官方艺术家
lorna tee
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aug 4th
Everywhere I go to now, I am surrounded by images of Bei-bei, Jing-jing, Huan-huan, Ying-ying, Ni-ni - the 5 mascots of the Beijing Olympics. There is no escaping the biggest sporting event of the year so while waiting for it to be over, below are some of the non-olympic medals of our own making.
He wanted to be known as an artist and be taken seriously as a filmmaker (even when he is most famous for his "no wire" hard action). OK. He wanted to make his own film - which morphed from contemporary action flick to an epic, period piece (even when TWC subsequently returned the film to the sales agent). OK. But to run off into the jungles and to meditate after blowing the budget on the film and being behind schedule??? NOT OK. Better make up by making a damn solid action film Tony.....
http://www.varietyasiaonline.com/kaijushakedown/TONY-JAA-FOUND
Pete Teo who is one of Malaysian most prolific singer songwriter/ actor of indie films, and crony of mine, will be performing on Korean TV soon. His acting in films brought him to Pusan to perform live last year and now with his album TELEVISION released in S Korea, he is your next big star! Alright, he is not a cute 18 year old boy who can lip sync and dance in harmony with 4 other boys, but he is the real deal of an artist and girls still throw themselves at him and want to have babies with him!
http://www.peteteo.com/weblog/?p=535
This auspicious number only happens once every century so the chinese are thrilled to have the opening ceremony on this date. My friend Amy Chin on the other hand will premiere her latest film LA LINGERIE directed by Chan Hing Ka & Janet Chun on that date. The film stars one of the cookie girls, Stephy Tang and some other lookalike HK actresses who will wear very little in the film. And Chui Tien You who recently was in the film shoot of AT THE END OF DAYBREAK by Ho Yuhang in Kuala Lumpur, is in the film with his six packs. More importantly, it is a non war epic film and made for HK (not china) audiences. Plus Golden Scene is releasing it in HK. Go support it.
http://www.goldenscene.com/lingerie/lingerie-syn.html#
I was in India recently for the Osian Cinefan and while sitting in traffic as we do a lot in Delhi, I heard the title song for SINGH IS KING. I hope the film will be released in HK and that we can sing the chorus all together in the cinema! And rapper/ reality star Snoop Dogg has a cameo in the film http://www.varietyasiaonline.com/content/view/6617/
On the blog by Grady Hendrix on the whole Tartan/ Palisades issue over the library title, and who, how and what will happen to the many excellent and okay asian titles in the UK, a certain Razor X, asked a question that got me rolling on the ground - ask yourself what would be the opposite of Asian Extreme line? Do click on the link below to read in full the comment.
Other nuggets worth checking out are
http://www.varietyasiaonline.com/content/view/6591/1/ - Report by Patrick Frater on China's incredible growth vs the major hurdles for hollywood & the report on CAA's presence/ role in China
http://www.varietyasiaonline.com/content/view/6622/53/ http://www.varietyasiaonline.com/content/view/6621/53/
Finally, if you are in France now, take note of the release of LA MOME XIAO un film de Peng Tao this week. Not to be missed and one of China's most interesting new filmmaker to watch out for.
http://zootropefilms.fr/lamomexiao/
Okay, I am sad that I cant be in Locarno this year as it is a beautiful festival but on the jury is Masahiro Kobayashi whose beautifully dialogue-less film, AI NO YOKAN (REBIRTH) won the Golden Leopard last year .... well, hope he enjoys the lakes and mountains as much as the films this year.
Go for Gold!
