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Review

Hellbound

Will Train to Busan director Yeon Sang-ho’s new streaming horror series be the next Squid Game?…

Review

Naked Soldier

The third instalment in Wong Jing’s ‘Naked’ series featuring more nonsense around leather-clad female assassins…

Interview

Lav Diaz interview: “Existence is a euphemism for compromise. Period.”

The auteur on Philippines tragic history, his fascination for vaudeville and the need for artists to compromise…

Review

History of Ha

A profound exploration of the purpose of art and the quest to find a meaning of life when everything seems lost…

Review

Raging Fire

A fitting finale for the career of Hong Kong action genre doyen Benny Chan…

Podcast
Episode 33 – Do you like calamari?
We look at global phenomenon streaming series Squid Game…
Review
Foolish Bride, Naïve Bridegroom
Two lovers want to be together but the craziest parents in Taiwan won’t give up so easily…
Review
The Maid
A young maid finds herself haunted by the ghost of her predecessor after taking a job for a rich family…
Review
The Great Yokai War
Charming but wildly uneven Takashi Miike curiosity, full of humour but doesn’t quite hit the mark…
Review
Office Royale
Office gang warfare amid colourful backdrops is the order of the day for vaguely feminist, frivolous fun…
Review
Yokai Monsters: Along With Ghosts
A very enjoyable fantastical horror period-drama that excels in creating an unsettling spooky atmosphere…

COMING SOON...

Review: Dangerous Youth
Review: The Best Secret Agent
Review: Peony Birds

Latest news

All the latest news from Asian cinema...

News
London Korean Film Festival has announced its full programme
Screenings will be back in the cinemas, from 4^th to 19^th November…
News
Cloudy Mountain Is Out Now In UK & Ireland Cinemas!
Check out one of the best Chinese films of the year from the 8th of October in a cinema near you!
4
News
Taiwan Film Festival Edinburgh returns with in-person and digital screenings
The screenings for Taiwanese cinema of 20^th and 21^st century taking place from 25^th to 30^th October…
News
Asian films coming to BFI London Film Festival 2021
The BFI LFF has announced their programme…
News
Asian Pop-Up Cinema announces Season 13
Women In Film, Humanitarian Themes, Thrillers, Martial Arts Classics and more…!
News
Discover rarely seen queer cinema at Queer East Film Festival
Queer films from East and Southeast Asia will be screened in cinemas across London, from 15 to 26 September…

BFI London Film Festival 2021

London’s premier international film festival returns retaining the hybrid format of last year, from 6 to 17 October…

Review
Hellbound
Will Train to Busan director Yeon Sang-ho’s new streaming horror series be the next Squid Game?…
Interview
Lav Diaz interview: “Existence is a euphemism for compromise. Period.”
The auteur on Philippines tragic history, his fascination for vaudeville and the need for artists to compromise…
Review
History of Ha
A profound exploration of the purpose of art and the quest to find a meaning of life when everything seems lost…
Review
The Medium
Na Hong-jin (The Wailing) and Banjong Pisanthanakun (Shutter) combine forces, but is it anything new?…
Review
Vengeance Is Mine, All Others Pay Cash
A refreshing throwback to 1980s kung-fu cinema with a socially conscious subtext…
News
Asian films coming to BFI London Film Festival 2021
The BFI LFF has announced their programme…

Asian Pop-Up Cinema: Season 13

Chicago’s Asian film festival returns with 30 films including Women In Film, Humanitarian Themes, Thrillers, Martial Arts Classics and more…

