Latest News On Chinese Movies

The Chinese movie industry has been abuzz with news on various big-budget films these last couple of days.

1. Jay Chou's new movie as a white haired gongfu expert.
Who would have thought that pop star Jay Chou (star of Iniial 'D' and Secret) will act as a white-haired highly skilled gungfu expert that teaches Once Upon A Time In China star Vincent Zhao, a highly trained martial arts exponent in real life, gongfu in Yuen Woo Ping's new movie True Legend. Check out this link for pics of Jay's new look in the film(gulp!). True Legend is about the life story of Beggar Su, a martial arts master who lived like a beggar and created the "Drunken Fist" style of martial art (popularised in the Jackie Chan classic movie Drunken Master). Jay will play the role of the er "Martial Arts God" in the film. Well, with special effects, anyone can be a gungfu expert and Jay Chou's gungfu moves were not all that bad in Curse Of The Golden Flower so... The film also stars Michelle Yeoh and Zhou Xun and is scheduled to be released in the middle of next year.

2. New Mei Lanfang Trailer

A new trailer on the much anticipated biopic of Chinese Opera legend Mei Lan Fang by Chinese director Chen Kaige and starring Leon Lai and Ziyi Zhang was released recently. Previously simply titled Mei Lanfang, it is now known as Forever Enthralled in English. I managed to find the trailer for this film on YouTube and it just has "epic" written all over it. The film will be released in China on December 12 this year. This should be good.




3. Andy Lau's Latest Project

Hong Kong star Andy Lau will star in a new Wong Jing sci-fi movie titled Future Cop. Co-stars include Taiwanese actress Barbie Hsu, Xu Jiao (the cute kid in Stephen Chow's CJ7) and Taiwanese idol drama regular Mike He. According to this site, Andy Lau stars as a cop from the year 2085 who returns to 2010 to investigate crimes. Wow, a Chinese sci-fi film that is set in the future, we have not had this kind of film for a very long time. The movie is set for release in 2009 and there will also be on-location shoots in Dubai and Hong Kong.

More Chinese movie news next time...

Tags: Jay Chou, True Legend, Yuen Woo Ping, Vincent Zhao, Leon Lai, Ziyi Zhang, Mei Lanfang, Forever Enthralled, Andy Lau, Barbie Hsu, Future Cop, Chinese Movies.

Early Review and Trailer Of New Dragon Ball Movie

The upcoming live-action Dragonball movie starring Chow Yun Fatt, Justin Chatwin, James Marsters and Emma Rossum may not be too bad after all ;-)

According to this site, a reviewer who claims to have watched an early version of the movie wrote that the best parts included the action ("awesome"), James Marsters as Picollo, Justin Chatwin as Goku and Emma Rossum as Bulma. The worst parts were the story, Jamie Chung as Chi Chi, Chow Yun Fatt as Master Roshi ("acted like Mr. Kesuke Miyagi") and the CGI dragon. Overall the reviewer gave the movie a decent 6.5 out of 10.

Well, the movie is set for general release in April 2009 so we will know by then just how good or bad it is. But until then, check out the trailer here.

Source: http://kotaku.com/5069084/first-dragonball-movie-review-not-a-disaster, http://www.aintitcool.com/node/38877, http://splashpage.mtv.com/2008/10/03/new-dragonball-trailer-goes-online/.

Image from Wikipedia: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dragon_Ball_film

Tags: Dragon Ball, Dragonball movie, Chow Yun Fatt, Justin Chatwin,
James Marsters, Emma Rossum, Upcoming Movies, Manga, Anime.

My Thoughts On Japanese Movie 20th Century Boys Part 1

Finally got to watch the the first part of the highly anticipated live-action movie adaptation of Naoki Urasawa 's hit manga 20th Century Boys (20世紀少年) over the weekend. Costing US$60 million and starring Toshiaki Karasawa, Tokiwa Takako, Etsushi Toyokawa and other top names in the Japanese entertainment industry, it's no wonder that I had sky-high expectations of this movie. And the film does not disappoint, the acting was generally superb, many of the characters looked exactly like their manga counterparts and the special FX was good (not Hollywood standard yet but at least I thought that it was better than the special effects in Death Note). However, I felt that something was missing from the movie... Not sure what that "something" was but somehow I just could not become fully absorbed in the story that was unfolding before me on the big screen...

And after thinking about why I have this feeling, I have come up with two possible reasons:

1. Not reading the manga first. The storyline is very complex, no mistake about that, and like a good whodunnit, there were little hints here and there of who the dastardly villain a.k.a Friend is, but to catch these hints, I think one has to be somewhat familiar with the plot first. I did not read the manga from beginning to end, only bits and pieces after I found out that there was going to be a movie adaptation. This could have affected my ability to fully appreciate what was going on. Perhaps, if I had finished reading the whole manga series before watching the movie, I would have had a greater appreciation for the film...

