Father Geek here, still playing "Catch-Up" on the posting of last week's regular international columns after a week of upgrades to the site. Sorry!!! Harry requested that I space them out between the other news stories each day, soooo that's why I didn't just post them all up Friday night.

On another note, I caught Tsui Hark's THE LEGEND OF ZU today. What a beautiful motion picture. Are you familar with the popular fanasy artist of 80 years ago, Maxfield Parrish? Well, the look of this phantastic film is very close to those early 20th century visions of phancy he painted. Mix those images with the artistic portfolio of the brothers Hildebrant and I think you can conjure up the "look" in your head of the wonderful world Tsui Hark and his talented film crew have realized for us on film. Add a mixture of Chinese folklore, traditions, fighting styles, and comic/fantastic art and you'll be able to invision the feel of the film.

It is an absolutely astonishing, astounding work of cinematic art. And it WILL BE released wide to theaters across the USA next year. Whatever you do... do not miss this when it plays your area. Television's biggest screen is NO substitute for seeing this kind of film on a giant multiplex screen with its corresponding perfect theater surround sound. KEEP YOUR EYES OPEN FOR THIS ONE!!!

Now, here's Darius25 and AccSpy with their regular Asian report... Ol' Father Geek is off to see SHAOLIN SOCCER tonight...

Asia-AICN

Hey all, hope you’ve had a great week. It’s been a little slow the past couple of days and hence we only managed to find a few items for you. But there’s still some good stuff here including news on director Suneel Darshan’s new film, Deepa Mehta’s “Bollywood/Hollywood”, and “The Virgin is Pregnant”. Now here’s the latest from Asia.

INDIA

- Director Suneel Darshan has announced yet another film with his favourite actor Akshay Kumar. The film, titled “Talaash (The Search)”, will be a mystery/suspense thriller much like the recent “Ajnabee (The Stranger)”, and it will also star the same female lead, Kareena Kapoor. However, Darshan is still busy producing his brother’s film (also with Akshay in the lead) so it will be a little while before work on “Talaash” gets underway.

- Producer Boney Kapoor has launched yet another new film, which will star Abhishek Bachchan and Kareena Kapoor in the lead roles. The pair were supposed to star in a previous film from director Sohail Khan, which was eventually shelved due to a lack of funding. Boney has stated that this new film will go on the floors early next year.

- Director Deepa Mehta has begun work on her new film titled “Bollywood/Hollywood”. The film, Deepa’s first after the forced shutdown of “Water”, will star model Lisa Ray, Rahul Khanna, Moushami Chatterji, and Kulbhushan Kharbanda. The film will begin shooting in Toronto very soon.

- Director E. Niwas has signed on actors Amitabh Bachchan and Sanjay Dutt for one of his upcoming films. The director isn’t speaking much on the subject, but the latest buzz is that this one’s a going to huge multistarrer when casting is fully complete. The film will start shooting early on next year.

- Ramgopal Verma has now finished the principal photography of his latest film, “Company”, in Hong Kong. The director worked with lightning speed and actually managed to finish shooting earlier than expected. There’s no real rest for him though as he still has to finish the post-production work fast enough to meet the Dec.14 release date.

- Rumours state that Aamir Khan has put “Happy Diwali” on hold. The actor/producer is supposedly not pleased with the subject matter and is considering a new script to be written, using the same cast (himself, Rani Mukherjee and Amitabh Bachchan) and the same director (Vikram Bhatt).

- Last week’s release was “Chandni Bar”, directed by newcomer Madhur Bhandarkar, and starring Tabu, Atul Kulkarni, and Rajpal Yadav. The film’s getting some well-deserved rave reviews and it’s nice to see something different from the usual commercial cinema for a change. The story depicts the life of people living in the seedy parts of Bombay, this time from the point of a dancer in one of the sleaziest bars in town. As such, the film’s pretty much a downer – Mumtaz (Tabu) comes to Bombay with dreams and ambitions only to be co-erced into working at a bar. Things become even worse when she gets raped by a family member and her husband (a gangster no-less) gets gunned down by the cops. The plot stabilizes for a while until some more depressing events unfold as we see Mumtaz desperately trying to get out of the seedy life with no luck – something always pull her back in. As you can tell by the story, “Chandni Bar” is definitely not for everyone, but those who appreciate some fine acting backed by a good script will really get into the film. Tabu is fantastic in her role, mentioned by many to be her best performance ever, and deserves kudos to portray a role for which other actresses in her league would never consider. You can tell that she dominates the entire film and the story would never work if we don’t truly sympathize with her every step of the way. The script is very realistically written – the language is harsh, the characters are unpredictable, and the settings are really, really grim. The direction is also quite solid while the songs are depicted in a less-than-typical manner. All in all if you want to see a film with a serious message, along with a great story and an awesome performance from Tabu, then “Chandni Bar” is the one to watch.

CHINA / HK

Here is the weekly report from AccSpy:

- With last weekend's big score with "La Brassiere"(look below), Lau Ching Wan and Louis Koo have become the latest craze in HK comedy. They've already signed for another comedy shooting later this year, which will co-star Sandra Ng. Louis Koo will direct himself in a comedy drama early next year. The latter feature will mark his directorial debut.

- Director Joe Ma ("Funeral March", "Fighting for Love") is now shooting a comedy titled "The Virgin is Pregnant (lit. title)", which is a remake of a 50's film. Starring Mariam Yeung from "Feel 100% II" and Edison Chan from "Gen-Y Cops", the comedy is about how a secretary (Mariam) fakes her pregnancy to steal some holiday from the company and gets into a messy situation with her boyfriend's family.

- Last weekend marked the occasion of the Mid-Autumn holiday as well as the National Birthday resulting in seven films making their debuts at the top 10 of the HKBO during the 5-days long weekend. Leading the pack was “Cats & Dogs" - the Cantonese version, featuring voices from Tony Leung Chiu-wai and Edison Chan, has grossed $4 million in the first four days. Lau Ching Wan and Louis Koo's "La Brassiere" was not far behind, debuting at no.2 with $3.5 million.

"America's Sweethearts" entered at no.3 with $2 million while Leon Lai's "Bullets of Love" debuted in a disappointing 4th place with $1.4 million.Leon's tight competition. the Eason Chan and Charlene Choi tragic drama, "Funeral March", landed at no.5 with $1.35 million. The Japanese animation flick "Cosmos" and a local low-budget film "Merry-Go-Round" debuted at no.6 and no.8 respectively.

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@home.com. See you all next week.

Darius25