Cannes

[GeneChing]

Seeing as we discuss Asian Film Festivals (http://ezine.kungfumagazine.com/forum/showthread.php?t=48392), and given DF's post on Vengeance (http://ezine.kungfumagazine.com/forum/showthread.php?t=53842) this year, it's time we got a thread devoted strictly to Cannes.


China's Shu Qi among Cannes Jury (http://english.cri.cn/6666/2009/04/24/1261s478246.htm)
Chinese film star Shu Qi will have a say in deciding this year's winner of the world's biggest film festival.

The Taiwan-born actress is part of the eight-member jury panel that was announced on Thursday by the 62nd Cannes International Film Festival.

French actress Isabelle Huppert, a two-time best actress award winner at Cannes, will lead the panel. Other jury members include Italian actress, director and screenwriter Asia Argento; Nuri Bilge Ceylan, a Turkish director, screenwriter and actor; Lee Chang-dong, a director from South Korea; American director James Gray; British writer Hanif Kureishi; and Robin Wright Penn, an American actress.

The jury will decide the winner for the coveted Golden Palm, the top prize of the Cannes festival.

This will not be Shu Qi's first appearance in Cannes. She was there in 2005, when her film "Three Times", directed by Hou Hsiao-hsien, was nominated for that year's Golden Palm.

Besides Shu Qi, actress Zhang Ziyi is another Chinese judge at this year's festival. Zhang is among the five-member jury that will select the winner of the award for best short film.

The festival runs May 13-24.

[Shaolinlueb]

shu qi is award winning actress. :rolleyes:

but she looks hot naked :D

[GeneChing]

Werewolf Erotica and Kung Fu Cyborg (http://ezine.kungfumagazine.com/forum/showthread.php?t=52668) sound good. ;)

Asian films a powerful presence in Cannes (http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2009/05/22/MVBM17NP6U.DTL&hw=cannes&sn=003&sc=399)
Jill Lawson, Associated Press
Friday, May 22, 2009

(05-22) 04:00 PDT Cannes, France -- Asian movies, once a rarity in Cannes, are lighting up the film festival this year.

Six of 20 films competing for the top prize at this year's fest are from Asian filmmakers, offering everything from troubled gay lovers to a vengeful father to a vampire priest.

Palme d'Or contenders include romantic tragedy "Spring Fever," by China's Lou Ye; vampire morality tale "Thirst" by South Korea's Park Chan-wook; and revenge thriller "Vengeance" by Hong Kong's Johnnie To.

Other Asian films competing for the prize are graphic crime shocker "Kinatay" by Brillante Mendoza of the Philippines, and "Visage," the story of a Taiwanese director trying to make a movie in Paris, by Taiwan's Tsai Ming-Liang. Taiwan-born Ang Lee, who brought "The Ice Storm" to Cannes in 1997, is back with U.S.-set hippie homage "Taking Woodstock."

"Thirty or 40 years ago the Asian presence was not so important," said festival director Thierry Frémaux. "Little by little, step by step in recent years, we have opened the festival to Asia - not only Japan, but China, Hong Kong, Thailand, the Philippines.

Only a handful of Asian directors have won the top prize in Cannes' 62-year history, almost all of them Japanese. Just over half this year's competition films are by Europeans, and just one by an American - Quentin Tarantino's "Inglourious Basterds."

Many observers credit inventive Japanese horror films like 1998's "Ring" - remade in Hollywood with Naomi Watts a few years later - with whetting the international appetite for Asian cinema and encouraging Asian filmmakers to seek an international audience.

That's reflected in a slew of Asian genre movies, with titles like "Werewolf Erotica" and "Kung Fu Cyborg," hoping to find buyers in the Cannes market, where hundreds of films from around the world are bought and sold.

Park's metaphysical monster movie "Thirst" was made with the backing of Hollywood studio Universal Pictures - a first for a Korean film.

"The world is discovering that the Asian film community is producing good films, and their reaction has been positive," said Park, whose previous films include bloody chiller "Oldboy."

"In turn, these positive reactions are helping the Asian film community produce better and better films."

[Jimbo]

I'd be esp. interested in seeing Thirst and Werewolf Erotica. I'm curious if a story about werewolves will be done well in Asian cinema. So far, the very few depictions of werewolves I've seen in Asian films (1 Japanese and 1 Phillipines film) were very poor.

It's great to see that acceptance of Asian cinema is growing at Cannes.

[doug maverick]

from what im hearing from friends over there is that inglorious basterds, tarrintino's new flick, sucks....thats sad, QT is slipping or maybe he never really had it. heard good things about thirst...nothing on the werewolf thing thou.

[GeneChing]

What a dress! I'm not really a fan of Z but that dress might convert me.
Cannes Closing Night (http://english.cri.cn/6666/2009/05/25/1261s487408.htm) click for pix

Also Park Chan-wook's "Thirst" won the Jury Prize, posted in our vampire thread (http://ezine.kungfumagazine.com/forum/showpost.php?p=936978&postcount=21).

[Shaolinlueb]

from what im hearing from friends over there is that inglorious basterds, tarrintino's new flick, sucks....thats sad, QT is slipping or maybe he never really had it. heard good things about thirst...nothing on the werewolf thing thou.

im going with NEVER REALLY HAD IT!!!!

HA, QT he has made 100% garbage.

[doug maverick]

im going with NEVER REALLY HAD IT!!!!

HA, QT he has made 100% garbage.

anybody who has ever seen jackie brown cant really say that. and kill bill vol 1 was good too.

[Shaolinlueb]

anybody who has ever seen jackie brown cant really say that. and kill bill vol 1 was good too.

KB volume 1 was good. that is the only movie i can watch. have not had a chance to see jackie brown yet. but i will check it out because you said so.

[Jimbo]

Kill Bill Vol. 1 and Jackie Brown are his best, and quite good, IMO. I thought Reservoir Dogs and Pulp Fiction were just okay; I can see how so many people liked them, but I didn't really. And I know that Death Proof is a bad movie, but I kinda enjoyed the last 20 minutes or so of it. But overall, I really don't like QT (or should I say, his work). Too self-indulgent and wants to put his name on everything.

[doug maverick]

well i dont know about put his name on everything. the only credit he usually gets is as director and sometimes producer...if you want to look at someone who puts his name on everything look at QTs best buddy robert rodriguez. i mean even if he does do all of it, i mean got ****, **** you even gotta put your name on the catering..

[Shaolinlueb]

yeah but robert rodriguez makes movies i watch over and over. dusk till dawn, planet terror, sin city (2 and 3 coming out too btw), once upon a time in mexico, desperado, el mariachi, heck i enjoyed spy kids & shark boy and lavagirl 3-d too lol.

[GeneChing]

Anyone seen The Collector?

Cannes 2012: U.S. and Malaysia Duo Pact to Bring Martial Arts to Market (http://www.hollywoodreporter.com/news/cannes-2012-us-malaysia-martial-arts-collector-326033)
3:08 AM PDT 5/17/2012 by Stuart Kemp

http://www.hollywoodreporter.com/sites/default/files/2012/05/collector.jpg
The Collector
U.S. outfit Birch Tree Entertainment and Malaysia's Astro Shaw seal a deal to produce and distribute movies with James Lee's "The Collector" debuting at the Marche du Film.

CANNES - Buyers looking to chop up some martial arts fun are to be enticed by the latest American and Asian company alliance.

U.S. action film stable Birch Tree Entertainment and Malaysia's Astro Shaw production banner have inked a deal to produce and distribute a slate of martial arts action films.

Birch Tree will handle worldwide sales for Astro Shaw’s action films beginning with The Collector, Apokalips X and Crash through the deal.

The Collector unites director James Lee and martial arts stuntman Sunny Pang and marks its market debut during the Marche du Film alongside Apokalips X, a post-apocalyptic FX actioner, marking the action debut of director Mamat Khalid.

The two companies are in development on a further slate of martial arts action films with trio of titles to begin production in Malaysia in 2012.

Astro Shaw will produce with Birch Tree distributing.

"Malaysia has a strong tradition of action filmmaking and Birch Tree will ensure the world experiences this tradition,” said Birch Tree president and CEO Art Birzneck. “The production resources of Astro Shaw and Birch Tree’s experience and connections in the international action marketplace will make our companies an unstoppable team.”

“Astro Shaw looks forward to working with Birch Tree Entertainment to introduce our action films to the international marketplace. Our production team headed by Imillya Irwani will work closely with Art Birzneck to ensure that we provide the worldwide marketplace with high quality, high concept action films that appeal to the international audience,” added Astro Shaw vice president Gayatri Su-lin Pillai.

The aim of the pact is do feed the perceived global appetite for high concept, high quality action films with marital arts at the heart, with the companies pointing to the success of the Ong-Bak franchise, District B13 and most recently The Raid: Redemption.

[GeneChing]

See Jackie's retiring from action films comment at Cannes here. (http://ezine.kungfumagazine.com/forum/showthread.php?p=1170629#post1170629)

Also working it at Cannes:
Wu Dang (http://ezine.kungfumagazine.com/forum/showthread.php?p=1170640#post1170640)
Painted Skin 2 (http://ezine.kungfumagazine.com/forum/showthread.php?p=1170638#post1170638)


Jackie Chan and Fan Bingbing to Attend Cannes' Film China Night (http://www.chinesefilms.cn/141/2012/05/16/122s9443.htm)
2012-05-16 13:12:24 Chinese Films
http://www.chinesefilms.cn/mmsource/images/2012/05/16/2235143ce8264912be9a35c4ce759b51.jpg
Jackie Chan and Fan Bingbing cover magazine.

The Film China Night – co-hosted by CCTV-6 and the organizing committee of the 65th Cannes International Film Festival – will be held in France tomorrow. Some of China's biggest movie stars will be attending the event, according to a report on Xinhuanet.com.

Jackie Chan, Fan Bingbing, Zhou Xun and Gu Changwei are expected to be present at the film event, along with other popular Chinese actors such as Yang Mi, Tong Dawei and Feng Shaofeng.

With the rapid growth of the Chinese film industry, there is increasing demand in foreign film markets for more Chinese films. The Film China Night at Cannes has become a platform for the international promotion of China's domestic productions.

Two films from this year's event have caught the attention of international media: the action adventure film, "Fuchun Mountain," and "Painted Skin 2," a supernatural fantasy movie about a demon becoming human.

This year's Film China Night includes a fireworks display and traditional Chinese dance performances.

By Chen Nan

[GeneChing]

...this is mostly for the Z fans on our board. :)

Cannes 2012: Chinese Remake of 'Dangerous Liaisons' With Zhang Ziyi Sold to Multiple Territories (http://www.hollywoodreporter.com/news/cannes-2012-hur-jin-ho-zhang-ziyi-dangerous-liaisons-329643)
8:00 AM PDT 5/25/2012 by Stuart Kemp

http://www.hollywoodreporter.com/sites/default/files/2011/05/ziyi_primary.jpg
Zhang Ziyi
Francois Duran/Getty Images
Asian stars Zhang Ziyi, Jang Dong-gun, Cecilia Cheung, Shawn Dou and Lisa Lu star in the movie that had its world premiere in Directors' Fortnight in Cannes.

Hur Jin-ho's romantic thriller Dangerous Liaisons is selling well across Asia with multiple deals struck for the Chinese-backed movie.

Easternlight, the Asian arm of Arclight Films, inked the deals for the film whose cast reads like a who's who of global Asian talent including Zhang Ziyi (Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon), Jang Dong-gun (The Promise), Cecilia Cheung (Shaolin Soccer), Shawn Dou (The Flowers of War) and Lisa Lu (2012).

Hur's film moves the setting of the French literature classic to 1930s Shanghai. Stephen Frears directed the 1988 film version of Dangerous Liaisons, starring Glenn Close, John Malkovich and Michelle Pfeiffer and based on Christopher Hampton's stage adaptation of the book.

The new film, which had its world premiere in Directors' Fortnight during the Cannes Film Festival, is produced by Zonbo Media and will be distributed by Zonbo in China.

Global sales and finance banner Easternlight said the film has been sold to Shaw Media (Singapore), Logo (Thailand), PT Amero Mitra (Indonesia), Galaxy Studios (Vietnam)and San Chi (Taiwan).

Airline rights have been corralled by Entertainment in Motion, Easternlight said.

“With such an exciting and welcoming reception from audiences in Cannes that include buyers, media and the public alike, we are optimistic about the international commercial success of Dangerous Liaisons and look forward to what’s to come,” said Easternlight managing director Ying Ye.



Cannes deals aplenty for Asian distributors (http://www.filmbiz.asia/news/cannes-deals-aplenty-for-asian-distributors)
By Patrick Frater
Tue, 29 May 2012, 07:30 AM (HKT)
Sales News

South Korean sales agency Finecut licensed Cannes competition film In Another Country (pictured) to Kino Lorber for the US, Diaphana Distribution for France, Golem Distribucion for Spain, Strada Films for Greece and Cyprus, Bitters End for Japan, Providence Filmes for Brazil, and Mantarraya Producciones for Mexico. The film was directed by Cannes regular Hong Sang-soo.

Emperor Motion Pictures acquired Hunger Games 2 (from Lionsgate- Summit) for release in Hong Kong though its alliance with lark Films. It also pre-bought Mortal Instruments (Constantin Film, Sony Pictures Entertainment) and the Lasse Hallstrom-directed Swedish-lanbguage detective thriller The Hypnotist (Svensk Filmindustri).

IFC Midnight bought North American rights to the other Korean film in competition at Cannes, The Taste Of Money. The film is represented for international sales by Daisy Entertainment. "The Taste of Money is director Im Sang-soo's most decadent and sensual film yet, while also a smart commentary on the lives of the rich and famous," Jonathan Sehring, president of Sundance Selects/IFC Films.

Sydney- and LA-based Arclight Films sold Shadow People to Anchor Bay Films for North America, the UK and Australia/NZ. The supernatural thriller is the directorial debut of Matthew Arnold and was produced by Michael Ohoven's Infinity Films.

Easternlight, the Asian offshoot of Arclight, signed multiple deals on Dangerous Liaisons its Chinese remake of the French classic. It sold the film to Shaw Media for Singapore, Logo for Thailand, PT Amero Mitra for Indonesia, Galaxy Studios for Vietnam and San Chi for Taiwan. Airline rights were sold to Entertainment in Motion.

French-UK sales company Pathe International sold Denis Villeneuve's psychological thriller An Enemy, starring Jake Gyllenhaal and Isabella Rossellini to Thailand (M Pictures), South Korea (Noori), and Indonesia (PT Amero). Pathe sold Christophe Honore's Beauty and the Beast, starring Vincent Cassel, Léa Seydoux and Gérard Depardieu to South Korea (Unikorea) and Indonesia (PT Amero). Pathe's Sophie Marceau-starring romantic comedy Happiness Never Comes Alone was acquired by Hong Kong (Deltamac) and Thailand (M Pictures). Pathe also siged a deal with Japan's CCC for Omid Nooshin's thriller Last Passenger.

Sahamongkolfilm International scored a string of deals with its erotic drama Jan Dara (sourced from the same material as Nonzee Nimibutr's 2001 film of the same title). The ML Pantewanop Devakula-directed film was sold to Korea (Daisy & Cinergy), Hong Kong (Edko Films), Singapore (Clover Films), Taiwan (Applause) and the Philippines (Pioneer). It stars Rhatha Phongam (Only God Forgives), Mario Maurer and Japanese adult video performer Nishino Sho.

Asian-American thriller The Girl From the Naked Eye was sold by Naedomi Media to Archstone Distribution for North American theatrical release. The film is directed by David Ren and stars Jason Yee, Ron Yuan, Dominique Swain, Samantha Streets and Sasha Grey. it was written by Larry Madill, Ren and Yee. It is expected to be released in key cities through an arrangement with cinema giant AMC.

[GeneChing]

Well, we've let this thread slide, haven't we? :o


Sienna Miller, Sophie Marceau, Jake Gyllenhaal join Cannes jury (http://www.realitytvworld.com/news/sienna-miller-sophie-marceau-jake-gyllenhaal-join-cannes-jury-50138744.php)
UPI News Service, 04/22/2015

Sienna Miller, Sophie Marceau and Jake Gyllenhaal have been named to the 2015 Cannes Film Festival jury.

The 33-year-old English actress, 48-year-old French actress and 34-year-old American actor will serve alongside Spanish actress Rossy de Palma, Malian composer Rokia Traore, Spanish director Guillermo del Toro and Canadian director Xavier Dolan.

Directors Joel and Ethan Cohen will act as co-Presidents of the Jury at the 68th annual event, the first time two people have shared the position. The nine members of the jury will vote to decide the festival winners, culminating in the prestigious Palme d'Or award.

A Justin Kurzel adaptation of Macbeth starring Michael Fassbender, Gus Van Sant drama The Sea of Trees starring Matthew McConaughey and Taiwanese martial arts film The Assassin are among the films in competition. The Cannes Film Festival will run May 13 to 24.


I lost track of Assassin (http://www.kungfumagazine.com/forum/showthread.php?48362-Assassin). Must check it out now if it made Cannes.

[GeneChing]

The Assassin (http://www.kungfumagazine.com/forum/showthread.php?48362-The-Assassin&p=1283169#post1283169) & Warrior's Gate (http://www.kungfumagazine.com/forum/showthread.php?67413-Warrior-s-Gate&p=1283886#post1283886)

[GeneChing]

Jackie Chan's new project Railroad Tigers (http://www.kungfumagazine.com/forum/showthread.php?68652-Railroad-Tigers)

[GeneChing]

...Shu Qi. ;)


Chinese Actress Shu Qi Ruled the 2015 Cannes Closing Ceremony in Floral Elie Saab (http://www.bustle.com/articles/85574-chinese-actress-shu-qi-ruled-the-2015-cannes-closing-ceremony-in-floral-elie-saab)

ROSIE NARASAKI
@ROSIENARASAKI
9 DAYS AGO FASHION & BEAUTY

http://lovelace-media.imgix.net/getty/474615270.jpg?w=780&h=439&fit=crop&crop=faces&q=70
LOIC VENANCE/AFP/Getty Images
The premiere of La Glace Et Le Ciel/the Cannes Closing Ceremony was all kinds of fabulous — Sienna Miller made headlines in a balletic (dare I say Khaleesi-worthy) Gucci gown, while Alicia Vikander stunned in icy velvet Valentino — but Shu Qi may have had the best dress of all: The Chinese star wore delicately embellished Elie Saab, and boy did she make a statement. Butterfly-like petals adorned the bodice, and cascaded down the multi-colored skirt — oh, and she paired the showstopping gown with a simple slim belt, along with some truly fabulous bling (because what else do you wear to Cannes?).

Shu Qi was at Cannes promoting The Assassin, a beautifully-shot martial arts flick directed by Hou Hsiao-Hsien, in which she plays a 9th century woman trained to be an assassin by a nun (seriously, does it get any cooler than that? Oh, wait it does: Her character also happens to be on a mission to kill the governor — AKA her secret lover).

Suffice it to say, Shu Qi’s considerable film chops paired together with her equally-considerable fashion chops (did you see the Reem Acra she wore to the premiere of her film? How about the Alexander McQueen she wore to the photocall?) made for quite the successful week at Cannes, and she topped things off accordingly with a truly gorgeous Elie Saab showstopper. Let’s take a look!

http://lovelace-media.imgix.net/getty/474615286.jpg?w=780&fit=max&q=70
http://lovelace-media.imgix.net/getty/474615328.jpg?w=780&fit=max&q=70
http://lovelace-media.imgix.net/getty/474615236.jpg?w=780&fit=max&q=70
http://lovelace-media.imgix.net/getty/474615230.jpg?w=780&fit=max&q=70

Congratulations are in order: The Assassin picked up Cannes’ coveted best director award — and I think we can all agree that Shu Qi won the closing ceremony.

Images: Getty Images



Plus there's one more bit of Cannes news of note: Donnie Yen's next project Big Rescue (http://www.kungfumagazine.com/forum/showthread.php?68690-Big-Rescue)

[GeneChing]

2016 Cannes is on - official site (http://www.festival-cannes.fr/en.html)

We'll start with a Chinese Cannes darling, Zhang Yimou. :cool:


Zhang Yimou’s ‘Great’ Adventure (http://variety.com/2016/film/asia/zhang-yimous-great-adventure-1201771409/)
Vivienne Chow

https://pmcvariety.files.wordpress.com/2016/05/zhang-yimous-great-adventure-matt-damon.jpg?w=670&h=377&crop=1
Zhang Yimous Great Adventure Matt Damon AP IMAGES

MAY 11, 2016 | 09:44AM PT

At an age when most men might prefer to slow down, Zhang Yimou is set to take on a string of global-scale projects that will venture beyond cinema.

These projects aren’t just ambitious and lucrative for Zhang, according to China film observers. They’re also widely viewed as key projects capable of exporting China’s soft power and competing for high-profile accolades. The latter goal would seem to be well within reach of Zhang, a two-time Golden Lion winner at the prestigious Venice Film Festival.

The iconic Fifth Generation director is in post-production on “The Great Wall,” his first English-language film. With a budget of $135 million, it stars Matt Damon, Andy Lau and Zhang Hanyu.

Zhang previously enjoyed great box office success with his 2003 martial arts epic “Hero,” which raked in 250 million yuan ($41 million) in China — more than three times what he had expected — and $177 million worldwide. Afterward, “House of Flying Daggers” and “Curse of the Golden Flower” followed a similar formula of major box office success as well as enthusiasm from the world’s critics, especially “Daggers,” which grossed nearly $100 million worldwide and boasts a 95% Rotten Tomatoes rating.

But Zhang’s current large-scale productions also require the popular success that may have left some fans of his earlier, more artistically daring films wishing for a return to his auteur roots. But Zhang’s priorities are clear. “The ultimate purpose of a film is to enchant the audience. If it scoops up many awards, but attracts very few moviegoers, it is still a failure,” Zhang told UCLA’s Asia Pacific Arts.

Zhang’s upcoming projects also include directing the opening and closing ceremonies of the November G20 Summit in Hangzhou, China, and a new company, SoReal, which Zhang says will develop interactive games and possibly VR films.

Ma Fung-kwok, who was a producer of one of Zhang’s most acclaimed films, “The Story of Qiu Ju,” says as China grew into a world economic powerhouse, the country was in pressing need to “showcase its soft power.” Ma, now a politician, says, “Zhang’s strength in visuals can help bring the images of China to an international audience.”

[GeneChing]

Next up, from Sammo.


Cannes: Media Asia Sells 'Line Walker,' 'God of War' Across Asia (http://www.hollywoodreporter.com/news/cannes-media-asia-sells-line-893120)
6:03 AM PDT 5/12/2016 by Patrick Brzeski

http://cdn1.thr.com/sites/default/files/imagecache/landscape_928x523/2016/05/img_2748.jpg
"God of War"

Both films will open in mainland China this summer.

Hong Kong-based Media Asia has pre-sold two of its upcoming Chinese titles to several territories across Asia after debuting some footage from the films in Cannes.

Line Walker and God of War have sold to Sky Films in Taiwan, Clover Films in Singapore and MM2 in Malaysia.

God of War, a period action picture starring martial-arts maestro Sammo Hung, tells the story of 16th century Japanese pirates battling the Chinese army along the coast of the South China Sea.

Line Walker is a contemporary police thriller starring Francis Ng, Louis Koo and Nick Cheung.

Tentative Chinese release dates for Line Walker and God of War are the second week of August and the first week of October, respectively.

Additionally, Sky Films and Clover films picked up rights to Three, directed by Hong Kong's Johnnie To, and Trivisa, produced by To.

[GeneChing]

These news items coming out of Cannes right now are just the tip of the iceberg looming to sink the Hollywood Titanic...


Cannes: Travis Fimmel to Star in Peter Segal’s Chinese Sci-Fi Epic 'Inversion' (http://www.hollywoodreporter.com/news/travis-fimmel-star-inversion-893077)
1:23 AM PDT 5/12/2016 by Patrick Brzeski

http://cdn2.thr.com/sites/default/files/imagecache/landscape_928x523/2016/02/travis_fimmel.jpg
Travis Fimmel
Getty Images

Co-written by Oscar winner Paul Haggis, the film is the first project from Hong Kong/Beijing-based production venture Facing East.

Travis Fimmel is set to star in Peter Segal’s forthcoming sci-fi epic Inversion.

The project is the first feature from Facing East, the new Hong Kong/Beijing-based production venture launched by producers Markus Barmettler and Philip Lee.

Fimmel previously starred in History channel's historical drama Vikings, and can next be seen starring in Legendary Entertainment's Warcraft, which rolls out worldwide in June.

Said Segal: "I love Travis' portrayal as Ragnar, king of the Vikings. I needed my modern-day Peter O'Toole and I found him. A man who could play a character that can command a room and make you write a huge check, before you realized he was gone and you knew you were f—ed.”

Written by Paul Haggis (Casino Royale, Crash), David Arata (Children of Men, Spy Game) and Bragi Schut (Season of the Witch), Inversion follows a street-wise American con man, and a young Chinese physicist as they race against the clock to save the earth from a terrifying loss of gravity.

