A second trailer for Yonna in the Solitary Fortress is up on the CWFilms site. Check back our last report on this CG animated short here for the synopsis. As mention before, the animation was created by Kengo Takeuchi who past credict included Final Fantasy: The Spirit Within.

Yonna in the Solitary Fortress Trailer #2 (downloadable mpeg 15 MB)
Yonna in the Solitary Fortress Trailer #1 (downloadable mpeg 11.4 MB)
CWFilms: “Yonna in the Solitary Fortress” subsite

It seems you cannot go a day wading through chinese movie news without reading something about Zhang Ziyi. Do you hear me complaining? One of the latest tidbits of new is that Zhang Ziyi has been approached by Stanley Tong to star in the live adaptation of the popular folklore tale Hua Mulan which in turn was popularized here in North America thanks in whole to the Disney animated movies. Shooting locations are being scouted in China and here in Canada. I would think west coast and Rocky Mountains considering. Shooting will begin in October.

If Zhang Ziyi is looking for more breakout roles into the West this may be one to strongly consider. Or, perhaps not. Given that this film, when completed, will be in Cantonese and the idea of foreign film is, well, foreign to a Western audience the only play a film like this would get would be arthouse cinemas, unless it was dubbed, then it would be a very small theatrical run. Still, with the devotion of the Disney Mulan audience it might be an easier sell to Western markets. But then they would have to tone it down to compliment the sugary aftertaste of a Disney movie. Wretch!!!

[source]

The man is an artist. Would it be too much to say that everything the man touches turns to gold? Yeah, yeah, stop your groaning. Some design sketches turned up online this week for Zhang Yimou’s Golden Armor and I continue to be impressed with the details. Gorgeous.

Left is a drawing of Chow Yun-fat as the emperor. Follow this link for a couple more sketches.

Ooooh ... Travis Crawford, the Danger After Dark programmer for the upcoming Philadelphia Film Festival, has just given me the heads up on this year’s lineup and it is absolutely fantastic.  I’ll be in Philadelphia for about half of the festival this year - it’s a great festival and I hugely enjoyed the visit last year - and I’m anxiously awaiting word on which of these I’ll miss ...  read on for the complete Danger After Dark lineup and visit the Philadelphia Film Festival website here.

Continue Reading "Philadelphia Film Festival’s Danger After Dark Lineup Announced!"...

The good people over at Blackfilm have turned up a few new stills from Danny Boyle’s Sunshine, the latest flick from the Trainspotting director reteamed with his 28 Days Later scribe Alex Garland.  They’re still being pretty coy with things and, sorry Mack, nothing new with Michelle Yeoh, but you do get a nice shot of the space station and another of Cillian Murphy looking creepy, as he so often does.  Nice.

Check the stills out here.

Big thanks to Loonatik for this ... in yesterday’s post about Death Note I pointed to a site that had behind the scenes shots as well as images lifted from a teaser for the film that aired somewhere in Japan. Well, that teaser has tuned up online and it is purely a tease, containing no finished footage whatsoever.

Death Note Teaser

Well, the Oscars are now less than a week away and our first annual Oscar Pool is, frankly, rather feeble. Feeble and shallow. Yes, we’ve got a whopping five entries so far, duking it out for the princely sum of ten dollars. So come on, people, get on it.

As added incentive - and to provide ample opportunity for mocking - I present here my picks.

Continue Reading "Todd’s Oscar Picks"...

Our Roost DVD giveaway has come to a close and congratulation to our winner, Sheridan Nott. Don’t forget our other contests - all linked at the top of the right hand column on the main page - we’ve got t shirts, movie passes and bragging rights up for grabs!

Mmm. Fangoria’s got an exclusive new clip from Jake West’s Evil Aliens over on their site. It’s largely interview footage with Emily Booth talking about her part in the film and her turn to be doused with blood but there’s a good bit of film footage tucked in there as well.

Find the clip on Fango here!

Oooh ... good news on this, courtesy of Kaiju Shakedown ...

Johnny To has long been a fantastically frustrating director for me one who I keep expecting great things from only to be left a bit cold by his films. But that changed in a BIG way with Election, his sprawling crime drama that stands as one of the absolute best triad films ever made. This one hit home for me in a big way and in my book, at least, is very clearly the masterwork of To’s career to this point (though, admittedly, I still haven’t seen The Mission).

To clearly wasn’t done with the criminal world of Election when that film wrapped so I’ve been eagerly anticipating the sequel and Grady at Kaiju Shakedown has gotten word that the film will open the Hong Kong International Film Festival in early April before getting a theatrical launch in May. If any Twitch folk will be attending the HKIFF we would LOVE a report back on this one ...

And with Election 2 in the can, can we now expect a special edition DVD release of the much longer version of the first film? Because this will definitely be a case where more is better, and Todd wants more.

Election 2 Teaser
Election Review
Order the Election DVD

Why yes, that is a shot from Wisit Sasanatieng’s Citizen Dog to the left, there. Thanks for noticing. Here’s why.

