There has been a flurry of news on upcoming Chinese movies at the just concluded Shanghai Film Festival.
1. The creators of the upcoming big-budget Chinese film Bodyguards and Assassins unveiled their huge HK$50 million film set to the press. The film set is a replica of 1905 Hong Kong and is as big as 10 football fields. Part of the star-studded cast including Donnie Yen, Eric Tsang and Fan Bing Bing attended this so-called "opening of the city" ceremony. You can see more scenes of this replica of old Hong Kong city in this new promotional trailer below:
2. Stars of the upcoming period movie Mulan including Vick Zhao (who stars as wartime heroine Hua Mulan), Hu Jun, Xu Jiao (young Mulan) and director Jingle Ma went on a promotional blitz at the festival, including organizing a special "Mulan Night" dinner party. Here is a trailer of Mulan than I found on Youtube.
3. Chinese film The Search won the Grand Jury Prize and Hong Kong star Aaron Kwok's new period movie Empire of Silver won the Jury Prize at the SIFF. Empire Of Silver is about a powerful banking family at the end of the 19th century whilst The Search is a film about a director's search for a missing man. Aaron Kwok will also be in the new Hong Kong movie The Murderer which will also be out in theatres in Hong Kong in July.
Empire of Silver trailer. Looks pretty good...
4. New trailer of upcoming sci-fi comedy Kungfu Cyborg which is scheduled to be released in August. This is definitely one of the campiest trailers I have ever seen... ;-P
5. Feng Xiaogang's highly anticipated upcoming US$18 million disaster movie Aftershock will be the first Chinese film to be in IMAX format. Aftershock is about the life of a girl who survived the 1976 Tangshan earthquake. The film is set to begin filming next month and will be released in IMAX theatres in China and other Asian territories in July 2010. Box-office expectations for this movie is sky-high as director Feng Xiaogang previously helmed such massive box-office hits like If You Are The One, Assembly and The Banquet.
6. Ip Man 2 will start filming in August and Ip Man's disciple Bruce Lee will also make an appearance in the film. Donnie Yen will be reprising his role as Ip Man, but there is still no news yet on who will be playing Bruce Lee. There is another biopic of Ip Man that is also in the works - The Grand Master which will be directed by Wong Kar Wai and stars Lust, Caution star Tony Leung Chiu Wai.
Tags: Shanghai film festival, Chinese movies, Bodyguards and Assassins, Empire Of Silver, Mulan, The Search, Ip Man 2, Kungfu Cyborg, Aftershock, Feng Xiaogang, Aaron Kwok, Donnie Yen.
Chinese Movie News From The Shanghai Film Festival
Chow Yun Fat To Play Confucius
The lead role for the upcoming big-budget biopic of Confucius or Kongzi (孔子) has just been announced and (drumroll) Dragonball's Master Roshi a.k.a. Chow Yun Fat has been cast as Confucius! Other cast members (as yet uncomfirmed) include a who's who of Mainland Chinese A-listers like Chen Dao Ming, Zhou Xun and Sun Hong Lei. To be directed by Chinese director Hu Mei, the script has already been revised 25 times since the film was first conceptualised two years ago. In preparation for this role of a lifetime, Chow has reportedly started growing a beard.
And one especially interesting news is that Confucius will not be portrayed as a scholarly, rather bookish elderly gentleman in the film but will instead be a lively, humorous guy who knows kungfu(???) and is an excellent archer and chariot driver. Hmmmm... this is really quite a shock to me as I just can't imagine Confucius as a martial arts expert... But on second thoughts, who's to say ancient thinkers and philosopers can't be fit and athletic?
More interesting details on this film can be found in my earlier post here.
Images from Wikipedia & YesAsia.com
Source: http://ent.sina.com.cn/m/c/2009-03-09/11462407988.shtml, http://022net.com/2009/3-9/444437192458323.html, http://sg.news.yahoo.com/xin/20090305/ten-737-chow-yun-fat-plays-confucius-zho-3c1b9bc.html
Tags: Confucius, Kongzi, Chinese Movie, Chinese Film, Chow Yun Fat, Chen Dao Ming, Zhou Xun, Sun Hong Lei, upcoming movies, Dragonball.
