At 67 minutes, Obsession packs more wildness into every second than nine other movies that you’ll see this year.

Madisyn (Aubrey Madisyn) and Paris (Payton Pinkston) are best friends and cousins. Every day, they wake up, get on social media and post their getting ready videos. Today is Madisyn and her fraternal twin brother Mason’s (Darius Brantley Jr.) birthday. Meanwhile, Paris is driving her sister Paige (Janaya Durham) and father Brandon (Hakeem Sharif) crazy with her pranks, yelling “Caught you simpin’, pimpin'” when she puts honey in her sister’s hair product and hot sauce in her dad’s mouthwash. Her mom Kim (Robyn Rose) gets everyone in line and the kids get on the bus where Mason gets bullied and protected by his sister.

It’s just another day in the lives of this family until Ingrid Snow (Velda Hunter) gets involved.

Back in high school, Ingrid was in love with Madisyn and Mason’s father Sean (Lemastor Spratling) but he has no idea who she is. She even thought at one point she was pregnant with a baby and it was pseudocyesis, an emotional false pregnancy. Her sister Nica (Deborah Lane Spencer) has supported her through all of this and now is trying to talk her out of dating her new boyfriend, who she claims is married and has children.

Back to the family. Everyone is so busy that Sean and his wife Deja (Ebony Tates) are hiring a nanny. That nanny ends up being Ingrid, who has already started scouting the kids and believes that she’s Madisyn’s mother. So she does what any rational woman who thinks that a man who can’t remember her is still in love with her when his wife is ridiculously attractive. She kidnaps both girls and gives Paris enough poison to kill her.

You have to see the scene where she pours dry drugs into the girls’ milkshakes in a milkshake store and says, “That little bitch got to die.”

The film jumps all the place with time like a deranged Tarantino, often showing the same scenes multiple times which is an ingenious way to pad a movie that’s just an hour. But whatever, it’s on Tubi and I’m here for it. Detective Grimes (Hiram Robinson) and Robinson (Sarah Evalt) show up and start walking the parents through things, but by this point Sean is missing because Ingrid attacked him and has drugged him as well and he’s lying on a bed covered with photoshopped photos of them together.

Can Mason, who is so nerdy that he reminds us multiple times that he’s in chess club, and Paige use the internet to find their sisters? Of course they can. Will there be a shock ending? Totally. Do I watch movies like this all day and scream at the screen and then force my wife to listen to me break them down as if they got a 17 minute standing ovation at Cannes? You know it.

This was directed by Dennis L. Reed II (all three First Lady movies) and written by Denora M. Boone. Amazingly, it was produced by Aubrey Madisyn, Darius Brantley Jr. and Payton Pinkston. Yes, the child actors. I learned from Aubrey’s Instagram that she’s an executive producer, actor, model, influencer and CEO of Mini Millyoungaire. Payton is  an actress, model, dancer, singer and owner of the Payton P Collection. Look, you can say whatever you want about this film, but were you a 12-year-old producer of a movie?

You can watch this on Tubi.

Lu Xiao-Ling (Polly Shan-kuan) and her brother Lu Liu (Pai Ying) are young rebels and part of the Southern Song Dynasty. Tasked with moving a document that will allow two allied armies to finally come together to defeat the despised Jin army that has occupied China, this film is about the clandestine meetings and secret paths that the two will undertake to save their homeland. Also, Lu Xiao-Ling has the wildest martial arts weapon ever: she can throw coins with deadly efficiency.

This week, I’ve touched on how it took King Hu years and years to make A Touch of Zen. In fact, it took so much time that assistant director Tu Chung-hsun made A City Called Dragon while the cast and crew was waiting. But it also took so long that Yang Shih-Ching also took the cast and crew to make this movie.  And when you have fights between Polly aand Pai Ying against Lung Fei, Shan Mao, Chang Yi kwai and Chen Shi Wei, well, the results won’t be boring.

Want to see it for yourself?

You can watch The Grand Passion Friday, April 28 at 7:15 PM

in Theater 1 at Metrograph and Subway Cinema in New York City. It’s part of the 10th Old School Kung Fu Fest: Sword Fighting Heroes Edition from April 21-30, 2023!

Tickets are on sale right here!

King Hu’s A Touch of Zen took so long to make that his assistant director Tu Chung-Hsun and the cast made a whole different movie, the one you’re about to read about.

