Hello, my name is Justin Inclu, and I'm here today with Will Sloan.

And you're listening to The Important Cinema Club. And today, we are discussing the first three feature films of one, Choi Hark.

More than any other Hong Kong filmmaker, I would say, this man embodies the spirit of

Hong Kong cinema in both good and bad ways. I think the two polls when I think of Hong Kong

cinema, Choi Hark, Wong Jing. Those are probably the things that like... Some would say

Wangar Wai, Wang Jing. Nope, Wang Kauai was never one of my guys. Okay wankar why he's an outlier yes i don't think that he is something that when i think of hong kong sin which is funny because wang why did come from the wang jing factory early on but we can't get in those weeds but so so these are your two poles yes and one of those john wu is in there in between if you want to to go to the Shaw Brothers, Chirac is kind of going from that.

But as far as things that drew me to Hong Kong cinema, those are, I think, the two main

guys.

I know for a fact, because I remember it vividly, I see Peter Heim's the Musketeer in

cinema.

Me and my friend afterwards, he says, hey, I saw an old movie that has a fight scene, like in The Musketeer, when they're on the ladders. Once upon a time in China, I rent it. My mind is blown watching the movie. That's your origin story. That's my origin story for that. Amazing. Troy Hark is a director who we talked about probably in the first 50 episodes of this podcast a long, long time ago. And we wanted to return to him. Let's have some fun. Because why not, right? I don't need a reason. No, you don't. No, the reason is because I wanted to watch these first three movies. And I'm always looking for and not finding an excuse to watch Troy Hark movies. Because there are so many, we're watching so many things for this podcast. Choy Hark, if you look at my letterbox, he is one of the few filmmakers. I've written a review for every one of his film. Every one of his. Except for his two anthologies, one of them that I've seen. And don't play with fire, aka dangerous encounters of the first kind. Which is what we're one of the movies we're talking about today. I don't know why I haven't written a review, but I've seen that movie like half a dozen times. Of course. Yeah. I mean, he was, Troy York was definitely very important to me when I was a teenager. Do you remember the first film that you saw by him? Had to have been, oh yeah, I know what it was.

It was the master with Jet Li.

Oh, yeah.

Not one of his proudest moments.

No, absolutely not. But once upon a time in China was the one that got me pilled. And if people, like, they're listening to this and they're wondering, but what is Choi Hark? Like, what does he have that makes him so special?

Energy, vision, that there is a kind of creativity that I associate so closely with

Hong Kong.

That's why, like, Choi Hark is pushing the limits of what cinema can do.

Wang Jing is pushing the crassness and the entertainment value of what cinema can do as

well.

I mean, Choi Hark has been called the Stephen Spielberg of Hong Kong, which is a good analog because he's somebody who likes Spielberg. It was known for being at the

forefront of like pop cinema, was known for reinventing old forms. So just as Stephen Spielberg took,

...