about the special effects in Hong Kong films that it's simply more fun to believe them than not, even if they aren't realistic by Hollywood standards. At their best, Hong Kong fantasies (like A Chinese Ghost Story or Green Snake) become much more than camp. An epic of amazing scope and surprising richness, Swordsman II is quite possibly one of the greatest movies ever made. --Bret Fetzer

Legend of the Liquid Sword

Bullet in the Head

The 1990 film Bullet in the Head engages at every turn. At once a political epic, a story about childhood friends and loyalty, as well as a tale of corruption and war, John Woo's action-packed face-off contrasts '60s idealism--the Beatles and Elvis--against the shifting tide in the East. It's plain that Woo has pulled his trio of heroes straight from Sergio Leone's Once Upon a Time in America as well as Michael Cimino's The Deer Hunter, but there are bits of Nicholas Ray's Rebel Without a Cause tossed in for good measure. The old Chinese way of life is fading in the face of the emergent Vietnam War and Chairman Mao's Red Army, and Hong Kong struggles under archaic British rule. Three friends--Ben (Tony Leung), Frank (Jacky Cheung), and Paul (Waise Lee)--rub up against gang warfare, capitalism, and opportunism in a life that is strongly tinged by Western culture. Ben falls in love and wants to marry Jane (Fennie Yuen). Frank has borrowed money from a warlord to pay for his pal's bridal bash but a rival group, led by Ringo and his thugs, are hell-bent on keeping loose-cannon Frank from keeping his promise. The boys kill Ringo in a face-off and the cops come looking for them, separating Ben and Jane. The trio escapes to exploited luck-of-the-draw Saigon to make their fortunes. Luck, however, isn't with them. In a violent, balletic dance to honor, greed, and a teenage pledge that is challenged with adulthood, Bullet in the Head is sentimental despite its exquisitely choreographed blood bath; it's steeped in the kind of code-of-ethics morality that has been the glue of buddy films since the beginning of cinematic time. Bullet in the Head is a tale of love and betrayal played out against a backdrop of wartime chaos, and while Woo had made other vital and vibrant movies--The Killer, Hard Boiled, and A Better Tomorrow--none were as impassioned as Bullet in the Head. That it retains its innocence at all is a tribute to this Hong Kong action auteur, who brands his movies with visual flair as well as a palette splattered with blood. --Paula Nechak

Swordsman III - The East is Red

Bullet in the Head

Swordsman

Every 15 minutes there's a flabbergasting sword fight. All the warriors can fly over, or dismember, their opponents with a flick of the wrist. (The action was staged by Ching Siu-tung, the director of A Chinese Ghost Story.) Eyeballs are extracted, wrists snap, heads explode. The caffeine-rush editing style and its tendency to scream and throw things (usually right at our heads) is almost alienating; it distracts us from a story line that would be difficult to parse even at normal speeds. A scroll known as the Sacred Volume, offering the secret to a powerful martial arts technique, has been filched from the imperial library in Beijing, and the snippy eunuchs assigned to guard it are waxing wroth. An amiable wandering swashbuckler known as Fox, Ling Hu-ching (Sam Hui), from the Wah Mountain School of Swordsmen, gets tagged with the hopeless assignment of retrieving the lost scroll. Wu Ma and Lin Zheng-ying, as noble old martial artists, sing a song together and then die staunchly. Various other factions of fighters, including the glorious women of the rebel Sun and Moon Society of broad-hatted "Highlanders" (who make their living smuggling salt) also express an interest in the scroll--and their principle modes of expression are all fiercely martial. Adapted from the novel The Laughing Swordsman, by Louis Cha (a.k.a. Jin Yong), the H. Rider Haggard of Asia. Cha's story about the character's youth, Fox Volant of the Snowy Mountain, is available in English. --David Chute

A Warrior's Tragedy