Classic Chinese Cinema: Prison on Fire (1987)

There are two versions of prison movies,one is prison break movies like Shawshank Redemption,Le Trou and A Man Escaped,the other is fantasy movies like The Green Mile.The Hong Kong film Prison on Fire doesn’t belong to neither of them,it’s the third kind,the realistic prison movie without any smart attempts of prison break or fantastic special effects […]

Classic Chinese Cinema: The Personals (1998)

the personals bd

In March 2011,Central Motion Picture Corporation released four Taiwan masterpieces in BD+DVD packages,including The Terrorizers(Edward Yang),Vive L’Amour(Tsai Ming-liang),Tropical Fish(Chen Yu-hsun) and The Personals(Chen Kuo-fu),plus the previous 2010 released BD of Hou Hsiao-Hsien’s Dust in the Wind,these five BDs are the best digitally restored films ever by a Chinese restoration and contribution company. The BD+DVD package […]

Auteur Profile: Abbas Kiarostami

Abbas Kiarostami

“Film begins with DW Griffith and ends with Abbas Kiarostami.” – Jean-Luc Godard This quote sounds a bit exaggerated,but no one could deny the fact that Abbas Kiarostami has diverted cinema off its course a little bit.As one of the most important directors alive,the Cannes winner keeps making films that extend not only the possibilities of cinema but […]

Criterion Gems: Shallow Grave

shallow grave criterion cover

From today I’m gonna introduce a new series on Taste of Cinema called Criterion Gems,which consists a series of reviews of the Criterion Collection titles that need to be discovered by more film fans.Let’s start this marathon with one of their new titles,British Oscar-winning director Danny Boyle’s thrilling debut – Shallow Grave. First let’s have […]