BattleOfRedCliff Tagged Articles at Cinematical

Welcome to the first weekly edition of Asian Cinema Scene. I've written about Asian films under this moniker irregularly in the past; from now on, you can look forward to a fresh new post every Monday. (Unless something emerges from a river and snatches me in its tentacles.) Some weeks I'll concentrate on one film; today I'll roundup a few items of interest from the past week.

Sweet treat. The awesome Thai action flick Chocolate got midnight screenings Friday and Saturday in select markets, courtesy of Magnolia Pictures. It looks great on the big screen, especially with an appreciative audience, but if you missed it, don't despair; look for details on the DVD release in tomorrow's Spin-ematical.

Non-deals. Will recent higher-profile Asian flicks like Tony Jaa's Ong Bak 2 or John Woo's Red Cliff (with the two parts edited into one epic) ever sell to US distributors? The European Film Market is happening this week in Berlin, and I'm keeping my fingers crossed that we hear something. Meanwhile, Red Cliff 2 is opening across Asia in staggered release; check one of the trailers below.

Consumer beware. DVD label Dragon Dynasty has taken a serious backward step with their decision to release The Enforcer (AKA My Father is a Hero), starring Jet Li, without the original-language Cantonese audio track. Mark Pollard of Kung Fu Cinema reviewed the new edition in detail, and also posted a response by Genius Products, distributor of the Dragon Dynasty line, to criticism expressed online, in which they claim no usable version of the original audio was available in time for the release. It's a good, crunchy action flick directed by Corey Yuen, and deserves better.

After the jump: Variety Asia says goodbye. Plus, which four films are represented in the image above? No peeking!

Can a director best known for bloody bullet ballets pull off a historical action epic? We'll know later this week when John Woo's Red Cliff rolls out across Asia. The film's full-length running time of more than four hours has been split in two; the first part opens in China, Hong Kong, Korea, and Taiwan on Thursday, with a release in Malaysia next week and Japan in November, according to Variety. Part two is set to debut next January.

Red Cliff, based on the classic novel Romance of the Three Kingdoms (which has been adapted for television and film multiple times), is the fulfillment of a dream for Woo, who first tried to make it nearly 20 years ago. The title refers to a battle involving more than a million soldiers that brought an end to the Han Dynasty in 208 AD, resulting in the division of China into three kingdoms. Tony Leung Chiu-Wai, Takeshi Kaneshiro, Zhang Fengyi, Chang Chen and Lin Chiling star.

Woo has been staging elaborate action sequences for many years, but hasn't tackled a project of this scale and historical sweep before. An international version, expected to run about two and a half hours, will be completed by January. No US distributor has yet been set. To get fully caught up on this sometimes-troubled production, reportedly budgeted at $80 million, read our previous reports from February 2006, September 2006, April 2007 (1), April 2007 (2), August 2007, February 2008 (trailer), and June 2008.