Father Geek here with our regular Thursday edition of the Asia-AICN column. Darius25 has lots of news from Bollywood for you and pigmon has the latest from Tokyo, but before I turn you over to them here are a couple of things of importance that I found here at our Geek Headquarters Compound in Texas this morning...

.

To give a bit of background, i am the lead editor of
'Countdown to Spirited Away.' I took the task because
I got myself a bootleg and loved it too much not to
open my mouth and spread the word about this
incredible movie (being as you are 'Father Geek' and
all, I assume Harry and you have both seen it, as I
recall he said in the post of my news of the new
trailer the other day, that he had seen it several times already).

Anyways, I'm rambling. I went to Amazon.com, and
found the following release dates for the "Spirited
Away" books that Viz Communications is planning to put
out (the ordering information for each book lists what
I will tell you:

Art of Spirited Away- November 2002

Spirited Away Picture Book- November 2002

Spirited Away Comic Series:

• Vol 1-September 2002
  
• Vol 2-October 2002
  
• Vol 3-November 2002
  
• Vol 4-December 2002
  
• Vol 5-January 2003

Hope that helps. Also, I may get a chance to see a
sneak preview of the new Dub on September 16. If the
guy in charge of the passes remembers my name and
sends me the passes, I'll try to have a good review
sent (hopefully with some more people I know). So
far, I've screened my REgion 3 DVD and I have not
heard one negative comment from any of those who
attended a showing.

Sincerely,
uruseiranma aka Michael Howe

Father Geek back, this time with a little bit of GOOD news concerning ICHI THE KILLER and its Euro DVD release...

Here ya go:

le&sid=820> The News about its Uncut Cut is Right Here

19th Novemner 2002 2 Disc SE with English Subs.

Gore hounds rejoice.

Jenz

Annnnnnd now one more note, from ol' Father Geek especially for yakuza-action-violence fans, with a small Takashi
Miike movie scoop. He is currently filming the TRUE
STORY OF ANDO'S GANG - LEGEND OF OUTLAW FIRE (Jitsuroku Ando Gumi -
Kyoudou-den Rekka), with an all-star cast including Riki Takeuchi (from DoA
and Fudoh), Renji Ishibashi (Audition), Tetsuro Tamba (You Only Live Twice), and
the original "Champion of Death" the incredible, fun-tastic Sonny Chiba!

Now here's Darius and the rest of our report...

Asia-AICN

Hey all, hope you’ve had a great week. We have a packed column for you in this edition with lots of great Japanese and Bollywood news. Included are scoops on Aamir Khan’s Hollywood project, “Tere Naam (Your Name)”, “Haru No Hono (Spring Fire)”, and the new Ultraman film. We also have reviews of the two latest Bollywood releases, “Agni Varsha (The Fire and the Rain)” and “Chor Machaaye Shor (Thief Makes Noise)”.

INDIA

- First it was Salman Khan, now it looks like Aamir Khan will be the second mainstream Bollywood actor to appear in a Hollywood film. The actor, who lots of critical acclaim for “Lagaan”, has been quite busy with doing promotional work and being on the jury for the Locarno Film Festival this year. He has finally returned to India, with 4-5 offers from the US. Negotiations are on with many big studios, including 20th Century Fox, and Aamir is said to be seriously considering atleast 1 or 2 of the films. Keeping in mind that Aamir is known for picking quality films over the big bucks, we can be sure that this won’t be some teenybopper romance!

- And if starring in a Hollywood film wasn’t enough, actor Salman Khan has decided to star in another Bollywood film which is aiming to finish before “Marigold” starts. This new project, titled “Tere Naam (Your Name)” will be directed by Satish Kaushik and will be shot around the schedule during the next two months. It is being planned for a December 2002 release – damn that’s fast!!! “Marigold” is set to start shooting from early 2003.

- Pantaloon films (“Na Tum Jaano Na Hum – Neither of Us Know”) have already started production on their next project, titled “Chura Liya Hai Tumne (Stealing You). The film stars newcomer Zayed Khan and Esha Deol in the leading roles, and is currently being shot in Bombay. Production will move to Bangkok and Pattaya (Thailand) in the fall. This seems to be a quickie as the expected release date is January 10.

