Asian Cinema

A wedding video filled with irony. Not the best gift to your childhood friend who is getting married. But a great gift to the audience. Filmmaker Liao Jiekai opens a door into the mind of a bride who is about to be received by her groom, one where the romanticism of a wedding mixes with the practicalities of the rituals, where mushiness mixes with some delightful humour.In ‘Before the Wedlock House’, the bride allows filmmaker Liao to follow her in close lengths documenting her pre-dawn conversations with her make-up artist and the early birds in her wedding entourage. In conversational chapters, we learn about the relationships between her, the filmmaker and the greater environment that surrounds them.The film relentlessly documents how the bride disparages the filmmaker’s profession and craft, saying she might only watch his films if they were like Koran dramas. Yet, she has inadvertently brought the film and the artistry of Liao’s vision to life by way of her matter-of-fact straight-talking honesty. The film also slaps on another ironic layer with her describing how she used to idolize the filmmaker when they were children, though she now calls him a ‘poor artist’.On another level, the film offers us a peep-hole into society through the make-up artist’s anecdotal contributions in the conversation, alluding to unhappy couples who fight before or during their wedding or family troubles that have dented many ceremonies. Together with objective and sentimentally detached shots like the establishing pre-dawn HDB wide shot, they seem to point towards a wider commentary the filmmaker wishes to make. Interestingly, the filmmaker’s also found a good defending voice in the make-up artists who tells the practical bride that the filmmaker friend may one day become famous and earn lots of money.The film’s resonance also lies in the duality the bride displays and how the camera has captured her varied moments. She is chirpy and humorous at one moment and reflective at another. Maybe it’s the veil that clouds our view of her, giving her a natural atmospheric aura, even though her behavioral swings are undeniable. Or perhaps it’s the camera’s attentiveness to the subject, celebrating her joys on at one moment with full-on shots of her beaming smile, while meditating on her pockets of contemplation the next moment with the dreamy, white-washed overtones.Review by Jeremy Sing

Omnibus horror movies are still all the rage in Asian it seems and Tales From The Dark part 1 is the latest offer to fuel the fanboy flames. Based on the best-selling horror novel written by Hong Kong author Lilian Lee it comprises of six segments adapted from stories. Good so far but its even better when you see who’s directing. The six segments will be directed by Fruit Chan, Lee Chi Ngai, Lawrence Lau, Teddy Robin, Gordon Chan and actor Simon Yam in his directorial debut. Part 1 opens in July and Part 2 will be hot on its heals in August. Part 1 synopsis: One chilly night, Chu meets an uncommon client, a pretty 20-ish girl who pays her to curse 4 villains without knowing their names. Mysteriously, with each cursing ceremony performed delivers a gruesome death of a victim. When it comes to the last victim, or villain, it also unfolds a chilling, intolerable secret. Dark Side poster Dark Side teaser trailer

Traviata et Nous Philippe Beziat - 2012 Distrib Films Well, yes, I'm finding myself outside my usual zones here, as I don't cover many documentaries, much less one about the making of an opera. I would have felt less like an outsider had this documentary flashed the names of the principle artists who appear here. Most people will be able to figure out that Natalie Dessay is the main performer who we see mostly in rehearsal, and that Jean-Francois Sivadier is the director, and that the guy addressed as Ludovic is Ludovic Tezier. Those with little or no familiarity with those currently working in opera are left in the dark. What I did like is that, even fleetingly, Beziat acknowledges some of the behind the scenes people that make up a production. Several of the opening shots are of a workshop, with rows of paint buckets and brushes. A pair of craftsmen repair a chandelier first seen illuminated, hanging from a tree. While Dessay is rehearsing, a young woman is sweeping the floor. One woman is cutting cloth, later seen as part of the costume of a chorus of gypsies. The original French title is a bit puzzling. Translated as "Traviata and us", who is "us"? Even a little bit of geographic context might have helped in letting the audience know that there is an international crew working in Aix-en-Provence, France, on a 19th Centry Italian opera produced in a contemporary setting. There are suggestions that Dessay finds her role at Violetta challenging, to the point where she'll grab any opportunity not to rehearse. For someone like myself, there are more questions than answers as to what makes the role of Violetta difficult, and does Sivadier's putting the opera in modern dress make Verdi any more meaningful to a contemporary audience? Some of the music should be familiar, even for those with the most casual acquaintance with opera of any kind. The story of La Traviata, while not mentioned in the film, would be known to those who've seen Greta Garbo coughing herself to death in Camille. Philippe Beziat makes some interesting choices so that we see some of the opera fragments in various stages of development, while the what we hear is one version of the performance. And there are, to be sure, some nice moments, particularly between Dessay and Sivadier, alternating between artistic alignment and moments of friction. There were times when I wish others, aside from one of the production assistants, had been addressing the camera about the opera and the artistic process involved. Were the viewer not kept at arms length for most of this documentary, this would have been more truly about La Traviata and "us".

