Heard mentions in the past week or so of a possible glitch (could be multiple) on the R2 UK Boxset for this successful 2005 TV sci-fi from us nice folk in the UK, so maybe people are holding off buying it. Top show, really nicely made, though not as big in the budget department as American TV sci-fi. Seen some reviews online that show people may not necessarily react to it as positively as those of use used to its’ production values and style. Certainly selling well here, both as it has been arriving in individual volumes and now it’s around in a nice Tardis shape. Specifications should match, so expect 5.1 sound, commentaries and behind-the-scenes stuff galore. Retail price is recommended at $100, but the UK sets cheaper than this at around £40 - £45 or so (recommended at £65).

‘Doctor Who’ Official BBC Website.

via Davis DVD.

You could argue one of the most painful legacies the 80s have left on today’s Korean politics and society is the 유전무죄 무전유죄 (有錢無罪 無錢有罪, Different Laws for Different People) syndrome.

One of those events took place in 1988. Back then, Korea was mostly known for the division between North and South. But many people in the West ignored the development the country made in the previous two decades, which is why the Seoul Olympics - which took place the same year - opened the eyes of the world to the rising Tiger from the East. It was a Sunday in October, a mere few days after the Games ended, when 12 prisoners under trial escaped from the bus bringing them to a prison, infiltrating into the capital Seoul, taking several people hostage. Traffic was halted all around the city, cops questioned several people on the streets, and brought one of the biggest cities in the world to a full halt.

Ji Gang-Heon was the leader of those 12 fugitives. He always dreamed of becoming a poet, but the only thing he became famous for was that saying. That there’s no crime if you have money, and if don’t, you can go from innocent to guilty in a moment. Telling the incredible story of Ji Gang-Heon and his partners in crime, Yang Yoon-Ho’s new action drama 홀리데이 (Holiday) will try to shed light on this social problem, and the life of the man who made it famous. ‘Holiday’ was the name of Ji’s favourite song (by The Bee Gees), the same you can hear at the beginning of Lee Myung-Se’s 인정사정 볼것 없다 (Nowhere To Hide), and the last song Ji ever listened to.

Starring Choi Min-Soo, Lee Sung-Jae and Jo An, the 7.5 Billion Won film will release early next year. The Teaser Trailer was just released:

홀리데이 티저 예고편 Teaser Trailer (Streaming, 300k, Windows Media)

Can’t tell you much about it myself, though I know the trailer has been around for some time, and I love that image of the girl stood on the grass that has been a major feature of the Official Site in the past. Seems to be the first Cinema release for a Gonzo project, with ‘Brave Story’ being the next I know of (due Summer 2006). According to AnimeNfo, “Agito is living in the world 300 years after the present day. It is the world where the forest assaults human beings because of the failure of gene manipulation. However, there are people living strongly and happily. One day, Agito meets Tura, a girl from the past. She has a mission to revive civilization. In order to save her at the cost of his life, he contracts with the forest to obtain a forbidden power, and his hair turns grey.” Sounds nice, looks nice.

‘Gin-iro no Kami no Agito’ Clips at Yahoo Japan. Official Website.

via Anime News Service / AnimeNfo (Synopsis).

Sneaked out online a short while back, with small window, grainy image, and poorly syncronised audio. Now it seems Disney have issued a decent quality one - wonder if they felt forced into doing that? Anyhow, nice. Downloading… fingers tapping… one of the only sequels I’ve ever really looked forwards too, at least in recent memory. Couple of good hours in the cinema, but no DVD purchase for me though. Really liked the first one for the most part.

‘Pirates of the Caribbean : Dead Man’s Chest’ Decent Quality Quicktime Trailer (Embedded Quicktime, Four Sizes).

via AICN.

It pulled out of the fight between titans this December, which just started today—the latest Harry Potter film secured over 80% of the online pre-order sales, which should allow the blockbuster to sell more than a Million tickets next weekend—but Kim Sung-Soo’s 야수 (Running Wild) is still one of the most interesting Korean films on release in the next few months.

Stars Kwon Sang-Woo and Yoo Ji-Tae play two of the most popular figures in today’s Korean Cinema: the 형사 (detective) and 검사 (prosecutor). Featured on many recent films and TV Dramas, the two roles have been associated with certain character traits: the rugged, impulsive, tough as nails detective against the sophisticated, rational and calm elite prosecutor. But more than anything, this film pairs the two charismatic leads against each other.

