Father Geek here, sorry this is a few hours late, but Harry and I have been watching special previews of flicks solid since Midnight Friday morning until just a few minutes ago. We didn't set this insanity up it just fell into place this way. The flicks included CROUCHING TIGER HIDDEN DRAGON, THE YARDS, ALMOST FAMOUS, WHAT HAPPENED TO TULLY, WAY OF THE GUN, and a couple of others. To add to the crazy nature of this, each flick was at a DIFFERENT venue scattered ALL over town. However it was well worth it, all of the above are superior motion pictures, very entertaining and fulfilling. If you get the chance make every effort to catch them in your area. Now on to Darius25's regular column...
Asia-AICN #21
Hey all. Summer's over and it's back to work/school/other time for
pretty much everybody in NA. Hope you've all had a great summer but
don't worry - only three months to Christmas ? Anyway, we have lots of
new stuff this week, including info on Aankmicholi (Hide and Seek),
Daniel Wu, Corey Yuen, and Minsan Ko Lang Sasambahin. Now here's the
latest from Asia:
INDIA
- I would like to congratulate veteran filmmaker Hrishikesh Mukherjee
for winning the 1999 Dadasaheb Phalke award for outstanding contribution
to the growth and development of Indian cinema. The award will be
presented by the President of India on September 18. Some of Hrishikesh
Mukherjee's most acclaimed films include Anari (Playful), Guddi (the
name of the heroine of the film), Chupke Chupke (Quietly), Khubsoorat
(Beautiful) and Golmaal (Cutpurse).
- Actor Amitabh Bachchan has been signed as the villain of a film titled
Aankhmicholi (Hide and Seek), to be directed by Vipul Shah. The film
will also star Akshay Kumar, Aftab Shivdasani, Paresh Rawal and Rani
Mukherjee.
- The final pick-up shots for the film Ghaath (Street) have been
completed. The film is rushing through its final stage of
post-production to meet its theatrical release date of September 29. The
film, directed by Akashdeep, stars Manoj Bajpai, Tabu, Anupam Kher and
Tinnu Anand.
- Actor Govinda has dropped out of director Tanuja Chandra's new film,
Apne Dil Se Pucho (Ask Your Heart), due to a scheduling conflict.
- Shekhar Kapur ("Elizabeth") has been signed to direct "The Four
Feathers" based on the book by A.E. Mason. The film will star Heath
Ledger ("The Patriot") as a 19th century British soldier who resigns
right before a battle and is presented with four feathers for his
perceived cowardice. To gain redemption, the soldier performs four acts
of bravery to return each of the feathers. Wes Bentley ("American
Beauty") also stars in the film.
- Shahrukh Khan and his production company, Dreamz Unlimited, have
signed a deal with the international network B4U (Bollywood For You) to
develop two television shows for next year
- Director Raj Kanwar's mega-action movie, Farz (Duty), has been
postponed from its original date. The film was scheduled to be released
on October 27 in order to take advantage of the upcoming Diwali holiday
in India. But since there are already two major movies scheduled to open
on that day, Mission Kashmir and Mohabbatein (Love Affairs and yes, the
Oct. 27 date for this film is now confirmed!), the producer of Farz,
N.R. Pachisia, has agreed to push the film back another two weeks. Farz
stars Sunny Deol, Jackie Shroff and Preity Zinta.
- Actress Rati Agnihotri has signed on to be a part of director Subhash
Ghai's next film Yaadein (Memories). Rati and Jackie Shroff will be the
parents of actress Kareena Kapoor in the film. Kareena is paired
opposite Hrithik Roshan.
- No film was released last week so I will go directly to my
recommendation for the week. The film for this week is titled 100 Days,
an extremely suspenseful thriller by director Partho Ghosh. The film is
an updated version (but not a remake or a ripoff) of "The Eyes of Laura
Mars." Madhuri Dixit stars as Devi, who sometimes has haunting psychic
visions which turn out to be true. She sees visions of her sister's
death and sure enough, her sister is killed the very same day. Five
years after the incident, Devi is readjusting to her life when she sees
another vision of a woman being stabbed by a bald man. Devi then has to
rush against time in order to prevent this second death, which is
somehow related to her sister's death five years ago. Acting wise, all
of the actors do a believable job in portraying their characters.
