Hong Kong Gor – Details, episodes & analysis

Its our last episode of the new year and we didn't do as many as last, so we sincerily hope you will excuse us but with a change of location for one of your podcaster and a change of employment for the other, there was no time to truly do everything we wanted. This also means, as you can expect from the date of publication, the episode we tease herein will have to wait. Fear no more thought, as we have recorded another great one where we discuss the merits of Future cops.

A film long only known to the most hardcore of hong kong cinema purist as one of the worst one ever made has made its way to Blu-ray thanks to Eureka. This, very loose, adaptation of the classic Capcom fighting game that changed everything for gamers worldwide, Street Fighter 2, demonstrates Wong Jing's imagination to surf on every possible trend even if the end results doesn't really do the original material justice.

Unfortunately, this episode was recorded under difficult circumstances so the sound isn't the best we ever had. It does mean a few words were cut off from time to time so, for clarification, the four heavenly kings of canto-pop, as explained by Wing, are Aaron Kwok, Jacky Cheung, Leon Lai and Andy Lau. As for the director of the first two Fight back to School, that's none other than Gordon Chan.

Future cops on Imdb
Future cops at Eureka
Future cops on iTunes
If you want to know more about the Four Heavenly Kings of Cantopop.

Find us on social media
Hong Kong Gor on Instagram at hongkongor.podcast (all the news about the podcast and any Hong Kong action related information we can share)
Mathieu/Hororo on Bluesky (he/him)
Wing on Bluesky (he/him)

Come tell us what you think about the episode, what movies you would like us to cover and tell your friends, family, relatives, and cats about us,

That's it, its the end! The final showdown between two formers friends! They will be blood, tears and maybe some guts... Or maybe not. For this new episode we have chosen to cover not one, but two fims at the same time... but they aren't part of a series. For Halloween, we thought we'd cover two of our favourite, and two classics, 1980's Encounter of the spooky kind, directed, written and with Sammo Hung, and 1985's Mr Vampire, directed by Ricky Lau and starring Lam Ching-Ying.

However, as an intro, we bring you a conversation around the japanese franchise of teenage action movies, Baby Assassins, starring Akari Takaishi and Saori Izawa, and... Bride of Chucky (?!) directed by none other than Hong Kong's own Ronny Yu.

Encounter of a spooky kind on imdb
Mr Vampire on imdb
Baby Assassins on imdb
Bride of chucky on imdb

Find us on social media
Hong Kong Gor on Instagram at hongkongor.podcast (all the news about the podcast and any Hong Kong action related information we can share)
Mathieu/Hororo on Bluesky (he/him)
Wing on Bluesky (he/him)

Come tell us what you think about the episode, what movies you would like us to cover and tell your friends, family, relatives, and cats about us,

We are back! And what better way to start the new year with a solid comedy from the 1990s? This is the first time we are talking about Stephen Chow, mostly known outside of Hong Kong for Shaolin soccer and Kung-fu Hustly, but Wing chosed From Beijing with Love and Mathieu was quite happy to discover this hommage and parody of James Bond movie drenched with more subtle nods to Wong Kai Wai and a classic figure of Chinese literature.

We also start this episode with an half hour discussing the merits of the Mortal kombat series in relation to martial arts and why Mortal Kombat 11's story mode is "a better time travel story than Avengers Endgame".

We hope you enjoy this first episode for 2024, let us know what you think by sending us messages on our Instagram or on bluesky, and tell your friends, family, pets, and colleagues about us.

Additional sources:
From Beijing with Love on imdb
Chungking Express on Imdb
Gu Long on Wikipedia

Find us on social media
Hong Kong Gor on Instagram at hongkongor.podcast (all the news about the podcast and any Hong Kong action related information we can share)
Mathieu/Hororo on Bluesky (he/him)
Wing on Bluesky (he/him)

Come tell us what you thought about the episode, what movies you would like us to cover and tell your friends, family, relatives, and cats about us.

Surprise! We might have said we were taking a break until January... or at least that's what we told each other... but, the new John Woo movie came out in the theater in the Netherlands, Mat watched it and he had to tell Wing and you all about it. Its... well, it certainly is a movie, so I won't spoil anything but we hope you will enjoy us talking about it.

This episode is shorter, or was supposed to be shorter, but we ended up talking about Mortal Kombat 11 at the end. That's what you get with a Christmas special, a whole lot of fun and nonsense.

So, enjoy this episode 8.5 and see you in January for a return to our regular programming with more classic Hong Kong productions.

Additional sources:
Silent night on Imdb.
Mortal Kombat 11 on Steam.

Find us on social media
Hong Kong Gor on Instagram at hongkongor.podcast (all the news about the podcast and any Hong Kong action related information we can share)
Mathieu/Hororo on Bluesky (he/him)
Wing on Bluesky (he/him)

Come tell us what you thought about the episode, what movies you would like us to cover and tell your friends, family, relatives, and cats about us.

Its almost time for the winter holidays and what best movie to watch than an ass kicking martial movie featuring two underrated legends in a memorable movie with so many endings you could pick anything to fit the mood of the day? Righting wrongs is the second Corey Huen movie for us after Yes, madam. In Righting wrongs he teams up once again with Cynthia Rothrock, alongside the legendary Yuen Biao, for an action packed story where law and justice clash when a cop and a vigilante lawyer end up chasing the same criminal.

