Joey Wong Movies

This Southern Gothic drama of a deeply troubled family was written by leading man David Steen, who adapted the screenplay from his own play. Ma Samuals (Sharon Farrell) lives in a poor section of rural North Carolina during the 1970s. Her slightly retarded son Charlie (Steen) was the product of an incestuous relationship with her uncle, a preacher who seduced her when she was only 12; despite this experience, Ma remains a devout Fundamentalist Christian. Ma also lives with her adopted daughter, Messy (Gigi Rice), though it's obvious that Charlie is the favored child, and Messy is often the target for Ma's abuse. When Cousin Anna (Sarah Trigger) is orphaned, she comes to stay with the Samuals family, which upsets the household's already shaky emotional balance. Ma disapproves of Messy's new friendship with Anna, believing she's a poor influence on her daughter, and when Anna begins spending time with Charlie, her obsessive love for her son (which has already spilled over into incest) threatens to push her over the brink. A Gift from Heaven marked the feature debut for both screenwriter Steen and director Jack Lucarelli. ~ Mark Deming, All Movie Guide

Jeff Lau Chun-wai spins this wild and woolly parody of Wong Kar-wai's martial arts epic Ashes of Time, which was actually produced by Wong himself and features many of the same cast members as Ashes. This loosely plotted film centers around the misdeeds of a pair of royals (Tony Leung Chiu-wai and Veronica Yip) looking to usurp the throne. Also appearing in this film is the bubble-headed Third Princess (Brigitte Ling Ching-hsia) who martial arts ability is dubious at best, a mysterious flying head (Tony Leung Kar-fai), and the dreaded kung fu form "Toad Has a Pee Pee." Because of Ashes' notoriously difficult production, Dong Cheng actually beat the film to the theaters. ~ Jonathan Crow, All Movie Guide

Michelle Yeoh (aka Michelle Khan) began her comeback bid with this flamboyant Hong Kong action film from director Michael Mak and choreographer Ching Siu-tung. Based on a novel by Ku Long, previously filmed in 1976 as Killer Clans, the film stars Yeoh as Sister Ko, part of the Happy Forest clan led by the dying eunuch Tsao. Before he expires, Tsao orders Ko and her friends to kill the head of the Elite Villa clan, Master Suen (Elvis Tsui), and steal a precious scroll. Yip Cheung (Donnie Yen) leads the first assault and fails, so Ko gets the skilled killer Sing (Tony Leung), whom she has a crush on, to help. Sing is engaged to Butterfly (Joey Wang), who has no idea that he is actually a trained assassin. When Sing infiltrates Master Suen's clan, he meets his childhood friend, Ho Ching (Yeh Chuan-chen), who is also working undercover for Sister Ko. Ho Ching's murder sets the stage for an angry encounter between Sing and Sister Ko, the final assault on the Elite Villa clan, and the revelation of a secret betrayal. Pop singer Jimmy Lin appears as Prince Cha; some of the fight scenes were later re-used in Chu Yen-ping's erotic Category III melodrama Slave of the Sword, which was filmed on the same sets later in the year. ~ Robert Firsching, All Movie Guide

This 1992 film is not to be confused with a 1983 feature with the same phonetic Chinese title. In this story, a grim and duty-mad judge enacts a horrific revenge on his wife for having cuckolded him. A decade and more later, the judge's daughter is raped and her husband is killed while they are on their way to visit him. He investigates the crimes to the best of his ability and interviews his two best suspects, who somebody goes to the trouble of killing after they have testified before him. Eventually, the ghosts of the dead get involved in sorting the whole thing out and something approaching genuine justice is, for once, on the agenda. ~ Clarke Fountain, All Movie Guide

This 1992 film is a live-action version of a popular Japanese comic book and animated series, transformed into a vehicle for international action hero Jackie Chan. Ryu Saeba (Chan), a womanizing private detective, is hired to find the runaway daughter of a wealthy businessman. Ryu's pursuit of the girl leads him to a cruise ship. Through coincidence, and a plot device borrowed from Die Hard, the ocean liner is hijacked, leaving Ryu to contend with the hostage takers as well as the elusive daughter. The action is satisfying, but standard fare for Chan, highlighted by a scene in which an onscreen battle between Bruce Lee and Kareem Abdul-Jabar from the film Game of Death plays on a movie screen in the background, while Chan and his opponents mimic the fight in the foreground. ~ Jonathan E. Laxamana, All Movie Guide

