Father Geek here with the new Asia-AICN column for this Thursday. Harry, Quint and I are heading up to the Minn./St.Paul area on a 7am flight today and will be guests at their ConVergence festival thru Monday. I don't know how much free time we'll have, and we'll only have Harry's MAC laptop to share between us to check E-mail and update from, sooooo some of the columns I normally post may end up being a little late, buuuut never fear ol' Father Geek will get to them, just keep faith.
While this next bit is not really Asian news I'm including it here because I feel most of you will be interested...
Possum calling again from Belgium. All our national newspapers are running a story today that Michael Douglas and Benicio Del Toro are going to star in a remake of Jon Woo's classic 'The Killers'. Don't know what to think about it, might be old news, since Belgium is the last country to hear about these things.
Cheers,
Possum.
Here's another one of marginal interest to our fans of Eastern Cinema...
I read your website for years not bothering to email and then...
At the moment in the UK, UK News and UK TeleText are reporting that John Woo is about to sign on to direct Superman, and guess who he wants to play the pant wearing flying hero...none other than Nic Cage!!
I can just image Clark Kent running in slow-mo down an alley and then revealing the famous 'S'...only to have Chow Yun Fat unload two guns worth or bullets into him!
Still pretty cool news though!
Blaize
Now on to the regular column, and Darius25, AccSpy, pigmon and the rest of their crew...
Asia-AICN
Happy Canada Day and 4th of July everyone! I hope you're all enjoying
the festivities. We're back with a BANG this week with packed reports
from India, China, and Japan. In this column, you'll find news on "Tiger
Hill", producer Boney Kapoor's next film, actor Sean Lau Ching-wan's
next film, director Ann Hui's next film, "Memoirs of a Geisha", "Hell
Camp", the Philipino film "Mili", and a BIG confirmation regarding one
of the expected cast members of director Zhang Yimou's "Hero". We also
have many pictures from "Love Ke Liye Kuch Bhi Karega (Do Anything for
Love)", "Fulltime Killer", and Lau Ching-wan's next film. Now here's the
latest from Asia.
INDIA
- 8 cast members of J.P. Dutta's upcoming epic, "Tiger Hill", have now
officially signed on and they are Jackie Shroff, Sanjay Dutt, Sunil
Shetty, Ajay Devgan, Abhishek Bachchan, Saif Ali Khan, Arbaaz Khan, and
Akshaye Khanna. Now here's the kicker, the director is now in
negotiations with Shahrukh Khan for one of the leading roles!!! SRK is
still thinking on the offer, but you can probably expect him to join up
in the role of a general/leader type (much like Sunny Deol's role in
Dutta's "Border"). Speaking of Sunny, he will probably join up as the
10th cast member leaving room for one more major actor to come onboard.
Going by the director's last two films ("Border" and "Refugee"), the
film will be quite long (but not over 4 hrs) and you can expect two or
three major roles from the cast (most likely Sanjay Dutt, SRK and
Sunny). You could also expect Devgan, Shroff, and Shetty to turn in fine
performances while the rest of the cast will be misused in bit parts.
With so many major actors though, the story better be good or else it'll
end up looking too contrived and will probably bore the hell out of the
audience much like "Refugee". I'll keep you posted on more news as it
arrives. The film will be shot in two schedules, one from Oct. to Dec.
and another one from April to June 2002. It will be released sometime
NEXT winter.
- Actress Hrishita Bhatt has replaced Amisha Patel for director Sanjay
Chhel's "Yahoo". The newcomer will star opposite Govinda in the comedy,
which will be released early next year.
- Model turned actor Arjun Rampal has replaced Abhishek Bachchan for
directors Abbas-Mustan's upcoming film. The actioner also stars Bobby
Deol. The remainder of the cast has yet to be finalized.
- After they making their debut in "Refugee", Abhishek Bachchan and
Kareena Kapoor will be paired together again for one of Boney Kapoor's
upcoming film. The film is only in the scripting stage right now as
Boney is still busy on atleast two films right now - "Koi Mere Dil Se
Pooche (Ask My Heart)" and the upcoming Karisma Kapoor-Nana Patekar
remake of "Not Without My Daughter".
