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  • The Shadow’s Edge (2025)

    Larry Yang’s The Shadow’s Edge is a Chinese-Hong Kong remake of Yau Nai-hoi’s 2007 Hong Kong police thriller Eye in the Sky. The newer production therefore not only tells a story about a clash between old investigative methods and modern technology, but also constitutes an attempt to rewrite the traditions of classic Hong Kong police…

  • Should They Marry? (1951)

    Should They Marry?aka Spoiling the Wedding Day(Wù jiā qī; lit. The Missed Auspicious Date or The Delayed Wedding) Directors: Zhu Shilin, Bai ShenScreenplay: Lu YuCinematography: Cao JinyunMusic: Li Houxiang, Ye ChunzhiAsst. director: no infoStudio: Longma (Dragon-Horse)Premiere: 05.08.1951Genre: Romance, drama, comedy Cast: Han Fei, Li Li-Hua, Jiang Ming, Lan Qing, Liu Lian, Li Ciyu and others.…

  • Panorama of Japanese Cinema 1951 (part 8)

    Repastaka A Married Life(Meshi) Director: Mikio NaruseScreenplay: Toshirō Ide, Sumie TanakaCinematography: Masao TamaiMusic: Fumio HayasakaAsst. director: Masayoshi KawanishiStudio: TohoGenre: Drama Cast: Setsuko Hara, Ken Uehara, Yukiko Shimazaki, Yōko Sugi, Akiko Kazami, Haruko Sugimura, Ranko Hanai, Hiroshi Nihon’yanagi, Keiju Kobayashi, Sō Yamamura, Eitarō Shindō and others. No. 2 in Kinema Junpo’s rankings. Michiyo is an unhappy…

  • Trapped (2025)

    The story of Trapped takes place in 1995, one year before China’s gun-control law came into force. Director and screenwriter Zhang Qi uses this moment as a boundary between an old order governed by violence and a new order of law and state authority. The film depicts the transformation of one into the other through…

  • The Kid (1950): Childhood and Hong Kong Cinema in the Early 1950s

    Issues surrounding childhood and portrayals of children repeatedly appeared in Hong Kong cinema during the early 1950s, in both the Cantonese and Mandarin film industries. They served as a metaphor for a changing, migratory society. In order to understand this metaphor more fully before examining individual films, it is first necessary to outline the cultural…

  • I’m Still Kind of a Daydreamer (2024)

    I’m Still Kind of a Daydreamer is Eva Y.C. Chen’s first feature-length project. She served as its director, screenwriter, editor, producer and cinematographer, making the film an entirely personal work. It is an intimate portrait of procrastination, uncertainty about one’s future and the need to have dreams — at times remarkably naturalistic, at times poetic…

  • Panorama of Japanese Cinema: 1951 (Part 7)

    Miki, The Swordman(Hirate Miki) Director: Kyōtarō NamikiScreenplay: Shinobu HashimotoCinematography: Kikusaburō KawasakiMusic: no infoAsst. director: no infoAction choreography: no infoStudios: Shintoho, SogeiGenre: Jidaigeki, chanbara Cast: Sō Yamamura, Ryūnosuke Tsukigata, Ranko Hanai, Eijirō Yanagi, Haruo Tanaka, Yōnosuke Toba, Unpei Yokoyama, Bokuzen Hidari The life story of the rōnin Miki Hirate, who, unable to attain a high-ranking position…

  • Left-Handed Girl (2025)

    Left-Handed Girl is a deeply personal project for Taiwanese filmmaker Tsou Shih-ching, who spent twenty-five years developing it. During that time, she built an international reputation through her long-standing artistic collaboration with Sean Baker. She produced his Starlet (2012), Tangerine (2015), The Florida Project (2017) and Red Rocket (2021), and co-directed Take Out with him…

  • Yakuza Eiga. Part II: Gangsters Without Honour

    Welcome back to the world of Japanese gangsters. During our first visit, we learnt who the yakuza were, and when and how films about their exploits came to dominate cinemas in the Land of the Rising Sun. Today, however, we shall examine the people behind the success of ninkyō eiga, see what Toei’s competitors were…

  • Panorama of Japanese Cinema: 1951 (Part 6)

    The Lady of Musashino(Musashino fujin) Director: Kenji MizoguchiScreenplay: Yoshikata YodaCinematography: Masao TamaiMusic: Fumio HayasakaAsst. director: no infoStudio: TohoGenre: Drama Cast: Kinuyo Tanaka, Yukiko Todoroki, Masayuki Mori, Akihiko Katayama, Sō Yamamura, Eitarō Shindō, Kiyoko Hirai Set in post-war Japan, the story follows Michiko, an unhappily married woman with whom her young cousin falls in love. Commentary:…

  • The Furious (2025)

    The Hong Kong film industry periodically reminds itself that the true strength of its action cinema lies in unrestrained physicality. In 1949 Wu Pang offered “real” kung-fu to audiences tired of fantasy films. In 1965 the Shaw Brothers studio, at the instigation of Chang Cheh, launched a trend of introducing previously unseen levels of brutality…