July 22nd
am too depressed to work after the news of the wedding in Bhutan of my all time favourite HK actor, labeled by Grady on Kaiju as the Wedding of Millenium ( http://www.varietyasiaonline.com/kaijushakedown/?post=home) that you are receiving this latest update :-(
I also saw the DARK KNIGHT yesterday which will be my all time favourite BATMAN film. The film is magnificently well made and I have not seen Hong Kong filmed in that way before (production services in HK done by October Pictures who also last year supported films such as I COME WITH THE RAIN, LARGO WINCH, SEVEN MOON, etc). Yet, it was a painful and sad viewing of a great film by Christopher Nolan as everytime Joker appears on screen, the performance by Heath Ledger so very convincing as the all consuming evil with cause but your heartache of his passing is resurfaced and it just wont go away. Review of the film by Justin Chang of Variety is fairly spot on ( http://www.variety.com/VE1117937619.html)
Just returned from my very first trip to India at the Osian Cinefan Film Festival ( http://cinefan.osians.com/ ) where TOKYO SONATA by Kiyoshi Kurosawa won the Best Film (this film is so subtle yet so powerful in its message of failure in our ever competitive world that many may not appreciate it immediately but I am glad the jury members at the festival did). Moderated two panels – one on Co- production and another with first time filmmakers and both are enlightening though the panels were way too large for any real discussion to take place. The 10th edition, this is a festival which has a lot of heart and with the improved organization, can play a major role in bridging India with the rest of Asia and Middle East. Now, for me to get myself to Mumbai and try to spot my all time favourite Indian star, SRK aka King Khan aka Shah Rukh Khan. Fingers crossed that it will be soon.
Prior to India, I was in Slovakia for ARTFILM International Film Festival ( http://www.artfilm.sk/index.php?lang=en) where I was there to introduce the films in the NEW CHINESE CINEMA focus the fest has programmed. It was great that I was catching up with films that I had wanted to see for a long time like Missing Gun, Summer Palace, Bliss and Tuya’s Wedding but also introduced me to films like Perpetual Motion by Ning Ying. The fest also had a another great section where they celebrated the 25th anniversary of what many emerging filmmakers would deem as the most important fund that helped them in the start of their career – HUBERT BALS FUND. The screening of selected films supported by Hubert Bals is testament to the great vision of the fund and the current fragile state of the fund in the possibility of losing the grant by the government would not just be sad but a tragedy for the discovery of new talent in cinema. Please don’t let the all time favourite fund of emerging filmmakers not carry on the pivotal role they are playing. ( http://professionals.filmfestivalrotterdam.com/eng/hubertbalsfund.aspx)
Peng Tao is my new all time favourite Mainland Chinese filmmaker. Many of you would not know him as his film did not go to major festivals for new filmmakers but LITTLE MOTH has won 9 awards so far and the director recently went to Sundance for the Writing Lab for his new film. We are working together on the film now titled THAT YEAR WHEN WE WERE YOUNG and hopefully, we can shoot the film this year. Now who wants to be our favourite all time investor and support this talented filmmaker who will be sure to be an important filmmaker soon??
THE GOOD, THE BAD and THE WEIRD by Kim Ji-woon opened in South Korea recently to huge box office numbers and has been sold to the ever elusive territory of USA. I wonder if the film will be screened in Pyongyang Film Festival (North Korea) scheduled to take place end Sept this year? Many people will be making the trek and braving not having their mobile phones with them for a week but I will instead be focusing on preparing to attend my all time favourite film festival in asia, Pusan which starts this year on 2nd October. Pusan faces an uphill battle this year with many detractors happy to say that the festival is losing themselves over the ever growing focus of glamorous events for the stars or a redundant film market but one must not forget that PIFF has been for a while and remains the best place to watch many of the best Asian films plus the bonus of karaoke all night long to be followed by supper of live octopus. What more can one ask for? Plus the ever amazing Kim Dong-ho who is of course my all time favourite festival director with his inspiring passion and energy that puts us younger ones to shame ( http://www.piff.org/intro/default.asp?lang=eng)
Okay, with the mention of Kim Dong-ho, my spirits are lifted and I can now concentrate on getting back to work. And to maybe see Red Cliff and not cry when I see Tony on screen.
Have a good summer and keep cool
june 14th
Sorry this update has been long overdue but work gets in the way. First, a brief Cannes wrap -up.
I only saw a handful of film but drank barrels of champagne. Not good but obligatory in while in Cannes ;-) The films i managed to see were good though - TOKYO SONATA (walked on the red carpet with the delegation in heavy downpour!! but what a silently powerful film about family and failure), THE CHASER (very impressive debut but oh so violent) and THE GOOD, THE BAD AND THE WEIRD (massively fun and the actors looked like they enjoyed every moment of being in the film)
Films I wished I had seen - Waltz with Bashir, Knitting, Tulpan, The Silence of Lorna, The Class, Tokyo and more. Does one get to see every film one wants to see in one lifetime?
