VIDEO WATCHDOG's un-pho-to-graphable associate editor John Paul Charles turns (cough, cough) years old today, and is no doubt celebrating with a movie. It's bound to be either Asian in origin or very, very bad. If he's really living it up today, it might even be both.
A resident of Guelph, Ontario and the author of the authoritative THE HONG KONG FILMOGRAPHY 1977-1997 (McFarland and Company), John first appeared in VW in the Letterbox of our third issue, adding some valuable information to our coverage of Wes Craven's THE LAST HOUSE ON THE LEFT. He then addressed himself to the task of making it impossible to work without him and, by our 12th issue, he had ascended to the position of full-fledged contributor. Amazingly, though we have been working closely together for the past (gulp) 18 years, John and Donna and I have never met. (I'm still hoping to meet Donna someday... Just kidding! But when we're in the midst of working on a new issue, like now, it's kind of close-to-the-truth kidding.) The one time when we were in John's neck of the woods, back in 2000, turned out to be one of the rare times he had to be somewhere else. Hopefully, we'll be able to thank him in person someday for all that he's given to VW over the years.
After a period when he wasn't able to contribute as a writer as often as he would have liked, John is turning in more and more reviews these days, so stay tuned to forthcoming issues for his takes on different movies. In the meantime, visit his Hong Kong Digital site, which you can reach over there >>>> on my list of permanent links.
I'm happy to report that John's HONG KONG FILMOGRAPHY is finally due to be published in softcover by McFarland in March. You can pre-order your copy here. If you can't wait or prefer the hardcover edition, this is where you want to go.
