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THE HOLLYWOOD REPORTER 1

HK

WEATHERAND HIGHTEMPS

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MARCH , THR.COMFILMART №

TODAY

CO N TIN UE D O N P A G E

Dealmakers Worried About Trump

The rise o leading U.S.presidential nomineeDonald Trump has been

watched with a mixture o bewil-derment and irritation in Asia,particularly in China and Japan,two countries he’s vehementlycriticized over trade issues. Thespecter o Trump as U.S. pres-ident has raised ears amongsome Filmart attendees that hisrhetoric would negatively impactcross-border business, while hisopposition to international tradedeals could prevent the exten-sion o copyright protection on

content.“I hope he won’t become

president because it will affectrelationships with countries inAsia,” says Sunny Sun, rom theinternational sales department ata major Chinese entertainmentcorporation. “I think he’s good aspresident o a company, but noto a country. I think he doesn’tlike Asians. He should be morepositive, Asia is a huge market.His opinions are unbalanced.Politics does influence business:I’m in charge o Vietnam andwhen there were tensions with

Filmart insiders say the U.S. presidential candidate’s harsh words for China and Japan could leadto less cooperation with Hollywood and negatively impact longterm trade deals By Gavin J. Blair

China’s Wandato ConsolidateFilm Units

By Patrick Brzesk i

Chinese conglomerateDalian WandaGroup is planning a

major restructuring o its filmassets, according to a filingdocument issued by the com-pany last week.

According to the filing,Wanda plans to inject itsmovie production subsidi-ary Wanda Pictures into itspublicly traded movie theaterunit, Wanda Cinema LineCo., which is listed on theShenzhen Stock Exchange.Wanda Pictures comprisesWanda’s domestic Chinesemovie-production business.Legendary Entertainment,

which the Chinese conglom-erate agreed to buy or $3.5billion in January, is expectedto become part o Wanda

China’s DesenInternational Media isto remake the 2006 Fox

hit The Devil Wears Prada.The ashion ocused comedy

that starred Anne Hathaway and Meryl Streep, will relocaterom New York to Shanghai inthe Chinese-language version.

Fox is currently not involvedin the remake. A studio insidertold THR that the companyis not considering Prada in itsslate o new Chinese-languageremakes through the link-upbetween Fox InternationalProductions and Fox NetworksGroup Asia. The Devil Wears

Prada is not among the list

Desen Planning Prada Remake By Karen Chu



China in 2014 I couldn’t sell any-thing to them.”

Trump’s opposition to theTrans-Pacific Partnership (TPP)deal, which he has described as“insanity,” is also worrying torights holders in countries whichwould see the copyright periodon content extended under theagreement.

The TPP was signed inFebruary by the representativeso 12 countries, including theU.S., Japan, Australia, Vietnam,Malaysia and Singapore, though


CrosscurrentA journey up China’s Yangtze River becomes mystical poetryin Yang Chao’s sophomore feature

Jiang is a boat hand whospends most of his timedrinking. See page fora Q&A with Crosscurrent director Yang.

T HE WINTER

journey o a small cargoboat up the Yangtze

River, rom Shanghai to itssource in the high mountains,becomes the excuse or amystical mind trip o inner dis-covery in writer-director YangChao’s Crosscurrent . Muchlike his previous film Passages,which won a Camera d’Or atCannes in 2004, it’s all aboutmetaphor and mood, while thestorytelling is so lightweightit might not exist. Without it,this drunken boat sailing onpoetry can’t hold interest orits entire two-hour runningtime. Audiences willing toorego narrative or the sake obasking in its gorgeous cine-matography, haunting poetryand some splendid views oinland China are likely to con-gregate at film estivals.

A project 10 years in themaking afer Yang broughtthe screenplay to a Cannesworkshop, Crosscurrent seemsto address a youthul audience


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theREPORT

not China. The agreement effec-tively imposes U.S. copyright lawsto the other signatories, meaning

that it will be 95 years beoremovies and TV programs becomepublic domain afer their release.In Japan, or example, the cur-rent term is 50 years.

“I Trump becomes presidentthere’ll be no TPP and copyrightwon’t be extended,” says AkhiroTakeda rom the internationalbusiness department at Japan’sToho. “A number o our classictitles would soon become publicdomain.”

Takeda is also concerned aboutthe effect a Trump presidencywould have on access to the Chinamarket.

“China-U.S. business is growingand that’s helping to open themarket or us, too. I Trump waspresident then China might closeup again and there would be a sideeffect or Japan,” adds Takeda.

The representative o a U.S.content distributor at Filmart,attending the event to tap intothe Chinese market, was moreoptimistic.

“Whoever represents the U.S.as president, it won’t affect theappeal o American content,”says Darrin Holender o L.A.-basedMulticom Entertainment. “AndChina won’t want to restrictaccess to U.S. content because itwill lead to more piracy.”

However, China already main-tains a quota on the number oimported films given theatricalreleases and last year placedrestrictions on oreign contenton Internet platorms. Trump’s

China criticism has alreadyprovoked indignation and thegovernment is keen to promotethe development o the domesticentertainment industry.

“Clearly Trump is out o touch.Beore, we used to learn English,and now people are learningMandarin,” says the represen-tative o a Hong Kong-Chinesedistributor at Filmart. “It’sundeniable that China is a strongcountry now, and Trump opposesChina to his own detriment.”

C O R A Y I M

SENIOR VICEPRESIDENT OF

FOX INTERNATIONAL CHANNELS, HEAD

OF CHINESE ENTERTAINMENT

Integral to the deal made between FoxNetworks Group Asia and Fox

International Productions to produceChinese-language content for

theatrical and television distribution,Yim will also be the producer of a

mini-series in the new slate. The firstproduction will begin in .

• Stock markets across Asia rose

Monday, led by China’s Shenzhen

leaping . percent and Japan’s

Nikkei adding . percent.

• Danny De Vito appeared at a

rally for U.S. presidential hopeful

Bernie Sanders in St. Louis on

Sunday and compared the senator

to Obi-Wan Kenobi.

• India successfully test-fired a

domestically-built nuclear-capa-

ble ballistic missile with a range of

miles ( kilometers) off the

coast of Odisha on Monday.

MEANWHILE, IN THE REAL WORLD …

Pictures as soon as the deal closes.The document also stipulates that

Qingdao Wanda Pictures — the Wandaunit currently constructing a state-o-the-artmovie production acility in Qingdao — will bemerged into Wanda Cinema Line, as well.

Wanda Cinema Line halted rom trading inShenzhen on Feb. 24 pending the announcement oan acquisition. The targets o that acquisition arenow clear. The filing document says that Wandawill reveal urther details o the merger on April 8.

Wanda had expressed interest in pursuingan IPO or its movie production unit or over a year. In February, leaked documents revealedthat Wanda was seeking $1.5 billion o outsideinvestment in Wanda Pictures ahead o an IPO,backdoor stock listing or asset injection intoanother publicly listed company under the con-glomerate’s control. The terms o the offerindicated that Wanda Pictures would be valuedat $5.37 billion upon flotation. Wanda Group’sbillionaire ounder Wang Jianlin personally owns a20 percent stake in Wanda Pictures. WandaCulture, which includes Wanda theaters, AMCtheaters and other entertainment assets, owns

55 percent, and the remaining 25 percent is ownedby Wanda Group.

o potential remakes we’re planning or the newcollaboration,” the source said.

Beijing-based Desen confirmed the project andthat they are not working with Fox or the remake.The company said it cannot reveal whether it hasthe movie rights to the original Lauren Weisbergernovel. The project has been approved rom produc-tion by SAPPRFT, the Chinese censorship bureau.

Founded by Chinese film producer Ann An in2006, Desen previously co-produced the DonnieYen starrers Ip Man 2 and 14 Blades.

Prada was released in China in February2007, eight months afer its bow in the U.S. Thefilm created a sensation in the major cities inChina with corporations holding screenings o themovie or March 8 Women’s Day parties.The Chinese version o the original novel alsobecame a bestseller.

WANDACO N TIN UE D F RO M P A GE

PRADA

CO N TIN UE D F RO M P A GE

TRUMPCO N TIN UE D F RO M P A GE

Trump is opposed to therecently signed Trans

Pacific Partnership,which extends copyright

periods in majormarkets like Japan.

P

egasus Motion Pictureshas unveiled the cast o

its $16 million Bounty Hunter , that in addition toSouth Korean superstar Lee

Min-Ho, Wallace Chung,Louis Fan, and Karena Ng are joining the cast.Produced by Pegasus,Shanghai Xinyi Media,

and Union InvestmentPartners, the film is scheduledor a 2016 summer release.

The company is alsoannouncing Blossom Afresh,a $1.3 million amily blackcomedy produced by NgKin-hung and directed byormer The Way We Dance screenwriter Chan Tai-Li. Thefilm is co-produced with HongKong’s Golden Scene andLocal Productions Ltd.

