International Eye Candy December 15, 2011 Yes, boys and girls, two weeks have come and gone and that means it’s time for another instalment of International Eye Candy. Your regular roundup of the best stuff from around the globe this edition features a trio of titles from The Netherlands, the return of Jackie Chan, OLBOY star Choi Min-sik sporting some fine hair, an English friendly trailer for Paco Plaza’s [REC]3: GENESIS, a look at Christian Bale in Chinese Oscar submission THE FLOWERS OF WAR and a ton more. Here we go!
We begin with the first of our Dutch efforts. Arne Toonen’s BLACK OUT looks to be channelling the spirit of early Guy Ritchie with its hyper-stylish crime story. The premise is simple: Ex con wakes up the morning before his wedding with a splitting headache, a gun, an unrecognizable corpse in the bed next to him and an angry gangster calling claiming he stole twenty kilos of cocaine. Cue mad dash to work it all out before getting hitched. Watch the BLACK OUT trailer here
There has been a recent wave of short film makers snatched up to do high profile features lately, the studios leaping hungrily after new talent and fresh blood based on just a few minutes of quality work. The director of the upcoming EVIL DEAD remake is an example of this but there are many others over the past couple years. And my money says that the next one to go will be the uncredited creator of scifi short KELOID. Based on the concept of technology becoming self aware – admittedly not the most original of concepts – this one excels because of the execution. The style on display here is note perfect in exactly the way that the studios want for a big event movie. These guys are going places. Watch the KELOID trailer here
Upcoming war picture MY WAY – from the director of Korean blockbuster TAEGUKGI – has made this column before but it’s back now with a lengthy eight minutes reel of footage from the picture. Some films want to show you as little as possible to hide their shortcomings but this one just looks better and better and better the more we see. Epic would be the correct term. Watch eight minutes of MY WAY here
If you attended Fantastic Fest 2011 you may have been one of the lucky ones to witness the madness of Roland Petrizza and Alex Eslam’s INFERNAL NUNS, a mock trailer for a non-existent film. What separates this from the rest of the faux-grindhouse pack is not just the level of skill involved in creating it but the sheer insane scale of the images on screen. And, yes, if you guessed from the poster image that this would not be workplace friendly viewing you are correct. Watch the INFERNAL NUNS here
Taking the Best Title award for this edition of the IEC by a handy margin is upcoming Korean effort TOO MANY VILLAINS, a gritty crime noir about a retired gangster being sucked back into the business. This is the sort of film that the Korean wave was built on and while the country has lost a lot of their genre mojo over the past few years this one just goes to show that there is still a pool of young up and coming talent there to draw from. Watch the TOO MANY VILLAINS trailer here
It’s hard to believe that a franchise that has spawned books, video games, manga, two television series and a live action movie has yet to appear on the big screen in its original, animated form. But that’s the case with the Mamoru Oshii produced BLOOD, THE LAST VAMPIRE. More than a decade after the arrival of the original 50 minute OVA production BLOOD has become one of the most successful anime franchises ever and yet the upcoming BLOOD-C: THE LAST DARK will be the franchise’s first big screen, animated outing. The elements are all very familiar at this point but it looks like original producers Production IG and their collaborators at CLAMP have cooked up a pretty compelling take. Watch the BLOOD-C: THE LAST DARK trailer here
Here comes Amsterdam, Round Two! Our second Dutch effort is ZOMBIBI, a blood soaked zombie comedy that starts off looking like a stereotypical culture clash comedy until Amsterdam is hit by something falling from the sky and the dead return to life. The trailer promises a ton of stylish and super bloody kills executed with tongue firmly in cheek. Watch the ZOMBIBI trailer here
Guy Maddin’s KEYHOLE may not have knocked audiences out of the park when it premiered at the Toronto International Film Festival but the reality is that Maddin is still one of the most unique filmmakers in the world and even the things that don’t quite click end up standing as fascinating experiments. And the idea of a black and white, noir infused, 1930s gangster take on Homer’s Odyssey definitely stands up as the sort of crazy experiment that only Maddin would try. The full trailer for this one has now arrived online so judge for yourself. Watch the KEYHOLE trailer here
Already much in the news thanks to the casting of Christian Bale as a Catholic priest caught in Nanjing during the Japanese invasion of China, Zhang Yimou’s THE FLOWERS OF WAR has gone on to become China’s official submission for the Best Foreign Language Film Oscar and the smart money says that it gets at least a nomination. And why not? Zhang has long been considered one of China’s finest filmmakers, the film revolves around one of the darkest moments in recent military history and Bale is one hell of an actor. The Chinese trailers began circulating a while ago but there is a new US version now as well. Watch the FLOWERS OF WAR trailer here
Olaf de Fleur’s Icelandic crime thriller CITY STATE made headlines a few weeks back when word broke that 3:10 TO YUMA director James Mangold had picked up rights for a US remake. Not bad for a film that had just premiered in its home country, had yet to hit the international festival circuit and hadn’t even released an English friendly trailer at that point. Well, the English trailer is out now and it’s easy to see why Mangold was interested in this one with its blend of strong characters, international crime – Jonathan Pryce plays a key support role – and hard edged action. Watch the CITY STATE trailer here
We conclude our Dutch trio with MANSLAUGHTER, a violent drama that recalls FALLING DOWN with its story of a paramedic pushed over the edge into violence. This one apparently has some grounding in current events, violence against emergency services workers becoming a growing news story in the Netherlands but real or not it looks like director Peter Kuijpers and star Theo Maassen have tapped into some raw energy here. Watch the MANSLAUGHTER trailer here
With Johnnie To spending most of his time in recent years on dramas and rom-coms Dante Lam has stepped up and established himself as the reigning king of Hong Kong actions cinema with a string of high octane action hits. For his latest effort, THE VIRAL FACTOR, Lam is aiming bigger than he ever has before both in terms of cast – pop star Jay Chou (Kato in THE GREEN HORNET) and Nicholas Tse star – and in terms of the continent hopping plot. Lam has built his name by delivering the thrills and this does not look to disappoint. Watch the latest VIRAL FACTOR trailer here
OLDBOY star Choi Min-sik is, quite simply, one of the finest actors of his generation. He is also an actor who chooses not to work very much these days. He stepped away from the industry entirely for a few years in the mid-2000’s and now seems content to pick and choose his projects with great care. So when he chooses you know it’s because he thinks it’s going to be something good indeed and the upcoming NAMELESS GANGSTER looks to be exactly that. Set against a backdrop of 1990s political corruption the trailer for this one hits the perfect balance of style and grit and if they can maintain that balance this could very well be the movie to beat in 2012. Watch the trailer for NAMELESS GANGSTER
The past several years of Jackie Chan’s career – arguably the last decade – has been a chronicle of the action icon attempting to age gracefully, slowly making concessions to the years of wear and damage on his body. But for the upcoming CHINESE ZODIAC – his 101st film – Chan seems to be saying “Screw that shit.” Chan’s going big with this one and while he has cast some younger stars to carry some of the action – Korea’s Kwon Sang-woo plays a major part – he’s in there getting down and dirty himself. Though the film is still in production they’ve released a behind the scenes video that captures some of the on set action and things are looking good. Find the CHINESE ZODIAC promo here
And, finally, we wrap things up with the new international – and English friendly – trailer for Paco Plaza’s [REC]3: GENESIS. The third instalment in the hugely successful zombie franchise changes things up a bit in terms of format and location while also looking to add a little bit of humor but fans can still expect plenty of death and destruction. Find the [REC]3: GENESIS trailer here
