Ling (Samuel Hui) and his tomboy sister are charged with keeping a sacred scroll from the clutches of their self-serving Sifu and the scarier-than-they-sound Royal Eunuchs. With multiple directors and more characters than it can handle, the cracks show, but the swordplay and comedic touch proved popular enough to spawn two sequels.
Maria Ripoll's handsome 2001 remake of Ang Lee's Eat Drink Man Woman is anchored by the highly watchable Hector Elizondo as the widowed kitchen maestro with three wayward daughters and a frisky neighbour (Raquel Welch) who clearly wants to turn him into a naked chef. The plot has been sweetened a little, but the performances are fine and the photography sumptuous.
Bertrand Tavernier's epic (almost three hours) looks back at France's period of Nazi occupation from a movie-lover's perspective. A young screenwriter tries to subvert the German-controlled studios while juggling three women, and a director doubles as a Resistance fighter. It's a beautifully detailed and honest piece.
The Fall are here brilliantly captured in their early-'80s heyday. First released on video in 1983, this is an amateurish but energetic send-up of pop promos, with Mark E Smith on hilarious form, whether skulking around an empty football ground, miming into a beer can on the video for "Kicker Conspiracy", or dancing like a basket case for "Eat Y'Self Fitter".
This six-DVD set's total running time of 24 hours is enough in itself to set alarm bells ringing. Footage of northern soul in its '70s prime is almost non-existent. Cameras only ever went inside the legendary Wigan Casino once for a documentary (1977's This England), which isn't included. What does that leave us with? Talking heads padded out with the shittest home-made videos you've ever seen. And over a hundred northern soul artistes as they are now, miming to re-recordings of their hits. One star for unintentional comedy value.
No stranger to stage dramatics, Peter Gabriel created one of rock's great spectacles on 1993's "Secret World" tour. Seen by over a million people across five continents, only U2 and the Stones have rivalled it for theatrical excess. Robert LePage's stage designs still astound—and a still youthful-looking Gabriel matches them with his own charismatic presence on songs like "Sledgehammer".
Luc Besson oversaw this brain-batteringly stoopid collision between hopped-up, old-school kung-fu flick and Lock Stockish Brit gangster movie. Jason Statham just about gets his mouth around some sub-Tarantino dialogue as an ex-special forces getaway driver caught up in bad business involving a slave ring in Nice. Risible.
Underrated 1989 adaptation of Jay McInerney's seminal NY nightlife novel, riddled with "Bolivian marching powder", period electro-pop and a brave (though criticised) performance from Michael J Fox as a broken-hearted magazine fact-checker who's burning the candle at three ends. Kiefer Sutherland's a bad influence. Dryly comic, painfully candid.
The umpteenth retail release for this era-defining cash-cow of Scottish junkies, and the cracks are now beginning to show. Yes, it's a beautiful burst of propulsive film-making, but after the likes of Jesus's Son and Requiem For A Dream, it seems a little too eager to please, a little too chipper, too Ewan McGregor to be wholly credible.
