By Ada Tseng
An Oscar First For Indian Cinema
For the first time ever in Academy Awards history, two films by Indian filmmakers have been entered into the Best Foreign film race -- one from India and one from Canada.
India's official entry is Rakeysh Omprakash Mehra's Rang De Basanti, a generational film about the youth of modern India. The story follows a London-based filmmaker who goes back to India to make a documentary about Indian revolutionaries, after coming across her grandfather's diaries about his work in the police force. After news of the nomination broke out, Rang De Basanti producers decided that they wanted their film to have a presence outside of India. After hiring a publicist from the West, they have decided to re-release an edited version of RDB in US theaters, hoping that this will create hype among American audiences and Oscar jurors. Unfortunately, this means cutting the film from its original two hours and forty-two minutes to a more mainstream-friendly two hours and fifteen minutes. Viewers who would rather see the original version can get a hold of the DVD in specialty stores or online. The film looks to compete in seven other categories: Direction, Cinematography, Screenplay, Editing, Art Direction and Sound Design.
The second film is Deepta Mehta's Water, Canada's official submission. The controversial movie is the third film of the trilogy that includes Mehta's previous films Fire and Earth. Water revolves around Indian widows in the 1930s who are labeled worthless. Specifically, it follows the life of an eight-year-old widow Chuyia, who is sent to a home where Hindu widows must live in penitence. The production was halted when protestors who believed she represented India in a bad light got note of their location and burned down their set. Faced with their location license revoked by the Indian government as well as personal harassment and threats from fundamentalist groups, Mehta had to fight and find her own way to complete her film. Five years later, the film was released and met with generally positive critical acclaim. It will be released in India this November.
Rang De Basanti official site: http://www.rangdebasanti.net/
Water official site (Canada): http://water.mahiram.com/
Water official site (US): http://www2.foxsearchlight.com/water/
APA review of Water
Curse, Banquet Enter Oscars
China and Hong Kong have announced their movie entries for 2007's Academy Awards. A committee set up by China's Film Bureau chose Zhang Yimou's Curse of the Golden Flower to represent the country in Oscar's best foreign film race. The movie is an ill-fated romance which revolves around ancient China's imperial politics. It stars Hong Kong actor Chow Yun-fat, Gong Li, and Taiwanese pop star Jay Chou. The Federation of Motion Film Producers of Hong Kong, on the other hand, has chosen to enter Feng Xiaogang's The Banquet, a story of desire, destiny, and vindictive vendetta set in 10th century China. The movie is a loose adaptation of the Shakespearian tragedy Hamlet, and stars popular Chinese import Zhang Ziyi. The cast is almost completely consisting of mainland actors, it's in Mandarin, and the director is one of the most popular directors in China, but Hong Kong is claiming it, because it's a Hong Kong-China co-production. --Queenie Pang
The Curse of the Golden Flower official site: http://www.sonyclassics.com/curseofthegoldenflower/
The Banquet official site: http://www.thebanquetthemovie.com/
And the Vietnamese Nominee is...
Ngo Quang Hai's directorial film debut, Pao's Story (Chuyen Cua Pao), was Vietnam's official selection this year. The film stars Do Thi Hai Yen, known for her role in Philip Noyce's The Quiet American. Hai Yen also happpens to be the director's wife. She plays a Hmong tribe girl named Pao, who had been abandoned by her mother and raised by a stepmother. After her stepmother dies, Pao goes on a journey to find her birth mother and secrets may or may not be revealed. Pao's Story has already garnered awards in the categories for Best Film, Best Actress, Best Supporting Actress, and Best Cinematography during the Vietnam Cinematography Association's 2005 Golden Kite awards. This is only the second Vietnamese film, after Mua Len Trau (Buffalo Boy), to be submitted to the Oscars.
South Korea and their Kings and Clowns
Jun-ik Lee's The King and the Clown (Wang-ui namja) beat out Bong Joon-ho's The Host and Kim Ki-duk's Time to become this year's South Korean submission for the Oscars. A phenomenal hit this year, collecting over $85,000,000 in ticket sales, The King and the Clown became the highest grossing film in South Korean history -- until this summer when The Host overcame its record. In fact, it was reported that one out of every four South Koreans saw it in theaters. Set in the Chosun Kingdom, the surprise hit is based on a fictional play Yi, written in 2000, inspired by a brief mention in King Yonsan's diary about his favorite clown. From there blossomed a story about a male clown Kong-gil (Lee Jun-gi) caught between the affection of his tyrannical king (Jeong Jin-young) and his fellow performer/clown leader Jang-seang (Gam Woo Sung). The gay tensions are apparent but subtle (only one kiss from the king and clown), but the enthusiasm and verbal sparring especially between the two clowns have been praised for being full of fun, energy, and jealousy. The movie is significant because despite being only two years ago that the South Korean government removed homosexuality from a list of "socially unacceptable sexual acts," Korean audiences seem to have embraced the film. Even President Roh Moo-hyun has seen it. Yet, in America, President Bush has yet to watch Brokeback... Nice.
