Well here's the third edition of our regular Thursday morning Asia-AICN column. OK folks our editor/reporter is in the pipeline for Bollywood news, but he needs your help getting filled in on what's happening in the rest of Asia. Now Father Geek wants any of you that have scoops, or just plain old movie news, from Hong Kong, Japan, or anywhere else in Asia, even India, to send that information along to DARIUS 25 so he can add it to these weekly columns. The World is really hungry to find out what projects are cooking throughout Asia, and we can't tell the world about them if you don't tell us first, so send him, or me those scoops right away and get the buzz started on your country's film industry.
Asia-AICN #3
Hey guys, hope you've had a good week. The past week was a bit dull in terms of news, but there were some pretty good announcements. Here they are:
- The major announcement was that two of India's legendary actors (now deceased) - Raj Kapoor and M.G. Ramachandran will be "revived" through the use of digital animation and photo-realistic 3D graphics. This will be a joint venture by Pentamedia Graphics Ltd. and 3D Maximedia Inc. The movie will be released in three languages - Hindi, Tamil and English. The Hindi and Tamil versions will be released theatrically but the English version will be freely distributed over the Internet (good news for most of us). The untitled film will be an interactive one - there will be multiple storylines, double action/trip action choices, etc. I would say this is one of the biggest accomplishments of Bollywood (if it goes through successfully) and I wish them all the luck.
- Actress Shabana Aazmi will act in an upcoming play at the National Theatre's Cottesloe Theatre in London, Eng. The play, titled The Waiting Room, will begin performances on Many 25 and will run through June.
- Two classic films Awara (Vagabond), starring Raj Kapoor; and Pyaasa (Thirsty), starring Guru Dutt, will be screened in May at the UCLA as part of its series - "Gotta Sing, Gotta Dance: Musicals from the World." Awara will be shown on May 14, while Pyaasa will be shown on May 28. For more information on the UCLA festival, you can visit their website at WwW.cInEmA.uClA.eDu.
- There will be a new awards ceremony held at the Millenium Dome in London on June 28. The show will be called International Indian Film Awards. The final winner of the Best Picture award will be chosen by an Internet poll which will provide the viewers to decide on last year's best Indian film. The nominations have not yet been announced.
- Now there have been lots of requests from you about pictures of actress
Aishwarya Rai. Wait no longer, here it is:
Now, besides from being a dull week, news-wise, there was also no new film release last week. I did see a very good British film that has been reviewed previously on this site. I will review it though because I think this is the first review from an Indian/Asian perspective and it is a movie that should be watched by everybody, especially the Asian people who have been living abroad for a long time, and are out of touch with their cultures. The film's name is East is East, and it stars Indian actor Om Puri and Linda Bassett.
The film is about a dysfunctional family (who doesn't have one ?) headed by George Khan (Om Puri), set in Manchester in 1971. George came from Pakistan in the late 30's and has settled down with an English wife, Ella (Linda Bassett), and together they have seven kids. The main problem is that George was brought up in a strict Muslim tradition and wants to pass this on to his kids. The kids however don't want to do anything with their dad's ways - they were born and raised in Manchester, and consider themselves English. They don't even speak Urdu at home, just English. The film covers the clash of these two cultures, and deals with the family's day to day problems, especially arranged problems. I like the way the film ends (SPOILER) - even though the shorter problems are solved, the longer problems are left unresolved. George doesn't die or stop being a Pakistani, the kids don't convert. They just keep going because the family keeps on going. Life doesn't solve all the issues, you just have to deal with it.
The trailer for this movie is absolutely misleading. This is not something like the Farrelly bros. Yeah, some of the gross-out humour is there, and believe me, the film is VERY funny, but its not really a comedy. I would say it is a lot like American Beauty. In addition to the same subject matter, in both movies you will roll in the aisles with laughter and then stop all of a sudden and be swept up in all of the dramatic emotions that are flowing on the screen.
The trailer also puts its focus on the George's sons and daughter. But the film is not really about the kids. The movie's main focus is on George himself and he is quite a complicated man. He is not really good, but not really bad either. Essentially, he just wants to preserve his country's traditions. He wants his children to be strict Muslims as he is, but the way he acts is not very good. He forces his kids into marriage, he beats up his wife, he kicks out his children, etc. But you can't just help but sympathize with him. As a 20 year-old raised in Canada, I thank god my dad isn't like George. I seriously would have run away from the house. But a lot of people are being raised in this situation. As an adult, I agree that there's nothing wrong with the preservation of one's customs and traditions. I still speak Hindi at home, and I still do stuff that is in accordance with my Indian culture. However, as I was raised in the western world, there's other sides to me as well. I want to do things that would be um, frowned upon, in India and Pakistan. The point of this movie is to present both sides of the issue to both parents and children. Parents should learn that they should not force their younger ones to adopt to the older cultures, while the children should realize that it is not always correct to have throw away their previous cultures. This movie won the Best British Film at the BAFTAs this year - I think it deserved it a hundred percent.
As I previously said, the movie's main character is George Khan. I would say that this is definitely Om Puri's best role in ages. The guy has been constantly good in the past, but this movie fully displays his talents. He takes the role of a no-good mean old hypocrite, and turns him into a well-likeable yet sympathetic person. Puri was nominated for a best actor award at the BAFTA this year and even though Kevin Spacey won it, I have to say Puri was ROBBED!! Linda Bassett is also very good as George's wife and the actors and actors who play George's kids are good as well.
In the end, I would recommend that everybody to go see it. For the non-asians, you will enjoy the great comedy and perhaps learn something to appreciate your own culture aswell. For the Asians though, this film is a MUST SEE. Take the whole family and learn a few lessons, while being thoroughly entertained. With Frequency and East is East, this weekend has been the best weekend (movie-wise) of 2000.
Now for fans of Taiwanese cinema...
One of the very best films produced in all of Asia in 1999 was Chen Kuo-fu's masterful THE PERSONALS made in Taiwan. Expressing the social discontent wrought by a makeshift, hyper-capitalist society it is the tale of a successful young woman who is determined to find a husband. She places an ad in the newspaper and meets a series of wholly inappropriate men. Chen's fantastic sense of visual style comes into play in brilliantly shot and acted comic vignettes. She encounters would-be suitors, everyone from a shoe fetishist to a pimp hustling new call girls.
In a sublime performance, Rene Liu plays Du, not as a victim but as a complicated and strong willed woman, navigating through a world of thwarted dreams. Building from a sardonic look at modern-day matchmaking rituals into a complex depiction of the price of intimacy, THE PERSONALS is a subtle and astonishing motion picture creating a rich tableaux of overlapping colors that reflect the incessant throb of a major urban center with a serious attitude problem.
Now Asian film lovers on the USA's East coast have a fantastic chanch to experience this wonderful film with an audience on the big screen at The Museum of Modern Art in New York City between mid-July and the first week of September. Make plans to attend a screening now, you won't regret it.