The film is being co-financed by Hong Kong based Pegasus Motion Pictures and Sun Entertainment. Huaxia Film Distribution will co-produce and will distribute in mainland China.

Principal photography is set to commence in Dublin on Sept. 12 before moving to locations in Shanghai and Chicago.

Mark Damon’s Foresight Unlimited is handling international sales for the project at the Cannes market.

[GeneChing]

Cannes. FTW.


SAVAGE DOG: Marko Zaror And Scott Adkins Are Reuniting! (http://twitchfilm.com/2016/05/savage-dog-marko-zaror-and-scott-adkins-are-reuniting.html)
Andrew Mack, Associate Editor, News

http://twitchfilm.com/assets/2016/05/Savage%20Dog%20sales%20art.jpg

As the saying goes, a picture is worth a thousand words, right? Well, this sales art from Cannes is all we have right now to let you know that Marko Zaror and Scott Adkins are reuniting for a new film from Jesse V. Johnson called Savage Dog. This reunion has been a long time coming since 2010’s Undisputed 3: Redemption.

So what is it about?

No idea.

When can we see it?

Well, it shoots this June, so, no idea.

Is there anything at all that you can tell us?

I mean, ****, Marko Zaror and Scott Adkins are in it. Is that not enough?

Keep typing, Nancy.

Well, the director Jesse V. Johnson, has been a long time stunt actor and coordinator in some pretty big Hollywood productions. Both The Amazing Spider-Man films, the first Thor film, all the way back to the original Total Recall in 1990. He's seen things.

Who is JuJu Chan?

Ah. Well she starred in Netflix's doomed Crouching Tiger Hidden Dragon sequel Sword of Destiny and a couple flicks produced by Roger Corman but do not hold that against her. It gets really interesting if you look past that. Check out these excerpts from her IMDB bio...
She is.. a Muay Thai (Thai Boxing) 46KG Champion in Hong Kong, and a Taekwon-Do Black Belt international championship medalist. She... represented Hong Kong in the 18th World Taekwon-Do ITF Championships and China Open Taekwon-Do Championships where she won a GOLD medal in Female black belt pattern and a BRONZE medal in Female black belt sparring competitions... was coined as the next Michelle Yeoh and Female Bruce Lee by the Hong Kong Media, she is the only female actress in Hong Kong who has mastered the nunchakus, including double nunchakus.

One word. Badass.

I mean, come on, that has to be enough to keep you all at bay for now. Once production starts hopefully we will have more to share with you.

Yesterday, 8:00 pm

[GeneChing]

What? No thread on one of my fav movies here? Maybe there is and because our forum censor censors h0m0, it won't pop out of of the search engine. :o

If anyone finds a previous one, post here and I'll merge.


Cannes: Taiwan's Alice Wang to Remake Akira Kurosawa's 'Ras****n' (Exclusive) (http://www.hollywoodreporter.com/news/cannes-taiwans-alice-wang-remake-893748)
11:14 AM PDT 5/13/2016 by Patrick Brzeski

http://cdn4.thr.com/sites/default/files/imagecache/portrait_300x450/2016/05/Ras****n_Still.jpg
Courtesy of Photofest

Wang's start-up film company, Datang International Entertainment, has signed additional deals in Cannes to produce two Chinese co-productions.

Taiwanese producer-director Alice Wang will helm a remake of Japanese auteur Akira Kurosawa's classic Ras****n.

Wang's start-up production and distribution company Datang International Entertainment will co-produce the picture with Japanese entertainment company DLE Japan.

Datang also closed deals in Cannes to co-produce two Chinese co-productions: action-comedy Fish Sword and musical romance Veteran and the Beauty. For Fish Sword Datang is partnering with producer Chun Han; the film will star Candy Wang and Junior Han. Veteran and the Beauty will also star Wang, along with Gary Tsao. Taiwan's John Su will produce.

In November, Datang entered into a strategic partnership with U.S.-based DesertRock Entertainment for a $100 million fund supporting a slate of six films for the global marketplace. Currently in pre-production through this partnership is the WWII action/adventure Six Days, based on the epic true story of U.S. Navy veteran Bill Harrison. Alice Wang and Mike Wech are producing with Tim Lowry directing.

“These strategic partnerships with DLE and DesertRock allow Datang to duplicate our successful business model in Taiwan on a global scale and expand our ability to become an international entertainment studio," said Wang.

Good luck with this, Ms. Wang. I am EXTREMELY skeptical that the original can be bested. :rolleyes:

[GeneChing]

Actress Gong Li irked by lack of Chinese films at Cannes (http://www.chron.com/entertainment/article/Actress-Gong-Li-irked-by-lack-of-Chinese-films-at-7467081.php)
Angela Chen, Associated Press Updated 12:39 pm, Friday, May 13, 2016

http://ww1.hdnux.com/photos/46/30/33/10061512/13/920x920.jpg
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Actress Gong Li arrives on the red carpet for the screening of the film Cafe Society and the Opening Ceremony at the 69th international film festival, Cannes, southern France, Wednesday, May 11, 2016. Photo: Joel Ryan, AP / AP
Photo: Joel Ryan, AP

CANNES, France (AP) — Actress Gong Li made a head-turning return to the red carpet at the Cannes Film Festival, but the "Memoirs of a Geisha" star said she's disappointed at the absence of Chinese films at the festival this year.
Not a single Chinese film is in competition, out of competition, or selected for any other category. Gong said she believes that's a sign of an industry that cares too deeply about the dollar sign.
"Of course this is about money," she said Wednesday. "We need to tell everyone that a movie is not merely for entertainment. It might leave you with something much deeper for your soul. It's not just for laughs, not just for jokes. It's more than that. There's not a lot of people talking about that in China right now."
The 50-year-old actress, who has previously starred in films in competition at Cannes and who has served as a jury member, this year is a guest of the french cosmetics brand L'Oreal, for which she's an ambassador.
With close to three decades in the business, Gong has worked extensively with Chinese director Zhang Yimou on films like "Ju Dou," ''Rise the Red Lantern" and "To Live." She also worked in Hollywood in the early 2000s, appearing in "Memoirs of a Geisha" and "Miami Vice."
When asked if a lack of roles for Asian actors has kept her from a larger Hollywood career, Gong said that the issue was less about ethnicity than gender.
"There are a lot of male roles, but not a lot of female roles. There are a lot of great actresses in the U.S. and there aren't enough roles for them. It's even hard for them to get a good female role, never mind a Chinese actress. How do you integrate that into the script? That's very hard. How do you mix a Chinese actor with a group of foreigners? It's not easy."

There may not be any Chinese films competing, but there's a lot of business deals going down with Chinese film this year, more than ever.

[GeneChing]

Cannes: Huayi Brothers CEO Outlines How Hollywood Can Make Hit Films for China's Audiences (http://www.hollywoodreporter.com/news/huayi-brothers-ceo-hollywood-hit-893697)
9:30 PM PDT 5/13/2016 by Patrick Brzeski

http://cdn5.thr.com/sites/default/files/imagecache/portrait_300x450/2016/05/jerry_ye_061a9618_p_2016.jpg
Jerry Ye
Jasper James

Beijing-based exec Jerry Ye tells THR of his partnership with STX and why the studios need more of "the Chinese dream."

Jerry Ye began his career in entertainment just as the Chinese box-office boom was beginning to go supernova. The 43-year-old executive joined Chinese property conglomerate Dalian Wanda Group in 2002. Under the tutelage of Wanda chairman Wang Jianlin, China’s richest man, Ye helped orchestrate the conglom’s diversification into the entertainment sector.

During Ye’s tenure as vp of Wanda’s Culture Industries Group, the subsidiary’s movie theater arm became China’s largest exhibitor, with more than 1,600 screens, accounting for as much as 14 percent of the country’s total annual box office. He also helped found Wanda’s production and distribution subsidiary, Wanda Pictures, in 2010.

After just five years, the cash-flush upstart studio co-produced and distributed China’s second and fourth highest-grossing movies of 2015, Mojin: The Lost Legend ($255.7 million) and Goodbye Mr. Loser ($226.1 million). Ye was a producer on both.

In March, Ye left Wanda to join Huayi Brothers, the influential Chinese studio established by Wang Zhongjun and Wang Zhonglei in 1994. Shortly before Cannes last year, Huayi Brothers signed an 18-film co-financing and distribution agreement with Robert Simonds’ STX Entertainment. As the new CEO of Huayi Brothers Pictures, Ye already has begun to deepen its international ties.

Ye invited THR to his Beijing office to discuss the rapid changes underway in the Chinese movie industry and why Hollywood will have to learn to tap “the Chinese dream” if it’s going to continue being successful there.

It’s been a little over a year since Huayi partnered with STX. What’s your take on how the partnership has progressed?

The cooperation has been great. Our strategy is to be an international entertainment company, and in my personal view, real cooperation between the States and China is exactly the future of this industry. The Chinese market has so much potential but we still lack the experience to make great global films. Hollywood has huge experience at doing this, because they have an industry that has been developing production and distribution mechanisms for many, many more years.

But, frankly, the U.S. market faces many challenges — from new media and changing behavior of young moviegoers. China is the engine of the future for world film, because our young people are crazy about watching big movies on the big screen. So, I have strong confidence in the future of our partnership. We will need each other.

Recently, some of your Chinese competitors have begun financing the big Hollywood studios. Bona Film Group invested $235 million in 20th Century Fox's slate, and Perfect World Pictures put $500 million into Universal. What was behind Huayi's strategy for partnering with a startup like STX instead of one of the big studios?

I've known Bob for a long time and he has a clear vision for his company and for their future, so STX is a good start because this company is also starting from scratch. It’s not so huge, like the studio guys. As we go international, we are starting from scratch, too. It's very important for Huayi to be able to engage in the whole process, from development to production to distribution, so that we can bring these mechanisms back to China. They also need direct and frank information about the China market at the start of that process, because this market is so important for them. It's a sincere, strong partnership. My team in L.A. is in direct contact with them on a daily basis.
Will you make other investments in Hollywood?

Of course, because as I said, this is how both sides will have a brighter future. We just have to find the right time and the right partner. But yes, we will. We are discussing many things. Huayi is a publicly traded company, so we have to wait to make announcements officially.

Tell us about the vision for your new animation division.

Last year, Monkey King: Hero Is Back broke the record for an animated film in China [$153 million]. This year, [DreamWorks Animation’s] Kung Fu Panda 3 set a new record [$154.3 million]. Then, [Disney’s] Zootopia broke the record again [$236 million]. So animation movies have had great success in China recently.

Do you know why?

I have some theories. … In China, “animation movie” means “family movie.” We have no rating system in China, so during holiday periods, animated movies are very important because parents know they are safe for young moviegoers. The whole family can go and have confidence that it’s a nice story. The Hollywood studios are doing very well with their animated movies here. We need to be doing this, too.

The second reason to invest in animation is, like I said, we want to be international. Animation is a very smart starting strategy. It’s very strange for American moviegoers to watch subtitles. Frankly, this is a huge challenge for us. With animation, this problem goes away. You just do a dub or reanimate in English. It’s a good starting point for introducing Chinese content to international audiences.

When you were at Wanda, you oversaw a massive expansion of its movie theater circuit across China. How are the demographics of smaller, provincial cities changing the theatrical market?

The fourth- and fifth-tier cities will keep the growth going for at least 10 more years. It’s a very positive resource for our industry. The age of most of our moviegoers is from 20 to 35 — very young. And they are very connected on social media, even though they live in smaller towns far from Beijing or Shanghai. You have to understand how fun and exciting going to the movies is for these guys. Their lives are changing very quickly. They want to feel connected to the cool, new things happening in the bigger cities. Going to the movies gives them this connection. A movie comes out at the same time everywhere, so they go on WeChat and join the conversation and discuss the movie, and they feel like they are part of it. It's a very big part of their lives.

Hollywood's box office share in China has been on the decline so far this year. It's been said that audiences in these increasingly important provincial regions of China strongly prefer local Chinese-language films over Hollywood imports.

Yes, that's exactly right. And they are the segment that is growing.

So some of the studios, such as Warner Bros., have begun making bigger investments in developing and producing Chinese-language films. What do they need to do to reach this audience?

They will need to learn from the Chinese market. You need to get to know these young people in small Chinese cities — how they live, what they care about. My hometown is a very small town; it’s a tier-five city, maybe even a tier-six city. These young guys there, they want a bright future, an exciting life. They all work really hard but they face fierce competition and they are under a lot of pressure. It’s difficult to get a good job in China now. They need to find someone to marry. And they also want to have fun and be cool! They need entertainment that’s for them.

Hollywood stories feel very far from their lives. They need Chinese superhero stories. They need stories about a small-town nobody who, totally by his own hard work, realizes his dreams and gets the girl and finds that happy future. It sounds like the American dream, right? Well, this is the Chinese dream, too.

How do you unwind?

I watch films! I'm usually very busy, always occupied by different meetings. Last week, I had just one day off and I went to see four films in the cinema. I saw The Jungle Book — amazing visual effects, by the way; this is what we need to learn from Hollywood — and three Chinese films. I'm very happy spending my whole day in the cinema.

Mojin: The Lost Legend (http://www.kungfumagazine.com/forum/showthread.php?69126-Mojin-The-Lost-Legend)
Goodbye Mr. Loser (http://www.kungfumagazine.com/forum/showthread.php?69015-Goodbye-Mr-Loser-%26%2322799%3B%26%2327931%3B%26%2329305%3B%26%2329 033%3B%26%2324817%3B)
Monkey King: Hero Is Back (http://www.kungfumagazine.com/forum/showthread.php?68844-Monkey-King-Hero-Is-Back)

[GeneChing]

China is buying up everything.


Cannes: China's Huashi TV Acquires Digital Rights to 71 Films (Exclusive) (http://www.hollywoodreporter.com/news/cannes-chinas-huashi-tv-acquires-894815)
9:13 AM PDT 5/17/2016 by Patrick Brzeski

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Cannes
Andreas Rentz/Getty Images

"Next year, we will probably buy hundreds of movies," says the company's vp of investment.

It's been a busy week on the Croisette for Chinese entertainment and media company Huashi TV. The company has scooped up mainland China's digital rights to some 71 U.S. and European films so far at the Cannes market.

"Our goal was to acquired 100, which we should reach sometime in the next few days," said Huashi TV's vp investment, Jo Zhang.

Among the titles picked up by the Chinese company is Gaumont's romantic comedy Up for Love, starring Jean Dujardin and currently on release in France.

The company also picked up 11 titles from Arri Media, four movies from Odin's Eye Entertainment, along with buying pictures from Angel Grace Worldwide, Lotus Media, Red Sea Media, Picture Tree, EastWest Film, Parkland Pictures and others.

Founded in 2010 by Chinese entrepreneur Chen Tongang, Huashi acquires digital media rights to Chinese and international film and TV titles — including local rights for DVD, VOD, SVOD, OTT, IPTV, etc. — and licenses the content to China's leading mobile and online platforms, such as Youku, Tencent, LeTV, Sohu and others.

Huashi previously acquired and managed the Chinese digital media rights to Stephen Chow's The Mermaid, the highest-grossing Chinese film ever, as well as Leonardo DiCaprio's Oscar winner The Revenant, which was co-financed by Chinese company Guangdong Alpha Animation and Culture.

"We bought the rights to Revenant from Alpha, but it's very expensive to buy from Chinese middlemen, so this year we decided to come to Cannes to buy films ourselves," said Zhang. "Next year, I will come back with a team of 10 staff and we will probably buy hundreds of films."

In August, Shenzhen-based electronics maker Jetsen Technology acquired a controlling 80 percent stake in Huashi TV for $515.3 million (3.2 billion yuan). Jetsen is headed by Chinese billionaire Xu Ziquan.

[GeneChing]

No telling what this means for U.S. theatrical distribution...:confused:


Cannes: Distant Horizon Wins China’s ‘League of Gods’ (http://variety.com/2016/film/asia/distant-horizon-wins-chinas-league-of-gods-1201774776/)
Patrick Frater Asia Bureau Chief

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COURTESY OF CHINA STAR
MAY 14, 2016 | 10:53AM PT

South Africa’s Distant Horizon has picked up international sales rights to big-budget Chinese fantasy action movie “League of Gods.”

The film has a starry cast headed by Jet Li, Fan Bingbing, Louis Koo, Angelababy, Andy On and Xu Qing (“Looper”.)

It features a group of unique super-heroes with special powers in a story based on the ancient novel “Fengshen Bang.”

Direction is by VFX ace Koan Xu. Production is by Charles Heung and Tiffany Chen’s China Star.

“We have been tracking ‘League of Gods’ from development stage. What has emerged is an action packed visual spectacle that combines China’s best talent with an award-winning international creative team,” said Distant Horizon chairman Anant Singh. “‘League of Gods’ has global appeal and has attracted a great deal of interest already, and following on the success of ‘The Mermaid,’ we are confident of its prospects internationally and are certain that we will close deals very quickly.”

The creative team includes composer John Debney (“Jungle Book”,) animation director, Randall William Cook (“Lord Of The Rings”,) sound designer Brent Burge (“The Hobbit”,) and editor, Wayne Philip Wahrman (“I Am Legend”.)

[GeneChing]

...Sorry, I had this tournament (http://www.kungfumagazine.com/forum/showthread.php?68985-2016-Tiger-Claw-Elite-amp-Kung-Fu-Tai-Chi-Day-May-21-22-San-Jose-CA) to deal with...:o


Donnie Yen embarks on 3-D kung fu dog road movie (http://www.filmbiz.asia/news/donnie-yen-embarks-on-3-d-kung-fu-dog-road-movie)

http://res-4.cloudinary.com/htyz9sr25/image/private/t_show_retina_fit/a6t1vftz4bxihzloavug.jpg

By Kevin Ma

Sun, 15 May 2016, 08:30 AM (HKT)

Sales News

Easternlight Films, the Asian label of Arclight Films Pty Ltd, has launched sales of 3-D Chinese adventure Big Rescue at the Cannes Marché du Film.

Directed by The Lost Bladesman 關雲長 (2011) producer LIANG Ting 梁婷, the live-action family adventure film is about a group that is kidnapped on a road trip, only to be rescued by a team of kung fu fighting dogs.

Donnie YEN 甄子丹, who is currently shooting Ip Man 3 葉問３ in Shanghai, is set to star in the film.

Action choreography is by Japan's TANIGAKI Kenji 谷垣健治, who worked with Yen on Wu Xia 武俠 (2011), Special ID 特殊身份 (2013) and The Monkey King 西遊記之大鬧天宮 (2014).

"It's an action road comedy, with a Hollywood narrative structure," Liang said in a statement, "It blends the kung fu of Donnie Yen with exciting and extremely cute family fun performances by the dogs."

Arclight is also handling Liang's thriller Inside the Girls 女生宿舍 (2014), that she directed last year, and SUN Zhou 孫周's forthcoming 3-D sci-fi comedy Impossible 不可思異, which she produced.

Also new at Cannes this week is Jonathan LIM 林浩然's Pali Road 未知人生, a Hawaii-set mystery thriller featuring Taiwan actress Michelle CHEN 陳妍希.

[GeneChing]

Gong Li is gonna get upset again (http://www.kungfumagazine.com/forum/showthread.php?53853-Cannes&p=1293694#post1293694). :(


Chinese Cinema Absent from Cannes 2017 Selections (http://chinafilminsider.com/chinese-cinema-absent-from-cannes-2017-selections/)
BY JAIME WOLF APR 13, 2017

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The 70th edition of the Cannes Film Festival announced its official selections this morning with no Chinese films chosen for the Competition, the Un Certain Regard sidebar, or special screenings.

The annual festival held each May on the French Riviera is both legendarily glamorous and the world’s most prestigious presentation of cinema—titles spotlighted at Cannes set the agenda for the international arthouse circuit over the year to come while also establishing early Academy Awards contenders.

This year’s festival is set to unspool from May 17 through May 28. In past years, Cannes has featured Chinese-language cinema by King Hu, Chen Kaige, Zhang Yimou, Hou Hsiao-Hsien, Wong Kar-Wai, Lou Ye, Ang Lee, Johnnie To, and Jia Zhangke, but this year, while Japan and South Korea are well-represented, the only Chinese element seems to be the corpse of the titular teenage “China Girl” washed ashore on Bondi Beach in a special presentation of the new season of Jane Campion’s television series, Top of the Lake.

[GeneChing]

Teaser trailer for Miike's Blade of the Immortal (http://www.kungfumagazine.com/forum/showthread.php?68978-Blade-of-the-Immortal) just dropped for Cannes (http://www.kungfumagazine.com/forum/showthread.php?53853-Cannes).


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=watbeBPaYVg

[GeneChing]

Cannes: IM Global Picks Up Chinese Crowd-Pleasers ‘Youth,’ ‘Detective Dee’ (http://variety.com/2017/film/asia/cannes-im-global-picks-up-youth-detective-dee-chinese-blockbuster-pair-1202419294/)
Patrick Frater
Asia Bureau Chief

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HEON-KYUN/EPA/REX/SHUTTERSTOCK

MAY 9, 2017 | 08:00AM PT

IM Global has picked up international sales rights to upcoming Chinese film “Youth” by Feng Xiaogang and “Detective Dee: The Four Heavenly Kings” from leading studio Huayi Brothers. Feng is China’s most consistently commercial director, while the Tsui Hark-directed “Detective Dee” is one of China’s biggest movie franchises.

Now in post-production, “Youth” chronicles the lives of a group of idealistic adolescents who take part in an army art troupe and learn about love and the growing pains of entering adulthood. The screenplay was written by Yan Geling, who previously penned “The Flowers of War” and the Chinese adaptation of “Dangerous Liaisons.” “Youth” stars Huang Xuan, Miao Miao, and Zhong Chuxi.

The third film in the “Detective Dee” series, “Four Heavenly Kings” sees Dee defend himself against the accusations of Empress Wu while investigating a crime wave. The film, now in pre-production, will see the return of Mark Zhao (“Young Detective Dee: Rise of the Sea Dragon”) and Carina Lau (“Detective Dee and the Mystery of the Phantom Flame”) alongside Kenny Lin (“Journey to the West: Demon Chapter,” “The Great Wall”) and Feng Shaofeng (“The Monkey King 2,” “Wolf Totem”). Production is by Chen Kuo-fu and Nansun Shi.

IM Global has an exclusive output deal with Huayi Brothers. IM Global’s Anthem division has previously handled sales for “Mojin: The Lost Legend,” “Mr. Six,” and Zhang Ziyi-starring “The Wasted Times.” IM Global will launch sales on both new titles at the upcoming Cannes market.

The deal was negotiated by Leslie Chen, IM Global’s SVP, sales and acquisitions Asia.

Detective Dee and the Mystery of the Phantom Flame (http://www.kungfumagazine.com/forum/showthread.php?52870-Detective-Dee-and-the-Mystery-of-the-Phantom-Flame)

Young Detective Dee: Rise of the Sea Dragon (http://www.kungfumagazine.com/forum/showthread.php?66536-Young-Detective-Dee-Rise-of-the-Sea-Dragon)

[GeneChing]

I'm troubled that MH2 (http://www.kungfumagazine.com/forum/showthread.php?68878-Monster-Hunt&p=1298585#post1298585) made it to Cannes (http://www.kungfumagazine.com/forum/showthread.php?53853-Cannes).


Cannes: Lionsgate Takes U.S. Rights to Sequel to Chinese Blockbuster 'Monster Hunt'
12:35 AM PDT 5/17/2017 by Patrick Brzeski

http://cdn2.thr.com/sites/default/files/imagecache/landscape_928x523/2015/07/monster_hunt_still_2.jpgCourtesy of Edko Films
'Monster Hunt'

Directed by DreamWorks Animation veteran Raman Hui, the first 'Monster Hunt' earned an historic $382 million in 2016.
Lionsgate has acquired North American and U.K. distribution rights to Edko Films' forthcoming sequel to Chinese blockbuster Monster Hunt.

The deal also gives Lionsgate rights to the Monster Hunt IP for its location-based entertainment venues in some territories.

Directed by DreamWorks Animation veteran Raman Hui (Shrek the Third) and produced by Bill Kong, the first Monster Hunt (2016) earned an historic $382 million, which was then the biggest performance ever at the Chinese box office. The professional polish of the film's effects set a new standard for the Chinese industry.

Monster Hunt 2 again stars Baihe Bai and Boran Jing, along with franchise newcomer Tony Leung Chiu-Wai (In the Mood for Love, The Grandmaster). Now shooting, the film is set for release during Chinese New Year in 2018. Lionsgate will bring the film out day-and-date with China in the U.S. and U.K.

Set in a world where monsters and humans co-exist, the franchise tells the story of Wuba, a baby monster born to be king. Wuba becomes the central figure in stopping an all-out monster civil war.

[GeneChing]

More from Cannes (http://www.kungfumagazine.com/forum/showthread.php?53853-Cannes) - Bruised (http://www.kungfumagazine.com/forum/showthread.php?70271-Bruised).

Will Blake be convincing as an MMA fighter or is this going to be like another Colombiana (http://www.kungfumagazine.com/forum/showthread.php?68396-Colombiana)?


