Few films from the Bollywood system have arrived this year with as much advance hype as Tashan. Its director, Vijay Krishna Acharya, makes his debut here after writing the scripts for the mega-successful Dhoom franchise. Its headline cast is pretty stellar, starting with Saif Ali Khan and Kareena Kapoor (reteaming here after a stellar showing in Omkara), and rounded out by Akshay Kumar (the man who is Khiladi) and Anil Kapoor (Bollywood’s resilient, jowly ham). The all-important songs are by the venerable Vishal-Shekhar team. The promotion is everywhere, though cleverly it has mostly focused on the soundtrack. Actual footage of the film has been scarce prior to release. There’s a certain swagger to this tactic, a confidence borne out by a recent interview with Khan, in which he called it “similar to the way Led Zeppelin released their fourth album.” The recently beleaguered Yash Raj production house, and the Indian press, saw this as the surest thing for miles.
No such luck. The critics have been less than kind, but popular opinion has been positively venomous. Comments on IMDB have ranged from the disappointed to the utterly murderous (a kind sample: “Tashan sucks from top to bottom”), and a poll on Planet Bollywood has 60% responding unfavorably. But what of the receipts? Bad news there as well. On a cost of 40 crores, the film has thus far failed to recoup even half. In short: a trainwreck on every level.
Here’s the dirty secret, though: Tashan is, though flawed, hugely enjoyable. Imagine if Tony Scott cleaned up his editing act and decided to make a musical. Tashan would be the result. That’s actually a recommendation.
More after the break.
Continue Reading "Bollywood Review: Tashan"...
Oh, look! Another festival down, another audience voted prize as best picture for Chile’s Mirage Man. The festival was Brazil’s RIOFAN and the complete list of winners has just been announced with a good selection of Twitch favorites in the winner’s circle. What won? Pakistani splatter picture Hell’s Ground took the jury award, Mirage Man got the aforementioned audience award along with a special jury prize for Marko Zaror’s performance, Bruce LaBruce’s gay zombie picture Otto took the Visions award, Sebastian Silva’s La Vida Me Mata took a special jury award for achievement in editing and cinematography, Richard Gale’s Criticized took best international short and Gustavo Brandau’s Gravidade Zero took best Brazilian short.
Mirage Man has now taken home major prizes at pretty much every festival it has played - and expect more major festival announcements for the film soon - and yet, strangely, has only released in its native Chile with the United States being the only other territory to pick the film up. All you international sorts may want to take not that the film is screening in the Marche Du Film on May 15th. Get it while you can.
I suppose with Singaporean films like Royston Tan’s 15 and Kelvin Tong’s Eating Air, you’d probably know by now we’re not all that squeaky clean. Of course at this point in time I’m speculating that it’s Young and Dangerous-ish, but from the key poster art, stills and the likes, this is one upcoming Singapore movie on my radar that I can’t wait to watch when it makes its screening here in the later half of this year.
Here’s the synopsis:
Based on a true story – “THE DAYS” tells a cautionary tale between two brothers, set between 1989 and 1990. In a misguided effort to teach BABY (IVAN LIM) independence, and to make him feel protected, ZI LONG (JUSTIN CHAN) brings him into his own gang of delinquents. Unknowingly, his decision has thrown them both into a tumultuous and violent world that will, in different ways, imprison them both.
The Days will be at this year’s Marché du Film, Festival de Cannes, so to lucky folks heading there, let us know what you think. The rest of us mortals can hit those links below to learn more about the film!
Whenever I come up against a genre I’m not too familiar with—especially from an Asian director—I need research no further than Twitch. With the Pacific Film Archives poised to launch their Johnnie To retrospective “Hong Kong Nocturne” May 29 through June 27, 2008, I’ve decided to focus on what my colleagues at Twitch have to say about Hong Kong’s favorite son and—though they comment on only five of the nine films in the PFA retrospective—they cover the most recent. Hopefully, the Twitch readership will comment on the rest. I’ve never seen a To film. I’m not exactly sure why I’ve resisted other than general comments I’ve heard about the limitations of the genre. I’m hoping to decide one way or the other what I think about To’s films come July. Help me out. Of the nine films listed, which five should I not miss? Of those five, which two should I not miss?
Continue Reading "PFA: HONG KONG NOCTURNE—Twitch on To"...
