THR: Wang Bing's 'Ditch' is surprise Venice film
Chinese film set in grim '50s showing in Venice
Director Wang Bing's entry is a documentary-like project set in the late 1950s, when China's communist government condemned to forced labor thousands of citizens who were considered dissidents for a variety of reasons.
AFP: Wang Bing highlights re-education camp suffering
Chinese film set in grim '50s showing in Venice
Director Wang Bing's entry is a documentary-like project set in the late 1950s, when China's communist government condemned to forced labor thousands of citizens who were considered dissidents for a variety of reasons.
AFP: Wang Bing highlights re-education camp suffering
FBA: Reign of Assassins (劍雨) (9/10)
A tip-top cast, well-crafted script and punchy action capture the classic essence of the swordplay genre.
A delightful martial-arts romp that makes up in wit and exuberance what it occasionally lacks in clarity and finesse, "Reign of Assassins" unspools in a version of ancient China where killers yearn for lives of quiet domesticity, secret identities abound and death rarely has the last word. While the film takes some time setting up its convoluted specifics, the essentials seem to have gone satisfyingly right in the collaboration between Taiwan's Su Chao-pin and a resurgent, post-"Red Cliff" John Woo. "Reign" should please local crowds starting Sept. 28, but will undergo some tinkering before opening Stateside as a Weinstein release.
FBA: The Child's Eye 3D (童眼) (3/10)
Unimaginative horror movie, with six haunted youngsters in an old Bangkok hotel, is shock lite.
Hands pop out of the ground, monsters lunge camerawards, and other shocktastic devices that even William Castle would have thought corny are deployed for stereoscopic silliness in "The Child's Eye,"... Billing itself as Hong Kong's first 3D horror film, the pic certainly doesn't offer any firsts in the script department, with a hoary tale of a haunted hotel in Bangkok.
Rainie Yang and Elanne Kwong getting their 3D on!
Oxide Pang, pretending he doesn't know Rainie and Elanne.
See ewaffle's blog for more on Maggie Cheung and the Venice Film Festival scene.
<3 Li Bingbing <3
Carina Lau getting a last momet touch-up
Li Bingbing
Paint it black
Li Bingbing abandoned the Blue and White porcelain dress after much press coverage over it. Instead, she wore a dress with the inverted character Fu/Fook (meaning Luck or Blessing). The inverted Fook is commonly seen on Chinese New Year's calendars, meaning Good Luck, comes. (Roughly, 'Dao' meaning 'upside down' is a homonym for 'arrives'. (Sina)
I can't wait to see Reign of Assassins. (Props to John Woo for his lifetime achievement award)
ReplyDeleteAnd love that pic of Li Bingbing. :)
And love that pic of Li Bingbing. :)
ReplyDeleteIf I wasn't smitten before, and I was, that shot alone would have done it. I know she was looking just at me! The rest of you all were just imagining it :D