2. Not enough time to flesh out the characters. As they had to squeeze the long and highly complicated plot (22 volumes of manga in total and a timeline that spans from 1969 to 2015) into three 2-hour plus movies, it is understandable that some parts of the story had to be sacrificed... This may have affected the flow of the plot to a certain extent. Also, because of the sheer multitude of characters in the story, many key characters appear for far too short a time to allow the audience to have the chance to understand what motivates them and to feel for them. Without this emotional attachment to the characters, it is hard to become all that interested in what happens to them in the film...

But that is not to say that the characters were not memorable, in fact, some of them (especially the minor ones) have so much character and their personality and quirks were so vividly brought to life that you will remember them even if they just appear for a mere few minutes. Case in point is Naoto Takenaka's short 3(?) minute appearance.

The parts I liked the most were the scenes of Kenji and friends as kids, as these scenes evoked a feeling of sweetness and nostalgia. Also, the scenes between Kenji and his niece Kanna (who will play a leading role in the 2nd and 3rd instalments of the trilogy) were especially touching.

But all in all, for all its faults, this is the best Japanese movie that I have seen this year. and I will be eagerly looking forward to Part 2 early next year. But I think I will go read the manga first hehheh.

And here is the trailer for Part II on YouTube, looks pretty exciting to me! Btw, can't help but notice that 'Friend' sure has a wide variety of masks, he could consider setting up a retail outlet selling masks when he retires from his business of terrorisng his childhood pals and world domination ;-P



Tags: 20th Century Boys, Niju Seiki Shonen, Japanese Movie, Scifi Movie, New Japanese Film.

Korean Hana Yori Dango Cast Confirmed

The main cast of the Korean version of the hit manga Hana Yori Dango (Boys Over Flowers) has been announced. Playing the female lead character of Makino Tsukushi is the very sweet Goo Hye Sun (of Pure 19 and King And I fame). And the super rich boys of her school a.k.a. F4 consists of Lee Min Ho (as hot-headed F4 leader Domyouji), Kim Hyun Joong from boy band SS501 as the quiet Rui, Kim Bum as Soujiro and Kim Joon as Akira.




As the story's setting has been changed to Korea, there will be some changes in the storyline and character names. Makino is now Yeon Woo, the daughter of the owner of a dry cleaning shop. Domyoji is Goo Joon Pyo, Rui Hanazawa is now Yoon Ji Hoo, Sojiro is So Lee Jung and Akira is Song Woo Bin. For a comparison between the manga, Taiwanese, Japanese and Korean versions of F4, check out this blog post.

The drama serial is scheduled to be aired in December this year.

More info on Hana Yori Dango and other Korean drama series news can be found at my previous blog post here.

Source: http://sookyeong.wordpress.com/2008/10/06/korean-hana-yori-dango-main-casts-confirmed/, http://coolsmurf.wordpress.com/2008/10/02/male-casting-for-korean-hana-yori-dango-revealed/

Tags: Hana Yori Dango, Korean drama, Goo Hye Sun, F4, Boys Over Flowers, Lee Min Ho, Kim Hyun Joong, Kim Bum, Kim Joon.

Chinese Classics Come To Life On The Small Screen

The television version of the classic epic Romance Of The Three Kingdoms (三国) (on which the hit movie Red Cliff is based on) has just begun shooting yesterday. Starring well-known Chinese television personalities like Ruby Lin, Lu Yi, Nie Yuan, Peter Ho, Chen Hao, Huang Wei De and Chen Jian Bin in the principal roles, shooting for this 60-episode television adaptation will last for one year and is scheduled to debut on Chinese television in 2010. Pics of the main cast in costume can be found here.

This is the second classic novel out of the The Four Great Classic Novels Of Chinese Literature that has been adapted for television this year. Another classic Dream Of The Red Mansions has already started filming in May this year. This version will star newcomers in many of the principal roles, (e.g. Yang Yang as chief protagonist Jia Baoyu and Bai Bing as Lin Daiyu's love rival Xue Baochai). To date there is still no confirmation on who will play Jia Baoyu's love interest Lin Daiyu. Pics of the cast can be found here. Hmmm... very "Chinese opera-ish" costumes...

No news yet on when the other two classics, Journey To The West and Water Margin will start filming although there have been some news that Zhang Ji Zhong, the director of Journey will start filming this series after he has finished shooting the latest version of Louis Cha's Heaven Sword and Dragon Sabre (gawd..... yet another remake :-P).

And for something different, I found this video on YouTube of the famous flower burying scene from the original CCTV version of the Dream Of Red Chambers... If you have not seen 1980's TV serials from China, you can get a taste of in in this vid below... Enjoy :-)



Tags: Dream Of Red Mansions, Romance Of The Three Kingdoms, Red Cliff, Chinese classic novels, Journey To The West.