  • The Story of Wong Fei-Hung, Part 2 (1949)

    In the past, film posters served not only as promotional graphics but partially fulfilled the function of today’s theatrical trailers, and therefore had to contain more information than they do today. The poster for The Story of Wong Fei-Hung is an excellent example of this. The large inscription on the upper left reads: The crimson…

  • Wings of Dread (2026)

    On 3 July 2026, an action film premiered on Chinese streaming platforms — iQIYI, Youku, Tencent Video, Mango TV, and Bilibili — promoted as a collision between Shaolin-style martial arts and the more brutal Indonesian discipline of pencak silat. The former is represented by actor, choreographer, and director Shi Xiaolong, known internationally as Ashton Chen;…

  • Blades of the Guardians (2026)

    Wuxia cinema has formed one of the cornerstones of Hong Kong — and earlier, when The Burning of the Red Lotus Temple arrived on screen in 1928, also Shanghai — filmmaking almost from its very beginnings. Even when kung-fu films came to dominate in the 1970s and beyond, wuxia could boast numerous worthwhile entries. At…

  • Panorama of Japanese Cinema: 1951 (Part 5)

    Dancing Girl(Maihime) Direction: Mikio Naruse Screenplay: Kaneto Shindō Cinematography: Asakazu NakaiMusic: Ichirō SaitōAsst. director: no infoStudio: Toho Genre: drama Cast: Mieko Takamine, Sō Yamamura, Mariko Okada*, Isao Kimura, Heihachirō Ōkawa, Hiroshi Nihon’yanagi, Akihiko Katayama *Mariko Okada, who would go on to become one of the most widely recognized actresses in the country, made her debut…

  • Sorrows of the Forbidden City (1948)

    Before turning to the film itself, it is worth first drawing attention to its poster. As is clearly visible, it contains — beyond the title and information about the cast and crew — a considerable amount of text. At the very top, on the left, written in red characters: “Sorrows of the Forbidden City” is…

  • Panorama of Japanese Cinema: 1951 (Part 4)

    We begin the fourth part of our 1951 survey with a brief historical note. As I mentioned in the 1950 year-end summary, chanbara had been making a steady return to Japanese cinemas from the late 1940s onwards as one of the most popular genres. Evidence of this includes, for example, the Shōchiku films about Heiji…

  • All the Way to the Endless (2024)

    Following the international successes of Gan Bi’s artistically oriented films, Chinese independent cinema has found itself in his shadow — as readers of Velarium were able to discover from the review of Binbin Li’s debut production The Night Rain South Township (2023). Another young director, Liang Shi, has taken a similar direction, though his film…

  • The Night Rain South Township (2023)

    The successes of Bi Gan’s films — Kaili Blues and Long Day’s Journey into Night — have had a clear influence on young, artistically minded filmmakers from China, especially those interested in the cinema of memory, dreams, and the poetic. Among them is Binbin Li, who in 2023 completed his feature-length narrative debut The Night Rain South Township, which strongly…

  • An All-Consuming Love (1947)

    An All-Consuming Love is a film about impossible returns — a return to pre-war Shanghai, to moral purity, to young love, to national unity, and even to a voice preserved on a gramophone record. It is also a film in which music plays an exceptionally important role, and whose structure places it within the once…

  • Panorama of Japanese Cinema: 1951 (Part 3)

    The Idiot (Hakuchi) Direction: Akira Kurosawa Screenplay: Akira Kurosawa, Eijirō Hisaita Cinematography: Toshio UbukataMusic: Fumio HayasakaAsst. director: Yoshitarō Nomura, Kō NakahiraStudio: Shochiku Genre: drama Cast: Setsuko Hara, Masayuki Mori, Toshirō Mifune, Yoshiko Kuga, Takashi Shimura, Chieko Higashiyama, Eijirō Yanagi, Minoru Chiaki, Noriko Sengoku, Kokuten Kōdō, Bokuzen Hidari A Second World War veteran arrives in Hokkaido,…

  • Panorama of Japanese Cinema: 1951 (Part 2)

    Carmen Comes Home(Karumen kokyo ni kaeru) Direction and screenplay: Keisuke Kinoshita Cinematography: Hiroyuki KusudaMusic: Chūji Kinoshita, Toshirō MayuzumiAsst. director: Yoshirō KawazuStudio: Shochiku Genre: comedy-drama Cast: Hideko Takamine, Shūji Sano, Chishū Ryū, Kuniko Igawa, Takeshi Sakamoto, Bontarō Miake, Keiji Sada, Toshiko Kobayashi, Kōji Mitsui, Yūko Mochizuki The first colour film in Japan. #4 on the Kinema…

  • Panorama of Japanese Cinema: 1951 (Part 1)