Red Cliff II And Other East Asian Movie News
The East Asian film industry has been pretty quiet lately. But there are still some interesting news tidbits.
1. As expected, John Woo's Red Cliff 2 - the just released second instalment of the two-part epic based on the Chinese classic Romance Of The Three Kingdoms - has been doing exceptionally well in the box-offices in China, Hong Kong and Taiwan. The movie earned over US$14 million in just five days in Mainland China (incredible!). At this pace, it may become the highest grossing Chinese language movie of all time.
2. Japanese movie Departures (Okuribito) is the only Asian movie to make it to the semi-finalist stage for the Best Foreign Film Award at the upcoming 81st Annual Academy Awards. The final nominee list of five movies will be announced on January 22nd. Starring Masahiro Motoki and Ryoko Hirosue, the movie about the unique Japanese custom of "encoffining", has already won awards at various international film festivals including the Grand Prix des Amériques at the 2008 Montreal World Film Festival. You can find the trailer for the movie at the official site here. Good luck to Departures!
Update 22 January 2009: Departures has made it to the nominee list for Best Foreign Language Film at the upcoming Oscars! See the full list of nominated films here.
3. Donnie Yen's actioner Ip Man - based on the life and times of the legendary kungfu master who founded the Wing Chun school of martial arts - has punched his way to the top of the box-office in China, Hong Kong, Singapore and Malaysia. Here is the short clip of the fight sequence where Ip Man fights ten karate black belts on YouTube. Great action, but like a lot of other fight sequences where the hero dispatches a whole bunch of lesser thugs in less than 5 minutes, you have to wonder why the bad guy fighters somehow always seem to look like they are waiting in line to fight the hero one-by-one... Wouldn't their chances improve tremendously if they all attack at the same time? hmmm...
4. Feng Xiaogang's romantic comedy If You Are The One (Fei Cheng Wu Rao) starring the sultry Shu Qi and acclaimed character actor Ge You has been a surprise box-office hit in Mainland China. It has already overtaken Red Cliff Part 1 in box-office takings and is still going strong now.
5. Japan's very own big-budget screen version of the pandemic disaster movie genre titled simply Pandamic (Kansen Rettou) has just topped the Japanese box-office over the last weekend, which just goes to show that disaster/epidemic type movies are still very much in demand.
6. Keanu Reeves will take on the role of Spike in a Hollywood adaptation of the popular anime series Cowboy Bebop. Err i don't know about you but I feel that Keanu Reeves who excels in playing powerful but rather expressionless god-like characters (e.g. Neo in the Matrix) does not seem all that suited to play the role of the free-spirited space cowboy Spike...
More movie news next time.
Source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ip_Man_(film), http://www.eonline.com/uberblog/b79405_keanu_saddles_up_cowboy_bebop.html, http://www.variety.com/article/VR1117998388.html?categoryid=2429&cs=1, http://varietyasiaonline.com/content/view/7837/1/, http://www.screendaily.com/ScreenDailyArticle.aspx?intStoryID=42758&Category=, http://www.variety.com/article/VR1117998705.html?categoryId=19&cs=1
Tags: Red Cliff 2, John Woo, Departures, Okuribito, Ip Man, Donnie Yen, Pandemic, Kansen Rettou, If You Are The One, Fei Cheng Wu Rao, Feng Xiaogang, Keanu Reeves, Cowboy Bebop, East Asian movie news, Best Foreign Film, Academy Awards.
Latest News On Chinese Movies
The Chinese movie industry has been abuzz with news on various big-budget films these last couple of days.
1. Jay Chou's new movie as a white haired gongfu expert.
Who would have thought that pop star Jay Chou (star of Iniial 'D' and Secret) will act as a white-haired highly skilled gungfu expert that teaches Once Upon A Time In China star Vincent Zhao, a highly trained martial arts exponent in real life, gongfu in Yuen Woo Ping's new movie True Legend. Check out this link for pics of Jay's new look in the film(gulp!). True Legend is about the life story of Beggar Su, a martial arts master who lived like a beggar and created the "Drunken Fist" style of martial art (popularised in the Jackie Chan classic movie Drunken Master). Jay will play the role of the er "Martial Arts God" in the film. Well, with special effects, anyone can be a gungfu expert and Jay Chou's gungfu moves were not all that bad in Curse Of The Golden Flower so... The film also stars Michelle Yeoh and Zhou Xun and is scheduled to be released in the middle of next year.