Shang Yen-Chih the Jade Dragonfly (Feng Hsu) is in trouble. She was supposed to get plans to defeat the invading Manchu army from her contact in Dragon City and when she gets there, he and his entire family — nearly eighty of them — are dead. Now, she has to find the plans, get revenge on Commander Bu Lung (Shih Chun) and get out alive.

Sure, it’s wuxia, but it’s closer to a spy movie than an out and out fight film. That’s what makes this stand out and it’s still wild that everyone went back to working on A Touch of Zen and King Hu was probably waiting for a particular plant to be in bloom or a roof to have the perfect aged look that had to come from nature and not paint.

Want to see it for yourself?

You can watch A City Called Dragon on Sunday, April 23 at 7:15 PM in Theater 1 at Metrograph and Subway Cinema in New York City. It’s part of the 10th Old School Kung Fu Fest: Sword Fighting Heroes Edition from April 21-30, 2023!

Tickets are on sale right here!

Chu Liuxiang icomes from a series of novels by Taiwanese writer Gu Long and hiname literally means lingering fragrance. He steals from the rich, gives to the poor and serves justice as a bandit. A master of vertical surface running and leaping — Qinggong — and the metal hand fan, he has never taken the life of another, instead he relies on his intelligence to help others.

He’s been played by Ti Lung (Shaw Brothers’ Clans of Intrigue and Legend of the Bat), ichael Miu (The New Adventures of Chor Lau-heung TV series), Richie Ren (The New Adventures of Chor Lau-heung TV series), Ken Chu (a 2005 TV series) and Ken Chang (a 2012 TV series), Aaron Kwok (Legend of the Liquid Sword), Meng Fei (Everlasting Chivalry, The Sun Moon Legend, Middle Kingdom’s Mark of Blood), Liu Dekai (Chu Liu Xiang Chuan Qi, Chu Liu Hsiang and Hu Tieh Hua) and Tien Peng (Legend of the Broken Sword). If you ever played the NES game Master Chu and the Drunkard Hu, well, you were playing as Chu Liuxiang.

In this film — based on the book Wuye Lanhua (Midnight Orchid) in which the titular menance is told that Chu Liuxiang is dead, so he invents a trap to lure the martial arts master out of hiding — Chu Liuxiang is played by Adam Cheng. He also played the role in The Denouncement of Chu Liu Hsiang and TV serieses in 1979, 1985 and 1995.

Also known as Orchids of Midnight, Thirteen Moon Sword, Demon Fighter and Faster Blade Poisonous Darts, this was directed by Peng-Yi Chang and written by Lung Ku.

Chu has been in hiding since the death of his friend Su Rong-rong, which comes up as some criminals are seeking the jade horse she gave him. This is not important. What is is that Prince Lang Lai (Don Wong) and Princess Lang Ge-si (Lu Yi-chan) are the villains who want to either find, destroy or seduce our hero, who is protecting Su-su (Brigitte Lin) along with his drunken friend Hu Tie-hua (Lu Yi-lung).

This entire movie is astounding even before you get to the bad guy’s base, which looks like Legends of the Hidden Temple and yet is filled with cat people, ninjas that can emerge from women’s bodies Xtro style and one ninja who can literally make himself flat and go under doors and into cracks.

This movie took my brain out of my skull and caressed it. How many films do you know that are willing to do that, much less put your cereberum back into your head and clean it up for you? This is can’t miss magic.

Want to see it for yourself?

You can watch the U.S. 2K premiere of Night Orchid on Sunday, April 30 at 7:15 PM in Theater 2 at Metrograph and Subway Cinema in New York City. It’s part of the 10th Old School Kung Fu Fest: Sword Fighting Heroes Edition from April 21-30, 2023!

Tickets are on sale right here!

Corrupt officials have taken bribes and allowed a band of Japanese pirates — which includes Han Yingjie (Han Ying-chieh), Hakatatsu (Sammo Hung) and Simon Yuen as a bald pirate with a bo staff — to terrorize the South China coast. A small band of fighters, led by husband and wife Wu Ji-Yuan (Pai Ying) and Wu Ruo-Shi (Hsu Feng), have come together to stop them.

Made at the same time as The Fate of Lee Khan, director and writer King Hu has made a world where one big fight still solves things, but to get there our heroes must endure corruption at nearly every turn.

