Country: China

Part 2 is certainly the superior one, but both deserve individual credit for reviving the dying embers of John Woo’s career.

Fast, fresh, funny and full of character and tension, this is wuxia done well and should be seen by fans of the genre at their earliest convenience.

For those of us who have grown up with Jackie Chan, this leaves quite an impression; it recalls an era of cinema, not just Hong Kong but worldwide, that will never be repeated again.

‘Riding Alone For Thousands Of Miles’ offers a pensive 100 minutes with the kind of devotion to China that shows clearly where the director’s heart lies.

Wong Fei-Hung gets the revisionist upgrade that someone, somewhere asked for and the results, though mixed, are mostly positive.

The title bears no resemblance to the film it makes you think of and also bears little relevance to anything in this actual film, instead ‘Roaring Dragon, Bluffing Tiger’ is just a dull and lazy wannabe adventure flick.

‘Sacrifice’ is not going to find itself among Chen Kaige’s most revered films, yet it is still a classy almost operatic historical film that holds the attention.

A mix of historical drama, romantic melodrama, and frantic wuxia superhero charged action, Yen and his crew certainly go all out to create an epic and kudos to their ambition.

‘Savage’ pulls few punches in its tough tale of a mountain cop on a quest to extract revenge on a trio of criminals who killed his partner.

Yu’s epic is often stunning to look at, is a lot less stuffy and longwinded than many a recent Chinese period epic, moves at a fair clip and delivers a surfeit of adrenaline surged spectacle.

Despite eschewing all the trappings of a big budget thriller, ‘Saving Mr. Wu’ is still a tense and perhaps even thought-provoking production.

The two most striking things about ‘Send Me To The Clouds’ are the photography and the performance of actress Yao Chen.