2. New Mei Lanfang Trailer
A new trailer on the much anticipated biopic of Chinese Opera legend Mei Lan Fang by Chinese director Chen Kaige and starring Leon Lai and Ziyi Zhang was released recently. Previously simply titled Mei Lanfang, it is now known as Forever Enthralled in English. I managed to find the trailer for this film on YouTube and it just has "epic" written all over it. The film will be released in China on December 12 this year. This should be good.
3. Andy Lau's Latest Project
Hong Kong star Andy Lau will star in a new Wong Jing sci-fi movie titled Future Cop. Co-stars include Taiwanese actress Barbie Hsu, Xu Jiao (the cute kid in Stephen Chow's CJ7) and Taiwanese idol drama regular Mike He. According to this site, Andy Lau stars as a cop from the year 2085 who returns to 2010 to investigate crimes. Wow, a Chinese sci-fi film that is set in the future, we have not had this kind of film for a very long time. The movie is set for release in 2009 and there will also be on-location shoots in Dubai and Hong Kong.
More Chinese movie news next time...
Tags: Jay Chou, True Legend, Yuen Woo Ping, Vincent Zhao, Leon Lai, Ziyi Zhang, Mei Lanfang, Forever Enthralled, Andy Lau, Barbie Hsu, Future Cop, Chinese Movies.
Character Posters For John Woo's Red Cliff
Character posters for the 8 major characters in John Woo's mega production Red Cliff were presented at the recent Hong Kong Filmart. Just click on the names of the characters below to check them out.
Zhao Zilong - played by Chinese actor Hu Jun. Hmmm, I like Hu Jun but his Zhao Zilong really looks a bit too burly and tough.... isn't Zhao supposed to be a rather debonair and dashing general? For another version of Zhao Zilong, check out Andy Lau's version of this heroic figure in the YouTube trailer for his upcoming new movie Three Kingdoms - Resurrection Of The Dragon below - in case you are wondering, yup he is the guy in the "WWII" combat helmet ;-P
(Wikipedia entry for Zhao Zilong aka Zhao Yun)
Zhuge Liang - played by Takeshi Kaneshiro. OK... he looks suave and scholarly enough...
(Wikpeda entry for Zhuge Liang aka Kong Ming)
Zhou Yu - played by Tony Leung Chiu Wai. Not bad at all. He looks more tanned and buff here compared to his Lust, Caution days. (Zhou Yu On Wikipedia)
Xiao Qiao - this ancient beauty is played by modern beauty Chiling Lin. Much much better here than I expected :-P
Cao Cao - played by Chinese character actor Zhang Fengyi. Fits the widely accepted image of Cao Cao. (Cao Cao on Wikipedia).
Sun Quan - played by Chang Chen. Not bad too. (Sun Quan on Wikipedia)
Sun Shang Xiang - played by Vicky Zhao Wei. Me thinks that glow from her forehead is caused by the reflection from the glass pane in front of the poster, it should not be in the poster itself :-P
Gan Xing - played by Japanese actor Shido Nakamura.
All in all, the characters don't look too bad at all. The film will be released in China, Taiwan and Hong Kong on 10 July this year just before the Beijing Olympics and in Japan in October.
Here is the Japanese version of the trailer:
And here is the trailer for Andy Lau's Three Kingdoms - Resurrection Of The Dragon:
Tags: Red Cliff, John Woo, Tony Leung, Vicky Zhao, Zhao Wei, Chiling Lin, Hu Jun, Chang Chen, Shido Nakamura, Takeshi Kaneshiro, Zhang Fengyi, Andy Lau, Three Kingdoms, trailer, upcoming movies, Chinese movies.