This is the third in a series of movies featuring creatures from Chinese ghost stories. It begins with a scene from the first movie of the series, which shows the hero in an epic conflict with something called the Tree Devil, which has been put to sleep for a hundred years. Now it is "later," and the story focuses on two traveling monks, a scholarly disciple and his aged master, who are traveling the countryside bearing an image of the Buddha to be given to a particular shrine. One night they stay at a haunted temple and become the focus of the amorous attentions of two sexy ghosts, who are in league with the Tree Devil. ~ Clarke Fountain, All Movie Guide

This continuation of A Chinese Ghost Story reunites some of the original cast. Ning Leslie Cheung, the wandering scholar from the first film, is mistakenly imprisoned. An old man helps him escape and gives him a medallion for good luck. Ning meets a group of rebels, and the medallion causes them to mistake him for the old man, who turns out to be a well-known sage. Joey Wong, who played the ghostly heroine in the first film, portrays Windy, the leader of the rebels. Ning falls in love with Windy because of her resemblance to his past love and joins in a struggle to save her father from an evil warlord. The romantic element is toned down from the original; this installment emphasizes outrageous martial arts sequences, creatures, and special effects. ~ Jonathan E. Laxamana, All Movie Guide

A woman is forced to pay a heavy price for the alluring impact she has on men in this erotically-charged drama from Hong Kong. During the Sung Dynasty of tenth century China, Lotus (Joi Wong) was the protagonist of a famous erotic novel in which she suffered remarkable abuses at the hands of the men in her life. After she is condemned to death, Lotus, known as "the slut of all time," pledges to return and take her revenge on the male gender. Ten centuries have passed, and Lotus has been reincarnated as a dance student living in China during the Cultural Revolution of 1968. When Lotus refuses to trade sex for help in launching her career as a professional, her teacher denounces her as a counter-revolutionary and circulates rumors that she's wildly promiscuous. Expelled from dancing school, Lotus takes a grueling job at a garment factory, where she falls in love with one of her co-workers, Wu Long (Lam Chun Yen), an amateur basketball player. Lotus scrapes up the money to buy him new shoes, but she's accused by authorities first of stealing the shoes, and then of betraying revolutionary ideals by wasting her money. After falling into prostitution, Lotus marries a businessman from Hong Kong, Wu Dai (Eric Tsang), only to discover that his brother is Wu Long, now working as his driver. Lotus steals away to a sex club one night to drown her sorrows in sensual excess, but she makes the mistake of meeting Simon (Sin Lap Man), a photographer who refuses to let Lotus alone after their night of passion. ~ Mark Deming, All Movie Guide

Legendary Hong Kong producer/director Tsui Hark and filmmaker Ching Siutung combine forces in this high-flying supernatural romance classic. Ning Caichen (Leslie Cheung) is a lowly tax collector who takes refuge for the night at the spooky Lam Ro temple. There he encounters and promptly falls in love with a beautiful ghost named Nie Xiaoqian (Joey Wang). Unfortunately Xiaoqian is damned to serve the evil hermaphroditic tree spirit Lao Lao, who (thanks to an extraordinarily long tongue) feasts on the souls of amorous young males. Usually Xiaoqian, along with her comely sister Qing, tempts would-be Lotharios to their arboreal doom, but she too is smitten with the downtrodden wanderer. Soon afterwards, Caichen meets Master Yan (Ma Wu), a Taoist hermit, martial arts master, and a sworn enemy of Lao Lao, who tells him of Xiaoqian's true, otherworldly nature. Nonetheless, true love proves to be strong. Caichen promises Xiaoqian that he will help spring her from her dubious employment and Xiaoqian protects her love from the evil wood sprite. Later, things grow more complicated for the lovers when they learn that Xiaoqian has been betrothed to a demon warlord. ~ Jonathan Crow, All Movie Guide

Hong Kong director Patrick Tam's Cantonese-language saga My Heart is That Eternal Rose explores the social dynamics and tumultuous life-changes that unfold between two young men who are fast friends - Cheung (Tony Leung) and Rick (Kenny Bee) - and the sexy young woman caught between them, Lap (Joey Wang). Rick and Lap became romantically involved years prior, when Rick worked at a bar owned by Lap's triad-connected gangster father. In time, for political reasons, it became necessary for Lap to put herself on the table as the mistress of Godfather Shen, and Lap inevitably drifted away from Rick while immersing herself in Shen's world. Lap then fell in love with someone else: Cheung, who worked as her driver. Six years pass, during which Rick establishes himself as a hired killer and temporarily loses touch with Lap. The lovers re-encounter one another, and fall back into love, prompting Lap to decide that she wants to leave Godfather Shen; Shen, however, won't let her - which sparks a bloody, tumultuous confrontation between the trio of friends-cum-lovers and Shen's minions. ~ Nathan Southern, All Movie Guide