Father Geek here with our Asia crew filing this Thursday's regular Asia-AICN Column, but before we get to Darius25, AccSpy and all the rest here's some uber coolness that appeared on my monitor just a few minutes ago...
Dont know if you have heard this already, but I
watched it on the BBC News today.
According to the BBC:-
The late Martial Arts movie star Bruce Lee is set to
appear in a new film with the help of computer
technology according to a report.
Film Industry magazine Variety says a
computer-generated likeness of Lee will star in Dragon
Warrior.
The film's South Korean financier has aquired the
rights to Lee's image from his family.
It will be the first time that a dead film star is
recreated in a major role (although I thought Oliver
Reed was for some parts of Gladiator.
RealggCostume
Father Geek back... This time with a couple of reviews of some fun flicks...
Pauly here dropping you a line from the Regus London Film Festival where
over the past three days it has been my pleasure to catch 2 Takashi Miike
movies, namely Dead or Alive 2 and Ichi the Killer.
No doubt many of your readers are fully aware of Miikes movies as a result
of catching the excellent Odishon (Audition) or the apparently hyper-kinetic
Dead or Alive (I coudln't say as I have not had the pleasure of seeing it).
Anyone wanting to know more about this Japanese
director should catch either of those titles or 'City of Lost Souls', which
I believe is called 'Hazard City' on US DVD.
As part of the 'World Cinema' section of the festival (which by the way has
had an excellent lineup as ever - see www.rlff.com for more info) both DOA2
and ICHI were screened within a couple of days of each other so please feel
free to read through my thoughts on the movies.
First let me say I am a fan of what has become known as 'World Cinema' and
in particular Japanese movies due to a loving of the subject matter, style
and an exposure to the culture. However I try not to let that colour my
views when watching a movie - I hope this has been the case in these
reviews.
Dead or Alive 2: Birds
I came to this knowing only the reputation of the previous Dead or Alive
movie - not having a worldwide DVD release it only seems to exist in
fan-subtitled VCD format or on DVD with German subs, and thus has something
of a cult following. Whilst characters have survived into this sequel, it
seems the movies are not related, thus allowing Miike to develop an
alternative storyline for our main character - Mizuki played by Sho Aikawa.
The film rapidly sets itself up with Mizuki getting into position to kill a
number of Yakuza in an attempt to create all out war between the Yakuza and
the Triads, thus allowing his magic-obsessed paymaster (played by Body
Hammer and Tetsuo director Shinya Tsukamoto) to gain power. All does not go
to plan however when the targets are assasinated before Mizukis eyes by a
mystery gunman who disappears immediately after the massacre.
Being the cocky young type, Mizuki claims the kills, and the $30,000 bounty,
only to be rumbled soon after. He flees to the Japanese islands only to
find the same mystery gunman has ventured to the isles himself - played by
Riki Takeuchi. It transpires in charming Takeshi Kitano like childhood
flashbacks that the two were great friends, having grown up in a orphanage
together with a third character who is still deeply involved with the
orphanage and its current population of children. Meanwhile back in Tokyo
Tsukamoto has met with a very nasty end, as have many (many) others as the
rival gangs search for the killers.
After rekindling their friendship, spending time with the children and
staging an absurdist play for them in a long but not unwelcome hiatus from
the killing, the two killers figure out how may hits it would cost to
vaccinate all the children of the world at 30cents per jab. Whilst this
sounds highly sentimental, I can assure you it is not something Miike dwells
on in his capacity as director and the highly stylised killing soon kicks
off again to a bloody yet uplifting conclusion.
Miikes pastiche of stylised visual techniques and off-the-wall humour work
well in this movie which I can only see as being a welcome sequel to the
1999 original, with themes that are familiar to any Takeshi Kitano fan
bouncing off original shootouts and computer graphic inserts.