East Asian Film And TV News & Trends In 2007
It's almost the end of the year and time once again for reflections on what happened in this past year ;-P Wow time flies, it seems that it was only yesterday that I was celebrating the 2007 New Year. I think that this has been a pretty decent year for East Asian films and TV dramas on a whole. Here is a general recap of the news and trends that have caught my attention this year.
1. Chinese Movie Of The Year: Lust, Caution
This film was the most talked about Chinese movie in 2007. With Ang Lee's signature low-key approach, attention to detail, the engrossing storyline and great acting by Tony Leung and Tang Wei in some of the most daring erotic scenes ever seen in an Asian movie, it comes as no surprise that this film enjoyed fantastic box-office takings throughout Asia and won the Golden Lion and seven awards at this year's Golden Horse Awards.
2. Ancient Is Golden 
Period movies and drama serials continue to be popular in Korean and Chinese dramas and films in 2007. Big-budget period movies with star-studded casts and state-of-the-art CGI like The Warlords performed very well at the box-office. The period drama boom was also seen in Korean drama serials with period dramas like Jumong and Taewangsasingi snaring the top positions in television ratings. This period boom looks set to continue in 2008 with the release of the most expensive Chinese film ever made - Red Cliff during the Beijing Olympics.
3. More Pan-Asian Co-productions
Co-productions between different Asian countries seem to have become the norm in 2007. From arthouse productions like director Kim Ki-duk's Breath starring Taiwanese actor Chang Chen to Japanese hits like Hero with Korean actor Lee Byung-hun in a cameo role to big-budget Chinese flicks like The Warlords and Red Cliff that are financed by investors throughout East Asia, filmmakers are cooperating in more ways than ever to expand a film's appeal to a wider pan-Asian audience.
4. Quest For New Themes
To counter the whimsical and fast-changing tastes of viewers, movie and drama makers must come up with new themes at an ever-increasing speed. This is especially apparent in the Korean TV drama market where it seems that viewers have become increasingly tired of the same romantic drama plot used countless times in the past. To maintain viewer interest, TV stations and production houses have had to come up with new themes for their dramas. This has resulted in the type and range of drama serials expanding considerably this year. From dramas about money lenders to police action thrillers to romantic comedies with "cross-dressing"themes, this aggressive search for new themes have already yielded gems like War Of Money, Time Between Dog And Wolf and First Shop Of Coffee Prince. It remains to be seen if this exploratory approach will continue into 2008...
5. International Recognition
East Asian films continue to perform well in international film awards in 2007. Lust, Caution took home the Golden Lion and Korean actress Jeon Do-yeon won the prestigious Best Actress award at the Cannes Film Festival for her role in Lee Chang-dong's Secret Sunshine, only the second time an Asian actress has won this award in the history of the Cannes Film Festival.
All-in-all, 2007 has been a good year for Asian films and dramas. Let's hope for an even better 2008 :-)
Have A Happy New Year!
Tags: Lust, Caution, Asian Movie Trends, Chinese Movie, Korean Movie, Japanese movie, Drama Serial, Drama Series, Korean Drama Series, co-productions, Pan-Asian Films, Asian Drama Themes,
Lust, Caution Takes Home 7 Golden Horses
As expected, Lust, Caution is the big winner at this year's Golden Horse Awards held on December 8 in Taipei, Taiwan. The Ang Lee thriller won 7 awards including Best Film, Best Actor (Tony Leung Chiu Wai), Best Director (Ang Lee) and Best Newcomer (Tang Wei) among others. Best Actress was also won by a Lust, Caution alumni - former Golden Horse Award winner Joan Chen for her portrayal in The Home Song Stories. The full results can be found at
http://www.goldenhorse.org.tw/gh_main/gh/gh-e-5.aspx
And here is a clip of a rather interesting moment that happened when Ang Lee and Sandra Ng (a Hong Kong actress well-known for her talent in comedy) were about to give out the Best Actor award, rather unexpectedly Sandra Ng tore the sealed envelope containing the results without opening the envelope (for comic effect perhaps?), shocking the normally sedate Ang Lee into a minor panic who then hurriedly tried to piece the torn pieces together, dropping the bits of paper in the process... hmmm... poor Ang Lee, he looked really distressed by Sandra's er playful act ;-P But I guess this was just a minor blip in an otherwise fantastic night for the cast and crew of Lust, Caution.