Pegasus ReadiesLee’s Hunter By Karen Chu

We’re goingto China??

Wang

Lee


5/24

MARKET SCREENING

Today | Mar 15th | 1:45 PMAgnes b. CINEMA! Hong Kong Arts Centre

FILMART CONTACT I Tassilo Hallbauer I [email protected] | Mobile +49 176 1031 26 46 | European Pavilion #1C-E13

HEAD OFFICE I Gruenwalder Weg 28d I D-82041 Oberhaching I Phone +49 89 673469 - 828 I [email protected]

SAND STORMby Elite Zexer

WINNER

2016

Grand Jury Prize

MARKET SCREENING

Today | Mar 15th | 4:00 PMAgnes b. CINEMA!Hong Kong Arts Centre

WELCOME TO NORWAYby Rune Denstad Langlo

MARKET SCREENING

Wed | Mar 16th | 10:00 AM

CEC Theatre 2


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M

alaysia’s Animasia Studio has inked a dealwith China’s Zero One Animation to pro-

duce the CGI animated feature film ChuckChicken — The Movie. The $8 million film is adaptedfrom the successful television series C huck Chickena.k.a. Kungfu Chicken. Production will take place inChina, but animators from both countries will workon the project. The film will premiere first in China,as the original television series was particularlypopular there, where it gained 300 million viewswithin six months of its launch on thecountry’s VOD platform iQIYI.

Malaysia’s Film Kingdom Group isalso collaborating with Hong Kong’sPegasus Motion Pictures and Euniceand Tonia Entertainment for Miss Sunshine, a romantic comedy directedby veteran director Ko Chi-Sum that willbe shot entirely in Malaysia, specifi-cally in Penang. The story chroniclesa group of single women in their latethirties in search of love.

The deals marks the efforts of Malaysia’sNational Film Development Corporation (FINAS),

which has recently set up a $5 million co-productiongrant to promote international co-productions. Nowon the agenda for FINAS is to promote collabo-rations between Asian film companies to producelive-action feature films, said Azmir Mutalib, SeniorDirector of FINAS.

The Malaysian film industry has seen a boomin recent years, with the 2015 Polis Evo and 2014

The Journey grossing $4.2 million and$4.1 million respectively. “There were81 films produced through FINAS in2015,” said Mutalib. “And there weresome more co-productions that didn’tgo through the FINAS system.”

Matalib attributes the successof those films to the script. “TheMalaysian production houses arestarting to make the stories relevantcommercially. The script and story iskey,” he said.

S ingaporean produc-tion company mm2Entertainment unveiled

three forthcoming film proj-ects on the first day of HongKong Filmart Monday. Theprojects include Take 2, aheart-warming drama aboutfour ex-cons trying to makegood. Executive producedby Jack Neo and directed byIvan Ho (co-writer of Ah BoysTo Men 3: Frogmen) the filmwill be jointly produced withJ Team Productions from abudget of $1 million. DirectorM. Rihan Halim ( Banting ),meanwhile, will direct hor-ror feature Ibu, the story ofan eight year-old girl whobefriends a Pontianak, avampiric ghost in Malay andIndonesian mythology.

The film will be shot andreleased in two completelyseparate language versions forthe ethnically diverse Malayand Singaporean audience.Ghost Net , finally, will be a

Hong Kong horror featurecentering on three scarystories related to the Internet.It is directed by Wong Kwok Fai,Wong Kwok Keung and PatrickYau. The film has a budget of$1.3 million.

Taiwan’s Ablaze Pictures islaunching internationalsales for Yu-Hsun Chen’s

The Village That Forgets andCheng-Chui Kuo’s debut feature Forêt Debussy at Filmart.

The Village That Forgets is a $9million martial arts comedy setin a rural village at the end of theQing dynasty and stars Eric Tsang,Shu Qi and Joseph Chang.

The film’s seven investorsinclude China’s Wanda Picturesand Warner Bros. Taiwan, whichwill be distributing in theirrespective territories. The filmis scheduled for a release duringChinese New Year in 2017.

Forêt Debussy is the tale of amother (Yi-Ching Lu) and (Lun-MeiGwei) daughter who try to escapethe trauma of their life in thecity by hiding away in a forest.Billed as a “contemplation uponcivilization and isolation,” it isproduced by Filmagic Picturesand You Love Agent & PR

Executive Ltd. The film is due fora release in autumn this year.

Singapore’smm UnveilsThree Titles

By Patrick Brzeski

ABLAZE

LAUNCHES

WANDA’S

ILLGE By Gavin J. Blair

Huayi Brothers to Open New Animation Unit By Patrick Brzesk i

Leading Chinese film studio Huayi Brothers announced onMonday that it will launch a new animation division headedby veteran Hollywood producer Joe Aguilar, formerly of

DreamWorks Animation and Twentieth Century Fox.

“The establishment of an animation company signifies that thecompany will enter the animated movie industry with world classproduction skills,” Huayi said in a statement to the Shenzhen stockexchange.

The Chinese studio has been expanding its ties with Hollywood.The company signed a landmark 18-film co-financing and distribu-tion agreement with Bob Simonds’ STX Entertainment last April.

Hong Kong actress-singer Gigi Leung stars in the drama Sisterhood, in which her character is forced to revisit her past working

in a massage parlor when one of her old friends passes away. One Cool Film is handling international sales at Filmart.

Sisterhood

Exclusive First Look

Malaysia’s Animasia Teams WithChina’s Zero One for Chicken By Karen Chu

ChuckChicken


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theREPORT

Boy meets girl. Boy losesgirl. Boy gets girl. Sogoes the standard struc-

ture of most rom-coms. Thingsget a little more complicated,however, when you set the storyin Saudi Arabia, a country witha few additional stumblingblocks when it comes to unmar-ried boys and girls hooking upwith one another.

So lies the basic outline for Barakah Meets Barakah (BarakahYoqabil Barakah), an unlikelylove story from first-timer

Mahmoud Sabbagh screeningin the HKIFF’s Young CinemaCompetition.

“I wanted to make a filmabout the disenfranchised youth,the millennials, who are morevoiceless and have less politicalrepresentation, less economicopportunities,” says Sabbagh,who, like many emerging Saudi

creatives, cut his teeth makingYouTube videos. “It’s also aboutcensorship, the layers of censor-ship and authority.”

The story sees twentysome-thing civil servant Barakah runinto Bibi, an online star with ahugely popular vlog. But whereother rom-coms might followthe hilarious consequences ofthe would-be-couple’s variousinteractions, the ever-watch-ful eye of Saudi’s rather strictauthorities —coupled with anyunchaperoned public meeting

being strictly prohibited — makeseven getting to the first date anear-impossible endeavor.

“It’s a love story against theodds,” says Sabbagh, who pointsout that, hindered by suchrestrictions, youngsters haveturned to smartphones and socialmedia in a rather big way, withmany blossoming relationships

Mahmoud Sabbagh’s rom-com Barakah Meets Barakah playfully examines datingin a world with strict rules about how men and women interact By Alex Ritman

played out in cyberspace.

And in casting his romanticmale lead, he turned to one ofcountry’s rising social mediastars. Hisham Fageeh became anInternet sensation in 2013 withhis song “No Woman, No Drive,”which used Bob Marley’s “NoWoman, No Cry” to mock thenotorious female driving ban.The YouTube video racked upsome 13 million views and helpedshow the world that, despite whatmany might think about theircountry’s seemingly harsh exte-rior, Saudi Arabians aren’t averseto laughing at themselves.

But aside from the comedicelements at play, Sabbagh sayshe hopes to use his film as astandard-bearer during what hasbecome an interesting period inthe Kingdom’s history.

“There is this notion of changein Saudi Arabia now; we have a younger leadership, and i t seemsthis change has been coming ata faster pace than ever,” he says,adding that he’s hoping Barakah Meets Barakah has a domestic

screening despite the lack oftheaters (although there’s noofficial ban, there aren’t any cin-emas in the country). “We profitfrom this new political climate.The kids over there are doinga great job, and we’d like ourfilm to be a symbol of changeand growing opportunities forthe youth.”

Fageeh stars as a

civil servant who fallsfor a woman with a

popular online show.

Love, Saudi Arabian Style H i d d

e n

G E M

VIRGINIA LEUNG

Director of Distribution

Workshop, a Hong Kong-

based film sales agent

and production company,

representing many of China’s

top titles in the international

marketplace.

What’s your most memo-

rable “only in Hong Kong”

moment?

The gorgeous sunset view

from the ,-foot high

Sunset Peak. This is only for

those who are ready to hike.

It’s worth it.

What’s a Hong Kong faux

pas to be avoided?

Some Hong Kong supermar-

kets sell everything, often in

Chinese, so be careful that

you know what things are

intended for. An expat friend

of mine bought some fancy

papers to write notes on

and found out later he was

writing on the traditional

“paper money” we burn to

worshipping our ancestors.