Yet what an ending, as Sammo makes for a wonderfully brutal final boss after a film filled with not just amazing action, but plenty of gorgeous coastal scenes. Hu also realizes that the music is not just wallpaper, but instead makes the fights more dramatic and impactful.

I’m all for more pirates battling against heroic martial artists; what else is out there?

Want to see it for yourself?

You can watch The Valiant Ones on Sunday, April 23 at 5 PM in Theater 1 at Metrograph and Subway Cinema in New York City. It’s part of the 10th Old School Kung Fu Fest: Sword Fighting Heroes Edition from April 21-30, 2023!

Tickets are on sale right here!

A group of rebels taking on the Jin invaders during the Southern Song Dynasty are led by the Iron Mistress (Han Hsiang-Chin) and Wei Shing (Pai Ying). Another revolutionary named Hsin Tsuan (Chien Tsao) says that she may be a strong fighter and able to gather an army, but she has no plan. He offers to be the brains, but Wei Shung feels like he could be playing not just his leader, but the object of his unrequited affection.

Yet according to the actual history of China, Hsin Tsuan is supposed to be Xin Qiji, who wrote under the name Jiaxuan. He became a fighter to gain a measure of revenge against the Jin and had a twenty-year career of military service. He then retired and began writig ci, which are porms written to match existing melodies. He constructed more than six hundred of these poems and became widely admired and imitated for his skill with words, not just swords.

Here is one:

Partridge Sky

When I was young

I waved a flag to lead a thousand soldiers

horses too

how my men

fashioned arrows

of silver at night

they brought

down the moon

now the enemy owns it

I come back

I’m nobody

now thinking of the past

how one

sighs to be neglected

Spring won’t bring back the black to my bread

you can’t imagine the tracts I wrote on tactics for this country

In return I’m given this poor field bent mattock

and some weather-worn to me titled “how to grow tree”

Directed by Tsun-Shou Sung and written by Shih-Ching Yang, this has a lot of growth in the film for all of its characters to go along with the swordplay.

Want to see it for yourself?

You can watch Iron Mistress is an online only movie at the 10th Old School Kung Fu Fest: Sword Fighting Heroes Edition from April 21-30, 2023! Tickets are on sale right here!

Break this movie in half with one part being the set-up, as rebels, spies and government officials in disguise all meet at the Spring Inn searching for a battle map. Then, tear it all to pieces, as secret identities are uncovered and all hell breaks loose. All of this filtered through the genius of director King Hu with action put together by Sammo Hung, then brought to life by five actresses who are as strong — or perhaps stronger — than any man, Hu Chin, Helen Ma, Angela Mao, Hsu Feng and Li Li-hua

On one side, Mongo general Lee Khan (Tien Feng) and his sister Lee Wan-erh (Hsu Feng). On the opposite, inn keeper Madam Wan (Li-hua) and several undercover fighters for the resistance who are acting as her waitresses: Hai Mu-tan (Angela Mao, who also made the astounding Hapkido and Lady Whirlwind), Shui Mi-tao (Hu Chin Hu) and Yeh Li-hsiang (Helea Ma).

All made in the time before A Touch of Zen was seen as pure genius and King Hu would work with Golden Harvest, the rivals to Shaw Brothers, making almost another version of his movie Dragon Inn. But that’s too simple, as this movie subverts expectation and gives every woman a strong role. Shot at the same time as The Valiant Ones, this has hand to hand combat that fits into the direction of martial arts cinema at the time while presenting tension as the two groups get closer to their inevitable conclusion, like The Hateful Eight but in another time and place, all with the gorgeous look that you expect from the films of Hu.

Want to see it for yourself?

You can watch The Fate of Lee Khan on Saturday, April 29 at 4:30 PM in Theater 1 and Sunday, April 30 at 4:30 PM in Theater 1 at Metrograph and Subway Cinema in New York City. It’s part of the 10th Old School Kung Fu Fest: Sword Fighting Heroes Edition from April 21-30, 2023!

Tickets are on sale right here!

Until the three-hour cut played at the Cannes Film Festival three years after thsi movie was released and received the Technical Grand Prize and almost took home the Palme d’Or, this has been considered one of the greatest Chinese movies ever made.

Director and written by King Hu, A Touch of Zen was based on the classic Chinese story “Xianü” and comes from the book Strange Stories from a Chinese Studio by Pu Songling.