In the near future...The Tokyo Police force has been privatized and incorporated. The new force has their hands full with a new type of genetically engineered mutant stalking the streets and brutally taking human lives. Luca, the top level officer at Tokyo Police has special law enforcement skills but her dark past makes her vulnerable. She is determined to hunt the mutant known as “Engineer” until the day she can find and destroy the mysterious “Key-Man”.
We debuted the first footage from upcoming cult flick Tokyo Gore Police here at Twitch a while back, a four minute reel of footage cut together for use at Japan’s Yubari Fantastic Film Festival. True to it’s name it was nasty, gorey stuff, with Audition star Eihi Shiina hacking and slashing her way through a series of bizarre mutants. Only down side to that promo was that it was cut together early enough in the film’s life that it wasn’t entirely through post production yet and was still a little rough around the edges. Well, no more! The official trailer has just been released and the blood has been buffed and polished to a high sheen. There’s not really anything in the way of new footage in this one but things have been tightened up considerably with some of the more bizarre moments - hello, crocodile girl! - moved up front and center ... You’ll find both trailers in the Twitch Player below the break.
Continue Reading "Second TOKYO GORE POLICE Trailer"...
For many years, Hollywood had been threatening to unleash a big-budget live-action adaptation of the iconic 1960s cartoon “Speed Racer”. Everyone from Johnny Depp to Nicolas Cage was rumored to be involved at one point or another. Now, at long last, the film has arrived, touting the unmistakable star power of… John Goodman?? Okay, to be fair, the cast of this film does a remarkable job of bring out the heart and vital family dynamic of the Racer clan. But the fact that the cast may lack marquee value doesn’t matter, as the true stars of this film are its makers, Larry and Andy Wachowski (of the Matrix trilogy fame). And in accordance to the visual whirligig that is this film, not once do they let you forget it. Dare I say it; they’ve opened door into some kind of new live action visual experience.
Already semi-controversial for its manic, color-crazed visual style, “Speed Racer” is a film that’s not going to appeal to everyone. I suspect that it will, however, appeal to far more people than some negative box office predictors are indicating. The spark is such in the fabric of this film that it could very well catch on with the kids in that slow burning “National Treasure” sort of way. But don’t take that as a judgment on the quality of the movie itself (although it was a compliment) (but I haven’t seen “National Treasure”). While it’s interesting that the heretofore R-rated Wachowskis have seen fit to make what they dub “a family movie”, it’s even more interesting to process “Speed Racer” in the context of their other work.
Continue Reading "SPEED RACER review"...
I remember with fondness an early day of action cinema, a day when the heroes didn’t need to be particularly attractive or in particularly good physical condition. A day when the Bronson’s of the world could be stars, when being a hero was about manliness and force of will rather than physical ability. And apparently I’m not the only one who remembers those days because here comes Antihero, a very deliberate throwback to those late seventies and early eighties action flicks. You know the routine: poor but noble man seeks peace but must turn to violence to protect the people he loves. Yes, please. You’ll find the trailer in the Twitch Player below the break.
Continue Reading "Big Man. Big Fists. Filipino Action Goes Old School With ANTIHERO"...
Japanese cinema has a long history of female revenge films. As my knowledge of Japanese cinema grows it’s be interesting to find action heroines outside of those who I knew from industries such as Hong Kong with actresses like Michelle Yeoh. So color me interested when I hear about a new female revenge film, Hard Revenge, Milly, starring Miki Mizuno, that finished lensing recently and will screen this August in Japan. I just hope it is longer than the listed 44 minutes run time over at Eigepedia. If not, V Cinema is just fine by us.
At some point in the near future gun and weapon control laws are deregulated by public order. Because of this, Asia quickly becomes the epicenter of violent criminal activity in the world. In Yokohama City this violence becomes so extreme that the population quickly drops as ordinary people try to escape the criminal element that remain, leaving the northern part of the city as a haven of sorts to a particularly violent gang of four miscreants that call themselves The Jack Brothers.
When The Jack Brothers viciously murder Milly’s husband in daughter in front of her, leaving her to die, she vows revenge. She learns the art of sword combat from a master swordsman named Juubee, and eventually sets off to confront The Jack Brothers at their hideout in an abandoned factory.