- Here are some pics from the launch of a new film called “Humsaaya (The Shadow)”. We’ve never heard of this film before but it looks to be a thriller starring Shilpa Shetty and Dino Morea.

Shilpa and Dino doing their first take: Click Here Now

Superstar Amitabh Bachchan giving the first clap: Join Them Here

Another pic of Shilpa and Dino posing for reporters: Go Here To See

And another pic of Shilpa, with her sister Shamita Shetty: Click Right Here

- Actress Tabu will reunite with her “Chandni Bar” director Madhur Bhandarkar for his next film “Police Force”. The actress is the first female to join the brutal action film, which stars Amitabh Bachchan, Akshay Kumar, Sunil Shetty and Jackie Shroff. Look for more actresses to join the cast in coming week.

AGNI VARSHA (The Fire and the Rain)

One of last week’s two major releases was this highly-anticipated period epic from noted theatrical director Arjun Sajnani. Based on a critically-acclaimed play called “The Fire and the Rain”, the film stars a bunch of smaller actors such as Jackie Shroff, Nagarjuna, Milind Soman, Sonali Kulkarni, and Raveena Tandon. And if having 6 lead actors wasn’t enough, the director got Amitabh Bachchan to make a 1 minute special appearance as, get this, the mighty Lord Indra. And if the name of that deity is familiar to you then you’ll know that this film is based on one of the many tales contained in the ancient Hindu epic, “The Mahabharata”.

The story is essentially a high concept art-film told on a small scale, but with a large cast. The main plot revolves around a naïve simpleton named Aravasu (Milind Soman) who wants nothing more than getting married to his girlfriend, a low-caste tribal woman named Nittilai (Sonali Kulkarni). However, things are much more complicated for Aravasu, as he’s the younger brother of the head priest in their area – Paravasu (Jackie Shroff). Paravasu is currently in the midst of a 7-year long religious ritual in order to please the Lord Indra – he thinks that if he does this, the deity would take pity on the local citizens and bring rain to the drought-ravaged village. Paravasu is too busy with the rituals and ignores his wife, leading her to fall in to the temptations of her husband’s cousin, Yavakri (Nagarjuna). Paravasu’s father founds out about the affair and conjures up a demon to kill Yavakri, creating a chain of events that would shatter the lives of everybody in the film.

Now it may seem like a great epic, but it really isn’t anything more than a bunch of extraordinary circumstances happening around a really simple person. Because the film is set in a mythological world, we’re treated to evil demons (who could be good), magic, treachery, and even the last-minute appearance of super deities. However don’t expect anything spectacular, as we’re only treated to a glimpse of what could have been a great and magical epic. The film plays out like a theatrical production with a lot of dialogue, minimal special FX, lots of inner monologue, and even instances of off-screen death.

The acting is good by the ensemble cast. Milind Soman and Sonali Kulkarni don’t disappoint in their roles. Both are instructed to play it plain and simple without any of the access emotions we’re known to see in Bollywood. They’re in love but don’t go crying or pouting all over the place. When Aravasu is wronged by his own family members, or when he saves Nittalai from certain death, he doesn’t switch to instant action-hero mode. Instead he resorts to measures which only an ordinary person would think of. Sonali Kulkarni is also very good as the loyal girlfriend who usually does most of the thinking. Jackie Shroff, Raveena Tandon, and Nagarjuna provide good support in their limited roles. Their characters would have been the leading ones in any other films, but it’s good that the director decided to use them as a backdrop rather than the main focus of the script. Amitabh Bachchan is his usual self as the Lord Indra. He appears in the very last moment when you don’t expect it, and acts like the supercool actor that he is. Of course he isn’t given much to do, but it was still a nice touch to have a legendary actor play a GOD! Very few actors actually have the status to pull off a role like this but Bachchan does with ease.

The direction is also pretty decent. The overall camera angles and movements also give the appearance of a theatrical production. Because the film was originally a play, and the director has a theatrical background, it is very easy to consider this as a stage production than a standard period epic. The film is also decently paced and with a short running time of 2 hours, doesn’t drag at all. The 4 songs are ok, but I do wish that 2 of them would have been edited out as they don’t fit in with the story. The visual look of the film is superb with production values equivalent to higher-budgeted films like “Lagaan”, “Asoka”, and “Gadar (Revolution)”.

