Hong Kong director Wong Kar-Wai takes another crack at his mostly misunderstood new wave martial arts film from 1994. Jacky Cheung, Leslie Cheung and Maggie Cheung (no relation) star in this ultra-stylized story of a brokenhearted hit man who lives in a desert and uses skilled swordsmen to carry out his contract killings. Wong’s editorial tinkering (five or so minutes worth of cuts) attempts to alter what was already a radical condensation of Louis Cha’s classic wuxia novel The Eagle-Shooting Heroes . But it’s still a gorgeous film and deserves a second look. HD Available.
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Death Trance
From many of the same people who brought you the insane gangsters-against-zombies flick Versus comes this equally over-the-top-and-back-again action flick straight outta Japan. In an unknown (possibly post-apocalyptic) time and place, a badass wandering samurai (Tak Sakaguchi) steals a mystical coffin from a monastery. Whatever’s inside the coffin is supposed to grant your greatest wish. But it actually contains the imprisoned spirit of the Goddess of Destruction. Naturally, it wouldn’t be a good thing for this particular item to be opened. The sole surviving monk sets out on a quest to stop our super samurai. Don’t try too hard to figure out the plot. Just sit in slack-jawed amazement watching samurais with motorcycles and ninjas with machine guns go to town on one another! In Japanese with English subtitles.