Cannes: Blake Lively to Star in MMA Action-Drama 'Bruised' (http://www.hollywoodreporter.com/news/cannes-blake-lively-star-mma-action-drama-bruised-1003767)
7:11 AM PDT 5/15/2017 by Tatiana Siegel

http://cdn3.thr.com/sites/default/files/imagecache/landscape_928x523/2016/06/blakeversace.jpg be directed by Nick Cassavetes, switching gears from his biggest box-office hits 'The Notebook' and 'The Other Woman.'
Blake Lively is getting in the cage for the mixed martial arts film Bruised.

The action-drama will be directed by Nick Cassavetes, switching gears from his biggest box-office hits The Notebook and The Other Woman.

Sierra/Affinity is introducing the project to buyers in Cannes this week. The script, written by Michelle Rosenfarb, began circulating to foreign buyers over the weekend.

The film centers on a single mother working two jobs and a former MMA fighter who must return to the cage in order to keep her son.

Thunder Road Pictures’ Basil Iwanyk is producing alongside Linda Gottlieb and Guymon Casady of Management 360. Production is slated to begin in September.

Lively proved that she could carry a film with last year's breakout The Shallows, which took $119 million globally. She also was on hand at Cannes last year with Woody Allen's Cafe Society, which opened the festival.

She and Cassavetes are repped by WME.

[GeneChing]

Juggling Cannes (http://www.kungfumagazine.com/forum/showthread.php?53853-Cannes) news and KFTC25 AF (http://www.kungfumagazine.com/forum/showthread.php?69762-KUNG-FU-TAI-CHI-25TH-ANNIVERSARY-FESTIVAL-May-19-21-2017-San-Jose-CA) is making for an amusing hump day morning. :p


Chinese Companies Return to Cannes – But Will They Bring Their Checkbooks? (http://www.thewrap.com/china-cannes-market-film-dalian-wanda-return/)
CannesWrap magazine: A flat Chinese box office and investment restrictions could loom over Cannes, but the sale of rights to individual movies may not be affected much
Matt Pressberg | May 16, 2017 @ 3:56 PM

https://www.thewrap.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/05/CHINA_Split.jpg

This story first appeared in the Cannes issue of TheWrap Magazine.

Tinseltown has a long tradition of extracting healthy sums of money from flashy foreign financiers who can’t stay away from the world’s most glamorous industry. Most recently, much of that cash has come from China. But after a two-year run in which seemingly every major and minor studio inked a coproduction deal with Chinese financial partners and Chinese companies agreed to a series of increasingly eye-popping acquisitions, including Dalian Wanda Group’s $3.5 billion purchase of Legendary Entertainment in 2016, the firehose of Middle Kingdom funding abruptly dried up.

The Chinese government’s State Council instituted strict capital controls limiting Chinese investment in overseas companies; along with other tightened regulations, the restrictions killed off several major cross-border deals, including Dalian Wanda Group’s planned $1 billion acquisition of Dick Clark Productions.

Furthermore, a combination of a disappointing slate of Chinese films and the reduction of generous online-ticketing subsidies left the country’s box office essentially flat last year after surging nearly 50 percent in 2015. All of that could loom over Cannes, where plenty of heavy hitters on the harbor’s mega-yachts are likely to be talking about what’s happening in waters much further east.

However, even though Chinese acquisitions have ground to a halt, sales of rights to individual movies shouldn’t be affected much, Schuyler Moore, a partner at Stroock & Stroock & Lavan who has worked on numerous deals involving Chinese film companies, told TheWrap. “They’re still able to do presales of content,” Moore said. “I don’t expect it to be a change as far as purchase of content for Chinese distributors.”

But those distributors might have a tougher time getting deals done — or, at least, done with terms as favorable as they’ve obtained in recent years — according to John Burke, a partner at Akin Gump who leads the firm’s entertainment group. “I can imagine that the restrictions might disadvantage Chinese distributors looking to buy Chinese rights,” Burke told TheWrap. “If you’re a seller, you’re going to be concerned with their ability to access U.S. dollars to make payments.”

Burke said that individual film deals aren’t subject to the same restrictions, because they are investments in projects rather than companies. But the fact that cross-border China-Hollywood deals haven’t been consummated in months could force Chinese buyers into less favorable terms as they try to acquire movies from sellers that may not be convinced about their ability to deliver on the deal. “To protect against uncertainty, sellers may require [Chinese buyers] to pay up front or back it up with a letter of credit payable when the picture gets delivered,” Burke said.

Kylin Pictures, a China-based firm that was a co-financier on Mel Gibson’s “Hacksaw Ridge,” is going to Cannes as a seller this year. The production company is looking to sell international rights to action-adventure fantasy “The King’s Daughter” through its international distribution partner Good Universe, Kylin CEO Leo Shi Young told TheWrap.

While Young will be on the other side of the table, he said he expects there will still be plenty of Chinese buyers heading to Cannes looking for good films to buy to help feed the country’s constantly expanding appetite for movies, as it continues to build movie theaters by the dozen.

And just as Amazon and Netflix have changed the landscape at Sundance, China’s burgeoning streaming services, including Baidu’s iQiyi and Alibaba’s Youku Tudou, could also step up their dealmaking. They have the added advantage of less regulatory scrutiny than theatrical releases, which must be cleared by the country’s strict censors, who often require substantial edits. “Online they also have a lot of markets, so they can sell to those,” Young said. “For those channels, the regulations or censorship will probably be easier and looser.”

China’s regulators protect local fare through a quota system and blackout period, but Chinese films still haven’t really registered beyond the country’s borders, even though some of them have reeled in hundreds of millions of dollars at home. But for the second year in a row, no Chinese films were announced as part of the festival’s official selection. However, there is a second annual China Co-Production Day, Bridging the Dragon, which will take place May 19 as part of the Cannes film market, the Marché du Film, which runs concurrent with the film festival.

And the country’s moviegoing audience isn’t satisfied with a homegrown diet alone, Young said, which is why distributors come to Cannes looking to buy. “The Chinese film market is expanding a lot — they need content,” he said. “They need good films.” At the beginning of last year, it seemed like only a matter of time until deep-pocketed Chinese buyers dominated the film industry. But it wouldn’t be Hollywood without a twist. How will it play out at Cannes? Stay tuned. “Last year, as crowded as it was, it seemed like the Chinese were overrunning Cannes,” Burke said. “It will be interesting to see if that changes when we get there this year.”

[GeneChing]

More from Cannes (http://www.kungfumagazine.com/forum/showthread.php?53853-Cannes) - Silvering Spear (http://www.kungfumagazine.com/forum/showthread.php?70275-Silvering-Spear-Unproduced-Akira-Kurosawa-Screenplay)


Cannes: Chinese Gaming Company Acquires Unproduced Akira Kurosawa Screenplays
12:45 AM PDT 5/18/2017 by Patrick Brzeski

http://cdn5.thr.com/sites/default/files/imagecache/landscape_928x523/2016/08/seven_samurai_1_c_1954_toho_co._ltd.-h_2016.jpgCourtesy of Venice Film Festival
'Seven Samurai'

The Chinese firm plans to go into production on "Silvering Spear," an unfilmed samurai project from the Japanese cinema legend, in 2018.
The unproduced screenplays of Japanese film legend Akira Kurosawa, a giant of cinema history, could finally be making their way to the big screen.

During a press event at the Cannes Film Festival Thursday, Chinese gaming company Jinke Entertainment unveiled that it has acquired the rights to nine unfilmed Kurosawa works from Kurosawa Production Co., the Tokyo-based firm dedicated to promoting and protecting the filmmaker's legacy.

According to Jinke, which began as a chemicals manufacturer but in recent years diversified into mobile game development and distribution, the first Kurosawa project to go into production will be Silvering Spear (working title), a Samurai story set during Japan's Warring States period.

Silvering Spear is scheduled to begin filming in 2018, with additional production and casting announcements expected soon, the partners said. This first project will be a Chinese-language film, but the other Kurosawa screenplays could be adapted in other languages, depending on which production partners are brought on board, Jinke said.

The acquisition announcement in Cannes was made by Akira Kurosawa’s grandson, Takayuki Kato, who now heads up Kurosawa Production Co.

"My family and I are extremely pleased to work with Jinke Entertainment on the completion of my grandfather’s film Silvering Spear," Kato said. "We look forward to giving his millions of fans around the world the chance to experience one of his final masterpieces. We hope this will be the first of many projects on which we work together with Jinke Entertainment.”

Zhang Zhengfeng, deputy general manager of Jinke Entertainment, added: "We hope to replicate the success we have achieved in the mobile gaming space in the motion picture genre. We are deeply humbled that our first film project will be that of one of the cinema world’s most revered directors. We’re pleased to have the full support of Mr. Kurosawa’s family and team on this important endeavor, and will honor the work of the Asian film master by creating a high quality production of one of his last film projects.”

The partners offered the followingl plot summary for Silvering Spear:

"Silvering Spear tells the story of a samurai named Ishigaki Jyube who demonstrates remarkable marksmanship while living during the Warring States period, a turbulent time in Japan’s history. Ishigaki Jyube searches for a way to utilize his special talents, while not exploiting them for personal gain.

The Samurai aspires to be a leader who would help to usher in a peaceful time for all. Dedicated to this lofty goal, he refuses to casually pursue his marksmanship talent as a means of subsistence. However, as circumstances in the country go from bad to worse, Ishigaki Jyube’s spear finally becomes a useful tool, when he is tricked into a scam and manipulated by a gang of bandits."

[GeneChing]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-M2F4-oTNF4

Oooooh. This does look good. I luv Miike ultravi.

[GeneChing]

More from Cannes (http://www.kungfumagazine.com/forum/showthread.php?53853-Cannes) - The Villainess (http://www.kungfumagazine.com/forum/showthread.php?70281-The-Villainess)


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kx-ruv5JGMo



‘The Villainess’ ('Ak-Nyeo’): Film Review | Cannes 2017 (http://www.hollywoodreporter.com/review/villainess-review-1006369)
4:55 PM PDT 5/22/2017 by Deborah Young

http://cdn5.thr.com/sites/default/files/imagecache/landscape_928x523/2017/05/ak-nyeo_h_2017.jpg
Courtesy of Cannes Film Festival
Kim Ok-vin is 'The Villainess'
A high-voltage thriller from South Korea. TWITTER

Kim Ok-vin stars as a trained assassin blackmailed into working for the government in Jung Byung-gil's action thriller.
The action is the party in the hot/cold, on/off actioner The Villainess, which might be described as a high-adrenaline tale of fighting, shooting, stabbing and killing interrupted by quiet stretches of backstory and character development. In this schizophrenic thriller, Luc Besson’s 1990 noir classic La femme Nikita gets yet another makeover via the story of a beautiful girl trained to kill. Humanizing the violent goodies and baddies no doubt helped the film land a coveted slot in Cannes’ Midnight Screenings, but it’s a choice that also takes serious time away from the action sequences, which will be the real selling point for genre audiences.

In any case, it’s another step up the ladder for Korean director, writer and producer Jung Byung-gil, who made his directing bow with the documentary Action Boys, describing the life of film stuntmen, and went on to win awards for his first thriller Confession of Murder, based on a real-life serial killer. Audiences should give his villainess a warm embrace in international genre markets.

Since her father was killed in front of her eyes when she was a child, Sook-hee has been raised by gangsters to be a skilled fighter and a ruthless killer. She marries her boss and mentor but, when he is murdered on their honeymoon, she turns into a fury hell-bent on revenge. In the breath-taking opening sequence, entirely shot from her POV, she storms into the rival gang’s HDQ and, corridor after corridor, shoots ‘em dead. The effect is very much like an early arcade game and, by the time 50 or 60 men in identical dark suits lay bleeding on the floor, about as exciting. When she opens the door at the end of the hall, however, a gym full of leering bruisers are there to protect their boss, and things get a little hotter. For the first time we see the shooter’s face: she’s just an ordinary girl, but she’s hopping mad. And she’s finally out of ammo. When the blood is finally wiped off her face, she emerges with three tiny scratches and in police custody.

Though Sook-hee has won the first round with a vengeance, she is now a prisoner. She is taken to a secret government training ground where Chief Kwon (the super chic, icy pro Kim Seo-hyung) decides to put her to good use by cutting a deal: if she works for the Korean Intelligence Agency for ten years, they’ll let her go free to live her life. The fact that she’s pregnant probably influences her decision to play along and live as long as she can.

Thanks to plastic surgery, Sook-hee is soon transformed into a lovely Kim Ok-vin (the female lead in Park Chan-wook’s Thirst.) Kim brings a wide range of emotions to a woman who is called on to be simultaneously a raging fighter, a cold-blooded killer, a tender mother and a hot date. For the moment, she goes through “training” which involves fighting other cadets with blades and guns more than martial arts, but also learning a craft that can be used as a cover when she goes underground as a sleeper cell. Her only aptitude turns out to be acting, so she is given a new identity as a theater actress and a modest apartment to live in with her infant daughter.

Hyun-soo, the nice boy next door (played with appealing brashness by Sung-Jun) clumsily courts her, without letting on that he’s an undercover operative for the Agency sent to shadow her. Meanwhile, her ex-husband Joong-sang (Shin Ha-kyun of Thirst and Sympathy for Mr. Vengeance) returns to haunt her memories.

The flurry of characters takes a long time to get straight, and identification is made even harder by the nervous handheld camerawork and rapid-fire editing that makes no concessions. But no matter: the film comes into its element in the imaginative action scenes, which include a coy assignment for Sook-hee and a friend as geishas entertaining three cutthroats, ending with blood on the floor. Signature sequences are an unforgettable motorcycle chase at night down the highway, and an eye-popping finale in which Sook-hee leaps onto the back of a speeding bus and hacks her way in for a final showdown with her chief nemesis.

Among the fine tech work, Koo Ja-wan’s abstract, pulsating score gets under the skin.

Production company: Apeitda
Cast: Kim Ok-vin, Shin Ha-kyun. Bang Sung-jun
Director: Jung Byung-gil
Screenwriters: Jung Byung-gil, Jung Byung-sik
Producers: Jung Byung-gil
Executive producers: Kim Woo-taek
Director of photography: Park Jung-hun
Production designer: Kim Hee-jin
Costume designer: Chae Kyung-hwa
Editor: Heo Sun-mi
Music: Koo Ja-wan
World sales: Contents Panda
Venue: Cannes Film Festival (Midnight screening)
129 minutes

[GeneChing]

To reiterate, The Girl Who Played with Fire is the sequel to The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo (http://www.kungfumagazine.com/forum/showthread.php?t=56760) followed by The Girl Who Kicked the Hornet's Nest (http://ezine.kungfumagazine.com/forum/showthread.php?p=1024634). The Girl Who Played with Fire features our magazine, the 2008 Sep/Oct issue (http://ezine.kungfumagazine.com/magazine/article.php?article=780), so we luv it long time, which is why I ttt-ed this thread (http://www.kungfumagazine.com/forum/showthread.php?57359-The-Girl-Who-Played-with-Fire) instead of one of the others.

Let's just admire that cover for a sec, shall we?
http://ezine.kungfumagazine.com/images/ezine/Cov2008_5.jpg
Master Hoy Lee attended KFTC25 AF (http://www.kungfumagazine.com/forum/showthread.php?69762-KUNG-FU-TAI-CHI-25TH-ANNIVERSARY-FESTIVAL-May-19-21-2017-San-Jose-CA) and it was very nice to see him again.

If the The Girl in the Spider's Web comes to fruition, I'll copy this out into a separate thread. For now, it's just more Cannes (http://www.kungfumagazine.com/forum/showthread.php?53853-Cannes) news.


MAY 15, 2017 11:45am PT by Borys Kit
Claire Foy in Early Talks to Star in 'The Girl in the Spider's Web' (http://www.hollywoodreporter.com/heat-vision/claire-foy-early-talks-star-girl-spiders-web-1003942)
http://cdn3.thr.com/sites/default/files/imagecache/scale_crop_768_433/2017/01/gettyimages-631263794-h_2017.jpgueen Elizabeth on Netflix's 'The Crown.'
Claire Foy, who stars as Queen Elizabeth on Netflix’s The Crown, is Sony’s choice to step up to the keyboard to play hacker Lisbeth Salander in its adaptation of The Girl in the Spider's Web.

Fede Alvarez is attached to direct the project, which is seen as a relaunch of the Girl With the Dragon Tattoo franchise.

The studio has been on the hunt for a new actress to take on the role, and the finalists came down to Foy and Felicity Jones, sources say. Foy has the offer, according to insiders, but scheduling is one of the challenges that need to be worked out. (The actress is also fielding interest from Universal for its Neil Armstrong biopic First Man, starring Ryan Gosling.)

The role of the brooding and strong Salander is a coveted one as it has proven to be both launch pad and showcase. Noomi Rapace starred in the Swedish-language trilogy, which was an international hit and catapulted her onto the worldwide stage. Rooney Mara played the part in the 2011 film directed by David Fincher and received an Academy Award nomination.

Dragon Tattoo, released in 2011, was based on the first of the three detective novels centering on journalist Mikael Blomkvist and hacker Salander. They were written by Stieg Larsson, who died in 2004. The new film project would be based on the fourth book in the series, which was written by David Lagercrantz and released in 2015.

Foy is a British actress who also appeared on the TV series Wolf Hall and in the 2014 film Vampire Academy. She is repped by UTA and Independent Talent Group in the U.K.

[GeneChing]

Warriors of the Dawn (http://www.kungfumagazine.com/forum/showthread.php?70251-Warriors-of-the-Dawn) at Cannes (http://www.kungfumagazine.com/forum/showthread.php?53853-Cannes)


Cannes: Fox Korea's 'Warriors of the Dawn' Sets North American Release Date (http://www.hollywoodreporter.com/news/cannes-fox-koreas-warriors-dawn-sets-north-american-release-date-1007083)
8:43 PM PDT 5/23/2017 by Lee Hyo-won

http://cdn2.thr.com/sites/default/files/imagecache/landscape_928x523/2017/05/warriors-of-the-dawn_fox_korea_0.jpg
Courtesy of 20th Century Fox Korea
'Warriors of the Dawn'

The period epic has presold to Asian territories as well as Australia/New Zealand.
Warriors of the Dawn, the upcoming title by Fox International Productions Korea, has presold to multiple territories, Fox announced Wednesday. The release date for the period epic in North America has also been set for June 16.

The star-studded battle film starring popular South Korean actor Lee Jung-jae (Assassination, Operation Chromite opposite Liam Neeson) has been picked up by buyers from Australia, the Philippines, Taiwan and New Zealand during the Cannes Film Market.

"We are aiming to release the film in at least 30 locations," said a spokesperson for M-Line, which is handling international sales, about the film's North American theatrical opening.

"Unlike most Korean period films, Warriors of the Dawn features exotic scenery shot across multiple locations, passionate performances by actors and a strong theme that has captured the hearts of global buyers," said the spokesperson, who added that M-Line expects "additional sales that will help fuel the attention given to Korean cinema at this year's market."

Set during the 1592 war between medieval Korea and Japan, Warriors follows the war efforts of the Crown Prince Gwanghae when the king flees for the safety of his own life.

Warriors is the fifth and latest Korean-language movie to be produced by Fox International Productions and to be released by Fox Korea. FIP is one of the first Hollywood studios to create local productions in South Korea, where domestic fare dominates more than half of the market share. South Korea also has the highest moviegoing rate and per-capita cinema attendance rate, according to the state-backed Korean Film Council. Last year, Fox's The Wailing made a splash at the Cannes market.

Directed by Chung Yoon-chul, Warriors will hit South Korean theaters May 31.

[GeneChing]

I still haven't seen either

Master of the Drunken Fist: Beggar So (http://www.kungfumagazine.com/forum/showthread.php?69828-Master-of-the-Drunken-Fist-Beggar-So&p=1303129#post1303129) or Master of the Shadowless Kick: Wong Kei-Ying (http://www.kungfumagazine.com/forum/showthread.php?69809-Master-of-the-Shadowless-Kick-Wong-Kei-Yin) (and I haven't been to Cannes (http://www.kungfumagazine.com/forum/showthread.php?53853-Cannes) yet either) :o Anyone seen them yet?


Cannes: HBO, China Movie Channel to Co-Produce More Martial Arts Films (Exclusive) (http://www.hollywoodreporter.com/news/cannes-hbo-china-movie-channel-produce-more-martial-arts-films-1005793)
8:58 AM PDT 5/20/2017 by Patrick Brzeski

http://cdn1.thr.com/sites/default/files/imagecache/landscape_928x523/2017/05/zhang_ling_jonathan_spink_split_h_2017.jpg
Getty Images
China Movie Channel vp Zhang Ling (left), HBO Asia CEO Jonathan Spink

The deal marks HBO's second co-production pact for the massive Chinese TV sector, which counts some 1.2 billion viewers.
HBO Asia is again partnering with China Movie Channel to co-develop and produce a pair of Chinese-language martial arts movies for television.

The project will mark HBO and its affiliates' second co-production pact for the massive Chinese TV sector, which counts some 1.2 billion estimated viewers. China Movie Channel (CMC), also known as CCTV6, is the flagship entertainment channel of state broadcaster China Central Television (CCTV).

Last year, CMC and HBO Asia co-produced Master of the Drunken Fist: Beggar So and Master of the Shadowless Kick: Wong Kei-Ying, two martial-arts flicks set in ancient China at the end of the Qing dynasty. The movies were directed by Guo Jian-yong, a veteran action choreographer on projects like John Woo's Red Cliff and Jason Statham's Transporter franchise. The films were then aired simultaneously on CMC’s channels in mainland China and across 23 Asian territories on HBO and RED by HBO.

"We were very pleased with how our first collaboration turned out, so we are very happy to be partnering with HBO on two more high-quality TV movies that celebrate Chinese culture and history," Zhang Ling, vice president of China Movie Channel, told The Hollywood Reporter at the Cannes Film Festival.

Zhang declined to share further details about the new projects. But, like their predecessors, each film is expected to be a stand-alone story exploring the life of a legendary martial arts master from Chinese history — together, the movies will form a loose series, or portfolio, of martial-arts sagas.

CMC is no newcomer to collaborations with Hollywood. In 2014, it invested in Paramount’s Transformers: Age of Extinction, and it also took a stake in Mission: Impossible — Rogue Nation the following year.

"We are looking to partner with more experienced entertainment companies from around the world," said Zhang. "These collaborations give our talents and creative teams an opportunity to learn from Hollywood production experience, and they also help us share Chinese culture with the world in very professional way."

Zhang shared the news of the projects with THR shortly before the kickoff of the annual China Night Party held on the beach in front of the iconic Hotel Majestic in Cannes. Now in its ninth year, the China Night Party added an entertainment industry panel discussion component to the festivities for this year's edition. Panelists included leaders of the Chinese film industry, such as Bona Film Group chairman Yu Dong, as well as U.S. and international industry players, such as Lorenzo Soria, president of the Hollywood Foreign Press Association (the organizer of the Golden Globes); Jonathan Wolf, managing director of the American Film Market; and Valerie Lepine Karnlk, CEO of Film France. The panel series was recorded for a delayed broadcast on China Movie Channel.

"Over the nine years that we have been hosting the China Night event in Cannes, the Chinese film industry has experienced amazing growth and development," said Zhang. "Our goal is to continue finding new ways to build connections and encourage business and exchange between the Chinese film industry and experienced entertainment professionals from around the world."

[GeneChing]

Cannes: China's Tianying Media Acquires Stan Lee Sci-Fi Script (https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/news/cannes-chinas-tianying-media-acquires-stan-lee-sci-fi-script-1111441)
6:35 AM PDT 5/13/2018 by Patrick Brzeski

https://cdn1.thr.com/sites/default/files/imagecache/landscape_928x523/2018/04/gettyimages-867655480_copy_-_h_2018_0.jpg
Albert L. Ortega/Getty Images
Stan Lee

Tianying plans to produce the film, based on a Stan Lee comic from the 1970s, as a big-budget Chinese sci-fi comedy.
China's Tianying Media has acquired The Last Resort, a sci-fi screenplay co-written by Stan Lee and Bob Underwood, under a development agreement with POW! Entertainment.

The screenplay was partly inspired by Lee’s 1970s comic strip, The Virtue of Vera Valiant, which follows the story of a woman who inherits a resort hotel in space.

Tianying plans to produce the film as a Chinese sci-fi comedy, and hopes to be in production before the end of 2018.

"We are so excited to be working with POW! Entertainment and to be able to bring the amazing script of The Last Resort to life," said Wu Jian, CEO of Tianying Media, "We are focusing on the Chinese market, a rapidly growing audience that is extremely hungry for new ideas and a variety of different films."

The script was initially brought to Tianying by producers Elliot Tong and Reinhard Schreiner of Los Angeles-based Roaring China, a company that aims to connect filmmakers in Hollywood and Beijing.

Tianying Media is affiliated with China's state-owned Tianjin North Film Group. One of its first projects as a co-financier is the forthcoming sci-fi disaster tentpole Shanghai Fortress, directed by Teng Huatao and starring Shu Qi and Lu Han. The company has a strategic distribution partnership with China Film Co.