- Bollywood was hit by two new releases last week, both of which were
inspired from the Danny DeVito-Bette Midler film, "Ruthless People". The
better of the two, "Love Ke Liye Kuch Bhi Karega (Do Anything for Love)"
was directed by E. Niwas and features a great cast that includes Saif
Ali Khan, Fardeen Khan, Aaftab Shivdasani, Sonali Bendre, Twinkle
Khanna, and a drop-dead HILLARIOUS Johnny Lever. The film's plot is
reminiscent of Ruthless People, but it's been given a total Bollywood
makeover from start to end. Saif plays an ambitious businessman,
Prakash, who marries a woman (Sonali Bendre) for money. He gets
everything that he wants except for the respect of his father-in-law,
who treats him like a dog. He then runs into a pair of criminal
wanna-bees (Fardeen and Aaftab) and hires them to kidnap his wife and
extract a hefty sum from his father-in-law. Of course things don't go
along as planned when the criminals are more idiotic than Prakash, the
wife knows Kung-fu, the cops get involved, and a local gangster (Lever)
is on the duo's tail. All this results in a hectic, yet entertaining fun
reminiscent of Guy Ritchie's pace (toned down for Bollywood). The
ensemble cast is great with Aaftab Shivdasani stealing the show from his
other two co-stars in every scene. His excessive rantic and sense of
comedic timing is just absolutely perfect. Plus his scenes with Johnny
Lever are a must-see. Infact, any scene with Johnny DEMANDS to be
seen!! Saif Ali Khan and Fardeen Khan are good but are not given enough
comedic moments of their own to shine in. Of the two actresses, Twinkle
just provides eye candy while Sonali manages to get a laugh or two
(especially during the kidnapping scenes). The editing is quick and
snappy while the story is extremely fast-paced (with a short running
time of less than 145 mins). The direction is adequate enough for a
comedy while the songs are few and far-in-between. All in all, "Love Ke
Liye Kuch Bhi Karega" is an entertaining yet typical Bollywood
entertainer and it will amuse you while you're in the theatre.
Click here to see a pic of Saif Ali Khan (left), Aaftab Shivdasani (mid)
and Fardeen Khan: Do It Now
Click here to see a pic of Sonali Bendre (and some bad guy) in one of
the only semi-serious scenes during the film: Click Here
Here's a pic of Johnny Lever (mid) as he gets duped into giving money to
a Bollywood talent agent (the guy at left) and Aaftab Shivdasani: Click
And here's a more clear pic of the three heroes (from left: Saif,
Aaftab, and Fardeen): Just Click Now
- The second film released last week was director Harry Baweja's "Mujhe
Meri Biwi Se Bachao (Save Me From My Wife)". Despite featuring somewhat
decent performances from acting vets Naseeruddin Shah and Rekha, the
film is a total letdown (as expected) and should probably be avoided at
all costs. Shah stars as a rich businessman with a really overbearing
(and extremely obese) wife (Rekha). He wants to kill her, but he cannot
do it himself as she controls most of the family's wealth. The guy's
troubles is seemingly solved when he meets two criminals (this time
played by Arshad Warsi and Mukul Dev) and hires them to do the dirty
work. Of course things don't go smoothly for anybody except for the
obese wife. You can probably expect the rest of the story so I won't
reveal anymore. Plot wise, it's practically the SAME movie as "Love Ke
Liye Kuch Bhi Karega", except its set in a different setting (the upper
class rather than the slums) and features a much shittier cast. Why
would do the makers decide to release this movie on the same day as
Love. is beyond my reasoning. Harry Baweja has directed some good films
in the past, and I think he just quickly finished this one to move onto
something better in the near future. The plot is lame and unfunny, the
cast is boring and the songs are definitely NOT pleasing to the ears.
Just go watch the other release and skip this one till you have NOTHING
else to do.
CHINA / HK
Here is the weekly report from AccSpy:
- Director duo Johnnie To and Wai Kar-fai are back to the
gangster-action genre with "Fulltime Killer", which will open in HK at
the end of August. Here's some pix from the film.
The stylish poster: Click Right Here
Andy Lau plays villain again in the movie: Click Here
Another pic of Andy: Just Go Here
Kelly Lin is the female lead: Click Here
Simon Yam plays a cop to track down both hitmen in the film: Click Now
- Who would have thought that Sean Lau Ching-wan's first feature in two
years (besides the Canadian production "Lunch with Charles") is a comedy
about brassieres? Sean Lau and Louis Koo play two brassiere designers
swearing to invent "the best bra in the world"(which is also the Chinese
literal title of the film). The film also co-stars Carina Lau and Gigi
Leung and is being co-directed by Patrick Leung ("Born Wild") and
screen-writer Chan Hing-kar. Here's some on-set photos.
