Director Kirk Wong set the style for the lean, edgy Hong Kong cop thriller. In this drama, special forces officer Danny Lee bends the law and suspends civil rights to track down ruthless criminal Anthony Wong (Hard Boiled), the leader of a notorious robbery ring, on the run with his loyal girlfriend Cecilia Yip. Lee, who performed similar duties in John Woo's The Killer, is driven and demanding as the passionate authority figure, a man whose selfless sense of duty teeters over into vigilantism, while Anthony Wong tones down his usual flamboyant style to play a charismatic, sensitive criminal who earns the director's sympathies. There's no John Woo bravura shootouts or stylistic frenzies in Kirk Wong's sober, sometimes too restrained approach, lacking the dramatic edge of Rock and Roll Cop and the punch of Supercop, two of his later productions. But the violence packs a wallop in its street-realist directness, and Wong knows how to stage a high-tension action set piece, as evidenced in the opening chase scene and the dynamic police-dragnet finale. What more attracts the director, however, is the inner workings of crime and punishment: the maze of the underworld hierarchy and the mechanics of crime, the contradictions that pull at the police and the bureaucratic tangle they navigate. Though there's none of the romantic gloss that Woo invests his cowboy criminals with, Kirk Wong loves to explore the dynamic that separates-and binds-cop and criminal. -Sean Axmaker.

"Filled with details of urban Taipei, and depicting the transition from rural to industrial life in contemporary Taiwan, this is also a poignant story of young love lost. A teenaged couple moves to the city to find work, but is separated when the boy is drafted. A heartbreaking film of profound humanity, name 'One of the Top Ten Films of the Decade' by J. Hoberman, Premiere Magazine. ".

A champion of illumination and experimental shading, Kurosawa brings his unerring eye for indelible images to Shakespeare in this 1957 adaptation of Macbeth. By changing the locale from Birnam Wood to 16th-century Japan, Kurosawa makes an oddball argument for the trans-historicity of Shakespeare's narrative; and indeed, stripped to the bare mechanics of the plot, the tale of cutthroat ambition rewarded (and thwarted) feels infinitely adaptable. What's lost in the translation, of course, is the force and beauty of the language-much of the script of Throne of Blood is maddeningly repetitive or superfluous-but striking visual images (including the surreal Cobweb Forest and some extremely artful gore) replace the sublime poetry. Toshiro Mifune is theatrically intense as Washizu, the samurai fated to betray his friend and master in exchange for the prestige of nobility; he portrays the ill-fated warrior with a passion bordering on violence, and a barely concealed conviviality. Somewhat less successful is Isuzu Yamada as Washizu's scheming wife; her poise and creepy impassivity, chilling at first, soon grows tedious. Kurosawa himself is the star of the show, though, and his masterful use of black-and-white contrast- not to mention his steady, dramatic hand with a battle scene-keeps the proceedings thrilling. A must-see for fans of Japanese cinema, as well as all you devotees of samurai weapons and armor. -Miles Bethany.

A masterpiece of filmmaking artifice and mood-setting atmosphere, Kwaidan consists of four ghost stories adapted from the fiction of Greek-born Lafcadio Hearn (a. k. a. Yakumo Koizumi, 1850-1904), who assimilated into Japanese culture so thoroughly that his writings reveal no evidence of Western influence. So it is that these four cinematic interpretations-perhaps more accurately described as tales of spectral visitation-are sublimely Japanese in tone and texture, created entirely in a studio with frequently stunning results. There are painterly images here that remain the most beautiful and haunting in all of Japanese cinema, presented with the purity of silent film, sparsely accompanied by post-synchronized sounds and music (by Toru Takemitsu) that enhance the otherworldly effect of director Masaki Kobayashi's meticulous imagery. When viewed in a receptive frame of mind, Kwaidan can be intensely hypnotic. Each of the four stories find their protagonists confronted by spirits that compel them to (respectively) make amends for past mistakes, maintain vows of silence, satisfy the yearnings of the undead, or capture phantoms that remain frightfully elusive. As each tale progresses, their supernatural elements grow increasingly intense and distant from the confines of reality. With careful use of glorious color and wide-screen composition, Kwaidan exists in a netherworld that is both real and imagined, its characters never quite sure they can trust what they've seen and heard. [+]

Zhang Yimou (Ju Dou) directed this fascinating, visually formal 1991 film about an educated woman (Gong Li) who is sent off to become the newest wife of a feudal nobleman in 1920s China. Nearly isolated in his spooky, palatial home, she develops relationships with several of the other wives and slowly becomes aware of a hideous legacy of punishment toward more willful women. The film has a brittle and dry quality that is deliberate, but also suggestive of Zhang working through various explorations of his own style (which he resolved in his next film, The Story of Qiu Ju). Gong Li, one of the world's great actresses, is superb. -Tom Keogh.