Chao Li Chi Movies
Eddie Murphy gives one of Jerry Lewis' best-remembered vehicles a 1990s overhaul in this hit comedy. Sherman Klump (Murphy) is a college professor and respected biochemistry researcher who is kind, considerate, and a genuinely nice guy. Sherman is also appallingly overweight; coupled with the fact that he's painfully shy and a bit clumsy, his romantic prospects are rather bleak. When Sherman finds himself working with a pretty graduate student, Carla Purty (Jada Pinkett), he falls in love and is eager to impress her, but at an upscale nightclub, his weight attracts the attention of an insult comic (Dave Chappelle) and his bumbling spoils the evening. Sherman's latest project is a genetic weight loss formula, and despondent over his failure to win Carla's heart, he subjects himself to a massive dose. Suddenly, Sherman is transformed into the slim, trim, and handsome Buddy Love; however, the drug also boosts his testosterone level, turning the likable Sherman into the arrogant, skirt-chasing Buddy. In addition to playing Sherman and Buddy, Eddie Murphy also plays four other members of the porcine Klump family, as well as eccentric exercise guru Lance Perkins. ~ Mark Deming, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Eddie Murphy, Jada Pinkett Smith, (more)
Director Wayne Wang and screenwriter Ronald Bass effectively interweave sixteen mother-daughter tales in their silken film version of Amy Tan's best-selling novel about the clash between generations. The film takes place in present-day San Francisco, concentrating on a group of late-middle-aged Chinese women. Ever since arriving in the United States after World War II, the women have gathered weekly to play mah-jongg and to tell stories, regaling each other with tales of their children and grandchildren, giving each other a sense of hope and renewal in the midst of poverty and hardship. The Joy Luck Club is made up of four women -- Suyuan (Kieu Chinh), Lindo (Tsai Chin), Ying Ying (France Nuyen), and An Mei (Lisa Lu). But when Suyuan dies, the three surviving members invite Suyuan's daughter June (Ming-Na Wen) to take her place. Along with the daughters of the other members -- Waverly (Tamlyn Tomita), Lena (Lauren Tom), and Rose (Rosalind Chao) -- June is a Chinese-American with only a passing interest in her rich cultural heritage. But through vignettes that switch back and forth in time, the daughters begin to appreciate the struggles of their mothers to start their families in the optimistic promise of the United States. ~ Paul Brenner, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Tsai Chin, Kieu Chinh, (more)
The brief but eventful life of actor and martial arts trailblazer Bruce Lee is portrayed in this drama, based on a biography written by his widow Linda Lee Caldwell. Lee is introduced to the study of martial arts as a child living in Hong Kong by his father (Ric Young); the father dreamed that a demonic armored dragon would take his son from him, and wanted young Bruce to be able to protect himself. Bruce continues his training as he grows to adulthood, and after the cocky teenaged Lee (Jason Scott Lee, no relation to Bruce) seriously injures a prominent British citizen while fighting a gang of troublemakers at a dance, he's sent to San Francisco. While working as a dishwasher, Bruce begins to study philosophy, and in time develops a personal martial arts discipline, Jeet Kune-Do, which blends Kung Fu fighting techniques with lessons gained from his philosophical research. Bruce decides to open a martial arts academy on the advice of his fiancée Linda (Lauren Holly); Linda and Bruce encounter resistance as a mixed-race couple, especially from Linda's mother Vivian (Michael Learned), and Bruce earns the enmity of traditional Chinese martial arts experts for his new style. But after a strong showing in several public tournaments, Bruce's fighting skill and charisma attracts the attention of TV producer Bill Krieger (Robert Wagner). Bruce is cast as Kato, the karate-trained sidekick on the series The Green Hornet, and while the show is short-lived in America, it's a huge success in Asia, leading to a series of films based around Bruce's remarkable fighting skills. Sadly, shortly before the release of the film that would make him a major screen star in the United States, Enter The Dragon, a mysterious brain disorder sends Lee into a coma that soon kills him. In a tragedy with eerie timing, Bruce Lee's real-life son Brandon Lee died shortly before this film was released, the result of an accidental shooting while completing the picture The Crow. ~ Mark Deming, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Jason Scott Lee, Lauren Holly, (more)
- 1991
Sarah Pillsbury and Midge Sanford, the producing team responsible for the theatrical-movie "sleeper" The River's Edge, were the mentors of the made-for-TV Seeds of Tragedy. Filmed in semi-documentary fashion, the story involves a single cache of cocaine, from creation to consumption. The coca leaves are initially harvested by poor farmers in the Peruvian Andes. The coca moves forward to a small-time Amazon trader; then it is powdered under the supervision of a Colombian gangster, and finally it winds up on the mean streets of LA. Partially filmed in Mexico with a cast of relative unknowns, Seeds of Tragedy was an unusually potent entry in the Fox Network's "Monday Night Movie" series. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
