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Richard James Havis

We recall a lurid mix of wuxia and witchcraft, Cheng Pei-pei in Dragon Swamp, and two films featuring a risible lizard and non-giant spider.

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Angela Mao, all glammed up, plays an assassin in Broken Oath, a 1977 remake of a Japanese classic. It is one of her greatest performances.

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John Woo teamed with Tom Cruise for a ‘boring’ hit. Peter Chan turned to romance. Ringo Lam and Jean Claude van Damme made stomachs churn.

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Sword-fighting films were popular in the 1960s and 1990s. Tsui Hark and Derek Yee were among directors who reinvented the genre this century.

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Anthropologist Alice Roberts describes how secrets of diseases can be uncovered from old skeletons building workers and archaeologists find.

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Shaw Brothers backed Lau Kar-leung to make two sequels to The 36th Chamber of Shaolin, one so bad it was the studio’s last martial arts film.

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Tsui Hark’s 1990 Hong Kong film Swordsman was a long and rambling affair that was difficult to follow, yet it was a resounding success.

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A professor uses ‘anomalistic psychology’ to try to understand belief in phenomena that lack scientific support, such as psychics or ghosts.

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Hong Kong filmmaking underwent successive evolutions thanks to films like Fist of Fury, Infernal Affairs and John Woo’s A Better Tomorrow.

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A psychologist who helped develop an award-winning meditation app explains how the practice can lower stress, boost concentration and more.

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The Ip Man story has been explored in multiple films, from Wong Kar-wai’s The Grandmaster starring Tony Leung to one featuring Anthony Wong.

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D&B films, started by watch retailer Dickson Poon, launched Michelle Yeoh’s action-movie career and was known for its ‘middle class values’.

The trio of 1990s adult movies with Hong Kong sex symbols like Amy Yip and Japanese adult-video actresses like Kudo Hitomi were a huge hit.

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From July Rhapsody with Jacky Cheung to Love in a Puff with Miriam Yeung and Andy Lau in Love on a Diet, these movies offered something new.

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We look at four remakes of classic Hong Kong films, from a Jackie Chan-led Police Story from the 2000s to a riff on Bruce Lee’s Fist of Fury.

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Based on a script Lee abandoned, the 1978 film ended up a bizarre mix of poor martial arts and mysticism. An expert dissects what went wrong.

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Tsui Hark’s film series that originally starred Jet Li as martial arts legend Wong Fei-hung spawned several knock-offs, such as Kickboxer.

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Anita Mui’s remarkable versatility made her characters captivating to watch in films that co-starred names like Jackie Chan and Chow Yun-fat.

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Cheung’s turns opposite Gong Li as a gay opera singer and a gigolo in 20th century China were two of his best, but both fell foul of censors.

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