All in all, “Agni Varsha” is a great art film with a very interesting mythological background. It would have been a blockbuster success if it went for the big-budget histrionics ala “Gladiator” or “Conan the Barbarian”, but for now it stands as a small unique experiment quite rare in commercial Bollywood cinema.

Jackie Shroff looks pretty evil, without his trademark moustache: Check Him Out Here

Raveena Tandon doesn’t look so pretty here in a period setting: See Her Here

Milind Soman looks dumb, but acts pretty well: Click

CHOR MACHAAYE SHOR (Thief Makes Noise)

Talk about an odd pairing. The other film released last Friday is the latest nonsense comedy from absurd director David Dhawan. The guy makes these goofy films at a breathtaking pace (this is his 3rd film in 4 months!), which lack so much in substance but provide a rip-roaring time at the theatres.

This is the director’s first collaboration with all three leading actors – Bobby Deol, Shilpa Shetty, and Bipasha Basu – who all have very little experience in comedy. Bobby stars as a thief who manages to steal a highly-coveted diamond only to get arrested while making his getaway. He manages to hide the jewel though in a construction site but discovers (after his release) that the location is now home to a police station. What does he do, why impersonate a police officer of course while pretending to be a pair of twins, romancing the two leading ladies, conning the dim-witted police commissioner, outsmarting a suspicious police officer, and thwarting the bumbling criminals after the diamond!! Crazy huh?? Yeah I’ve seen “Blue Streak” aswell, but trust me, this is MUCH MUCH funnier!

How is it funnier – well for starters Bobby plays his role as a complete idiot – much more retarded than Martin Lawrence in the original. Both actresses have very little to do, but actually revel in the lack of substance in their characters – Bipasha appears (and disappears) without any explanation whatsoever, while Shilpa actually knows that she’s just in the song numbers! And the supporting characters – oh man! Paresh Rawal is absolutely hilarious as the police commissioner and then gets even more crazier in his second role (which has to be seen!). Likewise Om Puri is fine as the suspicious officer after Bobby, and manages to keep us in splits even up to the final scene (which also has to be seen!). And veteran TV comedian Shekhar Suman’s in this aswell and he, um, well just see what he does!!

You can also add in the crazy song numbers which pushes the genre to the extreme. The music is extremely fast-paced, the lyrics don’t make sense, the costumes are appaling, the dancing is ridiculous, and they just pop up without any logic. If anything, the only person that the songs would make sense to is probably Takashi Miike. Nontheless, the numerous sequences (about 7) just add to the absurdity of the film itself. The comic situations are also without any real logic. The film starts off with Blue Streak’s plot, then moves on to identical twins-type story, then adds in more twins, a love triangle, a jewel heist, and oddly enough finishes with the ending from “Bandits”. It’s a pretty poor excuse for a script, but you have to give it credit for just being funny. The direction is decent enough for a comedy – the movie sort of flowed nicely (if you could follow the plot) while the laugh ratio was pretty high!

All in all, you can add this one to another fun of David Dhawan’s nonsense list. It’s absurd, ridiculous and downright crazy, but I laughed my ass off for the 135 minutes!

Bobby Deol, Shilpa Shetty, and a really big diamond: Just Click Here

A SEXY pic of Bipasha Basu: WOW! She's Hot!

A Crazy dance number: Pretty Cool!

More Shilpa goodness: Its Right Here

And more Bipasha goodness: Check it Out!

JAPAN

Here’s the latest report from Pigmon:

- Shooting is underway for director Yukio Inagawa’s first film in 21 years. Titled “Haru No Hono (Spring Fire)”, the film stars singer Kazuya Ninomiya and world famous costume designer Kansai Yamamo. It is scheduled to release next summer.

- Director Kita Ura’s new Ultraman movie, “Ultraman Cosmos: Blue Planet”, is now out in theatres. It is much better than last year’s Ultraman movie and the special FX are stunning. The movie is currently playing with a music video called “The Legend of Ultraman”, which features the entire Ultraman family (53 in all) dancing to retro disco music!

- Director Fumihiko Sori’s “Ping Pong” is also in theatres right now. Based on a best selling mango, the film tells the story of 2 rivals at a high school Ping Pong tournament. Sori has a background at Digital Domain, but the FX work is kept to a minimum here. The film is pretty poorly directed but is very popular with the teenagers. The techno soundtrack kicks ass though!

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