Just gearing up for a fresh day of screenings and meetings at the Hong Kong Filmart today and figured I'd post a few more notes on the event first.
First up, Fortissimo Films have extended promos for both Kiyoshi Kurosawa's Tokyo Sonata and Tatia Rosenthal's stop motion animated feature $9.99 and both look excellent. Kurosawa's latest is purely a family drama - there's no genre element whatsoever - with a stellar cast and graceful camera work. The master is taking the opportunity to showcase the sense of humor that he usually has to keep buried under all his serious, supernatural goings on, which is a welcome treat. This should be exceptional. $9.99 also looks quite exceptional, with a smart and funny script, all of it animated with figures that look to have been hand modeled out of clay.
And, yes, according to Fortissimo Wong Kar Wai is indeed hard at work on his new version of Ashes of Time, lots of progress has been made and we should expect to see it soon. Though, wkw being wkw, nobody really wants to put a date on how soon is soon.
As should be obvious from the choice of art accompanying this, I also had the chance to see Joe Ma's relaunch of the Female Convict Scorpion series yesterday. I'm still waiting on the okay to post up a full review - market screenings are a sensitive thing - but I've got to say that while Sasori is going to surprise a lot of people with the way Ma has fused the extreme exploitation elements - of which there are a LOT - with the sort of abstract structure you'd expect from a high art film, I personally loved it.
Expect word from the big Storm Riders II press conference later today ...
Wow, I havent heard news about Ashes of Time Redux since about last year. He's still working on it? It was supposed to be released late 07 but Wong Kar Wai's stuff is never on time. Todd, what all did Fortissimo say about Ashes of Time Redux? I hope it comes out soon, like 1 or 2 months, and hopefully in theatres. Im getting pumped for this. Ashes is just about my favorite Wuxia film ever!
Sony Classics already holds rights in North America, so I'd say a theatrical is pretty likely.
Sounds good! Now the chances of getting a high quality remastered DVD of Ashes of time is getting better and better. I have been looking everywhere for a decent DVD of Ashes of Time and they are all absolutely horrible. The image is grainy and dull on almost every DVD and the one I found has crappy imbedded subs. Hopefully, when they release the Ashes Redux DVD, it will be alot better. It should be considering Wong is re-releasing Ashes - meaning that the footage has been touched up and remastered. Thank God! I did hear the French version of the Ashes DVD was decent but it's cut and has no english subs.