Father Geek here with Darius25's 13th Asia-AICN column. What do we learn in this one? Well, that John Water's old Odourama is making a comeback thanks to new state of the art technology. I can hardly wait! (sarcasm) But gamers the world over rejoice, TEKKEN is coming to a big screen near you, live action no less. Check it out below...

Asia-AICN #13

Hey all. Hope you've all had a good week. This past week has been a slow week in terms of movie news. We managed to find some news for some countries but there is basically no news from Japan. Anyway, let's begin this week's column.

INDIA

- One of Kareena Kapoor's upcoming films will be Ajnabi (Stranger), also starring Bobby Deol. The film, directed by Abbas-Mustan, will be released sometime around winter.

- Actress Tabu has signed on to star opposite singer/actor Gurdas Mann in the Punjabi film Zindagi Khubsurat Hai (Life is Beautiful - pretty original title eh ? ).

- Actor Nana Patekar will make his stage debut in a play titled Purush (Person), which is to be performed in Bombay. The play, directed by Vijay Mehta, also features actress Ayesha Julka.

- The winners for India's national awards were announced this week, which covers films from all over India, not just Hindi films from Bollywood. Here are the results from the 47th National Film Awards:

Best Film - Vanaprastham (This is a Malayalam film. I don't know what the title means.)

Best Director - Buddhadev Dasgupta for Uttara (I don't know what this means.)

Best Actor - Mohanlal for Vanaprastham

Best Actress - Kiron Kher for Bariwali (It's a name.)

Most Popular film - Sarfarosh (Patriot)

Nargis Dutt Award for National Integration - Shaheed Uddam Singh (Shaheed is a title which is given to an honourable person who has sacrificed his life for his country. Uddam Singh was a person who had done considerable things for India's independence.)

Best Children's film - Goal

Best Supporting Actor - Atul Kulkarni for Hey Ram (Oh Ram! Ram is Lord Rama.)

Best Supporting Actor - Sudipta Chakraborthy for Bariwali and Sohini Haldar for Paromitar Ek Din (The last two words mean One Day, I don't know what the first word means.)

Best Costume Design - Sarika Hassan for Hey Ram

Best Cinematography - Hum Dil De Chuke Sanam (I Have Given My Heart To You)

Best Music Direction - Ismail Darbar for Hum Dil De Chuke Sanam

Best Art Direction - Nitin Desai for Hum Dil De Chuke Sanam

Best Choreography - Hum Dil De Chuke Sanam

Best Hindi Language Film - Shool

Best Short-fiction Film - Blindfolded

Best Screenplay - Madampu Kunjukattan for Karunam

Best Editing - Sreekar Prasad for Vanaprastham

The following report was reported by Ozymandias , special thanks to Euro-AICN :

Bollywood Goes On Location To Wales

A picturesque part of north Wales has been transformed as actors and actresses from the booming Indian film industry shot scenes for a new film.

The Marquess of Anglesey's 18th century estate, Plas Newydd, has become home to four actors and a crew of 30 from New Punjab Tours, part of the growing "Bollywood" industry.

They have started shooting scenes on the national trust property, which stands on the banks of the Menai Strait, for the comedy thriller I Give You My Word, with Indian movie stars Sunil Shetty and Raveena Tandan.

A number of "dream sequence shots" showing the actors swaying in time to music with a backdrop of 18th century stables will be slotted into the film. The Indian movie industry regularly uses European locations to film scenes to fit in with actors' busy film schedules.

Paul Carr-Griffin, property manager at Plas Newydd, said the estate, which was given with his title to the Earl of Uxbridge when he lost his leg while fighting for the Duke of Wellington, had undergone some changes since the crew set up camp.

"People who regularly visit would notice changes," he said. "Normally we play classical or jazz music but at the moment there is Indian music playing, which is a bit different. Also the crew have their own outside catering so there is a smell of curry wafting around the place, which is unusual but nice."

Plas Newydd has played host to the British and American film industries before but Bollywood is a very different experience, Mr Carr-Griffin said.

"With British and American film crews they know what locations they are going to use months before but this crew decided by instinct. When they see something they want to film they just stop and set up and start filming."

Hugh Edwin Jones, of the North Wales Film Commission, said the British Tourist Authority in India had been pushing forward the United Kingdom as the ideal place for Bollywood to film.

He said Indian stars were so much in demand, often signing to 10 movies at once, that crews must travel to where they are already shooting to fit them in for their next film. As Sunil Shetty was already filming in Europe, north Wales was chosen as the ideal backdrop for I Give You My Word after a visit from the producer.

- Last week's new release was Bichchoo (Scorpion) which was directed by Guddu Dhanoa and stars Bobby Deol, Rani Mukherjee and Ashish Vidhyarthi. I advise any of you who have seen Luc Besson's Leon (or The Professional) to stay FAR away from this film, as it's the same film made with basically no direction skill at all. Leon was a masterpiece, it had cool, kick-ass violence, but was also an emotional, heart-touching film made with superb style. This film lacks everything that was so good with Leon. In this one, it turns Natalie Portman's lost child into a whiny and bratty spoiled rich-bitch (played by Rani Mukherjee). Bobby Deol tries to look cold and unemotional as Jean Reno did in Leon, but ends up looking bored throughout the film. This film also has very little action and is not at all exciting as the original was. The only good part of the movie was the last twenty minutes which is a direct rip-off of Leon, complete with masked SWAT officers and the explosive ending of the original. Also the songs were really bad, and were unnecessarily injected into this movie. All in all, try to avoid Bichchoo at all costs.

