LiuYe Tagged Articles at Cinematical

Glamorous photography is no substitute for compelling dramatic content. Far too many scenes in Blood Brothers look and feel as though director Alexi Tan followed a self-imposed dictum to "light first, act later." His film labors mightily to get its narrative ball rolling, to no avail.

More's the pity, because Blood Brothers was inspired by very rich source material. John Woo's Bullet in the Head, released in 1990, is arguably Woo's most personal and potent work, gut-wrenching to the point where it feels that he simply opened a vein and let his blood seep into every frame (as I've written before). That film was set in war-torn Vietnam in the late 1960s and had a very gritty feel; by the end, it felt as though you'd suffered as much pain and heartache as the three main characters, close friends whose bond of brotherhood was tested under fire.

Woo's film was originally intended as a prequel to his action classics A Better Tomorrow and A Better Tomorrow II. After Woo had a falling out with producer Tsui Hark, the story was free to develop into something more original, without having to tie the characters into the other films. From the looks of things, it appears that Woo and producing partner Terence Chang similarly encouraged Tan to follow his own artistic muse. Tan's script, completed in collaboration with Jiang Dan and Tony Chan, keeps only the most basic outline of Woo's film: three close friends seek their fortune in the world.

Cinematical has just received this exclusive clip from the film Dark Matter, starring Liu Ye, Meryl Streep and Aidan Quinn. This one is a pretty crazy story; it was inspired by the actual events surrounding a Chinese student who travels to the United States in search of a bright future in American science. But when he has a hard time navigating academic politics, he slowly loses his way (and his mind). Dark Matter premiered at the Sundance Film Festival two years ago (where it won the Alfred P. Sloan Feature Film Prize), and I've heard nothing but good things about it. For more, you can check out a Moviefone Unscripted segment with Aidan Quinn, Liu Ye and director Chen Shi-Zheng (renowned opera and theater director making his feature film debut).

Dark Matter arrives in theaters on April 11.

Last January, Chen Shi-Zheng's Dark Matter premiered at the Sundance Film Festival, where it won the Alfred P. Sloan Feature Film Prize. But that wasn't enough to get it a sweet deal, or any normal deal for that matter. It took a year, but according to The Hollywood Reporter, the film finally has a North American distributor in First Independent Pictures. Now the award-winner will get an April release, which will be followed by a DVD release, the details of which are currently being finalized.

The film, which stars Liu Ye, Aidan Quinn (who replaced Val Kilmer), and Meryl Streep, is based on a true story of a Chinese student in 1991 whose mental stability unravels when his hopes for scientific greatness are dashed due to his school's internal politics. Ye plays the student, Liu Xing, Quinn plays his cosmology professor who brings the international student onto his research team, and Streep plays Xing's other mentor, a patron of the university. The twist -- his mentally-unraveled state leads him to extreme violence.

If you're curious about the real story, and don't want to be surprised, you can google "Gang Lu" and get the details of his story. Of course, this film is only based on the events, so it's sure to have its own twists, turns, and Dark Matter. (Pun alert!) In the meantime, check out the trailer here.

Both Val Kilmer and Meryl Streep have signed on to appear in the debut feature from Chinese opera director, Chen Shi-Zheng. The film, entitled Dark Matter, tells the story of "a Chinese exchange student [played by heartthrob Liu Ye] who takes revenge after [his] hopes for a Nobel Prize are wrecked by internal school politics." Whoa. I have no idea how this group of people came together to make a movie - and about Nobel Prize bitterness, of all things, but it sounds pretty damn cool. It's always refreshing when mainstream American stars are willing to branch out and take a flyer on a completely unproven director, or a really weird script. Also hoping to take part in the adventure is cinematography's resident mad genius, Christopher Doyle. Since Doyle's presence automatically makes a movie 50% more interesting, this is exciting news indeed.

The film is being produced by Myriad Pictures and the brand new New York production house Saltmill. While Dark Matter is Saltmill's first film, the presence of Van Wilder 2: Rise of the Taj on Myriad's slate is sort of disconcerting - Taj and an untested Chinese director just don't come up together in conversation very often.