News
Asian Pop-Up Cinema announces Season 13
Women In Film, Humanitarian Themes, Thrillers, Martial Arts Classics and more…!
Review
Just 1 Day
A sugar-coated story about conservation in a fast revolving metropolitan city…
Review
Hand Rolled Cigarette
Gordon Lam dazzles again in a movie that unites the disparate elements in Hong Kong contemporary cinema…
Review
Escape From Mogadishu
Ryoo Seung-wan manages to make pulse-pounding popular cinema out of peculiar politics and extraordinary true events…
Review
Escape From Mogadishu
Energetic and totally gripping…
Review
Hand Rolled Cigarette
A gritty HK noir following an ex-solider working for the triads reluctantly protecting a South Asian immigrant…
Interview
How Anima echoes director Cao’s hope for homelands
Chinese director Cao Jinling’s debut is an impassioned plea for nature…
Review
The Fable: The Killer Who Doesn’t Kill
Kan Eguchi delivers a satisfying sequel…
Review
Drifting
A surprise stellar cast tell a story of Hong Kong’s downtrodden in arguably the industry’s most poignant film in years…
Review
Limbo
Soi Cheang returns to Hong Kong for a hardcore noir crime thriller, shot in stunning monochrome…

BFI Japan 2021

A celebration of over 100 years of Japanese Cinema. Coming to big screens UK-wide this autumn…

News
BFI Japan comes to big screens UK-wide this autumn
Highlights include a cinema re-release of Kurosawa’s Seven Samurai and a major two-part season…
Review
Ichi the Killer
Takashi Miike’s blood-soaked 2001 manga adaptation remains a milestone in extreme Japanese cinema…
Review
When a Woman Ascends the Stairs
A hostess approaching 30 sees fewer days ahead in a male-dominated world, in Mikio Naruse’s understated kitchen sink drama…
Review
The Flavour of Green Tea Over Rice
Rigidity and sentimentality meet in a quiet Tokyo household in Yasujiro Ozu’s superb drama…
Review
Ikiru
Takashi Shimura’s legendary performance grounds the raw humanity of this Kurosawa masterpiece…
Podcast
Episode 9: BFI’s Japan 2021
We pick some treats from the BFI’s celebration of over 100 years of Japanese Cinema…
Review
The Flavour of Green Tea Over Rice
Ozu turns his eye towards marriage in a quietly reflective film of contrasts and changes facing post-war Japan…
Review
Funeral Parade of Roses
A must-see, one-of-kind cinematic experience you cannot miss…
Review
High and Low
A deep examination of the physical and economic disparities of post-war modern societies…
Review
Onibaba
Kaneto Shindo’s erotic horror classic has withstood the test of time and has a thing or two to teach on the art of mood-setting…

The Benny Chan Cops & Robbers Rundown

In honour of the forthcoming release of the late Benny Chan’s Raging Fire, we look back on his career and the genre for which he was best known.

Review
The Benny Chan Cops & Robbers Rundown Final Part: Raging Fire
Benny Chan’s final film defies expectations with his most hard-edged, hard-hitting action…
Review
The Benny Chan Cops & Robbers Rundown Part 10: The White Storm
Cementing his status as custodian and vanguard of Classic HK Action Cinema…
Review
The Benny Chan Cops & Robbers Rundown Part 9: Invisible Target
A kung fu conscious cast for a police flick overflowing with excellent action and suspense…
Review
The Benny Chan Cops & Robbers Rundown Part 8: Divergence
Looks great and draws you into its world and story, but ends up all dressed up with nowhere to go…
Review
The Benny Chan Cops & Robbers Rundown Part 7: New Police Story
The two great Chans on either side of the camera in their most explosive collaboration, even if literally so…
Review
The Benny Chan Cops & Robbers Rundown Part 6: Heroic Duo
Straight police action peppered with a quirky driving plot device showcases both sides of Chan well…
Review
The Benny Chan Cops & Robbers Rundown Part 5: Gen-Y Cops
Say what you will about the actual content, but this was an auspicious success for HK and even the world. Ask Paul Rudd!…
Review
The Benny Chan Cops & Robbers Rundown Part 4: Gen-X Cops
Chan and HK’s trendiest cops gave a big boost to their film industry when it needed it the most…
Review
The Benny Chan Cops & Robbers Rundown Part 3: Big Bullet
Hits all its targets from every angle at the bullseye, even if it doesn’t find any new places to target…
Review
The Benny Chan Cops & Robbers Rundown Part 2: Man Wanted
More notable for length and violence than narrative strength or cohesion, there’s still a lot of classic HK packed here…