THREADS
The Last Resort (http://www.kungfumagazine.com/forum/showthread.php?70786-The-Last-Resort)
Cannes (http://www.kungfumagazine.com/forum/showthread.php?53853-Cannes)

[GeneChing]

Cannes: Why a Famed Chinese Novelist Is Sparking Marvel-Like Dreams for China (https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/news/cannes-why-a-famed-chinese-novelist-is-sparking-marvel-like-dreams-china-1110041)
11:00 PM PDT 5/8/2018 by Karen Chu

https://cdn1.thr.com/sites/default/files/imagecache/portrait_300x450/2018/05/condor_final.jpg
Illustration by Alexander Wells

After a long absence, movie adaptations of the epic works of Jin Yong, which feature hundreds of characters with individualized skills — sound familiar? — will soon storm the Chinese multiplex.

The name Jin Yong is as synonymous with Hong Kong’s rich tradition of wuxia cinema as Stan Lee is with the American superhero movie.

The renowned period novelist (real name: Louis Cha Leung-yung) is said to be the world’s most widely read 20th century Chinese writer, and the countless film and television adaptations of his 15 books indelibly altered the shape of Chinese popular culture.

“A friend of mine once said to me, ‘I feel lucky to be born Chinese, because it means I can read the wuxia novels of Jin Yong,’” Taiwanese screen goddess Brigitte Lin, who immortalized the character of Asia the Invincible in the classic martial arts films Swordsman II and its sequel, tells THR. “Jin Yong’s work is an indispensable part of the Hong Kong film industry — all of the adaptations of his work have been bound for success.”

Often likened to greater China’s answer to Game of Thrones or J.R.R. Tolkien’s The Lord of the Rings, Jin’s sagas are set in various periods of Chinese history, ranging from 6th century B.C. to the 1700s, and covering the Song, Yuan, Ming and Qing dynasties. His famously intricate narratives bring to life the ancient worlds of jianghu and wulin martial arts and feature mythic heroes seemingly ready-made for the big screen — superhuman martial arts masters driven by honor, integrity and discipline.

Yet despite their deep and enduring influence in Chinese pop culture, there hasn’t been a big-screen adaptation of one of his books in nearly 20 years. But now a Jin film renaissance appears to be on the horizon, with a succession of adaptations expected to storm the Chinese multiplex over the next decade.

“Since the 1950s, Jin’s martial arts novels have provided a bottomless well of inspiration for filmmakers,” says Fion Lin, assistant curator for the Performing Arts at the Hong Kong Heritage Museum, where a permanent Jin Yong Gallery exhibits artifacts that document his writing process as well as the TV series, films and video games based on his work.

“The legendary characters he created, especially, were so popular with readers that they moved swiftly and easily from printed media to silver screen,” Lin adds, noting that more than 40 financially successful Hong Kong films were made from Jin’s stories.

Most of the books — published in the 1950s and through the ’70s in Hong Kong and Taiwan (but not until later in China, due to the media censorship of the Cultural Revolution) — are stand-alones, but the Condor series (The Legend of the Condor Heroes, Return of the Condor Heroes and The Heaven Sword and Dragon Saber, which took place almost a hundred years after the Condor books) forms a trilogy featuring a set of beloved recurring characters.

https://cdn1.thr.com/sites/default/files/2018/05/condor_heroes_book.jpg
Courtesy of Hong Kong Commercial Daily
The first Condor Heroes book was published in 1957.

Hong Kong’s legendary Shaw Brothers Studio, which specialized in martial arts releases throughout the ’70s, was particularly keen on the Jin bibliography, churning out one adaptation after another, including Legend of the Fox (1980), The Proud Youth (1978), Ode to Gallantry (1982) and The Brave Archer trilogy (1977-83), based on the Condor books.

The popularity of Jin’s work continued into the 1990s as films adapted from — or even simply inspired by — his stories regularly stormed the box office. Some of them were produced by Jin superfan Tsui Hark, including The Swordsman trilogy based on The Smiling, Proud Wanderer, co-starring Lin and Jet Li, which collectively earned more than $7.7 million — a sizable sum for the small Hong Kong theatrical market at the time.

Others helped launch, or cement, the careers of some of Hong Kong and Chinese cinema’s most iconic stars, such as Stephen Chow (1992’s Royal Tramp I and II, which together brought in $10 million), Leon Lai (1993’s The Sword of Many Lovers) and Gong Li (1994’s The Dragon Chronicles — The Maidens). In addition, art house star Wong Kar Wai’s Ashes of Time and the comedic companion piece that he produced, The Eagle Shooting Heroes, were each inspired by Legend of Condor Heroes.

On television, JIn’s work was just as sought after. For a stretch in the ’80s, Hong Kong’s dominant station, TVB, did one series based on a Jin novel every year. That included the ever-popular Condor Heroes trilogy, The Deer and the Cauldron (which starred a young Andy Lau and Tony Leung Chiu-wai, both fresh out of the station’s acting training course) and The Flying Fox of Snowy Mountain.

The novels were turned into television series in mainland China all through the 2000s, in addition, Jin's stories have also been adapted for video games, such as the massively popular multiplayer game Heroes of Jin Yong, which combines all of his major characters, spawned a dozen sequels and has remained one of the Chinese-speaking world’s top gaming franchises for two decades.

Producer-actress Josie Ho, daughter of Hong Kong casino magnate and billionaire Stanley Ho, is investing in a potential series of adaptations through her 852 Films banner. “Jin Yong’s novels are like Marvel Comics in the U.S.,” Ho says, noting how the writer's hundreds of heroes with individualized skills and personas, all nestled into a deep historical context, matches the Marvel Cinematic Universe in terms of breadth and originality.

Ho’s first Jin project — the title of which has not yet been disclosed — will mark 852's first foray into the mainland Chinese film market (her company has co-produced the London-set How to Talk to Girls at Parties; Hong Kong director Pang Ho-cheung’s Dream Home, in which Ho starred; and Revenge: A Love Story, featuring singer-actor-director Juno Mak). 852 has partnered with China’s The One Media Group, which bought the mainland film adaptation rights to Jin’s major works for an undisclosed sum in September.

Also under The One Media banner, Tsui is set to direct a new trilogy based on The Return of the Condor Heroes, with longtime creative partner Nansun Shi producing. Tsui has said his hit Swordsman films were a warm-up for him to adapt Return of the Condor Heroes, which was the first wuxia novel he ever read.

“It ignited my passion for the wuxia genre and my fascination with the wuxia world,” the legendary director said at a September news conference announcing the One Media projects. “The film rights, production technology and market potential weren’t available for me to direct this film adaptation back then, so I’ve been waiting all this time to do it.”

The considerable popularity of Jin's novels in mainland China — where his books were embraced passionately after the country opened its doors in the 1980s (late Chinese leader Deng Xiaoping was among his fans) — combined with the fact that there have been no recent movie adaptations, could mean enormous box-office potential for the property in the current marketplace.

Apart from Tsui’s trilogy and Ho’s franchise ambitions, director Gordon Chan (Painted Skin) is slated to helm an adaptation of Legend of the Condor Heroes (the precursor to Return) for Hong Kong powerhouse Media Asia. Meanwhile, Sun Entertainment Culture is adapting The Book and the Sword, Jin’s 1955 debut novel, to be written by James Yuen (The Warlords) and directed by Jacob Cheung (Cageman).

“Jin Yong’s novels have proved so popular with readers around the globe, and there is a well-known saying: ‘Wherever there are Chinese, you will find Jin Yong’s novels,’” notes Lin, the curator of the Hong Kong Heritage Museum. “His characters and the martial arts world have crossed geographical borders and become something akin to a lingua franca of the Chinese diaspora.”

Because of their rich characterizations and structural similarity to the Marvel universe, Ho says she believes that Jin’s sagas might also deliver China’s first major crossover blockbuster to the international marketplace.

London-based publishing house MacLehose Press is hurrying to set the stage. The company has secured the rights to produce the first authorized English translation of The Legend of the Condor Heroes, the first installment of which was released in January to coincide with Chinese New Year.

With 11 more volumes to be released in the Condor Heroes saga alone, the Western world has plenty of catching up to do before one of the globe's great fantasy series makes its big-screen return.


THREADS

Condor Heroes (http://www.kungfumagazine.com/forum/showthread.php?51632-Condor-Heroes)
Jin Yong (http://www.kungfumagazine.com/forum/showthread.php?52605-Jin-Yong-aka-Louis-Cha)
Cannes (http://www.kungfumagazine.com/forum/showthread.php?53853-Cannes)

[GeneChing]

Cannes: The Buzz Films That Won't Be at the Festival (https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/news/cannes-festival-buzz-films-wont-screen-1202963)
4:22 AM PDT 4/18/2019 by Scott Roxborough

https://cdn1.thr.com/sites/default/files/imagecache/landscape_928x523/2018/09/once_upon_a_time_in_hollywood_still_1_-_publicity_-_h_2018.jpg
Andrew Cooper
Quentin Tarantino's 'Once Upon a Time in Hollywood' will not be ready for Cannes, the festival said.

There will likely be no Quentin Tarantino on the Croisette, even though the festival says his latest film could still make the cut if the director finishes it soon, with high-profile omissions from the lineup including Ari Aster's 'Midsommar,' Benh Zeitlin's 'Wendy' and Hirokazu Kore-eda's 'The Truth.'

Cannes, once the undisputed heavyweight champion of international film festivals, has been on the ropes of late.

Last year's lineup included some impressive titles — Palme d'Or winner Shoplifters and Alice Rohrwacher's Happy as Lazzaro were two standouts — but the buzz and awards attention were elsewhere, thanks in part to the festival's ongoing spat with Netflix, which sent Alfonso Cuaron's Roma to Venice for its world premiere.

Netflix is skipping Cannes again this year, so the French festival will have to do without such potential awards contenders as Martin Scorsese's mob epic The Irishman, Meryl Streep starrer The Laundromat from director Steven Soderbergh and Noah Baumbach’s period drama The King, starring Timothee Chalamet.

But Netflix's absence was expected. More surprising were the high-profile omissions from the 2019 lineup that many had predicted were sure things for the Croisette this year.

Top of the list is Quentin Tarantino's Once Upon a Time In Hollywood, which looked like a lock for the 72nd edition of the Cannes festival. But the feature — which stars Leonardo DiCaprio, Brad Pitt, Margot Robbie and Timothy Olyphant —wasn't ready in time, the festival said Thursday. Cannes artistic director Thierry Fremaux said the post-production on the film, which Tarantino shot in traditional 35 mm, has been particularly time-consuming and he was “in a sprint” to finish it in time for its scheduled release this summer. Fremaux did hold out a smidgen of hope that the movie could still be a late addition to Cannes, should it be ready before the festival kicks off on May 14.

Another surprising absence this year is The Truth, Hirokazu Kore-eda's follow-up to Shoplifters, which won Cannes' Palme d'Or just last year. Sources near the Japanese filmmaker said Kore-eda had been angling for a Cannes opening- night slot — the film is his first feature shot outside Japan and features French stars Catherine Deneuve and Juliette Binoche. Cannes said the movie was not ready in time. The Truth will now likely premiere in Venice instead.

One Cannes regular who won't be making the trip this year is James Gray, whose Ad Astra was not among the 19 competition titles announced Thursday. The American auteur has bowed four of his past five films in Cannes and, with Fox setting a May 24 release date for his new sci-fi picture starring Brad Pitt and Ruth Negga, most expected Ad Astra to touch down on the Croisette. It was not to be.

Ad Astra was just one of several hotly-anticipated U.S. features that were tipped for Cannes, but will be missing the fest. Midsommar, Ari Aster's follow-up to Hereditary, will not be scaring folks on the French Rivera this year. Fans of Benh Zeitlin's Beasts of the Southern Wild will have to wait a bit longer for his second feature, Wendy, about two children from different worlds stranded on a mysterious island where aging and time have come unglued. And First Cow, indie film heroine Kelly Reichardt's adaptation of Jonathan Raymond’s The Half-Life: A Novel, a period drama set in the 1820s Pacific Northwest, will also not be making the trek to Cannes.

Fans of Justin Kurzel — many of whom discovered him in Cannes, where he premiered both The Snowtown Murders and Macbeth — hoped the Australian director would return to the festival with The True History of the Kelly Gang, an adaptation of the Peter Carey book starring Russell Crowe, Nicholas Hoult and Charlie Hunnam. But the film didn't make the 2019 cut. Perhaps the movie is a bit too mainstream for Cannes' liking. Or maybe the festival is still recovering from Kurzel's video-game adaptation Assassin Creed.

On a more serious note, Zhang Yimou's One Second will also not screen in Cannes. The drama was slated to premiere at the Berlin Film Festival before being ignominiously yanked at the last minute, officially for “technical reasons.” It is widely assumed Chinese censors have blocked the movie, which is set during the politically sensitive period of China's Cultural Revolution. There had been hope that a version of the film would be available for Cannes. Now it is unclear if the movie will be seen at all.

Cannes Film Festival poster 2019

SCOTT ROXBOROUGH
Scott.Roxborough@THR.com
sroxborough

THREADS
Cannes (http://www.kungfumagazine.com/forum/showthread.php?53853-Cannes)
Once Upon a Time in Hollywood (http://www.kungfumagazine.com/forum/showthread.php?70864-Once-Upon-a-Time-in-Hollywood)
One Second by Zhang Yimou (http://www.kungfumagazine.com/forum/showthread.php?71172-One-Second-by-Zhang-Yimou)

[GeneChing]

‘First Love’: Details Revealed For Takashi Miike’s Cannes-Bound Action-Thriller With RPC & HanWay (https://deadline.com/2019/04/takashi-miike-first-love-details-revealed-cannes-action-thriller-with-rpc-hanway-1202601162/)
By Andreas Wiseman
Co-International Editor
@AndreasWiseman

https://pmcdeadline2.files.wordpress.com/2019/04/first-love-poster-e1556120010711.jpg?w=1000&h=562&crop=1
HanWay Films

Details have been released today about Takashi Miike’s Cannes Directors’ Fortnight-bound action-thriller First Love.

Set over one night in Tokyo, the film will follow Leo, a young boxer down on his luck as he meets his ‘first love’ Monica, a call girl and an addict but still an innocent. Little does Leo know, Monica is unwittingly caught up in a drug-smuggling scheme, and the two are pursued through the night by a corrupt cop, a yakuza, his nemesis, and a female assassin sent by the Chinese Triads. According to the production, all their fates intertwine in “spectacular Miike style, at his most and fun and anarchic.”

The film reunites Oscar-winning producer Jeremy Thomas’ (The Last Emperor) Recorded Picture Company with cult director Miike for the fourth time after their collaborations on Blade of the Immortal, Hara-Kiri: Death of a Samurai and 13 Assassins. HanWay Films will handle worldwide sales (excluding Asia) and will commence sales at Cannes.

The film is a Japanese/UK collaboration and is produced by Muneyuki Kii, Jeremy Thomas and Misako Saka. It also reunites Miike with many of his regular collaborators including writer Miyabi Nakamura (The Bird People In China), composer Koji Endo (13 Assassins) and cinematographer Nobuyasu Kita (Blade Of The Immortal).

THREADS
Cannes (http://www.kungfumagazine.com/forum/showthread.php?53853-Cannes)
First Love (http://www.kungfumagazine.com/forum/showthread.php?71286-First-Love-from-Takashi-Miike)

must

find

trailer

[GeneChing]

Never mind the post above (http://www.kungfumagazine.com/forum/showthread.php?53853-Cannes&p=1313504#post1313504). :rolleyes:


Cannes Adds Quentin Tarantino's 'Once Upon a Time in Hollywood' to Competition Lineup (https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/news/cannes-adds-quentin-tarantinos-once-a-time-hollywood-1203730)
3:01 AM PDT 5/2/2019 by Rhonda Richford

https://cdn1.thr.com/sites/default/files/imagecache/landscape_928x523/2018/09/once_upon_a_time_in_hollywood_still_1_-_publicity_-_h_2018.jpg
Andrew Cooper
'Once Upon a Time in Hollywood'

The addition will bring Brad Pitt, Leonardo DiCaprio and Margot Robbie to the red carpet, while Abdellatif Kechiche and Gael Garcia Bernal also join the lineup.
Quentin Tarantino's highly anticipated Once Upon a Time in Hollywood will have its world premiere at the Cannes Film Festival, the film festival unveiled Thursday.

The addition means that Brad Pitt, Leonardo DiCaprio and Margot Robbie will be adding a burst of star power to this year's festival.

The film had been expected in the original lineup, unveiled on April 18, but artistic director Thierry Fremaux told reporters that day that the film wasn't ready.

In an interview with The Hollywood Reporter, he said he was “really, really, really focused” on Tarantino finishing the film in time to make the festival. He compared the director to Orson Welles and Martin Scorsese and said Tarantino was part of the Cannes family.

While Fremaux had hinted there would be one or two titles named to the lineup, he added a slew of films in the announcement Thursday.

Alongside Tarantino, Palme d'Or winner Abdellatif Kechiche will also be in competition with the second part of his Mektoub, My Love epic series. The Intermezzo installment of the young love story will unspool at four hours.

Out of competition, Gaspar Noe's mid-length Lux Aeterna starring Charlotte Gainsbourg and Beatrice Dalle will take a midnight screening berth, apropos for his story about witches.

Gael Garcia Bernal's Chicuarotes will join the lineup as a special screening, alongside Patricio Guzman's La Cordillera de los Suenos, Leila Conners's Ice on Fire and Dan Krauss's Ward 5B.

Lorenzo Mattotti's La Famosa Invasione Degli Orsi in Sicilia and Larissa Sadilova's Odnazhdy v Trubchevske will join the Un Certain Regard lineup.

Festival regular Tarantino, who won the Palme d'Or for Pulp Fiction, screened Death Proof and Inglorious Basterds in competition in Cannes and served as president of the jury last year, will join Pedro Almodovar, Terrence Malick and Ken Loach among the famed directors in this year's lineup.

RHONDA RICHFORD
THRnews@thr.com
@thr



THREADS
Cannes (http://www.kungfumagazine.com/forum/showthread.php?53853-Cannes)
Once Upon a Time in Hollywood (http://www.kungfumagazine.com/forum/showthread.php?70864-Once-Upon-a-Time-in-Hollywood)

[GeneChing]

Cannes: Sylvester Stallone to Present First Look at 'Rambo 5' (https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/news/rambo-5-sylvester-stallone-present-first-look-at-cannes-1204314)
11:04 AM PDT 5/8/2019 by Rhonda Richford

https://cdn1.thr.com/sites/default/files/imagecache/landscape_928x523/2017/11/gettyimages-503521502_copy_-_h_2017.jpg
Getty Images
Sylvester Stallone

The star will also show a restored copy of the 1982 original at a gala screening.

Rambo is set to arrive on the Croisette, with Sylvester Stallone added to Cannes' official selection to present a restored version of the 1982 action classic and preview the first images of the latest installment in the film franchise.

Stallone is bringing back his iconic character 37 years later in Rambo V: Last Blood, which is set to hit theaters Sept. 20. The sequel co-stars Paz Vega and Oscar Jaenda and is directed by Adrien Grunberg.

The restored copy of Rambo has a French connection: It is backed by StudioCanal and completed by Eclair in Paris. The pic is set for a gala screening May 24.

The last time Stallone was in Cannes, he brought along his Expendables 3 co-stars, including Arnold Schwarzenegger, Mel Gibson, Jason Statham and Antonio Banderas, and rode two tanks down the Croisette before parking them in front of the famed Carlton hotel.

THREADS
Cannes (http://www.kungfumagazine.com/forum/showthread.php?53853-Cannes)
Rambo V: Last Blood (http://www.kungfumagazine.com/forum/showthread.php?68347-Rambo-V-Last-Blood)

[GeneChing]

FILM
CANNES
Michelle Yeoh Joins ‘Gunpowder Milkshake’ – Cannes (https://deadline.com/2019/05/michelle-yeoh-gunpowder-milkshake-lena-headey-angela-bassett-navot-papushado-1202611713/)
By Mike Fleming Jr
Co-Editor-in-Chief, Film
@DeadlineMike

https://pmcdeadline2.files.wordpress.com/2019/01/micehelle-yeoh-e1557509755328.jpg?w=910&h=511&crop=1
Matt Baron/Shutterstock

Michelle Yeoh has committed to star in Gunpowder Milkshake, joining Avengers: Endgame and Guardians of the Galaxy‘s Karen Gillan, Game of Thrones‘ Lena Headey, Black Panther‘s Angela Bassett and Billions‘ Paul Giamatti. Pic is a female-driven high-concept assassin story that has a rich mythology and spans multiple generations.

Written and directed by Big Bad Wolves‘ Navot Papushado, the film begins shooting at the Babelsberg FilmStudio in Germany, with principal photography commencing June 3. Ehud Lavski has co-written.

Studiocanal and The Picture Company partners Andrew Rona & Alex Heineman produce. Papushado’s Big Bad Wolves’ partner Aharon Keshales is exec producer.

Yeoh is coming off shooting the Avatar sequels, Crazy Rich Asians and Star Trek: Discovery. She returns to the action game after Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon and the 007 film Tomorrow Never Dies. She is represented by her manager David Unger of Artist International.

Studiocanal will release in the UK, Australia, New Zealand, Germany and France, and will be selling the rest of world at Cannes. It is co-repping U.S. rights with UTA.

The Picture Company has an overall deal with Studiocanal.

THREADS
Gunpowder Milkshake (http://www.kungfumagazine.com/forum/showthread.php?71156-Gunpowder-Milkshake)
Cannes (http://www.kungfumagazine.com/forum/showthread.php?53853-Cannes)
Michelle Yeoh (http://www.kungfumagazine.com/forum/showthread.php?44824-Michelle-Yeoh)

[GeneChing]

Cannes: Huayi Brothers' Chinese War Epic 'The Eight Hundred' Sells Wide (https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/news/cannes-huayi-brothers-chinese-war-epic-sells-wide-1209908)
5:00 PM PDT 5/13/2019 by Patrick Brzeski

https://cdn1.thr.com/sites/default/files/imagecache/landscape_928x523/2019/05/img_8568.png
Huayi Brothers Media
'The Eight Hundred'

The big-budget epic features action scenes designed by Hollywood veteran Glen Boswell and is hoping to do for the war epic in China what local blockbuster 'The Wandering Earth' did for sci-fi.
China's hotly anticipated World War II epic The Eight Hundred has sold to multiple territories around the world, including North America.

Directed by Guan Hu and produced by veteran Chinese studio Huayi Brothers Media, The Eight Hundred is being pitched to buyers at the Cannes Film Market as China's first big-budget, grippingly realistic war epic.

The producers are hoping the film will do for the war movie in China what local blockbuster The Wandering Earth ($780 million) did for the sci-fi genre earlier this year — set a new standard for production quality while making a bundle at the box office.

Huayi Brothers launched sales on the film at Berlin's European Film Market in February. So far, it has sold theatrical rights to the U.S., Canada, Australia and New Zealand (CMC Pictures, which also distributed The Wandering Earth in the U.S.); South Korea (First Run), Germany (Koch), the U.K. (Trinity), Singapore and Brunei (Shaw); Malaysia, Vietnam, Cambodia, Myanmar and Laos (GSC); and worldwide in-flight (Emphasis).

The film is set to open in China on July 5, in the thick of summer blockbuster season. Most of the international territories sold so far are lined up for day-and-date theatrical releases with China, or not far behind. Huayi Brothers is expecting to close out remaining territories during the Cannes film market.

The Eight Hundred is said to have a production budget in excess of $80 million — which sits at the very upper end in China, where the industry remains nonunionized and production costs run much lower than in Hollywood.

https://cdn1.thr.com/sites/default/files/2019/05/img_8569.png
Huayi Brothers Media

The film is already generating buzz in Beijing among local producers and executives who have viewed early cuts. The most common comparison has been that the film is like "China's answer to Dunkirk."

The Eight Hundred was already underway before the release of Christopher Nolan's impressionistic WWII film, but the Huayi Brothers project does bear some similarities to Dunkirk — both in its realistic approach to action and that its story focuses on a heroic sacrifice and retreat rather than a decisive victory.

The film is based on a pivotal battle in 1937 during the Sino-Japanese war: the historic siege and defense of the Si Hang Warehouse in Shanghai. This brutal, merciless encounter marked the last stand of the Chinese forces in the Battle of Shanghai and ended with the Japanese occupation of China's most cosmopolitan city. About 400 fighters, an unlikely mix of soldiers, deserters and civilians who, as the story turned to legend, became known as the “Eight Hundred Heroes," held out against waves of Japanese forces for four days and four nights in order to cover for China's principal forces, which retreated west to protect the country's heartland during the next phase of aggression.

The film features an ensemble cast of — in order of appearance — Ou Hao, Wang Qianyuan, Jiang Wu, Zhang Yi, Du Chun, Wei Chen, Tang Yixin, Li Chen, Liang Jing, Ethan Ruan, Liu Xiaoqing, Yao Chen, Zheng Kai, and Huang Xiaoming.

