Genre: Drama

This is not a flashy costume drama or a CGI enhanced flight of fancy but rather a gritty, grimy and quite often, an in your face epic.

‘The Water Margin’ is the kind of grandiose masterwork that is enthralling and, despite the presence of three accomplished directors, has a remarkable consistency to it.

A truly beautiful tale of personal growth and self-discovery that is more than perfectly in tune with many Asian ideals of family and the implicit importance of such.

‘The Way We Are’ is a gentle production about an act of kindness flowering into a friendship and how simple events can create a long-standing link between people who are initially strangers.

‘The Way We Were’ just doesn’t know what its heritage is and squanders a good concept for needless in-jokes while Liu Kai-Chi deserves a much stronger vehicle and Fiona Sit is woefully underused.

‘The Web Of Death’ would be a four-star film but (and it is a big ‘but’!) for the preposterous sight of seeing the heroes fleeing from a green spider.

It’s a cinematic car crash, and it’s often difficult to peel your eyes away from the horrible things that are happening on-screen at any given moment.

An overlooked gem from the 1970s, ‘The Yakuza’ is both a cracking thriller and a genuinely touching character piece.

A relentless journey through the low rung end of society the film is an endurance for both us the viewer and the protagonist Gu-nam.

A worthy addition to any avid kung fu fan’s DVD library as it hits all the right beats, benefits from some impressive photography and features some interesting, well staged and even downright barmy fighting styles.

Though the overly moral message may deter some, there’s more than enough rough and tumble scraps to entertain fight fans and a host of strong performances from the leads as well as a thoroughly involving story to engage most everyone else.

‘Thirst’ is an enjoyable but flawed experience, a stark, spooky drama with lashings of gallows humour that make up for its slight dips in story and style.