Kim Chan Movies

One of television's most beloved sitcoms gets an overhaul for the big screen in this comedy. Ralph Kramden (Cedric the Entertainer) is a New York City bus driver who has great ambitions and plans to make something of himself one day. However, Ralph's big ideas usually take the form of half-baked get-rich-quick schemes which invariably fail, much to the chagrin of his long-suffering wife, Alice (Gabrielle Union). But Ralph always has a loyal ally in his best friend and upstairs neighbor, Ed Norton (Mike Epps), a sewer worker who also has a wife who is weary of his antics, Trixie (Regina Hall). Alice and Trixie have a plan to come up with the down payment for a dream house: a suburban duplex that's being eyed by a shady developer (Eric Stoltz). But when Ralph and Ed decide to spend their savings on training a stray mutt for the New Jersey dog races, they threaten both couples' futures. Based on the classic Jackie Gleason and Art Carney series, The Honeymooners also stars John Leguizamo. ~ Mark Deming, All Movie Guide

ER costar Ming-Na is cast as Li Mei Nu, an immigrant woman in search of her missing sister Jiao Wu. The authorities are also interested in catching up with Li Wu, who has apparently abandoned two of her daughters in a squalid apartment. As the SVU detectives pursue the case, it becomes clear that the missing woman was being persecuted by an alien-smuggling gang which uses its "customers" as sweatshop workers and sex slaves. Unfortunately, none of the gang's victims are willing to cooperate with the detectives--especially after Li Mei is savagely beaten on the orders of a corrupt customs attorney. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

East and West team up to take on bad guys in the British Empire in this sequel to the action comedy hit Shanghai Noon. Chon Wang (Jackie Chan), once an Imperial Guard in China, is now the Sheriff of Carson City, NV, while his onetime cohort, former train robber Roy O'Bannon (Owen Wilson), scrapes together a living writing dime novels based on his adventures and waiting tables in New York City. However, when Wang learns that his father was killed by bandits who broke into the Emperor's palace and stole the Imperial Seal, he's determined to bring the criminals to justice. Wang's sister Lin (Fann Wong) has learned that the killers have escaped to London, so Wang travels to England to meet her, with O'Bannon in tow. As Wang and Lin -- whose martial arts skills rival those of her brother -- look for the culprits, they discover that Lord Rathbone (Aidan Gillen), who is looking to shorten his path of succession to the British throne, is in cahoots with Wu Chan (Donnie Yen), the bastard son of the Chinese Emperor's father, who needs the Imperial Seal as part of his plan to win control of the nation. As Wang and Lin try to get to the bottom of Chan's schemes, O'Bannon finds himself infatuated with his pal's sister. While set in Victorian London, Shanghai Knights was actually filmed on locations in the former Czech Republic, which more closely resembled turn-of-the-century England. ~ Mark Deming, All Movie Guide

Detectives Martin Riggs (Mel Gibson) and Roger Murtaugh (Danny Glover) reteamed for their fourth foray together in this buddy-cop action-comedy series based on characters created by Shane Black. With the passage of years, Murtagh's daughter Rianne (Traci Wolfe) is now about to upgrade Murtagh to grandfather status, while Riggs' relationship with Internal Affairs officer Lorna Cole (Rene Russo) means he'll become a proud papa. Elsewhere on the family front, Chinese triad members in Los Angeles smuggle families from the mainland, but this is only one item on the criminal agenda of triad leader Wah Sing Ku (Jet Li), who executes balletic martial arts maneuvers with blinding speed (fight sequences were staged by Hong Kong director Corey Yuen). The film opens with fire (when Riggs and Murtaugh encounter a flame-thrower in a bulletproof suit) and travels an entertaining popcorn plot path to a frightening, watery climax (which we won't reveal here). In between, Riggs and Murtaugh tackle the troublesome triads with an assist from wickedly witty, sharp-edged newcomer Lee Butters (Chris Rock) and private detective Leo Getz (Joe Pesci), the character first seen as a mob accountant in the second film of this highly popular series. ~ Bhob Stewart, All Movie Guide

When kickboxer Drew Carson gets humiliated at a local kick-boxing contest, he heads to China to up his credentials. Although he finds no open invite in the Eastern kick capitals, his persistence is rewarded and he's becomes an initiate. ~ Iotis Erlewine, All Movie Guide

Woody Allen's character study of a well-kept, upscale Manhattan woman (Mia Farrow) takes the title character on a journey through a Wonderland of her own making, in which she learns some truths about herself, her relationships, and the universe in general. Alice leads a comfortable life, except for some nagging aches and pains, but when she visits the mysterious Dr. Yang (Keye Luke), he discovers that what really ails Alice is her own lack of true human experience. Alice has been married for sixteen years to Doug (William Hurt), an emotionally detached stockbroker, and she lives a perfectly maintained life in a perfectly maintained apartment, with a pair of children and the requisite support staff. All that changes when a chance meeting with a neighbor (Joe Mantegna) leads Alice to consider an affair. Dr. Yang, seizing the opportunity, gives Alice herbal potions that make her both invisible and seductive, allowing her to free herself from her inhibitions. Plunging into her new fantasy world, Alice ultimately comes to terms with her family, her husband, and her life. ~ Don Kaye, All Movie Guide

