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Chow Yun-fat takes the lead in this scene from John Woo’s patchy but occasionally brilliant follow up to his own A Better Tomorrow. Playing the twin brother of the character of the role he played in the original, we first meet him as the owner of a restaurant on New York. When a guy from a protection racket tries to threaten him and his business, Chow Yun-fat flies into a full on Robert De Niro impression – in English – expounding how rice is like his mother and father! The scene even ends with the line “You talking to me?”

With the upcoming release of I’m A Cyborg, But That’s Okay on 4 April, director Park Chan-wook talks to the Guardian’s Ryan Gibley about how he can’t stand watching violence…

Read the article on the Guardian Online »

A spell binding and often perplexing vision – it’s Wong Kai-wai’s much anticipated sequel to In the Mood for Love… (more…)

Get ready for the next phenomenon as Nakoi Urasawa’s hit manga finally hits our screens as a live-action trilogy… (more…)

The first of Yukihiko Tsutsumi’s three-part adaption of Nakoi Urasawa’s 20 million copy selling 2oth Century Boys is released today – check it out! (Sorry, no English Subs!)

You can read our review of 2oth Century Boys here »

Next Monday quite possibly the best martial arts/kung fu film ever finally makes its way on to DVD in UK! (more…)

The 53rd London Film festival runs from 14 to 29 October, with plenty of Asian premieres on offer…

One definite highlight of the festival must be Lu Chuan’s film remarkable film on the ‘rape of Nanking’, City of Life and Death. Almost exactly three years ago the director talked enthusiastically about the project to easternKicks whilst promoting his fantastic Kekexili: Mountain Patrol, and it’s great to see this project has come to fruition.

Bong Joon-Ho’s Mother debuts at the festival too, about a herbalist and acupuncturist turns ‘detective’ to prove her son’s innocence when he’s charged with murder. With such great films as The Host and Memories Of Murder under his belt, one can only look forward to what he has in store for us this time.

Other films to arouse our curiosity are Hirokazu Kore-eda’s live-action adaptation of Yoshie Gouda’s avant-garde manga The Pneumatic Figure of a Girl, Air Doll – starring Korean star Bae Doo-Na, it tells of an inflatable sex-doll suddenly finds herself with a soul; and Kamui from Korean-Japanese director Yoichi Sai – again another live-action adaption from a manga – which BFI critic Tony Ryans declares is ‘probably the best ninja movie ever made’.

Also watch out for include Pan Jianlin’s Feast of Villians, Joko Anwar’s Forbidden Door and Ho Yuhang’s multinational production At the End of Daybreak. We’ll probably do another round-up soon, once we’ve had a chance to digest the programme fully – but is it just me or is there a lack of real Asian, if you’ll pardon the phrase, ‘crowd pleasers’ this year?

» Find out more on the official LFF website

It’s John Woo all right, but turned all the way up to 11!… (more…)

The latest from Kim Ji-woon (A Tale of Two Sisters, The Quiet Family), a slick tale of that revenge resounds with amazing style and wit, but ultimately do we really care?… (more…)

Director Shin-Yun Won’s darkly comic thriller, described as ‘A heady blend of Deliverance and Old Boy’ is showing at the ICA cinema, London. Click here for more details and to book screenings.

Kim Ji-woon (The Foul King, The Quiet Family) directs this intelligent Asian shocker with more than a few surprises… (more…)

It’s no accident this has been causing such a stir! Intelligent with a fantastic premise, surely this one of the finest Hong Kong films of the last decade… (more…)

A young director with high aspirations, we talk to Lu Chuan exclusively about his second film Kekexili: Mountain Patrol, set in the Tibetan Plateau… (more…)

Action choreographer on Hero, House Of Flying Daggers, The Warlords and far too many others to mention, Tony Ching Siu-tung is back in the director’s chair for the first time in five years – but is this the triumphant return we were hoping for…? (more…)

A naff title but this potentially very interesting release sees action choreographer Ching Siu-tung return to the directors chair after many years of collaborations with Zhang Yimou (Hero, House Of Flying Daggers, The Curse Of The Golden Flower) and Stephen Chow (Shaolin Soccer). (No sign of a DVD with English subs yet!) Kelly Chan, Leon Lai and Donnie Yen star…

After the rather dark and overly serious Ong Bak 2 (sorry, Ong Bak: The Beginning for UK readers), the proper sequel is on the horizon – slated for release in Asia in April 2010.