    Beyond Love and Hate(Ai to nikushimi no kanata e) Direction: Senkichi Taniguchi Screenplay: Akira Kurosawa, Senkichi Taniguchi Cinematography: Masao TamaiMusic: Akira IfukubeAsst. director: no infoStudio: Film Art Association Genre: drama, crime Cast: Toshirō Mifune, Mitsuko Mito, Ryō Ikebe, Takashi Shimura, Eitarō Ozawa, Kichijirō Ueda A young prisoner, Gorō Sakata, suspects his wife of infidelity and…

  • Yakuza Eiga. Part I: The Gangster’s Honor

    (BLOOD + HONOUR) × FAMILY = YAKUZA EIGA Japanese cinema is commonly associated with three types of hero—or antihero: the samurai or rōnin, the giant monster à la Godzilla and the yakuza. The last of these is a gangster with an elaborate tattoo covering his back and a highly specific understanding of honour, who has…

  • Summary of the year 1950 (and a very brief overview of 1948-49)

    Japanese Cinema Panorama: 1948–1950 Concluding — even if only temporarily — the overview of 1950 in Japanese cinema is a good moment to pause, take a breath, and look at the main trends and the evolution of their films. At least insofar as the limited availability of productions outside Japan allows. Before doing so, however,…

  • Film Noir. Historical Foundations and Genre Characteristics

    The primary and most immediate association with the term “film noir” is of crime pictures from the 1940s and 1950s containing more sex and violence than similar productions from the preceding decade and characterized by dark shades of grey — both literally and metaphorically. This definition, however, cannot be said to suffice even to a…

  • 1997: The Soong Sisters / Full Alert / Happy Together / Island of Greed

    The Soong Sisters宋家皇朝 / Song jia huang chao[lit.: The Court of Sung Sisters] Director: Mabel Cheung Yuen-Ting Screenplay: Alex Law Kai-Yuk Cinematography: Arthur Wong Ngok-Tai Editing: Fung Mei Music: Kitaro, Randy Miller Studio: Golden Harvest Cast: Maggie Cheung Man-Yuk, Vivian Wu Junmei, Michelle Yeoh, Winston Chao Wen-Hsuan, Hsing-Guo Wu, Zhen-Hua Niu, Wen Jiang, Elaine Jin,…

  • Panorama of Japanese Cinema: 1950 (Part 1.)

    Escape at Dawnaka Desertion at Dawn(Akatsuki no dasso) Direction: Senkichi TaniguchiScreenplay: Senkichi Taniguchi, Akira Kurosawa Cinematography: Akira MimuraMusic: Fumio HayasakaAsst. director: Ishirō HondaStudio: Shintoho Genre: drama, war Cast: Ryō Ikebe, Yoshiko Yamaguchi, Eitarō Ozawa, Hajime Izu, Haruo Tanaka, Setsuko Wakayama, Kan Yanagiya, Yuzaburo Shimada, Ko Yamamuro, Harue Tone, Mitsue Tachibana, Taizō Fukami. #3 on the…

  • Panorama of Japanese Cinema: 1950 (Part 4.)

    Fencing Master(Tateshi Danpei; lit.: Danpei, Master of Stage Combat) Direction: Masahiro Makino Screenplay: Akira KurosawaCinematography: Shigeto MikiMusic: Tokujiro ŌkuboAsst. director: no infoStudio: Toyoko Eiga Genre: drama Cast: Utaemon Ichikawa, Isuzu Yamada, Entatsu Yokoyama, Chiaki Tsukioka, Eitarō Shindō, Kyoji Sugi, Yoshi Katō, Kinnosuke Takamatsu, Reiko Hatsune, Shizuo Maeda, Kensaku Hara, Ryūnosuke Tsukigata Danpei, a choreographer of…

  • Panorama of Japanese Cinema: 1950 (Part 2.)

    Scandal(Sukyandaru, Shūbun) Direction: Akira Kurosawa Screenplay: Akira Kurosawa, Ryūzō KikushimaCinematography: Toshio UbukataMusic: Fumio HayasakaAsst. director: Yoshitarō NomuraStudio: Shochiku Genre: drama Cast: Toshirō Mifune, Yoshiko Yamaguchi, Yōko Katsuragi, Noriko Sengoku, Eitarō Ozawa, Takashi Shimura, Shinichi Himori, Kōji Mitsui, Ichirō Shimizu, Fumiko Okamura, Masao Shimizu, Tanie Kitabayashi, Sugisaku Aoyama, Kokuten Kōdō, Kichijirô Ueda, Bokuzen Hidari #6 on…

  • Panorama of Japanese Cinema: 1950 (Part 3.)

    A Mother’s Love(Bojō) Direction: Hiroshi Shimizu Screenplay: Hiroshi Shimizu, Matsuo KishiCinematography: Minoru YokoyamaMusic: Yūji KosekiAsst. director: Teruo IshiiStudio: Shintoho Genre: drama Cast: Nijiko Kiyokawa, Musei Tokugawa, Yataro Kurokawa, Yoshiko Tsubouchi, Reiko Miyagawa, Tamae Kiyokawa, Kumeko Urabe, Chōko Iida, Isuzu Yamada A woman working in a bar is unable to support her three children, each from…


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