Retro Reels

After feeling less than impressed by Ang Lee's Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon, Hanna decides now's as good a time as any to go back to watching wuxia films made by the late great King Hu. You can always count on the classics.

This week, Hanna invited Amanda Stephens, her cohost from The Doomscroll News Report, to talk about one of her favorite retro anime films from the turn of the millennium. 

Wrapping up a quick series on the movies of Ang Lee, Hanna watches his 2000 wuxia film Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon, which captivated American moviegoers despite being a foreign-made film.

Hanna watches one of Ang Lee's first three feature films, and his only film set entirely in his home country of Taiwan.

Taiwan-born director Ang Lee's film adaptation of Annie Proulx's short story by the same name still moves one to tears twenty years down the line.

Remember last July's series on the movies of Hong Kong director Wong Kar Wai? Hanna's been keeping her favorite one from him in her back pocket, just for June.

Notable for being the first Chinese film to ever win the Cannes Film Festival's Palme d'Or, Chen Kaige's Farewell My Concubine weaves a tale of friendship, unrequited love, jealousy, betrayal, and retribution spanning five decades of Chinese history.

Hanna kicks off Pride Month with a strange and groovy avante-garde flick from the late sixties that depicts a side of Japan very seldom seen. 

Hanna wraps up the anime film series with a few choice words about her biggest problem with the genre, as illustrated through the 1995 scifi cult classic, Ghost in the Shell. 

Hanna revisits Katsuhiro Otomo's cyberpunk classic, Akira, which reshaped anime film as we know it today. Like so many movie adaptations, though, she maintains that the book—or in this case, the manga—is better.

This week, Hanna watches Paprika, the last movie Satoshi Kon made and a dreamy flick that will leave you scratching your head. She has a few choice words for another copycat of Kon's, as well.

Hanna talks Satoshi Kon, Japanese idol culture, and the cowardice of a certain copycat in this episode on 1997 psychological drama anime film, Perfect Blue.

Hanna watches half-Japanese American director Karyn Kusama's first two movies, both worthy contributions to the 2000s era of American independent film.

Closing out her series on Akira Kurosawa's Shakespeare adaptations, Hanna watches Ran, his take on King Lear and one of the greatest films in his oeuvre. 

Out, damned spot! Hanna gets everything she wanted and more out of Akira Kurosawa's 1957 film adaptation of William Shakespeare's Tragedy of Macbeth.

Hanna watches legendary Japanese director Akira Kurosawa's take on Shakespeare's Hamlet, a 1960 neo-noir crime mystery entitled The Bad Sleep Well.

Bidding farewell to Tsai Ming-liang and his favorite actors for now, Hanna watches his 2003 movie Goodbye, Dragon Inn.

Hanna watches Tsai Ming Liang's oddly prescient movie The Hole (1998), which follows the lives of two tenants' experience living under quarantine as a strange pandemic affects Taiwan. 

This week, Hanna follows the three lonely characters of Tsai Ming Liang's 1994 movie Vive L'Amour as they go about their quirky, aimless, and sad days.

Hanna circles back to Taiwanese New Wave to watch the movies of Tsai Ming Liang, starting with his first feature film, Rebels of the Neon God. 

Hanna rewatches one of her favorite movies featuring actress Michelle Trachtenberg, who passed away suddenly on February 26 at the age of 39: Gregg Araki's 2004 coming-of-age drama, Mysterious Skin.

Following her series on martial arts movies, Hanna can't help but cover one particular American movie that happened to draw a lot of inspiration from East Asia's wuxia and kung fu flicks.

This week, Hanna watches the last movie Bruce Lee ever made in his tragically short life, and reflects on the lasting influence martial arts movies have had on popular culture.

Hanna revisits Jackie Chan, this time watching the movie that catapulted him to stardom in 1978, Drunken Master, as well as the frankly insane sequel from 1994 that showcases some of the most explosive fight scenes of his career.

Hanna highlights Bruce Lee and discusses his role as the character Chen Zhen in the 1972 kung fu movie Fist of Fury, mentioning Jet Li's take on the same character in the 1994 remake Fist of Legend, as well.