As previously mentioned, Ong Bak: The Beginning is now available on DVD and Blu-ray in the UK.

Director of Lust, Caution and Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon, Ang Lee, is to head the jury this year’s Venice Film Festival, organisers have said. The festival takes place from 2 to 12 September.

Read more on this story on BBC News Online »

Bit slow bringing you this news, but the Tartan label – whose responsible Asia Extreme label was responsible for exposing many of us to Asian classics such as Ring, Audition and Happiness of the Katakuris – has closed as of the end of last month… (more…)

Wong Kar-wai returns to his 1994 classic to produce a definite version – but is it really any better…? (more…)

Fantasy fun from director Yojiro Takita, but seriously, it’s no When The Last Sword is Drawn… (more…)

Asia House, the UK’s leading pan-Asian cultural organisation, presents a compelling selection of the best new cinema from
across Asia. From the latest work by Oscar-nominated director Zhang Yimou (House of the Flying Daggers, Hero), Riding Alone for Thousands of Miles, to films by award-winning film-makers and emerging talent from China, Japan, Taiwan, Iran, Bhutan and the Philippines.

Other screenings include Miki Satoshi’s follow-up to Adrift in Tokyo, Instant Swamp starring Kumiko Aso, Yu-Chieh Cheng’s Yang Yang and Filipino screen writer and documentary maker Ralston Jover’s Bakal Boys. The festival runs from 27 November to 11 December.

The full line up is as follows:

Riding Alone for Thousands of Miles

Dir. Zhang Yimou, 12A, 107mins
Friday 27 November, 7.30pm

Academy Award nominated Chinese Director Zhang Yimou casts veteran Japanese star Takakura Ken in this majestic road movie following a father’s quest for reconciliation with his dying son. Gou-ichi Takata (Takakura Ken) journeys across epic landscapes to the heart of China in search of Li Jaimin, the singer whose voice may reconcile father and son.

Bakal Boys

Dir. Ralston Jover, Cert. TBC, 125 mins
Thursday 3 December, 7.30pm

In his feature debut, acclaimed Filipino screen writer and documentary maker Ralston Jover uses a gritty yet poetic verité approach in this drama about the boys who dive for scrap metal in the harbour slums of Manila. Followed by post screening discussion with critic Tony Rayns.

Moving Screens

Future Shorts Asian Selection
Friday 4 December, 7.30pm

Future Shorts, the world’s leading short film label, presents a selection of award-winning films from Japan, Singapore and Thailand including a work by celebrated music video maker Nagi Noda and humorous masterpieces by Royston Tan and Kosai Sekine. Followed by Q&A with Future Shorts.

Instant Swamp

Dir. Miki Satoshi, 15, 120mins
Saturday 5 December, 8pm

Miki Satoshi’s follow-up to film festival hit the road movie ‘Adrift in Tokyo’ stars the beautiful Kumiko Aso as Haname. Instant
Swamp is also about a journey – but more one of self discovery. Haname, editor at a trendy fashion magazine on the brink of
bankruptcy, disposes of her possessions and travels across Japan to discover an antiques dealer (Morio Kazama) who may or may not be her lost father. Miki’s unique brand of dry, quirky and surreal comedy is still much in evidence as is his affection for Japan’s odder corners and personalities.
Courtesy of Third Window Films

Those Three

Dir. Naghi Nemati, Cert TBC, 80mins
Wednesday 9 December, 8pm

This beautiful atmospheric debut feature by award-winning Iranian short film maker Naghi Nemati tracks three conscripts who desert their unit and become lost in the frozen wilderness of Iran’s mountainous north. As their lives unravel in the barren snowscapes the film shifts language, becoming an intense and surreal meditation on human existence.

