July 31, 2009

East Asian Films At 66th Venice Film Festival

The feature films competing for the Golden Lion at the 66th Venice Film Festival has just been announced and three East Asian films have made it into this prestigious list:

Pou-Soi Cheang's Yi Ngoi (Accident) from Hong Kong starring Louis Koo, Richie Jen and Michelle Ye.

Shinya Tsukamoto's Tetsuo The Bullet Man from Japan starring Eric Bossick, Akiko Monou and Shinya Tsukamoto himself. The third instalment in the cult Tetsuo franchise, this one is unique cos it's actually in English! Check out this intriguing eight-minute clip of the film shown at the recent Comic-Con that I found on YouTube:



And last but not least, Yonfan's Lei Wangzi (Prince of Tears), a Taiwan / Hong Kong co-production starring Chih-Wei Fan, Terri Kwan, Joseph Chang and Kenneth Tsang.

Two East Asian films are screening out-of-competition: Mainland Chinese film Chengdu, I Love You directed by Fruit Chan and Cui Jian (selected as the closing film for the festival):



and Japanese animated film Yona Yona Penguin:



You can find the full list of films here. Good luck to all the films competing for the Golden Lion.

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2 comments:

skapism said...

Hey, your blog seems to be quite popular.

I was wondering if you could check out a new website for cataloging Asian dramas and films -- mydramalist.info

And maybe, if you like it, report about it on your blog.

--skapism

cinematheque said...

I think more Asian films are filtering through to European festivals. I suppose its a long journey for the filmakers though, especially if an indie low budget movie. I'm in Edinburgh and our film festival is on soon, I can't wait to see who's on the list. In the past years I've been lucky enough to see Lou Ye, Bong Joon-ho and Yang Ik-joon.

I wrote a little intro to Korean film for a local magazine blog, also some on Hong Kong and Japanese film. Take a look if you get a chance.

www.cinematheque.leithermagazine.com