One thing that every

visitor should try?

Go to a local noodle or

congee restaurant and try

beef brisket rice noodles in

beef brisket soup. You can

get good dim-sum in other

countries, but it’s really

difficult to find an authentic

Cantonese bowl of noodles

elsewhere. Only with this

kind of simple local food do I

feel at home.

Any tips for how to

blend in with locals in

Hong Kong?

Learn a few Cantonese

phrases to break the ice.

People really appreciate it.

THE SLES EXEC ...

Golden

Network Finds

New Job By Patrick Brzesk i

G olden Network haspicked up interna-tional sales rights

to Golden Job, a car-chaseaction-comedy to be directedby Chin Ka-lok, the actionmaestro behind Cold War , Motorway and Firestorm .Produced by Eric Tsang, thefilm follows a pair of conartists who take one last jobonly to find themselves pittingtheir wits against both thepolice and criminals in a seriesof exhilarating to-the-deathraces across Asia. The film isexpected to shoot in Macau,Tokyo and Thailand, amongother locations in the region.Golden Job is the first featurefrom newly established HongKong production bannerThe Entertainer ProductionCompany. Casting announce-ments are expected soon. Carchase fare is red hot in thecar-crazy mainland Chinesemarket, where Furious 7grossed a record $391 million

last July.

NEWS

Kevin [email protected]

Patrick [email protected]

Karen [email protected]

Gavin J. [email protected]

REVIEWERS

Elizabeth [email protected]

Clarence [email protected]

Piera [email protected]

ART & PRODUCTION

Peter B. [email protected]

SALES

Ivy [email protected]

THR IN HONG KONG


8/24


Q&A

A P P H O T O A X E L S C H M I D T

DIRECTOR

meeting.A work ten years in the

making, Crosscurrent emergedrom a 2005 talent campus

at the Cannes Film Festival,where Yang’s debut ea-ture Passages won a Camerad’Or in 2004. In Berlin, thefilm was honored with aSilver Bear or OutstandingArtistic Contribution or thespellbinding camerawork ocinematographer Mark LeePing-Bing (The Assassin). Chaosat down with THR to discusswhat it was like to live and workon China’s largest river, theprospects or indie cinema inhis country and how to parsethe picture’s peculiar love story.

What was it like making this film?

It was a very unconventionalshoot. Unlike other crews thatstructure the shoot in a strate-gic way, stopping and starting

at different points, and only bringing in thecast when you’re ready or them, our entirecast and crew lived together on one boat andanother ship carried all o the props andequipment. We sailed together rom Shanghaito Yibin, which is a ew thousand [miles]. Wemade the film together during this journey.

One o the biggest challenges was gettingpermission. Because the Yangtze is such along river, it traverses many different jurisdic-tions and provinces, so we had todo a lot o work to convince thepublic transportation bureausinto letting us shoot on differentstretches o the river.

Had you spent time on boats before?

As a child, I grew up beside asmall river, but I couldn’t swim.I’ve always had a craving orswimming and I’ve always been jealous o people who can swim.So I think I have this obses-sion with water. I had neverspent anytime on boats beore, but I did alot o prep work and elt very prepared bythe time we began shooting. The experienceonboard was either like being part o a bigamily, where everyone lives and eats togetherintimately, or it was like being stuck on in afloating prison. [Laughs.] The bell rang andeveryone came out with their meal box orlunch and dinner breaks, and then the bellrang again and everyone had to get back towork. The highlight in terms o relaxation,was that the rater itsel wasn’t a small one.

On the ourth floor there was a bar areaequipped by the producer with snacks and

“It’s very important to methatCrosscurrent is seen in

China,” says Chao.

DIRECTOR YANG CHAO’S SE COND

eature, Crosscurrent , was the soleChinese work to compete at last month’sBerlin International Film Festival,

where it beguiled, bedeviled and divided crit-ics. The picture is getting another showing atthe Hong Kong International Film Festivalthis week.

Yang describes the film as a love letter toChina’s mighty Yangtze River, a waterwaythat has captivated Chinese poets and artistsacross the ages, and thus, serves as a potentmarker o change in the country’s compli-cated evolution. This theme undergirdsthe film’s meager, enigmatic plot. The filmollows young riverboat captain Gao Chun,played by Qin Hao, as he pilots a decayingindustrial reighter some 3,900 miles up theYangtze, rom its mouth in Shanghai to itssource in the highlands o Tibet. Aboard theboat, Chun discovers a mysterious book opoetry written by a ormer captain sometimein the 1990s. The book contains angst-riddenphilosophical musings about the course ocontemporary China, along with a map detail-ing the locations o villages along the river.At each port on the map, Chun encounters a

beautiul young woman, An Lu (Xin Zhi Lei),whose identity and intentions shif with each

drinks. We would gather up there at night andhave long discussions about the project, or just about lie, as we floated along the river.

The poetry and philosophical reflections inthe film seem to present the Yangtze as a marker

of change in China.

The poems in the book, which are read invoiceover in each chapter, were written by a[real] captain when he was a younger man,in the 1990s. He was an intellectual poet andnot a successul one. Those poems were theloyal record o his eelings towards China inthe 1990s — his anger, his complains and hisdissatisaction back then. That’s a highlightin the film, which is the reflection o an imageo China that was not prevented, a China oadversity and injustice, which comes throughthe poems. In the film, the poet is more likea prophet, so his poems back then were areflection o the China that is not presentedimage-wise.

Are there any hints you can offer to the audience

on how to interpret the enigmatic love story at the

heart of the film?

This isn’t an ordinary love story. It’s magicallove. It’s not sweet. It’s a story o heartbreakand loss. The male protagonist and the emaleprotagonist are two souls that have beentortured by the aferlie. Their love only existsin the magic o the river, and when the magicis gone, their love vanishes. It’s a very uncon-

ventional emotion or eeling that I’m trying toconvey. That being said, the possibility o reallove is not possible rom the very beginning.

The love is closely related to theriver. The love only exists whenthe two meet at different ports.When the magic o the riveris gone, the male protagonistgives up his search or lost lovethrough time.

It’s quite difficult to get an

arthouse-style film of this kind

released in China. Are you

optimistic that ordinary people in

China will get to see it?

O course, this film was pri-marily made or the Chinese audience.It has historical and cultural dimensionsand sentiments that I think you need to beChinese — need to have lived through thesepast two decades o change in China — toully appreciate. I’m actually quite optimistic.We’re holding discussions or an April or Mayrelease. The rising commercial box office inChina has changed the outlook o the entireindustry. It may take more time, but I amoptimistic that there will be a space or art-house films in China. Aesthetically, this film is

a powerul example, which I believe will strikea cord with the Chinese audience.

2Feature films directed

1International award(a Camera d’Or forPassages in )

3,900Miles traveled while

shootingCrosscurrent onthe Yangtze River

BY THE NUMBERS

Yang ChaoThe helmer discusses why his second

feature,Crosscurrent , is a love letter tothe Yangtze River and how the film shoot

made him want to learn to swimBy Patrick Brzeski


9/24

Market Summary

Date : Oct.20-22.2015

Number of Exhibitors:347

Number of Buyers : 1,433

total deals in 3days

$52,720,000

Visitors in 3days

24,236

32%UP

from

50countries&regions

28%UP


10/24


RELATIONS BETWEEN CHINA AND

Japan, Asia’s two biggest economies andentertainment markets, have fluctuatedin the decades since they signed a ormal

Treaty o Peace and Friendship in 1978.Tensions have risen and allen over historicalissues and territorial disputes. Yet or most othat period, business ties continued to grow;despite a nearly 12 percent drop last year,bilateral trade still amounted to more than$300 billion. And afer years o tight restric-tion on Japanese content, opportunities in thehuge and rapidly expanding Chinese enter-tainment sector are once again emerging.

The latest Sino-Japanese chill descendedover the issue o a group o uninhabited rocksin the seas between the two countries, knownas Diayou in China and the Senkaku Islandsin Japan, and claimed by both countries,as well as by Taiwan. The lef-o-centerDemocratic Party o Japan governmentbought the islands in 2012. Despite claims itwas an attempt to keep them out o the handso then Tokyo governor Shintaro Ishihara, anoutspoken nationalist and serial China-baiter,Beijing’s reaction was anger.

There were anti-Japanese protests inChina, some Japanese companies’ premiseswere damaged, bilateral trade plummeted

and entertainment industry deals were off thecards.

Over the subsequent years the diplomaticsituation slowly improved. China and Japan’sleaders started meeting again, and deals orJapanese TV series and VOD movie releasesbegan to be signed again.

A breakthrough came in May last year,when Stand By Me Doraemon, a CGI versiono the hugely successul manga, anime andbig screen ranchise, got a theatrical releasein China. The blue “cat-type robot” had longbeen a avorite across Asia, is hugely popularin Hong Kong and well known in China. Thefilm finished with $87 million in China, beat-ing its total o $79 million in Japan, where itwas the third-biggest hit o 2014. The stellarperormance in China helped boost totalJapanese film export earnings by 50 percentlast year.

