Once Upon a Time in China
Director: Hark Tsui Run Time: 134 min. Format: DCP Rating: R Release Year: 1991 Language: Cantonese with English subtitles
Starring: Jet Li, Rosamund Kwan, Biao Yuen, Jacky Cheung, Kent Cheng
Subway Cinema presents Once Upon a Time in China
Brand new 4K restorations of the movies that made Jet Li a star!
When director Tsui Hark made Once Upon a Time in China, Jet Li was a B-list nobody, kung fu movies were dead, and making a flick about folk hero, Wong Fei-hung, seemed like something your grandparents might enjoy. Instead, Tsui Hark and action choreographer Yuen Wo-ping (The Matrix, Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon) delivered a movie so ferocious it punched holes in the screen and sent Jet Li supernova. Upright patriarch, Wong Fei-hung, had been the subject of over 86 movies before OUATIC turned him into a young martial artist trying to survive a changing world in this movie whose images are so iconic they feel branded on your brain, whose emotions are so primal they feel volcanic, and whose action is so epic it feels apocalyptic.
Screened to celebrate the addition of Once Upon a Time in China 1 – 6 to the Criterion Collection, Subway Cinema will be introducing the film and giving out swanky Blu-ray prizes before the show.