The scandal surrounding the mix-up with some of the films who were mis-informed about their chances of winning is unfortunate. To be told that a film is winning a prize, the director flew his mom into Cannes and everyone of the delegation walked on the red carpet and when the announcement came, no award - my heart goes out to them. If anyone knows the inside story of what happened, do let me know.
Also on the Croisette, Indian companies made headlines for announcing investment of 1billion in 18 months and tying up with Hollywood stars (Reliance Big Entertainment) while Eros announced a joint venture with Lionsgate which are interesting development in the rise of the Indians as a major global player in the past few years. Maybe the rest of Asia (and the world) can stop thinking of Bollywood as only films where it is 3 hours of singing and dancing and melodrama and see how to embrace the films and the industry more.
On the other side of Asia, RED CLIFF which stars some of the best talents (Tony Leung, Hu Jun, Chang Chen, Takashi Kaneshiro and Zhou Wei) and some pretty faces (Lin Chiling - apparently Taiwan's number one beauty???!!!), is the most important film for Asia this year cause it is not just
the most expensive ever at $80m USD
has John Woo back from Hollywood and
filled with controversy of Chow Yun Fatt dropping the film a few days before shoot was to commence and now news of crew members killed in a fire accident.
This film is key to Asia because of the financing structure where all the money (all $80m) for the film is from Asia - so if this film falls, many investors in this region will be less likely to be so supportive of big asian titles and if the film succeeds, it shows the power of East Asian investment, directors/ producers, stars and audience and we will be bombarded with more epic period war films (arrrrghhhhh, no more!!!).
Now in Shanghai for the film festival. This festival amazes me in the fact that being the only official international film festival in China, you would think that it would receive the support that a national treasure should be accorded but only THAT sporting event gets new buildings, new roads, new train system and super colourful mascots! while a film festival get nearly no government support and relies on the generosity of the industry wanting to build a long term relationship with China or those who attend it in an attempt to understand how to work with this giant.
Variety is also co- hosting a panel this Sunday morning to talk about the artiste management in Asia and we have panellists from Avex (Japan), IHQ (S Korea), Huayi (China), CAA (US) and our own Patrick Frater mulling over stars - if you are in town, drop by and say hello
In South East Asia, some interesting developments.
*KRU which started out as pop trio in the country is now the first Malaysian company to work with Hollywood and makes me wonder if their superhero film CICAKMAN (lizard -man) will inch their way to an American remake.
*Singapore Film Comission has a new film fund for singapore residents who is a first time director of up to $250,000 USD - I hope that funds like that would develop to reflect the state of films as not being bound geographical borders and allow for it to support beyond singaporean talents for Singapore truly to be able to be the centre of asian filmmaking as they aspire to be now.
*Ho Yuhang's new feature film, AT THE END OF DAYBREAK is the first Malaysian (Paperheart), Hong Kong (October Pictures) and South Korean (M &FC) co-production and starts shoot early July. It would feature
Malaysian director and crew,
Hong Kong actors Chui Tien You (Glass Tears, After This Our Exile) and Kara Hui aka Wai Ying Hung (a great actress who started as a Kungfu star during the days of Shaw Brothers productions)
Taiwanese sound crew from Tu Du-che's team (best sound team in this part of the world!)
South Korean post production courtesy of Asian Cinema Fund (Pusan)
and a homeless producer aka your truly who is very stressed and excited about this coproduction.
Those of you who are new to this group, do drop by and add your two cents of news, gossips, photos and videos. Also log on to Variety Asia Online http://www.varietyasiaonline.com to check out latest asian news and Kaiju Shakedown this week has updates on Mongol doing well in the US (Hooray for Sergei and Asano), Johnny To wanting to make more films over long periods of time (hmmmmm....) and how to do the Olympic cheer!
Have a good weekend and life.