The wonderful world of Wong Kar-wai

With Criterion Collection’s new release of restored Wong Kar-wai classics, also coming to UK cinemas including BFI Southbank, we immerse ourselves in the auteur’s work…

Podcast
Episode 28 – The World of Wong Kar-wai
We chat to Bede Cheng of L’Immagine Ritrovata Asia about the restoration process…
Review
Fallen Angels
Wong Kar-wai’s oneiric and vivacious journey to the Hong Kong underworld…
Review
2046
An absolute onslaught of narratives, styles, and structures makes for an infinitely rewarding opus from Wong Kar-wai…
Review
Happy Together
Tony Leung Chiu-wai and Leslie Cheung star masterpiece of melancholia…
Review
In The Mood For Love
Unrequited love never looked so good in this new version of a timeless classic…
Review
Days of Being Wild
Wong Kar-wai submerges us in his dream of Hong Kong and its lovers, killers, and lonely hearts…
Review
Chungking Express
Chance encounters in love are never quite as they seem…
Review
In The Mood For Love (Original Soundtrack)
Set the mood with a sultry cinematic soundscape perfect for the last days of lockdown longing…
Interview
Brigitte Lin interview: “I totally forgot what I had said. Was it...
We talk to the truly iconic actress about her career…
Review
As Tears Go By
Love and violence in the neon lit streets of Hong Kong…

The easternKicks Podcast

A regular magazine programme about East Asian film, with the latest news, reviews and interviews.

Podcast
Episode 32 – Spotlight on… A Tale of Two Sisters
A look back at a Korean horror classic…
Podcast
Episode 31 – Spotlight on… Daimajin
We unravel Daiei Film Studios very particular take on Kaiju…
Podcast
Episode 30 – The best of NYAFF 2021
We look at the New York Asian Film Festival line up, including an extended chat about Raging Fire…
Podcast
Episode 29 – PTU and Johnnie To’s crime drama years
We revisit one of the director’s classics…
Podcast
Episode 28 – The World of Wong Kar-wai
We chat to Bede Cheng of L’Immagine Ritrovata Asia about the restoration process…
Podcast
Episode 27: Time & Tide & Tsui
We revisit Tsui Hark’s 2000 action classic, and the JCVD US films that came before it…
Podcast
Episode 26: One-Armed Jimmy
We look back on kung fu classic One Armed Boxer and star Jimmy Wang Yu…
Podcast
Episode 25: Cliff Walkers and Zhang Yimou
We review the director’s latest film and look back on his work…
Podcast
Episode 24: Spotlight on… Battle Royale
We revisit Kinji Fukasaku’s classic…
Podcast
Episode 23: Indonesian Folk Horror special
We chat to Kimo Stamboel about The Queen Of Black Magic…

The best in film festival coverage, year after year

Coverage of CinemAsia Film Festival 2019

Coverage of Chinese Visual Festival 2019

Coverage of Toronto Japanese Film Festival 2019

Coverage of New York Asian Film Festival 2019

Coverage of Udine Far East Film Festival 2019

New York Asian Film Festival 2021

From 6th till 22nd August the festival takes on a hybrid form featuring over 60 latest Asian films in the programme…

Review
Office Royale
Office gang warfare amid colourful backdrops is the order of the day for vaguely feminist, frivolous fun…
Interview
Evan Jackson Leong interview: “The underdog becomes a role model and an...
A film that took more than 14 years to make explores the world of human smugglers in NYC’s Chinatown underworld…
Interview
Takahiro Horie interview: “The root of revenge is love”
We talk to the Sensei, Would You Please Sit with Me? director…
Review
Last of the Wolves
A new rogue cop faces a new rogue yakuza amidst intrigue in both of their ranks for an ultraviolent sequel…
Review
Sensei, Would You Please Sit with Me?
An irresistibly quirky and inventive examination of the challenges of marriage and/or adultery thru manga…
Review
Snakehead
Cold hard facts and fiction mingle in a moody crime indie echoing modern immigration issues…
Review
Coffin Homes
Take satire, mix in buckets of gore, add a heavy dose of social commentary, and you get… well, something…
Review
Office Royale
Japanese office ladies battle for supremacy in this whacky manga-style brawler…
Review
As We Like It
Fun and bright adaptation that stays true to the spirit of the original play…
Feature
Ko Chen-Nien interview: “The most complex relationship is the battle between good...
We talk to the director Ko Chen-Nien about her powerful cinematic debut, The Silent Forest…

cineXtremes

Celebrating the excesses of Hong Kong Category III, Asian extreme and exploitation cinema…