Logic is occasionally left out of the equasion as weapons appear from
nowhere and comments on current societies are neatly dropped into the mix -
an example being the three Chinese gunmen who only communicate by SMS text
messages on their phones, even when they are in the same car. Tokyo looks
as urban as it always does in these movies and we cannot doubt that Miike
learned a great deal from Shinya Tsukamoto himself at relating a
hyper-realistic way of life. Much of the humour reminded me a great deal of
Takeshi Kitanos rarely seen mid-ninties sex comedy 'Getting Any?', but
whilst it came across as tiresome and juvenile in the hands of the
inflective Kitano, here it is used to mock the violence that preceeded it.
If you enjoyed Dead or Alive, or for that matter BodyHammer, or Brother, you
may well find themes within this movie that appeal to your dark sense of
humour, and whilst it sometimes tries to throw too much at you to make a
specific point about the way we live our lives, it is nevertheless a direct
assault upon ones attitudes and sensibilities within an industry that often
fails to make any statement at all that really impresses.
Ichi The Killer (Koroshiya 1)
The second Miike movie was an altogether different affair - less adventurous
in technique yet infinately more satisfying as a movie. I believe this is
heading for a US release at some point - have a peek over at
www.whoisichi.com for more information and a great trailer, however I would
be very surprised if all of this movie got into US theatres. Judging by
what elements were cut out of Brother this year it seems the editors will
ahve their work cut out of this movie which has some extremely strong
violent content, even by Miike standards.
The movie revolves around the psychology of Masochism and Violence with it
opening with the killing of a Shinjuku gangland boss by a professional
killer by the name of Ichi (number one) who has left the body in such a
state that a cleanup gang has to be sent in to make the room he was murdered
in spotless. They do such a good job that the bosses gang members believe
he has been kidnapped.
One of these is hardcore masochist Kakihara played excellently by Tadanobu
Asano of 'Shark Skin man and Peach Hip girl'. Kakihara is fucked
up...whilst his clothes and confidence indicate a man of power, conifence
and stature his face reveals his true passions, it being cut up and scarred
to such an extent that when he exhales from smoking the smoke shoots out of
holes in his torn cheeks! As Kakihara attempts to track down Ichi by
torturing a large number of competing gang members, including 'Brothers'
Susumo Terajima, who ends up being hung from the ceiling by the flesh of his
back and having scolding tempura oil poured over him, the reasons behind his
quest become apparent. It seems that in the past his Masochistic needs were
seen to by his boss, and without him Kakihara must track down the man who
may be able to hurt him more than his former master.
Ichi himself is presented to us as a meek, scared, child-like figure, who as
a teenager watched on transfixed as a young girl was raped and as a result
of his guilt can explode into vengeful violence whenever he witnesses
bullies and those who abuse power. He strikes an imposing figure as a
superhero killer able to cut men quite literally in half with his skills,
however his powers know no bounds or morals and more often than not innocent
bystanders are caught in the full force of his rage. He kills as an adult
that has not been allowed to develop emotionally. Indeed when witnessing a
group of pre-teens bullying another child, Ichi is at first intimated and
unwilling to assist despite his size and adult authority.
Of course the movie moves towards an inevitable climax between the two main
characters which confounds your expectations as the story twists again and
again, however before it reached this point we are treated to a fantastic 2
hours of storytelling and visual excess.
Ichi the killer progresses far further than I can tell you here into the
minds of the movies many protagonists, as it seems many colourful characters
are out to abuse Ichi to incredible degrees, and indeed much of the films
message is how easy it can be to totally mind-fuck those who are
impressionable and what dreadful consequences this can have for all.
Visually the movie is stunning and there are a number of subtle and not so
subtle cg effects that shock and amuse. It was great to see the blood
splattering effect so often used by Kurosawa in the 50's and 60's
transformed into full colour and updated to allow for tastes which are more
used to violent imagery. Having seen many movies that can be described as
'violent' I can assure you that I have not seen the genre stretched to such
lengths here - burnings, piercings, stabbings, beatings and rapes are all
presented in non-too-stylised form, often to shock, sometimes to amuse. The
soundtrack is just right mixing a number of modern Japanese artists and
genres and compared to DOA2 the visual style is less jarring, although
wonderfully filmed.