On the production side, Eight Hundred continues the recent trend of big-budget Chinese films hiring Hollywood veterans to collaborate alongside local technical staff. The key production team includes: Chinese cinematographer Cao Yu (Nanking Nanking), production designer Lin Mu (Design of Death), sound designer Fu Kang (Summer Palace), American action director Glenn Boswell (Lord of the Rings, The Matrix), Australian Oscar-nominated visual effects supervisor Tim Crosbie (X-Men: Days of Future Past), and original music by Rupert Gregson-Williams and Andrew Kawczynski, both past Hans Zimmer collaborators. Italian singer Andrea Bocelli is recording the film's theme song.

Director Guan's most recent release was the gritty crime drama Mr. Six (2005), which became a sleeper hit for Huayi Brothers, earning $137 million in China. The film closed the 72nd Venice International Film Festival in an out-of-competition screening.

THREADS
The Eight Hundred (http://www.kungfumagazine.com/forum/showthread.php?71303-The-Eight-Hundred)
Cannes (http://www.kungfumagazine.com/forum/showthread.php?53853-Cannes)

[GeneChing]

More news from Cannes (http://www.kungfumagazine.com/forum/showthread.php?53853-Cannes) - Shanghai Fortress (http://www.kungfumagazine.com/forum/showthread.php?71305-Shanghai-Fortress) has Shu Qi in it so I guess I'm in although I'm really more interested in the wake of The Wandering Earth (http://www.kungfumagazine.com/forum/showthread.php?71046-The-Wandering-Earth).


ASIA MAY 13, 2019 1:30PM PT
Cannes: China’s Times Vision Bets on Sci-Fi ‘Shanghai Fortress’ (EXCLUSIVE) (https://variety.com/2019/film/news/cannes-chinas-times-vision-bets-on-sci-fi-shanghai-fortress-exclusive-1203212611/)
By REBECCA DAVIS

https://pmcvariety.files.wordpress.com/2019/05/p2553816814.jpg?w=1000&h=563&crop=1
CREDIT: TIMES VISION

Chinese sales and distribution company Times Vision has brought two new titles to Cannes this year, including “Shanghai Fortress,” a big-budget summer sci-fi blockbuster that producers hope will replicate the success of “The Wandering Earth.” Its other film at the Marche is family drama “Looking Up.”

“Shanghai Fortress” stars Taiwanese actress Shu Qi and Chinese idol Lu Han, one of the country’s highest-paid celebrities, who rose to fame as a member of the South Korean boy band Exo. It is expected to debut in early August, with China Film Group as the primary distributor.

Adapted from a popular sci-fi novel by writer Jiang Nan, the futuristic romance was produced by HS Entertainment Group Inc. The firm was behind the 2013 romantic comedy “So Young,” the directorial debut of actress Vicky Zhao Wei and the 2017 TV series “Nothing Gold Can Stay,” a palace drama.

“Looking Up” is a family drama starring Deng Chao (Zhang Yimou’s “Shadow,” 2016’s “The Mermaid”) that centers on the changing relationship between a father and his young son. Deng directed the feature jointly with writer-director Yu Baimei (“Devil and Angel,” “The Break-Up Guru”). It is set to hit Chinese theaters July 26, with Maoyan as the China distributor.

Times Vision recently sold the rights to action thriller “Savage,” the debut feature from Chinese screenwriter Cui Siwei, to numerous territories worldwide. Rights were purchased by Well Go for North America, Wild Bunch for France, Koch Films for Germany, Cai Chang for Taiwan, At Entertainment for Japan, NK Contents for Korea, and Encore for in-flight.

The film debuted April 30 in China but, overshadowed by “Avengers: Endgame” and “Capernaum,” has not performed very well, making just $3.92 million (RMB27 million).

But Times Vision CEO Nathan Hao told Variety he was optimistic for the prospects of his new slate, particularly “Shanghai Fortress.” “We think the film will have a good chance because there’s been such great achievements in the world box office and streaming for ‘The Wandering Earth,'” he said. That film debuted in February and has gone on to become the second-highest grossing film of all time in the country, with earnings of $677 million (RMB4.66 billion), paving the way for the genre in the Middle Kingdom.

[GeneChing]

Donnie Yen on How Kong Kong Action Cinema Can Reclaim Its Glory (https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/news/donnie-yen-how-kong-kong-action-cinema-can-reclaim-glory-1210649)
9:40 PM PDT 5/14/2019 by Karen Chu

https://cdn1.thr.com/sites/default/files/imagecache/landscape_928x523/2019/05/canneshongkongspotlight.jpg
COURTESY OF MANDARIN MOTION PICTURES

"Being able to play the same character in four films is a rare opportunity," says Donnie Yen of his role in 'Ip Man 4.'

As his career-defining 'Ip Man' franchise comes to a close, the Hong Kong superstar — who will be featured in Disney’s upcoming live-action remake of 'Mulan' — also discusses improving onscreen Asian representation: "I hope we can make more breakthroughs."
Since taking up the mantle of Wing Chun grandmaster in Ip Man 4, Donnie Yen has become increasingly synonymous with the real-life martial arts legend, who famously trained Bruce Lee.

In the intervening years, Yen became a part of the Star Wars franchise, playing the fan-favorite blind warrior Chirrut Îmwe in spinoff Rogue One, and will be featured in Disney’s upcoming live-action remake of Mulan. But it has been the Ip Man franchise that brought him into hand-to-hand combat with Mike Tyson and secured him a place among hard-core kung fu aficionados as one of the great action superstars to come out of Hong Kong.

Yen will reprise the role for the last time in Ip Man 4 — on offer to international buyers at the Marché du Film from Pegasus — which follows the title character as he accompanies his protege Bruce Lee when he relocates to San Francisco in the late 1950s.

Along with Mulan, which co-stars fellow Hong Kong legend Jet Li and Chinese actress Gong Li, Yen will soon appear as a plus-size but highly deadly cop in the Hong Kong action-comedy Enter the Fat Dragon, to be released this year. Yen, 55, spoke with The Hollywood Reporter about craving better representation for Asian actors when he was a teenager, how Hong Kong action cinema can reclaim its former glory and why he has resisted training his own children in martial arts.

You have played the character of Ip Man for more than 10 years now. Would you say that this role has defined your career?

Yes, it has. Being able to play the same character in four films is a rare opportunity, and I have to thank the fans of the films for their appreciation. The role has brought me more work and more fans, given me fame and fortune and made me realize that an actor’s life is an unceasing pursuit of bringing to life a character and becoming inseparable from that character in people’s minds.

Fans petitioned online for Disney not to whitewash this remake of Mulan. How did you feel watching that movement unfold? What’s your view on Hollywood’s attempt to embrace diversity in recent years?

I think they should have done this years ago. Since the beginning of time, the world has been diverse. Different ethnicities and cultures have always lived on this Earth. [The pattern of whitewashing ] comes from the fact that Hollywood product has dominated the film industry for decades. And we’ve grown up watching Hollywood films and had been under their influence. For a lot of people, you and me included, when they think of princes and princesses, they’d think of someone with blond hair and white skin. This image has been ingrained in us. But if we think about it, we’d realize that, around the world, Chinese people are quite numerous, too. (Laughs.) So shouldn’t it be time to express these characters and stories with different aesthetics? Something that more people worldwide can share and identify with?

Did you yearn for more onscreen representation for people of Asian descent when you lived in the U.S. during your teenage years?

Certainly. That’s one of the reasons why, growing up during that time, we were all so fascinated by Bruce Lee. Bruce Lee gave us a sense of pride and belonging. We grew up watching Hollywood films and accepting their standards. It was easy to lose track of who we were. When we looked in the mirror, we might wonder why we didn’t look like those onscreen. Of course we also wondered when we’d see something different. But the world is changing, there has been an African American president in the U.S. — that’s something that used to be unimaginable. There are also more and more Chinese actors achieving success on the global stage. As a filmmaker of Chinese descent, I’m very happy and encouraged, and hope we can make even more breakthroughs.

https://cdn1.thr.com/sites/default/files/2019/05/donnieyen.jpg
JASON LAVERIS/FILMMAGIC

"I feel it’s lacking a bit of spark," says Yen of the current state of action filmmaking in Hong Kong.
Will you be accepting more Hollywood roles for that reason?

Well, it depends, first of all, on whether the subject matter and the character interest me. Then it depends on my schedule, since I want to make more Hong Kong films from now on. I’ve always been a Hong Kong filmmaker; I’ve never left. Hong Kong is my home; my children live here. Now that I have a little bit of influence and pull, I’d like to use that to make more films in Hong Kong.

The film you’re shooting now, Raging Fire, is the first time you’ve worked with Nicholas Tse since you both starred in Dragon Tiger Gate (2006). Can you say anything about the project yet?

I’m very happy to reunite with Nicholas, and also Benny Chan, who was the producer and director of two television series I made in the 1990s. We haven’t worked together for over 20 years. As for the plot, I can’t really comment on it now. But the film is action-packed.

Kung fu and action cinema were at the heart of Hong Kong cinema’s heyday. What is your take on the state of action filmmaking in Hong Kong?

I feel it’s lacking a bit of spark. Hong Kong filmmakers are always talking about bringing glory back to the Hong Kong film industry. But what is that exactly? The world is changing rapidly. It’s no longer the same world it was when we were making action films. Hollywood hadn’t developed the visual vocabulary to shoot action, kung fu and combat scenes in our style at that time. But they are very fluent in this language now. So if we stay where we were, the industry will eventually die out.

You have two kids. Is passing your martial arts skills on to them important to you?

My daughter sings and dances, but she’s not that interested in kung fu. My son is still quite young, so I’d rather he learns martial arts from a teacher. Learning martial arts is serious, rigorous business. I don’t want to have any conflicts, or that kind of sternness, with my kids. I don’t spend enough time with them as it is, so I’d like to have quality time — filled only with smiles — when I do spend time with them.

This story first appeared in The Hollywood Reporter's May 15 daily issue at the Cannes Film Festival.

THREADS
Ip Man 4 (http://www.kungfumagazine.com/forum/showthread.php?69747-Ip-Man-4)
Cannes (http://www.kungfumagazine.com/forum/showthread.php?53853-Cannes)
Mulan (http://www.kungfumagazine.com/forum/showthread.php?68640-Mulan-Live-Action-Disney-project)
Raging Fire (http://www.kungfumagazine.com/forum/showthread.php?71246-Raging-Fire)

[GeneChing]

MAY 9, 2019 12:58PM PT
Zhang Ziyi Named Godmother of the Trophée Chopard 2019 at Cannes Film Festival (https://variety.com/2019/film/news/cannes-zhang-ziyi-to-present-trophee-chopard-1203210019/)
By DANIEL NISSEN

https://pmcvariety.files.wordpress.com/2019/05/zhang-ziyi.jpg?w=1000&h=563&crop=1
CREDIT: EVAN AGOSTINI/INVISION/AP

Actress Zhang Ziyi has been named “Godmother” of the 19th annual Trophée Chopard 2019 at Cannes Film Festival.

As godmother, Zhang will present the award to both a male and female young actor on the rise. She follows “Godmother” Diane Kruger, who presented the award to Joe Alwyn and Elizabeth Debicki at Cannes film Festival 2018.

Charlize Theron, Elton John, Robert De Niro, Sean Penn, Cate Blanchett, Julianne Moore, Jude Law, Gwyneth Paltrow and Helen Mirren are among previous presenters. Previous recipients also include Marion Cotillard, Ezra Miller, Shailene Woodley, Logan Lerman, James McAvoy, John Boyega and Gael García Bernal.

Zhang, who gained international fame for her role in “Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon,” is the second ever Chinese presenter, after Gong Li. Zhang and Ghong appeared together in the 2005 film “Memoirs of a Geisha.”

President of the festival Pierre Lescure, general delegate Thierry Frémaux and co-president and artistic director of Chopard Caroline Scheufele will hold the the ceremony in Agora, near the festival.

This year’s festival has a slate of highly anticipated films. Quentin Tarantino’s “Once Upon a Time in Hollywood,” Jim Jarmusch’s “The Dead Don’t Die,” Terrence Malick’s “A Hidden Life,” Werner Herzog’s “Family Romance, LLC” and Ken Loach’s “Sorry We Missed You” will all premiere at the festival.

Zhang is in the upcoming “Godzilla: King of the Monsters,” coming to theaters May 31.

Variety has partnered with Chopard on the annual event since 2012.

THREADS
Cannes (http://www.kungfumagazine.com/forum/showthread.php?53853-Cannes)
Godzilla: King of the Monsters (http://www.kungfumagazine.com/forum/showthread.php?70303-Godzilla-King-of-the-Monsters)

[GeneChing]

I didn't expect Kung Fury 2 (http://www.kungfumagazine.com/forum/showthread.php?69538-Kung-Fury-2) to be a topic at Cannes (http://www.kungfumagazine.com/forum/showthread.php?53853-Cannes). :eek:


Cannes: 'Kung Fury 2' Lands Major Investor, Sets Production Start (Exclusive) (https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/news/cannes-kung-fury-2-lands-major-investor-sets-production-start-1211233?utm_source=Sailthru&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=THR%20Live%20Feed%20Alerts_now_2019-05-16%2011:04:52_rporter&utm_term=hollywoodreporter_livefeed)
10:00 AM PDT 5/16/2019 by Alex Ritman

https://cdn1.thr.com/sites/default/files/imagecache/landscape_928x523/2015/05/kung-fury.jpg
'Kung Fury'

The feature-length follow-up to the cult 2015 short, set to star Michael Fassbender and Arnold Schwarzenegger, will go into production July 29.
Kung Fury 2 — set to star Michael Fassbender, Arnold Schwarzenegger, Eiza Gonzalez, David Hasselhoff and the titular kung fu cop himself, David Sandberg — is a go!

The feature-length follow-up to the cult 2015 short Kung Fury — the cheesy and comically OTT homage to '80s martial arts and police action films that became a crowdfunded sensation, premiered in Cannes and amassed in excess of 40 million views on YouTube — has landed a major investor and an official production start date.

Creasun Entertainment USA, the recently launched L.A.-based financing and production arm of Minglu Ma’s Asian VFX powerhouse Creasun Media and run by Ma and George Acogny, has taken a majority stake in the film and come aboard as co-producer. Creasun joins Argent Pictures, the production and financing outfit run by Jill Ahrens, Ryan Ahrens and Ben Renzo, who is co-financing and co-producing the project.

The brainchild of Swedish filmmaker Sandberg, who returns as director and the time-traveling, Nazi-bashing hero, Kung Fury 2 is now set to go into production July 29 in Bulgaria and Germany, with Oscar-winning British VFX giant Double Negative producing the special effects together with Ma.

Co-written by Sandberg and Tyler Burton Smith, the action is set in 1985, the best year ever. Miami is kept safe under the watchful eye of Kung Fury, the greatest **** cop of all time. His Thundercops are the ultimate police force assembled from across history to defeat the villainous Kung Fuhrer, Adolf Hitler. But after the tragic death of one of their members causes the group to disband, a mysterious villain emerges from the shadows to aid in the Fuhrer’s quest to attain the ultimate weapon. Kung Fury must travel through space and time to save his friends, defend the prestigious Miami Kung Fu Academy and defeat evil once and for all.

"Kung Fury 2 is the very exciting vision of David Sandberg, and it contains all the elements of a magical and fun ride for all ages," said Acogny. "We are thrilled to be part of this great project and can’t wait to share it with the whole world, where it will no doubt create excitement across the globe!"

Ma and Acogny of Creasun Entertainment, Jill Ahrens and Ryan Ahrens, and Renzo of Argent Pictures, Sandberg and Pelle Strandberg of Laser Unicorns, David Katzenberg, Seth Grahame-Smith, and Aaron Schmidt of KatzSmith Productions, Philip Westgren of B-Reel Films and Fassbender of DMC Film are producing. Argent Pictures partners Drew Brees, Tony Parker, Derrick Brooks and Michael Finley are executive producing. Conor McCaughan of DMC Film is co-producing.

Endeavor Content is handing international sales for Kung Fury 2, and co-repping with CAA Media Finance for North American rights.

Creason Entertainment is also co-financing Come Away, starring Angelina Jolie, Michael Caine and David Oyelowo and currently in postproduction, and financed and co-produced a miniseries remake of the original HG Wells story War of the Worlds.

[GeneChing]

Undisputed (http://www.kungfumagazine.com/forum/showthread.php?68535-Boyka-Undisputed-4) TV show sold at Cannes (http://www.kungfumagazine.com/forum/showthread.php?53853-Cannes)


Cannes: Martial Arts Franchise 'Undisputed' Being Rebooted for TV (Exclusive) (https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/news/martial-arts-franchise-undisputed-get-tv-reboot-1211219)
10:30 PM PDT 5/16/2019 by Alex Ritman

https://cdn1.thr.com/sites/default/files/imagecache/landscape_928x523/2019/05/undisputed.artwork._copy.jpg
Credit: Millennium
'Undisputed'

Millennium and Empire are teaming on the Cannes sales launch of the small-screen adaptation.
Martial arts movie franchise Undisputed — the four-strong hit film series that began in 2002 and has starred the likes of Wesley Snipes and Ving Rhames and helped break out Scott Adkins as major action name **— is being rebooted for the small screen, with original producer Millennium on board alongside London-based sales banner Empire Films, The Hollywood Reporter can reveal.

Sales are kicking off in Cannes, with the original director Isaac Florentine once again at the helm and a cast due to be announced soon.

Set in New York in the opulent world of international underground fight tournaments, the Undisputed series will continue the journeys of the characters from the film franchise. The story follows the self-discovery voyage of Yuri Boyka (played by Adkins in the films), a Russian prison fighter on parole who seizes the opportunity to participate in the world’s biggest and most prestigious underground fighting tournament. Exposing the lucrative and intricate underbelly of fighting rings, Undisputed will reveal the microcosm of an expansionist international crime organization and connects everyone in it; those who participate in it, organize it, protect it, investigate it and collect the money. This is a world where every action has consequences.

The show will be exec produced by Yariv Lerner (Hellboy, The Expendables, Rambo), alongside series developers Rouslan Ovtcharoff (The Expendables, The Mechanic, Criminal) and Benjamin Jackendoff (Black Eyed Peas Present: Masters of the Sun: The Zombie Chronicles), with Empire founder Sean O’Kelly (Gun Shy, Damascus Cover, Iron Sky) and Marc Bikindou (Breaking Point, Den of Lions, Swelter) producing.

Production is slated to commerce from March 2020 at NuBoyana studios in Bulgaria.

“There’s been a tremendous amount of buzz and pre-sales interest around Undisputed the TV series, with buyers quick to recognize its broad commercial appeal,” said O’Kelly. “As one of the most original and talented directors working today, Isaac Florentine will be sure to deliver the same riveting, high-octane action experience that Undisputed fans around the world have come to love and expect.”

Since April 2016, the Undisputed franchise has been viewed more than 1.2 billion times. At the 2017 Shanghai Film Festival, Boyka Undisputed 4 won the Best Fight Award, while Adkins won the Jackie Chan Best Action Movie Actor Award for his portrayal of Yuri Boyka.

"I am hoping that the mainstream American audience will finally discover the character of Yuri Boyka and like him the way he’s adored in the rest of the world," said Florentine.

Added Lerner: "NuBoyana studios was the home for all the Undisputed movies and we are excited to offer the same unparalleled production value to the series."

[GeneChing]

‘Once Upon A Time In Hollywood’ Gets 7-Minute Standing Ovation After Cannes Premiere (https://deadline.com/2019/05/once-upon-a-time-in-hollywood-cannes-standing-ovation-quentin-tarantino-premiere-1202620039/)
By Nancy Tartaglione
International Editor
@DeadlineNancy

https://pmcdeadline2.files.wordpress.com/2019/05/quentin-tarantino-once-upon-a-time-in-hollywood-cannes-2-e1558467671106.jpg?w=450&h=253&crop=1
Quentin Tarantino Once Upon A Time In Hollywood
Vianney Le Caer/Invision/AP/Shutterstock

The crowd that was able to get into the Cannes Film Festival’s world premiere of Quentin Tarantino’s Once Upon a Time in Hollywood gave the film a seven-minute standing ovation at the end of one of the most anticipated screenings at the prestigious festival in recent years.

“Thank you for being such a fantastic audience for the first time we’ve ever showed it to an audience,” Tarantino told the crowd after the screening in very brief remarks, thanking the studio, producers, cast and crew.

It was an enthusiastic response to the film, Tarantino’s ninth and most recent film in Cannes since Inglourious Basterds in 2009. He won the Palme d’Or 25 years ago for Pulp Fiction.

The plot revolves around TV star Rick Dalton (Leonardo DiCaprio) and his longtime stunt double Cliff Booth (Brad Pitt), who make their way around an industry in 1969 Los Angeles they hardly recognize anymore. It is Tarantino’s tribute to the final moments of Hollywood’s golden age. Margot Robbie as Sharon Tate, Al Pacino, Kurt Russell, Timothy Olyphant, Dakota Fanning, Luke Perry and Margaret Qualley lead the loaded ensemble cast.

Sony dropped the trailer for the pic just before the screening began. The film from Columbia Pictures hits theaters in the U.S. on July 26.

https://pmcdeadline2.files.wordpress.com/2019/05/once-upon-a-time-in-hollywood-e1558465313941.jpg?w=1024&h=576
Leonardo DiCaprio, left, Quentin Tarantino, Daniela Pick, David Heyman, Shannon McIntosh, Margot Robbie and Brad Pitt on Tuesday
David Fisher/Shutterstock

It had been foul weather in Cannes for the fest so far, but the sun came out for the Hollywood red carpet Tuesday. Just before 6 PM local time, Tarantino and the cast including DiCaprio, Pitt, Robbie and Dakota Fanning elicited hoots and applause from the crowd inside the Palais who watched as they appeared on the giant screen and, as is custom, signed autographs for the throngs of fans lining the Croisette.

(At the same time, some ticket holders were held back between security and the red carpet, wondering if they would make it into the cinema — many didn’t get in.)

On the red carpet, the crew posed for photographers in a scene that felt more subdued than when Inglourious Basterds was here — Tarantino danced his way up the Palais steps with Melanie Laurent on his way to the screening.

Also mounting the steps on the 25th anniversary of Tarantino’s Pulp Fiction world premiere were Sony’s Tom Rothman and producers David Heyman and Shannon McIntosh.

Inside ahead of the screening of the 2 hour, 39 minute film, Cannes boss Thierry Fremaux told the audience not to reveal spoilers — an unusual onstage opening here. “It’s a bit exceptional because the production and Quentin Tarantino asked me to ask you not to discuss the film,” Fremaux said. “They would greatly appreciate that you not reveal anything that would prevent audiences worldwide from experiencing what you do today.”

He then introduced the cast and Tarantino, who had the crowd on its feet as he flashed his trademark peace sign.

Without giving anything away, Deadline’s Pete Hammond who was in the crowd Tuesday, already was formulating his take:


Pete Hammond
@DeadlinePete
Tarantino’s onceUpon A time In Hollywood Is justendind. A terrific and entertaining and highly satisfying film. Unexpected in one way but absolutely right on. Pitt and DiCaprio are great!

10
11:56 AM - May 21, 2019
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Pete Hammond
@DeadlinePete
Once upon a time In Hollywood is a true love letter to LOS angeles of the 60’s. QT just thanked the audience and studio. “See you on the Crroisette” he said .

5
12:01 PM - May 21, 2019
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THREADS
Cannes (http://www.kungfumagazine.com/forum/showthread.php?53853-Cannes)
Once Upon a Time in Hollywood (http://www.kungfumagazine.com/forum/showthread.php?70864-Once-Upon-a-Time-in-Hollywood)

[GeneChing]

Congrats to Emily Beecham. I've had the pleasure of meeting her three times, interviewing her once and having dinner seated next to her once. She's very sweet and drop dead gorgeous in person.


Britain's Beecham joins A-list with Cannes best actress win
AFP AFP•May 25, 2019

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Beecham has spent most of her career in supporting roles (AFP Photo/Valery HACHE)

https://s.yimg.com/ny/api/res/1.2/Q6b5KwCJwQn79NZXKGRnGQ--~A/YXBwaWQ9aGlnaGxhbmRlcjtzbT0xO3c9ODAwO2g9NjAwO2lsPX BsYW5l/http://media.zenfs.com/en_us/News/afp.com/55e3ab42a3045da1c1bcf49ae7efb8ac8f27e462.jpg
Beecham has spent most of her career in supporting roles (AFP Photo/Valery HACHE)

Cannes (France) (AFP) - Britain's Emily Beecham has been catapulted into the movie big time by winning best actress at the Cannes film festival for playing an enigmatic scientist in "Little Joe".

Beecham, who has spent most of her career in supporting roles, was a surprise choice for the award for her performance as a botanist working on a flower that gives off a scent so ambrosial it makes people euphoric just to sniff it.

Indeed she admitted that she was so shocked that "I forgot to pack my toothbrush" when she received a call, after she'd left Cannes, telling her to come back and pick up the prize.

But while Beecham's rise has hardly been meteoric, the 35-year-old has been marked out as a talent to watch for a decade, winning best actress awards at both the Edinburgh and London Independent film festivals for one of her first films, "The Calling", in 2009.

