Kaiju Shakedown - October 2007 http://varietya.nexcess.net Sun, 20 Jul 2008 11:52:20 +0100 FeedCreator 1.7.2 http://www.varietyasiaonline.com/images/kaijuShakedownBlogIcon.jpg http://www.varietyasiaonline.com/index.php/component/option,com_myblog/Itemid,10021/ http://varietya.nexcess.net/index.php?option=com_myblog&show=THESE-MOVIES-WILL-SUCK.html&Itemid=99999999 <p><br/>Kaiju Shakedown is in full-on psychic mode today, issuing damning judgments against movies that are barely in production. Movies are constantly mutating - screenplays are re-written, fresh voices are hired, bad-idea-generating producers are replaced - so we&#39;d be thrilled to have our predictions proved wrong about any of these movies. Some of them may actually wind up becoming modern day classics, but based on the info that&#39;s out there now it seems clear that... <br/></p><br/><p align="cen [...] http://varietya.nexcess.net/index.php?option=com_myblog&show=OM-SHANTI-OM-TRAILER.html&Itemid=99999999 <p><br/>Bollywood, what&#39;s wrong with you? I get all excited about the new Ram Gopal Varma movie, then it turns out to suck. Then I get all excited about some new musical and all the musical numbers turn out to be non-choreographed, MTV style videos featuring people rolling around on the beach or riding motorcycles. Look, Bollywood, when you give me musical numbers you&#39;d better give me ones where the entire cast breaks into song and dance in one location (suddenly teleporting the whole routi [...] http://varietya.nexcess.net/index.php?option=com_myblog&show=MASATO-HARADA-HAS-2-NEW-MOVIES.html&Itemid=99999999 <p><br/>In several James Bond movies you hear reference to other &quot;00&quot; agents - 006, 008 - and occasionally you&#39;ll see one of them briefly, sitting near 007 himself. We have to assume that they&#39;re as sexy, tough, charming and resourceful as James Bond himself, but we just never hear about them. They&#39;re the unsung heroes of the superspy world in the same way that Masato Harada is the unsung hero of Japanese film. He&#39;s the 006 of Japanese directors. <br/></p><br/><p><br/>Mentored by A [...] http://varietya.nexcess.net/index.php?option=com_myblog&show=MUMMY-3-UPDATE.html&Itemid=99999999 <p><br/>Rob Cohen, director of THE FAST AND THE FURIOUS and DRAGON: THE BRUCE LEE STORY, is hard at work on the third MUMMY film which is crammed with Chinese talent, from Jet Li playing the big bad guy, to Michelle Yeoh and Isabella Leong, as well as Tony Cheung as camera operator (he was the DP on COMEUPPANCE, DRUNKEN MASTER 2, ISLAND OF GREED and EYE IN THE SKY). A few pictures went up recently of Jet as the Evil Chinese Stereotype and you can find more of them on Cohen&#39;s blog.<br/></p><br/><p><br/>  [...] http://varietya.nexcess.net/index.php?option=com_myblog&show=MAD-DETECTIVE-IS-CAT-III-.html&Itemid=99999999 <p><br/>Recently everyone here learned all about Hong Kong&#39;s adult film classification, Category III. If you read other blogs, like the highly-recommended Twitch, then you&#39;ve also learned about Johnnie To and Wai Ka-fai&#39;s new co-directing project, MAD DETECTIVE, the crime drama that reunites them with Lau Ching-wan, possibly the greatest actor to come out of Hong Kong in the late 90&#39;s.<br/></p><br/><p><br/> <br/><br/><img src="http://www.varietyasiaonline.com/images/stories/69/resserver.jpg" alt= [...] http://varietya.nexcess.net/index.php?option=com_myblog&show=MIDNIGHT-EAGLE-DAY-AND-DATE.html&Itemid=99999999 <p><br/>If Shochiku can do it, why can&#39;t you? On November 23, Shochiku&#39;s HUNT FOR RED OCTOBER-style techno thriller, MIDNIGHT EAGLE, is opening in the US...the exact same day it&#39;s opening in Japan. Holy Cow! It&#39;s a day and date opening, just like the big Hollywood studios do it! Directed by Izuru Narushima (of the critically acclaimed THE HUNTER AND THE HUNTED) and starring stalwart character actor Tatsuya Fuji as the Prime Minister, Ken Ishiguro (UMIZARU 2), Yuko Takeuchi (THE RING [...] http://varietya.nexcess.net/index.php?option=com_myblog&show=FRIDAY-IS-FUN-DAY-4790.html&Itemid=99999999 <p><br/>This week has been sooooo unfair! The biggest poke in the eye was reserved for Ang Lee&#39;s LUST, CAUTION which the Hong Kong Film Awards