“‘Come Drink With Me’ Kicked Off King Hu’s Graceful Influence on Wuxia”

Drink with you? Well, if you insist! Continue reading →

“20 Martial Arts Movies Every Guy Should See”

Every guy. And every gal. And hell, everyone else, however they identify. These are good-ass ass-kicking movies, friends. Continue reading →

“Vinegar Syndrome Finds Itself in a ‘New York Ninja’ State of Mind”

To quote a great Muppet: I love trash because it’s trash! Continue reading →

“‘Vengeance Is Mine, All Others Pay Cash’: An Offbeat Martial Arts Romance That Really Wants To Become A Cult Classic [TIFF Review]”

Look, people are gonna like this more than me and that’s fine; no matter what, we all agree that this movie has the best title of any movie released in like the last 20 years. Continue reading →

“The Paper Tigers’ Tight Action/Comedy Kicks Its Aging Martial Artists Into Gear”

The thing about paper tigers: They beat rock AND scissors. Continue reading →

“On The Distinct Humanism Of Zhang Yimou’s Monochrome ‘Shadow'”

What’s a Zhang Yimou movie without lots of color? Well…it’s “Shadow.” Continue reading →

Review: Buffalo Boys, 2019, dir. Mike Wiluan

Of buffaloes, and boys, and western / martial arts revenge tropes. Also they have a grenade launcher. Take it from me, this one’s pretty wild. Continue reading →

Review: Kung Fu Panda 3, 2016, dir. Jennifer Yuh Nelson & Alessandro Carloni

Confession: I cried at the end of Kung Fu Panda 3. Do not take my response to the film’s emotional payload as a strict endorsement of the whole package; as third entries in movie franchises go, Kung Fu Panda 3 is a good bit of fun that falls victim to diminishing returns and an unpolished script. How many times must Po, … Continue reading →

Review: The Assassin, 2015, dir. Hou Hsiao-Hsien

“Hou Hsiao-Hsien made a wuxia film. That career choice makes logical sense in a vacuum: Hou is positively obsessed with history, and history, more so than fantasy, is wuxia’s bread and butter. But there’s little in Hou’s body of work aside from his preoccupation with the past to suggest an interest in swordplay. He’s made … Continue reading →

Review: The Raid: Redemption, 2012, dir. Gareth Evans

The Raid kicks ass. I almost want to leave the review at those four lone words; they convey all of the meaning needed to either sell you on The Raid or inform you that your time would be better spent elsewhere. But I can’t get away with that sort of smirking plebian criticism, and besides, … Continue reading →

Review: Ip Man, 2008, dir. Wilson Yip

Suggested alternate title: Donnie Yen’s Wide, Wide World of Butt-Kicking. Donnie Yen is the kind of real-deal martial arts maestro who, by an unjust stroke of fate, never caught on as a mainstream kung-fu cinema hero for American audiences in the way that performers like Jet Li and Jackie Chan have. Arguably, Yen has no … Continue reading →