Raise the Red Lantern is the best Chinese movie I’ve ever seen
Island Etude was interesting.
I was mesmerized by Island Etude’s images of the Taiwan we love so much: the mountais, the seashore, the nice, hardworking people… Idyllic, indeed.
Personal favorites, which I have bought, with or without subtitles: all the God of Gamblers series, plus most early Stephen Chow, like God of Cooking. And the Lost Youth series, the coming of age in the HK mafia of Chen Hao-nan (last one is set in Taiwan, best line: Do you think there will be war? No, Chinese people shouldn’t fight each other.)
I like the really old ones, where they sing the old stories, like filming an opera. Those have excellent English subtitles.
Black Gold, with Andy Lau and Tony Leung, especially with the elections rife and the taxi drivers’ fight.
Double Vision: yes, it could have been better, but it puts the finger right into the wound of the Taiwanese soul.
Taiwanese cartoon movie: Magical Grandma. Hillarious, a must take for friends back home -it even has a Spanish version.
Happy Ghost Happy Ghost Happy Ghost Happy Ghost Happy Ghost
One of the girls in that movie was in the God of Gamblers but I forgot her name.
Eat Drink Man Woman
enter the dragon.
Ran. (not quite but close enough).
“Raise the Red Lantern”, “Crouching Tiger”, and “Lust, Caution” were not bad either, with lovely cinematography.
has anyone seen Broken Heart Sword? I don’t know the Chinese version of the title which may not be the same. By far, one of the funniest movies I’ve ever seen in my life. Of course being into kung fu movies helps.
Mr. Vampire (一見發財), A funny hopping zombie/vompire horror movie. I first saw it in theater when I was ten, I was scared to death. And it is a landmark of Chinese horror film which started a era of hopping zombie/vampire movies. After it was released, hundreds of hopping zambie were made.
Stephen Chow’s 西遊記之月光寶盒 and 西遊記之仙履奇緣, based on The Monkey King (or Into The West), are awesome. But it is said that they have too many cultural elements that Westerners can’t understand.
King Hu’s Come to Drink With Me (大醉俠), Dragon Inn (龍門客棧), and A Touch of Zen (俠女). They are a series of movies that present female characters well in Kong Fu genre. Their restored DVD versions now are available in market.
Ang Lee’s Father Trilogy（推手，喜宴，飲食男女）–a Chinese viewpoint of family relationships, and Hou Hsiao-hsien’s A City of Sadness（悲情城市）–a Taiwanese viewpoint of 228 event are all great films.
By the way, cinematographer of A City of Sadness is the director of Island Etude. Both films have excellent cinematography.
Is “Magic Amah” the pokemon-style cartoon about the grandmother who explains the Taiwanese folk religion to her grandson? And his friend is some kind of spirit medium? I remember really liking this, for its attempt to make sense of / transmit folk religious beliefs. Haven’t seen the “Mazu” movie yet.
How about John Carpenter’s “Big Trouble in Little China”? Not actually Chinese, I know, but it’s BETTER than authentic.
My wife likes all those old 1940’s movies like “Plum Blossom” (a patriotic epic), and that one about the prince who abandons his lover to marry a princess. I started watching a musical about a group of goddesses who gaze onto the human world, and one of them falls in love with a poor man and resolves to marry him / help him get ahead. Anybody know it’s title? I had to leave 20 minutes into ti.
There was one old movie set in Tibet (why can’t I remember the names of these anymore?) in which a patriotic young Tibetan finally comes to realize that all those prophecies of a future Buddha, who will save the country, refer to (as he rasps with his dying breath)…Chairman Mao !!!
Taiwan
Yi-Yi is my favourite. I also think it’s the best portrayal of life in modern Taiwan that I’ve seen. A masterful film. You can see the locations around Xinhai Rd near Roosevelt.
I also love everything by Hou Hsiao Hsian (but I haven’t seen City of Sadness yet). He won’t be everyone’s cup of tea though. Not much happens in his films and there’s not much dialogue either.
Ang Lee’s Taiwan films are great too - Push Hands, Eat Drink Man Woman and The Wedding Banquet (although set in the US).