Tags: Golden Horse awards, Ang Lee, Lust, Caution, Tang Wei, Tony Leung, Chinese films, Chinese Movies, Chinese Film Awards.
New! Trailer for Stephen Chow's Upcoming Film CJ7
Hot off the press! The trailer for Stephen Chow's much anticipated new film CJ7 (长江七号) has just been released on this Yahoo website 30 minutes ago:
http://tw.movie.yahoo.com/videoplayer.html?id=2457&type=movie
Seems to be a cool comedy + sci-fi pic... Very Stephen Chowish in style ;-)
Btw the actress who plays his son in the trailer (yes you read right - actress) is a 10-year old little girl called Xu Jiao...
Tags: CJ7, Chang Jiang 7, Stephen Chow, trailer.
Golden Horse Awards Updates
Following my last post in October on the upcoming Golden Horse awards to be held on December 8, there have been even more changes in the lineup of nominated films. Besides Tuya's Wedding (nominated for Best Picture, Best Director and Best Actress), the other mainland Chinese film Blind Mountain (nominated for Best Director) has also withdrawn from the competition. However, this does not mean that it will be easier for the remaining films to win in their respective categories as the Golden Horse organizers have decided to replace the withdrawn films with other contenders...
In the Best Picture category, Hong Kong cops and robbers thriller Eye In The Sky replaces Tuya's Wedding. In the Best Director category, The Sun Also Rises's Jiang Wen and Protege's Derek Yee replaces Blind Mountain's Li Yang. And Rene Liu who starred in Kidnap takes over Yu Nan's (from Tuya's Wedding) position in the Best Actress nominations.
So the final list of nominations for the major awards of Best Picture, Best Director, Best Actor and Best Actress are as follows:
Best Picture
What On Earth Have I Done Wrong?!
Getting Home
The Home Song Stories
Lust, Caution
Eye In The Sky
Best Director
Yau Nai Hoi (Eye in the Sky)
Ang Lee (Lust, Caution)
Jiang Wen (The Sun Also Rises)
Derek Yee (Protege)
Best Actor (no changes)
Gurmit Singh (Just Follow Law)
Zhao Ben Shan (Getting Home)
Aaron Kwok (The Detective)
Tony Leung Chiu Wei (Lust, Caution)
Best Actress
Joan Chen (The Home Song Stories)
LI Bing Bing (The Knot)
Tang Wei (Lust, Caution)
Rene Liu (Kidnap)
Source: http://www.iht.com/articles/ap/2007/11/13/arts/AS-A-E-MOV-China-Taiwan-Movie-Politics.php
Tags: Golden Horse Awards, Lust, Caution, Tuya's Marriage, Getting Home, The Home Song Stories, Ang Lee, Eye In The Sky, Protege, The Sun Also Rises, Rene Liu, Blind Mountain, Chinese movies, Chinese films, Film awards.
12 Nominations For Lust, Caution At The 2007 Golden Horse Awards
To me, Lust, Caution is the must watch Chinese movie of 2007. The extensive media coverage and the lively debates generated by the movie have been unprecedented, no Chinese film has generated this kind of buzz in a long long time, Lust, Caution is truly the Chinese-language movie event of the year. And I think the Golden Horse Awards panel thinks so too as the film has been nominated for a whopping 12 awards at this year's Golden Horse Awards to be held on December 8th in Taiwan including the major awards for Best Picture, Best Director (Ang Lee), Best Actor (Tony Leung) and Best Actress (Tang Wei). Me thinks Lust, Caution is going to take more than a few of these golden horsies home this year ;-)
Besides Lust, Caution (色，戒), other nominees for Best Picture are:
- What On Earth Have I Done Wrong (情非得已之生存之道) first feature film by Taiwanese director Doze Niu who also directed the Wu Bai and Barbie Hsu idol drama Say Yes Enterprise
- Getting Home (落叶归根) a black comedy by Chinese Sixth Generation director Zhang Yang and starring Best Actor nominee Zhao Ben Shan and Hu Jun
- The Home Song Stories (意) an Australian/Singaporean bilingual movie (in English & Chinese) by Tony Ayres and starring Best Actress nominee Joan Chen and Singapore based actor Qi Yu Wu.
