Sylvia Chang Movies

A traditional Chinese legend comes in for lavish treatment in this (relatively) big-budget Hong Kong film. In the story, Ho is a scholar in Sung Dynasty (11th century) China. He has been given the task of making a finished copy of a religious text. It is a tantric sutra, and he is warned that evil spirits will attempt to steal the finished copy from him. One day, he encounters Lady Chuan and his lively daughter Cloud, and has a delightful love affair. In the end, he is appalled to discover that he has been consorting with ghosts. ~ Clarke Fountain, All Movie Guide

(Eddie Chan) plays a murderous salesman in this Hong Kong suspense-thriller about a mind gone haywire. When he discovers his wife has been seeing a lover in their own house, he kills both of them and then goes to jail for the crime. After he serves his prison term, the salesman looks like an ordinary person but he goes berserk when he sees any woman wearing the nylons that his wife used to prefer -- and rage takes over, leading to a killing spree. Although he cannot get away with his crimes forever, in the meantime, his activities provide enough fear to keep a viewer's attention from drifting to the bag of popcorn. ~ Eleanor Mannikka, All Movie Guide

Two estranged friends reunite and end up reminiscing, dreaming, and sharing their deepest secrets in this Taiwanese drama. One of the friends is a successful concert pianist just back from a European tour. The other is a divorcee who has just started a new business. The two haven't seen each other for over 13 years. ~ Sandra Brennan, All Movie Guide

In this Hong Kong melodrama, two sisters are part of a cabaret act that is rapidly declining in attendance, and although the older sister (Chang Shio-yen) is constantly trying to push her younger sister to the forefront in a solo act, the younger sibling is less than enthusiastic. She sees little future in show business, whether in the chorus line or up front -- and so when her older sister finally pulls off a deal for the two to go to Taipei and possibly make some "real money," the younger sister must say yes or no, and either way, one of the two will not be happy. ~ Eleanor Mannikka, All Movie Guide

Melodramatic and maudlin by Western standards, this movie is about a poor bottle collector who finds an abandoned baby one morning and decides to raise her as his own child. While she is growing up, it becomes clear that she has an excellent singing voice and by the time she is an adult, her talent is discovered and she is on her way to stardom. Her new lifestyle precludes visits to her adopted father and her friends, and as a series of tragedies occur, everyone suffers. Meanwhile, the father is getting older and rightly feels abandoned by his successful daughter - with no apparent remedy to his unhappy situation. ~ Eleanor Mannikka, All Movie Guide

The ironic title of this undistinguished farce literally means "the affair of a lifetime," or marriage. Keeping that in mind, the future of an up-and-coming advertising designer (Tao Limin) depends on his ability to find a wife -- and soon, as of yesterday -- in order to get a lucrative account for a hyped-up rejuvenating potion. Beset by an unnatural tendency to have accidents, the poor guy goes through a phalanx of women: hookers, liberated artists, and rather unwieldy specimens of femininity, and it still looks like he will never find a mate.
~ Eleanor Mannikka, All Movie Guide

Popular Hong Kong action filmmaker Ringo Lam (City on Fire and Replicant) reputedly directed this third of four official sequels to 1982's Aces Go Places only as a favor to star Karl Maka, and it shows. King Kong (Sam Hui) once again joins bald detective Albert Au (Maka) and his son Baldy Jr. as they fly to New Zealand to save Albert's wife (Sylvia Chang) from a gang of crooks who have kidnapped her. The crooks, led by Ronald Lacey in a send-up of his role in Raiders of the Lost Ark, are trying to get control of an experimental prism which they need for a machine which turns men into indestructible super-beings. The film is dark, violent, and not quite as funny as previous installments, and the goofy subtitles call Sylvia Chang's character "Sylvia" instead of "Nancy." Still, there is a good supporting cast of genre veterans like Sally Yeh, Kwan Tak-hing, and Cho Tat-wah to please Asian film buffs and Lam keeps the film moving at a speedy clip. The official series ended with the next installment, 1989's Aces Go Places V: The Terracotta Hit, but was revived eight years later with a new cast in the subpar 97 Aces Go Places. ~ Robert Firsching, All Movie Guide