Review
Naked Soldier
The third instalment in Wong Jing’s ‘Naked’ series featuring more nonsense around leather-clad female assassins…
Review
The Maid
A young maid finds herself haunted by the ghost of her predecessor after taking a job for a rich family…
Review
Evil Twin
A 2007 Korean horror starring Park Shin-hye offers something a little different thanks to a Joseon-era backdrop…
Review
The Heirloom
A familiar 2005 Taiwanese take on the usual post-Ringu ghost themes from director Leste Chen…
Review
Don’t Click
Another Korean take on the Ringu formula, this time with an online twist…
Review
Possessed
A religion-themed 2009 Korean horror that offers something more substantial than the ghost flicks of the time…
Review
Blind Beast
Yasuzo Masumura’s infamous Edogawa Rampo adaptation gets a new Blu-ray release courtesy of Arrow…
Review
A Tale of Two Sisters
Kim Jee-woon’s 2003 classic chiller gets an extras-packed new Blu-ray from Arrow…
Review
Yamagata Scream
Undead samurai cause whacky havoc in this bizarre Japanese horror comedy…
Review
Hong Kong Horror Stories
An old-school 2011 Hong Kong supernatural two-hander from Wong Jing and Patrick Tong…

Udine Far East Film Festival 2021

FEFF returns for its 23rd edition in 2021, with both physical and online screeings…

Review
Wheel of Fortune and Fantasy
Three vignettes about the lies we tell ourselves and each other…
Review
Fan Girl
A coming-of-age drama meets the concept of fandom from a subtle feminist viewpoint…
Review
Just 1 Day
A sugar-coated story about conservation in a fast revolving metropolitan city…
Review
My Missing Valentine
A post office worker is waiting for her Mr Right but then things go (slightly) wrong on Valentine’s Day…
Review
Hand Rolled Cigarette
A gritty HK noir following an ex-solider working for the triads reluctantly protecting a South Asian immigrant…
Interview
How Anima echoes director Cao’s hope for homelands
Chinese director Cao Jinling’s debut is an impassioned plea for nature…
Review
Madalena
The first film from Macau to premiere in Udine’s Far East Film Festival. And no, it’s not about gambling and casinos…
Review
The Way We Keep Dancing
Dancers, stars and influencers participate in a publicity stunt to transform an area into a “Dance street”…
Review
Blue
A heartfelt and astute depiction of the lives of three friends in and out of the boxing ring in Japan…
Review
Limbo
Soi Cheang returns to Hong Kong for a hardcore noir crime thriller, shot in stunning monochrome…

HKIFF45

The Hong Kong International Film Festival returns for it’s 45th edition, running from 1-12 April 2021…

Review
Yellow Cat
Quirky sweet fun with a bitter ending…
Review
Me and the Cult Leader
A life-affirming take on a difficult subject…
Review
Wheel of Fortune and Fantasy
In between coincidences and fate…
Review
Radiograph of a Family
An evocative and poignant look at family…
Review
Underdog
Take shows that the heroism of boxing lies in the subjective meaning that propels jabs, hooks and uppercuts…
Review
Luginsky
Bizarre yet mesmerising experimental animation…

Interviews

Our interviews with filmmakers, directors, actors, composers and much more besides from the world of Asian film…