Miki Mizuno is well versed in action cinema starring in Sasori, last year’s remake of Female Convict Scorpion, has a long history with martial arts training and apparently according to the report over at Tokyograph did all her own stunts. Chick’s hardcore!
As tempting as it is to label Michel Hazanavicius’ recent French spy comedy a parody of 1970’s globe hopping spy flicks – and, yes, I am absolutely thinking of a certain high profile Ian Fleming creation – doing so would somehow seem to lessen what OSS 117 really is. Parody these days means the endless parade of Scary Movie flicks or, in this particular realm, another stab at Austin Powers, films that poke fun at a genre from the outside looking in. What Hazanavicius has created, however, is something entirely different: OSS 117 is every inch a loving recreation of the films it is looking back on. Rather than make fun of a genre everyone involved here clearly loves – and loves dearly – they have instead brought a popular literary character, equal parts Connery era Bond and Sellers Pink Panther antics, to the screen in an astonishingly note perfect recreation of the films of the era. If not for the satiric edge laced throughout the film’s plot – a savage knock on western meddling in and ignorance of middle eastern affairs – this could easily be a lost treasure of the seventies.
Continue Reading "OSS 117: CAIRO NEST OF SPIES Review"...
Coming at your faster than a bolt of lightning, the Wachowski Brothers Speed Racer kicks cinema into the 5th dimension and is 10,000 volts of gooey fun at breakneck racing speeds of visual excitement that the entire family can enjoy. This is an explosion of eye-popping Busby Berkeley meets Stanley Kubrick meets anime styled techno delirium that will leave your eyes and brain feeling like it has just been hit by a tornadic sugar high (view image gallery). In some respects it should have been easy to see the Wachowski Brothers were heading in this direction with very anime influenced scenes from their previous movies and importantly of note here is they pick up their original Matrix magic wand, leaving their Reloaded and Revolutions hats behind.
From retro futuristic designs and its symphonic techno color overdrive, the anime universe of Speed Racer gets translated perfectly to the big screen. Make no mistake the Wachowski Brothers have turned anime into live action visual opera that promises to be the benchmark and standard all other type of adaptations will be judged against for the foreseeable future. Live action anime cinema has been born with this visual feast that rivals anything that has ever come before it in history. I didn’t like the upcoming trailers (absolutely hated them) or anything I had seen for it walking into it, so believe me I was very surprised at how well this movie turned out. Cue your inner disco monkey, it’s time to have some summer movie time fun!
Continue Reading "Speed Racer Review - Live Action Anime Bliss"...
Ladies and gentlemen, boys and girls, I proudly present to you one of the official Best Things Ever: outer space Nazis.
We have been anxiously awaiting the arrival of some footage from upcoming Finnish sci-fi comedy Iron Sky from the day we first caught wind of it seemingly ages ago. We’ve hosted the very first concept art from the film, had a few chats with the director and production team and just generally been sold on the concept from the word go. And here it is: in 1945, realizing that the war was taking a turn for the worst, the Nazis sent a collection of their best and brightest to establish a secret base on the moon where they would nurse themselves back to strength and develop their powerful military technology until the were ready to return. That day will arrive in 2018.
After months of work and fine tuning to get everything just right the teaser arrived on YouTube yesterday, which seems a shameful way to treat something as visually impressive as this. Apparently the director agrees as he’s just passed us a MUCH higher quality version of that same promo spot to load in to the Twitch Player. And, hot damn, the wait has been worth every second. This thing is spectacular, from the detailed CG work, to the spectacular production design, to that weirdly mournful title song - one that wouldn’t be out of place in a Bond film. Everything about this thing is absolutely perfect. You’ll find the teaser in the Twitch Player below the break.
Continue Reading "In 1945 The Nazis Went To The Moon … The IRON SKY Promo Arrives!"...
It’s kind of a good thing / bad thing scenario being Joseph Hahn. On the good thing side, Hahn is best known as the DJ for hugely successful band Linkin Park and there are worse things in life than traveling the world and making buckets of cash for playing music. Also a good thing is that the buckets of cash and influence as a member of the band has allowed Hahn to pursue his other major interest, that being film making. He got his start shooting videos for his own band and has moved on to shooting for other acts and now is taking his first step into the fiction word with an impressive short film titled The Seed. The bad thing about Joseph Hahn? Being a famous and well financed musician means he could well have a hard time convincing people that he’s serious about this whole film thing, which would be a shame because he’s quite good.
