Red Trousers (2003)

Critic Reviews

• Wesley Morris, Boston Globe

  Fills you with a healthy respect for the men and women gladly risking their lives for your entertainment.

• Mark Jenkins, Washington Post

  Rather than the That's Entertainment of jumps, falls and back flips, actor-director Robin Shou's tribute to his former profession is half-baked and a little self-serving.

• Roger Ebert, Chicago Sun-Times

  It jumps from one subject to another, it provides little historical context, it shows a lot of stunts being prepared and executed but refuses to ask the obvious questions in our minds.

• Ellen Fox, Chicago Tribune

  Feels more like a 'making-of' piece or vanity project for actor and first-time director Robin Shou ... than a tight, thorough documentary.

• Michael Rechtshaffen, Hollywood Reporter

  An often intriguing documentary, albeit one with wires attached.

• Carla Meyer, San Francisco Chronicle

  Shou creates an ambitious framework ... This layering detracts from the documentary footage, with nonaction narrative scenes thrown in for no apparent reason.

• Ryan Cracknell, Movie Views

  Red Trousers pays tribute to one country's stuntmen. At the same time it's a personal tribute as Shou uses the film as a platform to showcase his own work.

• Jeffrey M. Anderson, Combustible Celluloid

  The documentary's few stunt sequences, both successful and failed, carry more weight than anything else.

• Nestor Ramos, Oregonian

  There's plenty of material for a great movie in the lives and work of the stuntmen and women in Hong Kong's thriving action film industry. Unfortunately, this isn't that movie.

• Paul Sherman, Boston Herald

  For a movie about physical dexterity, this is clumsy stuff. It's like three movies fighting for one screen.

• Marc Savlov, Austin Chronicle

  Instead of tackling the whole stunt issue head-on, Shou uses his first directorial effort, Lost Time: The Movie, as a definition-by-example that too frequently draws the viewer out of the far more fascinating historical context.

• Jeffrey Westhoff, Northwest Herald (Crystal Lake, IL)

  Fitfully interesting.

• Todd Gilchrist, FilmStew.com

  Promises a glimpse into a world that few have yet been able to explore, but fails to deliver on much more than the basest levels of entertainment.

• Sean Axmaker, Seattle Post-Intelligencer

  A loving tribute to Hong Kong stuntmen by one of their own.

• Erik Lundegaard, Seattle Times

  The great documentary about Hong Kong stuntmen, and their relationship to the Beijing Opera, still needs to be made.

Read all 15 critic reviews