The Theatrical Trailer for the film was released today, already attracting the attention of the Korean Media for its dialogue. But, of course, since we’re talking about an action noir, the action scenes will also be a major focus of the film. ‘Running Wild’ releases on January 12

야수 본예고편 Theatrical Trailer (Streaming, 700k, Windows Media)
야수 본예고편 Theatrical Trailer (Streaming, 300k, ASF)
야수 본예고편 Theatrical Trailer (Streaming, Real Media)

...no ladies, it’s not what you think.

Another sign of Lee Byung-Heon’s incredible popularity, the star of 달콤한 인생 (A Bittersweet Life) will now ‘star’ in videogame released all over the world. Lee’s agency Phantom signed a contract with world renowned videogame giant Capcom, to produce a Xbox game using Lee as the model for the main character. The company plans to release the blockbuster game in 2006, on Microsoft’s recently launched Xbox360.

Phantom commented: “Capcom already used Jean Reno and Kaneshiro Takeshi for their PS2 game ‘Onimusha 2’, and they sold over 2 Million copies all over the world. There’s a lot of interest in this game because of Lee Byung-Heon’s involvement. After a year of research, the company finally decided to cast Lee, and given the fact he’s the first Korean actor to be part of a videogame, and considering his popularity in Japan, this is a huge deal. We know the Korean Wave is creating debate, but it’s true it focuses too much on catering to female fans. But now that Lee will take part in a big videogame released all over the world, this will help the Korean Wave reach different demographics. We agreed with Capcom not to reveal any detail about Lee’s compensation and royalties, but it’s the kind of figure that would surprise everybody in the market, and much more than what Reno and Kaneshiro received.”

No announcements about the content of the game and its title were made. But this is a big chance for Lee Byung-Heon, to both expand his fanbase in the Western market, and perhaps even raise some eyebrows in Hollywood.

Via Star News

Thanks to Twitch’s own logboy for bringing to my attention Takashi Miike’s latest project: Ryû ga gotoku - jissha-ban - a two-part promo movie for Sega Corporation‘s PlayStation 2 game Ryû ga gotoku. The movie provides a background story for the game.

Miike is credited as having been the integration director (sôgô kantoku) for Ryû ga gotoku - jissha-ban, and Takeshi Miyasaka is credited as having been the director (kantoku) of it. The screenplay for it was written by Masa Nakamura. It stars Masakatsu Funaki, Mikio Ôsawa, Ayaka Maeda, Harumi Sone, and Hirotarô Honda.

Enterbrain Inc. is scheduled to release “Ryû ga gotoku - jissha-ban: zenpen” (i.e., the first part of Ryû ga gotoku - jissha-ban) as a free streaming video on its Famitsu.com website on December 2nd, and to release “Ryû ga gotoku - jissha-ban: kôhen” (i.e., the second part) on that site on December 9th; the two parts are scheduled to be released on the official website for Ryû ga gotoku (the PS2 game) on December 9th and December 16th, respectively. There are plans to sell a deluxe release of Ryû ga gotoku - jissha-ban in Japan in the spring of next year.

Not a fan of the term ‘Domestic’ (or alternatively ‘International’), might as well describe it simply as another cut of a trailer for Shimizu’s ‘Marebito’ which narrowly (and I really do mean narrowly) missed my favourites of the year. Never a Ju-On fan, not keen on the journey to the States to make ‘The Grudge’, and generally never fallen for either the ‘Girl with long black hair - must be good’ or the ‘Girl with long black hair - not another one!’ angle, but still say this is far more individual and interesting than anything from that territory even though it makes a tenuous link to it in some ways - at least, you can describe it that way if you really stretch. Damn good film, original story, nice production style with engrossing performance from Shinya Tsukamoto. Little pretentious at times, especially in its’ dialogue, but shifts so well into something more memorable than it could have turned out to have been.

