Wisit Sasanatieng Tagged Articles at Cinematical

Our own Matt Bradshaw does a great job of compiling and commenting on the latest and maybe not so greatest for Cinematical's Trailer Park, but what if you want to see trailers for movies that are not coming soon to a theater near you? What if you have a hankering to see Jean Claude Van Damme speaking Japanese, or the latest North Korean action movie, or a jeans commercial by an acclaimed Thai director? Then you've come to the right post, my friends. Dive into a collection of clips that are nothing but silly movie-related fun.

• Rumble Boy came and went in the Philippines earlier this year without causing any kind of international, er, rumble, but I dig the vibe: Fast and the Furious meets Final Destination 2 meets special effects that were state of the art back in 1987. Check out the trailer: "It's showtime!"

• Who knew North Korea was producing action movies? Watch this clip, taken from a Japanese news program; the action looks fairly decent. Then read the accompanying post, in which it's explained that the film is evidently "an anti-Japanese propaganda epic" which appears to demonstrate that "Kim Jong-Il really wants his people to dislike the Japanese." Oh. Maybe the movie's not so cool after all. (Via Japan Probe)

• Jackie Chan may not have understood the "American humor" in his Rush Hour films, but that didn't keep him from cashing his paychecks. Perhaps he understands Japanese humor better? His latest commercial for a vitamin company translates well, even if you don't speak the language. (Featuring the very cute Aya Ueto; via Japan Probe)

• Jean-Claude Van Damme may or may not be heading into the world of biopics, but I can confirm that he is a spokesman for a chewing gum company. Watch and enjoy this compilation of three short clips -- it's the only way you can hear the beloved "Muscles From Brussels" speaking Japanese. What a versatile guy!

• And now for something completely different. Released earlier this year, Yellow Tears featured five members of the pop band Arashi in the adaptation of a manga classic by Shinji Nagashima. Young men in 1960s Japan cross paths and "forge a unique bond while pursuing their individual dreams." The trailer is relaxed and refreshing. (Via Nippon Cinema)

• Acclaimed Thai director Wisit Sasanatieng has made delightful films that burst with color (Tears of the Black Tiger, Citizen Dog), but he is also capable of making snazzy commercials: here's one for jeans and here's another for bicycles. (Via Grady Hendrix at Kaiju Shakedown)

Tears of the Black Tiger feels like a movie made a hundred years from now, when filmmakers have only the vaguest notion of the boundaries we in the past recognized between genres. It's one part Rebel Without a Cause, one part bloody Peckinpah, one part early Sam Raimi, and one part Bollywood-style frivolity with a Thai twist. Despite the love and enormous amount of work that obviously went into the making of it, I can't honestly say the film works. It's too eager to please, too overconfident in its ability to impress, and generally too over-the-top to make for a good experience. The press materials claim that Tears of the Black Tiger "offers nostalgia as future shock." I don't know what that means, frankly, but I guess it has something to do with the fact that one minute the film can be presenting itself as a serious western, and the next minute it is showing us animated bullets knocking against each other in mid-air like something out of a Tex Avery cartoon.

Written and directed by Wisit Sasanatieng, the film is the story of Sera Dum (Chartchai Ngamsan), a poor peasant who falls in love with Rumpoey (Stella Malucchi) a girl who lives in a giant, antebellum-style mansion and has little to do but lounge around all day in gazebos and wait for someone to come along and throw her over their shoulder. The murder of Dum's father causes him to descend into an outlaw circuit, where he soon distinguishes himself as "Black Tiger" a straight-shooting gunslinger who can actually direct the ricochet of a bullet to its intended target. (uh-huh) By the time Black Tiger has blown enough holes through people to work his way back to Rumpoey's world, she is already betrothed to a slimy police captain who has no intention of giving up any ground. It's The Departed, only with bad humor instead of good, an unnecessary Pulp Fiction-style time jumble, and a palpable absence of seriousness that makes us care very little whether the good guy or the bad guy gets the girl.

As fast as the film process travels these days, there are still films that take years to come out. Although Bubba Ho-tep evoked a melange of laughter and praise at festival screenings, we had to wait eons for the film to reach theaters as it slowly made its way from cinema to cinema. Others like Prozac Nation, which was filmed during the height of Jason Biggs and Michelle Williams' teen celebrity, could only make it to DVD four years after its TIFF premiere. And then there is Tears of the Black Tiger.

After premiering in the Vancouver International Film Festival in 2000, Wisit Sasanatieng's directorial debut was the first Thai film to be accepted at Cannes in 2001. Although it went on to tour a number of festivals, garnered praise, and opened in a number of European cities, it was bought by Miramax Films and never released. Now, six years after its premiere, indieWIRE has reported that Magnolia Pictures has acquired the rights.

Black Tiger is the classic bad guy-good girl love story. There's Rumpoey, the wealthy girl whose father wants her to marry a police officer, and Dum, a poor young man who is torn between his love for Rumpoey and his desire to avenge an attack on his father. If you're curious about the film, and the color techniques used to enhance it, check out this Preview Online article that was released in 2001. If you're anxious to see the film, an uncut version will be shown on January 12 at New York's Film Forum with national release dates to follow.