Her big break came two years ago playing what Variety called "one of the more unpleasant characters in recent memory", a misanthropic young woman who witnesses a stabbing in Peter Mackie Burns' arthouse gem, "Daphne".

That helped consolidate the reputation the Manchester-born actress had won for a stream of British television roles including in the award-winning series "The Unforgiven", and the even more acclaimed "The Village", where she played opposite Maxine Peake and John Simm in the gritty historical rural drama.

- Martial arts queen -

Doors really began to open up for her in the United States, her mother's homeland, after she landed a small part in the Coen brothers 2016 sword and sandals send-up, "Hail, Caesar!"

By then she had landed the role of The Widow in the US martial arts action series, "Into the Badland".

Although her father is a pilot, she caught the acting bug at her school, the elite Hurtwood House in Surrey, which bills itself as "the most exciting school in England".

It is also the alma mater of the "Mary Poppins" star Emily Blunt and Princess Sarah Zeid of Jordan.

Beecham told AFP that she jumped at the chance to work with the highly-rated "Little Joe" director Jessica Hausner.

"She's one of the only female directors I've worked with so far. She's extraordinary," Beecham said of the Austrian, who was vying for Cannes top prize, the Palme d'Or.

"But I'm noticing more scripts and things come through with female directors attached. It's brilliant."

- Smart women -

The actress, who played opposite fellow Briton and "Mary Poppins" star Ben Whishaw and New Zealander Kerry Fox in the movie, said she was "profoundly inspired" by the French microbiologist Emmanuelle Charpentier and the naturalist Jane Goodall as she researched her role.

"One thing they both talked about -- Jane Goodall discussed it specifically -- is that her relationship with her family interfered with her research. She kind of had to put (her family) on the back burner and put the chimpanzees in the forefront."

Beecham said that she tried to work the pain of that into her character, a senior researcher in a biotech firm in the UK of the near future.

Hausner said she wanted to explore how "crazy" becomes a label used to keep women down.

"I was always fascinated by the films about crazy women. I felt that male perspective and I thought 'Yeah, but what's so crazy about them?'" she said.

"The 'craziness' of women is actually the very interesting point about them because I think it's also about being sensitive and intelligent."

Beecham told AFP after she won the prize that she was drawn to Hausner after seeing her previous film "Lourdes", set in the French town where some Catholics believe the Virgin Mary appeared.

"So I loved her work already. Ben Whishaw was attached and I read the script and it was unquestionably a great project to be involved in and I really wanted to do it," she said.

THREADS:
Cannes (http://www.kungfumagazine.com/forum/showthread.php?53853-Cannes)
Into The Badlands (http://www.kungfumagazine.com/forum/showthread.php?67844-Into-The-Badlands)

[GeneChing]

Variety.com
Menu MAY 28, 2019 8:37AM PT
How Quentin Tarantino Saved Cannes, While Abdellatif Kechiche Set It Back a Decade (https://variety.com/2019/film/opinion/cannes-2019-analysis-quentin-tarantino-saved-abdellatif-kechiche-trashed-1203226682/)
By PETER DEBRUGE
Chief Film Critic
@AskDebruge

https://pmcvariety.files.wordpress.com/2019/05/onceuponatime.jpeg?w=1000&h=563&crop=1
CREDIT: SONY

Once upon a time in Cannes, a wild-eyed rebel kicked his foot through the basement window of Hollywood, stealing helter skelter from his favorite B-movies and lowbrow genres, and splicing them into the king of all cult movies. Mind you, that was a quarter-century ago, the year Quentin Tarantino’s “Pulp Fiction” won the Palme d’Or.

It’s a different world now, and Cannes is a different beast. Unspooling 25 years to the night after “Pulp Fiction,” Tarantino’s latest meta-movie remix, “Once Upon a Time … in Hollywood,” may have been the hottest ticket of the event, but the film hardly made the same impact. Ultimately something of a disappointment, the 159-minute fetish exercise — an epic homage to dirty feet, neon-lit classic L.A. dives and showbiz in-jokes, set half a century ago, on the eve of the Manson Family murders — got the customary standing ovation following its red-carpet premiere (that’s standard practice at Cannes), but elicited nary a clap at the press screening two hours earlier (unusual for such a hotly anticipated title, but a clear sign that this is far from Tarantino’s best). On closing night, the Alejandro G. Iñárritu-headed jury, which gave prizes to nine of the 20 films in competition, didn’t so much as mention the movie (instead, their prizes mostly went to worthier films).

What a curious situation: Tarantino’s film (a last-minute addition to the lineup) — together with the rhinestone-embellished Elton John biopic “Rocketman” — may have saved Cannes’ reputation for another year, but premiering at the festival may not have done it any favors. Set in 1969, Tarantino’s “Hollywood” contends with how television changed the film biz. That’s ironic, considering that worldwide, more people were tuned to the finale of HBO’s “Game of Thrones” than what was happening in Cannes. Had either of those two glitzy pics skipped the Croisette, however, it would have made the festival’s decline undeniable.

Where Cannes once stood undisputed as the most coveted place to premiere serious works of film art — and by extension, a kind of cinema mecca for filmmakers and critics — it’s been losing ground in recent years to a trio of end-of-summer showcases: Venice, Telluride and Toronto. Cannes has felt less crowded these past couple years, and in terms of sheer auteur wattage (on paper, at least, not to be confused with overall breadth and quality), not a single edition this century can rival last year’s Venice lineup, which boasted not just “Roma,” “A Star Is Born” and “First Man,” but new films from Yorgos Lanthimos, Mike Leigh, Jacques Audiard, Carlos Reygadas, László Nemes and Olivier Assayas — all directors traditionally associated with Cannes. Quality matters, of course, and Cannes is to be applauded for passing over some of these established directors in favor of newer voices, but in terms of perception, Venice’s strategy of inviting the big names (at the expense of women and emerging voices) is having the desired effect: To the American press and industry, Venice now feels more vital. And while it’s still far from rivaling Cannes in terms of either glamour or press coverage, Venice is clearly on the ascent.

You could blame the shift of power from Cannes to the fall festivals on changes in Hollywood’s awards-season strategy, as well as the rise of a single disruptor — namely, Netflix. A desperate strategy of banning the streaming service’s offerings from competition in Cannes has sent the new-media studio looking elsewhere to launch its choice titles: independent, auteur-driven works that have every right to be shown alongside those destined for theatrical distribution. Don’t be surprised to see Martin Scorsese’s “The Irishman” premiere at a fall festival, the way “Roma” did at Venice, or “The Outlaw King” kicked off Toronto last year.

To make up for those films getting away, festival director Thierry Frémaux needs to convince Hollywood distributors that it makes sense for them to premiere their prestige films in Cannes. In his favor, there’s Spike Lee’s “BlacKkKlansman,” which became a major contender in the Oscar race after playing Cannes. But that strategy backfired on David Robert Mitchell’s “Under the Silver Lake” for A24, all but destroyed by bad reviews from critics who come with knives sharpened (for whatever reason, the press is kinder in Venice, seldom booing the way they do in Cannes). When films skip Cannes, the standard explanation is that they “weren’t ready,” but it’s still telling that James Gray’s “Ad Astra” (previously dated for a May release), Benh Zeitlin’s “Wendy” and Miranda July’s upcoming feature appear to be eyeing fall festivals instead.

Frémaux has no control over when films will be ready, and is ultimately limited to the titles available to him in late spring — which presumably explains why films such as Claire Denis’ “High Life” and Mike Leigh’s “Peterloo” skipped Cannes last year. But it’s telling that certain producers are no longer rushing to get their films done in time for the festival’s cutoff: In the past, the prospect of premiering in Cannes has been so important to some that they’d scramble to be considered (in 2004, a work-in-progress print of Wong Kar-Wai’s “2046” arrived still wet from the labs) or turn down invitations from Berlin and other festivals in hopes of debuting in Cannes (with “The Tree of Life,” Terrence Malick held off an entire year for the honor). Now that DCPs have taken the place of 35mm prints, filmmakers can cut it closer than ever, working right up to the last minute, which leads to a different set of problems.

Afraid of losing an important film (or several) to Venice, Frémaux is often forced to accept movies that aren’t yet done when he screens them. This is normal practice for film festivals, by the way, although I can’t think of a more exasperating example than Abdellatif Kechiche’s “Mektoub, My Love: Intermezzo,” a continuation of the “Blue Is the Warmest Color” director’s sprawling, body-ogling 2017 “Canto Uno” (which Frémaux may have regretted letting go to Venice instead) that runs an monotonous 206 minutes, centered around a three-hour nightclub sequence in which his actresses twerk the night away — interrupted for 13 minutes to accommodate a marathon oral-sex scene, in which Kechiche explicitly demonstrates how gluteophiles express their appreciation. Practically any shot from the film might be considered gratuitous, but the sum total is downright punishing. It’s enough to make “Cheeky” director Tinto Brass blush, and in no universe does it deserve the kind of platform Cannes gave it.

Rumors suggest that Frémaux screened 25 minutes of the unfinished sequel in late April, and on the strength of what he saw — the film is so repetitive that a random core sample taken from any point should have been fairly representative — invited the Palme d’Or winner to screen in competition. It’s hard to imagine a worse decision on the part of Frémaux, who’s been obstinate about his reasons for not including more female directors. As he told Variety in 2018, “Many of these films directed by women are first or second films. They are still young filmmakers, and I wouldn’t be doing them a favor by putting their films in competition.” (Whereas men, he seems to imply, can take the scrutiny of that spotlight.)

Granted, the press reactions at Cannes can be harsh, and though I’ve never heard boos at a red-carpet premiere, they’re not uncommon in press screenings — which is no doubt one of the reasons why Frémaux canceled the practice of showing competition films in advance to critics, as no director wants to walk the red carpet knowing that his film had been rudely received earlier that day. But putting “Mektoub” in competition is nothing short of scandalous, revealing just how deep the festival’s chauvinist double-standard goes. Publicly, Frémaux says loud and clear that Cannes won’t lower the bar to include works by women, when it’s abundantly clear that they’ll take whatever garbage a more established man tosses their way. (Personally, I loved Malick’s “A Hidden Life” — a woozy, wide-angle meditation on heaven and earth from an artist who’d lost his way — but its detractors found it to be another case where the festival accepts familiar works from male artists, but doesn’t stretch to accommodate innovative forms from avant-garde women.)



continued next post

[GeneChing]

Meanwhile, it says something that of the four female-made movies in competition this year, three earned prizes: French-Senegalese director Mati Diop’s “Atlantics” (acquired by Netflix), Jessica Hausner’s “Little Joe” and Céline Sciamma’s “Portrait of a Lady on Fire.” There’s no question that juries are now more motivated to celebrate the cinematic achievements of women. So are critics and audiences, who’ve been forced to rely on more inclusive showcases — such as Sundance, SXSW and Toronto — to find the female talents whose work festivals like Cannes and Venice refuse to accept.

Of these films, Sciamma’s “Portrait of a Lady on Fire” distinguishes itself as the most political, dramatizing via an 18th-century encounter between two women — one a female artist, the other the noblewoman whom she’s been commissioned to paint — the way that so much of the female experience went undocumented. When art, literature and cinema are forbidden from depicting certain forbidden practices — such as an abortion, or erotic love between women — then everyone who dares to engage in such behavior feels as if she is inventing it for the first time. “Portrait” captures the thrill and challenge of that discovery, and beautifully makes the case that every artist perceives things differently, and that female artists in particular have much to add to our understanding of the world, if only because their outlook has been suppressed for so long.

Contrast the way Sciamma portrays sex and the female form from “Mektoub,” and it’s instantly apparent that Kechiche — with his leering, hot-and-bothered gaze — is literally taking the place from someone more deserving in competition. He’s entitled to his point of view as well, but it repeats and exaggerates the worst tendencies in hyper-sexualized objectification, and carving out a space for such a stunt (for there’s no doubt that Kechiche is baiting and antagonizing his critics, without adding anything meaningful to the conversation) denies other original voices a spot in competition.

We should be grateful for those others who, offered entrée by their reputations, are doing something new in their latest films. Ken Loach’s “Sorry We Missed You” and the Dardenne brothers’ “Young Ahmed” both feel like the work of young directors, despite the fact the filmmakers each have two Palmes already to their names. I’ve often resisted the work of Bong Joon-ho, but have no complaints about him winning this year’s festival with his latest, “Parasite,” which puts his slick, genre-melding skills in service of a venomous class portrait. And just when I thought queer Spanish auteur Pedro Almodóvar had gotten comfortable in his late career, he caught me completely by surprise with his latest — and best — film, the intimate autofiction “Pain and Glory,” in which Antonio Banderas delivers the performance of his career as a director partly inspired by Almodóvar himself.

Which brings us back to Tarantino — the 800-pound gorilla in this year’s competition. Where nearly every one of the director’s previous works has rocked the film world, leaving audiences bristling with excitement for every minute of their deranged running times, this one feels unforgivably self-indulgent. It’s bogged down by long, dull stretches (into which the director crams excerpts, real and imagined, from duly forgotten film and TV episodes of the time) during which we experience none of Tarantino’s usual gift for tension. The auteur’s signature strategy is to manipulate anticipation and suspense on a scene-to-scene level, creating situations of imminent and unpredictable violence — a diabolically polite Nazi officer searching for hidden Jews, two gun-toting hitmen tasked with recovering a stolen briefcase — and stretching them to all-but-unbearable lengths via directorial showmanship and colorfully written dialogue, before letting these risky situations snap back on themselves like the elastic band of a slingshot.

Here, instead of masterfully playing our nerves at such a micro level, Tarantino attempts — and stumbles — with a different high-wire act. Early on, he indicates that events are pointing to Aug. 8, 1969, the night the Manson family murdered Roman Polanski’s pregnant wife, Sharon Tate: The film’s co-dependent protagonists, faded star Rick Dalton (Leonardo DiCaprio) and his trusty stunt double Cliff Booth (Brad Pitt), live on Cielo Drive, where the bloody home invasion took place; Hollywood history buffs may recall that a stuntman was murdered around that time at Spahn’s movie ranch; and Tate, radiantly oblivious to her fate, even appears as a character (played by Margot Robbie). Confident those elements all point to who-knows-what kind of confrontation to come, Tarantino no longer focuses on generating electricity within individual scenes, trying instead to make it span the entire picture.

Between Tarantino’s indulgence, Malick’s resurgence and Kechiche’s concupiscence, the festival was heavy with men who felt they’d earned the right to fill hours of screen time with their most personal preoccupations. Such is the luxury of the established filmmaker. But where Cannes really ought to be using its power — and the fact that, for what could be a limited time, it has first dibs on new work — is in finding the emerging voices who don’t yet presume to have audiences’ attention, but have the freshest things to say. It’s the paradox of being first: The world expects big names, but relevance depends on bold, outside-the-box choices.




THREADS
Cannes (http://www.kungfumagazine.com/forum/showthread.php?53853-Cannes)
Once Upon a Time in Hollywood (http://www.kungfumagazine.com/forum/showthread.php?70864-Once-Upon-a-Time-in-Hollywood)


Quentin Tarantino ... What a pity that the film didn't win any awards. But still, I look forward to watching it. I dunno, man. QT got more publicity out of Cannes than anyone. Who needs awards?

[GeneChing]

And the winner is...


MAY 30, 2019 9:47PM PT
Cannes Palme d’Or Winner ‘Parasite’ Has $3.9 Million Opening Day in Korea (https://variety.com/2019/film/asia/cannes-winner-parasite-has-3-9-million-opening-day-in-korea-1203229890/)
By PATRICK FRATER
Asia Bureau Chief

https://pmcvariety.files.wordpress.com/2019/04/parasite-bong-joon-ho.jpg?w=1000&h=520&crop=1
CREDIT: COURTESY OF CJ ENTERTAINMENT

“Parasite,” the Palme d’Or-winning film from South Korean director Bong Joon-ho, has enjoyed a winning start at its home box office. It earned $3.93 million on Thursday, according to data from Kobiz, the tracking service of the Korean Film Council.

That put it far ahead of holdover title “Aladdin,” which came in second place ($527,000), and the fourth-place start for “Godzilla: King of the Monsters,” which opened a day earlier, on Wednesday, and earned only $212,000 on Thursday for a two-day cumulative of $768,000.

Since “Parasite’s” victory in Cannes last Saturday and Bong’s return home Monday, the film has enjoyed nonstop enthusiastic coverage in the South Korean media. It was screened for Korean media on Tuesday.

Plaudits were also heaped on actor Song Kang-ho, who has appeared in four of Bong’s films and who plays the father of a poor but resourceful family that works its way into the good graces of a richer family. “Parasite” also stars Lee Sun-kyun, Cho Yeo-jeong, Choi Woo-shik and Park So-dam.

The positive reactions helped exhibitors to expand the film’s opening to a massive 1,783 of the country’s 2,600 cinema screens. The film is distributed by CJ Entertainment.

In third place was “The Gangster, The Cop, The Devil,” which played in a midnight screening slot in Cannes and had its commercial release in South Korea on May 15. It earned $261,000 on Thursday, for a cumulative $22.7 million after two weeks.

In North America, distributor Neon announced Thursday that “Parasite” would get an awards season release. It will start in Los Angeles and New York from Oct. 11.

Cool. I love Bong's work.

[GeneChing]

This deserves its own thread (http://www.kungfumagazine.com/forum/showthread.php?71321-Parasite) independent of the Cannes thread (http://www.kungfumagazine.com/forum/showthread.php?53853-Cannes). Maybe there will be some archery or something martial in it.


MAY 30, 2019 12:49PM PT
Cannes Winner ‘Parasite’ Gets Awards-Season Release (https://variety.com/2019/film/awards/parasite-release-date-cannes-bong-joon-ho-1203229315/)
By DAVE MCNARY
Film Reporter
@Variety_DMcNary

https://pmcvariety.files.wordpress.com/2019/05/parasite.jpeg?w=1000&h=563&crop=1
CREDIT: COURTESY OF CANNES FILM FESTIVAL

Bong Joon-Ho’s dark comedy “Parasite,” which won the Palme d’Or at the Cannes Film Festival, has been scheduled by Neon for an awards season release of Oct. 11 in Los Angeles and New York.

Neon made the announcement Thursday, asserting that it has positioned the title as a prime awards season contender in the international film category and beyond. “Parasite” will receive a traditional arthouse platform release with a gradual expansion.

“Parasite” is a return to Korean-language film for Joon-Ho following “Okja” and “Snowpiercer.” It is also his fourth collaboration with Song Kang-Ho, who stars in the film, as well as his fifth collaboration with Neon CEO Tom Quinn.

The film also stars Lee Sun-kyun, Cho Yeo-jeong, Choi Woo-shik and Park So-dam. Jessica Kiang called the film “brilliant” in her review for Variety out of Cannes.

The story centers on the interactions between two families — one being the picture of aspirational wealth and the other rich in street smarts but not much else. The poorer family members provide “indispensable” luxury services while gaining a way out of their shabby circumstances. But this new ecosystem turns out to be fragile.

Kwak Sin Ae and Jang Young Hwan from Barunson E&A Corp produced, with CJ Entertainment handling international sales and distributing in Korea.

Neon bought North American rights to “Parasite” last October. At Cannes, Neon also acquired Celine Sciamma’s “Portrait of a Lady on Fire,” which won the best screenplay award at the festival.


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JLIIxDQmjyg

[GeneChing]

Eager to see Parasite. I enjoy Bong's work.


Oscars: South Korea Selects ‘Parasite’ for International Feature Film Category (https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/news/2020-foreign-language-oscar-south-korea-selects-parasite-1233767)
8:39 PM PDT 8/21/2019 by Danny Kim

https://cdn1.thr.com/sites/default/files/imagecache/landscape_928x523/2019/08/parasite_0hero.jpg
Courtesy of TIFF
'Parasite'

Bong Joon-ho’s black comedy, which won the Palme d'Or at the Cannes Film Festival this year, follows a low-income family working their way into a rich family’s lives as household employees.

South Korea has selected Bong Joon-ho's Parasite as its entry for the best international feature film category at the 2020 Oscars.

Parasite won the Palme d’Or at the Cannes Film Festival earlier this year. The genre-busting black comedy is Bong’s second shot at the Oscars after Mother was selected by the Korean Film Council (KOFIC) in 2006, but didn't make the final shortlist.

The film follows unemployed driver Kim Ki-taek (Song Kang-ho), his wife, Choong Sook (Jang Hye-jin), and their college-age children as they struggle financially and aspire to live a rich life. Things look up for the Kim family when the children are hired as a tutor and art therapist to the rich Park family.

"I believe a director’s job is to reflect the times he or she lives in," says Bong, pictured here on the set of 'Parasite.'

A richly layered film touching on socioeconomic issues, The Hollywood Reporter's review described Parasite as "generally gripping and finely crafted, standing up well as Bong’s most mature state-of-the-nation statement since Memories of Murder in 2003."

Parasite sold worldwide via CJ Entertainment and Neon and is scheduled for North America release on Oct. 11 in New York and Los Angeles ahead of the awards seasons.

Despite its strong homegrown film industry and stellar names such a Lee Chang-Dong (Burning) and Park Chan-wook (The Handmaiden), South Korea has never won the international feature film category or made the final shortlist.

An independent jury led by Kim Young-Jin, programming director at Jeonju International Film Festival (JIFF) picked Parasite from a short list of eight features to represent Korea in the Oscars race.

After the successful opening in June, Parasite grossed over $71.3 million domestically and is the first Cannes-winning film that broke 10 million in ticket sales at the Korean box office, a symbolic figure in the country.

The 92nd Academy Awards will be held Feb. 9, 2020.

THREADS
The Academy Awards (http://www.kungfumagazine.com/forum/showthread.php?20798-The-Academy-Awards)
Cannes (http://www.kungfumagazine.com/forum/showthread.php?53853-Cannes)

[GeneChing]

Sylvester Stallone Talking With Robert Rodriguez About Bringing ‘Cobra’ Back to Life (https://bloody-disgusting.com/tv/3583990/sylvester-stallone-talking-robert-rodriguez-bringing-cobra-back-life/)
Published 1 week ago on September 16, 2019 By John Squires

https://i1.wp.com/bloody-disgusting.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/09/cobra-2.jpg?w=1200&ssl=1

At the Cannes Film Festival earlier this year, Sylvester Stallone had announced early plans to revive the 1986 action film Cobra in the form of a “streaming TV series.” Stallone of course played Marion Cobretti in the R-rated movie, a tough-on-crime street cop who must protect the only surviving witness to a strange murderous cult with far reaching plans.

In a new chat with Fandango while out promoting Rambo: Last Blood (arriving in theaters this Friday!), Stallone informs us that he’s actually developing the project with Robert Rodriguez!

“I’m talking with Robert Rodriguez right now about Cobra, which looks like that could happen,” Stallone told the site.

“It’s basically his baby now,” Stallone added, again noting that the idea is to turn Cobra into a TV series rather than bring the character back to life on the big screen.

Fandango notes that the potential project could very well be for Rodriguez’s El Rey Network, which is merely an educated guess at this point – but probably a pretty good one.

Just talks now, but y'all know my loyalty to El Rey (http://www.kungfumagazine.com/forum/showthread.php?70140-Man-at-Arms-Art-of-War-Original-Series-from-EL-REY-Network-with-Gene-Ching).

THREADS
Cobra TV series (http://www.kungfumagazine.com/forum/showthread.php?71503-Cobra-TV-series)
Cannes (http://www.kungfumagazine.com/forum/showthread.php?53853-Cannes)

[GeneChing]

Spike Lee to be first black head of Cannes film festival jury (https://www.france24.com/en/20200114-spike-lee-to-be-first-black-head-of-cannes-film-festival-jury)
Issued on: 14/01/2020 - 05:42
Modified: 14/01/2020 - 05:41

https://s.france24.com/media/display/3e47e95e-3688-11ea-a804-005056a98db9/w:1240/p:16x9/56c2dedf94c3acfc7cfa062a467c90813c0e8929.jpg
Paris (AFP)

American director Spike Lee was named president of this year's Cannes film festival jury on Tuesday, becoming the first black head of the panel.

The maker of "Malcolm X" and "Do the Right Thing" is the first person of black African descent to preside at the world's biggest film festival, which is held in May on the French Riviera.

Lee, 62, said he was "shocked, happy, surprised and proud all at the same time" to make history.

The Cannes veteran has premiered seven of his films at the festival, with his debut movie "She's Gotta Have It" causing a sensation in 1986 when it won the youth prize at Directors' Fortnight.

His appointment comes as activists criticised the Oscars on Monday for ignoring actors and directors of colour, with no nominations for the acclaimed performances of Awkwafina in the Chinese-American drama "The Farewell" and Lupita Nyong'o in the horror movie "Us".

Lee -- who showed his last film "BlacKkKlansman" at Cannes two years ago -- said "my biggest blessings... have happened out of nowhere.

"I'm honoured to be the first person of the African diaspora (USA) to be named president of the Cannes jury and of a main film festival."

Lee will also be awarded a Palme d'Or, the festival's top award, for lifetime achievement.

In a written statement from his home in "Da People's Republic Of Brooklyn, New York", Lee said Cannes had changed his life.

"To me the Cannes film festival (besides being the most important film festival in the world -- no disrespect to anybody) has had a great impact on my film career.