There’s so many Taiwanese films I haven’t seen. Usually due to lack of subtitles, or missing them during the week they were on at the cinemas.
Hong Kong
I went thorugh a massive HK movie phase, where I watched over 100 HK films in a year or so. There’s so many greats.
My personal favourite is Tianmimi (Comrades: Almost a Love Story). Maybe not the ‘best’, but a personal fave, which is odd, considering there’s few romances I like very much. It stars Leon Lai and Maggie Cheung, and is pure magic.
I love all of Wong Kar-Wai’s films. Days of Being Wild, Ashes of Time, Chungking Express, Fallen Angels, Happy Together, In the Mood for Love. They’re all brilliant. WKW’s definitely in my top five of greatest directors of all time.
In the kung-fu/gangster action genres, there’s so many greats. Most of the old John Woo and Chow Yun-Fat (pre-Hollywood) stuff is great - A Better Tomorrow, The Killer, Bullet in the Head, Hard-Boiled, God of Gamblers, City on Fire. Tsui Hark did some fantastic movies (as well as some poor ones) such as Peking Opera Blues and some of Jet Li’s great movies like Once Upon a Time in China. Jackie Chan made some fantastically funny and awesome kung-fu/gangster movies too of course, before he became a boring old self-parody. Other great old HK movies from the golden era (mid 80s to mid90s) I can think of include Tai Chi Master, Chinese Ghost Story, Fong Sai Yuk, Full Contact, Heroic Trio … there’s so many more I can’t remember.
I’m not at all up to date with more recent (last ten years or so) HK movies, but Infernal Affairs was very good, as many people have pointed out. I haven’t seen many of the older ones, either, like the King Hu classics, but his ‘Come Drink With Me’ is fantastic.
China
I can’t remember a lot of the Chinese films I’ve seen very clearly. There’s some good ones, but IMO quite a few fail by trying to be to serious. And many recent attempts at reaching the success of Crouching Tiger Hidden Dragon (loved it), such as Hero, have been very poor.
To Live is one of my favourites - a great story of one family’s experience of the Chinese Revolution.
Other good ones I can remember include 'Raise the Red Lantern’, ‘Farewell my Concubine’, ‘The Yellow Earth’, 'Life on a String’, ‘Ju Dou’, ‘Red Sorghum’. There’s a few more less popular ones, I can’t remember the names of.
I think I need to make it my mission to watch all of those classic old Taiwanese films I haven’t seen yet.
Brian
Way back I mentioned Hole as my fave, I also really liked Goodbye South Goodbye.
That sexy new mainland movie . . . ummm, not seen it, but heard it is really good.
HG
At Christmas I got a book called ‘1001 Movies You Must See Before You Die’. I’m trying to see them all. Up to 407 so far. I’ll probably be finished in another 6 years or so 
FYI (and also as a refernece for myself), here’s a list of the Chinese language films in the 1001 list. I’ll include a few details and extract from the blurb too.
1.Ye Ban Ge Sheng (Midnight Song)
1937/China/123m/BW/Mandarin/Dir:Ma-Xu Weibang
“Gaston Leroux’s 1919 novel ‘The Phantom of the Opera’ has inspired a score of films. Ma-Xu Webang’s ‘Midnight Song’ … is unarguably one oft he most inspired”. “All of this is staged in richly atmospheric settings, with a masterly use of light and shadow clearly inspired by German Expressionist Cinema. An important element in the film’s immense popularity were the songs, which have remained popular standards in China.”
2.Xiao Cheng Zhi Chun (Spring in a Small Town)
1948/China/85m/BW/Mandarin/Dir:Fei Mu
“Sparingly the film builds its postwar drama: the desires, hopes, dreams and hurts that play among these characters … a choreography of furtive looks, and sudden gestures of resistance and resignation”. “This masterpiece of Chinese cinema has only recently received the worldwide recognition it deserves. influence Wong Kar-Wai’s ‘In the Mood for Love’ and occassioning a respectful remake (2002). [It] stands among cinema’s finest, richest and most moving melodramas.”.