Since then a ew anime have been released,including Toho’s Boruto: Naruto the Movieand Toei Animation’s Saint Seiya: Legend of Sanctuary this year. While their box officegrosses haven’t matched Doraemon’s, let alonea Hollywood blockbuster, they representgood business or Japanese films, which haveregistered limited commercial export successover the years.

According to Japanese industry insiders,it has been easier to get anime, at least the

mainstream, amily-riendly variety, releasedin China due to the absence o controversial

themes that could attract censors’ attention.A lack o real-live Japanese aces on screenhas also almost certainly been a plus. Thattoo is about to change.

This spring, Flying Colors is set to be thefirst Japanese live action film released inChinese theaters in more than five years. Itis currently scheduled or release on 2,000to 3,000 screens. To put that in perspective,Japan has a ew more than 3,400 screens andanything more than a 500-screen release isreserved or blockbusters.

Based on a true story which was madeinto a million-selling novel, Flying Colors was released in Japan in May 2015 and tookaround $25 million at the domestic box office.The film tells the tale o a high-school slackerwith the academic level o a ourth grade ele-mentary school student who decides to applyto one o Tokyo’s elite universities.

The film was made by an 11-company filmproduction committee, common practice inJapan, led by Tokyo Broadcasting SystemTelevision (TBS) and including cable andregional TV networks, an advertising agency,a telecoms group and a major newspaper.Production committees spread risk and givethe participants an opportunity, and incen-tive, to promote the films through their own

media platorms, but ofen result in slow deci-sion making. In the case o releases in China,

China and Japan: Friends at Last?

After years of tense relations, Asia’s two biggest film sectors are warming up to one another, and the first Japanese live actionrelease in over five years in the Chinese market could lead to a new era of collaboration By Gavin J. Blair • Illustrations by Lars Leetaru


11/24


where censors can call for unpredictable cuts,any changes have to be approved by all thecommittee’s members.

“According to the buyer, the reason that thisfilm was chosen, among many good Japaneseproductions, is that the themes and storyresonate with Chinese society. Particularly young people, who make up the movie-going

segment,” explains Yuhka Matoi, from TBS,which also handled international sales.

“They said that China has an even morecompetitive education system than Japan.And so using the medium of a movie, witha plot based on a true story, the theme ofnot giving up even when the situation lookshopeless, is one that is encouraging to a lot ofpeople,” adds Matoi.

The release won’t though open the flood-gates for Japanese productions into China,as they still have to compete for slots withreleases from Hollywood and elsewhereunder China’s quota system, which restrictsthe number of foreign films shown. OtherJapanese companies have signed deals withChinese buyers, but one said they are, “99.9percent sure the films won’t end up getting atheatrical release.”

Japanese entertainment properties, likethose from other nations, still face hurdles inaccessing the giant Chinese market. Japanesecompanies still usually need to work throughintermediaries which have operations inChina and understand the complexities ofdoing business there.

Then there is the issue of the ever-movingand opaque censorship goalposts.

“Censorship is strict, especially around

political themes and the kind of languageused. The criteria changes all the time so itis difficult; the distributors are keen but theystruggle with censorship. Even if we make adeal, that’s a risk,” says a source who dealswith the Chinese market for a Japanese com-pany but asked not to be identified. “It’s thewild, wild east.”

A

showcase of early

mm works from

some of Japan’s most

highly-regarded auteurs freshly

digitalized to K and with new

English subtitles, is being

screened in Hong Kong under

the banner “Hachimiri Madness

— Japanese Indies from the

Punk Years.” Shot between

and , consisting of both full-

length features and shorts, the

films portray the punk ethos

that influenced the young direc-

tors and is still evident in many

of their later productions. The

raw feel of much the filmmaking

is matched by the format –“hachimiri” is Japanese for mm

– as these punk directors were

discovering their creative voices.

The oldest film in the series

is the Isolation of

(also known as Solitude of One

Divided by ,) made

in by Sogo Ishii, often

hailed as the godfather of

Japanese punk filmmaking.

Made by Ishii while a second

year film student at Tokyo’s

Nihon University College of Art,

the alma mater of numerous

Japanese directors, it portrays

a frustrated young man osten-

sibly studying for university

entrance exams.

“It was shot mostly in the

room where I lived in Tokyo.

I had no money and used all

different kinds of film to shoot,

it was a Frankenstein. The film

I could afford didn’t record

sound, so it had no soundtrack,”

the director, who now goes by

the name Gakuryu Ishii, tells

The Hollywood Reporter .

Hiring out venues to screen

the film himself, Ishii would

use different music depend-

ing on the occasion, ranging

from John Coltrane’s A Love

Supreme to British punk band

The Pop Group.

“I felt I had something to say

to the world, though I never

imagined it would be screened

around the world,” added Ishii,

who hasn’t yet seen the digi-

talized version.

In an unprecedented move in

whose Fires on the Plain com-

peted at Venice in .

The DIY ethos developed

during the mm days car-

ried on through his career,

according to Tsukamoto, who

says his approach to making

his own films his own way

hasn’t changed. For the Tetsuo

(The Iron Man) trilogy, which

cemented his worldwide cult

following, Tsukamoto wrote,

produced, directed, edited and

appeared in the productions.

“mm was like a child of

mm, but I’m so fond of that

format,” added Tsukamoto.

The only director to havetwo films in the program is Sion

Sono, with I am Sion Sono!!

() and A Man’s Flower

Road ().

Festival circuit favorite Sono

rarely watches his old films

and says he’s embarrassed at

the thought of others watching

them now.

“I’m happy they’ve been

chosen for the program, but I’m

also in both of them, and was

very young, so that’s embar-

rassing too,” Sono says.

The iconoclastic helmer

recalls his use of handheld

cameras was considered

“crazy” by his fellow film

students, due to shaky footage

they produced.

“At that time, nobody was

using handhelds,” he recalls.

“Now it’s the norm. There have

been films with a documentary

touch, like The Blair Witch

Project, and everyone is using

them in Hollywood. But at the

time, they thought I was mad.”

— G. B.

ANARCHY IN NIPPON: REVISITING JAPAN’S PUNK AUTEURSThe Hong Kong International Film Fest’s Hachimiri Madness sidebar shines a spotlight

on the indie rebels whose do-it-yourself ethos transformed Japanese cinema

The Adventureof Denchu-Kozo

Japan’s conservative main-

stream film industry, Ishii’s

graduation film Crazy Thunder

Road was picked up for theatri-

cal distribution by major studio

Toei. Among those in envious

awe of the instant success of

the young director was Shinya

Tsukamoto, a first year art stu-

dent at the same university.

Tsukamoto would go on to

become a director himself,

and his cyberpunk cult favorite

The Adventure of Denchu-Kozo

() will be screened along-

side Ishii’s film. The film was

based on a stage production

Tsukamoto had created with

fellow students and would be

the last film he shot on 8mm.

“Looking back at it now, it’s

kind of cute, and in terms of

the filmmaking techniques too.

It had a lot of energy and love

in it, though” said Tsukamoto,

Sono


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A

S THE SUCCESS OF THE

Hong Kong InternationalFilm Festival attests, HongKong has one of Asia’s rich-

est histories of moviegoing.But even though the Hong

Kong film industry’s productionprowess lives on — local directorStephen Chow’s latest comedyThe Mermaid recently grossed arecord-smashing $500 million inmainland China — most of thecity’s monuments to its cinematic heritage have been erased.

“A lot of the great old cinemas of Hong Kong have been relegated tothe dustbin of history,” says Haider Kikabhoy, an architectural historyresearcher at Hong Kong City University

Just one postwar movie theater still stands, the State Theatre in theneighborhood of North Point — and this once majestic movie palace isnow under urgent threat by private developers.

“This is a place that evokes a lot of fond memories for people ofHong Kong,” says Kikabhoy. “If it’s demolished, it will be very sad — ina way, it’s the last vestige of Hong Kong entertainment history fromthe midcentury.”

In 1950s Hong Kong, cinema was king. Television had yet to colonizeliving-rooms, and nearly every neighborhood in the city had its ownstandalone movie theater. Hong Kong was emerging from the privationsof the World War II era, and the the city was starting to boom again.Competition in the narrow entertainment market was particularlyfierce, leading local impresarios to build ever grander theaters to attractticket buyers — “it speaks to the optimism of the era,” says Kikabhoy.

Into this milieu appeared Harry Odell, a legendary Hong Kong char-acter who was born to Russian Jewish parents in Shanghai and spenta colorful youth as a professional tap dancer in Nagasaki, Japan, laterfighting for the U.S. in the first World War in France, before ultimatelysettling in Hong Kong, where he married a wealthy socialite andlaunched a local film distribution business. In a 1952 business expan-sion effort, Odell unveiled the Empire Theatre in North Point.

