Cyril Raffaelli Tagged Articles at Cinematical

When it reached American audiences two years after it opened in France, 2006's District 13 (or B13 here) served as a breezy introduction to the art of parkour, not to mention director Pierre Morel's knack for shooting action sequences both energetically and visibly (an underrated quality, that last one). Morel moved on to Taken, though, while parkour began to infiltrate more high-profile Hollywood fare, like Casino Royale and Live Free or Die Hard.

However, writer/producer/all-around action maven Luc Besson stuck around to cash in on the promise of a follow-up, and now we're greeted with District 13: Ultimatum, a competent if flabby rehash of the first film's race-against-time plot and dystopian setting.

Just yesterday I was inspired to write "Everyone should watch District B13" on my Facebook page, and then I watched the dang movie AGAIN! Basically I think it's one of the most entertaining action flicks of the past ten years, so when I came across THIS PIECE during my regular Twitch-surfing, I got very excited indeed. Looks like District B13: Ultimatum will reunite the amazing ass-kickers known as David Belle and Cyril Raffaelli; Luc Besson is on solo screenwriting duty; and the director is a Frenchman namd Patrick Alessandrin.

No solid word yet on when D-B13:U will be completed (or even who'll be distributing in this part of the globe, athough Magnolia did a fine job with the first flick), but if you spend a few minutes at Twitch then you'll find four behind-the-scenes clips to flicker through. (The most recent one is the coolest, and it's the one I've embedded below.) And then after the jump, a bonus that just never gets old. (Previous reports on this movie can be found here and here.)

While spending some time hawking his Arthur and the Invisibles at a left-coast press junket, French filmmaker Luc Besson dropped a few juicy hints about a sequel to District B13, the truly nifty action flick that earned a limited release from Magnolia Pictures this past June. Chock-full of what's known as "parkour" martial arts, District B13 is a short, slick and very fast-paced action movie that features some dazzling physical histrionics from co-leads Cyril Raffaelli and David Belle.

No firm word on when the second District will begin, but the frantic Frenchman (who co-wrote and co-produced the first flick), seems pretty confident that it'll be sooner than later: "B13 I want to do the sequel to, I love the two characters, and there's the room to do another one. I have the idea then I think we're going to make it."

According to ComingSoon.net, Besson (who recently semi-retired from directing) is also thinking about a third Transporter entry in addition to a vague project called Taken, which will star Liam Neeson.

And if you haven't seen District B13 yet, make sure to drop it in your queue. If you dig the action stuff, I bet you'll enjoy it.

Made at a rumored cost of just over $15 million, and released in the US with the support of an advertising budget that appears to consist of $100 and a ball of string, District B13 is miles from the studio bloat of such tentpole summer movies as Mission: Impossible III and The Da Vinci Code. In place of contrived storylines and massive stars crisscrossing the globe, District B13 offers the awesome, graceful power of parkour alongside a simple story, sneaky wit and 90 minutes of thrilling, absolutely gleeful action. It might just be the best action movie of the summer.

Co-written and produced by Luc Besson and directed by long-time action cinematographer Pierre Morel, the film is set in the Paris of 2010, a city so ravaged by crime and poverty that walls have been erected around the poorest districts to keep the trouble in. As a side effect, of course, most of the help and hope is kept out. Within District B13, there is a single building untouched by the drugs and crime that dominate the rest of the walled city, and that building's unofficial mayor is Leito (David Belle). Though he keeps his building and it's occupants meticulously clean, Leito is in no way above using the same tools and tricks as the criminals he abhors: The building is guarded by heavily-armed thugs and, when we first meet Leito, he's frantically try to destroy the €1 million worth of cocaine that he stole from a K2, a thuggish District B13 gangster. Not surprisingly, K2's boss, Taha, wants payment for the coke, and he wants it now. Despite being captured in his own hideout and turned over to the police by Leito, Taha nevertheless manages to escape, taking Leito's gorgeous, ass-kicking sister (Lola, played by Dany Verissimo) with him.