Survive Yesterday: Back to the Past (2026) Review

Directors: Ng Yuen-Fai, Jack Lai

Notable Cast: Louis Koo, Raymond Lam, Bai Baihe, Jessica Hsuan, Sonija Kwok Sin-Nae, Joyce Tang Lai-Ming, Michael Miu Kiu-Wai, Louis Cheung, Kevin Chu, Wu Yue, Timmy Hung Tin-Ming, Chris Collins, Liu Kai-Chi, John Tang Yat-Kwan, Michelle Saram

I suppose, deep down in my lizard brain, I knew this was coming, but the ‘legacy sequel’ trend that has exploded in Hollywood over the last decade or so is creeping over to Hong Kong and China. Not that they haven’t dabbled in it before, I certainly remember From Vegas to Macau, but I certainly didn’t expect there to be a movie sequel to the early 00s TV drama, A Step into the Past. Yet, here we are with Back to the Past, a strange combination of big-scale silver screen spectacle and made-for-TV movie melodrama that moves at breakneck speed and manages to entertain despite relying so heavily on its audience's memory of the original show. It’s the kind of love letter sequel that will have some viewers clamoring and others scratching their heads.

It’s been 20 years since Hong Siu-lung, played by the always reliable Louis Koo, was left stranded in the era of the Qin Dynasty. He’s raised a family, but he lives knowing that his protege, Chiu Poon, played by a very intensely scowly Ramond Lam, has become the Emperor and may come after him and his family at any time. When other future travelers come back in time to steal antiques to bring back to the future (time pirates?) Hong is forced to face off against Chiu once again - and possibly find a new path back to his time. 

Bullet Break Dancing: Baby Assassins 3 (2025)

Director: Yugo Sakamoto

Notable Cast: Akari Takaishi, Saori Izawa, Atomu Mizuishi, Tomo Nakai, Mondo Otani, Sosuke Ikematsu, Atsuko Maeda, Kaibashira, Karuma, Mr. Bunny, Satoshi Kibe

 

If there was ever an action franchise that I would watch for eternity, quality be damned, it’s definitely the Baby Assassins series. While I thoroughly enjoyed both of the first two entries into this strange mixture of slacker comedy and highly choreographed assassin action, this latest entry, Baby Assassins 3 (or Baby Assassins: Nice Days, as it was released in some markets), is perhaps the best of the lot. Not only does it continue to thread the needle with its two off-kilter genres mashed together, but there’s an extra layer of nuance and emotional payoff that lifts this above its predecessors. 

 

In preparation for this film, I rewatched the previous two entries over the course of a couple of weeks prior. It’s strange that for a series that has primarily been made by the same creatives, including writer/director Yugo Sakamoto (who also delivered the highly entertaining horror action hybrid Yellow Dragon’s Village), this one just feels so much more cinematic. Not only in its visual stylings, which grow more refined as the series goes on, but also in the writing. It’s a prime example of a case where the team behind this series is simply getting better at making these movies, despite never having had a misstep. 

Follow the Bloodline: Hell House LLC: Lineage (2025)

Director: Stephen Cognetti

Notable Cast: Elizabeth Vermilyea, Sierra Sawka, Mike Sutton, Joe Bandelli, Cayla Berejikian, Victoria Andrunik, Gideon Berger, Bridget Rose Perrotta, Destiny Leilani Brown

 

For a series that found its success for being an incredibly effective blend of documentary and found footage horror, it’s certainly baffling to some degree that director Stephen Cognetti would abandon the style for the “final” entry into the Hell House LLC series. He had already dabbled in narrative/traditional filmmaking with his first film outside of Hell House, the already-forgotten 825 Forest Road, so to come back to Hell House and NOT continue with the style that he found success in really does make one scratch their noggin. 

 

The fifth - and again supposedly final - entry, Hell House LLC: Lineage, has its audience return to the layers of lore established by the previous four entries as Vanessa (from Hell House LLC III) and Alicia (Hell House LLC Origins) tentatively team up to put together the entire story and find out what the hell is killing people in Abaddon and try and put an end to it. 

 

The Tragedy of Fate: Hunter in the Dark (1979) Review

Director: Hideo Gosha

Notable Cast: Tatsuya Nakadai, Yoshio Harada, Keiko Kishi, Ayumi Ishida, Makoto Fujita, Sonny Chiba, Isao Natsuyagi, Kayo Matsuo, Ai Kanzaki, Tatsuo Umemiya, Hajime Hana, Tetsuro Tamba, Koji Takusho

 

It’s a simple shot, towards the end of Hideo Gosha’s late-70s chanbara epic Hunter in the Dark, that really encapsulates the director's artistry and his take on various genres. A young woman sits leaning over a gravely injured lover. Not to spoil too much about the scene, but it’s a classic sequence where she begs him to get up, not to die, and he responds in the well-trodden “go, you need to go” kind of sacrificial statements. Truthfully, it’s not the best-written scene; it’s carried by two incredibly strong performances, but then Gosha does what Gosha does. He shoots it while slowly pulling the camera back, encircling the two characters in their square of light as the blackness around them grows, slowly shrinking the scene as it plays out until it's barely a fifth of the screen. By the end of it, it’s two characters, bared to the truth, both in denial about their respective places, and they are completely boxed in by the blackness around them.

I cried. Full on, tears down the face, cried.