Painted Faces (1988) poster
1988 · drama · opera-school · sammo-hung

Painted Faces

Directed by Alex Law Kai-Yui1h 48m1988
  • warm

This is a story about the Peking Opera School that Jackie Chan, Samo Hung and Yuen Biao attended as young men. The story is about their teacher Master Yu and his school.

Our read · Painted Faces (1988) reads as a warm, steady, grounded drama · opera-school · sammo-hung entry — measured in intensity, intimate in scope, tender in temperature, ambivalent in outlook. Hand-scored on twelve axes of taste — mood, pacing, weirdness, hope, stakes, humour, reality, density, warmth, auteur, intensity, and era — with a derived palette drawn from its dominant cinematography.

Cast
Sammo Hung Kam-BoLam Ching-YingCheng Pei-PeiLee Din-HingYeung Yam-Yin
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Availability in the US · via JustWatch

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The shape of Painted Faces

DNA · twelve axes

The reading.

Each axis is hand-scored — not derived from votes or genre averages. The marker shows where this film sits; the gradient fill uses the film's own cinematography palette.

Mood · HeavyCosy
Pacing · Slow-burnKinetic
Intensity · GentleExtreme
Weirdness · ConventionalSurreal
Hope · NihilisticRedemptive
Stakes · IntimateEpic
Humour · NoneBroad
Reality · GroundedFantastical
Density · SparseTwisty
Warmth · ColdTender
Auteur · TransparentSignature
Nearest by DNA

Eight films that read most like this one.

Geometric closeness in the twelve-axis space — pure DNA distance, not “people also liked.” Distance numbers are listed under each title for sceners who like to know the maths.

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