Director to Attend Showing of ‘Night,’ ‘Pressure Point’

Director Hubert Cornfield will appear Wednesday and Thursday at the New Beverly Cinema with his two best-known films, the 1962 “Pressure Point” (7:30 p.m.) and the 1969 “The Night of the Following Day” (9:20). The first, made for Stanley Kramer (who shot the film’s extraneous but not damaging framing story), is very much in Kramer’s social-consciousness mode. Despite moments of preachiness and contrivance, it offers a powerful confrontation between a young American Nazi psychopath (Bobby Darin, in a remarkable portrayal) and his resolute prison psychiatrist (Sidney Poitier); the era is America’s entry into World War II.

Less dated and more stylish is the second film, which stars Marlon Brando, Richard Boone and Rita Moreno as kidnapers operating in France who hold for ransom the daughter (Pamela Franklin) of a rich Britisher; it’s one of those caper films in which everything comes unstuck, building toward a finish with a provocative twist (which was eliminated by Universal in a drastic reworking of the film for TV; however, it is the original version that has just been released on cassette). Information: (213) 938-4036.

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Rim Film Distributors’ second annual Festival Hong Kong, which starts Friday at the Monica 4-Plex, will offer 14 films through Dec. 30, most of which are terrific. “The Legend of Fong Sai-Yuk II” (Friday and Saturday at 5 and 9:45 p.m.) is a lively, successful sequel that again demonstrates the zaniness of the uninhibited imagination of director Corey Yuen and his writers.

This time our blithe, acrobatic hero, played so winningly by Jet Lee, is at once involved in the anti-Manchu Red Flower Society and a potential triangle in which he’s tempted by the beautiful Kwok Oi-Ming (a recent Miss Hong Kong), much to the consternation of his bride, Michelle Reis. As before, the sensational veteran comedian Josephine Siao plays Fong’s lusty martial artist mother in this delightfully knockabout period comedy-adventure.

Kirk Wong’s “Crime Story” (Friday at 7:15 p.m.; Saturday at 2:30, 7:15 p.m.) provides Jackie Chan a potent opportunity to play straight. He’s cast as a Hong Kong police inspector whose relentless investigation of a kidnaping has sadly ironic consequences.

This engrossing film’s key accomplishment is to be able to take its material seriously--it is based on an actual 1991 case--yet not stint on the martial arts bravura of which Chan is the master. Handsome, stylish and featuring a fiery climax that’s just as impressive as anything in “Backdraft,” “Crime Story” raises the eternal problem of the temptation of easy riches for overworked, underpaid cops everywhere.

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Best of the fest, John Woo’s “Bullet in the Head” (Sunday at 1:45, 7 p.m.; Dec. 20 at 4:30, 9:30 p.m.), which is being presented in its director’s cut, is a powerful, dynamic variation on “The Deer Hunter.” At once an epic adventure, war picture, gangster melodrama and buddy movie, “Bullet in the Head” features three Hong Kong petty crooks, Ben (Tony Leung), Frank (Jacky Cheung) and Paul (Waise Lee), who, feeling the heat from the cops and desperate to strike it rich, take off--the time is 1967--for Vietnam, where the wartime dangers are equaled only by the opportunities to acquire illicit fortunes.

However, these young men, who arrive as essentially decent types, are swiftly caught up in corruption and risk beyond their wildest imaginings; what happens to them symbolizes the evils of the war itself. Charged with Woo’s characteristic expressively violent action and his concern with the sacredness of friendship.

Ronnie Yu’s gorgeous “The Bride With White Hair” (Sunday at 4:45, 10 p.m.; Dec. 20 at 7:30 p.m.) is a romantic period martial-arts fantasy in which the handsome, young heir-apparent (Leslie Cheung) to eight traditional underworld clans falls in love with a beautiful young woman (Brigitte Lin), held in thrall by an evil cult, headed by crazed Siamese twins, a brother and sister, dedicated to the overthrow of the clans. Exotic, lush, lively and lots of fun. Information: (310) 394-9741.

Note: Filmforum concludes its fall season tonight at 8 at the Hollywood Moguls, 1650 N. Hudson, with a program of eight shorts by local filmmakers. (213) 663-9568.