East Asian Movie and Drama Blog: July 2009

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.

Tags: Venice Film Festival, East Asian films, Pou-Soi Cheang, Accident, Louis Koo, Tetsuo The Bullet Man, Shinya Tsukamoto, Yonfan, Lei Wangzi, Prince of Tears, Chengdu I Love You, Yona Yona Penguin.

Two recent news reports made me pretty excited - the official sequel to the Korean mega-blockbuster The Host is in the works and popular Hallyu actor Jang Dong-Gun will be returning to the silver screen after an absence of four years.

The Host 2
According to this article, Singapore's Boku Films will be co-producing the sequel to The Host (tentatively named The Host 2) with Korea's Chungeorahm. The director has not been announced yet ... hopefully it will still be the original director of The Host - Bong Joon-ho. The film is scheduled to be completed sometime in 2010. Besides this official sequel, there is a Chinese language sequel that is also in the works, this version will be directed by Ning Hao who is most famous for his dark comedy Crazy Stone. The Chinese sequel was annnounced last June and there were some rumours late last year that popular Hong Kong actor Andy Lau will be the lead actor, but since then there have been no further news or confirmation of this on the web.

Jang Dong-Gun's New Movie
After an absence of four years from Korean moviedom, Jang Dong-gun is finally returning to the big screen. He will star as a very handsome President (see pic below for how good-looking he is ;-P) in a new comedy entitled Good Morning, President. The movie also stars Han Chae-Young (of Sassy Girl, Chun-Hyang fame) as the handsome Pres's love interest (lucky gal!). The film is currently in production and is set to be released in South Korea in October this year. Before this Jang was in the English-language historical action flick The Warrior's Way (formerly known as Laundry Warrior) which is set to be released in the U.S. and U.K. this September. Check out the promo trailer for The Warrior's Way here. I know I will be looking forward to both films ;-)