Anyway, Tartan are putting this out in the USA soon, and the American trailer (with English Subtitles) is here. If you like the look of it, I suggest that the bare-bones, but accurately (as far as I can tell) translated and perfectly mastered (probably ported from the unsubtitled R2 Japan DVD) is out there in R3 HK form. I have it, and there’s nothing wrong with it if you want to watch the film. By the way, Tartan have confirmed ‘3 Extremes’ is due as a 2-Disc set (with the full cut of ‘Dumplings’ as previously rumoured) on February 28th 2006, about a year after the R3 HK Discs of those shorts and full feature.

‘Marebito’ American Trailer at iFilm (Embedded Quicktime).
‘Marebito’ Official American Website.

‘Marebito’ Trailer (French, Quicktime Download).
‘Marebito’ Trailer (Taiwanese Trailer, Windows Media Download).

Owie. My brain hurts.

JoBlo have gotten an exclusive action clip from Uwe Boll’s BloodRayne. And call me crazy, but I say this is even worse than the trailers. It’s a flashback sequence and whoever came up with that brutal shimmery memory effect deserves to be beaten about the head and shoulders. Way to render things even more unwatchable, boys.

Head over to JoBlo’s Arrow in the Head for the relevant links ...

Big thanks to Arsonist for tracking this down and providing the translated synopsis and links in our forum. D@bbe is a new horror film coming out of Turkey ... the basic premise takes some concepts familiar from the like of Kurosawa’s Kairo and acclaimed anime Serial Experiments Lain and blends them with Muslim apocalyptic imagery ... could be a lot of fun ... Here’s Arsonist’s translated synopsis:

“The year 2005. A very large number of people start to suicide using brutal and horrible techniques and without any reasons. Starting from USA, this suicide wave spreads all over the world. In Turkey, in a small town called Selcuk, a young man kills himself after a long, regular night he spends on internet. Following the incident, his best friends start to get strange and freaky e-mails from him. They also start seeing strange and horrible creatures around themselves and this is just the begining of the apocalypse…

The title, D@bbe, comes from Dabbe-ul Arz (which could be translated from Arabic to English as “The Earth Walker") and it has been referred in the holy book of Muslims, Koran, in various verses about the end of the world as we know it. According to Koran, Dabbe is one of the many signs of the apocalypse. The holy book describes Dabbe as an entity which comes from the soil, spreads like a spider’s web (remember this one) and affects many people at the same time, speaks to them, messes with their minds and causes a great violence which has not seen in the history of men before. There are many different comments on Dabbe-ul Arz for about 1.300 years among Muslims and the director’s comment is based on the “world wide web” (the spider’s web?) or as we call it: the internet.”

Official D@bbe website (Turkish only for now)
D@bbe teaser trailer (Downloadable Windows Media. Turn the volume up and the lights down.)

UPDATE - November 30

It seems Zhang Ziyi hasn’t decided yet whether she’ll star in ‘My Wife is a Gangster 3’ or not. The previous news report, which started from a Tabloid-style news site and spread all over the Korean media (up to film magazines like Film2.0, and newspapers like Chosun Ilbo) used an employee of Hyunjin Cinema (producers of the film) as its source. But, at the Japanese premiere of ‘Memoirs of a Geisha’, Zhang said she still hasn’t signed any contract yet, and is still thinking about her future projects. Zhang said: “I read the news a few days ago too, but it’s just a rumour. I still haven’t decided what will be my next project. It doesn’t really matter from which country the film comes, but whether the role would be a challenge for me or not.”

But there’s more: Lee Soon-Yeol, president of Hyunjin Cinema, said in a phone call to Sports Today (which started the ‘rumour’) that they signed a contract with Zhang’s management (taken care of by Zhang’s own brother), after revising the script as requested. He also said maybe Zhang called this a rumour because she hasn’t received the final script yet. Lee claims Zhang will get her script once she returns from the ‘Geisha’ Japanese tour, and that China Film Group told them Zhang’s participation in the film was guaranteed, when they signed the contract. “I don’t know why she said that” closed Lee.

So who’s right? Zhang or Hyunjin? More on this in the coming weeks.

Via Chosun Ilbo and Sports Today

Continue Reading "Zhang Ziyi to star in 조폭마누라 3 (My Wife is a Gangster 3)… Not?"...