Louis Koo and Sean Lau Ching-wan with their products: Just Click
Another pic of the same: Click
Louis and Sean with Gigi Leung: Click Here
- Finally, Jet Li has confirmed that he will soon stay in China for six
months to film "Hero". The film is director Zhang Yimou's first
Hollywood feature and also stars other big-name stars like Tony Leung
Chiu-wai, Maggie Cheung, Jiang Wen and Zhang Ziyi. With Jet Li on board,
the film is now the most-anticipated project in Chinese cinema.
- Anita Mui will join director Ann Hui ("Visible Secret")'s next
project. Anita will play Jacky Cheung's wife in the film. In the
meantime, the reunion project from director Stanley Kwan and his "Rouge"
co-stars Leslie Cheung and Anita Mui is now on hold.
- Last weekend at the HKBO, "Love on a Diet" stayed on top with another
$8.5 million grossing from the weekend cumulating to an impressive gross
of $25.5 million. "Pearl Harbor" came second with $5 million added to
its total grossing of $15.5 million. "The Mummy Returns" was at no.3
and is currently the highest-grossing film of the year with $34 million.
"Fighting for Love" slipped to no.4 with $1.7 million. "Evolution"
debuted at no.5 with merely $1 million, and finally, Teenage heartthrob
Edison Chan's romantic drama, "Final Romance", tanked at no.6. The film
failed to debut inside the top 5 and barely collected half a million
dollars during the weekend. Today on Thursday, Stephen Chow is back in
high form with his "Shaolin Soccer". The film has received excellent
reviews from last weekend's sneak peek and audiences mostly agreed that
the film is an absolute crowd-pleaser more like the entertaining "God of
Cookery" than the edgy "King of Comedy". Also "Shrek" opens today in
both English and Cantonese versions (which features the voices of
Anothny Wong and Dicky Cheung).
JAPAN
Here's the usual report from Pigmon:
- First of all, a big congratulations goes out to Japanese actress Rie
Miyazawa who was awarded the Best Actress award for the Hong Kong movie
"Yuenkiyomu" at the 23rd Moscow International Film Festival.
- A new candidate has emerged to take on the role of the main
protagonist of Steven Spielberg's upcoming film, "Memoirs of a Geisha".
Rei Kikukawa, an up-and-coming actress, has announced that she is
expected to meet Mr. Spielberg sometime in the fall. The Japanese people
were concerned about the lack of Japanese actors in the upcoming film
before it halted production a while back. Rumours state that Spielberg
is about to commence on this project once more, as soon as work on his
next film, "Minority Report", is completed.
- It was once developed by Columbia, but now Universal Studios will try
to make the sumo movie titled "Hell Camp". The Sumo Association have
finally given permission to make this film and promise to co-operate.
Production is expected to start within this year. Milos Forman was
attached to his project 7 years ago, but we don't know who is going to
be the director this time.
- Hollywood production designers Bo Welch (Batman Returns and Men in
Black) and Mad Drake will be the co-directors of "Parasite", which is
based on the comic of the same name.
- Japanese female pop star, Hikaru Utada will sing on the soundtrack for
"Rush Hour 2". She sold 8 million copies of her debut album in Japan
alone! Doug Morris, CEO of Universal Music group, and Rio Coen,
president of Island Def Jam Music, have made the decision to add this
super pop star on the soundtrack. Foxy Brown will sing with Hikaru for
the song titled "United".
- Hikaru Utada was also chosen to be voice of Pinoco of Osamu Tezuka's
internet only film, "Black Jack". A total of 12 episodes will be
produced and everybody can start downloading them in August. The English
version of "Black Jack" will be ready sometime next year.
- Miyazaki's long awaited Anime, "Sen To Tihiro No Kamikakushi", was
finally completed last week. The press screenings will start from
Wednesday and I'll try to get some detailed info on this film.
- "A.I." EXPLODED last weekend in Japan and every show in Tokyo was
completely sold out, including the Saturday early morning shows!!.
Warner Brothers is trying to break Titanic's all-time record and it
looks like it might happen sometime soon.
PHILIPPINES
Here's a little tidbit on Philipino film news from "Ermita Girl":
- Philippines' Diamond Star, Maricel Soriano, is returning to the big
screen after a few years. In her new movie, "Mila", she is joined by a
heap of bankable actors and actresses such as Cherry Pie Picache,
Princess Punzalan, Angelica Panganiban, Serena Dalrymple, Kaye Abad and
Piolo Pascual. Directed by Joel Lamangan, the movie is about a woman who
shares her life story with everyone so that they find purpose and
potential, and through her example, find ways to realize their mission
in life. Movie stills can be found at the official website at This Location.
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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