On a whim just now I took a quick spin by the Film Factory Thailand website. Now, Film Factory is the commercial production company Sasanatieng runs and its roster also boasts Last Life in the Universe director Pen-Ek Ratanaruang. Now, last time I hit the site it was pretty much just a holder page but they’ve done a good bit of updating. Oh, yes. The site now includes complete demo reel pages for eachof the principal directors including a host of Thai tv spots by both Sasanatieng and Ratanaruang. And these things are just flat out brilliant. Thought Sasanatieng’s technicolored fancies were just an affectation he put on for his features? Nope! They’re an affectation he wears all the time, and it’s glorious! Check out the Wrangler Jeans ad with the star of Tears of the Black Tiger ...

And, incidentally, you can check out a new review of Citizen Dog from the San Francisco Asian American Film Festival here. See? I’m not the only one smitten.

Wisit Sasanatieng Demo Reel Page
Pen-Ek Ratanaruang Demo Reel Page

Well, if you’ve been wondering where we’ll have the first crack at the long cut of Jet Li’s Fearless, keep your eyes on Thailand.  The locals reportedly were a little irked when they learned that the fight sequences involving the Thai fighter - who was prominently featured on the Thai billboards - had been removed from the theatrical release in Hong Kong and, as a result, Thailand will be screening the original, longer cut of the film which not only reinserts the Thai character but also Michelle Yeoh. 

Now, will the eventual Thai DVD release of the long cut include English subtitles?  It’s unlikely but at least we know where to watch for it now.  And in related news, the listings for the Hong Kong DVD release have been altered and no longer list English subtitles on the disc.  Looks like Rogue pulled some strings to have them removed, which is a bit of a surprise considering they raised no objections to Danny The Dog (aka Unleashed) getting a very nice Hong Kong DVD release prior to its North American debut.

[source:  Kaiju Shakedown, WiseKwai]

Todd hates it when we title stuff like this- makes it hard for the search engines. But DOGGONE I GOTS TO GET ME ONE THESE!!!! I’m a big fan of SOTA’s Now Playing line of 6 inch figures and will have a review of Series Two up soon. But in the meantime check out this excellent yet to be approved Tremors piece. Part of the Series Four lineup this box set is absolutely worthy of the hilarious original and it’s three very good sequels. It’s been fifteen years since the first film and that’s a long time to have to wait to grab a graboid but fans won’t have to wait too lmuch longer. Burt and his friend will be available Christmas 2006.

A bored gangster, tired of his routine life, escaping to Japan to avoid a sentence; a woman who can’t deal anymore with the status quo of married life, who needs a new impulse to feel alive once again; an average salaryman, straitjacketed by company life and unable to realize himself, always falling victim to his lack of confidence; the most infamous Casanova in Joseon, who’s starting to lose the passion he once had, who needs a new challenge to make the game as fun as it used to be. Different characters with the same thing in mind: the pursuit of happiness. Different characters, different films, but the same writer: Kim Dae-Woo. Amongst the many writers who grew alongside the ‘Kim Sang-Jin clique’ (Park Jung-Woo the most shining example), Kim was perhaps the most eclectic, the one whose works didn’t seem content staying within the comedy framework.

Continue Reading "Kim Dae-Woo Talks 음란서생 (Forbidden Quest)"...

Chungmuro’s 2003 might be remembered as the year of Bong Joon-Ho’s 살인의 추억 (Memories of Murder), Kim Ji-Woon’s 장화, 홍련 (A Tale of Two Sisters) and Park Chan-Wook’s 올드보이 (Oldboy), ‘well made’ films with big stars and even bigger directors, enjoying both popular and critical acclaim; the year of the first ever 10 Million seller, Kang Woo-Suk’s 실미도 (Silmido), the year of shockingly good debut films like 지구를 기켜라! (Save The Green Planet), or even irreverent, cynical and tasty ‘auteur’ films like Im Sang-Soo’s 바람난 가족 (A Good Lawyer’s Wife). But one of the minor highlights of the best year Korean Cinema had since the 60s was a pretty unassuming comedy which went on to sell almost 5 Million tickets: 동갑내기 과외하기 (My Tutor Friend).

A bit too local to appeal to the Western Audience, getting labeled as a mere rehash of 엽기적인 그녀 (My Sassy Girl), which ‘Tutor’ is superior to in pretty much every aspect, the hilarious comedy made even bigger stars out of its leading couple, Kwon Sang-Woo and Kim Ha-Neul. It was only inevitable that their return to the screen in a similar comedy would attract a lot of attention, which is why Lee Han’s—director of the 2002 melodrama 연애소설 (Lover’s Concerto)—청춘만화 (Youth Comic) could become a big hit in the Asian market, after Kwon’s profile rose after a few ‘Korean Wave’ TV Dramas. And hopefully it should be a change of pace from the gangster comedies which have been hitting Chungmuro lately, just like ‘My Tutor Friend’ did, right near the end of the ‘gangster comedy’ craze in 2003. Film releases on March 23. Here’s a look at the newly released trailer:

청춘만화 예고편 Theatrical Trailer (Streaming, 700k, Windows Media)