Father Geek here, seems that the Oscars forced a lay-off of our normal news sources this week so far. Not just here at home but overseas as well, Harry and I were just discussing this last night after the Alamo's free midnight screening of Demon's 2. It had its moments, but its sure NO Mario Bava!
Anyway Darius25 sent in a Bollywood report to hold us over, but before that I have this bit...
Hey whats up? Thought I'd let you know, I've come across a petition floating around various Hong Kong film sites. It is basically a petition to stop Miramax from releasing edited and dubbed only DVDs of the HK movies they have the rights to. It already has a fair amount of signatures, but a few more definitely wouldn't hurt. And since AICN is filled with movie fans that like to watch movies in their purest form I figured this site would be the place to post something like this. So would you consider posting the link to this petition? I'd hate to see the "Kung Fu Soccer" DVD end up like Drunken Master II, or Fist of Legend.
NED
Here is the link: Just Click Here And Do Your Part
Father Geekback, now here's Darius' report for this Thursday...
Asia-AICN
Hey all, hope you’ve all been well. Well that was a pretty weird Oscar night eh? I’m kind of happy that Halle won, but IMHO the only award “A Beautiful Mind” kinda deserved was Best Actor, and it didn’t even get that! I was personally rooting for Will Smith for his great performance in “Ali” but Denzel was ok, I guess. However, I am pretty pissed that both “Fellowship of the Ring” and “Moulin Rouge” were ROBBED in all the right categories!! No win for Ian, no win for Nicole, a win for friggin’ Opie!!!???? Give me a break! (And lets not even discuss Amelie and Lagaan’s loss!) OK, rant over but I had to get that off my beautiful hateful mind.
There’s no HK, or Japanese movie news this week that found its way to me, but I managed to find some pretty cool Bollywood news, including the latest on “Dil Vil Pyar Vyar (Love and Heart)”, “Janasheen”, and “Koi Mil Gaya (Found Someone)”. We also have some pics of “Yeh Hai Jalwa (This is Ecstasy)” and “Kya Yehi Pyaar Hai (Is this Love?)”.
Now here’s the latest from Asia.
INDIA
- Yet another week, and another casting shuffle. This time, Sonali Kulkarni has replaced Juhi Chawla for producer Vivek Vaswani’s “Dil Vil Pyar Vyar (Love and Heart), which would make it the second time a big-name actress had to back out of the film. Earlier on, Mahima Choudhary had to leave the project and was eventually replaced by Namrata Shirodhkar. Hopefully Jimmy Shergill and R. Madhavan are still in the film as originally planned. The romantic comedy is due out sometime in the summer.
- Speaking of Madhavan, the actor is in talks with Kamal Haasan to star in the director’s next Hindi-language film. I just hope this isn’t the “What About Bob?” remake that was set to star Kamal and Shahrukh Khan.
- The unit of actor/director Feroz Khan’s Janasheen (Beloved) is about to head to Thailand to engage in a 40-day shoot. A total of 4 songs and some key exterior scenes will be picturised during the schedule while the remainder of the film will be shot in India. Starring Feroz Khan, Fardeen Khan, Celina Jaitley, and Kashmira Shah, the film will be released in the fall this year.
- Principal photography for director Witson Salva’s “Ek Haseena Ek Deewana (One Beauty and One Fool) is now complete. The comedy, which stars Govinda, Priyanka Chopra, and Shakti Kapoor, is now heading into the post-production stage and will be ready for a late summer release.
- Some key portions of Rakesh Roshan’s much-anticipated “Koi Mil Gaya (Found Someone)” have already been canned and the film is well on its way to wrapping up by summer. If all goes as planned, we might even see a late fall/early winter release this year. The film stars Hrithik Roshan, Preity Zinta, Rekha, and Mukesh Rishi.
- Some new stills have been released from David Dhawan’s upcoming comedy, “Yeh Hai Jalwa (This is Ecstasy)”, previously known as “Family No. 1” (How the hell do you go from that title to “Yeh Hai Jalwa”!!). The film stars Salman Khan, Amisha Patel, Rishi Kapoor, Rinke Khanna, Rati Agnihotri, Sharad Kapoor, and Sanjay Dutt. It’s set to release on May 31. Here are the pics.
Salman Khan and Amisha Patel: Just Click Here Now
Salman and Rishi Kapoor: See Them Here
And here’s a GREAT pic of Amisha: She's Right Here
- Last week’s new release was director K. Murli Mohan Rao’s “Kya Yehi Pyaar Hai (Is This Love?)”, starring Aaftab Shivdasani, Amisha Patel, Jackie Shroff, and Anupama Verma. Billed as a love story with a message, I found it to be an average drama with a horribly depressing ending (a confused attempt at winning some awards). The film starts off like your ordinary Bollywood story – we meet Rahul (Aaftab), a lovestruck Romeo/borderline stalker who keeps on hanging out at a particular bus stop to catch a glimpse of the local beauty, Sandhya (Amisha Patel). Naturally, the guy still hasn’t had the courage to do anything about this obsession. Meanwhile, Sandhya has problems of her own (an alcoholic father) and keeps on studying in order to escape her harsh life. Eventually, Rahul approaches the girl but gets rejected right away. Sandhya eventually gives in to Rahul’s wishes, but with tragic results. The so-called twist comes out of nowhere, and while it is meant to be mess with the audience’s emotions, the scene comes across as a haplessly executed clichéd dreck! Acting wise, the two leads don’t dissapoint but aren’t doing anything special with their roles. Aaftab has done this role many times in the past while Amisha has obviously shown more talent in last year’s “Gadar (Revolution)”. She still looks absolutely incredible though! Jackie Shroff provides adequate support as Aftab’s helpful elder brother while Ashish Vidhyarthi makes a convincing villain. The songs are ok, while the look of the film is pure old-school. The direction is also old fashioned, but in a bad way and it reminded me of the countless rom-dramas from the ‘80s. You’ll get plenty of melodrama, needless violence, exaggerated emotions and many meaningless songs. Overall, it’s not really a bad film (except for the ending), but it’s not really worth the admission price. Save it for DVD.
I’ll never stop posting pics of Amisha: Go To Right Here
More Amisha: Check Her Out Here
Ok, here’s one with Amisha and Aaftab: Just Start Clicking
