9.7.2010 - News

Screen Daily: Detective Dee and the Mystery of Phantom Flame
There’s a tasty idea in here, and its entertainingly executed: graft a detective story onto a historical martial arts actioner set during the Tang dynasty, and see what emerges. Director Tsui Hark has never been a less-is-more kind of guy, and the sheer abundance of plot threads and sumptuous, FX-enriched set pieces threatens to swamp the story at times.
Strait Times/AFP: Tsui's film wows

Screen Daily: The Child's Eye 3D
While the script of cult directors Danny and Oxide Pang’s 3D horror movie is a strictly by-the-numbers affair, there are more than a few nicely set-up 3D moments and a healthy moment of surreal filmmaking in amidst the film’s horror-in-a-hotel tale.

Screen Daily: Reign of Assassins

As a action-packed tale of martial arts revenge and killings, the impressively staged Reign of Assassins certainly delivers the goods in stylish fashion. It might lack the sheer visual poetry of Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon, but its scenes of sword-play are wonderful and once the story gathers momentum it is absorbing and entertaining.

Poster for national release

(Sina)

Screen Daily: Legend of the Fist: The Return of Chen Zhen

Screen Daily: Showtime

Macau-born Clara Law at Venice Festival
Law will present “Red Earth”, which is one segment of a larger project, “Quattro Hong Kong,” featuring the independent contributions of four Hong Kong directors: Herman Yau, Clara Law, Heiward Mak and Fruit Chan.

Li Bingbing

CRI: Li Bingbing in Venice, (Sina-slide show)
CRI: Shu Qi Models 'Legend of the Fist' Costumes

Lam Suet

Lam Suet, Liu Hua

Lam Suet plays his first lead role in the Hollywood-style Mainland action thriller Adventure Island directed by Feng Chao. Starting as a stage manager in the '80s, Lam Suet became a regular in Johnnie To's films and won a Best Supporting Actor Award for his role in PTU. (Sina)

Up Close With Benny Chan, 2

FBA: Seediq Bale finally wraps
FBA: Hawthorn to open Pusan festival
Guests include Tang Wei and a gala screening of Late Autumn.

Karena Lam break due to pregnancy? In July, a pregnant woman resembling Karena Lam has been regularly seen visiting a Toronto hospital for check ups. To confirm suspicions, documents were checked and indicated the patient's English name was indeed 'Karena Lam'. This was reported by someone who is a friend of a nurse. A call by reporters to a GM at Filmko said that there were no signs of pregnancy and that Karena's break was for education purposes in order to get a degree in Canada. (Xinhua)

CRI: Film-goer Jolts Cinema, Distributor with Lawsuit over "Aftershock" Ads
Chen, who saw the movie twice at the Xi'an Polybona International Cinema (Polybona), said in her suit that audiences were given no warning or indication on the ticket that ads before the film ran to 20 minutes.

October Elle - Zhao Wei

(Xinhua), (Sina-slide show)

Sam Lee, Edison Chen

Edison Chen and Sam Lee sold out a club in Hangzhou with 1000 tickets at 200 yuan each. One caller offered 80,000 for a box. Outside the club, it was like an auto show, Lamborghinis, Porsches, and Ferraris filled the street. Out of town license plates indicated that many had made special trips to come. Edison's rapping in Mandarin was bad yet the crowd screamed like crazy. Female fans were especially excited as he left the stage and they grabbed to touch him. (Xinhua)

HKStandard: Bullets that silenced the hired guns

There were several robbery cases involving banks and goldsmiths between the mid-1980s and the early 1990s. The robbers used nine-millimeter automatic pistols (like the Black Star made for the People's Liberation Army), assault rifles such as the AK47 and even grenades...

9.6.2010 - News (Venice Edition)

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

THR: Reign of Assassins

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.

Variety: Reign of Assassins

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.

Variety: The Child's Eye 3D

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.

(Sina)

(Sina-slide show)

Maggie Cheung waits to age before return to films

In Venice, Maggie Cheung still playing hard to get

See ewaffle's blog for more on Maggie Cheung and the Venice Film Festival scene.

<3 Li Bingbing <3

(Zimbio)

(Zimbio)

Carina Lau getting a last momet touch-up

Li Bingbing

Paint it black 

(Xinhua)

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)

The Child's Eye 3D Photocall - Venice Film Festival

Oxide Pang Shun

Elanne Kwong

Rainie Yang

Rainie Yang, Elanne Kwong

Elanne Kwong

Rainie Yang

Rainie Yang, Oxide Pang, Elanne Kwong

Elanne Kwong

Rainie vs Elanne

(Sept.4) (Zimbio), 2, (Sina)

The Child's Eye 3D Red Carpet - Venice Film Festival

Rainie Yang, Elanne Kwong

Rainie Yang

Elanne Kwong

Oxide Pang, Rainie Yang, Elanne Kwong

(Sina-slide show)

Upcoming Films at 67th Venice Film Festival

Latest poster for Detective Dee

The film screens in competition at Venice on Sept.5.

