Jean Claude Van Damme’s appearance in the Turkish comedy Sınav made the news here in Twitch last month and it looks like he won’t be the only eccentric recent casting choice of Turkish producers. Today came the announcement that fan favorite Udo Kier will be starring in a relatively big budget Turkish crime thriller called Pars: Kiraz Operasyonu (literal translation: “Leopard: Operation Cherry.”) Big kudos to whoever came up with that title.

The name “Pars” stands for a Turkish narcotic police team and what we know so far is that the film will chronicle a case of drug trafficking through Afghanistan, Turkey, Europe and USA. Though nothing has been disclosed about the characters, it’s not hard to guess that Kier will play one of the kingpins of the traffic.

Director/Producer Osman Sınav is well known for the prime time TV series he created such as Süper Baba (1993), Deli Yürek (1999), Ekmek Teknesi (2002) and Kurtlar Vadisi (2003) which also once saw Sharon Stone and Andy Garcia as guest stars. Sınav also adapted Deli Yürek to the big screen in 2001 as Deli Yürek: Bumerang Cehennemi but surprisingly didn’t take part in this year’s controversial movie adaptation, “Kurtlar Vadisi: Irak” (Valley of Wolves: Iraq)

The shooting continues at various locations in Istanbul, Amsterdam and Monaco. The film, which also stars Mehmet Kurtuluş, Nida Şafak and Pelin Batu, is scheduled to be released in March 2007 in Turkey.

Çağan Irmak could easily be called “the next best thing” for popular Turkish cinema. He was first known for his hit TV drama series “Asmalı Konak” in 2002. The series was so popular that news about it’s upcoming episodes would find place on the front pages of major newspapers. Irmak created another hit TV series in 2004, “Çemberimde Gül Oya”, and his feature debut “Mustafa Hakkında Her Şey” (All About Mustafa) hit the big screens the same year. It was a failure at the box-office and the critics weren’t that favorable towards Irmak’s thriller either, but he managed to come out fine.

It was only last year that he won the hearts of millions with his tear-drawing family drama “Babam ve Oğlum” (My Father and My Son). The film opened to modest numbers but became such a phenomenon that it stayed at the top of the box office list for weeks, in the end becoming the third biggest grossing film ever in Turkey behind “Kurtlar Vadisi: Irak” (Valley of Wolves: Iraq) and “G.O.R.A.”. Irmak received the nod from the Film Critics Association of Turkey this time and the film won many of the top awards including Best Film and Best Director.

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