Milarepa

Dir. Neten Chokling, 12A, 90 mins
Thursday 10 December, 8pm

This new feature by Bhutanese director Neten Chokling follows the life of the legendary 11th century Tibetan Bhuddist mystic and saint Jetsun Milarepa. With sumptuous cinematography, the film is an ancient tale of magic, murder and redemption, played out across
spectacular Himalayan landscapes.

Yang Yang

Dir. Yu-Chieh Cheng, Cert. TBC, 111mins
Friday 11 December, 7.30pm

The latest feature by award-winning director Yu-Chieh Cheng, mentored by Ang Lee and now emerging as Taiwan’s brightest new talent. Beautiful half-French, half-Taiwanese athlete Yang Yang (Sandrine Pinna – Best Actress Taipei Film Festival) pursues love and intimacy but is conflicted by Taiwan’s fetish for Western beauty in a search for her own identity.

All screenings take place at the Apollo Cinema, Piccadilly Circus, except Future Shorts

» Find out more about the events from Asia House

More good news for London-based film fans, as Asia House follows the success of their Pan-Asia Film Festival 2009 with a new monthly series at the Apollo Cinema, Piccadilly Circus. The series kicks off this Wednesday, 3 February, with Special Jury Prize Sundance Film Festival 2007 winner The Pool, followed by a director Q&A with Chris Smith. Shot in Goa and featuring incisive observations about the class divide and the mysteries of the human heart, this is a tale of a boy’s obsession with a glittering swimming pool and how it changes four lives in India.

23 March features what is described as a pre-release screening of God Man Dog (hey, isn’t that on DVD?) by acclaimed Taiwanese director Singing Chen. God Man Dog follows the emotional and literal journeys of a middle class Taipei couple, an alcoholic Taiwanese aborigine and his estranged daughter, and an amputee who drives on a truck glowing gods dispensing good fortune. Half road movie, half social-realist drama, this three-part narrative is interspersed with moments of beautiful comedy. Starring Jonathan Chang (A One and A Two).

On 27 April Asia House presents a special screening of 24 City, Jia Zhang-ke’s chronicle of the thunderous fall of a state-owned munitions factory and its conversion into a luxury high-rise apartment complex. Jia weaves the stories of three generations of factory workers into a fascinating history of post-revolutionary China. Blending documentary and fiction, interviews with workers are intercut with real and staged vignettes on life before and after 24 City.

Find out more on the screenings and book tickets »

Asia House in partnership with Curzon Cinemas launches the inaugural Asia House Festival of Asian Film beginning 22 August. It will premiere films from Singapore, South Korea, Iran, Indonesia and China, including 881, Seven Days and Three Kingdoms: Resurrection of the Dragon. The festival celebrates the best in Asian cinema, showcasing films that have been critically acclaimed at recent film festivals and providing the first and possibly only opportunity to see these films in the UK.

All screenings take place at 6.30pm at the RENOIR Cinema, The Brunswick in London. See www.asiahouse.org for more details »

Yes yes, surely we all know that by now? Could this be just another excuse to play our exclusive trailer intro by the lovely Jamie Chung?

(Ahem, well what do you think?)

On release today at selected cinemas around the UK, Fumihiko Sori’s enteraining revamp of blind swordsman Zatoichi, Ichi, starring Haruka Ayase…

» Read our full review of Ichi here…

This impressive debut by the Pang brothers is a heady mix of dazzling imagery and a violent tale of love, betrayal and redemption… (more…)

How terrible does this look? The Pang Brothers get to remake their classic original success – with Nicholas Cage in the lead? Oh, and is it just me, or have they remade John Woo’s The Killer by accident?

Let’s hope their sequel to The Storm Riders, Storm Warriors, delivers…

Bangkok Dangerous gets released in the US on 5 September after being ‘tried out’ in Europe for a bit.