There's very little good-versus-bad here, the characters are presented to us
just so, and it is left to us to sift through the wreckage of their violent
lives as their paths collide. Dripping in both blood and black humour I
found Ichi the Killer impossible to dislike and despite numerous images that
shocked and sickened it is a movie with immense feeling and detail for its
characters.
Pauly
Now on to Darius and his crew, and their column for this week...
Asia-AICN
Happy Diwali everybody!! The Hindu Festival of Lights took place yesterday and I’m sure a few of you are still partying somewhere. We have a moderate-sized column for you this week packed with some decent info including news on “Pitah (Father)”, director Shekhar Kapur’s upcoming project, “Koi Mil Gaya (Found Someone)”, actor Andy Lau’s next film, "Dummy Mummy, without a Baby" and the Cowboy Bebop film. We also have some pics from “Pitaah (Father)”, the Andy Lau film, and “Dummy Mummy, without a Baby”. Now here’s the latest from Asia.
INDIA
- Some new stills were released online from the latest Mahesh Manjrekar-Sanjay Dutt film, “Pitaah (Father)”. The emotionally-heavy action drama sees Dutt’s first role of a rural farmer, and also stars Nandita Das and Shivaji Satham. Watch for the film to release this December meanwhile here’s the pics.
A small pic of Nandita Das, who plays Sanjay’s wife in the film: Just Click Here
A really dirty-looking Sanjay, along with Nandita: Click Now
Dirty Sanjay again, this time on horseback: Click
- Director Shekhar Kapur is in talks to make a documentary on the life of famous cricketer Kapil Dev. He has met with Dev on several occasions and the athlete is reportedly “very keen” on the project. Kapur will only produce the film though as he is very busy with “The Four Feathers” right now with Heath Ledger and Kate Hudson.
- Actor Rahul Dev has signed on to star in one of director Mani Rathnam’s upcoming films. There’s no word on what the film will be about but it will most likely be Rathnam’s second Hindi film, possibly starring Shahrukh Khan.
- Principal production on director Rakesh Roshan’s next film, “Koi Mil Gaya (Found Someone)”, has started with a 14-day schedule in Film City, Mumbai. The film is rumoured to be a Sci-fi extravanganza (a first for Bollywood!?) and one of the most costliest films in India. Still coming off the blockbuster success of Roshan’s last film (Kaho Na Pyaar Hai – Say You Love Me), this one’s sure to be a big hit. Like the last film, this one also stars Roshan’s son, Hrithik Roshan, along with Preity Zinta, Johny Lever, Rekha and Rajat Bedi. Here’s some pics from the event celebrating the first day of shooting.
Preity Zinta, Hrithik Roshan and Rakesh Roshan (left to right): Just Go Here
Preity and Rakesh: Click Here
The cracking the Coconut ceremony with director Rakesh Roshan in the middle: Click Here
Hrithik Roshan, singer Udit Narayan, Ira Roshan (Hrithik’s grandmother?), Rakesh Roshan, and music director Rajesh Roshan (Rakesh’ brother): Just Click Right Now
CHINA / HK
“Pimp_star” send us a heads up to Boston readers who have a chance to catch in some really cool “Swordsmen” movies in the area. Be sure to check it out:
Thursdays - Swordswomen:
Michelle Yeoh & Brigitte Lin
You just can?t beat the thrill of seeing a Hong Kong Action film up on the
big screen! And these films should be twice as exciting with our new stereo
sound! Of course, Michelle Yeoh rocketed to fame last year with the release
of CROUCHING TIGER, HIDDEN DRAGON (showing on Thanksgiving), but her long
career in Hong Kong includes such highlights as WING CHUN, HEROIC TRIO and
SUPERCOP (with Jackie Chan!). And Brigitte Lin has been in many defining
films from Hong Kong, not the least of which is her pivotal role in Wong
Kar-Wai?s CHUNGKING EXPRESS. She is also the captivating star of classics
like THE BRIDE WITH WHITE HAIR and DRAGON INN. Wire work and high kicks
abound in these always thrilling films! Come on in and see your favorites
again or, if you?ve never experienced a Hong Kong Action film on screen,
now?s your chance to check out some of the best.