Madhuri Dixit is great as Devi. She never becomes wide-eyed or never
screams out loud. We believe her as the tough detective trying to
prevent a murder and uncovering a previous crime. Jackie Shroff is also
great as Devi's husband, but he isn't given much to do beside supporting
his wife. There are not too many songs, but truth be told they did take
away from the tension and suspense so I quickly fast-forwarded them.
They were not particularly bad, but I found them to be a little
distracting. That matter aside, all of the other aspects of the film are
very good, especially the pacing. From the creepy pre-credit sequence to
a very tense climax, the film is very tightly edited and will surely
keep you on the edge of your seat, especially during the last 45
minutes. For a good thrill and a few jumps, check out 100 Days.
CHINA / HK
The following was reported by "The Accidental Spy":
- Admit it: Stephen Chow alone is funny, but his most hilarious moments
are always when he shares the screen with NG MAN-TAT! The spicy actor,
who is featured in almost 80% of Stephen Chow's movies, will once again
reunite with Chow in "Shaolin Soccer (lit. title)". THE DUO ARE BACK!
Also, singer/actor Alan Tam, best known for his leading role with Jackie
Chan in "Armour of God", is in talks to join "Shaolin Soccer". He will
probably play a soccer-team coach.
- After finishing "Beastic Pupils (lit. title)", Daniel Wu is moving on
to another action flick titled "Full-equipped Police (lit. title)". The
film also stars Alex To ("Mack the Knife"), Ruby Wong ("Running Out of
Time", "Lifeline") and Jo Kuk ("Metade Fumaca", "The Longest Summer").
- Joey Wong (unforgettable for her performance in "Chinese Ghost Story
1, 2 & 3") is returning to the big screen this year. She will soon
replace Michelle Reis to star in Yeung Fan's latest project.
- Stareastnet.com is in final negotiations to buy 33.3% share of Planet
Hollywood and become the biggest shareholder of the restaurant.
Stareastnet.com is a limited company whose range of businesses include
an entertainment website, restaurants, TV networks and film production
ie. "The Legend of Tekken (literal title)". Some of the famous
shareholders of Stareastnet.com include Jackie Chan, Anita Mui, Alan Tam
and Eric Tseng.
- FINALLY, Jackie Chan's "Drunken Master II" aka "The Greatest Martial
Arts Film EVER MADE!! ", is being renamed as "The Legend of Drunken
Master" and will be released on the big screens in North America later
this year.
- Corey Yuen told the HK media that he will finish the shooting of "The
Legend of Tekken" in October and immediately fly to France to join the
crew of Jet Li's third Hollywood film. He will be billed as the action
director again for his fourth Hollywood movie. Even though Yuen already
knows the story and the principal cast of the film, he refuses to reveal
anything about this project, but he teased the fans and said that Jean
Reno would not be in this movie. (Jean Reno...Leon...France...Get it??)
- Last weekend at the HK box office, a Cantonese-dubbed Thailand sports
comedy "The Iron Ladies" scored the no.1 position with an unbelievably
stunning opening, outdoing another new release, director Ching
Siu-Tung's comeback vehicle "Conman in Tokyo". Last week's no.1 movie
"What Lies Beneath" dropped to no.3, Bruce Willis' "Disney's The Kid"
opened in the fourth place and Sammi Cheng's "Summer Holiday" rounded up
the top 5. "The Iron Ladies" is last year's second highest-grossing
movie in Thailand. The comedy, directed by Yongyoot Thongkongtoon, is
based on a true story about a group of transvestites who became
volleyball players and successfully won national championships in 1996.
The Cantonese-dubbed version features the voices provided by Sandra Ng,
Eric Kot, Vincent Kuk, Wyman Wong and Stephen Fung, with Ekin Cheng as
the captain as well as the only straight member of the team. Sandra Ng
is also the distributor for the film's HK release, since her buddy
Leslie Cheung and her boyfriend, director Peter Ho-Son Chan, both highly
recommended this movie and urged her to do so. Here's the homepage of
"The Iron Ladies":Click to seel.
