So I'll start with the unranked top 10City on Fire (1987)
龍虎風雲
Danny Lee in a rare role as a criminal (and a ultra-violent one at that) along side the prodigy of gun-kata Chow Yun-Fat. So what does a man do when he has to betray his friend because he is an undercover cop and give up the love of his life to protect her from harm? Chow is the man and he pulls it off with style. Excellent performance by all including the director Ringo Lam, who is famous for Jackie Chan's Twin Dragons. Apparently this film was plagarised by Quentin Tarantino on his film Reservoir Dogs. I haven't seen it though but I do now just to see what are the similarities in it. Hope its nothing cause nothing can compare to the original!
Fight Back to School 2 (1992)
逃學威龍2
Stephen Chow ftw! Being an undercover cop in high school does have its perks and Stephen Chow really makes use of it and its just damn funny seeing him being a kid over again. This comedy really has everything it needs to be funny and much much more so just watch it dammit!
God of Gamblers (1989)
賭神
Wong Jing has been making rather lousy movies of late but this is an absolute classic and really started off the gambling scene in films. While a young Andy Lau would later go on to start as a God of Gamblers in future films, he plays a very very interesting supporting role that takes the spotlight out of the main lead Chow Yun-Fat. Because of the previous films that Chow has been in, it was always expected that he would just go out all guns blazing but instead in this film he plays a guy who has amnesia so he acts like a kid but can still perform all his gambling brilliance when he eats chocolate. This really is a nice break from his diehard action movies that really shows Chow Yun-Fat is the God of Acting :p
Infernal Affairs (2001)
無間道
Okay, I hate how Hollywood remade this movie into some stupid wog gang movie but it was still a solid film at that. But I also hate how the remake won so many awards when the ideas weren't theirs. While they did buy the rights to remake it, it just sounds so wrong and that they only paid for the first film but took ideas from the following two movies... cheats. But alas, can't do anything about it right? You guys may know this movie as The Departed that won some Academy Awards. This is the original and way better than the remake when watched with part 2 and 3. This film really helped the Hong Kong film industry when it was in dire need of creative injections and it gave film-makers more to think about when making new movies. Great watch and you will see that the originals are way better than the remake!
The Killer (1989)
喋血双雄
I think I love Chow Yun-Fat way too much but he just makes such awesome action movies and this is no different than his other ones. So whats different in this than the others? We have Chow Yun-Fat being a criminal for once, Danny Lee puts up an awesome performance as a cop as always and just awesome action over and over again. Chow this time plays an assassin but with feeeeeeeeeelings and he accidentally makes a woman go blind so he cares for her in the background. Danny Lee finally catches up with his nice habit and traces Chow down so its another cat and mouse game with a girl in-between. Also did I mention the action is freakin' awesome? John Woo directed this and I can see why its just so good.
Love on a Diet (2001)
瘦身男女
Andy Lau and Sammi Cheng in fatsuits! While the makeup is not as good as the Nutty Professor, its still as hilarious to see two fat people trying to lose weight in the most funny ways possible. I reckon this is the best Andy and Sammi collaboration ever compared to Needing You... and Yesterday Once More because this is just straight forward funny and not some crazy love story put together quickly. You may also watch it to listen to the funny Japanese the Chinese people throw around. As a hot chick said to Sammi "It's mission impossible" to lose weight in six months. I really need to get a DVD copy of this soon...
The Legend of Speed (1999)
烈火戰車2 While Ekin Cheng's movies have declined in quality and quanity in recent years but this is one of his finest achievements. While I like him in the Young & Dangerous series, he was still very new to the genre but now he is a bit more mature, he put up one excellent performance as a spoilt kid learning to grow up and learn from his mistakes. Originally planned as a direct sequel to Andy Lau's Full Throttle this film features racing and totally outruns its spiritual successor Initial D by the same director. The only crap thing was Cecilia Cheung in it as a persistent annoying brat that travels across South-East Asia just to piss Ekin even more off... boooooo.
Fatal Contact (2006)
黑拳
The latest film in my top ten happens to be a martial arts flick. While the story is a tad weak throughout and with a very sad ending, it really pays homage to the early days of martial arts films in the early 90s and late 80s. Just heaps of hardcore fighting that don't look fake at all. Wu Jing is hailed as the next Jet Li and really succeeds in showing the audience that he can live up to that name! Sadly he cannot act well but that didn't stop Jackie Chan and Jet Li from becoming international stars. Hopefully Wu Jing can keep it up and not be taken in by Hollywood. Also check out his other films Invisible Target and SPL for some more awesome fight scenes! This also starts Ronald Cheng as a surprising but effective fighter!
Running Out of Time (1999)
暗戰
I watched this just before I started to get into Hong Kong movies besides the normal Jackie Chan, Chow Yun-Fat and Jet Li ones and this just blew me away. Its so cleverly done and Andy Lau as a crook for once is engaging to say the least. He plays a cancer-stricken dude who engages a police negotiator in a game of cat and mouse before his time is up. While the reason for the game is very very vague, its just very interesting seeing these two go at eachother. The sequel with Ekin Cheng is very good too so don't miss out on that.
Shaolin Soccer (2001)
少林足球
Probably the first Stephen Chow movie I've seen and also probably the most well-known movie in my list that you guys have heard of. So lets cut it short, Stephen is a bum and starts a soccer team with his Shaolin-trained buddies whom are also bums and just dominates the soccer league. Enter the villian who will try at anything to kick their ass back to their rubbish tips. So I think that should convince everyone who hasn't seen it to watch it. Also make sure to see the uncut Hong Kong version because the Western version is heavily edited to "suit" Western tastes more... silly Hollywood guys.
Here are the rest of movies that you guys should check out. I highly recommend them because I have thoroughly enjoyed them
A Better Tomorrow
A Man Called Hero
Chinese Odyssey 2002
Chocolate Inspector
CJ7
The Conman
Eastern Condors
Enter the Phoenix
Flash Point
From Beijing with Love
The God of Cookery
God of Gamblers Returns
Hard Boiled
Heroic Duo
Infernal Affairs 2
Invisible Target
Jiang Hu ~ the triad zone
Kung Fu Hustle
The Last Blood
My Wife is 18
Needing You... (screw you Ren)
Once A Thief
Private Eyes
Prince Charming
Running Out of Time 2
Super Model
Tiger on the Beat Tokyo Raiders
Young and Dangerous
While I haven't watched a majority of Hong Kong movies and I'm sure I am missing a lot of good old movies but my tastes lie in late-70s to now. Sadly a lot of these shows cannot be found in retailers so Chinatown, Springvale (eww) and Box Hill are great places to check.
Lets finish it off with the Shaolin Soccer sequel
少林少女の柴咲 コウ
少林少女の柴咲 コウ
