Crouching Tiger Hidden Dragon (Dir. Ang Lee 2000): Amazing martial arts fighting sequences (choreographed by Yuen wo Ping - The Matrix) stunning special effects action adventure and romance have made Crouching Tiger Hidden Dragon the most talked about movie of the year. Martial arts masters Li Mu Bai (Chow Yun-Fat) and Shu Lien (Michelle Yeoh) battle against evil forces to recover their stolen sword the legendary Green Destiny. Warriors Of Heaven & Earth (Dir. Ping Lee 2003): China 700AD: the Tang Dynasty assumes far-reaching political influence culminating in battle against the Turks. Wen Zhu (Zhao Wei) the daughter of a top Chinese general spearheading the forces massed against the Turkish enemy is entrusted to the care of Lai Xi (Kiichi Nakai) the Japanese emissary and feared imperial bounty hunter who hunts down rebels in the Western Frontier who is ordered take her back to the capital city of Changan. Lai Xi longs for a return to his beloved Japanese homeland but his assignment is hijacked by the command to hunt down rebel Li (Jiang Wen) a lieutenant condemned to death for disobeying a direct order to murder innocent women and children in the name of war. However as dedicated to carrying out his duty as Lai Xi is when he tracks down Li he is surprised to find his foe transporting a sacred Buddhist relic across the Gobi desert to its rightful resting place. As Turkish forces mass to attack in an effort to steal the relic Lai Xi must question his loyalty to his superiors and his Buddhist faith... Likened to the multi-Oscar-winning Crouching Tiger Hidden Dragon and Zhang Yimou's No.1 U.S. box office hit Hero China's official entry for the Best Foreign language Academy award Warriors Of Heaven And Earth is epic entertainment! Legend Of The Red Dragon (Dir. Wong Jing 2001): The epic story of a man who challenged the limits of courage and fought for the heart of a nation. When his wife and entire village are brutally murdered by evil Manchu soldiers the master warrior Kwun (Jet Li) sets out on a mission of vengeance with the only survivor of the massacre - his son Ting. For seven years the two journey across ancient China on their quest for revenge always staying one step ahead of the deadly army. But Kwun is forced to face the past when they come across a wealthy benefactor with five young Shaolin masters in his charge who unbeknownst to Kwun have the detailed map to a priceless treasure trove tattooed on their backs. It is not long before Manchu officials find out about the maps and deadly soldiers came after the masters. Now in an ancient battle that will pit Kwun against one of the very soldiers who helped to kill his family he and Ting will unite with the young masters of Shaolin for a fight to the death. Get ready for an ancient martial arts battle with the world's most masterful warriors!
Former Scissor Gang leader Eun-jin (Shin Eun-kyung) who now suffers from amnesia defends Jae-cheol (Jun Gyu Park) a restaurateur who employs her from a gangster who wants his business.
House of Flying Daggers The film is set in 859 AD. The once great Tang Dynasty is now in decline. Numerous rebel groups have formed the largest of which is the House of Flying Daggers based in Feng Tian county. The Flying Daggers steal from the rich and give to the poor gaining the support of the locals. The local deputies have managed to kill the leader of the Flying Daggers but the rebel group only becomes stronger due to a mysterious new leader. Jin and Leo two police captains are ordered to kill the new leader within ten days. In order to accomplish this they arrest Mei a blind dancer who is suspected of being the daughter of the old leader. While Mei is incarcerated Jin and Leo decide to play a trick on her; Jin will pretend to be a lone warrior called Wind and break her out of prison. This will gain her trust and hopefully Jin will be lead to the headquarters of Flying Daggers. The plan works but Mei and Jin begin to fall in love on the way. We eventually find out that Mei was only pretending to be blind and has known who Jin was all along and that Leo was working for the House of Flying Daggers as an undercover agent. He had hopes of winning Mei's affection by helping to destroy the government from within. Leo is upset that his many years of working undercover have not succeeded in winning Mei's heart but Jin's three days have. The emotions of the three spill into battle leading to tragedy Bulletproof Monk The film begins in the 1940s as a Tibetan Buddhist monk charged with protecting an ancient scroll passes on his legacy to his pupil. As the student receives the power to safeguard the scroll his aging process is halted and he gives up his name only to be known as the Monk (Chow Yun-Fat). Suddenly the monastery is raided by Nazis led by the ruthless Strucker (Karl Roden). As they attempt to seize the relic the Monk is shot and falls off a cliff taking the scroll with him... However six decades later the Monk appears in America and crosses paths with Kar (Seann William Scott) a tough city kid with a talent for picking pockets. Together the unlikely duo must contend with the forces of the now-elderly Strucker still determined to possess the mystical scroll. As Strucker's granddaughter Nina (Victoria Smurfit) leads his thugs to track down Kar and the Monk the two heroes receive help from the mysterious Jade (Jaime King)...
