…Bruce Lee was born — November 27th, 1940 to be precise. In case you need a refresher on just who this guy is and why he’s so damn important, I’ve included my moldy old bio write-up for LoveHKFilm.com below, but you can check out Time magazine’s much more recent photo gallery retrospective here.

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While Jackie Chan attempted to break into the American market in the early Eighties with appearances in two Cannonball Run films and starring roles in The Big Brawl (aka Battlecreek Brawl) and The Protector, he didn’t catch the attention of mainstream U.S. audiences until a full decade later. In 1995, New Line Cinema released  Rumble in the Bronx in the United States and the film was a surprise hit. Slightly re-edited and dubbed in English (even the English speakers!), this Chan actioner was number one at the box office ($9.85 million) during its opening weekend and went on to gross $32.3 million overall. The success of Rumble led to Dimension Films to release Police Story 3: Supercop in the United States, which was a modest box office success, insuring not only more Jackie Chan films in the United States, but catapulting Michelle Yeoh to international acclaim.

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Jackie Chan and Maggie Cheung in Police Story 2

The original Police Story (read Kozo’s review) was a slam-bang action movie that was high on stunts, but low on plot. Still, the movie had some of the greatest action sequences ever put on film, not to mention a strong cast and a winning performance by Jackie Chan, so quibbles about the script are pretty much beside the point. Three years later, Jackie Chan and company returned for Police Story 2, a film which was more plot-driven, had better camerawork, and boasted somewhat higher production values. The results are pretty much the same as its predecessor. Still, nobody comes to a Jackie Chan flick expecting Hamlet. Believe me, when the action heats up, Police Story 2 delivers. While the finale of the original is hard to top, the last fifteen minutes of Police Story 2 comes pretty damn close.

You can read my LoveHKFilm.com review here and view an old-school, English language trailer after the jump.

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While doing a search on Wikipedia for god knows what*, I stumbled upon the following, Stephen Chow-centric entry. I had heard the term “Sing Girl” before, but I had no idea it was such a big deal to warrant a full-length article on everybody’s favorite online encyclopedia. In any event, a “Sing Girl,” according to Wikipedia, is “a nickname for actresses who starred alongside Stephen Chow, often as the main character’s romantic interest.” Such Sing Girls include Athena Chu, Cecilia Cheung, Karen Mok, and Eva Huang. Whether or not any off-screen romantic action is included or implied in this definition of a “Sing Girl,” I do not know. To be perfectly honest, gossip column material prior to the Internet age makes for a huge gap in my knowledge base of Hong Kong cinema.

Anyway, the only other comparable entry to “Sing Girls” that I can think of is one for “Bond Girls,” which basically makes Stephen Chow on par with fictional superspy, James Bond. I guess Chow’s starring role in that 007 parody From Beijing with Love was an apt one.

 Happier Times

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*Okay, I’ll admit it: after watching Chinese Odyssey 2002 for the first time in years, I was trying to see what  Ms. Athena Chu was up to nowadays.

A decade ago, I was an undergraduate at Oklahoma State University. During the weekends,  Aaron Jones — my roommate,  best friend, and president of the Oklahoma chapter of the Jaymee Ong Fan Club — and I would watch all kinds of films during our free time — Hong Kong action flicks, Japanese samurai movies, American cult classics,  you name it. I don’t know how we stumbled upon Dirty Ho, but upon seeing the title for the first time, we knew that one of us was going to have to buy it. That person turned out to be Aaron, and the version he purchased was this grainy, English dubbed copy:

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Nicholas Tse, Shawn Yu, and Jaycee Chan share a moment in Invisible Target

[This post has been adapted from an entry first published on my previous, now defunct blog of the same name. Enjoy.]

Right after I left Hong Kong while on vacation in the summer of 2007, Benny Chan’s then-recent action flick, Invisible Target, hit DVD shelves everywhere. Alas, I was unable to purchase the Hong Kong version of the film. However, a Singapore edition was awaiting me on my arrival to that ultra-clean city-state. One problem — no Cantonese language track. I don’t know why Singapore insists on doing that to Hong Kong films, often excising the Cantonese track entirely. If you buy a Korean or Japanese movie, they preserve the original soundtrack, but Cantonese is for some odd reason a big no-no. Even worse is when they dub a movie like Overheard in Mandarin and then release the film with no subtitles at all! You’re killing me, guys!

Anyway, I would prefer to watch the movie in the original Cantonese, and I thought I’d better wait until I returned to the United States to order it from Yesasia (the Dragon Dynasty version hadn’t been announced). But day after day. I’d walk into DVD stores all around Singapore, and Invisible Target would be playing non-stop. This constant teasing and the fact that the Singaporean side of my family possessed a 42-inch plasma screen convinced me that I should just go ahead and buy the damn movie already. Even if I don’t get to hear Nicholas Tse and Shawn Yue speak in Cantonese, it doesn’t really matter. It’s a helluva entertaining film. And as a consolation, I get to hear Wu Jing (and a couple other performers) speak Mandarin as they performed it during principal photography.

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“I am Ieeeenvincible!” — Donnie Yen in Flash Point

I have not yet had the pleasure of watching Legend of the Fist: The Return of Chen Zhen, but I look forward to that undoubtedly auspicious day. Sure, the last time he played Chen Zhen, I wasn’t that impressed, but that was probably due to a Tai Seng hack job, not due to Mr. Yen’s lack of trying. In the meantime, I guess I’ll just have to bore you with my thoughts about another Donnie Yen-fest, the 2007 flick, Flash Point. This doesn’t quite count as a retro review, as I never initially reviewed it for the main site. What follows is slight revision of some thoughts I had on the film that I posted on an earlier, non-LoveHKFilm.com endorsed version of this blog. Sorry for the lack of newer updates this week; I’ve been busy.

Anyway, despite its commitment to hardcore action in the place of the more high-flying wire-fu of Dragon Tiger Gate, this pre-Ip Man collaboration between Wilson Yip and Donnie Yen may actually be a worse movie than their earlier comic book-inspired project. Those of you hoping for at least one battle that comes close to challenging the Wu Jing/Donnie Yen alley fight in SPL (something I think people are still waiting for) will be sorely disappointed with the fights in Flash Point. Sure, Yen fights Collin Chou in an extended one-on-one duel at the end of the flick, but let’s face it, it’s not anything worth raving about.

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