[Updated with a stack of new production stills.  Tasty.]

Fantastic news here for fans of Vietnamese martial arts film The Rebel:

No, Dustin Nguyen’s Monk On Fire is still not quite up and running - though it’s still in the works - but this has got to count as very nearly as complete a reunion as that one will be.  Le Thanh Son - the assistant director on The Rebel - will be making his directorial debut with The Clash, a now-in-production martial arts-action film that reunites The Rebel leads Johnny Nguyen and Veronica Ngo on the big screen.

THE CLASH (Bay Rong) is the latest project featuring the leading man and leading lady from The Rebel, the news that the two had become a couple after playing romantic leads in The Rebel probably helped the films exposure, and it went onto become one of the biggest hits in Vietnamese cinema history. Their new project could best be described as a Vietnamese take on a certain Mr & Mrs.Smith project, but with high impact martial arts action playing a major part in the film. The film marks the directorial debut of Le Thanh Son, who previously served as AD on both The Rebel for Charlie Nguyen and Luu Huynhs acclaimed The White Silk Dress.

The Clash is scheduled for a Christmas release in Vietnam, so it’s still too early for a trailer, but we do have a gallery of the first five stills - well, four stills plus a behind the scenes shot - at the link below!

Oh how we have waited with bated breath for the return of Japanese director Hiroyuki Nakano to return with another film. I am a mighty fan of both Samurai Fiction and Stereo Future. I gave Red Shadow a miss and I haven’t been able to see any of the short film work he has done in recent years so his record is pretty much unblemished in my opinion. And it has been long enough since he last did a feature film perhaps all this short film work in the meantime has put him back on track to deliver us another gem. We hope Tajomaru is that film, Nakano’s adaptation of the short story “In a Grove” by Ryunosuke Akutagawa. I’m a bit mixed about the new trailer, some parts seem a bit silly and Jpop gets me every time, but final judgment is reserved for when I can finally see the film sometime in the fall. Tajomaru is scheduled for a September release in Japan.

Naomitsu (Shun Oguri) is the second son of the Hatakeyama family and fiance of Princess Ako (Yuki Shibamoto). When he gets chased away from his home as the result of a conspiracy against him, Naomitsu flees into the mountains with Ako in tow, but they’re soon attacked by a bandit named Tajomaru (Hiroki Matsukata). After managing to kill Tajomaru, Naomitsu takes the bandit’s identity as his own. NipponCinema

Full trailer and teaser after the break!

Continue Reading "Full trailer out for Hiroyuki Nakano’s samurai film ‘Tajomaru’"...

A first time director, but one who’s a long-time veteran from behind the scenes of Hong Kong cinema’s golden age. An up-and-coming star cherry-picked by a living legend. A plot looking back to some of the all-time classic martial arts movies – so why exactly is Xin Xin Xiong’s Coweb still yet to see a release outside mainland China? Read on after the break.

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[UPDATE:  Two guys also capture the promo at the convention and unloaded on youtube.  It has a better view than the last video.]

Imagi Studios has set up a booth at the Anime Expo 2009 in Los Angeles and “Anime3000” has capture on camera the Gatchaman promo being on display on the floor. Of course, the video quality ain’t so great as typical with any cam-job.  We have to bear with it until a proper version comes along.  Hopefully, more news update on this promising superhero film will emerge soon. 

You’ll find the promo after the break.

Continue Reading "Cam-job Promo for Imagi’s GATCHAMAN"...

While in New York a week or so back I had a friend ask if I’d seen the new French trailer for Tony Jaa’s Ong Bak 2.  As with the original Ong Bak Luc Besson’s Europa Corp have gotten their hands on this one and while the rumor is that there has been a mild re-cut of the film to tighten things up a bit - I’m hearing six minutes have been removed - and some changes to the score - though nothing as drastic as the hip hop version done for the original - the new French trailer, I was told, makes Ong Bak 2 look like “the greatest action film ever made”.  I hadn’t seen it at the time, but now I have and I have to say I pretty much agree.

