Retro Reels

For the next theme, Hanna has chosen to cover old school martial arts movies, her favorite kind of pure entertainment flick. First up is director King Hu's classic Dragon Inn, a keystone of the wuxia genre.

Hanna gets around to watching Takeshi Kitano's 1993 crime drama Sonatine, a refreshing departure from the typical crime drama fare. 

For the final episode of the "evil babies" series commemorating the birth of her son, Hanna watches yet another movie about the son of Satan, The Omen, which rode the cosmic horror trend started by Rosemary's Baby to major box office success.

Hanna rewatches the classic psychological horror flick Rosemary's Baby, one of the first movies to successfully deploy demons and Satanism as a scare tactic.

As a way of celebrating(?) her foray into motherhood, Hanna kicks off a special series on movies about evil and accursed babies. First up is David Lynch's famously strange first movie, Eraserhead.

Hanna finishes her series on Taiwanese director Edward Yang with her personal favorite from his filmography. She also has a bit of a confession to make regarding what's really been going behind the scenes.

For this episode, Hanna takes on one of Edward Yang's most highly acclaimed films, A Brighter Summer Day, one of several extra long movies that she's now attempted to fit into a 20-minute program slot.

Hanna talks about Terrorizers, which strays a bit off the path of what one might typically expect from director Edward Yang.

In honor of his birthday month of November, Hanna finally has the opportunity to talk about a Taiwanese director — the one and only Edward Yang.

To finish out the Ozu series, Hanna covers An Autumn Afternoon, the last film he made before he died on his 60th birthday in 1963.

Hanna talks Ozu's 1953 movie Tokyo Story, which is widely considered the crowning jewel of his career and one of the greatest films in the history of cinema.

In memory of her late friend Drew, Hanna introduces a special series on the movies of Japanese director Yasujirō Ozu, starting with the 1949 movie Late Spring. 

Hanna talks about the character Charlie Chan, the actor Warner Oland, and fake Chinese accents, and shares her final thoughts about yellowface and whitewashing in the American film industry.

Just for the excuse to talk at length about Anna May Wong, one of America's first film stars of Asian descent, Hanna deigns to watch Daughter of the Dragon, another problematic pre-Code Hollywood movie this time directed by Lloyd Corrigan and produced by Paramount studios.

In a discussion on Josef von Sternberg's award-winning 1932 movie Shanghai Express, Hanna makes her case for watching these nearly 100-year-old movies that isn't based purely on seeking out the shock factor of old-fashioned Hollywood racism.

Hanna begins a series analyzing the representation of Asian people in old Hollywood with a laughably offensive pre-Code movie, The Mask of Fu Manchu, directed by Charles Brabin and produced by MGM.

Although it's not quite to her taste, Hanna endeavors to cover the 2003 revenge thriller Oldboy, which helped establish director Park Chan-wook outside of his native South Korea.

To finish out the ghost month series, Hanna tries a bit of comparative analysis between Japan's classic horror film Ring, made in 1998, and America's take on the same movie, made in 2002. The results are more than a little embarrassing.

Four separate stories comprise the 1964 anthology horror film Kwaidan, directed by Masaki Kobayashi. Hanna makes her best effort to squeeze it all in one episode.

Hanna talks wartorn Japan, ethics and morality, and deep dark holes in this episode on Kaneto Shindo's 1964 movie Onibaba, the second in a series of four Japanese horror episodes for Ghost Month.

In celebration of Ghost Month, Hanna launches a series about Japanese horror, starting with a discussion about the strange and cartoonish cult classic House (1977) by director Nobuhiko Obayashi.

Hanna attempts to tackle a long avante-garde film from 1964 by director Hiroshi Teshigahara that's filled with symbolism from beginning to end, coming away from the analysis feeling like she just barely scratched the surface.

Finishing out the Wong Kar Wai series of episodes (for now), Hanna talks about the 2000 romantic drama In the Mood for Love, which many consider the very best from his filmography. She also touches on 2046, which was released four years later, to complete the "Love" trilogy.

Hanna shares her thoughts on Days of Being Wild, a 1990 drama set in 60s Hong Kong, which comprises the first part of the informal "Love" trilogy of movies by Wong Kar Wai, .

In the second part of a series on director Wong Kar Wai, Hanna covers both Chungking Express and Fallen Angels, which he thankfully decided against releasing as one 3-hour movie.