Episodes of the new anime series K will debut on the same day in Japan and the US. Image courtesy of VIZ Media. © GoRA ? GoHands/k-project Action Series About a Psychic War Between Seven Kings to be Fully Developed for the North American Market Source: VIZ Media, MediaLab press releases Official Site: k-project.jpn.com (Japan), vizanime.com/k (US) Special Thanks to Jane Lui and Erik Jansen VIZ Media, LLC, the largest publisher, distributor and licensor of manga and anime in North America, continues to expand its range of anime offerings for 2013 as it announces that it has become the North American master licensee for the anime series -- K (2012). VIZ Media will manage the domestic home video, television rights, and online rights and distribution, as well as oversee the licensing and development of a range of new products and collectables based on the property. Continued...

Paradoxocracy (???????????, Prachathipatai), Pen-ek Ratanaruang's documentary of Thailand's modern political history, is set for release at the end of next month. According to the movie's Facebook page, it'll get a limited run at Paragon Cineplex and Esplanade Cineplex Ratchada in Bangkok from June 24 to July 3. A pet project of Pen-ek's, Paradoxocracy was cleared by censors early in the year and was set for release in February. However, it ended up being delayed, with the blame at first attributed to "technical problems" but Pen-ek later admitted he'd encountered difficulties in finding a venue to screen it. Featuring a mix of archive footage and talking-head interviews with academics, Paradoxocracy covers such topics as the switch from absolute monarchy to constitutional monarchy in the 1930s and the violent political protests of the 1970s to the rise in political power of populist telecommunications tycoon Thaksin Shinawatra. A trailer is available on Facebook, and it's embedded below. ATTENTION: This is a post from Wise Kwai's Thai Film Journal. The url for the source blog is http://thaifilmjournal.blogspot.com. If you're seeing this post anywhere besides your personal feed reader or a couple of social-networking sites, then it might be being misused against the spirit in which it is made freely available.

A 30-second trailer for Nigerian-born tarento Bobby Ologun’s Moon Dream has been uploaded to the Movie Collection channel on YouTube. In addition to directing and starring in the film, Ologun also wrote the screenplay, which is based on his own experiences as a young foreigner coming to Japan for the first time. When he arrives, he meets other foreigners struggling to make it in Tokyo as well as various Japanese people, leading to relationships that transcend racial and cultural differences....

This is old, the beginning of the month of May 2013 old. It won’t be in Khun Chai Puttipat, we have to wait a few more weeks for this scene of James Jirayu giving Bella Ranee Campen a kiss in the last installment of the Gentlemen series in  ’Khun Chai Ronnapee’ with James Ma and Mint Chalida. It’s the last scene of the series where James Ma marries Mint Chalida with all his brothers and sister-in-laws present. At this point, Krong Kaew and Khun Chai Puttipat are happily married. She is wearing pink as one of the bridesmaid for her youngest brother-in-law’s wedding. In one scene, she gets a kiss from her husband. A real kiss between two people who unconditionally love each other. It’s well documented Bella and are close friends on set. They are playful together, she is seen in this clip bending his hands and then massaging him. The kiss that took several takes and it was a real kiss. Bella massaging James

Modestep is a four-piece bass orientated band from London who are quickly rising to the top of every music lovers’ playlist. Armed with over a half a million fans total on social media, and selling out concerts worldwide, we are very honored to have one of the members of this iconic band. Enter Nick Tsang, since turning professional in 2004, Nick has already toured extensively throughout the UK and internationally, plus amassing a wealth of session, touring, recording, and songwriting credits. We sit down and talk about his overwhelming success, playing at Coachella, Asian films, and more! Read below for the full Q&A… Would it be accurate to say there aren’t too many Asian musicians in the dubstep scene? How did you find yourself in the place you’re in now? Did you have aspirations growing up as a child? Nick: I can’t speak world wide because I am sure there are Dubstep musicians in the far east, but I have to say I haven’t met many Asian Musicians in the Dubstep scene in UK and US. The only guys I know of are xKore and one of the members of the band Subsource. My last band was the Ting Tings, and when that finished a friend called me and asked if I was interested to meet a band that he was working with called Modestep. I went to meet the guys and we clicked from the start. The day after we met they asked me to join the band and three days later I was was performing my first show with them at Download festival. To be honest I never knew what I wanted to be growing up, but I knew I loved music. I was a bit of a failure academically so I thought I might as well pursue my passion. So here I am still with my six strings. Bit of a joke really! http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Bparw9Jo3dk What have you learned so far during your North American tour. Did you guys have any expectations from performing in the U.S. for the first time? Nick: I’ve learnt that there is a huge difference in the Dub step scene in UK and the States. In UK, the people who come to dubstep shows generally are ghetto boys with new era caps and their hoods up. Its a very grimey and dark scene. In US its a rave thing. Everyone turns up in UV glow paint, glow sticks, juggling toys and bright pick tutus. Because of the big delay with the release of our album, I thought that the US would have forgotten about us. So it was pretty crazy to have sell out shows on our first ever US tour. You most recently hit Coachella. What was that experience like? Nick: Coachella was mind-blowing. We have been on the road for about two and a half months performing nearly everyday. Because of the routine of it, we felt like we had conquered the stage nerves. Coachella knocked the nerves right back into us! As soon as we saw the crowd that we were about to step in front of, we all shat our pants! The whole energy of the crowd, and the stage production got us all amped up more than any other of the US shows we had done. Hopefully our nervous energy translated into a good performance on stage. There are lots of styles and sounds in your music like dubstep, rock, and other various musical elements. Since joining the band what unique attributes have you contributed to the sound of Modestep? Nick: I guess I introduced guitars and help bring the rock element to the Modestep sound. oh and the asian factor obviously. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-qpUChC6iU4 And how did that carry over into your new album ‘Evolution Theory’? What was the creative process like on that LP? Nick: In the songs written before I joined such as Up, Bite the hand and Feel Good, there were little or no guitars on the recordings. Within the two day I met the boys, I was straight into laying guitars for ‘To the Stars’ and since then, we have recorded guitars for every track. The most guitar dominated track is ‘Freedom’, where you can probably hear my Rage Against the Machine influence creeping in. For the creative process of the LP, all the band m