Although the Grand Bell Awards still remain the most prestigious in Korea, their biggest rival have always been the 청룡영화상 (Blue Dragon Awards). The Blue Dragon Awards have reached their 26th edition, handing the first awards in 1963. Back then couple Shin Sung-Il and Eom Aeng-Ran respectively won Most Popular Actor and Actress, and Kim Soo-Yong’s 혈맥 (Blood Linkage) took home 6 Awards.

That film joins two others [잉여인간 (The Extra Mortals) - Yoo Hyun-Mok (1964); 서편제 (Sopyonje) - Im Kwon-Taek (1993)] as the most awarded film ever at the Awards, but things could change this year. In 2004, Kang Je-Gyu’s 태극기 휘날리며 (Taegukgi) took home 4 awards.

You can check more interesting info at the Official Site of the Blue Dragon Awards, including a complete list of past winners. The Ceremony will be held on November 29 at the KBS Hall in Yeoui-Do, and shown on KBS. Here’s the nominees:

UPDATE NOVEMBER 30
Winners are highlighted in bold.

Continue Reading "26th Blue Dragon Awards Winners"...

I just got a note from sethdove steering me to check out a little Greek film titled Evil, which apparently is the first Greek zombie film ever. Now, I don’t know about you, but I’ve been to Athens and the concept of the dead roaming the streets in a city where you are literally surrounded by buildings and artifacts thousands of years old, a city where the dead control quite a lot of the living’s politics thanks to the intense cultural protection laws, pretty potent.

The trailer is light on money shots, but the film just played at the Thessaloniki International Film Festival, where it earned some solid praise and sethdove assures me that the trailer doesn’t do the film justice. If nothing else the director has paid his genre dues ... a previous film was a short titled Rectum.

Evil Trailer (downloadable Quicktime, all zipped up)

While the film was somewhat of a fizzle in North America, Land of the Dead was a success in foreign markets (Europe and Japan), and has been enjoying a healthy DVD life to boot.  This has prompted Mr. Romero to announce a 5th entry in his Dead series of films.  Traditionally, each film has been about different groups of folks/time-periods (and allegory); however, the new film will follow the surviving folks from Land of the Dead.  So it could just as easily be called Land of the Dead 2.  Riley, Slack and company are going to be fleeing to Canada in this entry, which is appropriate, since (Land of the Dead was, and) the sequel is going to be shot Canada anyway.

Production is going to start in August, marking what is the shortest time-span between Dead entries by about a factor of 10.

Via TimeOut.

The rub about a 12-hour shift [and perhaps Todd can testify to this as well, saving Toronto from the licks of hot flame] is that by the time you get home you’re just too blasted tired to type up anything that night. Last night was the case and I am a day late updating our watch on the Bruce Lee statue story we’ve been covering [here and here]. Two statues were unveiled. One in the town of Mostar, Bosnia on Saturday. The second was reveiled on Sunday on Hong Kong’s Avenue of Stars.

The statue in Mostar carried a special meaning for its organizers and the people of Mostar since “The city witnessed fierce fighting between rival ethnic factions in the 1992-95 war. It remains split with Bosnian Muslims, Croats and Serbs still deeply divided. Lee was chosen by organisers as a symbol of the fight against ethnic divisions. “This does not mean that Bruce Lee will unite us, because people are different and cannot be united and we will always be Muslims, Serbs or Croats,” said Veselin Gatalo of the youth group Urban Movement Mostar. “But one thing we all have in common is Bruce Lee.” Unfortunately, it didn’t take that long for dinks to disgrace the statue. Only hours after the unveiling vandels stole the nun chuk from the statues right hand. “Once again we’ve shown what Balkan savageness is!” lamented another in disbelief.

The statue in Hong Kong was unveiled without incident. Robert Lee, Bruces brother, was in attendance at the ceremony and spoke to the crowd. “I think he really deserves this.” He said one of the legacies of his brother was his message of individual expression. “He always wanted to tell people what a person can do to be able to express himself or herself (to) the fullest,” Robert Lee said.

As far as the statues go I have to say that I like the Hong Kong more simply for the detail and texture of it. The Bosnian one is nice and shiney but I cannot help but think that a tiny version of this would appear on top of a trophy of a Bruce Lee Invitational Tournament had he been alive today. But both countries are to be commended for their show of support for one the greatest martial artists that ever lived.

story via BBCNews here and here and Yahoo News here and here.