In Memoriam 1942 – 2013 “Roger Ebert loved movies.”

RogerEbert.com

Thumb_large_9yaxm2zqaztwgqqin7ytipjixug

Victoria

The best thing about Victoria isn’t actually its technical prowess—it’s the lead performance from the mesmerizing Laia Costa as the title character.

Thumb_large_eynmtjbb1fxsb5vsqylvmsdlmvw

Knock Knock

As a piece of social satire, Knock Knock winds up being not just toothless but anticlimactic.

Other Reviews
Review Archives
Thumb_xbepftvyieurxopaxyzgtgtkwgw

Ballad of Narayama

"The Ballad of Narayama" is a Japanese film of great beauty and elegant artifice, telling a story of startling cruelty. What a space it opens…

Thumb_jrluxpegcv11ostmz1fqha1bkxq

Monsieur Hire

Patrice Leconte's "Monsieur Hire" is a tragedy about loneliness and erotomania, told about two solitary people who have nothing else in common. It involves a…

Other Reviews
Great Movie Archives
Other Articles
Channel Archives

Reviews

Revenge of the Green Dragons

Revenge of the Green Dragons Movie Review
  |  

The only thing novel about the generic Hong Kong gangster film "Revenge of the Green Dragons"  is its subject: Chinese immigrants struggling to maintain their agency and identities in New York City in the mid-to-late '80s. Everything else about the film is lifted from other true crime stories, especially Martin Scorsese's seminal dramas. This is partly intentional, as we see in bookend images that position the film as a pseudo-universal, one-immigrant-story-fits-all story: angry waves lap at a boat filled with illegal immigrants. But the boat's human cargo is tellingly offscreen, ostensibly in order to lend these scenes a mythic quality. But by widening the scope of their based-on-a-true story, the makers of "Revenge of the Green Dragon" make their subjects look like the products of unimaginative cultural assimilation.





Popular Blog Posts

Who do you read? Good Roger, or Bad Roger?

This message came to me from a reader named Peter Svensland. He and a fr...

NYFF 2015: "Bridge of Spies"

A review of Steven Spielberg's "Bridge of Spies" from its NYFF premiere last night.

FX’s “Fargo” Maintains High Quality in Second Chapter

A review of season two of FX's "Fargo."

Reveal Comments
comments powered by Disqus