We talk about Tsui Hark’s adaptation of a Cultural Revolutionary model play, The Taking of Tiger Mountain (2014), with five-time guest, reigning champ, last King of Scotland, conqueror of all the mountains, poet Yi Wu.
Bonus: Vanguard
We review Jackie Chan’s mid-pandemic release, Vanguard, and talk with the film’s antagonist, returning guest Brahim Chab.
Bonus: Leap
This month, we talked with Professor Liang Luo of the University of Kentucky about the 2020 hit Leap, which tells the storied history of the Olympic champion Chinese women’s national volleyball team led by the legendary Lang Ping.
Bonus: My People, My Country
This month we’re talking about My People, My Country, a 2019 anthology film capturing moments of spectacle and national pride from the founding of the People’s Republic to the present. We’re joined by Michael Berry, Director of the UCLA Center for Chinese Studies.
Hitchhike: Setting Out
The first episode of Hitchhike, a new podcast by Andrew Fedorov, one of Uproar’s co-hosts, featuring interviews with hitchhiking artists. Subscribe wherever you get your podcasts and follow on twitter @HitchhikePod.
Bonus: The Climbers
We’re back with a bonus episode on Wu Jing’s 2019 should-be blockbuster, The Climbers. We’re joined by Wufei Yu, a writer for Outside and the New York Times, to talk about the movie, growing excitement for adventure sports in China, and the significance of doing an AMA on Everest.
Mask On (The Iron Mask)
We close season two with 2019’s Russian-Chinese, Jackie Chan-Arnold Schwarzenegger co-production, The Iron Mask. Lead actress Anna Churina remembers Arnold getting punched so hard he bled. Stuntman Mathieu Jaquet says Jackie’s stunt double got plastic surgery to look more like him. And stuntman and actor Paul Allica compares working on Wolf Warrior 2 to working with Jackie Chan.
PS2 Deja Vu (Knight of Shadows)
This week we talk about Jackie Chan’s 2019 monster hunter fantasy The Knight of Shadows with Larson DiFiori, Visiting Assistant Professor at Brown University’s Religious Studies department. He helps us decipher the magical reality of this loose adaptation of Pu Songling’s Strange Stories from a Chinese Studio.
Ferric Andre (Bleeding Steel)
We’ve got a packed lineup: Three-time guest Lauren Teixeira picks apart the mystery of Roger Rick. The film’s composer Peng Fei tells us about how scoring for new genres in the Chinese film industry compares to playing the Royal Albert Hall. Keir Beck, stunt coordinator and second unit director, shares his insights on the making of the Sydney Opera House fight. And Sammy the Dwarf describes what it was like to play the witch’s helper.
IRA Glass (The Foreigner)
This week we talk about 2017’s The Foreigner with returning guest director Sam Hargrave, whose movie Extraction is Netflix’s biggest ever. After that is our conversation with screenwriter of the film David Marconi.
Bonus: Sky Hunter
We’re joined by Sina Rahmani, host of The East is a Podcast, for a bonus episode on 2017’s PLA blockbuster Sky Hunter. We talk about Chinese orientalism in fictional Central Asia and what it means for the Chinese film industry to pump out a string of patriotic blockbusters like it’s Reagan’s ’80s.
Indian Jones (Kung Fu Yoga)
We talk about Jackie Chan’s 2017 whirlwind through Asia, Kung Fu Yoga. We’re joined by film critic Harris Dang, legendary composer Nathan Wang, the man behind the iconic score for Rumble in the Bronx, and Tomer Oz, an actor and stuntman who’s been in nearly a third of this season’s movies.
Talk Less (Railroad Tigers)
We talk about Jackie Chan’s epic runaway train chase in 2016’s Railroad Tigers with four-time guest, reigning champ, last King of Scotland, poet Yi Wu. Then we’re joined by Michael C. Pizzuto, dubber extraordinaire, who tells us about voicing more roles in this movie than he can remember.
Bonus: We Got The Lion King Guy
We talk with Rob Minkoff, director of Forbidden Kingdom and co-director of The Lion King, about what Rafiki learned from Bruce Lee, working with Jackie Chan and Jet Li, and how Chinese-American co-productions have evolved since 2008.
American Prick (Skiptrace)
We’re talking about 2016’s Jackie Chan-Johnny Knoxville buddy adventure Skiptrace. We delve into the American grifter mindset with John Maringouin, director of Ghostbox Cowboy, hear from Michael Gorevoy about a lifetime playing the bad guy, and learn how Gregory Joseph Allen prepared for the role of “American Prick.”
Parthians in the Outfield (Dragon Blade)
This week we’re talking about Jackie Chan’s peacekeeping on the Silk Road in 2015’s Dragon Blade, featuring John Cusack and Adrien Brody as The Romans. We hear about the crew’s hellacious time in the desert from the film’s composer Henry Lai and, frequent JC collaborator, actor and stuntman Brahim Chab.