has disqualified from all its major prizes because it&#39;s not Hong Kong enough. What&#39;s holding it back is that they can&#39;t find 8 Hong Kongers among the key talent, one of the requirements for all nominees. So it&#39;s not Taiwanese enough for the Oscars and it&#39;s not Hong Kong enough for the Hong Kong Film Awards. What country is it from exa [...] http://varietya.nexcess.net/index.php?option=com_myblog&show=CRAZY-+-CRAZY-AKANBO-SHOUJO.html&Itemid=99999999 <p><br/>I&#39;m still digging for more info, but the Japanese movie, AKANBO SHOUJO, has finished shooting and is slated for a 2008 release. Why should you care? Because it&#39;s based on a horror manga by Umezu Kazuo whose DRIFTING CLASSROOM is one of the only manga I can bring myself to read because it&#39;s one of the only manga in which this happens to bratty elementary schoolchildren:<br/></p><br/><p><br/><br/><br/><img src="http://www.varietyasiaonline.com/images/stories/69/drifting_bread.jpg" alt="" width= [...] http://varietya.nexcess.net/index.php?option=com_myblog&show=NEW-FILM-FROM-MEMENTO-MORI-DIRECTOR.html&Itemid=99999999 <p><br/>Even though it flopped at the box office, 1999&#39;s Korean horror flick, MEMENTO MORI, has gone on to become a modern day classic in the new Korean cinema canon. The sequel to spooky schoolgirl flick WHISPERING CORRIDORS it&#39;s a beautifully experimental, lushly romantic tale of two schoolgirls in love and the ghost who wants to kill them. Walking the fine line between exploitation (lesbian schoolgirls! ghosts!) and art (suicide pacts! repressed emotions!) it was the debut film for direc [...] http://varietya.nexcess.net/index.php?option=com_myblog&show=RAIN-BLAMES-RACISM.html&Itemid=99999999 <p><br/>Rain, the Korean pop star who earned the ire of Stephen Colbert when he placed higher than Colbert in a Time Magazine poll and who starred in Park Chan-Wook&#39;s still-undistributed-in-the-US I&#39;M A CYBORG, BUT THAT&#39;S OKAY, had a world tour this past summer and it didn&#39;t go very well. And who&#39;s to blame? Racism, according to Rain, who was interviewed earlier this week on Mnet&#39;s &quot;Wide Special&quot; (I think this is the episode, in Korean only, Part One and Part Two) [...] http://varietya.nexcess.net/index.php?option=com_myblog&show=GOOD-BAD-WEIRD-STILLS.html&Itemid=99999999 <p><br/>A few stills from Kim Ji-Won&#39;s Chinese Western, THE GOOD, THE BAD, AND THE WEIRD.<br/></p><br/><p><br/> <br/><br/><img src="http://www.varietyasiaonline.com/images/stories/69/TheGood2.jpg" alt="" width="445" height="303" /><br/><br/><br/>Jung Woo-Sung (MUSA, DAISY, THE RESTLESS) <br/><br/><br/> <br/><br/><br/> <img src="http://www.varietyasiaonline.com/images/stories/69/TheBad2.jpg" alt="" width="448" height="294" /><br/><br/><br/>Lee Byung-Hun (JSA, A BITTERSWEET LIFE) <br/><br/><br/> <br/><br/><br/> <img src="http://www.varietyasiaonline.com/images/sto [...] http://varietya.nexcess.net/index.php?option=com_myblog&show=CAUTIOUS-ON-LUST-CAUTION.html&Itemid=99999999 <p><br/>In a recent AP article about LUST, CAUTION the movie&#39;s executive producer, James Schamus, said that he&#39;s being cautious about opening the movie wider because the marketplace is &quot;insanely overcrowded.&quot; Right now, LUST, CAUTION is playing in about 125 theaters and has earned $2.1 million in the US (it&#39;s earned about $9 million worldwide). Schamus said, &quot;Every art-house film that tries to go wide is having trouble, so while we are going out in every major market an [...] http://varietya.nexcess.net/index.php?option=com_myblog&show=TWILIGHT-OF-THE-BILLBOARD-PAINTERS.html&Itemid=99999999 <p><br/>Anyone who wants to see good movie posters has long since given up hope of Hollywood producing them with its Photoshopped, blue-tinted, anonymous collages seemingly assembled by drunken elves in some horrible, cubicle hell who have had their mouses stapled to their hands and spend their days and nights pointing and clicking with only occasional pauses to have their Jagermeister IV drip changed.