Official King and Clown site: http://www.kingsman.co.kr/
Blue Cha Cha for Taiwan
Not that this year's competition was especially fierce, but Taiwan has decided to go with Cheng Wen-tang's Blue Cha Cha, which is good news for a film that might not have otherwise gotten an international audience. Chen had previously won Best New Director at Venice in 2002, and he further demonstrates his aptitude with this film about a woman who had just been released from prison who goes through her life feeling isolated and tormented, struggling to readjust to society. The film stars Taiwanese actors Leon Dai, singer Tarcy Su, and Yi-Ching Lu from The Wayward Cloud.
Official Blue Cha Cha site: http://www.pts.org.tw/~web02/bluechacha/
APA's Blue Cha Cha review
Japan's Hula Girls
Based on a true story, Lee Sang-il's Hula Girls just recently had its world premiere in Toronto, but managed to quickly snap up Japan's Oscar nomination. Sang-il, born in Korea and raised in Japan, made a film about the Joban mining community in the 1960s. The demand for coal has dropped, and they are risking layoffs and shutdowns. It's the women who come up with the idea of creating the Hawaiian Center in attempts improve their economy. To lure tourists, they learned how to hula dance and express the ancient Hawaiian language of love and prosperity. The film stars Yasuko Matsuyuki and Yu Aoi as a strict teacher from Tokyo and her prize student.
Official Hula Girls site: http://www.hula-girl.jp/index2.html
Philippines Blossoming
The Blossoming of Maximo Oliveros (Ang Pagdadalaga Ni Maximo Oliveros) was the official entry for the Philippines. This is director Auraeus Solito's debut feature. Shot on digital, the film takes place in the underworld of Manila and stars Nathan Lopez as a Maxi, a twelve-year-old boy who plays the feminine caretaking role to his thieving family after their mother dies. He falls for a handsome rookie cop, played by JR Valentin. Blossoming has had an impressive festival circuit run, winning numerous awards, including the International Jury Prize at the Berlin International Film Festival, the Jury Prize at Rotterdam, and Best Picture, Actor (for Lopez), and the Audience Award at Las Palmas de Gran Conoria.
Official Blossoming site: http://www.blossomingofmaximooliveros.com/
APA's Blossoming review
And Last But Not Least, Thailand's Selection
For their Oscar nominee, Thailand had chosen Invisible Waves, Pen-ek Ratanaruang's crime suspense thriller. However, the film was denied submission and replaced with Kittikorn Leosakun's Ahimsa: Stop to Run. The surprise switch caused a bit of confusion and controversy, over whether Invisible Waves was denied, or whether the country had announced the candidate before it was actually official. Either way, studio executives who have already began marketing Invisible Waves as the Thailand Oscar submission are irritated, to say the least.
Ahimsa: Stop to Run has had people raving about its creativity. It follows a young man named Karma who is tormented by visions of his future. The filmmakers personify the concept of Karma in attempt to translate Buddhist philosophies and thought-provoking ideas to a teenage audience. Previously, Leosakun had received a Thai National Film Association award for the film The Goal Club. Invisible Waves stars Tadanobu Asano and it's graced with the masterful cinematography skills of Christopher Doyle. Invisible Waves tells the story about a chef who accidentally kills his lover and flees Macao for Thailand, where he is tormented by his own guilt. The film opened the Bangkok International Film Fesival earlier this year. No Thailand film has ever made it onto the final five foreign language film nominations, but two other Pen-ek films, Monrak Transistor and Last Life in the Universe (also starring Tadanobu Asano), have been submitted in the past.
Official Invisible Waves site: http://www.invisiblewaves.com/
As of October 11, 2006, still waiting on: Singapore, Mongolia, and Indonesia.
Filipino Film Wins Award in Vancouver
John Torres' debut Todo Todo Teros picked up the Dragons and Tigers Award for Young Cinema at the Vancouver International Film festival earlier this month. The award, given to a film in the Asia-Pacific category, is typically presented for a first or second feature. Todo Todo Teros, which was made with a digital camera, tells the story of an artist that wakes up one day to discover that he is a terrorist. Torres weaves together pre-existing footage of musicians and artists with an introspective voiceover and transforms it into a story about Filipino counterculture, life under political conditions, and how we terrorize the ones we love. His innovative method of storytelling has made quite an impression, as the film also won an award from the International Federatio of Film Critics at the Singapore Film Festival. Previously, Torres received the 2005 Ishmael Bernal Award for Young Cinema at the Cinemanila Film Festival for his short film Salat.
