Since the last update I’ve written a few more essays for home video releases. These include Arrow’s edition of John Woo’s Bullet in the Head and Imprint’s releases of Woo’s Once a Thief and Tsui Hark and Ching Siu-tung’s Swordsman trilogy. As always, I recommend buying from Diabolik DVD. Speaking of home video, I posted the essay I wrote a few years ago for Radiance’s release of A Moment of Romance, as that disc has now gone out of print.

For InReview Online (and since republished at home) I wrote festival reviews for First Look and Cannes: I Fell in Love with a Z-Grade Director in Brooklyn, Morte Cucina, and All the Lovers in the Night.

At The Chinese Cinema, I reviewed The Forbidden City and Bushido, Nemurubaka, and Two Seasons, Two Strangers. Also, inspired by a lengthy binge on low-budget oaters, I wrote a couple of things about the intersection of East Asian and American genre cinema in the form of the Western. The Good, the Bad, the Weird, Sukiyaki Western Django, and The Magnificent Seven, followed by Kill Bill, The Man with the Iron Fists, Man of Tai Chi, and The Wachowskis. I also wrote a primer for the release of The Furious, which functions as a kind of history of early 21st century action cinema.

Coming up over rest of the summer, we’ll have a couple more home video releases, and my coverage of Japan Cuts, the New York Asian Film Festival, and Fantasia. And probably more oaters. I also plan to finally watch The Furious, eventually.

You can get all those reviews and much much more by subscribing to The Chinese Cinema today for the low price of only $1/month or $10/year.

These are the movies I’ve watched and rewatched over the last few months, and where they place on my year-by-year rankings.

Law and Order (Edward L. Cahn) – 5, 1932
Black Bart (George Sherman) – 24, 1948
Long-Haired Hare (Chuck Jones) – 23, 1949
Rabbit of Seville (Chuck Jones) – 8, 1950
Comanche Territory (George Sherman) – 26, 1950

Apache Drums (Hugo Fregonese) – 8, 1951
Tomahawk (George Sherman) – 16, 1951
Untamed Frontier (Hugo Fregonese) – 21, 1952
Springfield Rifle (André de Toth) – 26, 1952
The Battle at Apache Pass (George Sherman) – 33, 1952

The Stranger Wore a Gun (André de Toth) – 31, 1953
Thunder Over the Plains (André de Toth) – 34, 1953
Reprisal! (George Sherman) – 29, 1956
Comanche (George Sherman) – 31, 1956
The Last of the Fast Guns (George Sherman) – 14, 1958

Hell Bent for Leather (George Sherman) – 17, 1960
The Magnificent Seven (John Stugres) – 25, 1960
Four Moods (King Hu, Pai Ching-Jui parts only) – 27, 1970
The Valiant Ones (King Hu) – 7, 1975

Legend of the Mountain (King Hu) – 2, 1979
Raining in the Mountain (King Hu) – 7, 1979
Odd Couple (Lau Kar-wing) – 15, 1979
The Wheel of Life (King Hu, Lee Hsing, Pai Ching-jui) – 11, 1983
All the King’s Men (King Hu) – 18, 1983
Winners & Sinners (Sammo Hung) – 22, 1983

The Terminator (James Cameron) – 10, 1984
Amadeus (Milos Forman) – 12, 1984
Twinkle Twinkle Lucky Stars (Sammo Hung) – 37, 1985
My Lucky Stars (Sammo Hung) – 42, 1985
Dragons Forever (Sammo Hung) – 31, 1988

Pedicab Driver (Sammo Hung) – 7, 1989
Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade (Steven Spielberg) – 31, 1989
Swordsman (Ching Siu-tung, et al) – 42, 1990
Pantyhose Hero (Sammo Hung) – 83, 1990
Slickers vs. Killers (Sammo Hung) – 89, 1991

The Last of the Mohicans (Michael Mann) – 1, 1992
Swordsman II (Ching Siu-tung) – 20, 1992
A Few Good Men (Rob Reiner) – 47, 1992
The East is Red (Ching Siu-tung) – 20, 1993
Geronimo: An American Legend (Walter Hill) – 35, 1993

Mr. Nice Guy (Sammo Hung) – 45, 1997
Office Space (Mike Judge) – 12, 1999
Kill Bill: The Whole Bloody Affair (Quentin Tarantino) – ?, 2004
Sukiyaki Western Django (Miike Takashi) – 11, 2007
The Good, the Bad, the Weird (Kim Jeewoon) – 24, 2008

The Man with the Iron Fists (The RZA) – 57, 2012
Man of Tai Chi (Keanu Reeves) – 39, 2013
Baby Assassins (Sakamoto Yugo) – 6, 2021
The King of Wuxia (Lin Jing-jie) – 13, 2022

Bushido (Shiraishi Kazuya) – 20, 2024
Tomahawk Clouds (Eric Marsh) – 30, 2024
Sinners (Ryan Coogler) – 4, 2025
Nemurubaka (Sakamoto Yugo) – 5, 2025

I Fell in Love with a Z-Grade Director in Brooklyn (Ugana Ken’ichi) – 22, 2025
Two Seasons, Two Strangers (Miyake Sho) – 32, 2025
The Forbidden City (Gabriele Mainetti) – 33, 2025
Morte Cucina (Pen-Ek Ratanaruang) – 42, 2025
Predator: Badlands (Dan Trachtenberg) – 55, 2025

The Sheep Detectives (Kyle Balda) – 2, 2026
All the Lovers in the Night (Sode Yukiko) – 3, 2026
The Great Money Robbery (Chris Huo) – 4, 2026