<br/></p><br/><p><br/>Inspired by this laziness, movie posters around the world have fallen off in quality [...] http://varietya.nexcess.net/index.php?option=com_myblog&show=UNDISTRIBUTED-ALERT-MEMORIES-OF-MATSUKO.html&Itemid=99999999 <p><br/>Dear Distributors,<br/></p><br/><p><br/>Just out of curiosity: are you stupid? No, seriously. You may be suffering from stupidity and not even know it. Try this quiz:<br/></p><br/><p><br/>a) did you suffer multiple head traumas as a small child?<br/></p><br/><p><br/>b) were you often given special tests involving shapes and colors and were they followed by your teachers having urgent, whispered conferences with your parents out in the hall?<br/></p><br/><p><br/>c) did you recently pass on picking up the Japanese movie MEMORIE [...] http://varietya.nexcess.net/index.php?option=com_myblog&show=GRATHONG-IS-LISTENING-FOR-THE-CROCODILE.html&Itemid=99999999 <p><br/>Because they look prettier than your average commercial, and because they make less sense, two commercials by Thailand&#39;s Wisit Sasanatieng, the director behind such eyeball-rupturing movies as TEARS OF THE BLACK TIGER and CITIZEN DOG.<br/></p><br/><p><br/>The first one is for Wrangler jeans.<br/></p><br/><p><br/>The second is for Crocodile bicycles .<br/></p><br/><p><br/>And now, please Mr. Wisit, make us another movie. Maybe even your One-Armed Swordsman riff that&#39;s your homage to 70&#39;s swordsman movies? [...] http://varietya.nexcess.net/index.php?option=com_myblog&show=HE-SUFFERS-FOR-YOUR-ENJOYMENT.html&Itemid=99999999 <br/><br/><img src="http://www.varietyasiaonline.com/images/stories/69/Passion_3.jpg" alt="" width="468" height="248" /><br/><br/><br/>Happy Birthday, Jean-Claude Van Damme!!! <br/><br/><br/> <br/><br/><br/><img src="http://www.varietyasiaonline.com/images/stories/69/HisWhang.png" alt="" width="473" height="198" /><br/><br/><br/>Thanks for asking the hard questions for over 33 movies! <br/><br/><br/> <br/><br/><br/> http://varietya.nexcess.net/index.php?option=com_myblog&show=REVIEW-UPDATE.html&Itemid=99999999 <p><br/>The Japan Times gives an extremely positive review to 007 parody 0093 HER MAJESTY&#39;S MASAO KUSAKARI, starring Masao Kusakari, a 70&#39;s star who appeared in movies like Kinji Fukasaku&#39;s VIRUS, here playing a version of himself - an actor who is secretly a super-spy in the employ of the Japanese government.<br/></p><br/><p><br/>Asian Cinema - While on the Road writes a very negative review of Taiwanese flick, MY DNA SAYS I LOVE YOU, which is sad. This Taiwanese romance is from Robin Lee who [...] http://varietya.nexcess.net/index.php?option=com_myblog&show=MORE-CAUTION-LESS-LUST.html&Itemid=99999999 <p><br/>Ang Lee&#39;s dirty movie LUST, CAUTION has raked in HK$30 million at the Hong Kong box office (even though some viewers may not understand it) and is now the highest-grossing Category III movie ever released in Hong Kong. Category III is the naughty rating and it used to mean &quot;movie for pervy old men&quot; although in recent years with flicks like SHA PO LANG and ELECTION being branded with the triple &quot;I&quot; it&#39;s come to mean &quot;movie for excitable Western fans.&quot; F [...] http://varietya.nexcess.net/index.php?option=com_myblog&show=JIMMY-WANG-YU-POLITICAL-KILLER-.html&Itemid=99999999 <p><br/>On Monday, Jimmy Wang Yu, Hong Kong&#39;s legendary One-Armed Swordsman, revealed that Taiwan&#39;s Kuomintan (KMT) government was not only responsible for the assassination of Chinese-American writer Henry Liu in California, but that after seeing too many of his movies they asked him to assassinate pro-independence activist Hsu Hsin-liang.<br/></p><br/><p><br/>Hsu had fled Taiwan during one of the government&#39;s crackdowns against the independence movement and was living in the US in 1979. Jimmy [...] http://varietya.nexcess.net/index.php?option=com_myblog&show=GIMME-CHOCOLATE!.html&Itemid=99999999 <p><br/>Now that Tony Jaa doesn&#39;t need directors anymore and is directing himself in ONG BAK 2 what&#39;s going on with Panna Rittikrai (his mentor and action choreographer) and Prachya Pinkaew (director of ONG BAK and THE PROTECTOR)? They&#39;ve been working on CHOCOLATE, a flick about an autistic girl who, like most autistic children, is exceptionally good at fighting and is very goal-oriented, in this case the goal being to kick the butts of the crooks who owe her dead mother money. (More in [...]