Father Geek here with Darius25 and another timely installment of our Asia Film Column with reports from China; Japan; and of course Bollywood...

Asia-AICN

Hey all, I hope you’ve had a great week. We’re backed with a pretty loaded column filled with lots of interesting news and scoops, including info on “Qayamat (Judgment)”, “Boom”, a very HOT remake of “Naked Killer”, the sequel to “Love Undercover”, the DVD news on “Ichi the Killer” and “Battle Royale”, and some news on Toronto screenings of “Dead and Alive”, “Tiger Cage 1”, and “Tiger Cage 2”. We also have pics from “Humraaz (Confidante)”, “Hum Kisise Kum Nahin (We Are Not Lesser Than Anyone Else)”, "Summer Breeze of Love", and the sexy HK actresses Anya and Maggie Q.

INDIA

- Director Harry Baweja recently launched his next production, titled “Qayamat (Judgment)”. The multi-starrer action film currently features Sunil Shetty, Ajay Devgan, Sanjay Kapoor, Arbaaz Khan, Gracy Singh, and Isha Kopikkar. Shooting began on June 3rd and the film is scheduled to wrap before the end of this year.

- This one’s for laughs – the Abishek Bachchan-Hrishita Bhatt film, “Shararat (Mischief)” is finally set to release on July 12, exactly one year after its first scheduled date!! Ok, you know how I hate the talentless offspring of Big B, but still a one-year delay is cause for concern. Oh and one more thing, let’s see how well this film does opposite another film opening that day – “Devdas”!! (Now I don’t know why the latter film was delayed for 2 weeks, but supposedly this is final final day – keep your fingers crossed…)

- Amitabh Bachchan has joined the cast of director Kaizad Gustaf’s indie-comedy, “Boom”. Bachchan will play the big don (while Jackie Shroff and Gulshan Grover play the middle and small dons, respectively) whose gang co-erces a trio of female supermodels (all hot-looking newcomers) into becoming high-tech diamond thieves.

- Small tidbit: Model John Abraham has signed a yet another film, this time being directed by actor-director J.D. Chakravarthy (of “Satya” fame). The film will start shooting sometime this fall.

- Some new stills have been released from directors Abbas-Mustan’s latest thriller, “Humraaz (Confidante)”. The film, which stars Bobby Deol, Amisha Patel and Akshaye Khanna, features an excellent soundtrack and will be released on July 5th. Here are the pics.

The extremely beautiful Amisha Patel: WOW! Just Click Here!

Bobby and Amisha, together again after this March’s “Kranti (Rebellion)”: See them Now

Akshaye Khanna and Amisha: Go Here

- Last week’s new release was the new film from nonsense king David Dhawan, “Hum Kisise Kum Nahin (We Are Not Lesser Than Anyone Else)”. It’s very clear that this is a nonsense movie when the title is rehashed from a very popular 70’s film, and included as the title for no apparent reason! Still, this rehashed version of “Analyze This” works as a much better comedy than the original because of the many comedy scenes, excellent songs, and a MUCH better starcast consisting of Amitabh Bachchan, Sanjay Dutt, Ajay Devgan and Aishwarya Rai.

The plot is slightly more twisted than the original: Dutt plays the all powerful gangster Munna Bhai, who’s cruel (only to bad guys!) and brutal ways make him the most powerful don in Bombay. On a routine fight with one of his rivals, he accidentally encounters Komal (Aishwarya Rai), a dance instructor. Munna instantly falls in love with Komal and appears to see her everywhere – this also effects his business because as long as he has his visions, he can’t concentrate properly on his duties and cannot bring himself to conduct any wrongdoings (killing, robbing, etc.). He decides to see a physician, Dr. Rastogi (Amitabh Bachchan) who advises Munna to woo the girl (who turns out to be the Doc’s sister). There’s yet another character into the story – Komal’s boyfriend, Raja (Ajay Devgan), who’s having enough troubles dealing with the overprotective Doctor. That’s just the basic setup but things get more complicated as more crazy characters are introduced into the story, and more comic situations follow (such as Rastogi’s decision to visit Malaysia) until the predictable ending.

The plot is set up pretty well for the comedy, and each role is appropriately cast. Bachchan gets to be fully loud and obnoxious at every given moment, while Dutt goes all out crazy. In fact, other than Devgan and Ash, not one character is even remotely sane! Each actor gets a good scope to perform, but it is clear that this Sanjay’s film all the way. The usually serious actor gets to break out of his dramatic shell and perform in a full-blown comedic role (with no seriousness at ALL!) and excels in this rare departure. Unlike other David Dhawan films where he had to share the screen with Govinda, Dutt actually gets to be the butt of all jokes here and is perfectly at ease in his character. He acts like a stiff where appropriate, but is mostly comfortable with the situations, which is a very good thing. Bachchan, unlike Billy Crystal, doesn’t play the straight man to Dutt’s crazy gangster and plays his character almost like Sanjay (with a little less craziness). The man is perfect for his role and is very funny during certain moments – this again proves the actor’s versatility and marks a good departure from his usually serious role (watch for him to play the BADASS next in “Kaante (Thorns)”). Fresh from the recent success of “Company”, Ajay Devgan also takes a departure from his serious roles to take on a lighter persona – and seems very capable. Of course his character is less comedic than the other male leads, but he has moments aswell and doesn’t disappoint. His fights with Sanjay Dutt has to be seen – imagine a scrawny 100-pound guy taking on a fist fight with the very tall and muscular actor!! Of course the fight scenes are played for the comedic effect and they succeed in their intentions. If anyone seems uncomfortable in their role, it would have to be Aishwarya Rai, but her comedic moments are few and far between so it doesn’t effect the movie that much. She’s ok in her smaller role, but she can dance and look pretty and as such, performs her role reasonable well. Of course, we’ll have to wait for “Devdas” to see if she can still take on a dramatic role like in her last film with Devgan, “Hum Dil De Chuke Sanam (I Have Given My Heart to You, Dearest)”.