Biting social satire meets hilarious black comedy. Laugh or the dog gets it… (more…)

You couldn’t make it up! The bizarre true story of the man who became Thailand’s most famous kick-boxer to pay for an operation to become a woman… (more…)

It’s the Chinese New Year on February 14, year of the Tiger, and to celebrate the BFI are showing a short season of Chinese movies starting this Thursday. These include Xie Jin’s Two Stage Sisters from 1964, Chen Kaige’s groundbreaking Yellow Earth, featuring cinematography by Zhang Yimou, and Yimou’s own The Road Home. (Which is free, but only for seniors!)

Find out more and book tickets online from the BFI’s website »

This Korean Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon styled epic may have been top dog in it’s homeland, but – with a liberal referencing of over thirty years of Hong Kong swordplay films – it’s really more of a mongrel… (more…)

Get your (rare) groove on with Dennis Coffey’s legendary soundtrack to the equally notorious (for all the wrong reasons!) Jim Kelly vehicle… (more…)

A solid horror/thriller with enjoyable nods to Hitchcock and Argento – it’s just a shame that ending is so unsatisfying… (more…)

The second feature from Kim Dae-seung, the award-winning director of the 2001 romantic drama, “Bungee Jumping Of Their Own”, BLOOD RAIN is a gripping and grisly period detective thriller set in 19th century Korea starring Cha Seung-won (Eye For An Eye; Kick The Moon).

It is a time of feudal barons and superstition. An island community is shocked when a ship bound for the imperial courts inexplicably bursts into flames. On board was a cargo of handcrafted paper from the island’s factory, a place harbouring something sinister.

Detective Won-kyu (Cha Seung-won) is dispatched to investigate only to discover the community in the grip of terror. A series of murders convinces them a malevolent spirit is responsible, taking revenge for crimes that no one wants to talk about, pronouncing predictions of doom when the blood rain falls. Won-kyu follows an increasingly corpse-riddled trail that not only threatens his life but also is set to reveal a dark secret that links him to the village’s shameful past.

A refreshing and fiendishly intriguing serial killer mystery thriller, BLOOD RAIN takes a traditional detective tale and relocates it to an earlier age, much in the spirit of “In The Name Of The Rose” and “Brotherhood Of The Wolf”.

The film’s lavish production values add a pleasing richness to the proceeding whilst the unexpected and extremely grisly violence is at times as shocking as that in any current Asian thriller. BLOOD RAIN is a delightfully darkand devious who-dunnit told with style and intelligence.

BLOOD RAIN (cert. 18) will be released on DVD (£15.99) by Palisades Tartan on 26th October 2009. Special Features include: trailer; 2.0 Dolby Digital, 5.1 Dolby Digital and 5.1 DTS Surround audio options; optional English subtitles.

A solid, good looking action film with great fight sequences by choreographer Corey Yuen, but plot inconsistencies and a baffling conclusion don’t make the best for Chris Nahon’s live-action adaption… (more…)

Long regarded as one of the best examples of Anime, Blood: The Last Vampire is set to ignite screens alight with a whole new live-action version. Directed by Chris Nahon, responsible for the only decent Jet Li US vehicle Kiss Of The Dragon and featuring fight choreography by Li favourite Corey Yuen (So Close, Fong Sai Yuk), the film has a seriously good pedigree making it one of the most anticipated live-action adaptations of any anime ever produced.

Check out the trailer and see what you think!

More clips and trailers coming soon…!

With the upcoming release of the live-action version, what better time to revisit the original that started it all… (more…)

From Su-chang Kong, director of the critically acclaimed Korean shocker R-Point, comes The Guard Post (aka GP506), a similarly genre-bending foray into the cinema of fear that further cements his reputation as one of the most original filmmakers working in Asian cinema today.

The Guard Post is released on Blu-ray in the UK on 28 December from Cine Asia.

Read our review here »

Bong Joon-ho (The Host, Memories of Murder) spoke at a preview of Mother about the influences on his latest film, and how his own mother hasn’t talked to him about it since it’s release… (more…)