Film

Painted Faces

Name: Painted Faces
Genre: Drama
Released: 1988
Cast: Sammo Hung, Lam Ching-Ying, Cheng Pei-pei, Lee Din-Hing, Yeung Yam-Yin

Drama

Painted Faces is a semi-autobiographical drama about the legendary Peking Opera School that trained Jackie Chan, Sammo Hung, and Yuen Biao. Sammo Hung directs and stars as the iron-fisted Master Yu, capturing the brutal discipline, camaraderie, and artistry that forged a generation of action cinema's greatest performers. It's tender and tough, funny and heartbreaking—a love letter to a vanishing world of blood-sweat tradition.

TMDb rating

3.5

Should you watch it?

Watch it if you are drawn to backstage stories of harsh apprenticeship, where the hard knocks of training are shown with affection and the comedy grows out of real hardship.

Skip it if you want fast, weightless action from the opening frame, since its first act is patient, stern and built on repetitive drills that test your patience.

What it asks of you: Settle in for a little under two hours, with long stretches of rigorous training that you have to sit through to reach its warmer, funnier moments.

Not sure? Find tonight's pick in a minute.

If you liked this

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Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon2000

Ang Lee made a wuxia film for people who didn't know they wanted one. The wire work is poetry, the fighting is philosophical, and it has the emotional depth of a great novel. Cheng Pei-pei, who teaches in Painted Faces, leads a supporting role with devastating grace.

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Not sure tonight? Get a pick in a minute, starting from Painted Faces

The wildcard

Something you would not have found on your own.

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King Hu invented the wuxia film—this is the moment it happened. Cheng Pei-pei (again) moves through frames like water, the action is balletic and inventive, and it looks stunning in restored prints. The birth of an art form.

But It moves at its own pace, which is deliberate and sometimes glacial. The subtitles have aged and some translations are stiff.

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Jackie Chan's breakthrough, where you see exactly why he matters. The comedy timing is impeccable, the action inventive and weird, and there's real affection between the leads. It's joyful in a way that most action films forget to be.

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Sammo Hung, Yuen Biao, and Jackie Chan in the same film—a love letter from three of the school's greatest survivors. It's silly, the action is playful, and watching them work together is a masterclass in chemistry. Pure joy.

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Swordsman1990

King Hu's comeback after decades away, reuniting him with Cheng Pei-pei. It's visually stunning, the action is intricate, and it has the weight of a career statement. A quieter masterpiece that deserves rediscovery.

But It's meditative rather than thrilling. By the 1990s, it felt elegiac, and some viewers find that slow.

The Sting1973

Both are films about mastery achieved through rigorous training under beloved tyrants. Painted Faces shows you the gymnasium; The Sting shows you the performance. Both understand that artistry—whether physical or intellectual—requires discipline so complete it becomes invisible.

A con-film that moves like a dance, with perfect tone, impeccable structure, and the kind of intelligence that makes every beat feel inevitable. The action is cerebral rather than physical but the precision is identical—two geniuses working in concert. It's exhilarating.

But It's a 1970s film with a 1970s pace. If you need constant kinetic energy, it will feel mannered and slow.

A Prophet2009

Like Painted Faces, it's about a young person remade by an institution—school as forge, not shelter. Both films trust that transformation is painful and necessary, and both refuse easy comfort. The difference is register: Painted Faces holds onto love even while showing cruelty; A Prophet shows the cruelty because love has to survive it.

A French prison film about a boy becoming a man through a brutal system. It has the clarity and emotional intelligence of great drama—you watch someone transformed by circumstance and mentorship, and it feels both intimate and inexorable. Jacques Audiard is a master.

But It's long, grim, and European in its refusal to sentimentalize. Violence is part of the curriculum here, not celebrated. Can be bleak even when beautiful.