3.Da Zui Xia (Come Drink With Me)
1966/Hong Kong/95m/Color/Mandarin/Dir:King Hu/Star:Cheng Pei-Pei
“Long before therewas ‘CrouchingTiger, Hidden Dragon’, there was the great King Hu, a master director who … helped revolutionise the martial arts costume drama.” “The film is a visual tour de force … a feast of color, movement and high-flying action”.
4.Hsia Nu (A Touch of Zen)
1969/Taiwan/200m/Color/Mandarin/Dir:King Hu
“A Touch of Zen is considered a benchmark in Chinese cinema”. “At three hours, the pace is surprisingly brisk, because this is a movie that’s genuinely unpredictable. You’re justwaiting for what’s going to happen next”. "Hu understood that films were experienced witht he senses and he fills the CinemaScope frame with a constant swirl of color and movement. Honing his craft on several previous wuxia films, A Touch of Zen stands as the zenith of Hu’s career’.
5.Enter the Dragon
1973/Hong Kong - US/98m/Dir:Robert Clouse/Star:Bruce Lee
6.Wu Du (Five Deadly Venoms)
1978/Hong Kong/98m/Cantonese/Dir:Chang Cheh
“The finest team of martial artists ever assembled in a single film”. “Some of the most remarkable fight scenes ever committed to film”.
7.Shao Lin San Shih Liu Fang (Shaolin Master Killer/aka The 36th Chamber of Shaolin)
1978/Hong Kong/115m/Cantonese/Dir:Chia-Liang Liu/Star:Gordon Liu
“Chia-Liang Liu is nothing less than the best fight choreographer ever to work in the HK film industry”. “The film’s star is the famously bald Gordon Liu. The intensity he brings to his performance serves to make [this] stand out in yet another way. And this isn’t evento mention the fight scenes. Suffice it to say, they can’t possibly leave you disappointed.”
8.Tong Nian Wang Shi (The Time to Live and the Time to Die)
1985/Taiwan/138m/Mandarin/Dir:Hsiao-hsien Hou
“The direction … is understated, reflective and measured, in the Ozu style, making all the more devastatingly powerful the paroxysms of agonized emotion when they are eventually allowed to ignite the screen. The film is a work of remarkable maturity, assurance and clarity.”
9.Dao Ma Zei (The Horse Thief)
1986/China/88m/Mandarin/Dir:Tian Zhuangzhuang
“… set in the remote wilds of Tibet, is a breathtaking spectacle in scope and color. It is perhaps the most personal of all the ‘Fifth Generation’ Beijing films …” “Tian’s originality and mastery of sound and image communicate directly, beyong the immediate trappings of the film’s slender plot.”
10.‘A’ Gai Waak Juk Jaap (Project A, Part 2)
1987/Hong Kong/101m/Cantonese/Dir:Jackie Chan/Star:Jackie Chan
“It is here that one finds Chan at the peak of his powers as a filmmaker, a choreographer, and a martial artist, when he was still young fast and agile.”
11.Hong Gao Liang (Red Sorghum)
1987/China/91m/Mandarin/Dir:Zhang Yimou/Star:Gong Li
“One of the leading members of the famous ‘Fifth Generation’ of Chinese filmmakers, Zhang has been widely considered the most verasatile of the group because of his background in cinematography and acting. Many of Red Sorgum’s most striking virtues are visual; handsome 'Scope compositions of landscapes and sorghum waving in the wind and deft use of color filters”.
12.Sinnui Yauman (A Chinese Ghost Story)
1987/Hong Kong/98m/Dir:Siu-Tang Ching/Star: Leslie Cheung
“When it comes to fantasy filmmaking Hong Kong can make Hollywood look imaginatively bankrupt. This 1987 cult classic suggests a combination of Sam Raimi, Jean Cocteau, Georges Melies and Tim Burton.”