- This week's recommendation is a film that just recently came to DVD and has even played on the international circuits. The film is Bombay Boys and is directed by Kaizad Gustad. It's actually a perfect way of introducing someone to Bollywood as the movie is set in India, but is well beyond the constraints of Bollywood itself. At under an hour and 45 minutes, with no real songs, this is not really a typical Bollywood film. It's about a trip through India from the perspective of three non-resident Indians and how they deal with the obstacles that come in their way. Eventually they end up in a C-grade movie titled Mumbai (Bombay) Banditos, produced by a local gangster (played by Naseeruddin Shah). The parody scenes of Bollywood make it a must see for anyone familiar with any Indian movies and realize how the overall quality of Indian movies are getting lower and lower. Filled with good acting and a witty script, Bombay Boys doesn't fail to entertain.

CHINA / HK

The following was reported by "Rockojinx" and it was forwarded to me by Ozymandias :

Film Company Tests Odourama

Odourama may only be a short sniff away if the idea about to be 'nose-tested' in Hong Kong catches on.

The novel scheme has been hatched by Golden Harvest Pictures and the independent outfit UFO Films to integrate a system which will send out blasts of scent to match the mood of their new movie "Lavender".

The story focuses on a fallen angel who falls for an aromatherapist. UFO executives say they are searching for advanced scent-dispersing machines in America and Japan and are still conducting research.

Off-the-wall American director John Waters experimented with 'smell cards' prior to the release of his wacky comedy Polyester almost 20 years ago.

A source at Golden Harvest commented: "Sound is deafening and realistic enough to lift you from your seat. If you're in a field of flowers, why not smell them? We think the public will love the idea.

"No, there will be no dead bodies or anything in bad taste."

The following was reported by "The Accidental Spy":

- Stareast Studios has dropped "Dragon Tiger Gate" and is now using this budget to make a live-action adaptation of the famous video game "Tekken", a fantasy fighting advanture set in year 2050 and is to be directed by Corey Yuen, who most recently worked as the action scenes director of the upcoming "X-men". This version will star newcomer Leehom Wang (whose debut will be in the now-shooting "Thunder Cop") as Jin Kazama and Sammo Hung as Jin's father, Jun Kazama. Stephen Fung ("Gen-X Cops", "Gen-Y Cops") will also co-star as Hwoarang and Kristy Yeung ("Stormriders", "A Man called Hero") will play Ling Xiaoyu. The rest of the cast is still unconfirmed.. Andrew Lau, the director of " The Stormriders" is one of the movie's producers, along with Wong Jing ("God of Gamblers").

- More news about Stanley Tong's "Thunder Cop": The director said that the actioner will be shot in two versions, one in both Mandarin and English (for the Asia market) and one only in English, which is for the version released in the American and European market.

- Ang Lee is confirmed to do a prequel and a sequel of "Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon", which is now a blockbuster all over Asia. The prequel would be based on the first to third chapters from the novel (a part of which CTHD is based on) and would focus on the earlier life and adventure of Chow Yun-Fat's character, Lee Moo-Bai. Now most of the US moviegoers are concernd if the film would be dubbed in English. I recall in an article from some HK magazine last year, Ang Lee was offered the similar question and said, as quoted, "Chinese in ancient China speaking English simply doesn't make sense". Besides, it's not an old CANTONESE martial arts movie like those which got-picked-up-and-redubbed, it's a new MANDRAIN movie with a budget from Hollywood and seems to have a good chance in foreign language movie competition at the Oscars, so I guess the answer is NO, it won't be dubbed (GOOD - D25).

- BIG Productions are about to produce a romantic comedy titled "Less Than Lover, More Than Friends", to be directed by Joe Ma, whose 1996's romantic comedy "Feel 100%" was a big hit. The film stars Gigi Leung ("Tempting Heart", "Those were the Days") and Eason Chan ("Twelve Nights", City of Glass").

JAPAN

Sorry folks, there was no news this week from JAPAN. However "Pigmon" has sent this picture from "Godzilla vs. Megagilas" so enjoy: JUST CLICK HERE to see it.

KOREA

The following was reported by "Matrix1966":

- Korean Movie 'Bichunmoo'(Sky Flying Dance), starring Hyun Joon Shin and Hee Sun Kim, won the weekend box office battle by attracting more than 320,000 movie viewers around Korea. When it opened on July 1st, it broke the opening weekend box-office record for a Korean movie. The total budget of 'Bichunmoo', which is based on the popular cartoon of the same title, is estimated as $4 million. Check out its website at http://www.b1000.co.kr .

- 'Peppermint Candy', which was invited to this year's Cannes International Film Festival, will be seen in many prestigious film festivals around the world. This film was invited to The Montreal World Film Festival (August 25-September 4), The Vancouver International Film Festival (September 22-October 5) and The London Film Festival (November 1-16). Director Lee Chang-Dong's popular contemporary drama (No.3 at the box office this year) opened last year's Pusan International Film Festival.

- Slasher movie fever has hit South Korea: Starting from July 22nd, as many as 7 horror/thriller low budget Korean movies will terrorize the Korean audience until early September. What they have in common: they are all directed by rookie directors and most of the cast are new faces.

Well that's about it for this week. Hopefully next week, we'll cover way more news. Remember to keep sending in any information on movie industries in ALL of Asia. Until next week, take care.

- Darius25