After a successful run in Asia, including the biggest box office even in China’s cinema history, the film Hero (Ying xiong) debuted in the United States at the end of August to take advantage of the idle time of millions of out-of-school American children. The story could be classified as a prequel to The Emperor and the Assassin (1999), […]

The Hillside Strangler, directed by Chuck Parello, is an independent film with amateurish acting and cinematography that attempts to recreate events of 1978-1979, when young women were strangled and then dumped in the Glendale hillsides near Los Angeles. (A second film entitled The Hillside Strangler, but directed by Chris Fisher, is ready to be released soon.)

When word spread that there would be free attendance at the premiere of Hollywood Buddha as well as free screenings on the first Mondays, Tuesdays, and Wednesdays of the film’s exhibition at a commercial cinema, something was up. Was the independent film, directed, produced, and autobiographically written by Philippe Caland, so terrible that few would pay to

A CANADIAN HISTORY PROFESSOR EXHIBITS WISDOM IN THE BARBARIAN INVASIONS Rémy (played by Rémy Girard), a history professor in Montréal, is dying of liver cancer. How will he spend his last days? The Barbarian Invasions (Les Invasions barbares), directed by Denys Arcand, provides an upbeat scenario to answer that question. His spouse Louise (played by

MONSTER QUESTIONS WHETHER A LESBIAN SERIAL KILLER SHOULD HAVE BEEN EXECUTED Serial killer Aileen Wuornos, who was executed in Florida in October 2002, has recently been honored by two films. Monster debuted in late 2003. Aileen: The Life and Death of a Serial Killer, came out in early 2004, an update of sorts of the

Million Dollar Baby, directed by Clint Eastwood, is an exposé of the world of boxing, with many explanatory voiceovers throughout the film by Morgan Freeman. Although the plot appears to be about the career of the title role, Maggie Fitzgerald (played by Hilary Swank), the center of the story is really Frankie Dunn (played by

The House of Flying Daggers (Shi mian mai fu), directed by Yimou Zhang, is pure cinematographic eye candy, featuring lavish costumes, spectacular scenery, magnificent choreography, and handsome people. The story operates at two levels. When the film begins, the year is 859, and the Tang dynasty is in disrepute because of corruption. A rebel group,

  Why would an apolitical medical student from an affluent family in Buenos Aires become a revolutionary? The Motorcycle Diaries (Diarios de Motorcicleta), directed by Walter Salles, not only explains why but also reminds filmviewers that the same injustices, which affected him so profoundly, still exist. With one semester to go in order to complete medical

Želary, directed by Ondrej Trojan, is the name of a village in rural Czechoslovakia where antifascist Eliška (played by Ana Geislerová) hides from the Nazis during World War II from May 1943. When the film begins, twentysomething Eliška is a nurse at a hospital who is being courted by a physician named Richard (played by

The Aviator, directed by Martin Scorcese, is a biopic about arrogant multimillionaire Howard R. Hughes, Jr. (played by Leonardo DiCaprio, whose characterization seems that of a boy playing a man’s part). The film begins when Hughes is a child in Houston, where a fatal contagious disease is rampant; he is bathed by a doting mother,