What good fun this movie is. My colleague loaned me his copy of the film–I have to confess I wouldn’t have sought this out on my own. But it brought me back to those heady days of 1992-1993, when Hong Kong cinema was the rage in L.A. This film captures that national cinema at its absolute peak. It’s so full of energy. I recall how excited I was by Kung Fu Hustle a few years back, and how a few weeks ago hearing from a professor from Hong Kong, who knew I admired Stephen Chow’s film, a variation on the “you ain’t heard nothin’ yet” line: “you sure have missed a lot.” He listed off title after title that he considered superior to Kung Fu Hustle (though he admires that film). Particularly 1994’s Hail the Judge–which I had never heard of. Anyway, I feel there is much for me to discover about Hong Kong cinema. I suppose I’ve known this all along, but it’s perhaps out of laziness or…I don’t know what…that I’ve not delved back into that area of cinema that enchanted me, for all too brief a period, some 16-17 years ago. Everything that follows I owe to a colleague of mine (not that what follows is good, but that I have something at all to say about Hong Kong cinema). Continue reading City Hunter