Film

Movie theaters, reviews and showtimes in New York, plus articles, trailers and more

 

The Red Lotus Society (1994)

Director: Stan Lai

Average user rating
No reviews

Movie review

From Time Out Film Guide

More cinematic but less sure-footed than Lai's first film The Peach-Blossom Land, this anatomy of the Chinese obsession with keys to 'secret knowledge' suggests that the whole city of Taipei has lost the plot. A young language tape salesman decides to find someone to teach him 'vaulting' - the art of achieving weightlessness, as described in countless martial arts movies and novels - and scours the city for three surviving masters from the legendary Red Lotus Society who are rumoured to be living ordinary lives under assumed identities. Very beautifully shot by Chris Doyle, but not persuasive enough as a vision of reality for the characters' superstitions and paranoias to seem justified.

Author: TR 0000-00-00 00:00:00

Time Out Film Guide


  • Print this page
  • Send to a friend

What do you think?
Post your review now

clear rating
Min 1 star. Zero stars will be treated as unrated.

*mandatory fields


Cast & crew

Director: Stan Lai

Producer: Wang Ying-Hsiang

Cast: Ying Zhaode, Chen Wenming, Na Weixun, Li Tongcun, Li Lijin full cast

Duration: 120 mins




Features

Making a name for himself

Making a name for himself

Sin Nombre's Cary Joji Fukunaga learned his lessons well.

To the letter

Forty years later, Costa-Gavras's Z still brims with fury.

Mind over matter

David Cronenberg reflects on a most bizarre body: his own corpus of work.

Fool's gold

Can an Oscar win lead to a cursed career? Here are five stories of postaward professional meltdowns.

We are the championed

Terrorists and teens abound in this year's "Film Comment Selects."

A history of violence

Matteo Garrone's kaleidoscopic Gomorrah wallops you with Italy's crime crisis.

True romantic

James Gray exchanges urban amorality for amour in Two Lovers.

Playing in the dark

MoMA salutes pianist Stuart Oderman's 50 years as the one-man sound of silents.

Junk bonds

Cast and crew recall the making of the classic NYC drug drama The Panic in Needle Park.