Films/DVD Asylum

Posted by AudioO on September 04, 2000 at 20:13:07:

Finally a film that does honor the Hong Kong action cinema tradition. There's the low-fi/anti-hollywood camera work, the high-style hand to hand combat, non-elitist gun fetish/play. There's the forgrounding of democratic/blue collar sensibility (smuggling of class warfare and Marx w/o totalitarianism) over the hollywood/bourgeoisie/glamour values. There's fun w/o pander, w/o patronization, w/o gender/racial exploitation, w/o saccharin. Wesley Snipes knows what makes Hong Kong action cinema, specifically John Woo and Kai Wai (Jet Li's vainity compromises any transcendental subtext/meaning that may lurk in his films), special: the harmony of Meaning and Style are one. Official critics, predictably, don't really understand this. Thus, too, they dismiss the Art of War. But you shouldn't. See this film!