Also here's a pic from the HK premiere, with Sandra Ng (left) and the
actors from the movie:just click here
JAPAN
The following was reported by "Pigmon":
- Takeshi Kitano announced at Venice that his next directed-flick will
be a contemporary love story, therefore, the much-rumoured samurai film
will not be made at this time. The film, which is not yet titled, is
based on a classic romance by Monzaemon Chikamatsu but it will be set
in modern times. This love story needs a snow covered landscape so it
will start principal photography this coming winter. Takeshi has also
finished shooting for his role in Shinji Fukasaku's super violent film
"Battle Royal" a few weeks ago.
- Director Masayuki Suo ("Shall We Dance?")'s next project will be about
a high school boys synchronized swimming team. The title of the film
will be "Water Boys" and Suo will be the producer while the director of
the film will be Noriyasu Yaguchi.
- I saw three good Japanese independent films in advance screenings last
week. The first film was called Chaos, a thriller directed by Hideo
Nakata.. This time, he did not use any special make up or VFX. The
film is about a professional handyman (played by Hagiwara of "Cure") who
was asked by a rich man's wife to kidnap her in order to test the
husband's fidelity. The handyman kidnaps her but something goes wrong
and the wife is killed. The handyman is framed by the killer and goes on
the run to prove his innocence.
Sweet Sweet Ghost, directed by Hideaki Yoshida, takes place on Ooshima,
an island south of Japan. The film is about three friends who go on to
discover the horrible secret of Ooshima and suffer terrible
consequences.
Kinpatsu No Sougen (Blonde Plain) was the Grand Prix winner of the
Yubari Fantastic Film Festival 2000. The film, directed by Ishin Kendo,
is a strange love story between a 20 year-old girl and an 80 year-old
guy. The old guy thinks he is 20 years old (we see him as a 20 year-old
throughout the film) because his memory has stopped since he was 20. The
girl comes from a social service agency (to take care of him) and starts
believing that he has a 20 year-old boy's mind. The day she decides to
marry him, the old guy realizes that he is 80 years old. He accepts the
reality and decides to go on a journey. Yusuke Iseya gives an excellent
performance as the old guy. You can check out the film's website by Clicking Here
All of these films have good story lines and acting. Some foreign
distributors will pick them up for sure.
- There is an unconfirmed rumor that some of effects shots for Episode 2
will be done by a small Japanese company under ILM's supervision. This
company had done 20 shots or so for Episode One.
- A great sci-fi TV series will start from October. "Tekkou Ki
Mikazuki", directed by Keita Amemiya, will air the first episode (90
minutes long!) for Fuji TV on October. This is one of the most expensive
TV sci-fi series in Japan. The main character is a huge robot named
Mikazuki and he faces big monsters and robots in every episode. You can
see Mikazuki at This Location.
- Also, starting December, a new Digital TV station named Bsi will carry
a space comedy titled "Starbows". Its about a vast Empire trying to stop
a rebellion in a galaxy far away (sound familiar?).You can check out
"Starbows" at This Spot
KOREA
Sorry, there is no Korean news this week as "Matrix1966" is on vacation.
He will be back soon with more goodies for all of you. Stay tuned.
PHILLIPPINES
The following was reported by "AznFob55":
- While still finishing up his horror/thriller movie, "Ika-13 Kapitulo",
Albert Martinez is busy with future projects including another thriller
movie with Pops Fernandez and "A-Ba-Ka-Da-Ina" with Lorna Tolentino.
- Millenium Cinema has a new offering titled "Minsan Ko Lang Sasambahin"
which stars Bong Revilla and Judy Anne Santos.
- "X-Men" has received nothing, as in NOTHING but positive reviews and
hype, and has taken the whole country by storm. LEGIONS of fans have
gathered this week to watch the much-anticipated movie.
- FPJ and Ara Mina's movie, "Ayos Na Ang Kasunod (All Set For The Next)"
has been the action movie of August and has been a certified box-office
success.
We've now come to the end of this week's column. Remember, if you have
information regarding any movie industry in Asia, please contact our
Asia-AICN offices . See you all next week.
- Darius25
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