Directed by Susan Seidelman and written by Alice Arlen and Nora Ephron, Cookie comes across as an inconsequential piece of fluff, bolstered by a quirky performance by Emily Lloyd. Lloyd is Cookie Capisco, the daughter of mobster Dino Capisco (Peter Falk), who has just finished thirteen years in prison. Dino wants to get out of jail, settle some old scores, and make up for lost time with his daughter. His illegitimate daughter, that is -- since Cookie's mother, Lenore (Dianne Wiest), has been Dino's longtime mistress. Dino's actual wife Bunny (Brenda Vaccaro) has, he thinks, been kept in the dark about Dino's mistress and his daughter. Dino decides that the best way to get to know Cookie is to hire her as his chauffeur. With her ears attuned to the conspiracies floating around Dino, she quickly discovers that her father's old crony, Carmine (Michael V. Gazzo), has been swindling him and that Dino's life is in jeopardy. ~ Paul Brenner, All Movie Guide

Michael Keaton stars as a wheeler-dealer who hopes to save a failing Pennsylvania automobile-assembly factory from having to close its doors. Keaton persuades a Japanese auto firm to reopen the factory, retrain its staff, and streamline the operation. It isn't long before the American-born workers grow to resent the disciplinary demands of their new Japanese bosses, setting the stage for a comic clash of cultures. The day is saved when it turns out that the poker-faced owner of the auto company possesses a really strange sense of humor. Gung Ho was later spun off into a short-lived TV sitcom, starring Scott Bakula of Quantum Leap fame. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

High-powered gangsters move this crime drama along at a fast pace. When two cops, Eddie Jillette (Richard Gere) and Joe Collins (Gary Basaraba), hear about a contract out on local crime boss Losado (Jeroen Krabbe), they go undercover posing as hitmen, and the result is murder. Collins and the man who hired them, Paul Deveneux (Terry Kinney) are killed, and Jillette goes looking for the assassin. He ends up in New Orleans where he locates Michel Duval (Kim Basinger), the girlfriend of Deveneux now virtually held a prisoner by Losado. Jillette has his work cut out for him. ~ Eleanor Mannikka, All Movie Guide

A petite New Jersey housewife finds self-fulfillment through amnesia in this new wave comedy of errors set in New York's hip '80s downtown scene. Rosanna Arquette stars as Roberta, who turns to the personals for vicarious thrills after her four-year marriage to staid hot tub salesman Gary (Mark Blum) grows stale. Her favorite classified ads trace the romance of Jim (Robert Joy), a struggling musician, and Susan (Madonna), a SoHo vamp who's just narrowly escaped being murdered alongside one of her other boyfriends -- a gangster who recently stole some Egyptian jewelry. Through a series of complicated missteps, Roberta ends up losing her memory and convincing both herself and a broodingly handsome young man named Dez (Aiden Quinn) that she's the elusive, adventurous Susan. Soon, Roberta finds herself being romanced by Dez and pursued separately by her husband, Jim, Susan, and by a murderous mobster who's looking for the stolen jewels. For her second feature outing, which was partially inspired by Jacques Rivette's Celine and Julie Go Boating, director Susan Seidelman filled her cast with hipster extras, downtown personalities, and New York thespians. Notable faces include comedian Steven Wright; future indie mainstay John Turturro; future TV stars Michael Badalucco and Laurie Metcalf; punk singer Richard Hell, who also starred in Seidelman's Smithereens; and performance artist Ann Magnunson, who would star in the director's Making Mr. Right. The big dance-club sequence was filmed at Danceteria, the disco that helped launch Madonna's career. The scene, and the film, helped propel "Into the Groove," one of the singer's all-time club classics, into the charts even though it was actually a b-side to the single "Angel." ~ Brian J. Dillard, All Movie Guide

Combining electric song and dance performances with drama (both on and off screen), Francis Ford Coppola's The Cotton Club (1984) looks back to the 1920s-1930s peak of the legendary Harlem nightclub where only blacks performed and only whites could sit in the audience. Mixing historical figures with characters loosely based on actual people, Coppola and co-writers William Kennedy and The Godfather's Mario Puzo create a panorama of love, crime, and entertainment centered on the Club. Among them are cornet player Dixie Dwyer (Richard Gere, playing his own solos), who escapes psycho gangster "benefactor" Dutch Schultz (James Remar) for a George Raft-type Hollywood career as a gangster film star; Schultz's nubile mistress Vera Cicero (Diane Lane), who loves Dixie against her mercenary instincts; Cotton Club Mob owner Owney Madden (Bob Hoskins) and close associate Frenchy Demarge (Fred Gwynne); Vincent (Nicolas Cage), Dixie's no-good Mad Dog Coll-esque brother; Club tap star Sandman Williams (Gregory Hines), who woos ambitious light-skinned Club singer Lila Rose Oliver (Lonette McKee); and cameos by Charles "Honi" Coles and Cab Calloway impersonator Larry Marshall. Complementing the period story, Coppola evokes the style of '30s gangster movies and musicals through an array of old-fashioned devices like montages of headlines, songs and shoot-outs. Conceived by producer Robert Evans as his crowning achievement and directorial debut, Evans had to hand over the troubled production to Coppola, but the budget spiraled out of control as the script was repeatedly re-written throughout the chaotic shoot. By the time it was released, The Cotton Club's epic production story of power struggles, financial bloat, and even a murder overshadowed the "reunion" of The Godfather's creative team. Neither a Heaven's Gate-sized failure nor a wallet-saving hit like Coppola's Apocalypse Now, The Cotton Club got some favorable critical notices (although it drew fire for subordinating the African American stories). It did not, however, find a large enough audience to justify its expense and controversy, becoming another mark against 1970s "auteur" cinema in increasingly blockbuster-driven 1980s Hollywood. ~ Lucia Bozzola, All Movie Guide