Fuck The Police Story: Lockdown
We talk with Bosco Lam, Hong Konger and political science graduate student at University College London, about Police Story: Lockdown(2013) and Jackie Chan’s abhorrent long standing support for police brutality. All cops are bastards. Black lives matter. Hong Kong protests matter. Abolish the police everywhere.
Roller Man (Chinese Zodiac)
Jackie Chan plays a treasure hunter bent on recovering the 12 bronze heads stolen from the Old Summer Palace during the Opium War. We endorse anti-imperial art heists and chat with lead actress Laura Weissbecker and volcanic cinematographer Ben Nott.
General Jackie (1911)
In 1911, Jackie Chan’s centennial tribute to the revolution that established China’s first republic, he plays Huang Xing, the general leading the uprising on the ground while Sun Yat-sen jets around the world in search of diplomatic and financial legitimacy. We’re joined by Chinese nationalism expert Edward Friedman and three-time guest, reigning champ, poet Yi Wu.
Ask Mr. Han (The Karate Kid)
The 2010 Karate Kid is the inevitable clash of the Jackie and Jaden universes. We’re joined by the film’s production designer, François Séguin, Jaden’s Beijing nerf buddy, Luke Carberry, and young filmmaker Jason Chiang, who passionately vouches for this karate-less remake.
Unity Candidate (Little Big Soldier)
Jackie Chan plays a simple soldier who forages through the calamity of the Warring States period in search of a way back to his farm. We’re joined by novelist, journalist, author of The Southern Book Club’s Guide to Slaying Vampires, co-founder of New York’s Asian Film Festival, and Jackie Chan super fan Grady Hendrix, as well as scholar and translator of Warring States texts Jennifer Dodgson for this week’s episode on 2010’s Little Big Soldier.
Ticket to Coolsville (The Spy Next Door)
Jackie Chan plays a spy who has no trouble overthrowing dictators, but struggles with suburban children. We’re joined by director Brian Levant and Oscar-nominated composer David Newman to discuss their work on 2010’s The Spy Next Door.
Chestnut Tycoon (Shinjuku Incident)
We’re joined by Street Fighter star Kenya Sawada, who walks us through his cinematic rematch with Jackie Chan as Nakajima in Shinjuku Incident, as well as returning guest journalist Lauren Teixeira who helps us break down Jackie’s model immigrant-turned-yakuza boss story in 2009’s Shinjuku Incident.
The Monkey King and I (The Forbidden Kingdom)
We kick off The Jackie Chan: Post-Rush Hour 3 season with 2008’s The Forbidden Kingdom. To start, we have former Jackie Chan stunt team member Allen Keng, followed by a discussion of the religious and historical iconography in the movie with returning guest and Assistant Professor at Brown University’s Department of Religious Studies, Larson DiFiori. Finally, we talk with one of the movie’s bad guys (who almost takes out Jackie’s Miyagi-in-Southie character) Morgan Benoit.
The Jackie Chan Season Teaser
Uproar in the Studio Season 2: Jackie Chan Post-Rush Hour 3.
Silk Brute (Wolf Warrior 2)
On the season finale, we talk with Carl Zha, host of the podcast Silk and Steel, about the joys and wonders of Wolf Warrior 2. Then, we have two interviews that probably constitute the most comprehensive source in English on the making of the film. First, we talk about the making of the film’s score with composer, Joseph Trapanese, whose work has previously appeared in Tron: Legacy, Oblivion, and The Greatest Showman. After, we talk with action director Sam Hargrave, whose stunt coordinating can also be seen in the Avengers films and Atomic Blonde, about working with Wu Jing and flipping a tank.
Lighting up Jupiter (Wandering Earth)
First, we talk about the state of Chinese Sci-fi before Wandering Earth with writer Anna Wu, whose work has appeared in English translation in the Chinese sci-fi anthology Broken Stars. Then, Lauren Teixeira, a Chengdu based journalist whose work has appeared in Vice, Foreign Policy and the Economist, joins our conversation about the variety of Wandering Earth viewing experiences. Finally, we’re joined by Mike Sui, one of the stars of The Wandering Earth. He told us more than we ever imagined there was to know about the mechanics of celebrity in China and about the massive machine that director Frant Gwo mobilized to get the movie made.
Cake and Candy (Operation Red Sea)
We talk about Operation Red Sea and learn about China’s foreign policy in the Middle East from James Dorsey, senior fellow at Singapore’s Rajaratnam School of International Studies and Middle East Institute.
The Chinatown Vote (Detective Chinatown 2)
We talk about Detective Chinatown 2 with our first returning guest, poet Yi Wu, and speak with Larson Di Fiori, a visiting assistant professor in the religious studies department at Brown University, about the philosophical, religious, and folk traditions that play into the plot of the film.
Fishing with Chow (The Mermaid)
We talk about Stephen Chow’s The Mermaid and interview Bill Borden, a producer on The Mermaid, and a long time Chow collaborator, going back to their work on Kung Fu Hustle. He’s also the producer of the High School Musical series.