Once Upon a Time in China and America

Your Guide to Design and Pop Culture in Tokyo

Sep 29, 2003

Once Upon a Time in China and America

Just watched the Hong Kong film ONCE UPON A TIME IN CHINA AND AMERICA, 5th film in the classic series directed by Tsui Hark and starring Jet Li as Chinese legend Wong Fei-Hong. As it takes place in America, we have to deal with some of the worst acting I’ve seen on celluloid, which is what you get with westerners in HK films. But the action is good, and that’s what counts in this type of film. It’s a shame what Jet Li did to his career after moving to Hollywood, as I’ve hated every film he’s done since leaving HK (I couldn’t even watch past 20-30 minutes of his latest one, CRADLE 2 THE GRAVE, which is the last American Jet Li film I will ever waste time on), exception being Zhang Yimou’s HERO. Tsui Hark should also get his ass in gear and start being more productive in HK, making more films like his excellent TIME AND TIDE, and less Van Damme stinkers.

Also saw the Brazilian film CITY OF GOD, which has got to be one of the best films I’ve seen this year, if not the last few years. You need to see this.

Have something to add? Feel free to leave feedback through either Twitter or Facebook, or contact me by email.

Tagged:

PauseTalk is a regular series of events that take place at Cafe Pause on the first Monday of every month, with a start time of 20:00. The idea is to create a forum where Tokyo-based creatives can get together and discuss their own projects, as well as cultural currents of the city. The next edition happens on Sunday, May 13, as part of the Magazine Library 10 exhibition in Daikanyama.

We hereby define a new term, that of the magaziner, described as a person who exerts an unhealthy amount of love for all things magazine. The Magaziner is a site that mostly focuses on the intersection between magazines and the digital frontier, and what it means for the medium. This does not preclude the inclusion of a healthy amount of print love.

Codex is a weekly music podcast hosted by Jean Snow, recorded in Tokyo. Playlists for all episodes are posted on the site, and you can subscribe to RSS feeds of posts and episodes.

Jean Snow is a contributor to Arcade Mania, your guide to the arcade gaming scene in Japan (Amazon US/Amazon Japan). He also provided assistance on Tokyolife: Art and Design, a guide to Tokyo's cultural output of the past few years, covering the works of over 80 influential creatives.

He will be contributing to the upcoming fifth editions of The Rough Guide to Tokyo and The Rough Guide to Japan, due for release in 2011.

Recent Posts

Jean Snow is Executive Director of the PechaKucha organization. He also helps run the PechaKucha Night in Tokyo -- please get in touch if you are interested in presenting at a future event. For a more intimate salon-like discussion group, join him at his monthly PauseTalk event.

A longtime resident of Tokyo, he lives and breathes design, pop culture, and gaming, sustained by an unhealthy addiction to magazines and frequent visits to his favorites cafes. He has reported on these obsessions for various online/offline publications, including the following: Time, Inside (Australian Design Review), Gizmodo, Gridskipper, Kotaku, 1UP, Tokyo Q, Superfuture, OK Fred, Arthur Frommer's Budget Travel, I.D. (International Design), Metropolis, Azure, MoCo Loco, Kateigaho International Edition, Wired's Game|Life, PingMag, CNNGo, Phaidon, and The Japan Times.

You can subscribe to an RSS feed of this site, and also follow him on Twitter and Facebook, or get in touch by email.

Colophon

The "Jean Snow" logo is written using the free Kirimomi Swash typeface. The "M31" logo is by Ian Lynam, and is part of a series of 31 unique designs. The site's design is based on the Grid Focus WordPress theme by Derek Punsalan.