What do you say?  Was it the argument between Tony Jaa the director and Tony Jaa the actor over whether he really needed to get into that pit of water with a live crocodile that drove Tony to go hide in the jungle for two months?  Check the French trailer out below the break along with the extended Thai promo reel!

Continue Reading "It’s Tony Jaa Versus Crocodile In the French Trailer For ONG BAK 2!"...

Oh Hong Kong you’re so wacky. While a gweilo like me could never fully understand this brand of nonsense comedy there is a certain delirious joy when watching them. They’re just so out there that even without understanding them and all their cultural nuances fully they are no less entertaining. For example we have the trailer for Wong Jing’s upcoming nonsense comedy On His Majesty’s Secret Service. Though quite unlike the James Bond film of the same name from 1969 a quick search couldn’t pick up a lot of details about this film. Thus, I first found what I hoped was a description of the film to the more qualified and sanitary skills of Google Translate and this is what it came up with…

The film story takes place in ancient times, the emperor has to have a direction to 12 named after zodiac ... personal protection. Louis Koo as one of nine days, the representative of the high sign of the Zodiac “dog”, also known as the “灵灵dog,” he indulged in technology will certainly insist that the technology will be better than kung fu, but his inventions are in action on many occasions was busy in doing so out of tune with the other agent, and only his brother, “灵灵Tiger” and fiancee, “Mei hope that” duty-bound to support him. But the face of an infatuated Mei hope, wonder dog灵灵style was unmoved. At this point, the major opponent just Tso ambitious, desire to kill the emperor replaced, but he must first get rid of the dog led to灵灵大内密探. What is unexpected is the father-in-law of conspiracy Cao is only the tip of the iceberg,灵灵dog will have to face more and more powerful enemy, the palace seems to calm potentially dangerous, murderous hidden.

Then a little more digging found this much more coherent synopsis over at Far East Films...

The secret service has been responsible for protecting the Emperor for generations and 12 agents are always assigned to bodyguard duty. Amongst the current group, Zero Zero Dog (Louis Koo) is considered to be the weakest as he shows no interest in the martial arts and spends his time studying technology and creating inventions. When Dog stumbles upon an evil plot to kill the Emperor by the chief eunuch, Cao Yan Chui (Fan Siu Wong), he decides to prove everyone wrong and vanquish the enemy himself.

The film stars stars Louis Koo, Big S Barbie Hsu, Fan Siu Wong, Leung Kar Yan, Liu Yi Wei, Sandra Ng, Law Kar Ying, Chen Jia Jia, and Sang Wei Lin. The trailer is loaded up after the break and I am a tad disappointed that the sound is out of sync but you definitely get the gist of the film. Martial arts, crazy characters and zany comedy are after the break!

Continue Reading "Trailer for zany Chinese comedy ‘On His Majesty’s Secret Service’!"...

You can do little wrong when you decide to go to Montreal for the Fantasia International Film Festival and this year’s lineup proves to be no exception. Want a taste? David Morley’s MUTANTS, Adam Mason’s BLOOD RIVER, José Mojica Marins’ EMBODIMENT OF EVIL, Tom Shankland’s THE CHILDREN, Park Chan-wook’s THIRST and Satoshi Miki’s INSTANT SWAMP are just some of the titles at this year’s festival.

There is a lengthy announcement after the break. Take your time and we are sure you’ll find some must-sees. Then we’ll see you in Montreal between July 9th and 27th.

Continue Reading "FANTASIA 2009 announces lineup. She be a doozy!!!"...

Many thanks to the loyalists at Scott Adkins Fanz for pointing the way to three brand new stills from upcoming martial arts picture Undisputed 3.  We’ve been tracking this one fairly closely thanks to the fan loved heaped on Undisputed 2, the rising profile of star Scott Adkins and the presence of Chilean fighter Marko Zaror making his English language debut in the picture.  You can find the first shots of Adkins and Zaror facing off on set in the Twitch archive here.  And now there’s more.  Cinematographer has added five fresh shots from the shoot to his website - one fantastic close up of a bloody Adkins, plus shots of several other fighters - including Zaror - squaring off in the ring.  Very tasty.

