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17 articles from 2009

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'Red Cliff' is John Woo's Best Action Epic in Over a Decade

24 November 2009 9:05 PM, PST | CinemaSpy | See recent CinemaSpy news »

Film geeks still slaver over the early output of John Woo such as Hard Boiled and The Killer for their devotion to style and fantastic action sequences. However, the mid-90s and early aughts brought disappointment in the director for his less-than-stellar fare including Jean-Claude Van Damme vehicle Hard Target, the shockingly bad Mission: Impossible II, and the forgettable Philip K. Dick adaptation Paycheck. But with exhilarating, epic action reminiscent of both Braveheart and Hero, the ancient Chinese war film Red Cliff restores Woo to the hall of the hallowed. It has the director's trademark style in spades, but it never skimps on story or character development.

Red Cliff is the most expensive movie in Asian cinema history, and it's easy to see where the money went. Countless actors in period costumes, numerous special effects shots, and impeccable sound all contribute to a masterfully created film that matches Hollywood's high standards with its impressive visuals. »

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Movie Review: Red Cliff (2009)

20 November 2009 12:36 PM, PST | Rope of Silicon | See recent Rope Of Silicon news »

Photo: Magnet Releasing In searching for a way to describe John Woo's Red Cliff the best I can come up with is to call it exactly what it is, a beautifully rendered 208 A.D. Chinese epic living in the world of a John Woo blockbuster popcorn feature. However, such a description seems almost contradictory, but nonetheless as accurate as I can get when referring to this equally playful, romantic and violent war story loosely based on the 14th-century Chinese novel "Romance of the Three Kingdoms."

I wish I was more familiar with the early work of director John Woo, but other than his highly acclaimed Hard Boiled, I'm afraid my knowledge is limited to his mixed bag of Hollywood features with Face/Off being my favorite of the bunch. However, I guess I'm not entirely at a loss as Woo has commissioned one of his Hard Boiled stars in »

- Brad Brevet

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trailer break: ‘Red Cliff’

20 November 2009 8:42 AM, PST | www.flickfilosopher.com | See recent FlickFilosopher news »

Totally awesome. I so fell in love with Takeshi Kaneshiro in House of Flying Daggers, and he’s just as enticing here as a sort of Jedi warrior. Plus, there’s some cool battles and shit. Red Cliff opens in the U.S. today; it played in U.K. theaters this summer and is now available on Region 2 DVD in 142-minute and 174-minute versions. (The Chinese-language original is reportedly five hours in length.) »

- MaryAnn Johanson

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‘The Treasure Hunter’ Featuring Kato from ‘Green Hornet’

19 November 2009 8:37 AM, PST | ScreenRant.com | See recent Screen Rant news »

There are few people that are aware of the growing movie market overseas. Thailand is emerging as a serious threat in the marital arts action genre with the help of Tony Jaa (Ong Bak); Russia is proving they can make a slick and entertaining film thanks to studios like Disney (Black Lightning); and, of course, Japan has always been the source for many Hollywood studios’ “inspired” horror remakes (The Ring, The Grudge). One foreign market that tends to be brushed off as only doing kung-fu or martial art films is China.

Today we have a trailer for a new Asian film which has the odd IMDb genre label of romance/sci-fi called Ci Ling (Treasure Hunter). Why are we at Screen Rant sharing this trailer with you? Because Treasure Hunter stars an actor most English-speaking audiences may not be familiar with yet, but will be next year: Jay Chou. Chou »

- Paul Young

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Blood Simple remake trailer

18 November 2009 2:07 PM, PST | JoBlo.com | See recent JoBlo news »

Curious to see what a remake of the Coen Brothers' noir classic Blood Simple might look like if it was made by acclaimed Hong Kong filmmaker Zhang Yimou (Hero, House Of Flying Daggers)? Wonder no more, and witness the decidedly zany trailer below. The period movie is apparently either going by the title The First Gun or Amazing Tales: Three Guns, although the rough translation of the Chinese title "San Qiang Pai An Jing Qi" is "The Stunning Case Of The Three Gun Shots."... »

- Dave Davis

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Zhang Yimou’s Blood Simple Remake Trailer

18 November 2009 10:34 AM, PST | FilmJunk | See recent FilmJunk news »

Ever since it was announced earlier this year [1], a lot of people have been wondering what the heck is up with Zhang Yimou's remake of The Coen Brothers' very first film Blood Simple. It was believed that he would be turning it into a comedy, and with the odd title Amazing Tales: Three Guns, it seems clear that we should probably expect something completely different. And wow... that's exactly what we're getting. The Playlist [2] found the first trailer for the film on YouTube, and if you're familiar with Hero, House of Flying Daggers and Curse of the Golden Flower, you won't be too shocked to see plenty of artistic slow-mo, thematic colours, extravagant costumes, and melodramatic acting. It looks like a Zhang Yimou film, except... what the heck does any of this have to do with Blood Simple?? Granted, the trailer is not in English (save for the voiceover) so »

- Sean

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Birthday Suits: Good Hair, and Good Music.

