Father Geek here with our regular Thursday Edition of Asia-AICN for the keyboards of our Far East staff; Darius25, pigmon, and AccSpy. Buuuuut first, as is usual, ol' Father Geek has a couple of interesting bits for you... The First is more of a question, but it contains some Cool info also...
Sorry to bother you, but something has me wondering. I just saw KISS OF THE DRAGON (not bad), and Jet Li's character uses acupuncture needles as a weapon. My wife & I noticed the similarity between this and a character (Bian) in some of our favorite Japanese novels most notably "The Master Assassin: Tales of Murder from the Shogun's City" by Shotaro Ikenami.
Shotaro Ikenami is the Japanese equivalent of Louis L'Amour (of course writing "Easterns" instead of "Westerns"). His main character Bian is a contract killer and an acupuncturist who can use his needles to kill. Interesting similarity. Could any of you tell me if Jet Li or the writers used this as a source? Any way check out the two Master Assassin books that are in english, good fun.
Thanks
-Daniel
Now I have this that came in directly to Austin's World Geek Headquarters via my trusty PC last night...
Upper Deck will market and distribute the trading card game Yu-Gi-Oh, and conduct extensive game tournaments throughout the country. The animated TV series debuted in the U.S. in September on the Kids WB and consistently ranks #1 in its Saturday morning time slot. Consumer goods companies have already lined up to market Yu-Gi-Oh! products that include video games, toys and apparel.
Yu-Gi-Oh! is the story of a high school freshman named Yugi who unlocks the
secret of the "Millennium Puzzle," an ancient Egyptian artifact. Infused
with ancient magical energies, Yugi must now protect the world from the
return of the destructive Shadow Games using cards containing legendary
monsters and magical spells.
Well, that's it for Father Geek this time out. Here's Darius with his Bollywood part of our report... then AccSpy in Hong Kong followed by pigmon in Tokyo...
Asia-AICN
Hey all, I hope you’ve had a great week. We have a pretty packed column for you, with lots of cool info including news on “Aankon Hi Aankhon Mein (In Your Eyes)”, “Lagaan”, “Kranti (Rebellion)”, Miriam Yeung’s “The Greedy Family”, “Ping Pong”, Ryuhei Kitamura’s “Alive”, the next Godzilla film, “Mr. Rookie”, and “The Bleep Brothers”. We also have the list of winners from the 2002 Japanese Academy Awards. Now here’s the latest from Asia.
INDIA
- After a year-long break, director Akashdeep has announced his new film, “Aankon Hi Aankhon Mein (In Your Eyes)”, which will star Sonu Nigam in the lead. The rest of the cast is being determined and the film is scheduled to start shooting very shortly. It’ll release early next year.
- Fardeen Khan and Celina Jaitley will star in a new film called “Shaadi.Com (Marriage.Com)”. The film will be produced by Feroz Khan and will be directed by Hansal Mehta. It’s launch was held last week and principal photography is to begin in a month.
- Ashutosh Rana has been signed in the lead for “Shabnam Mausi (Aunt Shabnam)”, to be directed by Yogesh Bhardwaj. The political satire tells the real-life story of India’s first transsexual politician, Shabnam Mausi, an active member of the legislative assembly for Madhya Pradesh (a State). The film is scheduled to release sometime next year.
- The Oscar-nominee “Lagaan (The Tax)” is scheduled to get a re-release in the UK, starting from next week. This is a second shot for the film to become UK’s biggest Bollywood hit and beat the record set by the current winner, “Kabhi Khushi Kabhie Gham (Happiness and Sorrow)”. Already out on VHS and DVD here in North America, “Lagaan” will get theatrical distribution starting from sometime in April or May.
- Last week’s new release was “Kranti (Rebellion)”, directed by Naresh Malhotra and starring Bobby Deol, Amisha Patel, Vinod Khanna, Kabir Bedi and Rati Agnihotri. The film features another attempt by Bobby Deol to cash-in on his brother’s success but don’t be fooled – the film is patriotic in name only. The story should be very familiar to ANYONE – Bobby stars as a gung-ho cop, Abhay, who isn’t afraid to break the law in order to catch the criminals, while Vinod Khanna plays his strict, law-abiding father (and also the Commissioner of police). Both the father and son are constantly at odds while hunting criminals using their own methods. Into the story comes a devious industrialist, Rana Pratap (Kabir Bedi), who makes his living dealing illegal arms to international criminals. Ofcourse the father is oblivious to Rana’s guilt while Abhay catches on pretty quickly. Rana manages to further divide the father-son duo by framing Abhay for a murder and getting him arrested. Abhay gets out, kills a lot of people and eventually (with the help of dad), gets the bad guy. Oh and Amisha Patel appears once every 30 minutes to fulfill the obligatory musical interludes.
Acting wise, Bobby tries his best Sunny Deol-impersonation and is pretty effective, action wise. The guy gets some decent punches and kicks thrown in, and handles some gunplay pretty well. There isn’t any scope for him to demonstrate any acting potential and that’s fine with me (for this film). Vinod Khanna is his reliable self and his handles his role decently well. Amisha Patel looks DAZZLING and well, that’s about it!! However her nice curvaceous body gets a plenty of workout during the songs – SO DO NOT FORWARD THEM guys. You’ll thank me!! The rest of the cast is ok. The action scenes are executed pretty decently, and we do get some nice explosions and shootouts. The direction is adequate while the film is tightly paced. Some songs are decent while others (not featuring Amisha) are fast-forward-worthy. All in all, “Kranti” is a standard action film – nothing spectacular but worth watching for passing the time.
