Weekend Watchlist 10/3: Hong Kong Classics
Here's what to watch this weekend
Happy Friday, PV Guide readers! I hope you have a great weekend ahead of you.
Every Friday, I’m recommending a few great things to watch that the algorithm might not be pushing at you right now, with a focus on variety, so every reader can find something they’re interested in. The Weekend Watchlist will always be 100% free. (But I have opened up PV Guide’s Premium Tier, for those interested in supporting this work!)
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This week is a busy one for new arrivals on VOD and streaming. For rent, there is Darren Aronofsky’s Caught Stealing, Olivier Assayas’s Suspended Time, Spinal Tap II, The Toxic Avenger, and Twinless. I’m curious about Caught Stealing, Suspended Time, and Toxic Avenger, but haven’t seen them yet. I have seen Twinless though, and I liked it quite a bit.
On streaming platforms, the quite funny Naked Gun remake lands on Paramount Plus, as does the silly-but-entertaining Josh Hartnett Bullet Train riff Fight or Flight. Bring Her Back, the Philippou brothers’ follow up to Talk to Me, arrives on HBO Max, while Ethan Coen and Tricia Cooke’s lesbian detective movie Honey Don’t streams on Peacock. Shane Black’s new movie Play Dirty premieres on Prime, while Diablo – one of the best action movies of the year – is now also on Prime.
One quick thing before we get into the picks: I just launched a podcast this week with my former Polygon colleague Austen Goslin. It’s called Sports Movies That Don’t Suck, and it’s about sports movies that don’t suck. Our first episode, talking I, Tonya with author, podcaster and college football writer Jason Kirk, is now live. Check it out, and consider becoming a free or paid member on our Patreon, if you’re so inclined.
This week’s list is special, because the Criterion Channel has added some long-awaited (and previously unavailable to watch in the US) Hong Kong classics. The collection includes some of the best movies ever made, but it’s been over a decade since they were available legally stateside. Most are also available elsewhere, for those that don't have Criterion access (but if there was ever a month for it, this is it). Enjoy.
Peking Opera Blues
If you like: Immaculate period pieces, Chinese opera, action comedies about ~gender~
Watch at: Criterion Channel, for free with ads on Tubi
Watch trailer here
If you only watch one movie out of Criterion’s Hong Kong Classics collection, make it this one. Peking Opera Blues is director Tsui Hark’s masterpiece, a gorgeous period piece that combines action comedy, Chinese opera, and social commentary about gender.
It follows three women in 1910s China whose lives intertwine – one the daughter of an authoritarian general, one who grew up in an opera troupe and desperately wants to be allowed to perform, one a starving musician – and the bold adventure they go on together in the midst of political turmoil. It’s one of the few movies I’ve seen with a woman who cross-dresses and isn’t ultimately forced to present as feminine at the end of the movie. It’s one of my very favorite movies ever, and I’m absolutely thrilled more people can finally watch it.
City on Fire
If you like: Undercover cop movies, Chow Yun-fat, deeply romantic action movies about platonic love between men
Watch at: Criterion Channel, free with a library card on Kanopy, free with ads on Tubi
Watch trailer here
Along with John Woo’s A Better Tomorrow (also a personal favorite), this is one of the movies that launched Chow Yun-fat to super stardom. He plays an undercover cop who desperately wants to quit after having to traumatically betray a friend on his last job, but his boss won’t let him. When he gets put on another case, he strikes up a close friendship with one of the criminals. Will history repeat itself, or can everyone make it out okay this time?
A heavy inspiration for Reservoir Dogs, it’s a high-mark of one of my favorite sub-genres of this era of Hong Kong action. As the critic Willow Catelyn Maclay put it, “I've never seen movies where men love each other as much as they do in Hong Kong action movies from the 1980s, and this is a high watermark of that era.”
A John Woo you haven’t seen
If you like: Balletic action movies, dual-wielding, doves
Watch at: Criterion Channel. Many are also on Kanopy or Tubi
There are eight John Woo movies currently playing on the Criterion Channel. I don’t know which ones you’ve seen, so you should just pick one that you haven’t and have a great time. If you haven’t seen any of them, pick at random one between A Better Tomorrow, Hard Boiled, and The Killer. You won’t be disappointed.