While it has many of the hallmarks you’d expect from a video director turned fiction director - the slick shooting style, the rapid fire editing, the musical appearances by his bandmates - Hahn shows that he’s got the conceptual goods to back up the style. The Seed is the story of a seemingly homeless man who is actually caught in the center of a shadowy military action. It may appear to outsiders that he is fighting phantoms - throwing punches at empty space and talking to people who aren’t there - but the hero of the piece is actually a traumatized military officer who has been made the subject of an experiment in cloaking technology. He can both hide himself through the use of this technology and also see others using it. And, oh yes, there are others. He may have been the first but there are more out there, all of them battling it out to control the technology. Think about it: soldiers that can’t be seen. Exclusive properties that are simply invisible to all but the privileged few. How much would the technology be worth on the open market?
Fans of the Ghost in the Shell franchise will immediately recognize the central device - this sort of cloaking technology is heavily featured in the series - but Hahn takes it in some different directions. The script of The Seed is a little under written as it stands but the seeds - if you’ll pardon the pun - of some stellar ideas are embedded in there. What he’s done is found a simple device that allows him to dive into issues of class warfare, the politics of military technology and a host of other issues while wrapping it all up in a slickly produced, martial arts heavy package. There are rumblings that this may be further developed into a feature length film and I hope they pursue that possibility, there’s lots of good stuff here worth exploring more.
The Seed is currently available on iTunes.
The modern historical epic – ushered in stylistically during the early ‘90s by the likes of Dances with Wolves and Braveheart - has long been one of film’s least malleable sub-genres. Whether the action strictly adheres to history or bends it at will (more often the case), certain beats and rhythms persist across films, around the globe. Even the idiosyncratic, frenzied mash-ups favored in South Korea can’t overcome the traditional, lock-step approach to large-scale storytelling (see Musa and The King and the Clown for serviceable examples). That in mind, it comes as little surprise that the Russian / German / Mongolian / Kazakhstani co-producition of Sergei Bodrov’s Mongol, an exciting and involving epic depicting the formative years of Genghis Khan, bears little cultural imprint beyond its narrative.
Continue Reading "IIFF 2008 - MONGOL review"...
Yes, the hair is horrible. Now that that’s out of the way on we go ...
For a country that produces so many film - to say nothing of producing icons like Sonny Chiba - Japan produces surprisingly few action films. Some martial arts stuff, sure, and a good bit of the ol’ ultraviolence and high energy weirdness but straight up action films? I doubt I could come up with more than a handful without doing a good bit of research and that just seems strange.
And so I’m more than a little curious to see what comes of Chameleon, a high profile new effort starring Fujiwara Tatsuya of Battle Royale and Death Note fame. The thing’s got a classic 70’s action film feel to it and it comes by that naturally: it’s being directed froma script written thirty years ago for Matsuda Yusaku, who died before it could be filmed. Fujiwara stars as a small time crook who witnesses a kidnapping and ends up taking justice into his own hands when the kidnappers start picking off his own gang of cronies. The young star performed most - if not all - of his own stunts in the film and the just released theatrical trailer is looking good so here’s hoping it is enough of a success to trigger a new wave of Japanese action flicks ...
You’ll find the trailer in the Twitch Player below the break.
Continue Reading "Fire The Hair Stylist! Promote The Stunt Guy! It’s The Full Trailer For CHAMELEON!"...
Well, well. Back in March we posted a note about an open casting call for an at-the-time untitled Yuen Wo Ping project. Seems the master was preparing a new martial arts film and wanted to inject some new blood and so was looking for martial artists of all types from around the globe. Any news Yuen Wo Ping film is good news so we were happy to hear of it but little else was known at the time. Well, today I spotted word that Shawn Yue and Louis Koo have been cast to star in Iron Mask, a new Yuen Wo Ping directed sequel to the classic Iron Monkey. Could this be the same film? There’s some concern that Louis Koo - not a highly trained martial artist, though he’s dabbled in screen fighting - is cast in the lead role, though keeping the character masked during the major fight scenes opens the door for the use of a stunt double should the fight sequence demand it. Iron Mask is slated to begin shooting in July.