"You could easily say Cannes changed the trajectory of who I became in world cinema," he added.

- Lack of diversity -

Lee also thanked "the great people of France who have supported my film career throughout four decades. I will always treasure this special relationship."

Only one Asian, the Hong Kong auteur Wong Kar-wai, has ever led the Cannes jury in its 73-year history.

French actress Isabelle Adjani, whose father was Algerian, became the first person of African descent to lead the jury in 1997.

The world's top film festivals have faced fierce criticism for their lack of diversity in recent years.

Cannes and its rival Venice have faced growing scrutiny, particularly for the lack of female directors in their main competitions, even as they have chosen gender-balanced juries.

More than 80 actresses and woman filmmakers led by then jury president Cate Blanchett staged a red carpet protest at Cannes for equality in the film industry in 2018.

Lee was vocal in his support for the women at the time.

"Spike Lee's perspective is more valuable than ever," festival director Thierry Fremaux said.

"Cannes is a natural homeland and a global sounding board for those who awaken minds and question our stances and fixed ideas.

"Lee's flamboyant personality is sure to shake things up," he added.

Last year the jury was led by "Babel" and "The Revenant" director Alejandro Gonzalez Inarritu, the first Mexican and only the second Latin American to preside over the festival.

The winning film, Korean Bong Joon-ho's "Parasite", has since become a runaway hit, winning the Golden Globe for best foreign film and six Oscar nominations. Well played Cannes.

I neglected to mention that Parasite (http://www.kungfumagazine.com/forum/showthread.php?71321-Parasite) won the Palme d'or. :o

[GeneChing]

Is Cannes Happening Despite Coronavirus? Festival President Says “Oui” (https://www.vanityfair.com/hollywood/2020/03/coronavirus-cannes-film-festival)
The festival’s president is “reasonably optimistic” that the Covid-19 epidemic will hit its peak well before Cannes.
BY YOHANA DESTA
MARCH 11, 2020

https://media.vanityfair.com/photos/5e68f0cb5a28f70008cd562c/master/w_2560%2Cc_limit/GettyImages-1143465659.jpg
Pierre Lescure attends the Cannes official selection presentation at UGC Normandie in Paris on April 18, 2019.BY MARC PIASECKI/GETTY.

The Cannes Film Festival is holding firm in the wake of coronavirus panic, despite the fact that France has one of the largest outbreaks of the disease in Europe—and, as a result, gatherings of more than 1,000 people have officially been banned in the country. Festival president Pierre Lescure told French outlet Le Figaro that Cannes is still going ahead as planned, though he added that if the situation gets worse, he will have no choice but to cancel the glitzy event.

“We remain reasonably optimistic in the hope that the peak of the epidemic will be reached at the end of March and that we will breathe a little better in April,” he said. Lescure did, however, add this: “But we are not oblivious. If not, we will cancel.”

The festival, which is set to take place May 12–23, would certainly break the threshold of the 1,000-person ban. An estimated 40,000 attended the 2019 festival, flying into the country from all around the world.

There have been more than 1,600 reported cases of Covid-19 in France, the third-biggest outbreak in Europe following Italy and Spain. A reported 33 people have died. The outbreak has impacted several sports and entertainment events. Madonna canceled two shows scheduled for Paris this week, while the Louvre, which usually receives over 30,000 visitors per day, was temporarily closed for three days. The museum reopened after taking certain precautionary safety measures, such as limiting direct contact between employees and visitors purchasing tickets.

In the Le Figaro interview, Lescure said that if Cannes must be canceled, the festival will be able to withstand the financial losses that will occur.

“The endowment fund that we have set up allows us to face at least one year without revenue,” he said. That puts Cannes in a better position than Austin’s SXSW, which was canceled in the wake of the spreading virus and thus had to lay off one third of its full-time staffers.

It was previously reported that Cannes did not have insurance, which could cause trouble if the festival were forced to cancel. Lescure cleared that up in the interview, saying that the fest was offered insurance “about 10 days ago, but it was totally disproportionate. We were only offered to cover ourselves up to $2.3 million, while our budget is $36 million. It was really peanuts. The company was clearly playing the bounty hunters, and we of course declined this proposal.”

As of now, Cannes is slated to carry on as planned. This year’s jury president will be Oscar winner Spike Lee. Lescure also added, once again for good measure, that “we remain optimistic.”

THREADS
Cannes (http://www.kungfumagazine.com/forum/showthread.php?53853-Cannes)
covid-19 (http://www.kungfumagazine.com/forum/showthread.php?71666-Coronavirus-(COVID-19)-Wuhan-Pneumonia)

[GeneChing]

Oct 27, 2020 5:17pm PT
In Cannes, a Bittersweet Mini-Festival Salutes the Past and Sets Out a Hopeful New Vision (https://variety.com/2020/film/global/special-cannes-2020-thierry-fremaux-coronavirus-pandemic-1234817233/)

By Ben Croll

https://variety.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/10/Cannes-2020-1.jpg
Cannes 2020
AP
As the lights dimmed in the Grand Theatre Lumiere in Cannes on Tuesday evening, and the opening notes to Camille Saint-Saëns’ “The Carnival of Animals” echoed over the loudspeakers, one could almost imagine themselves back in the normal swing of things.

In some respects, the opening night of the three-day ‘Special Cannes’ program felt very much like a return to halcyon days. Announced in late September, the mini-festival is intended to honor the Cannes 2020 selection with a showcase of four films that received the prestigious label, as well as the full Cinefondation lineup and a short film competition.

At Tuesday’s opening screening of Emmanuel Courcol’s crowd-pleasing comedy drama “The Big Hit,” the security measures were more elaborate than ever; the state-of-the-art auditorium was at full capacity; and the screening was prefaced by a typically effusive introduction from Cannes delegate general Thierry Fremaux, among others.

Only, the 1,000 attendees weren’t exactly back in the good old pre-pandemic days. Security measures dictated that every attendee keep their mask on throughout the film, with each filmgoer seated at least one seat apart from their neighbor on either side. This meant that ‘capacity’ was less than one half of what the 2,300-seat auditorium can otherwise allow.

If the mood inside the theater was vibrant, Fremaux’s opening remarks were a reminder of the bittersweet circumstances that forced the Cannes Film Festival to claim this pop-up opportunity in the first place.

“When we returned to this theater, where we had not stepped foot since May 2019, we all felt our hearts pinch,” said Fremaux, referencing the festival’s tough-but-inevitable decision to cancel its physical component this past summer. “[With this event], we wanted to light this screen up anew.”

Fremaux’s remarks, and those of festival president Pierre Lescure and Cannes mayor David Lisnard, both looked back at the edition that never was, and forward to what the festival might look like in years to come.

“In May, the [New York Times] wrote an article called ‘What Do We Lose When Cannes Is Canceled,’” Fremaux let out with an impish grin. “The article was so strong that we decided to cancel next year as well, because it seems we get better press when we don’t host a festival than when we do!”

But in describing the pared-back program, which features the aforementioned “The Big Hit,” along with Naomi Kawase’s “True Mothers,” Dea Kulumbegashvili’s San Sebastian winner “Beginning,” and Bruno Podalydès’ “The French Tech,” Fremaux laid out a roadmap for how the festival perceives itself and how it might operate going forward.

“We have two French films, and two international ones,” Fremaux began. “As well as two films directed by men and two directed by women. [That kind of parity is] something we will apply as much as possible. We will display those convictions.”

In his remarks, Cannes mayor David Lisnard made the ongoing pandemic a focal point. “This edition incarnates this desire to come out of this stronger [than before], to fight and to overcome,” said Lisnard.

Highlighting the “particularly draconian” security protocols — which include in-theater air purification, temperature controls and disinfection sprays upon entering the Palais des Festivals — Lisnard made implicit the municipal authority’s goal to see a successful physical iteration of the festival in 2021.

“This is an exhortation,” said the mayor. “We need to make it understood that culture is a source of economic development, a source of social wealth, and a source of life…It’s a demonstration that we can and we should hold events while assuring the health and safety of all who attend. We will continue to fight to prove that we can do so.”

And it goes without saying that when the festival makes its long-awaited return in 2021, many of these new measures will be here to stay.

For the time being, however, attendees will have to cope with the more restrictive measures put in place by the French government in recent weeks. With COVID-19 cases on the rise and showing no signs of slowing within the days to come, national authorities instituted a countrywide 9 p.m. curfew on Oct. 24, and President Emmanuel Macron is widely expected to announce a new lockdown later this week.

On the ground in Cannes, that means each screening must allow ample time for festivalgoers to get home or back to hotels before the clock strikes nine. When “The Big Hit” came to a close, drawing cheers and applause from the impassioned audience, the film’s cast and crew had just enough time to take the stage for a victory lap.

At 8:20 p.m., the film’s director and stars stood onstage, enjoying their acclaim. But just five minutes later, Fremaux was urging attendees to file out quickly, reminding them to, “keep your masks on, wash your hands and get home before 9 p.m. to have a bowl of soup.”

By 8:30 p.m. on the dot, the Grand Theatre Lumiere was empty.

threads
Cannes (http://www.kungfumagazine.com/forum/showthread.php?53853-Cannes)
covid (http://www.kungfumagazine.com/forum/showthread.php?71666-Coronavirus-(COVID-19)-Wuhan-Pneumonia)

[GeneChing]

Jul 9, 2021 11:11am PT
Cannes Has an Average of Three COVID Cases Per Day, But No ‘Cluster,’ Says Festival Official (https://variety.com/2021/film/news/cannes-film-festival-covid-cases-cluster-1235015959/)

By Elsa Keslassy

https://variety.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/07/Cannes-COVID.jpg
Vianney Le Caer/Invision/AP
Cannes Film Festival’s general secretary Francois Desrousseaux squashed rumors swirling around the festival about skyrocketing coronavirus cases and told Variety Friday that four days into the festival, there is no Covid-19 cluster at Cannes.

“Out of several thousand people getting testing here on a daily basis, there are an average of three cases per day,” said Desrousseaux, who hammered out protocols with the festival’s organizers, producers and Cannes regional authorities. Salivary RT-PCR tests have been carried on at a 300 square-meter lab tent adjacent to the Palais des Festivals.

All unvaccinated guests as well as attendees traveling from the U.S. and countries listed as orange such as the U.K. have had to take tests every two days in order to enter the perimeter of the Palais des Festivals where the Marché des Films and most screenings are taking place.

Desrousseaux said “Since the start of the festival on Tuesday, there were a maximum of six cases found on a single day.” “If we look at the proportion of cases compared with the number of people tested, we’re well below the national average,” he pointed out.

Popular on Variety
Once people are tested positive to Covid-19, they are required to self-isolate immediately and are not allowed inside the perimeter of the the Palais des Festivals where security staff scan QR codes upon all entrances.

In view of those cases, Cannes’ organizers have now demanded that every festival staffer undergo a test every two days, rather than every five days which is the normal requirement for event employees, said Desrousseaux.

Cannes’ hands-on and resourceful mayor, David Lisnard, has also deployed Covid-sniffing dogs around the Palais, near the red carpet entrance.

The festival’s chief Thierry Fremaux and president Pierre Lescure reminded attendees that wearing a mask is mandatory in all indoor venues, following headlines saying that too many people had removed their masks during screenings and didn’t observe enough social distancing, including during the opening night ceremony on Tuesday.

“Understandably, people were particularly enthusiastic to reunite after such a long time during the first 24 hours, but we are making sure that sanitary rules are now strictly observed by everyone; and have more staff on the ground in charge of enforcing the protocol,” said Desrousseaux. “We have to be fully conscious that we’re still in the middle of a pandemic.”

threads
Cannes (http://www.kungfumagazine.com/forum/showthread.php?53853-Cannes)
covid (http://www.kungfumagazine.com/forum/showthread.php?71666)

[GeneChing]

Cannes Screens Bombshell Hong Kong Protest Doc as Late Addition to Official Program (https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/movies/movie-news/cannes-2021-kong-protest-documentary-1234981760/)
The festival's inclusion of 'Revolution of Our Times,' a hard-hitting chronicle of police brutality during Hong Kong's pro-democracy protests in 2019, is certain attract the ire of China's ruling Communist Party.

BY PATRICK BRZESKI, ALEX RITMAN
JULY 15, 2021 5:00AM
https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/07/AO_Still_20210613_00000006.jpeg?w=681&h=383&crop=1
Umbrella-wielding student protestors clash with police on the streets of Hong Kong. DEAR BROS
The Cannes Film Festival made a bombshell, last-minute addition to its lineup this week, inviting select members of the international press to attend a “confidential” screening of Revolution of Our Times, a gripping, politically powerful documentary initially described only as being “about the protests in Hong Kong.” Until its unveiling in Cannes, the film’s existence was not publicly known.

Revolution of Our Times has been scheduled to receive just one official special screening in Cannes, at 11 a.m. on Friday. The semi-secretive manner in which the film’s inclusion was announced initially aroused more curiosity in Cannes than its origins and subject matter.

On late Wednesday, the festival sent an email to the international press stating that a “surprise documentary” had been added to the program. Earlier in the day, however, a small number of film reporters were invited to attend a “confidential” screening in the Palais’ Salle Soixantieme. The Hollywood Reporter‘s correspondent was among the approximately 10 people present at the discreet afternoon showing. The festival requested at the time that no news about the film be released until Thursday afternoon, Cannes time.

As it turns out, the sensitivity surrounding the film appears warranted. Revolution of Our Times is a forensic and hard-hitting chronicle of the mass street protests that erupted in Hong Kong in the second half of 2019 — protests that were met with a brutal police crackdown, hundreds of arrests of activists and pro-democracy advocates, and the eventual imposition of near-total Chinese Communist Party control over the once-semidemocratic former colony. Thanks to Hong Kong’s expansive new National Security Law, imposed by Beijing in 2020, those involved in the new documentary could be subject to arrest and charges of subversion.
continued next post

[GeneChing]

https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/07/AO_Still_20210613_00000001.jpeg
A group of protestors, wearing raincoats to protect against tear gas, march down one of Hong Kong’s main thoroughfares during the 2019 pro-democracy protests. DEAR BROS
Revolution of Our Times is directed by Hong Kong filmmaker Kiwi Chow, 42, best known as one of the directors who contributed to Hong Kong’s 2015 indie hit Ten Years, a sci-fi dystopian anthology film that gathered five shorts, each exploring different ways that Hong Kong might change under Communist Party rule by the year 2025. Chow’s contribution, titled Self-Immolator, was among the politically starkest of the collection, telling the story of an elderly Hong Kong woman who sets herself on fire in protest after witnessing a Hong Kong pro-independence protestor being brutally beaten by police. The segment was considered extreme at the time of its release, but the reality in Hong Kong quickly caught up with Chow’s vision.

Revolution of Our Times uses extensive footage taken from the tumultuous events on the ground in Hong Kong in 2019, as well as interviews with a number of the activists involved (mostly done anonymously and with their faces disguised), to chart the growth of the pro-democracy movement. It simultaneously documents the sharp increase in police brutality as Hong Kong became engulfed in deadly street battles, including the 12-day siege of the Polytechnic University in November 2019. In one of the film’s most shocking moments, a body is seen being pushed out of a high-rise window, with Hong Kong authorities accused of kidnapping and murdering several of the movement’s central figures. The film is said to have been put together entirely in secret.

“Over the past fifty years, Hongkongers have fought for freedom and democracy but have yet to succeed,” reads the synopsis for Revolution of Our Times. “In 2019, the Extradition Bill to China opened Pandora’s box, turning Hong Kong into a battlefield against the Chinese authoritarian rule.”

Chow, it says, made this documentary to tell the story of the movement, “both with a macro view of its historical context and up close and personal on the front lines.”

Aside from Chow, the film states that the majority of those involved in the making of Revolution of Our Times — understandably — use pseudonyms in the credits, with the producer going by “Dear Bros.” Ahead of the credits, it declares that Revolution of Our Times was made “By Hongkongers.”

So far, Cannes organizers have offered no official explanation for the secretive and last-minute nature of Revolution of Our Times‘ addition to the festival program. But sources close to the festival have suggested that precautions were taken to protect the filmmakers.

Industry attendees also have been quick to surmise that the screening of the film — however discreet — is all but certain to upset China’s ruling Communist Party, and could risk the attendance of Chinese films and filmmakers at future editions of the festival.

Chow himself offered a statement of appreciation to the festival, writing: “I want to express my heartfelt gratitude to Cannes. It is our honor to have the World Premiere of “Revolution of Our Times”, a film documenting the struggle of Hongkongers, at Cannes; and receive great attention. Hong Kong has been losing far more than anyone has expected, this good news will be a comfort to many Hongkongers who live in fear; it also shows that whoever fights for justice and freedom around the world, ARE with us! And Hongkongers are staying strong!”

Cannes has frequently stood with filmmakers facing political persecution in their home countries, such as Iranian director Jafar Panahi (This Is Not a Film) and Russian filmmaker Kirill Serebrennikov (Petrov’s Flu), both of whom were under house arrest and unable to attend the festival when their films were screened.

But Hong Kong’s protest movement has found precious few allies over the past two years, as Beijing has leveraged China’s outsize economic clout to attempt to punish any companies or individuals who dare throw their support behind democracy in Hong Kong.

In October 2019, the NBA — the most popular and profitable U.S. sporting league in China by far — was banned from broadcast in the country for a full year after the Houston Rockets general manager at the time, Daryl Morey, put out a single, seven-word tweet voicing support for Hong Kong’s movement. (“Fight for Freedom. Stand with Hong Kong.”)

In August that same year, Chinese actress Crystal Liu, star of Disney’s China-set action tentpole Mulan, created an international backlash when she voiced her support for the Hong Kong police force’s crackdown on protestors. The activist movement in Hong Kong called for a boycott of Mulan, but Disney, an ardent supporter of social movements in the U.S., such as Black Lives Matter, remained completely mum on the topic of democracy in Hong Kong. Many analysts pointed out at the time that the entertainment conglomerate would very likely see its multibillion-dollar Shanghai Disneyland theme park shuttered by Beijing if it were to speak out on the issue.

Hong Kong politics also are believed to have resulted in the 2021 Oscars ceremony being totally blocked from broadcast in mainland China and Hong Kong earlier this year. Broadcasters and regulators never supplied a reason for the mysterious suspension of the awards show in Greater China, but many connected to the industry believe it was intended as retribution for the Academy’s nomination of the Hong Kong protest film Do Not Split in the best short documentary category (past critical comments made by Oscar best director winner Chloe Zhao (Nomadland) about her home country also irked the authorities).

Beijing has moved with alarming swiftness to crush the Hong Kong movement featured in Revolution of Our Times. The repressive National Security Law put in place in the territory last year has resulted in the arrest of over 100 activists and opposition politicians. The crackdown also has had the intended effect of driving protestors overseas or into a state of self-censorship, as a chill has swept through the city’s creative community and civil society as a whole. Meanwhile, the Hong Kong school curriculum has been rewritten to teach fealty to the Chinese Communist Party, books have been banned, and pro-democracy journalists arrested at their jobs.

In July, The Apple Daily, a popular Hong Kong newspaper that had allied itself with the pro-democracy cause, was forced to close after its offices were raided by Hong Kong police and five of its editors and executives arrested. The CCP said in a statement that the publication had abused “so-called freedom of the press.” The Apple Daily‘s outspoken founder, Hong Kong media tycoon Jimmy Lai, was arrested last year and remains in prison facing charges of national security offenses that carry a maximum punishment of life imprisonment.

A recent rewriting of the censorship rules governing Hong Kong’s film industry, once a bastion of cinematic vitality — and the home to Bruce Lee, Wong Kar Wai, Stephen Chow, Jackie Chan, Johnnie To and scores more — will ensure that Revolution of Our Times can never be screened freely in the city.

threads
Cannes (http://www.kungfumagazine.com/forum/showthread.php?53853-Cannes)
Mulan-(2020) (http://www.kungfumagazine.com/forum/showthread.php?68640-Mulan-(2020))
Hong-Kong-protests (http://www.kungfumagazine.com/forum/showthread.php?23536-Hong-Kong-protests)

[GeneChing]

75th Cannes to feature Cronenberg, Chan-wook and ‘Elvis’ (https://apnews.com/article/cannes-film-festival-2022-lineup-8356effc4705102e50b70881c3c51a81)
By The Associated Press
yesterday
https://storage.googleapis.com/afs-prod/media/5e92c1e93ae2467da2ed3398391de662/1000.jpeg
Festival delegate general Thierry Fremaux, left, and festival president Pierre Lescure attend a press conference to announce the Cannes film festival line up for the upcoming 75th edition, Thursday, April 14, 2022 in Paris. The International Cannes Film Festival will run from May 17 to 28, 2022. (AP Photo/Francois Mori)
PARIS (AP) — Films by David Cronenberg, Park Chan-wook and Kelly Reichardt will vie for the coveted Palme d’Or at a Cannes Film Festival set to unspool against the backdrop of the war in Ukraine.

Cannes film festival artist director Thierry Frémaux and president Pierre Lescure announced the lineup to this year’s festival, Cannes’ 75th, in a press conference Thursday in Paris. After canceling the 2020 event and hosting a slightly scaled down 2021 edition, the French Riviera festival is looking to reclaim its pre-pandemic allure with some 35,000 accredited attendees expected next month.

The 18 films announced in Cannes’ prestigious competition lineup feature new works by several former Palme winners, including Japanese filmmaker Hirokazu Kore-eda (“Broker”), Swedish social satirist Ruben Ostlund (“Triangle of Sadness”) and Belgian brothers Jean-Pierre and Luc Dardenne (“Tori and Lokita”).

Also in competition: Cronenberg’s “Crimes of the Future,” starring Léa Seydoux, Kristen Stewart and Viggo Mortensen; Kelly Reichardt’s “Showing Up,” which reunites her with “Wendy and Lucy” star Michelle Williams; Chan-wook’s Korean mystery thriller “Decision to Leave”; and French filmmaker Claire Denis’ “Stars at Noon” with Margaret Qualley.

The 75th anniversary of the French Riviera film extravaganza “is happening in special circumstances: the pandemic, the war in Ukraine, a world that has changed and will keep changing,” Fremaux said.

The biggest Hollywood splashes expected at Cannes had already been announced, including a screening of “Top Gun: Maverick,” which will be accompanied by a tribute to star Tom Cruise. The “Top Gun” sequel will play out of competition, as will Baz Luhrmann’s Elvis Presley biopic “Elvis,” starring Austin Butler and Tom Hanks.

Organizers will announce the jury at a later date.

Cannes’ international village of flag-waving pavilions annually hosts more than 80 countries from around the world. But organizers earlier said no Russian delegations would be welcome at the this year because of Russian President Vladimir Putin’s invasion of Ukraine. Russian director, Kirill Serebrennikov, who recently fled Russia for Berlin after several years banned from travel, will premiere his latest film, about composer Pyotr Tchaikovsky

As usual, most of the directors in the competition are men. Only three of the 18 films competing for the Palme d’Or were directed by women. Last year, Julia Ducournau became only the second woman in Cannes history to win the top prize, for her film “Titane,” the body-horror thriller.

The festival will open on May 17 with the premiere of the zombie comedy “Final Cut,” by “The Artist” director Michel Hazanvicius. The film had earlier been scheduled to debut in January at the Sundance Film Festival but was pulled when the festival shifted to a virtual edition amid a virus surge.

Ethan Coen will debut his first feature without his brother, Joel, in the out-of-competition documentary “Jerry Lee Lewis: Trouble in Mind.” Other highlights include George Miller’s first film since 2015′s “Mad Max: Fury Road”: “Three Thousand Years of Longing,” a fantasy romance with Idris Elba and Tilda Swinton. And Brett Morgan will premiere “Moonage Daydream,” a David Bowie documentary.

As has been the case since 2017, no Netflix films are in competition at Cannes. The streamer and the festival have been an impasse due to the country’s rigid windowing rules. Once a film plays in cinemas in France, it can’t stream for 15 months. Earlier this year, though, Netflix signed a three-year agreement with French film guilds to spend a minimum of $45 million financing French and European films to play theatrically in France.

The Cannes Film Festival runs May 17-28.
Will there be slapping?






too soon?

[GeneChing]

‘Gimme My Money’ Female-Led Kung-Fu Comedy Getting Cannes Market Launch by OMG (EXCLUSIVE) (https://variety.com/2022/film/asia/gimme-my-money-female-led-kung-fu-comedy-1235260618/)

By Patrick Frater
https://variety.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/05/James-Hong-in-Gimme-My-Money-OMG-cr-res.jpeg?w=681&h=383&crop=1
Organic Media Group

Taiwan- and Los Angeles-based Organic Media Group will launch rights sales in Cannes for “Gimme My Money,” a female-led, kung-fu action comedy.

The film, which completed principal photography last week in Los Angeles, stars Marci Miller, Raymond J. Barry and veteran Chinese-American actor, James Hong. Hong will receive his star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame on Tuesday.

Written and directed by Bill Vigil, “Gimme My Money” is about a tough, mysterious woman who calls on the mob to collect and makes sure that this time, crime is going to pay.