here's the schedule of stuff they're playing: Click to visit the site
i know you've got readers in boston, thought this might be something someone
might be interested in, anyway...
keep up the fine work with asia-aicn :)
pimp_star.
Here is the latest report from “Acc Spy”:
- Oriental Daily reported that Shu Qi is in talks to star in one of the Luc Besson's future films. The Taiwanese actress has flown to Paris to meet the producer/director. The two first met at Cannes this year when Shu Qi's "Millennium Mambo" premiered at the festival.
Here’s a really nice pic of Shu Qi: Click Here
- In a recent interview, fight choreographer Xung Xian Xian talked about
his experience during "The Musketeers", as well as the near
chance to work in the upcoming "Spider-Man". He said director Sam Raimi
has contacted him for some re-shooting of the action scenes in the film,
they had a meeting on Sept. 8th about re-shooting the finale which took
place on the roof of the Twin Towers(!), but the plan was dropped since
9/11 attack happened. Xung is now working in Steven Segal's prison
action film "Half Past Dead".
- TeamWork Pictures's new romantic comedy about Latin dancer had a
shooting ceremony last weekend. The film is directed by Andrew Lau and
produced by and starring Andy Lau along with a strong cast including Sandra
Ng, Anita Mui, Lam Kar-tung and Donald Cheng, and Edison Chan from Gen-Y
Cops has a cameo as a break-dancer. Initially Anita Mui has just agreed
to make a cameo for the film but her character is too interesting and
Andy Lau couldn’t pass the opportunity to extend her character. The
shooting has been partially finished but some big dancing sequences have
not yet been shot and the primary cast are still practicing for the accurate dancing skills.
Andy Lau has a new challenge as a Latin dancer: Click Here Now
Sandra Ng is more than welcome the joining of Anita: Click Right Here
Anita Mui is now a star of the film: Just Click Here
TV star Lam Kar-tung makes an appearance in the film as a dancing coach: Click Here
Sandra and Anita working together for the first time in their fifteen
years friendship: Click
- Jet Li missed his chance to debut at no.1 again, thanks to the surprise
hit "Dummy Mummy, without a Baby". The re-make of the 1967's classic,
starring Mariam Yeung and Edison Chan, about an OL who fakes pregnancy to
prevent from being laid off, debuted strongly at no.1 on Saturday with $2.3
million in a two-days period, easily beating out Jet Li's "The One",
which earned $2.1 million in a four-day period. Two weeks’ champion "The Others" was at no.3, along with last week's debut "American Pie 2" at no.4. Another Korean horror flick, "Nightmare", landed at no.5, "Apocalypse Now Redux" and Johnny Deep's "Blow" had limited releases and debuted at no.7 and no.8. French's sensational hit "Amelie From Montmartre" was still doing strong business, with $2 million grossing so far, standing at no.6.
Here’s a pic of Mariam Yeung from “Dummy Mummy, without a Baby”: Click Now
Here’s another pic from the film: Click Here
And a final one: Just Click
JAPAN
“Pigmon” didn’t have a report this week but he did manage to tell us that Miyazaki’s latest film, “Spirited Away”, finally broke Titanic’s record to become the number one movie in Japan (with over $217 million in box-office collections!). Furthermore he found out that the acclaimed director is not retiring but in fact coming back with another anime in 2004!!