Local coverage and advertisements at the time describe the the-ater as “gigantic,” with a 56-foot cinema screen, a ceiling “cut in theshape of a diamond,” gold velvet curtains and walls that are “floodlitin blue, red and green.” Surveying the completed project on the eve ofits opening — which featured the gala premiere of Paramount’s latestmusical, Just for You, starring Bing Crosby and Jane Wyman — Odell toldthe South China Morning Post , “I emphasize that this is not just anothertheater.”

The theater’s name was later changed to The State Theatrein 1959, and it continued to operate up until 1997, hosting local

film premieres and stage showsby international performers,including the late British tenorPeter Pears, Katherine Dunham Company, and the late Taiwanesepop superstar Teresa Teng.

Since its projectors went darkin 1997, the cinema has fallen intosemi-disrepair. The complex nowcontains a shabby shopping mall, asnooker club and nearly 200 smallresidential flats. Over the past year,

local developer New World Development has begun buying up theapartments, leading local conservationists to suspect that the companyplans to take over and demolish the building to make way for one of theresidential skyscrapers it is known for erecting throughout the city.

According to records from the Antiquities Advisory Board, thegovernment body that assesses and grades historic buildings forpreservation status, the State Theatre has been on the board’s list ofbuildings in need of review since September. Kikabhoy and his col-leagues are urging the board to take immediate action.

“There’s an official acknowledgement that the building may bevaluable, but there is no indication of when they will make a decision,”he says. “That means the building has no status. If someone acquires itnow, they can tear it down without issue.”

Through an architectural tour group company he founded in 2013called Walk in Hong Kong, Kikabhoy and his allies commissioned anindependent analysis of the theater’s architectural, social and culturalvalue. Architecturally, the building is believed to be valuable becauseof the striking, concrete parabolic trusses on its roof, which were amidcentury architectural innovation used to suspend the ceiling fromabove, allowing for an expansive, pillar-less auditorium space.

“There is no other building in Hong Kong that has adopted rein-forced concrete external parabolic trusses,” says Dr Lee Ho-yin, directorof the University of Hong Kong’s architectural conservation program,one of six experts consulted for the report. “As far as I know, it is verylikely to be one of a kind in Asia.”

The local activists’ ultimate vision for the State Theatre ispreservation, followed by a revival. The conservationists envision amixed-use venue showing a program of new independent film and localgenre movie classics, along with making the space available for stageand musical performances, as it once was.

“One of Hong Kong’s leading distributors has expressed interest tome privately in running the theater again if it can be revived,” saysKikabhoy. “If the theater can get Grade 1 conservation status, reviving

it would make a lot of sense. It could be a spectacularly cool landmark,catering to the cultural interests and needs of our community.”

With the iconic State Theatre facing possibledemolition, local activists are battling to preserve a pieceof local film history: ‘If it’s demolished, it will be very sad’

By Patrick Brzeski

The Fight to SaveHong Kong’s LastMovie Palace

The State Theatre in NorthPoint in . Architecturalhistorian Haider Kikabhoycalls it “the last vestige ofHong Kong entertainmenthistory from themidcentury.” Innovative parabolictrusses on the theater’sroof allowed the structure’sceiling to be supportedfrom above. The theater as it appearstoday: transformed into amixed space that includes ashopping center,apartments and a pool hall.


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WED 16th 16:00-SCREENING

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CEC Meeting RoomN102-N103


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EXECUTIVE SUITE

“The studios might be surprised tolearn that they’re going to have to

accommodate Chinese culture a littlemore than they think,” says Borden,

photographed by Scott Witter onMarch at his office in Santa Monica.

BILL BORDEN HAS HAD A FRONT ROW

view o China’s historic film boom. Afertwo-decades in Hollywood — producingprojects such as Robert Rodriguez’s

Desperado (1995), Spike Lee’s Get on the Bus (1996) and Arnold Schwarzenegger’s End of Days (1999) — the veteran producer was dis-patched to Hong Kong by Columbia Picturesin 2002 to co-executive produce the JackieChan action picture The Medallion. During histime in Hong Kong, Borden became riendswith Chan and many o the local industry’sleading film figures, including StephenChow, with whom he went on to develop theaction-comedy Kung Fu Hustle or Sony andColumbia. Written and directed by Chowand produced by Borden, Kung Fu Hustle grossed $17 million in North America, $20.2million in mainland China and $101 millionworldwide — a antastic total at the time o itsrelease in 2005. Fast-orward a decade, andStephen Chow’s latest antasy comedy, The Mermaid , which Borden again co-produced,has grossed an astonishing $500 million rom

the mainland Chinese market alone. In 2014,Borden became the head o Mili PicturesWorldwide, a Shanghai-based animationstudio that is developing a slate o animatedeatures around IP rom Shanda Games, oneo China’s largest and most successul mobilegaming companies. Borden, who divides timebetween Los Angeles and Shanghai, spokewith THR about The Mermaid ’s unprece-dented success, the changes he’s witnessed inthe Chinese film sector and what the industryneeds to do to reach a global audience.

How did you get involved in The Mermaid?

In October 2009, when Stephen was doingGreen Hornet at Sony Studios, he didn’t likethe script and it wasn’t working out. We weremeeting occasionally in Los Angeles ordinner, so I said, well, there’s another movieI think we should make in China. He saidwhat is it. I said I want to do this story abouta group o mermaids, or mer-people, who livein a beautiul grotto in China, and the grottois being taken over by an industrialist who’sgoing to ruin the environment and kill off thelast beautiul area where the merpeople areliving, and so they decide to send a beautiul young mermaid up to meet the industrialistand kill him.

That’s the film’s whole story concept. So do you

have a story credit, too?

No, I don’t have story credit. That’s a bone ocontention, but it’s okay. I have a consultingproducer credit.

From the time that you worked on Kung Fu Hustle

to the current Mermaid moment, what’s changed

in the Chinese industry?

A lot. ... Their system was one directed bythe government, which basically paid orthe movies. There were five major studiosand the government gave them a budget ormaking eatures and TV every year, and thosestudios were required to produce so manyhours o film eatures and television. They

had directors they trusted and they just camein and did it. So the concept o developingscreenplays and having someone analyze themarketing potential o a picture, was simplynot the system. It was government and direc-tor-driven, without much market pressure. Itdidn’t even really matter how successul thefilms were, because they were mostly paid orby the government.

What needs to happen for Chinese movies to take

the next step — to go global like Hollywood?

This is something I’m preaching all the timewith the companies that I work with. Withsome light development where you under-stand both the western market and easternmarket, and add a ew simple things — likeconnectivity between themes and somecharacter development, which is not in theirtradition — we can make a big Chinese pic-ture much more acceptable and palatable tothe West.

What other subject matter can you tackle to make

them internationally appealing?

That’s one o the things about these hitChinese movies: most o them are veryparochial. They just don’t translate. But iit’s a subject that’s more international — like

say, Raman Hui’s Monster Hunt — i you madean English version, I think it could work. We

don’t like to read subtitles in the U.S., butthere are stories that can be made in bothlanguages that will work. Animation is easierbecause you don’t have actors. On Dragon Nest: Warriors’ Dawn at Mili (2014), we hadtwo sets o voice actors and we redid the lipsynch or each language. I know Kung Fu Panda 3 claimed it was the first movie made inChinese and English, but that’s not true. Wedid the same thing.

Do you think that’s possible for live-action, too?

I you have a cast that speaks both languages,a piece like Mermaid could be made in twoversions pretty easily. A lot o those actors are

rom Hong Kong and speak English. With alittle bit o extra production, you could runEnglish takes. That has not been done yet,but I’ve been preaching it, believe me.

Many studios are setting up Chinese joint

ventures to produce big budget, Chinese-language

films. Is this the way forward?

It is. Every studio is going to be in China.There’s no reason not to be, with the box officepotential that big. It’s going to be the trend.The studios are going to try to dominate bymaking movies with local partners. Kung Fu Panda 3 is a very good example. Also, youhave to remember that an A-list animatorin Shanghai makes $100 per day, whereas inCaliornia they can make $1,000 per day. Sothere are lots o reasons or DreamWorksAnimation to do animation in China…

Do you foresee any friction points?

Well, even i a studio does a $500 million dealto create a joint venture, they’re going to findout very quickly that it’s a different culture.The studios might be surprised to learn thatthey’re going to have to accommodate theculture a little more than they think. A lot opeople like to make way or Hollywood, butI’m not sure the Chinese are going to be quite

as accommodating. The Chinese are veryculturally confident.