And the other Best Director, Best Actor and Best Actress nominees are:
Best Director: Yau Nai Hoi (Eye In The Sky), Li Yang (Blind Mountain)
Best Actor: Gurmit Singh (Just Follow Law), Zhao Ben Shan (Getting Home), Aaron Kwok (The Detective)
Best Actress: Joan Chen (The Home Song Stories), Li Bing Bing (The Knot).
A full list of the nominees can be found on the official Golden Horse Awards site:
http://www.goldenhorse.org.tw/gh_main/gh/gh-e-5.aspx.
And here are some screen shots of the nominated Best Picture films below:
Video: goldenhorse nomination films
Latest News: According to this news report, one of the original nominees, Tuya's Marriage (图雅的婚事) - Golden Bear winner at the 57th Berlin Film Festival, has announced its withdrawal from the Golden Horse Awards yesterday. So as of today, we are left with four competing films for Best Picture, and three nominees each for the Best Director and Best Actress awards...
Tags: Golden Horse Awards, Lust, Caution, Tuya's Marriage, Getting Home, The Home Song Stories, Ang Lee, Chinese movies, Chinese films, Film awards.
Flash Point and The Secret Do Well At The Box Office
Donnie Yen's exciting new action thriller Flash Point (导火线) and Taiwanese superstar Jay Chou's directorial debut Secret (不能說的秘密) have both done pretty well at the Chinese box office. Flash Point starring Donnie Yen, Louis Koo, Colin Chou and Fan BingBing grossed RMB 20 million (US$2.63 million) in its first six days of release. Jay Chou's Secret a romantic drama with a mysterious twist at the end, stars Jay Chou, up and coming Taiwanese actress Guei Lun-Mei and Hong Kong actor Anthony Wong, grossed US$2.44 million in its first week of release.
Check out the trailer for Flash Point inYouTube. Wow, the action is simply exhilerating .... a must watch! And do catch Secret as well for Jay Chou and Guei Lun-Mei's great performances in the film.
Source: http://ent.sina.com.cn/m/c/2007-08-09/15301670119.shtml; http://www.varietyasiaonline.com/content/view/1835/1/
Tags: Jay Chou, Secret, Guei Lun Mei, Donnie Yen, Flash Point, Louis Koo, Chinese Box Office, Action Movie, Gong Fu movie, Romantic drama, mystery.
Very short trailer clip of Ang Lee's Lust, Caution
Sorry, haven't been posting as often as I should... I will post more interesting East Asian movie and drama posts very soon, promise :-)
But for now, check out the URL below for clips of Ang Lee's Lust, Caution in this promotional advertisement by Focus Features for their upcoming releases in the second half of 2007. You will need to wait some time for the mov file to load though. The screen shots of the movie are somewhere in the middle of the clip.
http://www.focusfeatures.com/clips/about_focus/spring07-480x260.mov
Enjoy the clip :-)
Tags: Lust, Caution, Ang Lee, Tony Leung, Wang Lee Hom, Tang Wei, Chinese Movie, Chinese Film.
Casting Troubles At The Red Cliff
Casting problems on the set of the in-production mega Chinese movie Battle Of The Red Cliff (赤壁) seem almost as exciting and unpredictable as the plot of the film itself.
The latest news is that Tony Leung Chiu Wai has rejoined the cast and may be taking over Chow Yun-Fatt's role of Zhou Yu after Chow left the cast last week. Leung was originally slated to play Zhuge Liang but his role was handed over to Takeshi Kaneshiro when he quit early this year.
The latest cast as per news reports:
Tony Leung as Zhou Yu (?)
Takeshi Kaneshiro as Zhuge Liang
Hu Jun as Zhao Yun
Zhang Fengyi as baddie Cao Cao
You Yong as Liu Bei
Chang Chen as Sun Quan
Chiling Lin as ancient hot babe Xiao Qiao
Vicky Zhao Wei as Sun Shang Xiang
Zhang Jing Chu as Da Qiao
This John Woo film will be divided into two parts, with the first part scheduled to be released before the Beijing Olympics in 2008 and the second part at the end of 2008.
