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Showing posts with label Fire of Conscience. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Fire of Conscience. Show all posts
9/18/10
Fire of Conscience Duet with Leon Lai and Richie Ren
Leon Lai and Richie Ren put aside their guns and their grudges for this duet. They are among the biggest cantopop and mandopop stars and both have starred in movies directed by MM alumnus Johnnie To (The Mission, MM 2000). Lai co-starred with Lau Ching-Wan in Hero Never Dies while Ren was the amazing smoking sniper, Sgt. Chan in Exiled.
So get out your lighters and enjoy the Fire of Conscience song action. With any luck Fire of Conscience will have the midpoint musical montage traditional to HK action movies and you'll already know all the words--or can at least hum and sway along.
Fire of Conscience screening times:
Saturday, Sept. 18. 11:59pm Ryerson
Sunday, Sept. 19. 3:00pm Scotiabank Theatre 11
Tickets can be purchased at the official TIFF site.
9/16/10
Fight! Fight! Fight!
Get into the wuxia spirit for The Butcher, The Chef and The Swordsman with some fine fighting action. Above, The Deadly Breaking Sword with Ti Lung and Ku Feng. And below, the famous bamboo forest fight from King Hu's A Touch of Zen:
Jet Li takes down Donnie Yen in Hero:
Michelle Yeoh gives Zhang Ziyi what for in Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon:
Zhao Wen Zhou in The Blade, Tsui Hark's Tsui Harkiest move:
And since Fire of Conscience is coming up, this fan video with kung fu, wuxia and guns:
The Butcher, The Chef and The Swordsman screening times:
Thursday, Sept. 16. 11:59pm Ryerson
Friday, Sept. 27. 6:30pm AMC 6
Saturday, Sept. 18. 3:30pm Scotiabank Theatre 2
Fire of Conscience screening times:
Saturday, Sept. 18. 11:59pm Ryerson
Sunday, Sept. 19. 3:00pm Scotiabank Theatre 11
Tickets are available for purchase at the official site.
9/7/10
Midnight Madness Picks: Jason Anderson
Jason Anderson is one of Toronto's busiest freelancers, writing for EYE Weekly, the Toronto Star, CBC Arts, among others. Word on the street is that he once got into a bare knuckle fight with Lee Marvin and lived to tell the tale. That story intimidates me so much I've never asked him to confirm or deny. Instead, I asked for his Top Three Picks:Fire of Conscience: Only one of the bunch I’ve actually seen and can therefore endorse as a very satisfying piece of old-school Hong Kong action with the new-school addition of many explosive devices. And if you thought Hard Boiled had the last word on natal-related action setpieces, think again.Fire of Conscience screens:
The Butcher, the Chef and the Swordsman: Surely the culinary/martial arts crossover I’ve been waiting for since accidentally renting Tampopo when I meant to get Tiger Claws 2.
Vanishing on 7th Street: Brad Anderson’s Session 9 and The Machinist are two distinctive creep-outs so I’m very curious to see (or not see) what happens in the dark.
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Saturday, September 18. 11:59PM Ryerson
Sunday, September 19. Scotiabank 11
The Butcher, the Chef and the Swordsman screens:
Thursday, September 16 11:59PM Ryerson
Friday, September 17. 6:30PM AMC 6
Saturday September 18 3:30PM Scotiabank 2
Vanishing on 7th Street screens:
Sunday, Septermber 12, 11:59PM, Ryerson
Monday, September 13. 2:00PM AMC 2
You can buy tickets from the official TIFF website.
9/1/10
Fire of Conscience: A New Kind of Violence
Hong Kong is a breeding ground for action masters. Wilson Yip, John Woo, Johnny To; I'm only scratching the surface. What's interesting about these names, is that they all do it very differently. With Dante Lam's Fire of Conscience, my eyes were opened to a very unique new style of action.
It's not particularly slick, there's no slow motion, and absolutely no moments of glorified heroism. When people get killed in FOC this becomes an ironic abbreviation because that's what I'm saying. It's a cacophony of unrepentant realism. It's raw with a bitter after taste. Salty. And for savory action fans, you're in for a treat.
To directly compare it to the rough and tumble style of modern American Actioners like The Bourne Identity series or even the new James Bond films would do it a disservice. While these movies rely on urgent hand held cameras following the kinetics, Fire of Conscience still feels very Hong Kong in its incendiary explosiveness. Nothing feels staged, and you are never put in a position to watch the action from a pretty angle. Rather, the violence washes over you like a tidal wave. And "pretty" really isn't the right word for what you see. More like "badass".
When trying to sum it up the feel of the movie, the words that kept coming to my mind were "Worst case scenario" action scenes.
In Fire of Conscience; survival precedes reflection, but you better believe everyone involved is leaving the gun fight with the same baggage. It's all instinct on this battle field, and only the most callused and jaded warriors stand a chance; and no fight leaves anyone unscathed. Except maybe you, on the other side of the screen.
Screening times:
Saturday, Sept 18. 11:59 PM Ryerson
Sunday Sept 19. 3:00PM Scotiabank Theare 11
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