PRODUCER

Bill BordenThe Hollywood vet on how pollution

inspired the blockbusterMermaids andthe future of the Chinese film sector

By Patrick Brzeski


17/24

S T A Y

U P - T O - T H

E - M IN U T E

W IT H

CONTACT: UNITED STATES | Debra Fink | [email protected] | Alison Smith | [email protected] • Tommaso Campione | [email protected]

Frederic Fenucci | [email protected] | +44 7985 251 814ASIA | Ivy Lam | [email protected] • AUSTRALIA/NEW ZEALAND | Lisa Cruse | [email protected]

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18/24


R E V I E W S

voiced his melancholy and eel-ings o despair in a secret diary.When Chun stumbles across thehand-written book, he is capti-vated by its depth and longing.From that point on, he charts hiscourse by the river ports in thepoems, and in each place he findsthe same woman waiting or him.

While his crew o two, whichincludes kindly, old alcoholicUncle Xiang (Jiang Hualin) andneedlessly resentul youngdeckhand, Wu Sheng (WuLipeng), is still moored in the ogo Shanghai harbor, Chun firstcatches sight o the beautiul AnLu (Xin Zhilei) who stares backat him rom a boat even moredecrepit than his own. When heapproaches her, she shares herbed without urther preliminar-

ies. It takes Chun’s voiceover toexplain that although this is their

THE CONTINUING EVOLUTION OF HUMA NITY AND OUR

post-human uture are big science fiction ‘ideas’ that have beentackled in various orms rom Iain Banks and Octavia Butler

on the literary side to Star Trek and Doctor Who in film and television.Unable to resist the siren call o speculating on what we’ll look likegenerations rom now, writer-director Steven Shainberg dips into oneo the genre’s mainstay themes with the aggressively odd Rupture, asci-fi mystery that strings its premise along to nearly unsustainablelengths. Veering wildly rom the S&M as therapy dynamic he exploredin 2002’s compelling but uneven Secretary and the unconventional

Diane Arbus biopic Fur , Shainberg mixes tropes and beats rom horrorand mystery as well, calling to mind Martyrs, The Signal and a lot inbetween in his flawed but strangely engrossing thriller. Rupture willbe a good fit or genre estivals worldwide and should be able to findits built-in, and considerable, audience or oddball sci-fi on download

searching or its path in lie.Drifing through seas o moodyromantic doubts and yearning,the scenically beat-up cargo boatcommanded by young captainGao Chun (Qin Hao, the lead in YeLou’s Blind Massage) chugs its wayupriver. Chun’s ather, the boatowner, has recently died, and hekeeps a black fish in an incensebowl, waiting or it to die so Dad’sspirit can be released. This is thefirst intimation o the mystical/traditional/Buddhist themesthat underpin the film and whichwill turn viewers either on or off,depending on their persuasion.

The film’s unique characteristicis that it ollows the rhythm o

poems. These have been writtenby some long-gone deckhand who

Rapace isabducted and

subjected tostrange tests.

first encounter, it is ar rombeing just casual sex.

An Lu, as gradually becomesapparent when she magicallyturns up in distant places alongthe river, is a river spirit hersel.In one o her incarnations, sheis a devout Buddhist living ina remote temple, although shedoesn’t shave her head like theother nuns. She belongs to noman and reuses no one whocomes to her. So much or Chun’slonging to “have a woman o myown.”

As the ultimate romanticChinese travelogue, the filmdelivers aesthetic pleasuresar beyond the ken o NationalGeographic. The Yangtzebecomes increasingly the pro-tagonist as they pass ports with

names like Yunyang, Pengzeand Fuling, all the way to the

platorms. General theatrical release could be a tough sell, but isn’t

entirely out o the question in the hands o a creative distributor.On her way to kick-starting her lie anew by skydiving, divorced

single mother Renee (Noomi Rapace, very ofen channeling her Prometheus survivor) is abducted rom a Kansas City highway by agroup o mysterious men — led by The Shield ’s Michael Chiklis — andtaken to a anonymous, filthy laboratory. Afer the medical exam romhell, the head doctor, Nyman (Lesley Manville) and a wicked drugtrip, Renee is, like the rest o the captives she can hear beyond hercell walls, subjected to a series o physio-psychological tests meant todetermine i she’ll “rupture.” Suffice it to say, said rupture is a massiveDNA reorganization on a genetic level that will usher in the next waveo humanity. And that’s just one reason Renee is there.

With help rom a garish, red-washed production design by JeremyReed and ofen subjective cinematography by Karim Hussain, Rupture manages a suitably claustrophobic and disorienting vibe or viewersthat matches Renee’s perectly at any given moment. This is the grimy,unregulated, down-low brand o lab experimentation — flickeringlights, peeling paint, squeaky gurney wheels — so common in thegenre and which taps into a collective ear o the out-o-control scien-tist convinced they’re right. The real leader o the group o so-calledresearchers is Terrence, played by Peter Stormare in ull mad scientistglory, looming in the corners and disturbing in his stillness.

Rupture takes a little while to get going, flirting with Syy Saturdaymovie awkwardness at the outset, but once it relocates to the night-mare lab it settles into an effective rhythm that carries it almost tothe conclusion. Shainberg ails to quit while he’s ahead, however, andmisses a great opportunity or an ambiguous ending that would havebeen more affecting. Shainberg doesn’t contribute anything substan-tial to the evolutionary debate, but Rupture, a tight diverting thriller,

isn’t trying to crowd in on Isaac Asimov’s territory anyway.

Sales Ambi DistributionCast Noomi Rapace, Peter Stormare, Michael ChiklisDirector Steven Shainberg // 101 minutes

Rupture

Secretary director Steven Shainberg steps behindthe camera for the first time in a decade with this genre

thriller starring Noomi Rapacee

CROSSCURRENT

CO N TIN UE D F RO M P A GE

Yichang mountains. Many o thescenic towns have been gutted byflooding and many old buildingshave been relegated to a waterygrave with the construction othe controversial Three GorgesDam, whose sluice gates providea breathtaking scene o passageor the little boat.

HKIFF Section Awards GalaCast Qin Hao, Xin Zhilei,

Wu Linpeng,Director Yang Chao // 116 minutes

Qin is a boat captainwho falls in love with amysterious woman.


19/24


IN THIS DEMONICALLY DIVINE MUSICAL COMEDY, ‘Mother---er!’ almost becomes Japan’s national morale-booster ‘Ganbatte!’ (‘Do your best!’) — so ofen is it hollered

like a war-cry — yet judging by the guffaws it solicits, the film’soutlandish, sel-reflexive irreverence has struck the right chord.Helmer and writer Kankuro Kudo (Yaji and Kita: The Midnight Pilgrims) has managed to turn a simplistic tale o love and liechoices into a thoroughly entertaining two-hour extravaganzathrough wacky allusions to rock music, absurd interpretations oBuddhist belies and spots o well-placed humour.

Too Young to Die should draw attention in Asia, given thesweeping popularity o Kudo’s TV drama series Amachan whichwas shown in many regions in Asia. It may also appeal to nichemarkets as there are international ans o Kudo’s works, like PingPong and Go.

The story is about a high-school student Daisuke (RyunosukeKamiki, Bakuman, voice talent or Spirited Away) who has acrush on his classmate Hiromi (Aoi Morikawa). The bus they’re

on crashes and Daisuke wakes up to find himsel ace-to-ace withthe swashbuckling demon Killer K (Tomoya Nagase, Yaji and Kita:The Midnight Pilgrims) in hell — Buddhist hell. Daisuke, with K’shelp, embarks on a quest to leave Inerno, but expectedly, he getssidetracked — by K’s backstory and hellish bureaucracy.

In Too Young to Die, as in his directorial debut, Kudo showshimsel to be a chameleon who weaves in and out o reerencesto Japanese medieval traditions and pop culture with alacrityand slings seemingly incongruous elements together. The pacinghere, however, is better. The opening scenes have some shrewdlyedited moments — back-and-orth among flashback, narrationand musical numbers, accompanied by appropriate contrastsin cinematography. That said, the voltage drops a little afer thenarrative ground is laid and some parts eel repetitive. But thefilm always manages to pick itsel up again. The culture-specificallusions are also easier to understand than in the previous film.

Music is the best thing about the film. Ranging rom metal toblues, and always given a ‘eel-good’ rendition, the pieces comewith brilliant commentary about the industry, like what happensi you play the guitar with arms borrowed rom Jimmy Hendrix,Gary Moore and Randy Rhoads? (They start fighting).

Kudo’s experience in theatre is evident in the actors’ stylizedmovements and the minimalist sets. And it’s this inventive pre-sentation, as well as snide comments about hell’s badassism, thatsaves the boring-paradise versus tantalizing-hell dichotomy romeeling like a big cliché.

Sales Toho / Asmik Ace EntertainmentCast Tomoya Nagase, Kamiki Ryunosuke, Kenta Kiritani,

Nana Seino, Aoi Morikawa, Machiko Ono, Rie MiyazawaDirector Kankuro Kudo // 123 minutes

S

ET AT A TIME WHEN HIS home country was still

ravaged by deadly battlesbetween government orces andMaoist guerillas, young Nepalesefilmmaker Min Bahadur Bham’seature-film debut offers poisedstorytelling, heartrendingperormances and more thana smattering o startling cin-ematic moments. Revolvingaround two rural boys’ searchor a chicken on which theirutures hinge, Kalo Pothi, the Black Hen has cut a surprisinglylow-profile presence ever sinceits bow at Venice Critics’ Weeksidebar last year, with only a ewestival appearances (Warsaw,Singapore) to its name. But thisNepalese-German-Swiss-Frenchco-production deserves more rec-ognition or its def combinationo art and social commentary.