Bobby Deol and Amisha Patel: Give Them a Look Here
Vinod Khanna (left), Bobby, and Kabir Bedi: See at this Location
Another pic of Amisha (wish that Bobby would get out of her way!): See Her Here
HK / CHINA
Here’s the weekly report from “AccSpy”:
- Our deepest blessings go out to Jackie Chan, whose mother passed away on 28th Feb at the age of 86. The funeral was held on Mar 6th and Jackie had already gone back to work the next day to host an HK special for Discovery Channel. Jackie is now shooting "Shanghai Knights", but after the accident at the set of "Highbinders", Hollywood insurance companies have forced Jackie to have at least 60 days off during the shooting of "Shanghai Knights". Jackie is ok with it and said he will use the holidays to develop his next project "Titanium Rain" with Media Asia.
Here are some pics from the funeral.
Pic 1: It's Right Here Now
Pic 2: See It Here
Pic 3: Is Right Here
Just one day after the funeral in Australia, Jackie is in HK to be a host of a Discovery Channel special: Go Here To See
- Carol "DoDo" Cheng, one of the most popular actresses in the 80's, has returned to screen after 8 years to join Eric Tsang, Eason Chan, Miriam Yeung and Ti Lung in the game show satire "The Greedy Family (lit. title)". The comedy tells the story of a family's never-ending misfortunes during a week before they go on a TV game show.
DoDo Cheng on the set: Click Now
Miriam Yeung and Eric Tsang play daughter and father in this comedy: Click Here
- Fresh from the blockbuster "Marry a Rich Man", Richie Yen and Candy Lo are now shooting the drama "I Lost 30 Years (lit. title)" in Malaysia, which is produced by Derek Yee. Without the presence of Sammi Cheng, Richie and Candy play a couple who encounter troubles after surviving a car accident. Here's two pics from the set.
Richie Yen: Just Click
Candy is shooting a close up for the car accident stunt: See the Coolness Here
- It turns out that Sam Lee's Japanese sport project is called "Ping Pong", which is being directed by Isao Yukisada (“Go!”). Sam plays a Ping Pong player from China, and his name is… China (whoa!).
- Miriam Yeung is an undercover agent who falls in love with triad son Daniel Wu in "Love Undercover", the no.1 movie in HKBO last weekend. It grossed an excellent $4.4 mil HKD and could easily surpass the total gross of Miriam and director Joe Ma’s last comedy, "Dummy Mummy, Without a Baby". Korean comedy "My Sassy Girl" kept on charming HK audiences with total grossing of $9.7 mil in just 10 days, while already becoming the highest grossing Korean film in HK. "A Beautiful Mind" was at no.3 while Johnny Depp's Jack the Ripper thriller "From Hell" debuted at no.6.
JAPAN
Here’s the latest report from “Pigmon”:
- The new bad guy of the upcoming Godzilla film has already been selected – Mecha Godzilla!!! That’s right, Mecha will face our reptilian hero for a fourth time. The new film’s title has not yet been decided but Toho has already hired director Masaaki Tezuka to come onboard after the previous film, “Godzilla vs. Megaguirus”. Shooting will start in June and the film’s world premiere will be held at the Tokyo International Film Festival in October.
- I recently saw “Alive”, the new film by Ryuhei Kitamura (“Versus”), and believe me if you liked his previous film, you’ll be TOTALLY BLOWN AWAY!! Set in a futuristic maximum-security prison, the story follows a bunch of ruthless death-row prisoners who volunteer to participate in an experiment dealing with a virus from outer space. Naturally the experiment goes awry, and you have a bunch of mutated killers running amok!! Much violence ensues, and we get to see a heck of a lot blood and guts and some AWESOME fight scenes. Unfortunately, there really isn’t much depth to this film. If you like some great fight scenes and some groovy FX-work, “Alive” will be right up your alley. I’ll give this a C+.
- I also happened to catch the new baseball comedy from director Satoru Izaka, “Mr. Rookie”. As reported previously in the column, the film follows the story of Hanshin Tigers, a sluggish team, who get some much needed help from a masked pitcher. With the help of Mr. Rookie, the team starts to move up in the championships until the very last game – where the player finally reveals his identity. The film ended up being entertaining and real-life player Kazuhige Nagashima was very good in the titular role. I’ll give this a C+ as well.
- I also saw the raunchy comedy “The Bleep Brothers”, directed by Yoshiyasu Fujita. The film is just a set up of crazy antics, following the story of two foul-mouthed comedians who become superstars after getting their own show. The show pretty much is a bunch of “bleeps” since their humour cannot be heard on prime time TV. Much comedy follows after it’s revealed that the younger brother is still a virgin. The film was absolutely hilarious and audiences were just dying in their seats!! Much of the humour is thanks to actor Kentaro Seagal (Steven Seagal’s son), who plays the younger sibling. This film is destined to be a cult classic!!
Here are this year’s winners of the Japanese Academy Awards.
Best Picture - "Spirited Away"
Best Director - Isao Yukisada for "Go"
Best Actor - Yosuke Kubozuka for "Go"
Best Actress - Keiko Kishi for "Kaachan"
Best Supporting Actor - Tsutomu Yamazaki for "Go"
Best Supporting Actress - Kou Shibazaki for "Go"
Best Foreign Film - “Billy Elliot”
Toei's "Go" totally dominated this year's Academy Awards. The film also received the Best Cinematography, Best Lighting, Best Script, and Best Editing awards as well.
