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.
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 »
This year at Cannes sees the real heavy hitters come out to play, as the world’s greatest auteur directors gather to compete for the coverted Palme d’Or. As well as the latest films from Pedro Almodóvar, Ken Loach, Quentin Tarantino, Francis Ford Coppola, Jane Campion, Lars von Trier, Michael Haneke, and Terry Gilliam, there’s a strong Asian presence. Highlights include Park Chan-wook’s new vampire flick Thirst; Lou Ye’s Tiananmen Square-themed Summer Palace, which has incensed authorities to the point of them slapping a five-year ban on him; Tsai Ming-Liang’s film within a film Face; Johnnie To’s Vengeance; and Ang Lee’s Taking Woodstock. Other films screening include Kore-eda Hirokaz’s Air Doll; the latest from The Host and Memories Of Murder director Bong Joon-Ho, Mother; and Petiton by Zhao Liang.
See the Guardian’s gallery guide to directors vying for the Palme d’Or »
The UK release for Ong-Bak director Prachya Pinkaew’s latest have finally been officially announced. Following a couple of festival engagements during the next few weeks, the film will make its official London theatrical debut on 24th October, before being launched on DVD and Blu-Ray on 3rd November.
Chocolate introduces the latest female Muay Thai sensation, JeeJa Yanin, and is a non-stop martial arts action extravaganza about a young girl whose uncanny ability to mimic the combat skills of her heroes Tony Jaa, Jackie Chan and Bruce Lee has made her an unlikely but awesome fighting force.
Peter Chan’s The Warlords, which premieres at this years London Film Festival on Monday 20 October, will be released by Metrodome in UK cinemas on 7 November. The film stars Jet Li and Andy Lau.
The UK’s premier annual Asian film festival, the Terracotta Far East Festival, will be held over four days this year at London’s Prince Charles Cinema from Thursday 21st May to Sunday 24th May. Presented by Terracotta Entertainment Group, the festival will feature 13 handpicked films representing the very best of contemporary Far East cinema, including titles from Hong Kong, Taiwan, Japan, Thailand, Malaysia and South Korea.
Opening the festival is Eye For An Eye, the eagerly awaited crime-thriller from directors Ahn Kwon-tae (My Brother) and Kwak Kyung-taek (Typhoon). Starring Han Suk-kyu (A Bloody Aria; The President’s Last Bang) and Cha Seung-won (Small Town Rivals; Ghost House), this Heat-style thriller concerns a soon-to-retire police detective who is drawn into an elaborate plot of robbery and revenge when he begins to investigate a heist during which one of the perpetrators impersonated him in order to pull off the crime.
Among the festival’s many highlights are: The Detective, the latest mystery-thriller from co-writer and director Oxide Pang Chun (Bangkok Dangerous; The Messengers; The Eye trilogy; The Tesseract); director Johnnie To’s (Mad Detective; Triangle; PTU) Sparrow, starring Simon Yam and Kelly Lin; the Malaysian horror-comedy, Zombies From Banana Village; and the martial arts action-thriller Legendary Assassin, which marks the co-directorial debuts of star Jacky Wu (Fatal Contact; The Legend of Zu; Drunken Monkey) and Jackie Chan’s longtime stunt coordinator Chung Chi Li. The festival’s programme will also include the films Muay Thai Chaya, Kim Ki-duk’s Dream, Keeping Watch, Ghost In The Shell (2.0), Me… Myself, After School and God Man Dog, the winner of the “Tagesspiegel” Readers’ Prize at the Berlin International Film Festival.
Full details of the TERRACOTTA FAR EAST FESTIVAL can be found at the festival’s official website »
The Film4 FrightFest begins at the Odeon West End in London today, including a midnight showing of Yoshihiro Nishimura’s Tokyo Gore Police on 23 August – described as ‘David Cronenberg body horror and insane RoboCop-style TV commercial inserts meet freaky Samurai bondage splat-stick starring Eiihi Shiina of Audition fame’.
John Woo’s new Chinese epic Red Cliff, starring Tony Leung Chiu-wai and Takeshi Kaneshiro, has been chosen to open the 21st Tokyo International Film Festival running from October 18 to 26.
