A Better Tomorrow III: Love and Death in Saigon (Tsui Hark, 1989)

Chow Yun-fat in A Better Tomorrow III: Love and Death in Saigon

Cast: Chow Yun-fat, Tony Leung Ka-fai, Anita Mui, Shih Kien, Saburo Tokito, Maggie Cheung Ho-yee, Chen Wai-lun, Andrew Kam, Foo Wang-tat, Nam Yin. Screenplay: Edward Leung, Tai Foo-ho, Tsui Hark. Cinematography: Horace Wong, Yung Chun-wa, Chik Kim-kiy. Art direction: Lu Zifeng. Film editing: Marco Mak, Tsui Hark, David Wu. Music: Lowell Lo, David Wu.

A stand-alone film posing as a prequel, Tsui Hark's A Better Tomorrow III has only the presence of the most charismatic actor in the first two films, Chow Yun-fat, in the role of Mark Lee, to link it with the first two. And the only significant things it adds to the character are explanations of how he learned to shoot and how he got the black duster that he swaggers about in. The plot is summed up in the subtitle, Love and Death in Saigon. It's 1974 and the Vietnam War is coming to its end when Mark goes there to help his uncle (Shih Kien) and cousin, Michael Cheung Chi-mun (Tony Leung Ka-fai), close up shop in Saigon and return to Hong Kong. But he gets in trouble at the airport and has to be helped out by Chow Ying-kit (Anita Mui), a woman with whom he has been flirting. Though Mark finds Kit attractive, it's his cousin Michael who falls hard for her. She, on the other hand, prefers Mark. She also turns out to be involved in a variety of shady businesses, including gun smuggling. So not only do we have a romantic triangle to spin the plot on, we also have various underworld conflicts as well as the chaos of the fall of Saigon to provide the usual bloodshed. It's not a bad movie: There's plenty of action, Mui and Chow are in good form, and there's some poignancy in the fate of the characters. But it lacks the exhilaration of style that John Woo brought to the first two installments.

Peking Opera Blues (Tsui Hark, 1986)

Brigitte Lin, Cherie Chung, and Sally Yeh in Peking Opera Blues

Cast: Brigitte Lin, Sally Yeh, Cherie Chung, Mark Ho-nam Cheng, Cheung Kwok Keung, Kenneth Tsang, Wu Ma, Ku Feng, Lee Hoi-sang, Leong Po-Chih, Huang Ha, Sandra Ng. Screenplay: Raymond To. Cinematography: Hang-Sang Poon. Production design: Kim-Sing Ho, Chi-Heng Leung, Vincent Wai. Film editing: David Wu. Music: James Wong. 

All flash and dazzle and most of all color, Tsui Hark's Peking Opera Blues is a nonstop action comedy that uses the elaborate costumes of Chinese opera to kaleidoscopic effect. The plot is a tangle of nonsense about stealing some documents that support a revolutionary movement in China in 1914, but mostly it's designed to provide excuses for gunfights and hair's-breadth escapes. The protagonists are three young women who wind up as collaborators, aided by two young men. They don't escape harm: One of the men is seriously wounded by gunfire and one of the women is captured and mercilessly tortured, but both bounce back with a resilience that tests credulity but keeps the action going. There's also a good deal of queerness: One of the women dresses as a man, and the fact that women in Peking Opera were played by men provides some not exactly tasteful humor. Fortunately, Hark keeps things going so fast and furiously that it takes an effort of will to be offended by the movie. 

Shanghai Blues (Tsui Hark, 1984)

Sylvia Chang and Kenny Bee in Shanghai Blues

Cast: Kenny Bee, Sylvia Chang, Sally Yeh, Ching Tien, Loletta Lee, Fu-On Shing, Manfred Wong, Ging-Man Fung, Woo Fung, Lung Kong. Screenplay: Chan Koon-Chung, Szeto Cheuk-Hon, Raymond To. Production design: Ah-Yeung Hing-Yee. Film editing: Chew Siu Sum. Music: James Wong. 

Tsui Hark's zany slapstick rom-com Shanghai Blues begins with the Japanese attack on Shanghai in 1937. Two young people, Tung Kwok-Man (Kenny Bee) and Shu-Shu (Sylvia Chang) take shelter under a bridge and hit it off immediately. As he runs off to join the army and she goes in search of her family, they vow to meet again in the same place in ten years. The setup made me try to imagine an American version, set perhaps during the bombing of Pearl Harbor, but the cognitive dissonance was too great. But their reunion in Shanghai after the war is a more familiar situation: The city was undergoing economic upheaval not unlike that of the Great Depression, a setting more like that of many screwball comedies of the 1930s. It was dark under that bridge, so neither of them has a clear image of the person they vowed to meet again, so true to romantic comedy they don't recognize each other when they happen to wind up in the same rundown apartment building. He's a struggling musician, and she's a dancer in a nightclub. She also has a comic sidekick who takes on the nickname translated as "Stool" (it probably makes more sense in Chinese), who is played with fine goofiness by Sally Yeh. She falls in love with Tung, of course. The rest is a melange of mistaken identities, mixed signals, chases, farcical near-encounters, some smutty jokes, and almost any gag and sitcom trope Hark and his screenwriters can wedge into the movie. Shanghai Blues is undeniably funny, but it's also a little exhausting.

Once Upon a Time in China (Tsui Hark, 1991)

Cast: Jet Li, Biao Yuen, Rosamund Kwan, Jacky Cheung, Kent Cheng, Kam-Fai Yuen, Shi-Kwan Yen, Shun Lau, Wu Ma, Jianquo Qiu, Cheun-Yan Yuen, Chi-Yeung Wong, Shun-Yee Yuen, Xiong Xinxin, Jonathan Isgar, Mark King, Steve Tartalia, Colin George. Screenplay: Tsui Hark, Kai-Chi Yuen, Yiu-Ming Leung, Elsa Tang. Cinematography: Tung-Chuen Chan, Wilson Chan, David Chung, Ardy Lam, Arthur Wong, Bill Wong. Art direction: Chung-Man Lee. Film editing: Marco Mak. Music: Romeo Diaz, James Wong.