Todd’s Cannes Diary: Day One

So it’s the morning after the night before and things are slowly perking up thanks to some quality Finnish hospitality - I’m typing this while tapping into the Bronson Club’s wifi with a larger than life image from AJ Annila’s Sauna looming over me - as I gear up for my first full day at Cannes 2008 and a slate of five screenings.  But even though yesterday was only a partial day there’s still lots worth mentioning ...

I arrived a few hours late thanks to a missed connection in Zurich - and this was after being shoe-horned into literally the worst seat on the entire plane on the first leg of the flight making this far from my finest flying day - but a quick tour through the market and environs turned up lots of the good stuff. 

The big gun?  A new promo for Ong Bak 2.  I’ll happily confess to being skeptical about this one since it was announced that Tony Jaa would be stepping into the directors chair himself for it and the length of the production has not inspired confidence but on a purely technical and martial arts level - the promo shows nothing of the story at all, so I can’t comment there - I am quite happy to say that Jaa has proven me wrong.  Production values are fantastic, both in terms of set design and cinematography, and Jaa has obviously been paying attention when it comes to where the camera needs to be to shoot action.  Heck, I’ll go as far as to say that the footage from this looks better by far than the latest efforts from original Ong Bak director Prachya Pinkaew.  This one’s a period piece featuring a long haired Jaa scrapping it out in a remote village and the attention to detail is excellent.  Also excellent?  The martial arts, which are surprisingly bloody and feature a HUGE range of styles.  If Tom Yum Goong was all about Jaa preaching the value of Thai culture - which it was - then this one is all about Jaa beating the crap out of all comers and proving that he can take you down in any style there is and not just muay thai.  The weapons work - there are spears, poles, a three part staff, ball and chain, and swords in the promo - is particularly good.  Yum.

The promos for Mondo Macabro’s upcoming pair of projects - Filthy and Killdroid - are strong in very different ways.  Karim Hussein’s Filthy is going to cause a sensation among a niche of cine-cultists while repulsing just about everyone else and Ilarde’s Killdroid looks to be a good old fashioned pulpy exploiter that’ll get all the fan boys buzzed over The Machine Girl buzzing again.

There’s a new promo reel for the aforementioned Sauna which looks spectacular, and the chance to see the previously released Iron Sky promo on a big screen should not be missed.

And I know I’m missing some things but time is tight and the last top of mind title belongs to David Morley’s feature debut Mutants.  We’ve linked to a trailer for Morley’s Bitten in the past - and Toronto readers should be keeping that one in mind, though I can’t say more about it at the moment - and Mutants looks to build on the strengths of his previous short film work.  Very, very well shot with nasty creature effects, what really makes Morley’s work shine is the way he balances out tension and gore with strong character work, this one revolving around a couple faced with the reality of one of them slowly devolving into a bloodthirsty creature.  Very nice ...