REVIEW: 捉妖記 [Zhuō yāo jì] [Monster Hunt] [2015]

“You gave birth to a white radish” Even if 捉妖記 [Zhuō Yāo Jì] [Monster Hunt] were billed in America with “from Raman Hui, the supervising animator of everyone’s favorite Dreamworks player the Gingerbread Man and co-director of Shrek the Third, comes a magical adventure of man and beast” on the posters, it wouldn’t be enough. But that’s okay because Hui didn’t make it for American audiences. Instead it stemmed from a desire back in 2005 to make an animated film in China after spending so much time with Steven Spielberg‘s…

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REVIEW: 毒戰 [Du zhan] [Drug War] [2013]

“Bad for the brain. Hahaha.” The first action film prolific Hong Kong director Johnnie To shot exclusively in Mainland China shows that locale has little to do with his ability to achieve the level of entertainment international audiences expect. 毒戰 [Du zhan] [Drug War] sticks with the gangster genre he’s most associated with by pitting an undercover narcotics police force against drug kingpin Uncle Bill (Zhenqi Li). Involved in a multi-faceted sting operation, cops from Jinhai, Yuejiang, and Erzhou join together after syndicate general Timmy Choi (Louis Koo) is captured…

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