Also, a regular reader of ours sent us a review on the Cowboy Bebop film “Knockin’ On Heaven’s Door” so here it is. (Special thanks to Matthew Lynch)
COWBOY BEBOP: The Motion Picture...
A little bit of relevant background: I'm really not a fan of anime in general. Not because I don't think it's any good, but simply because I'm not terribly familiar with the rapidly burgeoning number of available titles. It's hard to know what to look for. Beyond the sort of "classics" like Akira and Mononoke, I'm pretty much clueless.
But I'm always into trying something new. When Moriarty reviewed Cartoon Network's Adult Swim lineup a few months ago, it sounded tempting and I gave it a whirl. Cowboy Bebop really stood out. It was different from most anime I'd previously seen. Less of tech fetish and more focus on humor and character. Great music to boot. I found it well-animated, very charming, and far more exciting than most of what's currently available on television. I was instantly hooked. In fact, after viewing a mere four episodes, I went out and bought all six Bebop DVDs and flew through the series' entire run in about two days.
Twenty-six episodes weren't enough. Any fan of the show (and I discovered there are apparently a great deal of them) will tell you that when the series came to a close, you really missed the characters you'd spent so much time with and grown to care about.
So I'm happy to tell you that the new film, recently released in Japan, absolutely lives up to expectations. Cowboy Bebop: Knockin' on Heaven's Door has everything great that the show had and then some.
For those who've seen the full original series, the movie takes place between episodes 22 and 23. The setup: A terrorist detonates a tanker-truck bomb in a crowded city block. Later, people start dying of a strange new disease that somehow leaves no trace of its presence after death. Whoever's behind the attack suddenly finds themselves saddled with a 300,000,000 Wulong bounty, and the constantly starving, luckless Bebop crew decides to go after the bad guy. Except nobody knows who he is.
All of the main cast is back. Even Ed and Ein, who actually get to DO stuff in this one. Ed, for me anyways, pretty much managed to steal the movie. My only complaint here is that Jet doesn't really get as much action in this as he deserves...he's not relegated to the background, but he's also not at the forefront. Spike is really the main character here, and the story focuses on him a great deal.
A few new characters show up, as colorful as any of the Bebop crew's targets. Electra, a government agent who may know the secret behind the mysterious virus, and Vincent, the ex-special forces man she's trying to hunt down. To say more about either of them would be giving too much away.
This movie is in my opinion the best "episode" of Bebop. It's absorbing and funny, and terribly exciting. Great music, as always, and fantastic action sequences. One of the things that originally struck me about the series is how well done the actual hand-to-hand combat scenes are done. Spike is a student of Jeet Kun-Do, and his movements are really well animated. If anything, there weren't enough of these bits on the show. There are two or three really excellent such scenes in Heaven's Door, one in particular involving Spike and Electra that for my money puts anything in movies like Kiss of the Dragon to shame.
Some fans might be disappointed by the film's conclusion. It doesn't ever come right out and fully explain the situation, and sometimes it seems that a few story beats here and there are left to be inferred. I, however, found this to be typical of Cowboy Bebop, and therefore it didn't bother me.
Wrapping up...it may sound silly, but if you like this sort of thing, you'll like this sort of thing. You don't need to be familiar with any of the series' plot arcs to follow the movie, but it's definitely important to be familiar with the characters, as well as how they end up at the end of the series. Fans of the show, I'm sure, will love this movie. Others coming to Bebop for the first time might find a lot more flaws than I did, though, so be forewarned.
By the way, for anyone out there who's interested, I managed to view this movie after finding it as an .avi file on Morpheus. It's a huge file, about 600 MB, and even with my cable hookup it took me a while to download. The image quality is very good at 640x360, and it's very well subtitled in English. All this courtesy of a group calling themselves Anime-Empire. You can contact them on IRC at #Anime-Empire on irc.enterthegame.com.
Matthew Lynch
A real-video version of the movie’s trailer could be found at: This Cool Location Check it out!!
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
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