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By bmatthews, March 14, 2010

Thankfully here, we have what is essentially a very good character-driven period drama. Notice that I say period drama and not period action film.

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By bmatthews, March 7, 2010

Probably worse than the Steven Seagal plot is the Steven Seagal style of action. This is especially unfortunate, considering that the action director was Corey Yuen, who was once one of Hong Kong’s top choreographers.

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By bmatthews, March 7, 2010

I can understand his desire to denounce China’s practice of favoring the gwailos, but the idea isn’t developed as well as it should on film. The end result is an “Americans: BAD, Chinese: GOOD” type of a film that we so often saw during the early 1970s.

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By bmatthews, March 7, 2010

Dragons of the Orient (1988)
I decided to watch this documentary, as I watch so few of them in between cult films and martial arts cinema. Of course, this documentary (and the next ones I plan on watching) is about martial arts, so it’s not like it’s really a stretch. But hey, baby steps, my friend! [...]

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By bmatthews, March 7, 2010

Into the Sun (2005)
I admit that I’m something of a Steven Seagal fan, if only for the fact that his earlier films were favorites in my house for a number of years. We all know that the man is over-the-hill, both physically and from a career perspective. In spite of his last two movies having [...]