Hmm... hopefully the casting troubles will not affect the film too adversely...
Good luck to John Woo :-)
Also, check out this site below (in Chinese) for some nice pics of the cast and the characters in the movie: http://ent.tom.com/movie/f/chibi.html
And for some background info on the movie, check out my previous blog post here.
[information from articles in the following sites:
http://movies.monstersandcritics.com/news/article_1294807.php/Tony_Leung_rejoins_Woos_The_Battle_of_Red_Cliff’_ http://www.firstshowing.net/2007/04/17/chow-yun-fat-drops-john-woos-battle-of-red-cliff/
http://ent.tom.com/movie/f/chibi.html]
Tags: Battle Of The Red Cliff, Chi Bi, John Woo, Chow Yun Fatt, Tony Leung, Lin Chiling, Takeshi Kaneshiro, Chinese Movie, Chinese Film, Historical Movie.
Curse Of The Golden Flower - My Thoughts
Just watched Curse Of The Golden Flower... Well what can I say, the sets and costumes were truly made of "gold", practically everyone and everything were nicely color coordinated BUT I admit that I don't like the movie that much...
Why? Actually I don't really know why just that at some places where I am supposed to be terrified or touched I just had the urge to laugh instead. Its not that the acting was bad, on the contrary it was really good for the most parts (Chow Yun-Fatt and Gong Li were truly amazing). But the movie just feels emotionally empty. Most of the time I was admiring the actors' clothes and the lovely scenery instead of being focused on what the actors were actually saying.
But still ... although the sets and costumes look gorgeous, I kept thinking that the palace looks more like some swanky Vegas casino hotel since everything was so bright and shiny, honestly I did not know that the Tang dynasty had spotlights haha. And not forgetting the "unbelievably" buxomy palace maids. Whew... how can any guy (even eunuchs!) work in a place like that without going a little ... :-P In other words, I think in trying to create a gorgeous and elaborate palace setting, the director seemed to have forgotten that a touch of realism would have helped a lot.
And the storyline... the familial breakdown and the violence that ensued could have made for a impactful and absorbing story .. if only it was handled a little better. I felt that more scenes should be given to explaining what the main characters were feeling and how the events happened instead of focusing so much on the scenes of the palace staff getting ready for the day etc... although these scenes were interesting too in their own way... seeing how efficient the palace staff were really puts me to shame ;-)
All in all, I feel that the movie is worth watching for 3 things: the costumes, the sets and Chow Yun-Fatt's and Gong Li's superb acting.
Tags: Curse Of The Golden Flower, Chinese Movie, Zhang Yi-Mou, Chow Yun-Fatt, Gong Li, Jay Chou.
Curse Of The Golden Flower Makes It To Time Magazine's 10 Best Films Of 2006
The Chinese hit movie Curse Of The Golden Flower has made it into Time Magazine's 10 Best Films of 2006 sharing the honour with prestigious films like Borat and Letters from Iwo Jima. It is the only Asian film to have made it to this prestigious list.
However, reviews for the movie have been mixed. The movie only managed to obtain a 57% rating in the Rotten Tomatoes critic ratings. This is very much lower than other recent Zhang Yimou movies with similar themes like House of Flying Daggers
The harsh reviews did not seem to have any adverse effect on the movie's box office though... Golden Flower broke the opening week box office record previously set by super blockbuster Titanic in China. Till date, its box-office takings in China alone have exceeded the $200 million renminbi (approximately US$13 million) mark and the movie also performed above expectations in Hong Kong and Taiwan.
I have not watched the movie yet.. will post my thoughts on the movie here once I have watched it. Check out my earlier post for more interesting info on this hotly debated film of the moment.
Tags: Curse Of The Golden Flower, Chinese Movie, Zhang Yi-Mou, Chow Yun-Fatt, Gong Li, Jay Chou, Time Magazine, Best Film, Time Best Films Of 2006.
