Lust, Caution (directed by Ang Lee) For fans of Hong Kong cinema, it's a bit of a surprise that a wonderfully expressive and nuanced actor like Tony Leung hadn't worked before with the Oscar-winning, Taiwanese turned New Yorker director Ang Lee. But the two artists have been united now in Lee's new thriller set in World War II Shanghai, Lust, Caution which comes out this weekend. An erotically charged film with such explicit scenes that......

Baby, it's cold outside—go see a movie, why dontcha? Werewolves, comic books and hot girls who prowl the streets of Bucharest in high heel boots should be the stuff of great geek cinema. Unfortunately, Blood and Chocolate, a new movie starring Agnes Bruckner as a werewolf girl trying to get along with the pack is utterly laughable. And not even in a good, kitchy, throw popcorn at the screen and giggle with your friends sort......

You have the long stem roses and box of chocolates on tap, but what else? What else to plan for your cinema-lovin' sweetie? Hey, nothing spells l'amour like dinner and a movie. In Brooklyn, BAM's Rose Cinématek offers tonight a prix fix dinner at the BAMcafé and then a special screening of the 1941 comedy, Howard Hawks' Ball of Fire, written by Billy Wilder and Charles Brackett and starring Barbara Stanwyck and Gary Cooper. "A......

There's only one major wide release this weekend, and although it stars an Oscar winner, we can pretty much guarantee Paramount isn't expecting any year-end kudos for Aeon Flux. In fact, it looks like the studio is hoping to slyly score a big opening weekend on the draws of Charlize Theron in skintight rubber and fans of the old MTV animated series because they aren't letting critics anywhere near it -- apparently no press screenings......

Asian CineVision, the folks who present the Asian American Film Festival in conjunction with the Asia Society every year, have recently launched a new touring series of Asian films. Playing in a number of reperatory venues in Boston and New York, the first movie, Men Suddenly in Black, screens tonight at Cinema Village. Starring Tony Leung Ka Fai (from Ashes of Time, but not the Tony Leung from In The Mood For Love) who won......

With the astounding success of last year's remake of the Japanese hit Ringu made in America with Naomi Watts and called The Ring, you can almost hear Hollywood shouting for joy at their windfall. Take a tried and true foreign project, add pretty white stars, shake gently and voila! Box office gold. Which is why the rule of thumb going forward should always be, seek out the foreign original and leave the remakes to the......

Despite his place as the second highest paid Chinese movie stars, save for #1 Jackie Chan, Jet Li gets surprisingly little buzz here in the States. To coincide with the release of his 2002 hit in Asia Hero finally making it to our screens, the American Museum of the Moving Image in Queens presents a series devoted to Li's movies, "Fist & Sword: A Tribute to Jet Li" running through next Thursday, Aug. 26. If......

Miramax emailed us and asked us if our readers would be interested in winning some free stuff, and Gothamist thought, "Hell yeah." So we worked up a little contest where you, our readers, can win some stuff related to the upcoming release, Hero starring Jet Li with Zhang Ziyi, Tony Leung Chiu Wai, Maggie Cheung, and Donnie Yen. Four winners will each win a Hero poster signed by Jet Li, a Hero soundtrack, and a......

Once the beauty and longing of Hong Kong director Wong Kar Wai's films get their hooks into you, it's difficult to break free. And really, who would want to? Gothamist knows we're a willing captive to his emotionally distant characters, sumptuous settings and deliberate pacing. For the last week, Anthology Film Archives in the East Village has been screening a series of Wong's work in "6 x Wong Kar Wai," a partial retrospective. If you......

BAM's Rose Cinema will be showing the films of Wong Kar-Wai starting this weekend, in their program, Living in Dreams: Films of Wong Kar-Wai. Wong's work is romantic, and moves between being hilarious to unbelievably sad. The first film, on Friday, is Happy Together, with the late Leslie Cheung and Tony Leung as lovers in Buenos Aires, and on Saturday, Chungking Express will be shown. Chungking Express is one of Gothamist's favorite films, with......

The best cop movie Gothamist has seen this year, Infernal Affairs, has been chosen as Hong Kong's official selection for Best Foreign Film consideration for the 2003 Academy Awards (meaning, the Academy Awards that will honor films from 2003, but will be broadcast in 2004). The premise is simple and complicated, as the plot description from IMDB indicates: A story between a mole in the police department and an undercover cop. Their objectives are......

The recent release of Claire Denis' Vendredi Soir, a languorous film about a one night stand, has provoked some questioning about what makes a great movie sex scene. Is it fantasy or realism? Anticipation or the act? The Guardian looked at two lists of "hottest movie scenes" from Premiere and Playboy. Among the ones Gothamist agreed with, Don't Look Now, Body Heat, and Mulholland Drive. However, we also love Antonio Banderas and Victoria Abril......

For my 59th movie of the year, I saw Zhang Yimou's Hero . Sort of like his attempt to ride the wuxia picture train after Ang Lee's success with Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon, Hero has a pretty amazing cast, Jet Li, Tony Leung, Maggie Cheung, and the Hidden Dragon herself, Zhang Ziyi. Like most wuxia films, the story is pretty lame, but the art direction is really sumptuous and beautiful.......