Crouching Tiger Hidden Dragon is so many things: an historical epic on a grand scale, an Asian martial-arts flick with both great effects and fantastic fighting (choreographed by The Matrix's guru Yuen Wo Ping), a story of magic, revenge and power played with a posse of star-crossed lovers thrown in for good measure. Set during the Qing dynasty (the late 19th century), the film follows the fortunes of righteous warriors Li Mu Bai and Yu Shu Lien (Asian superstars Chow Yun-Fat and Michelle Yeoh, respectively) whose love for one another has lain too long unspoken. When Li Mu Bai's legendary sword Green Destiny is stolen by wilful aristocrat's daughter Jen (exquisite newcomer Zhang Ziyi), who has been trained in the way of the gangster by Li Mu Bai's arch-rival Jade Fox, the warriors must fight to recover the mystical blade. The plot takes us all across China, from dens of iniquity and sumptuous palaces to the stark plains of the Western desert. Characters chase each other up walls and across roof and treetops to breathtaking effect, and Tan Dun's haunting, Oscar-winning East-West inflected score. Directed by Taiwanese-born Ang Lee and co-written by his longtime collaborator American James Schamus, Crouching Tiger Hidden Dragon joins the ranks of the team's slate of high-quality, genre-spanning literary adaptations. Although it superficially seems like a return to Ang's Asian roots, there's a clear throughline connecting this with their earlier, Western films given the thematic focus on propriety and family honour (Sense and Sensibility), repressed emotions (The Ice Storm) and divided loyalties in a time of war (Ride with the Devil). Nonetheless, a film this good needs no prior acquaintance with the director's oeuvre; it stands on its own. The only people who might be dismissive of it are jaded chop-socky fans who will probably feel bored with all the romance. Everyone else will love it. --Leslie Felperin On the DVD: As might be expected this superb anamorphic widescreen version of the original 2.35:1 theatrical ratio presents Peter Pau's spellbinding cinematography in its full glory; the same goes for the Dolby 5.1 audio track that showcases Tan Dun's haunting score. Annoyingly, however, the default language option is the dubbed English soundtrack, which means you have to select the original Mandarin version before playing. The extra features are good but not exceptional, with an obligatory "making-of" documentary and commentary from Ang Lee and James Schamus being the best options: the director and producer/cowriter chat amiably and in some detail about their martial arts version of Sense and Sensibility. But it's the breathtaking delight of the seeing the movie in such quality that really counts, and this disc does not disappoint. --Mark Walker
The Bounty is the third screen version of one of the best-known stories in naval history, here with Anthony Hopkins as Lieutenant William Bligh and Mel Gibson as Fletcher Christian heading an extraordinary cast including Laurence Olivier, Edward Fox, Daniel Day-Lewis, Liam Neeson, Bernard Hill and Dexter Fletcher. HMS Bounty's voyage to Tahiti of 1787-9 and its infamous consequences are recounted with far greater historical accuracy than in the 1935 or 1962 Mutiny on the Bounty. The movie is gorgeously shot on location in Tahiti, England and New Zealand as well as on a full-size recreation of the original Bounty. Roger Donaldson's film benefits from a literate screenplay by Robert Bolt, who here as in Lawrence of Arabia (1962), brings real insight into the English institutional mind in conflict. Hopkins is at his complex best and Gibson offers more depth than his usual two-dimensional hero persona; here Bligh and Christian emerge as complex men gripped by circumstances beyond their control. The haunting score by Vangelis contributes immensely to a very underrated film which deserves to be considered a modern classic. On the DVD: There is an excellent 52-minute "making of" documentary that mixes historical information with on-location interviews. A 12-minute overview of previous screen versions of the story is narrated by the film's historical consultant, Stephen Walters, who also provides a somewhat stilted but nevertheless informative audio commentary. The second audio commentary is from director Roger Donaldson, Producer Bernie Williams and Production Designer John Graysmark, who genuinely appear to enjoy reminiscing and have real enthusiasm for the movie. Also included is a fascinating 28-page booklet. This is the stuff Special Editions should always be made of, and this would be one of the finest DVDs on the market were it not for the transfer of the film itself, which appears to be a reprocessed version of the same NTSC anamorphic 2.35:1 transfer found on the bare-bones Region 1 DVD, with no sign of PAL speed-up. The picture not only shows considerable grain in some scenes, but also demonstrates marked compression artefacting and enhancement shimmer on all horizontal lines, making some scenes extremely ugly. For such a beautiful film it is a most disappointing transition to the digital format. Most unusually for a UK release, the disc is region free.--Gary S Dalkin
The unlikely duo of Jackie Chan and Chris Tucker are reunited in this sequel. This time round their investigations take them from Hong Kong to L.A.
Please wait. Loading...
This site uses cookies.
More details in our privacy policy