Interview
Lav Diaz interview: “Existence is a euphemism for compromise. Period.”
The auteur on Philippines tragic history, his fascination for vaudeville and the need for artists to compromise…
Interview
Evan Jackson Leong interview: “The underdog becomes a role model and an...
A film that took more than 14 years to make explores the world of human smugglers in NYC’s Chinatown underworld…
Interview
Takahiro Horie interview: “The root of revenge is love”
We talk to the Sensei, Would You Please Sit with Me? director…
Interview
Ann Hui interview: “I tried to find work whenever I could. I...
We chat to the celebrated Hong Kong filmmaker about her career and the documentary Keep Rolling…
Interview
How Anima echoes director Cao’s hope for homelands
Chinese director Cao Jinling’s debut is an impassioned plea for nature…
Interview
Cornelio Sunny talks Death Knot and new directions in horror
Exploring Indonesian horror with a unique debut film…
Interview
Soi Cheang trains his cameras on a city in Limbo
‘Everyone is abandoned … and looking for redemption,’ says Hong Kong director…
Interview
How Ryusuke Hamaguchi turns fantasy into reality
An experimental anthology that portrays the stories of three unconventional women who discover something about themselves…
Interview
Taiki Sakpisit interview: “She’s fighting her way from death back to being...
Director Taiki Sakpisit spoke to easternKicks about his award-winning feature debut film…
Interview
Kimo Stamboel interview: “Joko and me were friends, but this was the...
The director chats about The Queen of Black Magic and the popularity of Indonesian folk horror…

Shaw Brothers Classics

With the 88 Films ongoing release of Shaw Brothers classic horrors and martial arts on Blu-ray, we look at some of the finest films to come out of the Hong Kong’s world famous studio…

Review
The Eight Diagram Pole Fighter
The swansong of Shaw Brothers is a true martial arts masterpiece…
Review
Masked Avengers
A later Venoms mob film missing some regular faces but with a superb performance from Phillip Kwok, plus a bucketload of blood…
Review
The Flying Guillotine
Kung fu craziness with a mad emperor, villainous traitors and batsh*t insane weapon…
Review
The Oily Maniac
Classic exploitation howler where a man transforms to enact revenge upon those who have unwisely wronged him…
Review
Five Superfighters
Clash of the Titans kung fu style or a Hong Kong Dirty Almost half-a-dozen…
Review
The Seeding of a Ghost
One of the Shaw Brothers’ most infamous and sleazy shockers finally gets the rerelease it deserves…
Review
The Angry Guest
The “iron triangle” attempts to work its magic with a different approach, but falls pretty flat…
Review
Heroes of the East
A softer version of the Chinese vs Japanese theme in this classic from director Lau Kar-Leung…
Review
The Killer Snakes
A downtrodden young man finds he can communicate with snakes, and uses them to take gruesome revenge…
Review
House Of Traps
Chang Cheh’s action packed, and completely impractical, solution to simple home security! Definitely not sponsored by Ikea…

International Film Festival Rotterdam 2021

The winter edition programme reveals 3 Asian debuts in the Tiger Competition, cutting-edge short films and new works of emerging filmmakers…

Review
Everything Is Cinema
What starts out as an ethnographic documentary turns into a study of a failing marriage during Covid lockdown…
Review
Decameron
Hong Kong endures a global pandemic and a trampling of rights, but has survived tragedies before…
Review
Time
A stylishly melancholic, surprisingly funny elegy to Hong Kong cinema…
News
10 Asian films to watch at the 2021 International Film Festival Rotterdam...
The summer edition stuns with Asian film premieres, mid-length features and a selection of mainstream and art-house titles…
Review
The Edge of Daybreak
The Fall of the House of…
Feature
Jun Li interview: “I was concerned about the safety of the whole...
easternKicks catches up with the director of Tracey on his latest film Drifting…
Interview
Taiki Sakpisit interview: “She’s fighting her way from death back to being...
Director Taiki Sakpisit spoke to easternKicks about his award-winning feature debut film…
Review
Sexual Drive
Promises sexual liberation through food, but is mostly a guy talking dirty to humiliate people…
Interview
Aristocrats interview: “The aim was to show discrepancies between a woman’s feelings...
We talk to the filmmakers of Aristocrats, premiered at the 2021 IFFR…
Review
Pebbles
Austere, impressive debut in which the landscape and nature dramatically dictate life…

Glasgow Film Festival 2021

Glasgow Film Festival goes online this year with their new online viewing platform but the same mix of films from across the globe…