Playing in a manner that can be conservatively described as larger than life, Kurt Russell plays a macho truck driver who agrees to go to the San Francisco airport and pick up his friend's (Dennis Dun) fiancee (Suzee Pai, freshly arrived from China. Suddenly, a gang of Chinatown toughs kidnap the girl right before Russell's eyes. After a wild chase sequence, Russell discovers that the girl has been abducted by a genuine, bonafide sorceror (James Hong), the ghost of a 3000 year old warlord. And that's just for starters. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Kurt Russell, Kim Cattrall, (more)
At the suggestion of Charles (David Ogden Stiers), Margaret (Loretta Swit) prepares to bury a time capsule at the 4077th. Hawkeye volunteers to help collect souvenirs for the capsule, but Margaret turns him down, worried that he will turn the whole ceremony into joke. Before Hawk inevitably proves that his intentions are honorable, Klinger (Jamie Farr) develops a fondness for Soon-Li Hahn (Rosalind Chao), a wounded Korean woman suspected of being an enemy sniper. Originally telecast as the next-to-last installment of M*A*S*H (though actually filmed after the series' celebrated feature-length finale), "As Time Goes By" is dedicated to the memory of the series' late technical advisor Dr. Connie Izay. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
- 1981
The plan was to develop a Star Wars type TV series with heavy injections of Sword N Sorcery. The title of the pilot was Archer: Fugitive From the Empire (the Archer part was lopped off when the film went into syndication). Soap opera refugee Lane Caudell plays a prince on a faraway planet who has been accused of murdering his father. The deed was actually perpetrated by the king's nephew and an evil warrior, but the Prince can prove this only if he goes on a quest (naturally) to find a beneficent sorcerer. Belinda Bauer, wearing next to nothing, is the "Princess Leia/Red Sonja" of this saga. Archer: Fugitive From the Empire resulted in a very short-lived (and presumably very costly) series, which ran for about half a minute in mid-1981. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
Fresh off the success of Breaking Away(1979), writer Steve Tesich and director Peter Yates re-team on a thriller starring a young William Hurt as a janitor infatuated with television reporter Sigourney Weaver. When she arrives at his building to interview the tenants about a murder that's occurred on the premises, the janitor, having discovered the body, implies that he knows more than he's saying in order to keep the newswoman interested. Although he reveals nothing more, she does become interested in him, and when her nefarious aristocratic boyfriend (Christopher Plummer) learns from the unwitting woman that there's someone with knowledge of the murder, he's more concerned about what Hurt might know than about her relationship with him. Meanwhile, his paranoid, loose cannon of a friend James Woods has managed to get himself incriminated, although he had no involvement in the case. Hurt and Weaver continue to investigate the murder together, and as they become more closely entwined, both of their lives are put in jeopardy. ~ Michael Costello, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- William Hurt, Sigourney Weaver, (more)
After the death of Bruce Lee in 1973, writer/director Robert Clouse made several attempts to reproduce the success of his Enter the Dragon, which belatedly made Lee a household name in America. Clouse felt (with good reason) that Jackie Chan could be the next big martial arts star in America, and he crafted this feature with him in mind. Jerry Kwan (Chan) is a Korean immigrant trying to make good in Chicago in the 1930s. Work isn't easy to find for an Asian immigrant. Jerry is forced by Domenici (Jose Ferrer), a well-connected mobster, to represent him in a no-holds-barred, winner-take-all battle in Texas. But can Jerry handle the pressure? The Big Brawl was Jackie Chan's first starring role in an American film, but Chan wouldn't break through in the United States until the 1996 U.S. release of Rumble in the Bronx. ~ Mark Deming, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Jackie Chan, José Ferrer, (more)
- 1979
Missing his own wife and children B.J. (Mike Farrell) becomes a surrogate father for an impoverished Korean family. In fact, B.J. spends so much time with his "adoptive" clan that he begins neglecting his duties at the 4077th--not to mention his own health. A climactic medical crisis brings B.J. back to earth, but there is a profound price to pay emotionally. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
- 1964
Two 70 year old twin sisters are identical in every way except for their outlook on life. One gladly accepts her life as a grandmother working as a cashier in a grocery store. The other is an unhappy rich woman, superstitious and prone to complaining about imagined illness. Maybelle Nash plays the dual role of the women who are alike in appearance only in this independent film produced, directed and written by Jerome Hill. ~ Dan Pavlides, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Maybelle Nash, Alec Wilder, (more)
- 1948
One of the earliest non-commercial films on the subject of martial arts, Chinese master Chao-Li Chi performs Tai Chi for Maya Deren's camera to a spare soundtrack combining Chinese flute and Haitian drum music. Of her films, Meditation on Violence was the title least satisfying to Deren, but the subject still has considerable appeal outside of the experimental genre with which she is commonly identified. ~ David Lewis, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Chao Li Chi