14 November 2009 7:29 AM, PST | FilmExperience | See recent FilmExperience news »

Celebrating the birthdays of the film-famous. If it's your birthday, we'll sing you a happy one in the comments.

Louise Brooks, Veronica Lake and Josh Duhamel

1906 Louise Brooks, dancer, silent film actress, icon, quotable diva, film critic, memoirist, ...Lost Girl, Lulu. Her hair is legend.

1908 Joseph McCarthy, he saw only Red(s). He's been a villainous figure in movies ever since, whether seen, unseen or fictionalized. See: Guilty by Suspicion, The Way We Were, The Manchurian Candidate, Good Night, and Good Luck. and many more...

1919 Veronica Lake, femme fatale, purveyor of the peek-a-boo bang (her hair also being legend). Kim Basinger didn't even have to get "cut" to look like this goddess in La Confidential. She just had to sell those glorious blonde waves.

1945 Paul Hirsch, editor of Carrie, Star Wars (Oscar win), Ferris Bueller's Day Off and more...

1951 Zhang Yimou, fine director, awesome goddess worshipper. Think of what he »

- NATHANIEL R

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Zhang Ziyi Picks a 'Snow Flower'

5 November 2009 12:59 PM, PST | GetTheBigPicture.net | See recent Get The Big Picture news »

It's not a great big news day and she's really hot, so naturally, we'll tell you about the latest Zhang Ziyi project. Can you believe it's almost been a full decade since Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon? It's the biggest foreign language film ever, the only one to ever top $100 million in the Us. That's Zhang's introduction to most western audiences, although you have to see her in Zhang Yimou's The Road Home from one year earlier. Heartbreaking.

She has not been a major American star, even though she did get her chance with Memoirs of a Geisha, but some of her other foreign language films - Hero and House of Flying Daggers - have also made an impression on audiences here in the states. Hero, in fact, is the third-highest-grossing foreign language film ever.

For her next trick, The Hollywood Reporter says Zhang will produce and star in the Wayne Wang »

- Colin Boyd

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Call it 'Blood Simple', But Funnier

3 November 2009 10:25 PM, PST | CinemaSpy | See recent CinemaSpy news »

Zhang Yimou promises some comedy in his remake of Blood Simple, which will hit theaters in China on December 11.

In an interview with the Chinese web portal Sina.com, subsequently translated by the Associated Press, the director of Hero and House of Flying Daggers described his film as starting off as a comedy, then gradually morphing into a thriller.

"The audience is watching the movie happily, laughing out loud, then it slowly changes, but the transition has to be funny," Zhang said. "That's very hard to do. I think I did a decent job. This is the first time I tried to bridge the two styles."

The film, called San Qiang Pai An Jing Qi in Chinese, centers around a noodle shop owner who plans to kill his cheating wife and her lover. As was the case in Blood Simple, the plot spirals out of control; however, the original revolved around a Texas bar owner. »

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Amazing Tales: Three Guns Trailer aka Zhang Yimou’s Blood Simple Remake

2 November 2009 9:41 AM, PST | Beyond Hollywood | See recent Beyond Hollywood news »

A trailer for Zhang Yimou’s “Amazing Tales: Three Guns” has popped up online, and it looks … interesting. Adapted by Jianquan Shi and Jing Shang, the Chinese remake of the Brothers Coens’ “Blood Simple” transplants the story into a period film set in a Chinese noodle shop, where the owner schemes to murder his adulterous wife and her lover, but things go awry, as they invariably always do in these type of situations. The comedy-crime thriller stars Honglei Sun, Dahong Ni, Ni Yan, Xiao Shen-Yang, Xiaojuan Wang, and is directed by Zhang Yimou of “The Curse of the Golden Flower” and “The House of Flying Daggers” fame. Plus, he also did some commie stuff recently. »

- Nix

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Indie Trailer Sunday: Zhang Yimou's Amazing Tales: Three Guns

1 November 2009 8:45 AM, PST | firstshowing.net | See recent FirstShowing.net news »

This trailer is only for hardcore fans of Zhang Yimou (Hero, House of Flying Daggers) and those who don't need any English subtitles! Twitch has dug up the first trailer for Zhang Yimou's Amazing Tales: Three Guns, his remake of the Coen Brothers' first film Blood Simple. It may not have subtitles yet, but it looks quite fun anyway. And its got everything you'd expect from a Coen Brothers remake - double-crossings, cheating, lying, death, and plenty of good humor. I'm actually looking forward to this, even if it looks a bit wacky, primarily because it's Zhang Yimou and he always delivers very visually stunning films. Check it out! Watch the first trailer for Zhang Yimou's Amazing Tales: Three Guns (in Mandarin): [flv:http://media2.firstshowing.net/firstshowing/amazingtales-threeguns-chinese.flv http://media2.firstshowing.net/firstshowing/amazingtales-threeguns-chinese.jpg 560 420] Set at a noodle shop in the middle of the desert in Gansu Province, Ni Dahong plays a stingy tavern owner who hires Sun Honglei's character »

