Director: Wong Ching-Po
Cast: Ethan Juan, Li Li-Ren, Ben Yuen, Ivan Chen, Gingle Wang, Chen Yi-wen, Lee Lee-zen
Running Time: 134 min.
By Paul Bramhall
One of the biggest tragedies of the increasingly restrictive policies Mainland China has placed on the film industry has been the fact that some of the newer creative talents from Hong Kong have simply disappeared off the radar. Filmmakers like Pang Ho-Cheung and Lee Ka-Wing, who both made their directorial debuts in the 2000’s, have yet to make anything in the 2020’s, and for the longest time I also included Wong Ching-Po in the same discussion. Responsible for one of the most uncompromising Cat III productions of the 21st century with 2010’s Revenge: A Love Story, Ching-Po’s output always offered up something a little different and unique. However after 2014’s Once Upon a Time in Shanghai, with the exception of directing a segment in the 2016 omnibus movie Good Take!, he disappeared off the radar. Thankfully, in 2023 he reappeared.
Just shy of 10 years since he last helmed a feature length production, The Pig, the Snake and the Pigeon sees Ching-Po back in the director’s chair. While even the most distinctive Hong Kong directors have seemingly resigned themselves to helming middling Mainland-friendly fare in recent years (see Derek Kwok’s instantly forgettable 2021 thriller Schemes in Antiques for the perfect example), thankfully Ching-Po has decided to take a different route, choosing to make his latest in neighbouring Taiwan. While to the uninitiated it may not appear to be a big deal whether a production shoots in Mainland China or across the Taiwan Strait, the reality is there’s a world Continue reading
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