Kick your way into 2025 with The Roxy's annual New Year’s Eve celebration of classic Kung Fu flicks! This year, it's all about quality over quantity, with 3 unmissable martial arts masterpieces!


4:00 - THE MYSTERY OF CHESSBOXING (Joseph Kuo, 1979, 90 min. Presented dubbed into English.)

The original Ghostface Killer is on the loose!  A vicious villain with an unstoppable five element technique, Ghostface is killing off all his old rivals. Meanwhile, a young student tries to learn kung fu and is taken under the wing of an old chess master. The basics of chess prove to be the same as the basics of fighting, and eventually the heroes will have to fight Ghostface Killer, who verbally insults his opponents as he annihilates them. Directed by Joseph Kuo (Seven Grandmasters, 18 Bronzemen) and a favorite of the Wu-Tang Clan, Mystery of Chessboxing is one of the greatest kung fu films. 

6:00 - EXECUTIONERS (Johnnie To and Ching Siu-tung, 1993, 96 min. Presented in Cantonese with English subtitles.)

Maggie Cheung, Anita Mui, and Michelle Yeoh return in this gritty, postapocalyptic sequel to The Heroic Trio. Following a devastating nuclear attack, Hong Kong’s supply of clean water has fallen into the hands of a masked maniac (Anthony Wong) intent on seizing political power—forcing the three fearless fighters to settle their differences and unite to stop him. Darker in tone than the original, Executioners finds Johnnie To and codirector/martial-arts choreographer Ching Siu-tung continuing to push their whirlwind action set pieces to new levels of cartoon craziness, while adding an abundance of grungy, dystopian atmosphere and a fresh dose of antiauthoritarian attitude.

8:00 - DRAGON INN (King Hu, 1967, 111 min. Presented in Taiwanese Mandarin with English subtitles.)

The art of martial-arts filmmaking took a leap into bold new territory with this action-packed tale of Ming-dynasty intrigue. After having the emperor’s minister of defense executed, a power-grabbing eunuch sends assassins to trail the victim’s children to a remote point on the northern Chinese border. But that bloodthirsty mission is confounded by a mysterious group of fighters who arrive on the scene, intent on delivering justice and defending the innocent. The first film King Hu made after moving to Taiwan from Hong Kong in search of more creative freedom, Dragon Inn (Long men kezhan) combines rhythmic editing, meticulous choreography, and gorgeous widescreen compositions with a refinement that was new to the wuxia genre. Its blockbuster success breathed new life into a classic formula and established Hu as one of Chinese cinema’s most audacious innovators.



One ticket gets you into as many of the films as you'd like to watch!