As for the movie itself – this is a typical David Dhawan films, and one of the better ones in recent times. Of course it doesn’t reach the heights of “Coolie No. 1” or “Aankhen (Eyes – the 1990s version not the recent version)”, or even “Deewana Mastana”, but it is better than his recent Govinda starrers. The songs are also very good and extremely memorable – especially the number with Amitabh Bachchan and Ajay Devgan, and the song with Sanjay and Ajay. Good music, great cast, and some extremely funny moments – what more can you want?

Here’s a pic from that song with Sanjay Dutt (right), Ajay Devgan (mid), and Ash – funny stuff: CLICK

Another pic from the song – not the faux-dramatic look on Ajay’s face! This is the same guy who’ll be the martyr Bhagat Singh from tmrw: Click Here

And a pic from the best-picturized song in the film, with Amitabh Bachchan, Ash and Ajay: Just Click

Another pic with Ajay, Ash, and AB: Click to See Them Now

And I’ll close with this gorgeous pic of Ash: Toooooo Cooooool!

CHINA / HK

- Ching Siu Tung will direct the remake of HK cult classic "Naked Killer. The 30 millions budget new version will be starring Maggie Q(Gen-Y Cops), Anya (2002), Daniel Wu and Cheng Pei Pei. Expect a barenaked Maggie Q and a hot lesbian love scene between Maggie Q and Anya. Rumour has it that there could be a more explicit version for international audiences, which could feature full-frontal nudity from Maggie Q!!!

AWESOME pic of Maggie Q: Don't Click... and You'll Be Sorry

Another nice pic of Maggie: Click to See

FRIGGIN HOT BIKINI PIC OF ANYA!!: COOOOOOOOOL!!!

Another great pic of Anya: Click Here

- Miriam Yeung, Daniel Wu and the cast will be back for the sequel of director Joe Ma's blockbuster success "Love Undercover". The $20-million sequel is set to release in Christmas.

- Meanwhile we have the on set photos of Joe Ma's latest film "Summer Breeze of Love", which stars the famous HK pop groups Twins and Shine, Dave Wong and Roy Chow.

Charlene Choi: She's Right Here For You

Tsui Tin Yau from Shine and Charlene: See Them Here

Here are the Twins - Gillian Chung and Charlene: Check Them Out Right Here

Dave Wong: Click Now

- "Resident Evil" debuted at no.1 at the box office last weekend and grossed $3.3 million HKD. "The Irresistible Piggies", starring Jordan Chan and Michelle Reis, came second with $1.5 mil. "Attack of the Clones" fell to third with a $13 mil grossing in 18 days. "40 Days and 40 Nights", "Brotherhood of the Wolf" and "John Q" debuted at no.4, no.7 and no.8 respectively. Meanwhile, the Pang brothers' "The Eye" has grossed $13.3 mil so far and still stayed at no.6.

JAPAN

Hemp Knight sent in this great scoop on the UK DVD release of Takashi Miike’s “Ichi the Killer” – an excellent film which seems to be getting an excellent DVD (pity I don’t have an all-region DVD player, sigh…):

Also, an anonymous scooper has sent this interesting tidbit on the upcoming region 1 (North American) DVD of “Battle Royale”:

Thats right, the japanese epic about schoolchildren destroying each other a la Lord of The Flies is going to have a special edition DVD release soon, with the North American region code....something you may just want to pass onto your readers. It will be coming with a whole bunch of extras like promo behind the scenes pieces, and a little piece on the island it was filmed on. unfortunately, nothing else from this, due to the fact this is more "privilaged info" than anything else.

One more tidbit for people living in Toronto – the Royal Cinema is having a rare screening of Takashi Miike’s “Dead or Alive” next weekend. If you want to watch this really crazy (yet fun) film on the big screen, click here for more info: http://www3.sympatico.ca/ultra8/ The theatre is also showing Donnie Yen’s “Tiger Cage 1” and “Tiger Cage 2” this month so check out the link if you’re interested.

We have now reached the end of this week's column. Remember, if you have information regarding any film industry in Asia, please contact our Asia-AICN offices at atshrivas@rogers.com. See you all next week.

Darius25