Our conversation around the movie starts at 30 minutes in the episode after we discuss the values of the recent Double Dragon Gaiden: Rise of the Dragons video game and the documentary Enter the clones of Bruce Lee, directed by David Gregory.

A little warning for listeners who want to avoid spoilers, we discuss the endings at length from 1hour 30 minutes to 50 minutes.

However, don't miss at the end the pationate plea from Wing to give us a time machine and direct a Hong Kong Daredevil adaptation!

Additional sources :
Righting wrongs on IMDB
Righting Wrongs is available on Blu-ray via 88 films (UK) and Vinegar Syndrom (USA).
Planet Hong Kong: Popular Cinema and the Art of Entertainment 2nd Edition by David Bordwell. p149
Cynthia Rothrock - Behind the scene on Righting wrongs/Above the law
Righting wrongs fight breakdown by Eric Jacobus
Interview with Melvin Wong

Find us on social media
Hong Kong Gor on Instagram at hongkongor.podcast (all the news about the podcast and any Hong Kong action related information we can share)
Mathieu/Hororo on Bluesky (he/him)
Wing on Bluesky (he/him)

Come tell us what you thought about the episode, what movies you would like us to cover and tell your friends, family, relatives, and cats about us.

Spooky season is upon us so we felt it was our duty to shine a light on a... sort of spooky movie? Magic cop is an action/comedy about cops dealing with the super-natural. Who would have guessed that? Needless to say, the plot is paper thin but the movie is packed with surprises and magic fight scenes perfectly orchestrated by a young film director, Wei Tung. The man later pursued a career as an action director for stunts, and Magic Cop demonstrates very well his talent in this domain. As for the cast, we found a familiar face at the front, the legendary Lam Ching-ying, from classics such as the Mr Vampire series of films, Encounters of a spooky kind 1 and 2, or Hocus Pocus. A specialist of the super-natural with a perfect set of eyebrows. Are you not entertained?

Additional resources
Magic Cop on IMDB
Magic Cop on 88 Films' website

Find us on social media
Hong Kong Gor on Instagram at hongkongor.podcast (all the news about the podcast and any Hong Kong action related information we can share)
Mathieu/Hororo on Bluesky
Wing on Bluesky

Come tell us what you thought about the episode, what movies you would like us to cover and tell your friends, family, relatives, and cats about us.

You can't do a podcast on Hong Kong action cinema and not talk about Jackie Chan. That's impossible. Its forbidden. So, to talk about the great man and his passion for death defying stunts, we choose to talk about not one, not two, but three movies among the ones he did in the great city of Hong Kong, namely the first three Police Story movies. If you've not seen them or only seen the first one (the one with the mall fight scene, you know the one we are talking about), now is your chance to hear how they compare to each other, what are the trademarks of the series and what makes Jackie Chan a great stunt man but a terrible boyfriend.

Find us on social media
Hong Kong Gor on Instagram at hongkongor.podcast (all the news about the podcast and any Hong Kong action related information we can share)
Mathieu/Hororo on Bluesky
Wing on Bluesky

Come tell us what you thought about the episode, what movies you would like us to cover and tell your friends, family, relatives, and cats about us.

Episode five is up and today we are talking about THE movie most people think about when they talk about action films in Hong Kong cinema. The Killer is certainly an iconic film of this era and of the Heroic bloodshed genre, but its also a movie often perceived only as an gun feast when it carries so much more. Today we intend to dig into The Killer and why it's still unique and influential to this day.

Additional resources
The Mission on IMDB

Where to find us
https://bronzebothk.wordpress.com/ (in English)
https://delayanddistortion.com/ (in French)

Due to the incoming demise of Twitter we have both stopped using the platform but you can find Hororo on Skyblue and hopefully Wing will also have his space on it soon.

Epside four is up and its turn for us to move out of the 80s and talk about a 90s classic, Johnnie To's The Mission. Although hard to find outside of a very good french DVD edition from 2002 which is probably difficult to find nowadays, The Mission is a classic worthy of spending the time necessary to get a copy any way possible. Hopefully this gem will be reissued at some point.
The movie deals with a group of criminals who are assembled to protect a gang leader targeted for unknown reasons by other hired killers. The team slowly bonds and becomes a unit but obstacles will stand in their way.

Additional resources
The Mission on IMDB

Our contact details
Hong Kong Gor on Twitter

Bronze HK on Twitter (in English)
https://bronzebothk.wordpress.com/ (in English)

@Hororo on Twitter (in French and English)
https://delayanddistortion.com/ (in French)

Episode three! And this time we are switching to another legend of Hong Kong's cinema with Sammo Hung's Eastern Condors, a movie he stared in and directed alongside his future wife Joyce Godenzi. This war movie set in Vietnam tells the story of twelve convicts forced to accomplish a dangerous mission. The movie follows some American tropes and switches between comedy and drama in-between some incredible action scenes.

Additional resources
Eastern Condors on IMDB

Our contact details
@BronzeHk on Twitter (in English)
https://bronzebothk.wordpress.com/ (in English)

@Hororo on Twitter (in French and English)
https://delayanddistortion.com/ (in French)