WilsonYip Tagged Articles at Cinematical

Subtitle of the Week: "My kung fu skills aren't too bad, eh?" -- Donnie Yen in Ip Man.

This week's edition of Asian Cinema Scene includes capsule reviews of films that were recently released on DVD in Asia.

Departures Takes Off: Yojiro Takita's drama Departures, the Academy Award winner for Best Foreign-Language Film, was a popular success during its initial run in Japan last fall. It resurged in the wake of the Oscar victory, ascending to the top of the charts. Departures also swept the 32nd Annual Japanese Academy Awards two days before the Oscars. The director's follow-up film, Sanpei the Fisher Boy, is due for release later this month. [Sources: Screen Daily; Japan Times; Toronto J-Film Pow-Wow; Nippon Cinema.]

Ip Man Inspires: Biopics are always better with martial arts, aren't they? Highly respected Wing Chun master Ip Man (Donnie Yen) lives a comfortable life in Fo Shan, China, but after the Japanese invade in 1937, he is reduced to living with his wife and young son in abject poverty. He works humbly alongside his fellow countrymen in a coal factory until he is forced to use his martial arts skills to defend his country's honor against the Japanese.

Teaming again with director Wilson Yip (SPL, Flash Point), Yen is perfectly suited to play the stoic, peaceful man who refused to buckle under to imperial rule. Simon Yam plays a factory owner and Hiroyuki Ikeuchi embodies General Miura. The great Sammo Hung choreographed the action scenes, which are pretty terrific. I don't think it's a spoiler to say that Ip Man eventually counted Bruce Lee among his students. (Trailer embedded below.)

After the jump: Brief looks at Beast Stalker and Legendary Assassin -- plus trailer!

The best possible signpost to what kind of movie you're in for comes early in Flash Point, when Donnie Yen's hard-bitten cop Jun Ma is standing before the equivalent of Internal Affairs or some other review board. Apparently, one of Jun's more recent busts resulted in a perp with " ... three fractured ribs, a broken hip ... and anosmia. ..." It only took a second to translate the subtitled medical jargon and have it sink in: Donnie Yen hits melonfarmers so hard he slaps the very sense of smell out of their heads.

And after seeing Yen in action, you believe that; hell, you're amazed anyone he slugs even has a nervous system left. Yen choreographed the action in Flash Point for director Wilson Yip, and the Toronto Midnight Madness premier of Flash Point saw Midnight Madness program head Colin Geddes reading an e-mailed manifesto from Yen about how he's enthusiastically moving towards using 'Mixed Martial Arts" for better, stronger, faster fight scenes. I don't know what, exactly, 'Mixed Martial Arts" means, but having seen it, I know I like it. A lot.

Yen's one of a group of cops trying to take down a bloodthirsty band of Vietnamese 'brothers' led by crazy-mean Tony (Colin Chow) with the brutal-crazy Tiger (Xing Yu) as their enforcer in pre-handover Hong Kong; his partner Wilson (Louis Koo) is undercover with the group already. And the fun of Flash Point isn't in the plot, which is just a return to the classic Hong Kong action Woo-niverse of cops and crooks and conflicted undercover agents. It's in the fighting.

Bits and pieces for a lovely Tuesday:

• Another Sundance success, Patricia Foulkrod's The Ground Truth: After the Killing Ends, has scored a theatrical run, this one thanks to Focus Features. Foulkrod's film examines the lives of six soldiers fighting in Iraq, from "recruitment and training" through "their experiences in combat, coming home and struggling to reintegrate into society." It sounds profoundly depressing, and is expected to hit theaters this fall.

• If Jessica Simpson really is in the running for all the roles we've been hearing about lately, she's got an awfully busy couple of years ahead of her. And today, there's another one -- according to an interview Simpson recently gave MTV, she's had meetings with Sony personnel about playing Lucy Ewing in the Dallas movie. If that idea frightens you, consider this: Lindsay Lohan is also interested in the part, so it's really a question choosing the lesser of two evils.

• Thanks to New Line, yet another magician movie -- that's three, if you're counting -- is now in the works: the studio has picked up the rights to a spec script called Burt Dickenson: The Most Powerful Magician on Planet Earth. Taking a page from The Prestige, this one is also about rival magicians, only they're in modern-day Vegas rather than Victorian England, and one of their partners dies early-on, leaving his ex to "find a way to rediscover his love for magic." And it's a hilarious comedy. Actually, apart from the magicians, it's not like The Prestige at all.
  

• The Weinstein Company has acquired the English-speaking-territories distribution rights (whew) for Wilson Yip's Chinese-language martial arts thriller, Dragon Tiger Gate. Based on a comic book, the movie "follows three young Chinese martial arts masters who emerge from the back streets of Hong Kong to help the powerless fight injustice" and stars the outrageously pretty Nicholas Tse, among others. While this chance to see the film on a big screen normally would be great news for American lovers of Asian film, given the TWC Promise debacle, God only knows what's going to happen with this one.