Famously rotund kung fu master Sammo Hung Yuen-ting stars in this bittersweet drama about Slim, New York City taxi driver who fled his native China during the height of the Cultural Revolution. Though he has only written home once during the sixteen years abroad, Slim ventures back home. Upon arrival, he learns that his sister is having a second child in direct defiance of China's often draconian birth control policy. His journey back to his village is pampered by his attractive, yet thick, cousin Jenny (Sylvia Chang Ai-chia) who has no sense of direction. Once he finally sees his family, Slim finds himself battling feelings of guilt along with feelings for his cousin. Unfortunately, Jenny is betrothed and her wedding is near. ~ Jonathan Crow, All Movie Guide

In this drama, three Chinese women with vastly different backgrounds get acquainted and become friends amid the social desolation of New York. Chao Hong (Sichingowa) is from mainland China, and has come to marry a Chinese man with American citizenship. Aside from the difficulties of being newly married to a virtual stranger, she suffers from separation from her family and her homeland. Wang Hsiung Ping (Sylvia Chang) was an actress in Taiwan, and has come to New York to be with her American boyfriend. Now she has broken up with him, and is not at all certain what she wants to do. Li Feng Jiao (Maggie Cheung) is financially secure, as she owns a restaurant in the U.S. and has property in the U.S. and in Hong Kong - but she is too busy to have a romantic life. ~ Clarke Fountain, All Movie Guide

A Hui (Michael Hui) is a petty, stingy man who owns a restaurant specializing in a certain kind of duck dish. Although the restaurant is filthy, thanks in part to the unspeakable habits of its chef, and the service is awful, the food is good, and he has a loyal clientele. That is, until an international chain opens up a fried chicken restaurant across the street, and hires his admittedly incompetent headwaiter to parade back and forth across the street in a chicken costume to advertise the place. Now his customers are departing in droves. In this comedy, this classic tightwad is forced to take notice and meet the challenge of his competition. ~ Clarke Fountain, All Movie Guide

International action star Jackie Chan stars opposite knockabout comedy sensation Jackie Chan in this story about identical twins separated in childhood who are unexpectedly reunited years later. While on the run from a Hong Kong hospital, an escaped convict takes an infant hostage, leaving the baby's identical twin brother behind. While the criminal is soon back behind bars, the police can't find the baby, who was hidden in the woods. The child is found by a well-meaning but hard-drinking woman who raises him on her own, while his brother moves to the United States with his parents. Years later, the brother raised in America, John (Jackie Chan), is a world-renowned classical musician, while the other, Boomer (Chan again), is a rough-and-tumble auto mechanic who likes to race cars and start fights. When Boomer's best friend hatches a dubious scheme to win the freedom of a nightclub singer (Maggie Cheung) in dutch with gangsters, he finds himself involved and in danger, just in time for John to arrive in Hong Kong for a concert appearance. The two brothers soon meet by accident, and suddenly finds themselves mistaken for each other. On one hand, both are pleased with the romantic possibilities, as John takes a shine to the nightclub chanteuse and Boomer discovers John's girlfriend is turned on by his more physical personality. On the other hand, John finds people are shooting at him, while Boomer is now expected to conduct an orchestra. Two of Hong Kong's leading directors, Ringo Lam and Tsui Hark, teamed for this action comedy, which was a major hit in Hong Kong in 1992, but didn't receive a wide theatrical release in the United States until seven years later. The 1999 American release was dubbed into English (with Chan doing his own voice) and trimmed to 89 minutes from the original running time of 100 minutes. ~ Mark Deming, All Movie Guide

As Larry Lau's gentle coming-of-age drama Three Summers opens, a young man with a difficult past leaves his present home in the city of Hong Kong and hearkens back to the fishing village of his youth. Against the backdrop of that locale, his young sister (Cherie Chan) has recently befriended a group of adolescents who visit the isle perennially - every summer - and who share their individual stories with her. One tale at a time, she begins to experience life vicariously through the others' recollections. ~ Nathan Southern, All Movie Guide