Gu Sheng-tsai (Shih Chn) is a painter who has never really done much, nor has he wanted to, in his life. But when he meets Yang (Hsu Feng), a female fugitive scheduled for execution, he discovers that he can do more and joins her in the battle against Eunuch Wei and his army.

This movie is perhaps most famous for its sword fight in the bamboo forest sword fight. It lasts ten minutes on screen, but took twenty-five days to film. It was choreographed by Han Yingjie, a former Beijing opera actor and the action director of A Touch of Zen.

King Hu is the kind of creative that would spend a large part of this movie’s budget to build a village set and then he left it unused for nine months so it would be weathered. There are also no fights until an hour into the movie. This builds on the magic he created with Come Drink With Me and Dragon Gate Inn.

One example of how he was a different director lies in the aftermath of the ghost trap sequence. At first, Gu is overjoyed that he has become a hero and that his plan has led to the destruction of the evil forces. Yet as he walks through their bodies, he realizes that there is a human cost. These aren’t faceless video game characters, but instead actual people that he has killed. He begins to cry and then scream, as every footstep shows him one more person dead because of him.

What a gorgeous movie.

Want to see it for yourself?

You can watch A Touch of Zen on April 30 at 1:00 PM in Theater 1 at Metrograph and Subway Cinema in New York City. It’s part of the 10th Old School Kung Fu Fest: Sword Fighting Heroes Edition from April 21-30, 2023!

Tickets are on sale right here!

After bandits murder a retired sheriff named Yang Du and his wife — they are the only to ever escape from prison that he caught — their three daughters are separated for their own safety. Years later, each of the three — Xiufeng (Li Hua-Yang), Qingfeng (Mei Chin) and Zhifeng (Ching Liu) — all seek revenge on their own, with Xiufeng dressing as a man named Lin Kending to fight crime.

The three men — Lu Tianba (Kang Ming), Cao Senxiong (Wu Pin-Nan) and Ke Yingqiang (Yi Yuan) — are brothers who have gone on to even greater crimes after killing Yang Du. And while Qingfeng and Zhifeng’s lives aren’t where they want them to be, once reunited with Xiufeng, they get on the path to revenge.

Directed by Chen Hung-Min, this has wild handheld camera work, as well as night scenes that were lit by the headlights of cars. Everything about this movie is charming, from the swish pans of the camera and abrupt cutting to the music, which mixes the traditional with the modern world of 1968 film scores. Once the girls reunite and start getting their vengeance, this gets really good.

Want to see it for yourself?

You can watch Vengeance of the Phoenix Sisters next Saturday, April 22 at 1 PM in Theater 1 at Metrograph and Subway Cinema in New York City. It’s part of the 10th Old School Kung Fu Fest: Sword Fighting Heroes Edition from April 21-30, 2023!

Tickets are on sale right here!

Directed by Ting Shan-hsi, this is the final installment in The Swordsman of All Swordsmen trilogy, but you can go into it without needing to see the other two movies.

Flying Swallow (Polly Shang-kuan) and Tsai ying-jie (Tien Peng) — joined once again with Black Dragon (this time played by David Wei Tang) — have decided to go into Hell itself to get revenge for the death of her father Yen (Chan Bo Leung) by battling Lord Chin (Sit Hon) and his army, which includes the Left & Right Judges, the Ox Head Demon, the Black & White Wuchangs, the Murdering Wonder Child, and Soul Hunter Yaksha.

Woah, right?

It’s going to take an army of beggars and a million fights inside the Dante’s Inferno-like world of this movie to right these wrongs. But when you’re fighting a demonic king who bathes in boiling oil. Yes, you read that right. That’s what he does in his fun time. He also has taken the Purple Light Sword, which was meant to be given to the winner of a battle between Tsai ying-jie and Black Dragon.

This movie is all neon, seriously. It looks like drugs, the best drugs, the ones that never addict you and never have a bad trip. I can’t get enough of these films. And if I’m off on names or the idea, let me know, because wuxia is a genre I’m just trying to learn and get into, the same way I felt like there was a huge world of giallo that would take me years to comprehend and fully enjoy.

Want to see it for yourself?

You can watch The Ghost Hill on April 23 at 3:00 PM in Theater 2 at Metrograph and Subway Cinema in New York City. It’s part of the 10th Old School Kung Fu Fest: Sword Fighting Heroes Edition from April 21-30, 2023!

Tickets are on sale right here!