Read more on the official Tokyo International Film Festival site »
The 21st Tokyo International Film Festival is to include a tribute screening to Japanese director Jun Ichikawa, who died last month, of his latest film Buy A Suit. His work included the adaptation of Haruki Murakami’s Tony Takitani, and easternKicks was fortunate enough to talk to him about the film. It’s sad news to hear about his passing, especially as the years had not lessened his pushing of creative methods, both in telling a story and technology. In person he was reserved but quite charming. You can read our interview here, and read more about the tribute at TIFF on their site.
Though he might not have walked away with the celebrated Palme d’Or, Park Chan-wook’s latest film Thrist, an erotic thriller about a priest who is turned into a vampire after a botched medical experiment, did get the Cannes Jury Prize, shared with UK’s Andrea Arnold for her second feature Fish Tank.
Read more about the Cannes winners on the Guardian website »
An intelligent directorial debut from acclaimed actress Nandita Das… (more…)
The Brothers Grimm’s infamous fairytale gets a sinister update in Yim Phil-Sung’s second movie… (more…)
‘I am Quick Gun Murugan. Mind it.’ Fast and silly, Shashanka Ghosh’s Tamil Nadu western spoof is a whole lot of fun… (more…)
Sergio Leone meets The Wacky Races in Kim Jee-woon’s Asian Western – it’s a real blast!… (more…)
Peter Chan’s take on the historical wuxia drama is far grittier and more grounded than we’re used to, with a fine performance by Jet Li that will surprise his critics – but do we really need another film like this? (more…)
The programme for the 52nd London Film Festival has been released, and this years has plenty of Asian films on show from China, South Korea, Japan, Thailand, Philippines and India. In fact, only Hong Kong seems absent, even if you count Peter Chan’s epic The Warlords, starring Jet Li and Andy Lau.
Other highlights include Kim Jee-woon’s (Ji-woon) The Good, The Bad, The Weird, Jia Zhangke’s 24 City, Yim Phil-Sung’s take on fairy tale Hansel and Gretel, Li Hongqi’s Routine Holiday, Hong Sang-So’s Night And Day, Nandita Das’ Firaaq, the fun spoof Quick Gun Murugan by Shashank Ghosh, and of course the latest obligatory Takeshi Kitano film, Achilles And The Tortoise.
The festival runs from 15 – 30 October, with non-BFI members able to book from 27 September. For more information see the BFI’s site »
As if you didn’t have enough to do this weekend, the London MCM Expo 2009 gets under way at ExCel tomorrow. The MCM stands for Movie Comic Media, and nowhere do those two fields meet more closely than in Anime – so unsurprisingly two of the UK’s biggest labels are participating and will be there in force:
Manga UK will offering several special offers on there stand, incuding a free “Misa” figurine when you purchase any Death Note anime DVD (limited offer, while stocks last) as well as a special price promtion for Afro Samurai Director’s Cut Double Pack includes (Afro Samurai Director’s Cut and the brand new Afro Samurai Resurrection Director’s Cut). There’ll be all there latest new releases and a ’sneak peak’ at the new live-action version of Blood: The Last Vampire.
MVM Entertainment will be offering a raft of Amine title at (quote unquote) knockdown prices. They’ll be launching several titles including: first volume of Disgaea; Samurai Deeper Kyo; and Gunparade March. They’ll also be officially announcing the acquistions of three new titles, Aquarion, X and Guardian Of The Spirit (aka Moribito), as well as some hottly anticipated Amine boxsets, Gravitation, Black Lagoon and Black Lagoon 2nd Barrage.
For more information on the London MCM Expo 2009 itself, see their official website »
After leaving the set of Ong-Bak 2 in what appeared to be something of a meltdown, then appearing in tears on national Thai television, Tony Jaa has finally returned to complete the film. His mentor action choreographer Panna Rittikrai will be taking over direction duties from him. Read more about Tony Jaa’s return on Wise Kwai’s Thai Film Journal »
The 65th Venice International Film Festival is now well under way and runs until 6 September. New Asian films in competiton include: Hayao Miyazaki’s Ponyo On The Cliff, which you can see pictures of and read more about it here at Twitch; Takeshi Kitano’s Achilles and the Tortoise; and Yu Lik-wai’s Plastic City, which you can read more about on MonkeyPeaches.
