News

Chicago – The spotlight and excitement was at the Final Weekend of Season 18 for Chicago’s Asian Pop-Up Cinema (Apuc). The buzz was for Apuc Bright Star Awardee Carlos Chan. The respect was for Hong Kong legend Rebecca Pan, who received Apuc’s Lifetime Achievement Award, all during Hong Kong Cinema Showcase.

The 2024 Season 18 Closing Night on April 20th included a Red Carpet event for the honored Hong Kong attendees, which included Carlos Chan and his director Benny Lau for “We Are Family.” Director Isabel Wong represented her documentary featuring Rebecca Pan, “Pai Niang Niang: The Last Osmanthus Blossom.” Director Mo Lai Yan Chi was there for her musical “Band Four” and director Kelvin Shum returned to Chicago to represent his horror epic “It Remains.”

Patrick McDonald of HollywoodChicago.com was there, and got the following Red Carpet Podtalk reactions from the attendees.

Bright Star Carlos Chan (in Green) Struts Down...

Chicago – The Season 18 Finale of Chicago’s Asian Pop-Up Cinema (Apuc) is the Hong Kong Showcase from April 19th-21st, 2024, featuring a Lifetime Achievement Award for the legendary Rebecca Pan, Hk filmmakers/actors and current Hong Kong cinema.

In March 1972, Rebecca Pan self-financed the production of the first ever Mandarin musical, “Pai Niang Niang,” and performed it 60 times at the Princess Theatre (in Hong Kong’s Tsim Sha Tsui district). This is a piece of Hk art and cultural history, and an important milestone of Rebecca’s long career. This work used the Broadway musical model to adapt the famous myth “Legend of the White Snake,” and brought together Eastern and Western theatrical styles for the first time.

Apuc Lifetime Achievement Award Recipient Rebecca Pan

Photo credit: AsianPopUpCinema.org

It’s all in the documentary “Pai Niang Niang: The Last Osmanthus Blossom” on April 20th at AMC Newcity at 5:...

After the success of “As Tears Go By”, filmmaker Wong Kar-wai could have embarked on a very lucrative artistic journey, exploring the genre of action and crime even further, and while some of his later efforts contain traces of these genres, they are distinct departures from what Hong Kong cinema was known for at the beginning of the 1990s. Already with his second feature “Days of Being Wild”, he would create the brand of cinema international audiences have come to know from the director, a change emphasized by his collaboration with cinematographer Christopher Doyle, who would be integral in the genesis of the filmmaker’s unique style and approach to storytelling. In “Days of Being Wild”, Wong Kar-wai tells the stories of various characters, how their paths intertwine and relate to each other, defined by romance, love and dreams, and, above all, the urban landscape of Hong Kong.

In Hong Kong,...

Get in touch to send in cinephile news and discoveries. For daily updates follow us @NotebookMUBI.NEWSAbove: Julia Ducournau at the 2021 Cannes Film Festival. (Photo by Stephane Cardinale / Getty Images)Cannes has come to a close with the Palme d'Or win of Titane, making Julia Ducournau only the second woman to win the prize in the festival's history. Check out the rest of this year's winners here. Following Cannes, we're looking ahead to fall festival season: San Sebastian's lineup includes the latest by Lucile Hadzihalilovic and Terence Davies; and Locarno has added films by Charlotte Colbert and Russian Gleb Panfilov to its now-complete roster. The Museum of the Moving Image's First Look Fest has also announced its full program, which will showcase films by Claire Simon, Lina Rodriguez, James Benning, and more, as well as the world premiere of Ken Jacob's 3D film, Double Wow. The much-anticipated lineup for this...

Andy Lau is on the phone, alone in a crowded bar, shoulders to the camera, palms cupped on the handset. We’re halfway through Wong Kar-wai’s first film, As Tears Go By (1988), and his Wah, a small-time gangster, is trying to reach Ngor (Maggie Cheung), a cousin he once hosted in his flat but has long since lost touch with. There was undeniable attraction between the two, but neither was brave enough to act upon it: Ngor returned to Lantau island to help in the family's restaurant, and Wah resumed his duties in the underworld. She’s not around, a woman tells him on the other end; he hangs up, reaches for a cigarette.And this is when it happens. The bar goes quiet for a second or two, until a jukebox starts singing a Cantonese rendition of Berlin’s 1986 hit “Take My Breath Away”, which catapults Wah into a bus,...

As one monthly theme begins, another ends. The former is, of course, Sound on Sight’s monthlong dedication to all films that scare, terrify, or spook us in conjunction with October being the scariest month of the year. (That’s a scientific fact, folks.) The latter is our look at the works of Wong Kar-Wai, inspired by his latest film, The Grandmaster. Though September’s just now ended, a handful of your intrepid Sound on Sight contributors, as well as our benevolent editor-in-chief/overlord, came together to vote on Wong Kar-Wai’s best films, his worst, and everything in between. What follows are capsule reviews of each of his films, listed in order based on the Sound on Sight’s staffwide vote. What’s our favorite Wong Kar-Wai film? Well, read on through the entire list, and you’ll find out. Enjoy!

****

10. My Blueberry Nights

Stylistically at odds with itself,...