Another Season of Rain
With a fourth album coming out, Rain is starting a new tour, aptly titled "Rain Coming," beginning in Seoul October 13th. Rain is one of the biggest K-pop stars today, bringing in fans from all over Asia and the rest of the world. He has also graced television screens in the popular TV drama Full House. For his show, he has hired stage director Jaime King, who's worked with the likes of Madonna, Britney, and Christina, to make it a grand spectacle. His tour is expected to span 35 cities in 12 countries - from the US to Singapore, Malaysia, Indonesia, Hong Kong, Taiwan, Japan, China, Thailand, Vietnam and the Philippines. He has just completed work in Park Chan-wook's new movie Cyborg Girl and is recording an English language album to be released in the US in the 2007. His performance at Madison Square Garden attraced the likes of P Diddy and Omarion. In fact, there are rumors of a duet with Omarion, who he met through his producer Jin-young Park (who wrote a song for Omarion's album.) Recently, he shot a Pepsi commercial with Christina Aguilera. He also has a deal with Ralph Lauren to be their public relations ambassador. Does he have enough crossover appeal? Westerm audiences may be hearing a lot more Rain in the future.
Official Rain concert site: www.rainworldtour.com
Shall We Dance Director Back Again
And this time, Masayuki Suo is making a completely different film entitled Soredemo Boku wa Yattenai (But I Still Did Not Do It). This is Suo's first film in ten years since his critically acclaimed hit, which was later turned into the Hollywood Richard Gere-Jennifer Lopez-Susan Sarandon remake. Soredemo is a court room drama revolving around a young innocent man who has been falsely charged for molestion. The idea was born through research that Suo was doing about the Japanese legal system and his anger about the various problems with the system. The cast boasts such stars as Ryo Kase, Koji Yakusho from Shall We Dance, Asaka Seto, and Masako Mottai. The film is slated to be released early next year.
Japanese official site: http://www.soreboku.jp/
Death of an Indian Film Star
Padmini Ramachandran, 74, died of a heart attack on September 25th in Chennai, India. Ramachandran was admired for both her acting and dancing talents. Having made over 250 movies in several languages (most notably in Tamil, but also in Malayalam, Hindi, Telugu and Kannada), she was most known for her skills in Bharata Natyam, a classical Southern Indian dance form, as well as her influence over the pseudoclassical dance style that we often see in Indian cinema. She may be most remembered for her roles in Thillana Mohanambai, Mera Naam Joker and Jis Desh Mein Ganga Behti Hai. In the latter two, she starred with legendary Bollywood actor Raj Kapoor, but she was also often paired with Sivaji Ganesan and MG Ramachandran. After Ramachandran retired from film in 1970, she moved with her husband to the States where she started a dance academy in New Jersey, called the Padmini Insitute of Fine Arts. Today, it's one of the largest Indian classical dance institutions in the US. In addition to her influence in entertainment, Ramachandran was also a member of the Indian Congress.
Back After Two Year Break
Fans who have been missing the ballads of singer Shin Seung Hun will be happy with his new disc and 10th abum, The Romanticist, which experiments with bossa nova, tango, gospel, swing, and jazz. Shin began his career in 1990, and has sold over 14 million records, with hits such as Poiji Annun Sarang and Kuh. He will launch his new tour "The Shin Seung-hun Show-Color of Romance" on October 14th, where he will travel from Korea to Japan and China. In the fall, he will perform in four cities in the US, and is in talks to perform in Carnegie Hall.
Japan's official site: http://www.shinseunghun.jp/
New Jia Zhangke Project
During the Chinese premiere of his film Still Life, which recently won the Golden Lion Award at Venice, Jia Zhangke announced that his next project is based on a novel by Su Tong called Ci Qing Shi Dai (The Age of Tattoo.) The story is about a group of street kids during the final years of China's Cultural Revolution. Zhao Tao, who the director often works with, has been cast as the lead, and they are in talks with Jay Chou to star as the older brother in the film. Su Tong is the writer of the acclaimed novels Jasmine Women and Raise the Red Lanterns, the latter which was made into film directed by Zhang Yimou. Jia says he is still unsatisfied with the script, but he is still interested in exploring the small personal stories of pain that take place during social and political unrest.
APA review of Jia Zhangke's The World