Godzilla 2000 is a 1999 Japanese kaiju film directed by Takao Okawara and written by Hiroshi Kashiwabara. It was the twenty-third film released in the Godzilla series and only one to feature Orga a kind of weird thing I don’t know how to describe. I don’t really like this one, it doesn’t do anything other movies haven’t done better and it doesn’t add anything new to the series. Remember the neatness of the 80’s series how they all flowed into one story? Well this film is the first official movie in the millennium series whose continuity is all over the place. The millennium series unlike the Hesei series ignores continuity established by any previous Godzilla films except for the first one. But a few of them share continuity with a few other Toho features. It’s a mess. Godzilla 2000 is the last in the Godzilla series to make a North American theatrical run until the upcoming one in 2014. Godzilla is a force of destruction to Japan (what else is new right?). The Godzilla Prediction Network studies the mutant dinosaur and predicts his landfalls. Meanwhile, the scientists of Crisis Control Intelligence find a sixty million year old UFO deep in the Japan Trench. As CCI attempts to raise the UFO to study it, it takes off into the sky on its own. Godzilla arrives and battles the Japan Self Defense Forces in just about the only worthwhile scene, but the UFO appears, searching for genetic information that only Godzilla possesses. It fights Godzilla to a standstill, driving the monster underwater, and then lands to replenish its solar power. Yawn. The founder of the GPN discovers the secret to Godzilla’s regenerative properties but so has the UFO. Which has begun to drain all the files about Godzilla from Tokyo’s master computers. The rest of the film is an incredibly drawn out scene where Orga appears monsters lamely fight and the two scientists groups argue. The story is extraordinarily boring. I am not sure how the 1998 film gets so much hate but this one is relatively unknown. It’s slowly paced, drawn out, confusing, and all around not fun to watch. This was the first Toho flick to use an abundance of CGI and it looks so out of place. There is a scene where Godzilla swims underwater and it looks like it was thrown together in 5 minutes with Photoshop. Orga’s space ship looks like a giant brown nut and when it flies its very laughable. Orga himself looks ok as does Godzilla when they are both not CGI of course. But none of the sets feel real there is never any sense of dread except for a scene near the beginning that has the GPN being chased through a tunnel. None of the characters are memorable, I don’t even know if they gave many of them names. There are a lot of random slap stick scenes that pad the run time with nonsense. Did I mention there is nothing interesting happening in this movie? So on top of not being invested the audience is just left bored. I remember seeing this movie in theaters and being left really confused because I genuinely thought I was walking into a sequel to the movie I had enjoyed a few years earlier although to be fair the first time I saw it was the last day of my summer vacation at the time so it has always left a bad taste in my mouth. I don’t think this one is worth your investment despite it having one of the last original monsters.

Cover art for Pokémon Adventures: Black & White and Pokémon Adventures: Diamond and Pearl/Platinum. Images courtesy of VIZ Media. © 2013 Pokémon. © 2011 Pokémon. © 1995-2011 Nintendo/Creatures Inc./GAME FREAK inc. POCKET MONSTER SPECIAL © 1997 Hidenori KUSAKA, Satoshi YAMAMOTO/SHOGAKUKAN VIZ Kids Launches Popular Series in the Important British and Irish Markets Source: VIZ Media, MediaLab press releases Official Site: VIZ.com/Pokemon Special Thanks to Jane Lui and Erik Jansen VIZ Media, LLC brings the fun and adventure of the popular Pokémon manga franchise to the United Kingdom and Ireland for the first time. Simon & Schuster U.K. is the official distributor of VIZ Media titles in the United Kingdom and Ireland. Several Pokémon manga series are scheduled for release under the company’s VIZ Kids imprint and kicks off with the U.K. debut of Pokémon Adventures: Black & White, now available. The series is rated ‘A’ for All Ages and will carry an RRP of £3.99. VIZ Media plans to follow this title with the debut of Pokémon Adventures: Diamond and Pearl/Platinum on June 6th and will launch the Pokémon Adventures: Heartgold and Soulsilver series later this Autumn. Continued...