The Burning of the Imperial Palace [火烧圆明园] (1983) and Reign Behind the Curtain [垂帘听政] (1983)

Director and screenwriter Li Han Hsiang was born (in Liaoning) and died (in Beijing) on the mainland but spent almost all his life working in Taiwan and Hong Kong having moved to HK in 1948. Douban credits him with almost 100 films as director. As this would suggest, he worked in a wide range of…

The Dawn [破曉時分] (1968)

The Dawn (At Dawn in the Hong Kong release) is an excellnt film directed by Li Han-Hsiang and Sung Tsun-Shou Set in Imperial times, twenty year old Chen Lao-san [an excellent Yang Chun/Peter Yang] has got a job a court bailiff due to his father bribing the responsible official. Getting up in the middle of…

Green Night [绿夜] (2023)

An excellent female-centred drama which features the 'come back' of the great Fan Bingbing. Although nominally a Hong Kong production, there are admittedly few Chinese links in this film. Set in Korea (mainly in Seoul), most of the dialogue and cast are Korean. However, it does star Ms. Fan and the director is Han Shuai…

The Shadowless Tower [白塔之光 ](2023)

A return to fom for Chinese-Korean director and screenwriter Zhang Lu (born in Jilin but ethnically Korean) after the disappointing Yanagawa though this slow-moving and rather directionless piece may not be to everyone's taste. Gu Wentong [Xin Baiqing, the older brother in Yanagawa] is a middle aged, divorced food critic (though he never seems to…

A Guilty Conscience [毒舌大狀] (2023)

Adrian Lam [Dayo Wong] is a lackadaisical and disinterested magistrate dealing with routine low levels crimes. When he is faced with a transfer to the Obscene Articles Tribunal, he decides to go into private practice. His first case (rather unbelievably) involves the defence of a former model Jolene Tsang [Louise Wong, so good in Anita…