13.Die Xue Shuang Xiong (The Killer)
1989/Hong Kong/111m/Cantonese/Dir:John Woo/Star:Chow Yun-Fat
Although director John Woo, producer Tsui Hark and star Chow Yun-Fat had worked together previously … it was the international success of The Killer that established HK action cinema as a distinct brand." “A genocidal film with more corpses than Total Recall and Die Hard combined …”
14.Beijing Chengshi (A City of Sadness)
1989/Taiwan/157m/Taiwanese-Mandarin-Japanese/Dir:Hsiao-hsien Hou
“There are two separate stories to tell here. One is this wonderful story which happens sometimes, somewhere, most fo the time unpredictably: The rise of a New Wave, of an artistic movement in a country, and of the emergence of one or two exceptionally talented filmmakers. This occurred in the 1980s in Taiwan with the New Cinema movement, and one of the most talented directors who appeared at the time was Hsiao-hsien Hou.” “… his sense of pace, the physical intensity of his shots, the suggestive strength in the apparebtly indifferent way he filmed even the most simple situations”. “Then there is the second story, concerning the inevitable moment when a nation needs its cinema to tell itself and the world its own tale - its collective autobiography, so to speak. In 1989 the vanishing of the military dictatorship which ruled the island for 40 years presented filmmakers the opportunity to tell the recent story of Taiwan.”
15.Wong Fei-Hung (Once Upon a Time in China)
1991/Hong Kong/134m/Cantonese/Dir:Hark Tsui/Star:Jet Li
“This is popular HK cinema at its most breathless”.
16.Da Hong Deng Long Gao Gao Gua (Raise the Red Lantern)
1991/China/125m/Mandarin/Dir:Yimou Zhang/Star:Gong Li
“Zhang confirms his mastery and artistry here in many ways, some relatively new (such as his striking soundtrack) though the cold, remote, and stifling world he presents here offers little emotional release.”
17.Guling Jie Shaonian Sha Ren Shijian (A Brighter Summer Day)
1991/Taiwan/237m/Mandarin/Dir:Edward Yang
“Edward Yang’s subtle and rich portrait of Taiwan fits so many details into its deceptively brisk four-hour running time that it’s a wonder Yang delivered the film as short as it is.” “The direction is patient and serene; the film is like a masterful symphony of dozens of characters whose tone and tempo are deftly orchestrated by Yang.” “A masterpiece of the Taiwanese New Wave … this is a film whose grasp of period and place is masterful beyond the relam of mere storytelling.”
18.Yuen Ling-Yuk (The Actress)
1992/Hong Kong/167m/Cantonese/Dir:Stanley Kwan/Star:Maggie Cheung
“Stanley Kwan’s 1992 masterpiece is still quite possible the greatest HK film I’ve seen.”
19.Ba Wang Bie Ji (Farewell My Concubine)
1993/China-Hong Kong/171m/Mandarin/Dir:Kaige Chen
“First of the 'Fifth Generation” of Chinese filmmakers … Kaige Chen bravely invoked his own bitter memories of the cultural revolution. An exquisite, fascinating drama."
20.Hismeng Jensheng (The Puppetmaster)
1993/Taiwan/142m/Mandarin-Taiwanese-Japanese/Dir:Hou Hsiao-hsien
“Director … has an unhurried style, with long shots that calmly observe the interaction of the characters.”
21.Hsi Yen (The Wedding Banquet)
1993/Taiwan-US/106m/Mandarin-English/Dir:Ang Lee
“A clever and entertaining social comedy that helped to establish him as a commercial director long before such more obvious mainstream crowd pleasers as The Ice Storm and Crouching Tiger Hidden Dragon”.
22.Lan Feng Zheng (The Blue Kite)
1993/China-Hong Kong/138m/Mandarin/Dir:Tian Zhuangzhuang
“A sublime and often subtle look at how history and politics disrupt ordinary lives”.
23.Chong Qing Sen Lin (Chungking Express)
1994/Hong Kong/97m/Cantonese-Mandarin/Dir:Kar-wai Wong
“Wong transforms HK into a blur of orange neon lights and disjointed, distorted images, playing with film stock, exposure and speed the way others might fiddle with a script”. “Wong reveals himself as an iconoclast of HK’s new generation of filmmakers”.