Meanwhile, Wu-jing.org reports that the latest collaboration between actor/action choreographer Donnie Yen and director Wilson Yip, Ip Man, has been completed.
Shown as part of this years London Film Festival, you can read our review here »
The 33rd Hong Kong International Film Festival is now in full swing, after a gala premiere of Ashes Of Time Redux (yes, I know – well after the rest of the world?). There was a rare public appearance from Brigitte Lin Ching-hsia, long retired from the film industry. Director Wong Kar-wai also attended, with Tony Leung and his wife Carina Lau, and Charlie Yueng.
Elsewhere, John Woo and Tsui Hark celebrated the 25th anniversary of the production company they set up, Film Workshop, best known for 80s classics A Better Tomorrow and Zu: Warriors From The Magic Mountain.
The UK’s premier annual Asian film festival, the Terracotta Far East Festival, will be held over four days this year at London’s Prince Charles Cinema from Thursday 21st May to Sunday 24th May. Presented by Terracotta Entertainment Group, the festival will feature 13 handpicked films representing the very best of contemporary Far East cinema, including titles from Hong Kong, Taiwan, Japan, Thailand, Malaysia and South Korea.
(more…)
The Terracotta Far East Film Festival 2009 runs at London’s Prince Charles Cinema off Leciester Square from today until Sunday 24th May. Presented by Terracota Distribution, the festival some of the best of contemporary Far East cinema, including titles from Hong Kong, Taiwan, Japan, Thailand, Malaysia and South Korea.
Opening the festival is Eye For An Eye, the eagerly awaited crime-thriller from directors Ahn Kwon-tae (My Brother) and Kwak Kyung-taek (Typhoon). Starring Han Suk-kyu (A Bloody Aria; The President’s Last Bang) and Cha Seung-won (Small Town Rivals; Ghost House), this Heat-style thriller concerns a soon-to-retire police detective who is drawn into an elaborate plot of robbery and revenge when he begins to investigate a heist during which one of the perpetrators impersonated him in order to pull off the crime.
Among the festival’s many highlights are: The Detective, the latest mystery-thriller from co-writer and director Oxide Pang Chun (Bangkok Dangerous; The Messengers; The Eye trilogy; The Tesseract); director Johnnie To’s (Mad Detective; Triangle; PTU) Sparrow, starring Simon Yam and Kelly Lin; the Malaysian horror-comedy, Zombies From Banana Village; and the martial arts action-thriller Legendary Assassin, which marks the co-directorial debuts of star Jacky Wu (Fatal Contact; The Legend of Zu; Drunken Monkey) and Jackie Chan’s longtime stunt coordinator Chung Chi Li. The festival’s programme will also include the films Muay Thai Chaya, Kim Ki-duk’s Dream, Keeping Watch, Ghost In The Shell (2.0), Me… Myself, After School and God Man Dog, the winner of the “Tagesspiegel” Readers’ Prize at the Berlin International Film Festival.
Tickets are available for separate screenings, or you can get a festival pass for the whole weekend. Full details of the Terracota Far East Festival can be found at the official website »
From 6 November next week the Barbican Centre plays host to The London Korean Film Festival 08. As well as a preview showing of Kim Jee-woon’s The Good, The Bad, The Weird – with the director himself and lead Lee Byung-hun in attendance, their also be other new films like Seven Days – starring Lost’s Kim Yun-jin, May 18 and Forever The Moment, some classic movies from the 1960s, and a Lee Chang-dong Retrospective including Green Fish and his latest film Secret Sunshine.
For a full listing and information on how to book, click here.
From 6 November next week the Barbican Centre plays host to The London Korean Film Festival 08. As well as a preview showing of Kim Jee-woon’s The Good, The Bad, The Weird – with the director himself and lead Lee Byung-hun in attendance, their also be other new films like Seven Days – starring Lost’s Kim Yun-jin, May 18 and Forever The Moment, some classic movies from the 1960s, and a Lee Chang-dong Retrospective including Green Fish and his latest film Secret Sunshine.
For a full listing and information on how to book, click here.