- Alex Billington

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Review: Ong Bak 2

23 October 2009 5:15 PM, PDT | Cinematical | See recent Cinematical news »

By Todd Gilchrist (reprinted from 9/23/09)

Cinematically speaking, there may be nothing worse than when an action star or purveyor of thrills starts taking himself too seriously. Such a transformation almost invariably begets a personal crusade, which often takes the form of a vanity project, and usually turns out about as well as The Quest did for Jean-Claude Van Damme, or On Deadly Ground did for Steven Seagal. Thai martial artist Tony Jaa launched his career with the original Ong Bak, and after that film and its superior follow-up, The Protector, made him an international sensation, he apparently started believing his own hype: Jaa not only co-directed Ong Bak 2, his latest film, but conceived it as the ultimate Thai adventure, reinforcing his own legend with a self-aggrandizing historical epic that somehow proves that you can actually make a movie without a plot - which unfortunately but perhaps predictably isn't a compliment. »

- Cinematical staff

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Benny Chan’s Shaolin Storyline and Cast Confirmed

16 October 2009 10:51 AM, PDT | AsianMoviePulse | See recent AsianMoviePulse news »

The cast rumors can now be quelled because a bunch of A-list action stars have signed on the martial arts epic. You've got Andy Lau (House of Flying Daggers), Nicholas Tse (Dragon Tiger Gate) and Wu Jing (Spl). And if that's not enough for you, they've also thrown in some guy named Jackie Chan (a lot of kickass movies) for a cameo role. Bonus: because the film will be shot in a real Shaolin Temple, there will be real-life Shaolin monks doing some never-before-seen kung fu badassery as the supporting cast. Now would be a good time to say "Whoa." »

- jaiskizzy

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Shemaroo releases 5 Utv World Movies - News

20 April 2009 11:30 AM, PDT | GlamSham | See recent GlamSham news »

Utv World Movies has signed up with Shemaroo World Cinema, for releasing its acclaimed library titles in the Indian home video market. Through this strategic association, Utv World Movies takes another step towards making contemporary, award winning World Cinema available across several platforms. Shemaroo World Cinema launched 5 Utv World Movies titles on Home Video recently. Shemaroo launched the first five Utv World Movies award winning, blockbuster titles namely House Of Flying Daggers; A Tale Of Two Sisters, A Room With A View, La Zona And The Phantom Lover.... »

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An Empress And The Warriors - Trailer

1 March 2009 2:33 AM, PST | Latemag.com/film | See recent LateFilmFull news »

Veteran Hong Kong director Tony Siu-Tung Ching (director of classic "A Chinese Ghost Story" and the "Swordsman" trilogy and the action choreographer for "Curse Of The Golden Flower", "Hero" and "House Of Flying Daggers") makes a dazzling return to vintage form with the epic, An Empress And The Warriors, starring Donnie Yen (Flashpoint; Dragon Tiger Gate; Seven Swords; Hero), Kelly Chen (the Infernal Affairs trilogy; Tokyo Raiders) and Leon Lai (Seven Swords; Infernal Affairs 3).

 

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tags: world cinema

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- Leigh

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Flying Daggers remake?

18 February 2009 3:36 AM, PST | JoBlo.com | See recent JoBlo news »

Here is today's horrible rumor: Apparently, Production Weekly has it that Sam Raimi will be remaking House Of Flying Daggers. It is unclear as to whether it is Raimi himself or his production company, Ghost House Pictures, that is behind the decision, but what is clear is that I hate this idea. And not because I get pissy and overprotective of movies that I like, but because I feel for Zhang Yimou who directed the original. As I understand it, if someone chooses to remake your work, it's... »

- James Thoo

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Director Zhang Sues Over Biography

13 January 2009 7:57 AM, PST | WENN | See recent WENN news »

Chinese director Zhang Yimou is taking legal action against the publisher and author of a new biography of the filmmaker, accusing them of damaging his reputation with allegations of a love triangle.

He is demanding a public apology for the book, titled Documenting China - Zhang Yimou's Biography, which claims The House of Flying Daggers filmmaker fell out with his wife over his alleged feelings for actress Gong Li.

The tome, released in China in August, has already been removed from shop shelves following Zhang's lawyer Tong Jie's condemnation of the book in December.

In a statement released last month, Tong said, "A large part of the content in the book is a series of rumours, reckless fabrications, and seriously violates Zhang Yimou's name, image and privacy rights."

A lawsuit against publisher Huaxia and writer Huang Xiaoyang was filed last Tuesday, according to local reports.

Zhang directed Li in movies including 2006's Curse of the Golden Flower, 1994's Huonze, and 1987's My Grandma. »

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2009 | 2008 | 2006 | 2005 | 2004

17 articles from 2009

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