The film unolds in 2001, at atime when a decades-long Maoistinsurgency seems to be windingdown as the government and theguerillas call a truce to engagein peace talks. But the tensionremains high, as both parties

continue playing brinksmanshipin the country’s rural hinter-lands: menacing soldiers in ullmilitary attire still patrol theheavily militarized countryside,while guerillas stage sermons andshows in villages in an attempt torally support rom the impover-ished and mostly illiterate ruralpopulation.

All this saber-rattling and ideo-logical warare seems to play outas background noise, however, asthe film’s two young protagonists

begin the film engaging withmore practical things in lie.

While hailing rom differentcastes – one is the village head-man’s grandson, the other the sono a servant – Kiran (Sukra RajRokaya) and Prakash (KhadkaRaj Nepali) are united by theirriendship and also a commondesire to keep a hen, whose eggswould bring in the money thelatter needs to get out o the cycleo poverty his lowly amily havebeen condemned to.

When Prakash’s ather sells theowl, the boys are plunged into atortuous struggle to raise somecash to get it back. Just as the pairruns into endless obstacles in theirtask, circumstances around themalso unravel: Prakash’s angst-rid-den sister Bijuli (Hansha Khadka) joins the guerillas, while themarriage o Kiran’s schoolteachersibling Uzhyale (Benisha Hamal)goes awry as the army and theinsurgents resume hostilities.

Bolstered by stirring peror-mances rom his cast, Bhamand his crew have produced anevocative piece about harsh lives

in a war-torn, rustic land. Mixingmoments o humor and tragedy,and also realism and the ethereal– the latter embodied in antasticdream sequences about Prakash’seeling o grie and loss – Black Hen is an effective showcase o apromising filmmaker.

Sales Wide ManagementCast Khadka Raj Nepali, Sukra Raj RokayaDirector Min Bahadur Bham 90 minutes

Demons mix with rock music inKudo’s imagined Buddhist hell.

Too Young to Die!Kankuro Kudo’s wacky musical crowd pleaser about life

after death strikes just the right chord

Kalo Pothi, the Black HenMin Bahadur Bham’s debut feature revolves around two boys’mission to relocate a missing hen as war rages around them

Kiran andPrakash facenumerousobstacles in their

search for amissing hen.


20/24

RE V I EW S


as to avoid paying or the victims’ long-termrehabilitation ees. And one such report isactually heard blaring rom the radio at thefilm’s opening sequence, as Lao Shi (ChenGang) drives along crammed streets o a

small Chinese city to shadow a motorcyclist.The pic then cuts to three months earlier,when Shi finds himsel cut adrif afer a trafficaccident; rather than taking flight, he stays,calls or help, goes to the hospital and paysthe bills or the victim, somewhat believing hewould be reimbursed by insurance.

Shi’s wheels gradually come off, however,as he discovers old-ashioned goodnessdoesn’t pay in a society where proceduresand cynicism reign supreme. Rather thangetting a pat on the back or errying thedying victim to the hospital, Shi is cautionedby the police or leaving the scene, and thentold by insurance executives how he mighthave undermined his own claims or actuallyhelping the victim.

Learning o his victim’s financial predica-ments through phone conversations with theman’s wie, Shi somehow continues ootingthose bills — and he soon discovers how he’sa lone moralist plunged into a theater ocruelty, as his nursery-operator wie (Nai An),

DEFYING ITS SOMEWHAT GENERIC -sounding title, Johnny Ma’s grippingcriminal thriller Old Stone deploys

powerul perormances and eerie imagery toconvey the moral breakdown o an upstand-ing taxi driver and the society rom whichhe emerges — one in which people couldactually buy insurance to cover themselvesrom being sued by people they help on thestreet. Drawing on multiple genres — romDardennes-style drama to jet-black noir— the pic is, at least in terms o Chineseindependent cinema, a rereshing and soliddebut rom the Shanghai-born, Toronto-raised and New York-educated financeconsultant-turned-filmmaker.

Old Stone begins and ends with a red screen,a sign o the olly, ury and eventual blood-shed which drives the story, one inspired nodoubt by the ceaseless reports in China aboutdrivers killing pedestrians they have hit so

his boss (Wang Hongwei) and nearly everyoneelse turn their backs on what they believeto be some kind o monstrous selflessness.Barely being able to hold himsel togetherafer losing his cab, his job and his amily, Shigradually succumbs to the cynicism aroundhim. His descent into violence and crimebecoming complete when he discovers howeven victims can no longer be trusted in thisday and age.

Starting out steeped in social-realist drama,Old Stone gradually morphs into a ull-blownpsychological thriller, complete with a devas-tating denouement unolding in a muddy fieldand on dark country lanes.

HKIFF Section Young Cinema CompetitionCast Chen Gang, Nai An, Wang HongweiDirector-screenwriter Johnny Ma80 minutes

better suited to the intimacy otelevision. Imaizumi’s modern eyeand def eel or youthul romanticrhythms should earn the film a

secure place on the estival circuit.Success in South Korea should beat least moderate given the pres-ence o Nu’Est boy band membersRen, Minhyun and JR, whichshould translate regionally giventhe continued Asian obsessionwith all things KPop. Overseasdistribution will rely on nicheurban markets.

The dots in Their Distance begin to connect with Leon(Nu’Ester Ren), the supermodel/shoe repair worker with a pasthe can’t orgive himsel or. Hislie is defined by drudgery andthe same lunch on the same parkbench every day. Leon workswith Kokaze (Fumiko Aoyagi),who has a not-so-subtle crushon him, though afer finding thehung-over Suna (Villain’s HanaeKan) on his bench, Leon sparksto lie. A bit. Suna’s Japaneselanguage student buddy Sangsoo(Minhyun, also in Nu’est) devel-ops a thing or Kokaze, whileher boyriend Jiwoo (JR, the lastboy bander) alls or his teacher

Kanako (Haruka Kinami, in thefilm’s strongest perormance).

The biggest ailment afflictingTheir Distance is writer, directorand editor Imaizumi’s inability tocommit to a single mood. When

Leon begins his comic pursuito Suna (some would call itstalking) which Kokaze doublesdown on (ditto the stalking) thefilm takes on a screwy, light tonethat’s dropped quickly in avoro more genuine dramatic ele-ments, highbrow arty observationand irony.

Nonetheless, Imaizumi doesmanage several moments o realempathy and astute perceptions,those coming courtesy most ofeno Kinami and Serizawa. Theirprotracted, supremely uncomort-able and honest discussion abouttheir flailing relationship and theiruture together eels grown-up ina way Kan and JR’s does not in thesame situation. Kinami in particu-lar brings a gravity to Kanako thatelevates the younger perormers’work by association; she’s subtleand reactive, telegraphing eelingsthat aren’t in the script.

Sales Nikkatsu Cast Ren, Fumiko Aoyagi, Hanae Kan

Director Rikiya Imaizumi 107 minutes

Gang, paysthe price for doingthe right thing.

love heptangle in Their Distance.Well constructed i only fleet-ingly insightul, when Their Distance does manage to make asalient point about contemporaryrelationships it really lands, nomatter which generational box

a viewer may tick. Slight to thepoint o vanishing and probably

R IKIYA IMAIZUMI

revisits the ensembleromance o Sad Tea, which

revolved around a more glamorousfilmmaker and a pop idol, or theemotional trials and tribulationso a decidedly unglamorous yet

genetically blessed group otwentysomethings navigating a

Aoyagi, left, has ahidden crush on Ren.

Their DistanceJapanese director Rikiya Imaizumi leads three-fifths of Korean

boy band Nu’Est on a romantic journey in his latest feature

Old StoneCanadian-Chinese director Johnny Ma’s

debut depicts a small-town cabbie’sdescent into madness in the aftermathof a traffic accident


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AN OVERLY CURIOUS NOVELIST DELVES TOO DEEPLY into the affairs o an older man and his barely legal com-panion in While the Women Are Sleeping . In his first time

filming in the land o the rising sun, versatile Chinese-Americandirector Wayne Wang ( Maid in Manhattan, The Joy Luck Club)defly transers Javier Marias’s enigmatic, semi-erotic short storyrom Spain to Japanese climes. The result has the calculated as-cination o a Patricia Highsmith thriller, though minus her moralironies and plus some very Wang-ian tongue-in-cheek satire. Shotwith a light touch, pleasingly stylish and hard to second-guess,the film is a warm tease up to its deliberately ambiguous ending,which will leave audiences scratching their heads and limit busi-ness to card-carrying art house members.

