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Twitch & AICN Present: International Eye Candy! Jeunet! Pics from Park Chan Wook's vampire movie! CHANDI CHOWK TO CHINA! & More!
Hello and good day and welcome to the first International Eye Candy column of 2009! My name is Todd Brown and I shall be your guide today to places strange and wondrous and – on occasion – filled with violence begotten upon Nordic youth by Nazi undead. It's that sort of day. But before we get to the pictures of the moving variety, how about some unmoving ones courtesy of DELICATESEN and AMELIE director Jean-Pierre Jeunet and his new film, MICMACS A TIRE LARIGOT. Yup. Nine brand new images in there and they're looking swell. And, hey, what the heck. Why not take a look at the first shots from Park Chan Wook's vampire picture THIRST, too. But now, onwards!
We begin with Bollywood kung fu musical CHANDNI CHOWK TO CHINA, a film we've written about in these pages before thanks to its brilliant blending of Bollywood and classic Shaw Brothers era kung fu aesthetics and for the casting of the legendary Gordon Liu as the villain. This is one of those rare occasions when people reading this column will actually have a chance to see the films they're reading about promptly on the big screen as this one's getting a theatrical release in major cities worldwide on January 16th and leading up to that we've got all sorts of new stuff. Trailers, music videos, scene excerpts, you name it.
From Bollywood we head north. Way north! All the way up to Sweden, where a sudden burst of international co-operation is seeing a mix of Danes and Swedes and probably a few other nations (just for good measure) shoot a film adaptation of hugely popular crime novel THE GIRL WITH THE DRAGON TATTOO, which is – admittedly – a very strange translation for a book whose original title actually means 'Men Who Hate Women'. I'm working my way through the novel right now and it's a very dark crime noir, and given the run of fantastic noir coming out of the region these days, the fact that the director is also responsible for this year's Danish Oscar submission and the fact that the trailers look amazing, my hopes are rather high for this one.
Fans of iconic science fiction author Stanislaw Lem rejoice! It's been a while since the author of SOLARIS had any of his work adapted for the big screen but there are a pair of Lem adaptations on the go right now. The first to arrive will be Hungarian director Pater Sparrow's adaptation of 1, the story of a book shop suddenly filled with nothing but copies of a mysterious book that explains what happens to all of humanity in the space of one minute. Lem does thinking man's science fiction and there just aint enough of that out there. Doesn't hurt that Sparrow clearly knows how to shoot.
Yeah, I'll use pretty much any excuse to work the soon-at-Sundance blaxploitation throwback BLACK DYNAMITE into the mix here and the excuse this time is a pair of mock TV ads for the brand of malt liquor that features prominently into the plot. The TV ads are okay but don't be watching the trailer if you happen to be at work. Or in the same room as your mother.
You should all know about Nazi-zombie film DEAD SNOW – also soon to premiere at Sundance – by now. It's featured in this column before, Harry's been talking about it enthusiastically on the front page of AICN and, heck, it's got Nazi zombies. What it also has now is a ridiculously bloody and hysterically funny clip. My reaction to watching this the first time drew curious onlookers from other floors of the building I was in at the time. Seriously. This is fantatic.
I now take a moment to celebrate Canada's junior hockey supremacy – like anyone anywhere else cares – with a film from my homeland. A couple years back Erik Canuel had a big time hit here with a little buddy comedy titled BON COP, BAD COP – a film that did the impossible and actually got Canadian audiences out en masse to see a Canadian film rather than simply sitting at home feeling inferior to Americans. And now Canuel is back with his latest, a darker than dark comedy titled CADAVRES. And though it's probably not really fair of me to invite this sort of comparison, I've got to say this trailer really reminds me of a lot of Jeunet's strong points. Big shoes to fill, sure, but I think Canuel just might be able to do it.
We head to the far side of the Commonwealth now to Australia and HIGHLANDER director Russell Mulcahey's latest, the noir action flick GIVE 'EM HELL MALONE. This is more of a sales reel than a proper trailer but it features loads of Mulcahey's uber-stylish camera work, Thomas Jane kicking ass, Ving Rhames in the credits but not on screen, and Chris (Sister of Donnie) Yen on screen but not in the credits. Don't mess with a Yen, man, she'll kick your ass.
LESBIAN VAMPIRE KILLERS has a teaser. That is all.
The first of two out-and-out chick fight movies featured int eh column this time out is COWEB, the directorial debut from Xiong Xin Xin, a man whose name you may not recognize but whose face you probably will since he played Clubfoot opposite Jet Li in the ONCE UPON A TIME IN CHINA films. What's to know? New Hong Kong based female fight star, all real fights, no stunt doubles, no CGI. This trailer isn't as flashy as the ones released for Thailand's CHOCOLATE last year but it also features none of the blatant film speed manipulation and trickery that mars that film so badly for me. This is the real stuff.
If you're a Japanese film fan then Masatoshi Nagase is an actor who probably makes you say "Oh, it's THAT guy," whenever he pops up on screen. He doesn't play a ton of leads but has impeccable taste in his projects and his presence can generally be taken as an instant seal of quality. If Nagase is in it, it is almost certain to be good. And GELATIN SILVER LOVE looks very, very good. The debut film from an acclaimed still photographer, GSL stars Nagase as a private eye hired to follow a beautiful woman who turns out to be a hired killer. The film is mostly observation, apparently, which would be dull if not for how expressive Nagase and his costars are (BABEL's Koji Yakusho also stars) and how stunning it is to look at. I'll never look at a boiled egg the same way again. Yes, please.
Martial arts cannibal mystic! There. Now you already know you need to take a look at NAAN KADAVUL.
Director Shinpei Hayashiya would like you to know that his DEEP SEA MONSTER RAIGA is not GODZILLA. Definitely not. No GODZILLA here. This is a completely different city stomping Japanese monster. Heh. I love this trailer, and not just because RAIGA is so pleasingly old school. Pay attention to the dialogue.
I've gotta say that I like me a good war film and Turkey's NEFES certainly looks to fir the bill. The film's first-time director built his script around the real life stories of actual Turkish soldiers used in the fight against extremists and terrorists, then hired a largely unknown cast and had them trained by retired army officers to get the sense of things just right. And if these trailers are any indication then what he's ended up with is something along the lines of Turkey's answer to PLATOON.
Our penultimate stop in the column takes us back north to Norway. No Nazi's or zombies in SKJULT (HIDDEN), but what you do get is one potent haunted house story with a good amount of psychological breakdown and survival horror thrown into the mix. Kirstoffer Joner – one of the best actors of his generation in the entire world – stars and that alone is enough to make this a must see.
We close now with the second of our two promised chick-fight films, Japan's aptly titled HIGH KICK GIRL. Again, new star. Again, real martial artist. Again, no trickery or CGI. The teaser is pretty much a textbook example of how a single image can sell an entire film if just chosen carefully.
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