Synopsis:  690 A.D., Tang Dynasty: in the capital Luoyang City, a giant Buddhist Stupa pagoda is under construction. On the date of its completion, China’s first female emperor, Wu Zetian, will formally ascend the throne of the largest and most powerful country in the world. But a series of unexplained incidents is threatening Wu’s rise to power. Several men have spontaneously combusted in public. Determined to solve the case before her ascension, she turns to an unlikely candidate, Dee Renjie. Eight years before, she had ordered Dee’s arrest and imprisonment after he criticised her seizure of power following the death of the emperor. She appoints him Chief Judge of the Empire. Meanwhile, the violent and ambitious Judicial Officer Bei Donglai is appointed as Dee’s subordinate in the investigation...(Venice Film Festival, (Sina)


The Child's Eye in 3D from Danny and Oxide Pang screens September 4

Child's Eye - Elanne Kwong, Shawn Yue, Rainie Yang

(Sina)

Synopsis:
Stranded in Thailand by the political uprising and airport closure, Rainie and her friends are unable to return home. Reluctantly, they stay in an old and shabby hotel. Among them are Rainie’s soon-to-be ex boyfriend, Lok, Ling and her brother Rex, and Ciwi and her beloved boyfriend, Hei. From the moment they check into the hotel, they come across three weird children and a puppy, and a series of strange things happen. The next day, Lok, Rex and Hei disappear. The three girls search the hotel thoroughly in the hope of finding the three missing young men, but to no avail. To save their missing friends, the girls pluck up the courage to seek the truth. The more they investigate, the more frightening the revelations from the shabby hotel… In desperation, Rainie tries to get information from the hotel owner, Uncle Chuen. But he feigns ignorance. Shortly after, Ling and Ciwi are in trouble too. Rainie is left alone to fight against the unknown. At last, with the help of the ghost-seeing puppy, Rainie enters another world and searches for the truth. She is the only one who can save everyone’s life …(Venice Film Festival), (Sina)

(Sina)

Reign of Assassins, directed by Su Chao-Pin, September 3
Produced by John Woo and Terence Chang, this epic martial arts action thriller promises to be “Face/Off meets Mr and Mrs Smith”. Set in A.D. 428, the film stars Michelle Yeoh as a skilled assassin who is on a mission to return the remains of a mystical Buddhist monk to their resting place. The remains are believed to hold a powerful secret. Along the way, she falls in love with a man named Jiang, whose father was killed by her gang. Unaware that he also is a trained martial artist, their love blossoms but tensions arise as the truth of her past unfolds. Soon, a lethal triangle surfaces between her, Jiang and the team of assassins who are after the monk’s remains. (Venice Film Festival)

Stanley Kwan's Showtime, September 2
Synopsis: Director Stanley Kwan re-examines his familiar Shanghai through the lens of a performance academy where two troupes – one transported across time from the 1930s, the other one very much of today – are forced to act as one to put on a contemporary show. Where one group emphasises traditional skills and core competences, the other one stresses performance and self-expression. Can the torch be successfully passed from one generation to the next? How can old and new remain in step with each other? While the story is told through performance and music, the city of Shanghai also has lessons for the youth of both eras. With Carina Lau, Hu Jun, Tony Leung Ka-Fai. (Venice Film Festival)

Isaac Julien - Better Life (aka Ten Thousand Waves)
Maggie Cheung, Zhao Tao, Yang Fudong
Synopsis:  Better Life explores desires and fantasies, examining the ambitions and dreams that drive people to risk everything for a “better life”. The film does this through three interweaving “ghost” stories, unwinding simultaneously: scenes of contemporary Shanghai and the Shanghai Film Studios are intercut with a telling of the 15th-century Chinese fable, The Tale of Yishan Island featuring Maggie Cheung as the Goddess Mazu. Within these strands, Julien brings in a reworking of the famous 1934 Chinese silent film, Shen nu (The Goddess). With poems by contemporary Chinese poet Wang Ping, Julien has created his own cinematic meditation on China’s ancient past and present. (Venice Film Festival)

Opening Night - September 1st

Synopsis: While China is traumatised by military cliques during the Warlord Era in the 1920s, Shanghai is the cynosure of all eyes. People see it as both Hell’s Kitchen and Heaven’s Gate. One of the city’s most memorable heroes has to be Chen Zhen, who single-handedly avenges his mentor’s death by killing all the Japanese at a dojo in Hong Kong, only to be showered with bullets while making his legendary flying kick. Having vanished from the public eye ever since, he is presumed dead though his body has never been found. Seven years later, a wealthy entrepreneur called Koo returns from abroad and makes a grand entrance on the Shanghai social scene by befriending the notorious mafia boss of the city. This mysterious man is none other than Chen Zhen in disguise, dwelling in a nefarious world in order to infiltrate the criminal empire. He soon discovers a clandestine collusion between the mafia and the Japanese. Disguised as a caped crusader at night, Chen sets out to dismantle the evil collusion that plagues the country by using his martial arts skills. One of his foremost missions is to ferret out the assassination list prepared by the Japanese. (Venice Film Festival)