I see u

Oh man. Hope you didn’t pay too much to watch it.

Wow. That seems like an underhanded jab to Taiwan. I wonder how many Taiwanese audiences picked up on that.

It’s pretty sad to see that most people in China outside of film buffs don’t care about older films. One would think that if it’s the case, why keep playing Leslie Cheung’s song that young audiences know jack about?

If modern audiences aren’t nostalgic, why make a movie that’s going to bore them and piss off fans of the original?

It’s always interesting to look into the nuances filmmakers put into their movies to ensure Mainland distribution. One of the aspects I noticed here was that, compared to Ti Lung and Chow Yun Fat’s relationship which felt like they’re equals, here Wang is portrayed almost as a scruffy tag-along to Kai’s honorable gangster, who he feels indebted to.

I don’t think it was a coincidence that it gets mentioned more than once that his character is Taiwanese, with the relationship between them most likely intended as an allegory for how China perceives its relationship to Taiwan, who they view as a troublesome outlier. Regardless that their characters are gangsters, no doubt this detail played a part in getting a thumbs up from the SARFT.

Hi Eric, you mean you’ve never seen our review for ‘Kung Fu Yoga’? 😛

I don’t think the Korean version is a “great” film, but I thought it was decent, and it had more to do with Woo’s film while having its own identity like you mentioned.

I wasn’t looking forward to you disliking the movie, but I did hope you would call the film out on its glaring flaws. While I’m glad Darren Wang didn’t try to imitate Chow Yun-Fat, his character was not cool, suave, or charismatic. Just like the rest of the movie, it was a lose-lose situation.

I do want to see Saving Mr. Wu. I didn’t care for Police Story ’13 pandering to conservative Mainland ideals, but I do think Ding Sheng is a good director who succeeds with the right projects. It’s sad that ABT ’18 wasn’t one of them.

I have heard this ‘disposable’ attitude towards culture is part of the reason why 1.) Hong Kong churned out so many movies during its heyday, and 2.) why so many of those movies had their film prints treated poorly (improperly stored, etc.). It’s as if film distributors and studios said, ‘if there’s going to be a new ‘Young and Dangerous’ movie out in a few months, why should I care what happens to this one?’ Unfortunately, I think it’s going to be difficult to ever get truly great hi-definition releases of our favorite Hong Kong movies for this very reason.

I just dont think their culture looks on the past, in the same way ours does. They appear to be less nostalgic or sentimental, or maybe thats just my own distorted view?.

Great review Paul, for what sounds like one dud of a movie.

Good points Mike. It’s a well trodden argument, however always one that I’ve found to be a little counterintuitive. I say that mainly because it’s usually framed in such a way to imply that the younger Asian generation specifically have little interest in pre-millennium movies, however I think that applies to the general population at large, except for (as you point out) those with a specific interest in the films of that period. The general movie watching audience in the west, especially those in their 20’s, (in my experience at least) have little to no interest in watching the blockbusters that populated multiplexes during the 80’s and 90’s, so I don’t really see how it’s any different in the west than it is in the east. There’s a reason why reboots have become such big business in Hollywood, and I’ve spoken to people myself that had no idea the likes of ‘The Equalizer’ and ‘The Magnificent Seven’ were remakes of earlier productions.

But who knows, maybe there’s an Asian equivalent website of cityonfire out there somewhere, and people are having a similar conversation about how so many westerners aren’t familiar with the classics of 70’s American cinema. 😛