The spotlight is on the perormance o a zen-like Beat Takeshi(a.k.a. director Takeshi Kitano) in the role o a mystery manbesotted with his young girlriend, who he tapes every day whileshe’s sleeping. In his first major role outside o his own films in adecade, he grounds the story with an electriying presence that is

at once lovable and menacing, and turns what might be seen as aharmless perversion into a much more unsettling means o control.

But he’s not the only voyeur in the story. Kenji (HidetoshiNishijima, the unorgettable beaten-up cinephile rom Cut ), a nov-elist with writer’s block, has an obsession with the strange coupleand soon turns into a peeping Tom. And then there is the audience.Floating through the refined, slightly surreal atmosphere, the vieweris made to eel like a voyeur watching the men watching women.

Kenji and his wie Aya, an editor (Sayuri Oyamada), are shar-ing a week’s vacation at a ancy beach resort. Afer an acclaimedfirst novel, Kenji has allen into a writing slump, and despite Aya’scoaxing is unable to start a new book. Inspiration is waiting onthe other side o the pool, where they first notice the odd coupleSahara (the 68-year-old Kitano, looking very much like a retired yakuza) and his stunning 19-year-old girlriend, Miki (ShioriKutsuna). It’s obsession at first sight or Kenji, who begins to stalkthem. The mystery surrounding them only deepens when Saharalets him into his confidence and shows him the tapes he has madeo Miki while she’s asleep. He says that he has filmed her every dayor the last ten years, erasing each day’s previous tape, so he willhave “a record o her last day.” Because one day he knows she willbetray him. And then he will have to kill her.

It’s a nice set-up and handled with flair. Even though nothingterrible happens on screen — nothing worse than a pair o brightred socks slowly sinking to the bottom o the pool — Wang chargesthe atmosphere and every act is filled with danger.

HKIFF Section World Cinema GalaCast Beat Takashi, Hidetoshi Nishijima, Shioli Kutsuna, Sayuri

Oyamada, Lily Franky, Hirofumi Arai, Makiko WatanabeDirector Wayne Wang // 103 minutes

Shiori becomesthe object of twomen’s obsession.

While theWomen are Sleeping

Wayne Wang’s stylish psycho noir neverresolves its enigmas

ASTIRRING PERSONAL story set against thegrand sweep o early 20th

century history, Kazakhstan’s Stranger is part western, partreligious allegory and partphilosophical able about theclash between tradition andmodernity, individual reedomand mass conormity. It takesplace in a gorgeous landscape osnow-capped mountains and sun-drenched valleys, which is one oits key selling points. But it also issluggish, incoherent and skimpyon explanatory background,which will severely limit its pros-pects with non-local audiences.

Stranger is a pastoral parablewith echoes o Akira Kurosawa’s Dersu Uzala and Sydney Pollack’s Jeremiah Johnson, plus just ateasing hint o Rambo: First Blood .Drawing on Kazakh olklore aswell as real characters rom hishome village, writer-directorYermek Tursunov plots the lie

story o a proud outsider whostands against a repressive society,with inevitably harsh conse-quences. Orphaned by the brutalSoviet purges o the 1930s, Ilyas(Yerzhan Nurymbet) withdrawsrom his village to live as a semi-e-ral hermit in a mountain cave,communing with animals andmostly shunning human contact.Initially hailed as a spirituallypure outlaw, he later becomes atarget o scorn and suspicion, andis vilified as a traitor or reusing tofight in World War II.

Parts o Stranger are conusing,

largely because Tursunovunder-explains the dramaticcontext. Historically inhabitedby nomadic tribes, Kazakhstanwas co-opted into the Russianempire in the 19th century, allingunder the Soviet jackboot in the1920s. Stalinist repression, massemigration and starvation causedby orced collectivization oarms lef millions dead, reducingthe native population by almost40 percent. Moscow also usedthe republic as a giant prison ordissidents deported rom otherparts o the Soviet Union, whichhelps explain some o the bafflingminor characters here, notablythe mute, alcoholic Caucasianwoman (award-winning Russianstage veteran Roza Khairullina)whom Ilyas takes under his pro-tective wing.

But there are deeper flaws in Stranger than mere lack o detail.Ilyas remains a childlike cipherthroughout the film, with no

apparent social or sexual curios-ity, his psychological motivation ablank page. The other charactersare thinly rendered heroes andvillains, a crude schemata thatmakes any kind o empathy diffi-cult. Thus the final-act showdownaims or operatic tragedy, butsimply alls flat.

HKIFF Section Global VisionCast Yerzhan Nurymbet, Alexander Karpov, Kuandyk Kystykbayev,Director-screenwriter Yermek Tursunov // 105 minutes

StrangerRich dramatic potential gets lost in translation in this

western-like tale of a proud outlaw who reverts to nomadictradition during the dark days of Soviet occupation

Yerzhan chooseslife in the

wildernessinstead of war.


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Decades of The Hollyood ReporterThe most glamorous and memorable moments from a storied history

C O U R T E S Y O F H K I F F

U

P UNTIL T HE 1980S

Hong Kong actionfilms were almostalways variants o

wuxia (period martial arts filmseaturing swordplay) or themore globally ubiquitous kung ufilms that made stars o BruceLee and Jackie Chan. That allchanged though when John Woo’s A Better Tomorrow stormed the-aters in 1986.

Woo sought to break with theclownish kung u films that werebeing churned out at the time byShaw Studios and create storiesthat were realistic and mired in the

seedy world o the Triads, HongKong’s notorious organized crime

lords. With Tomorrow, and laterthe action classics The Killer and Hard Boiled , Woo ushered in theage o “gun u” marrying balleticmovement with urious gunplayusing techniques that are nowconsidered action cliches such asslow-mo, tracking shots and theactors using two guns.

Tomorrow, which celebrates its30th anniversary this year withspecial screenings at the HongKong International Film Festival,stunned audiences upon releaseand soon its ame would spread tothe West where it heavily influ-enced filmmakers such as Robert

Rodriguez, Quentin Tarantinoand the Wachowski Sisters.

Many o the key playersbehind Tomorrow would go on tofind regional and internationalsuccess. The breakout star wasundoubtedly was Chow Yun-at.Though a supporting actor inTomorrow, Chow is now very mucha global name having eatured inHollywood hits Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon and Bulletproof Monk . Woo o course, parlayedhis cult ollowing in the West towork in Hollywood and enjoyeda purple patch in the 90s withaction films like Broken Arrow, Face Off and Mission Impossible 2.The film’s producer Tsui Hark has

ound continued success as a pro-ducer, actor and director, with his

military epic The Taking of Tiger Mountain taking over $150 millionat the Chinese box office in 2015.

Leslie Cheung was another whosprung to prominence. Alreadya hugely popular Canto pop idolwhen Tomorrow was released,Cheung would go on to orge acritically acclaimed acting careerwith memorable roles in WongKar-wai’s Happy Together andChen Kaige’s Temptress Moon.Tragically, Cheung would commitsuicide in 2003 at the age o 46afer suffering rom depression.His death was a huge shock to thepeople o Hong Kong and tens o

thousands attended his memorialservice. ABID RAHMAN

Fa t would follo w up

T omorr ow

with two more

Iconic John Woo

actioners: ’sThe Killer

and Har d Boiled in .

A Better Tomorrow Introduces ‘Gun Fu’ in


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IN POSTPRODUCTION

IN PRODUCTION

PREPRODUCTION

CURRENTLY IN PRODUCTION (2016)

CAST: Paz de la Huerta

US DISTRIBUTOR: Alchemy

GENRE: Thriller. "She’s Not Alone"PAZ DE LAHUERTA

CURRENTLY IN PRE-PRODUCTION (2016)

CAST: Tara Reid

DIRECTOR: Robert reed Altman


GENRE: Horror (Ghosts) "Hunger Is Not Solely For The Living"

TARA REID


CAST: Ana CotoUS DISTRIBUTOR: Alchemy

GENRE: Thriller. "Down There, No One Can Hear You Scream"ANA COTO


CAST: Rachel Leigh Cook , Natasha Henstridge

GENRE: Sci-Fi Erotic Drama

There Are No Limits To What We Can Experience

NATASHAHENSTRIDGE

RACHEL LEIGHCOOK

REBEL MOVIES FIlmart 1E-F31 Hall 1, Hong Kong Convention and Exhibition Centre

Telephone: 310.458.6700 xt 323 [email protected] - www.rebelmovies.eu

CURRENTLY IN POSTPRODUCTION (2016)

CAST: Mischa Barton


GENRE: Paranormal horror. "Sometimes Evil Has A Pretty Face"MISCHABARTON

CURRENTLY IN PREPRODUCTION (2017)

CAST: Mischa Barton

GENRE: Paranormal horror. "Sometimes Evil Has A Pretty Face"

MISCHA

BARTON


24/24

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