Review
Minari
A warm drama about the power of family in the face of adversity…
Review
The Drug King
A solid but overly familiar true-life crime drama from Inside Men director Woo Min-ho…
Review
Back to the Wharf
Actions from 15 years ago haunt a man returning to his hometown…
Review
Dreams on Fire
A luminously kinetic run through Tokyo’s street dance scene and fine vehicle for dancer Bambi; nothing more nothing less…
Review
Spring Tide
Acclaimed director Yang Lina’s second fiction feature explores the lives of women in modern China…
Review
The Swordsman
A familiar-looking Joseon drama, redeemed by fantastically overblown fight sequences…

Hellbound

Naked Soldier

Lav Diaz interview: “Existence is a euphemism for compromise. Period.”

History of Ha

Raging Fire

Episode 33 – Do you like calamari?

Foolish Bride, Naïve Bridegroom

The Maid

The Great Yokai War

Office Royale

Yokai Monsters: Along With Ghosts

London Korean Film Festival has announced its full programme

Cloudy Mountain Is Out Now In UK & Ireland Cinemas!

Taiwan Film Festival Edinburgh returns with in-person and digital screenings

Asian films coming to BFI London Film Festival 2021

Asian Pop-Up Cinema announces Season 13

Discover rarely seen queer cinema at Queer East Film Festival

Hellbound

Lav Diaz interview: “Existence is a euphemism for compromise. Period.”

History of Ha

The Medium

Vengeance Is Mine, All Others Pay Cash

Asian films coming to BFI London Film Festival 2021

Asian Pop-Up Cinema announces Season 13

Just 1 Day

Hand Rolled Cigarette

Escape From Mogadishu

Escape From Mogadishu

Hand Rolled Cigarette

How Anima echoes director Cao’s hope for homelands

The Fable: The Killer Who Doesn’t Kill

Drifting

Limbo

BFI Japan comes to big screens UK-wide this autumn

Ichi the Killer

When a Woman Ascends the Stairs

The Flavour of Green Tea Over Rice

Ikiru

Episode 9: BFI’s Japan 2021

The Flavour of Green Tea Over Rice

Funeral Parade of Roses

High and Low

Onibaba

The Benny Chan Cops & Robbers Rundown Final Part: Raging Fire

The Benny Chan Cops & Robbers Rundown Part 10: The White Storm

The Benny Chan Cops & Robbers Rundown Part 9: Invisible Target

The Benny Chan Cops & Robbers Rundown Part 8: Divergence

The Benny Chan Cops & Robbers Rundown Part 7: New Police Story

The Benny Chan Cops & Robbers Rundown Part 6: Heroic Duo

The Benny Chan Cops & Robbers Rundown Part 5: Gen-Y Cops

The Benny Chan Cops & Robbers Rundown Part 4: Gen-X Cops

The Benny Chan Cops & Robbers Rundown Part 3: Big Bullet

The Benny Chan Cops & Robbers Rundown Part 2: Man Wanted

Episode 28 – The World of Wong Kar-wai

Fallen Angels

2046

Happy Together

In The Mood For Love

Days of Being Wild

Chungking Express

In The Mood For Love (Original Soundtrack)

Brigitte Lin interview: “I totally forgot what I had said. Was it...

As Tears Go By

Episode 32 – Spotlight on… A Tale of Two Sisters

Episode 31 – Spotlight on… Daimajin

Episode 30 – The best of NYAFF 2021

Episode 29 – PTU and Johnnie To’s crime drama years

Episode 28 – The World of Wong Kar-wai

Episode 27: Time & Tide & Tsui

Episode 26: One-Armed Jimmy

Episode 25: Cliff Walkers and Zhang Yimou

Episode 24: Spotlight on… Battle Royale

Episode 23: Indonesian Folk Horror special

The best in film festival coverage, year after year

Office Royale

Evan Jackson Leong interview: “The underdog becomes a role model and an...

Takahiro Horie interview: “The root of revenge is love”

Last of the Wolves

Sensei, Would You Please Sit with Me?

Snakehead