Cannes News Wrap Up … The Fest Goes On But I, Alas, Have Left …

Probably the most anticipated news in here – but only because you don’t yet know what else I’m holding up my sleeve – is that the trailer for Ong Bak 2 made an appearance.  Colour correction was obviously not done yet so it’s hard to comment on what the final film will look like but Tony has been de-prettified, opting for a grimy, period costume and long, wild hair.  He looks nothing at all like he does in that poster, basically.  The khon dancing – muay thai fusion looks fantastic as do the shots of Tony wielding weapons on screen for what I believe is the first time, mostly a long spear.  The show stopper, though, is a shot of the man leaping from back to back across a herd of stampeding elephants.

Staying on the martial arts tip, Chilean fighter Marko Zaror was good enough to slip me the first reel of his new film, Mirage Man, and it looks fantastic.  Though this reunites the entire creative team from Kiltro they’re taking pretty much the opposite approach from that film, going for a very verite feel with no trickery or wire assist of any sort and the fight team opting not to pull most of their kicks and punches.  It’s crunchy goodness.  They’ve definitely got that 70’s kung fu vibe going with the soundtrack turning to funk disco when Zaror breaks out the hero costume and moves into fight mode.  And you anxious masses awaiting word of Kiltro finally hitting North American shores, you won’t have much longer to wait …

Another film we’ve been tracking for a while is British horror flick, The Devil’s Chair.  I’ve been sworn to secrecy on any plot details for the time being but this one’s very, very good.  A big step forward from Adam Mason and Simon Boyes’ previous collaboration, Broken, which was no slouch itself.

Canadian animators prepping a short to run in front of Spike Jonez’ upcoming take on Where The Wild Things Are?  Looks like it’s happening … more on that once the deal is inked in blood and I have the chance to dig out their business cards to point you to their current short film work.

Turks are nice.  They gave us free beer.  And a bottle of wine.  And caressed the lady friend, but in a non-threatening way so I let them live.

Expect much, much more insanity from Spain.  A couple days loitering about with directors Nacho Vigalondo and Cesar Velasco Broca turned up details on a couple of absolutely stellar feature projects the pair are working on.  Vigalondo’s still wrapping post on his debut feature – Time Crimes – but he’s got a ton of stuff in the works and it’ll be one wise company that decides to make Todd a happy boy and fund his next few projects.  We’ve got artwork coming so I won’t spill details until that arrives.

What I will spill details on, though, are two new projects from Jade Warrior director AJ Anilla, who I named one of my top five international directors to watch on my 2006 year-end list.  Right now he’s working on a low budget horror picture titled Sauna, which he describes as an intelligent, adult piece of psych horror that tries to think you into a state of frenzy instead of just bumping and crashing you there.  After that?  He’s prepping a ninja musical.  Yup.  A Finnish ninja musical.  Also in the works at Blindspot – the company behind Jade Warrior – is a Nazi sci-fi comedy …