24.Cheun Gwong Tsa Sit (Happy Together)
1997/Hong Kong/96m/Cantonese-Mandarin/Dir:Wong Kar-Wai
"“Using long shots, sparse music, carefully composed scenes, and deeply evocative stretches of silence and stillness, Wong takes the viewer right to the heart of this disintegrating relationship; the journey is hypnotic.” “The sweet sadness walks with the viewer out of the theater after the closing credits. An absolutely perfect film”.
25.Dut Yeung Nin Wa (In the Mood For Love)
2000/Hong Kong/98m/Cantonese-Mandarin/Dir:Kar-Wai Wong
“Each scene is luminous, spilling over with carefully researched, but understated period details captured in a dreamlike haze by an eavesdropping camera”.
26.Yi Yi (A One and a Two)
2000/Taiwan/173m/Mandarin-Hokkien/Dir:Edward Yang
“Edward Yang’s most accessible movie and probably his best since A Brighter Sumemr Day”. “He interweaves shifting viewpoints and poignant emotional refrains, creating one of the richest family portraits in modern cinema”.
27.Wo Hu Cang Long (Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon)
2000/Hong Kong-China-Taiwan/120m/Mandarin/Dir:Ang Lee
“Lee modulates each scene of the movie with … nuance and sensitivity. His fight sequences play like psychological confrontations as much as sword fights, the clashof innocence and experience, of peace and anger. Even so, Lee leaves as much room for levity as he does for visual poetry, achieving a rare balance of thrills, beauty, humor and smarts.”
28.Ni Neibian Jidian (What Time is it There?)
2001/Taiwan/116m/Mandarin-Taiwanese-French/Dir:Ming-liang Tsai
“In Many ways … Tsai’s most exciting and original film to date.” “the intricate formal rhyme schemes devised by Tsai … are even more inventive than those in ‘The Hole’.”
Brian
I remember you recommending ‘Hole’, Huang. I’ve still not seen it 
I loved Goodbye South Goodbye, and that was before I’d even came to Taiwan. I’ve gotta see it again. I’m sure I’d appreciate it even more now.
Brian
Ah yes, Wu Du is very good too. and some of the last films Jackie Chan made in Chinese in HK, when he allowed himself to express his more comedic side, are excellent KungFu classics. some of the best ‘drunken fist’ on the screen.
I thought Wu Du was very overrated. A much better film featuring all The 5 Venoms was Crippled Avengers.
I remember you recommending ‘Hole’, Huang. I’ve still not seen it
I loved Goodbye South Goodbye, and that was before I’d even came to Taiwan. I’ve gotta see it again. I’m sure I’d appreciate it even more now.
Brian[/quote]
I have both on my pute. Drop me a PM if interested.
HG
I got this book a while ago and I probably only saw around 420 movies on the list. I was lucky that I saw most Asian films listed in the book. A long way to go.
I have a book called A Short History of Taiwanese Film, which introduces some interestingTaiwanese films, I might try to post some info about them.
Sounds good. Where can I get it?
[quote=“Bu Lai En”]11.Hong Gao Liang (Red Sorghum)
1987/China/91m/Mandarin/Dir:Zhang Yimou/Star:Gong Li
“One of the leading members of the famous ‘Fifth Generation’ of Chinese filmmakers, Zhang has been widely considered the most verasatile of the group because of his background in cinematography and acting. Many of Red Sorgum’s most striking virtues are visual; handsome 'Scope compositions of landscapes and sorghum waving in the wind and deft use of color filters”.[/quote]
Ugh! The cinematography was pretty much the only thing decent about this film. I was bored to tears…
[quote=“Bu Lai En”]15.Wong Fei-Hung (Once Upon a Time in China)
1991/Hong Kong/134m/Cantonese/Dir:Hark Tsui/Star:Jet Li
“This is popular HK cinema at its most breathless”.[/quote]
One of my fav series of films. Jet Li at his best.
The end fight with Donnie Yen is classic in that don’t you think?
Anyway… I haven’t gone all through the thread but has anybody seen Blind Shaft? That is a very good film