Production is by OMG and GPS and Silver Streak Entertainment, with Jane Austin’s Hollywood Stuntworks providing the action crew. Austin (“Star Trek: Insurrection,” “Avatar: The Way of Water”) takes producer and stunt coordinator credits alongside producer Shari Hamrick. She led the on-set production and will now oversee post-production to ensure delivery by the third quarter of 2022.

Other credits go to Jesse Aragon as cinematographer, Jason Stewart as film editor, Morgan Jordan as costume designer, Kelly de la Cerda and Breeanne Marie in make-up.

The picture is the third to pair OMG with film funding partner GPS’s executive
Mick S. Grewal, Sr.

Attending Cannes, sales agent Jay Joyce from Level 33 Entertainment, will be selling OMG’s TV titles mentioned above. OMG principal, Steve Chicorel, will lead foreign and domestic sales for “Gimme My Money.”

“When Steve and I asked buyers what works best in their market, the answer was smart, fun, wall-to-wall action movies and that’s what we have in ‘Gimme My Money’,” said Grewal.

“Combining comedy and action in this smart script that Bill Vigil created is going to result in an action-packed crowd-pleaser,” said Austin.

Threads
A-star-for-James-Hong-on-Hollywood-Walk-of-Fame (https://www.kungfumagazine.com/forum/showthread.php?71844-A-star-for-James-Hong-on-Hollywood-Walk-of-Fame)
Gimme My Money (http://www.kungfumagazine.com/forum/showthread.php?72311-Gimme-My-Money)
Cannes (https://www.kungfumagazine.com/forum/showthread.php?53853-Cannes)

[GeneChing]

May 18, 2022 10:30am PT
WellGo USA Buys Soi Cheang’s ‘Walled In’ for North American Release (https://variety.com/2022/film/asia/wellgo-usa-soi-cheang-walled-in-1235270742/amp/)
By Patrick Frater
https://variety.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/05/Kowloon-Walled-City-cr-res.jpg?w=681&h=383&crop=1
Media Asia

Soi Cheang’s “Twilight of The Warriors: Walled In” has been licensed to WellGo USA for North American release. The deal with Hong Kong’s Media Asia marks a rare advanced-sale of a commercial Cantonese-language movie in a market that has recently been marked by uncertainty.

The action thriller is a live-action adaptation of the cult manga series “City of Darkness” that is set in the 1980s inside the almost lawless Kowloon Walled City.

With a stellar cast headlined by Louis Koo (“Election”), Sammo Hung (“Ip Man”) and Richie Jen (“Trivisa”), the film recently completed production and is now in post-production. Media Asia is now planning a release at an unspecified date in 2023.

“This is our first physical international market since the pandemic. And we are thrilled that things are getting back on track again,” said Frederick Tsui, Media Asia’s GM, head of sales and international co-productions. “The teaser promo that we’re showing in the Cannes Market has also sparked interest from many buyers, with offers already coming in from major territories including France, Germany, Japan, Korea and Singapore.”

Soi Cheang (aka Cheang Pou-soi) is one of Asia’s top action directors, with credits including the “Monkey King” series, “Limbo,” “SPL II: A Time for Consequences,” “Motorway” and “Accident.”

The film is produced by equally illustrious John Chong (“Infernal Affairs” series, “Initial D”) and Wilson Yip Wai-Shun (“Ip Man” film series, “Flashpoint”).

Media Asia, one of Hong Kong’s premier studios, is also using its return to in-person festivals and sales events to give a market screening in Cannes to “Tales From the Occult,” a psycho-horror film jointly directed by Fruit Chan, Fung Chih Chiang and Wesley Hoi.

threads
Walled In (https://www.kungfumagazine.com/forum/showthread.php?72316-Walled-In)
Cannes (https://www.kungfumagazine.com/forum/showthread.php?53853-Cannes)

[GeneChing]

Cannes: Scott Adkins, Cam Gigandet to Lead Action Thriller ‘Violence of Action’ (https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/movies/movie-news/cannes-2022-scott-adkins-cam-gigandet-thriller-violence-action-1235150305/)
Production is eyeing a fall start in New Orleans.
BY MIA GALUPPO
Plus Icon

MAY 19, 2022 11:00PM
https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/05/New-Scott-Adkins-and-Cam-Gigandet-Getty-H-2022.jpg?w=681&h=383&crop=1
Scott Adkins and Cam Gigandet ANTHONY HARVEY/GETTY IMAGES; LEON BENNETT/WIREIMAGE

Scott Adkins, a regular at the Cannes film market, will lead action thriller Violence of Action alongside Cam Gigandet.

The logline for the project reads: “The story of a former SEAL, tormented by a decision he made in Afghanistan, (who) becomes a vigilante in the Big Easy who is brutally taking down a drug gang that is terrorizing his neighborhood.”

Will Kaufman directs from a screenplay by Josh Ridgway and Chad Law, the latter having previously written Adkins-fronted titles Lights Out and Section Eight. Production is eyeing a fall start in New Orleans.

Andrew and Isaac Lewis are set to produce the movie with Jon Wroblewski and Christian Sosa. Grandave Capital’s Stanley Preschutti and Ruben Islas are executive producing the project.

Grandave International is handling worldwide sales out of the 2022 Cannes market. “Scott is bringing his strong acting skills and commerciality to a fun action-packed script, nicely lifted by Cam’s natural talent,” said Tamara Nagahiro, Grandave’s international head of sales. Grandave’s other Cannes market titles this year include Righteous Thieves, which is fronted by Gigandet.

Adkins is repped by Gersh, the BWH Agency, LINK Entertainment, as well as Goodman Genow. Gigandet is repped by APA, Luber Roklin Entertainment and Vybe Trybe Entertainment.

Violence of Action (http://www.kungfumagazine.com/forum/showthread.php?72317-Violence-of-Action)
Cannes (https://www.kungfumagazine.com/forum/showthread.php?53853-Cannes)

[GeneChing]

Cannes: Topless Protester Disrupts ‘Three Thousand Years of Longing’ Red Carpet (https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/movies/movie-news/topless-protester-cannes-red-carpet-1235151276/)
The woman was removed after security guards covered her with a coat.

BY ALEX RITMAN, SCOTT ROXBOROUGH
MAY 20, 2022 10:34AM
https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/05/Naked-Cannes-Protest-Getty-H-2022-1398336226.jpg?w=681&h=383&crop=1
The protestor had "stop raping us" written in body paint over the Ukrainian national colors of blue and yellow. PASCAL LE SEGRETAIN/GETTY IMAGES


A woman has been removed from the Cannes red carpet after making a pro-Ukraine protest.

The woman stripped off all of her clothes and fell to her knees screaming in front of the assembled photographers, according to eyewitnesses. Security guards were seen rushing over to her and covering her with a coat.

The woman was wearing body paint in the colors of the Ukrainian flag with “stop raping us” written across her abdomen. She also appeared to have blood red paint over her lower back and legs, with the word “scum” written on her lower back.

There have been numerous reports of Russian soldiers raping civilians during the invasion of Ukraine.

The Cannes Film Festival requires multiple security checks to access its famed red carpet and there is heavy security along the carpet itself.

But this isn’t the first time the security has been breached. In 2014, infamous prankster Vitalii Sediuk slipped past the guards and stuck his head under the dress of America Ferrera during the gala for How to Train Your Dragon 2.

Tonight’s protest came ahead of the premiere of George Miller’s Three Thousand Years of Longing, starring Tilda Swinton and Idris Elba. The demonstration comes ahead of Cannes’ “Ukraine Day” on May 21, when the festival will hold a series of events aimed at showing solidarity for the country’s battered film industry.

The Hollywood Reporter has reached out to the Cannes Film Festival press office for comment.

The New York Times‘ Kyle Buchanan posted a short video of the event on Twitter.

Ukraine (http://www.kungfumagazine.com/forum/showthread.php?72272-Ukraine)
Cannes (https://www.kungfumagazine.com/forum/showthread.php?53853-Cannes)

[GeneChing]

May 17, 2022 8:00pm PT
India Takes Over the Cannes Market as Chinese Executives Are Stuck at Home (https://variety.com/2022/film/news/india-china-cannes-market-1235267814/)
By Naman Ramachandran, Patrick Frater
https://variety.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/05/Deepika-Padukone-Cannes-Red-Carpet.jpg?w=681&h=383&crop=1
L'Oreal

India is the country of honor at the Cannes Film Market and consequently a massive contingent from the country is descending upon the Croisette. Variety understands that some 400 attendees are winging their way from India, and that French embassies across the country were working at capacity to issue visas.

That stands in contrast with the attendance from other parts of Asia, further East. Attendance of participants from Hong Kong and China is massively down compared with pre-COVID times. Korean companies are back in respectable numbers, with some attending a physical market outside their home country for the first time in over two years. The solid attendance of Korean executives also reflects the selection of Korean films across multiple sections of the festival.

“I’m very excited to be back in Cannes, it has been three years for us,” said Danny Lee, senior manager at Contents Panda, part of the Next Entertainment World studio. “There are many Korean buyers here too.”

The government-mandated travel restrictions that persist in Hong Kong (compulsory quarantine is down to a week now, having previously been 21 days, but the government maintains an aggressive approach towards airlines that carry passengers later found to be COVID positive) mean that flight conditions and the ability to return home are simply too uncertain for many.

That in turn deprives the Cannes Market of executives from what was previously the hub of Asian sales and film finance — even if that role has been somewhat eroded by the increasing maturity of the mainland Chinese film industry and the prominence of the Korean industry.

Hong Kong companies including Golden Network and Good Move Media are not attending, and will instead attempt to launch films and maintain business relations remotely. Others, including Edko Films and Media Asia, are making the effort and will be present.

“We have a big-budget film ‘Kowloon Walled City’ to sell. Given how difficult it is currently to pre-sell Asian films, we need to talk to people in person,” said Fred Tsui, GM, head of sales and international co-production at Media Asia.

China has limited in- and out-bound travel for months, as it seeks to achieve a COVID-zero policy through lockdowns, mass testing and border controls. This week it imposed its most stringent travel restrictions for decades, banning all but essential overseas travel.

That leaves Cannes without the mainland Chinese companies which, in pre-COVID years, had regularly grabbed headlines. They were not necessarily volume buyers, but were previously involved in large package deals and big-budget co-productions. Other Chinese firms were looking to invest in international IP that could be exploited across multiple media.

The COVID era, however, has coincided with a more generalized slowdown of the Chinese film market and a politically directed retrenchment towards local content. That makes it difficult to quantify China’s loss to Cannes.

But, it is perhaps more than symbolic that Wednesday’s Cannes Market opening party, is this year sponsored by India. China had been its sponsor for several years.

Anurag Thakur, India’s Minister of Information and Broadcasting, will inaugurate the Indian Pavilion in the presence of actor R. Madhavan, whose directorial debut “Rocketry” is premiering at the market; filmmaker Shekhar Kapur; Prasoon Joshi and Vani Tripathi from the Central Board of Film Certification; Grammy-winner Ricky Kej; and a plethora of actors including Nawazuddin Siddiqui, Pooja Hegde, Tamannaah Bhatia and Aditi Rao Hydari.

Bollywood A-lister Akshay Kumar was due to be at the pavilion inauguration, but contracted COVID.

India will be prominently visible throughout the festival this year. Actor Deepika Padukone is on the jury for the main feature film competition. Oscar-winner A.R. Rahman’s directorial debut, “Le Musk,” is premiering at the market’s Cannes XR program. Indian filmmaker Shaunak Sen’s Sundance grand jury prize winning documentary “All That Breathes” is showing as a special screening. And Indian auteur Satyajit Ray’s “The Adversary” (1970) and Aravindan Govindan’s “The Circus Tent” will be screened at the festival’s Cannes Classics strand.

TV star Helly Shah will walk the red carpet for L’Oreal and also promote her film debut “Kaya Palat.” Multihyphenate Kamal Haasan will be present to promote his new film “Vikram.” There will be plenty of first looks unveiled, including for Shyam Benegal’s “Mujib: The Making of a Nation,” the biopic of late Bangladeshi leader Sheikh Mujibur Rahman, for which top Bangladeshi star Nusrat Imrose Tisha is expected alongside her filmmaker partner Mostofa Sarwar Farooki. Bangladeshi director/producer Abu Shahed Emon is also due at Cannes. First looks are also being unveiled for Pushan Kripalani’s “Goldfish” and Sandeep Singh’s “Safed.”

“When you are a country of honor at the world’s largest film market you are on the radar of the Western world — it could be because of your creativity and international appeal, or maybe because of business potential and mass audience reach. We seem to be better-known for the latter,” said Samir Sarkar, who is co-producing Cannes’ La Fabrique project selection “Starfruits” via his Indo-Singaporean outfit Magic Hour Films.

“As far as our creativity and international appeal goes, it’s time we nurture and support those filmmakers that can take Indian cinema into something more meaningful and successful for world audiences,” Sarkar added.

From Pakistan, Saim Sadiq’s feature debut “Joyland,” produced, among others, by Indian-origin Apoorva Guru Charan, is premiering at the festival’s Un Certain Regard strand.

Cannes (https://www.kungfumagazine.com/forum/showthread.php?53853-Cannes)
Chollywood-rising (https://www.kungfumagazine.com/forum/showthread.php?57225-Chollywood-rising)
covid (https://www.kungfumagazine.com/forum/showthread.php?71666-Coronavirus-(COVID-19)-Wuhan-Pneumonia)

[GeneChing]

Cannes: Jackie Chan to Star in $50M Action Sequel ‘A Legend’ (https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/movies/movie-news/cannes-jackie-chan-film-a-legend-1235491424/)
Distribution Workshop is launching sales in Cannes on the title, which is directed by Chan's longtime collaborator Stanley Tong ('Rumble in the Bronx').
BY PATRICK BRZESKI

MAY 15, 2023 3:00PM
https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/05/Jackie-Chan.jpg?w=1296&h=730&crop=1&resize=681%2C383
Jackie Chan arrives at opening ceremony red carpet for the 2023 Beijing International Film Festival at Yanqi Lake International Convention and Exhibition Center on April 21, 2023 in Beijing, China. VCG/GETTY IMAGES

Jackie Chan has signed on to star in a sequel to his 2005 martial arts fantasy-adventure hit The Myth. Titled A Legend and directed by Chan’s longtime collaborator Stanley Tong (Rumble in the Bronx), the sequel will have a budget of $50 million — large for the Chinese film industry — and co-star Yixing Zhang (Kung Fu Yoga) and Coulee Nazha (Police Story 2013).

Produced by Bona Film Group, the film makes its market debut in Cannes with Taiwan-based Distribution Workshop handling worldwide sales.

The sequel sees Chan reprise his role as archaeology expert Professor Chen. The film’s action begins when he notices that the texture on the artifacts discovered by his students during a glacier expedition is strikingly similar to a jade pendant he had seen in his dreams. Suspecting that the pendant is acting as a bridge between the realm of dreams and reality, Professor Chen leads his research team on a journey deep into the Glacier Temple, embarking on a fantastical adventure.

When it was released back in 2005, The Myth became Hong Kong’s third-highest-grossing film of the year and reached a worldwide total of $120 million. At 69 years old, Chan is showing absolutely no signs of winding down his legendary movie career. His most recent release, action drama Ride On, was offered to buyers at the Berlin film market in February and subsequently earned over $30 million in China and about $5 million from other international territories.

Jackie-Chan-s-The-Legend (https://www.kungfumagazine.com/forum/showthread.php?72500-Jackie-Chan-s-The-Legend)
Cannes (https://www.kungfumagazine.com/forum/showthread.php?53853-Cannes)

[GeneChing]

Best Friend Forever Launches Kung Fu Action Romance ‘Zenithal’ From ‘Titane’ Producer Kazak & ‘Parasite’ Distributor The Jokers Films – Cannes Market (https://deadline.com/2023/05/best-friend-forever-zenithal-from-titane-kazak-parasite-distributor-the-jokers-films-1235368073/)
By Melanie Goodfellow
Senior International Film Correspondent
@mel_goodfellow

May 16, 2023 5:08am
https://deadline.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/05/GettyImages-13448413743.jpg?w=681&h=383&crop=1
Vanessa Guide
Stephane Cardinale - Corbis/Corbis via Getty Images
EXCLUSIVE: Brussels-based company Best Friend Forever has acquired international rights for the zany kung-fu-themed action romantic comedy Zenithal.

Vanessa Guide stars as a woman battling to establish peace between the sexes after her longtime boyfriend falls under the thrall of a Machiavellian schemer, who has murdered and harnessed the virulent powers of a famous kung-fu master, as part of a plan to restore absolute male domination.

It is the first feature of Jean-Baptiste Saurel, who has recently been signed as one of the directors on France TV’s upcoming Zorro reboot starring Jean Dujardin, with previous credits including the Disney+ sci-fi French original Parallels.

The feature expands on his provocative 2012 Cannes Critics’ Week short The Dickslap (La Bifle). BFF has released a first-look photo hinting at one of the zany plot twists.

https://deadline.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/05/ZENITHAL_DECABITE_3.jpeg?resize=1024,576
First look at ‘Zenithal’
“Zenithal questions the injunctions of virility through comedy, with a visual style inherited from U.S. comedy and manga culture,” said Saurel.

“At the time of gender relations redefinition, I offer my own answer, by making fun of the level of seriousness with which these subjects are addressed today. The intimate enemy is men’s ignorance of their own bodies and of women’s bodies and the difficulty of questioning themselves.”

Vanessa Guide (30 Days Left, The Brand New Adventures of Aladdin) is joined in the cast by Franc Bruneau, Cyril Guei (Full Time, How I Became a Superhero), Xavier Lacaille (Parliament), Bruno Gouery (Emily in Paris, The White Lotus).

Key crew include cinematographer Yann Maritaud (The Big Hit, Slalom) and stunt coordinator Samuel Kefi Abrikh (Valerian, Dunkirk, Mission: Impossible – Fallout).

“Zenithal is a unique, cathartic and necessary film, which teenagers, as well as their parents, will be able to identify with through a relaxed, benevolent and fair laugh,” BFF heads and co-founders Martin Gondre and Charles Bin.

Producers Kazak Productions are best known internationally for the 2021 Cannes Palme d’Or winner Titane, with other credits including Corsage and Arab Blues.

The Jokers Films will release the film in France.
Zenithal (http://www.kungfumagazine.com/forum/showthread.php?72519-Zenithal)
Cannes (https://www.kungfumagazine.com/forum/showthread.php?53853-Cannes)

[GeneChing]

‘Ip Man 5’ among three Donnie Yen films revealed at Cannes (exclusive) (https://www.screendaily.com/news/ip-man-5-among-three-donnie-yen-films-revealed-at-cannes-exclusive/5182183.article)
BY SILVIA WONG 17 MAY 2023
https://d1nslcd7m2225b.cloudfront.net/Pictures/480xAny/5/7/9/1397579_4__0324_161282.jpg
SOURCE: MANDARIN MOTION PICTURES
‘IP MAN 4: THE FINALE’
A trio of action films led by martial arts superstar Donnie Yen have been revealed by Hong Kong-based Mandarin Motion Pictures at the Cannes market.

The company will introduce Ip Man 5, Flash Point Resurgence and Misjudgement to buyers at the Marché this week.

Yen, who was most recently seen in John Wick: Chapter 4, is well known for his role as the eponymous Ip Man, the real-life Wing Chun grandmaster who was a teacher of Bruce Lee. The previous instalment, Ip Man 4: The Finale, generated more than $176.3m at the worldwide box office following its release in 2019.

Flash Point Resurgence is developed from 2007’s Flash Point, which also starred Yen and Louis Koo. No directors have yet been revealed for the projects but all four Ip Man films and Flash Point were directed by Wilson Yip.

The third title, Misjudgement, has China’s Huace Pictures as a co-investor.

Plot details have yet to be revealed.



Cannes (https://www.kungfumagazine.com/forum/showthread.php?53853-Cannes)
SPL-aka-Sha-Po-Lang-aka-Flashpoint (https://www.kungfumagazine.com/forum/showthread.php?38795-SPL-aka-Sha-Po-Lang-aka-Flashpoint)
Ip-Man-4-The-Finale (https://www.kungfumagazine.com/forum/showthread.php?69747-Ip-Man-4-The-Finale)
Misjudgement (https://www.kungfumagazine.com/forum/showthread.php?72520-Misjudgement)

[GeneChing]

May 15, 2023 10:00pm PT
‘Freaks vs. the Reich’ Director Gabriele Mainetti Shooting Rome-Set Kung Fu Movie (EXCLUSIVE) (https://variety.com/2023/film/global/freaks-vs-the-reich-gabriele-mainetti-rome-set-kung-fu-movie-1235612502/)

By Nick Vivarelli
https://variety.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/05/Gabriele-Mainetti.jpg?w=681&h=383&crop=1&resize=681%2C383
Courtesy Vision Distribution

Italian director Gabriele Mainetti, known internationally for genre-bending titles “They Call Me Jeeg” and “Freaks vs. the Reich,” is shooting a kung fu movie set in Rome’s multi-ethnic Piazza Vittorio quarter.

Cameras have just started rolling in Rome on Mainetti’s yet-to-be titled third feature that will see him riff on martial arts movie tropes, following his fresh takes on a 1970 Japanese cartoon series in “Jeeg,” and then on the Nazi hunter film genre in “Freaks.”

Vision Distribution will be launching sales on the film at the Cannes Marché du Film.

Set in the cosmopolitan melting pot of Rome’s Piazza Vittorio hood, Mainetti’s latest work will see two very different souls intersect. One is the son of an indebted local restaurant owner who disappeared with his lover. The other is a young mysterious woman who has just arrived in the Italian capital in search of her missing sister. “United by fate, the two will find themselves catapulted into the slums of Rome’s criminal underbelly,” reads the synopsis. “To survive they will have to fight side by side in an overwhelming no-holds-barred adventure, challenging armies of ruthless criminals, but above all, ancient prejudices, and cultural diversity.”

The Rome-set kung fu movie stars Chinese martial artist Liu Yaxi, who was Liu Yifei’s stunt double in Disney’s “Mulan,” alongside Italy’s Enrico Borello (“Lovely Boy”), Sabrina Ferilli (“The Great Beauty”), Marco Giallini (“Perfect Strangers”) and Luca Zingaretti (“Montalbano”).

The film is penned by Mainetti with screenwriters Stefano Bises (“Gomorrah”) and Davide Serino (“The Bad Guy”). It’s being produced by Mario Gianani and Lorenzo Gangarossa for Wildside, the Fremantle company behind “The Eight Mountains,” the Alps-set drama that won the jury prize last year in Cannes and went on to be a specialty title hit. Also on board are Vision Distribution, a Sky Company, and Mainetti’s Goon Films shingle in collaboration with Germany’s DCM, which will distribute the film in Germany, Austria and Switzerland, and France’s Quad Films, which will release it in France. Vision will also handle distribution in Italy.

Gabriele Mainetti's yet to be titled 3rd film (http://www.kungfumagazine.com/forum/showthread.php?72522-Gabriele-Mainetti-s-yet-to-be-titled-3rd-film)
Cannes (http://www.kungfumagazine.com/forum/showthread.php?53853-Cannes)

[GeneChing]

New talent from Hong Kong celebrated at Cannes (https://www.screendaily.com/features/new-talent-from-hong-kong-celebrated-at-cannes/5182427.article)
SPONSORED BY CREATE HONG KONG (CREATEHK), BY HONG KONG FILM DEVELOPMENT COUNCIL 21 MAY 2023
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SOURCE: SCREEN FILE
ACTOR TURNED DIRECTOR AND PRODUCER STEPHEN FUNG (TAI CHI ZERO) AND ACTRESS ANGELA YUEN (CHILLI LAUGH STORY, THE NARROW ROAD) IN CONVERSATION WITH SCREEN INTERNATIONAL’S JEAN NOH
Cinema from Hong Kong was celebrated under the banner ‘New Cinema, New Talents’ at a special Cannes event hosted by the Hong Kong Film Development Council and Create Hong Kong.

Two panels at Cannes’ Hong Kong Pavilion on Thursday and Friday (May 18-19) showcased Hong Kong’s up-and-coming talent along with veteran actor-turned-director-and-producer Stephen Fung of Tai Chi Zero and Netflix’s Wu Assassins.

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SOURCE: SCREEN FILE
(PANEL FROM LEFT) FILMMAKERS STEPHEN FUNG, SOPHIE YANG (GAMER GIRLS), ALBERT LEUNG (STUNTMAN), NICK CHEUK (TIME STILL TURNS THE PAGES), SASHA CHUK TSZ-YIN (FLY ME TO THE MOON)
He was joined on the first day by actress Angela Yuen (Chilli Laugh Story, The Narrow Road) to talk about acting and his evolution in the film industry.

On the second day, Fung shared insights and experiences with filmmakers Sophie Yang (Gamer Girls), Albert Leung (Stuntman), Nick Cheuk (Time Still Turns The Pages), Sasha Chuk Tsz-yin (Fly Me To The Moon) - all four of whom are winners of Hong Kong’s First Feature Film Initiative

It was hosted by Screen International’s Asia editor Jean Noh. Is Stephen Fung really 'new' talent?