We’ve been a little caught up with the World Premiere of Vampire Girl vs. Frankenstein Girl down at NYAFF this weekend. So much so that we’ve been oblivious to the fact that there was a new international trailer for the film released recently. There is a lot of familiar footage and a lot of new footage so I won’t keep you. Follow the break for copious amounts of blood and gore. Do we need mention that these trailers are completely NSFW? Well they are and rather than tag this posting as NSFW so just the sickos see it we’re giving you the choice. Be responsible. Don’t drag us down with you!

Continue Reading "Vampires, frankensteins, blood and gore! New trailer for ‘Vampire Girl vs. Frankenstein Girl’!"...

I have just a few minutes before running off to catch the world premiere of Yoshihiro Nishimura’s Vampire Girl Versus Frankenstein Girl so I must be brief but this is far too good to hold off on any longer than absolutely necessary,

If there is one thing that global martial arts fans have been practically gagging for over the past several years it is a film built around Brazilian martial art capoeira.  We’ve seen the acrobatic discipline featured in a few recent titles - Tom Yum Goong and Mirage Man both feature fights against capoeira trained opponents - but there has yet to be a high profile film dedicated to the art.  Until now.  It’s titled Besouro, it hits Brazilian screens in October, and the trailer looks absolutely spectacular.  You’ll find it below the break.

Continue Reading "Capoeira Hits The Screen In Brazil’s BESOURO (BEETLE)!"...

M. Night Shyamalan has fallen out of favor with the general public as of late. Perhaps this may turn things around for him with his adaptation of the animated series Avatar: The Last Airbender. Dropping Avatar [thank you James Cameron] it will be titled The Last Airbender and MNS is only responsible for the screenplay this time around; the story and characters were developed by two other guys, Bryan Konietzko and Michael Dante DiMartino, who worked on the animated show the film is based on. His DOP is Andrew Lesnie who worked with Peter Jackson on all three LOTR and King Kong films. I’m more or less trying to shift around the blame here because I think Shyamalan still deserves a chance to make another good movie again. The film has its detractors already so there is no need right now to heap it on the guy before next summer. MNS does claim to be as much a fan of the show as his kids are.

The story follows the adventures of Aang, a ten year old successor to a long line of Avatars, who must put his childhood ways aside and stop the Fire Nation from enslaving the Water, Earth and Air nations. Darn you fire!!!

And a teaser simply gives us an idea of production values and scale and both look fine in this matter.

Continue Reading "Teaser trailer for M. Night Shyamalan’s ‘The Last Airbender’"...

I’m getting the feeling that there will be a great divide amongst ourselves when we finally get the chance to see that movie with the giant robots with mechanical testicles blow shit up. However, I think there is one thing that we can all agree on. G.I. Joe: Rise of Cobra is going to suck larger balls. Don’t believe me? Second trailer after the break. If you dare.

Continue Reading "Something to put our collective hatred towards!"...

Gotta hand it to the people at Sahamongkol, they’re doing a very good job of keeping any materials from Chocolate star Jija Yanin’s sophomore film Raging Phoenix off of the web until they’re good and ready.  But with a release coming up later this year it’s inevitable that things start to trickle out eventually and Thai movie site Deknang have gotten hold of a series of stills and behind the scenes shots.  No action sequences in these but they do include a good look at Yanin in character as the drummer of a rock band.

Expect this one to be given a different english title any day now but apparently Michelle Yeoh told reporters at the Shanghai International Film Festival yesterday that she will be starring in John Woo’s upcoming The Sword And The Martial Arts World.  Woo will co-direct with Silk‘s Su Chao-pin.  Now, this is the first I’ve heard of this project but Woo needs to get something going, what with 1949 being cancelled and if he wants to make a return to the martial arts world with Michelle Yeoh as his leading lady, that’s better than fine with me ...

It’s an action blockbuster showing what happens when a mentally challenged vigilante martial artist, a master thief and a driven police captain cross paths. It’s thrilling, it’s beautiful, it’s achingly sad and it’s one of the most distinctive mainstream domestic productions from mainland China in years. So how well does The Underdog Knight cope with the challenge of keeping audiences and PRC censors happy? Find out after the break.

Continue Reading "THE UNDERDOG KNIGHT review"...