andy lau Tagged Articles at Cinematical

Even as Will Smith battles for his life in I Am Legend, the film is set to fight it out with Hong Kong action epic The Warlords for box office supremacy in Asia this weekend. Who will win? Will and his dog will have to come from behind because The Warlords is already ahead. Variety reports that the film "rampaged across Asia in its six territory day-and-date" premiere on Thursday.

Compared to the US, the numbers may be small, but everything is relative: $1.77 million on opening day in Mainland China, plus $1.22 million in receipts from sneak previews on Wednesday. Preview and opening day audiences in Hong Kong added $215,000 to the take, while the picture also did well in wide release in Singapore ($119,000) and Malaysia ($54,300). The Warlords also launched in Thailand on Thursday, in Indonesia on Friday, and will expand to Taiwan on December 28. Meanwhile, I Am Legend premieres in Hong Kong, Japan, South Korea and Taiwan this weekend, according to Variety, and is expected to do well "given the foreign appeal of Will Smith and the offshore appetite for action."

The Warlords stars Jet Li, Andy Lau, and Takeshi Kaneshiro in a film that director Peter Chan says was inspired by his watching Chang Cheh's Blood Brothers as a young boy in 1973. He told Yvonne Teh of BC Magazine that when he revisited it as an adult, he felt that the movie was "too simple for today," so he "started digging into history and into the background of the period of the Taiping Revolution where 70 million people were killed in a matter of 14 years." Early reviews have been positive with some reservations (The Visitor at Twitch) and no reservations (Stefan at Twitch). Sounds like Jet Li's record paycheck has been earned. Too bad we don't have any word on a North American distribution deal.

When you hear about big, multi-million dollar actor paychecks, ones which take up a good portion of a film's budget, it's usually a North American production. Not in this case. Reuters has reported that Jet Li, the it-man behind films from Romeo Must Die to Fearless, is getting one sweet paycheck for one of his most recent films. He is making 100 million yuan ($13 million) for Warlords -- close to half of the budget for the film. This record-breaking pay continues to keep him as the highest-paid actor in a Chinese-language film, a spot he had already held for earning 70 million yuan for his role in Hero.

Director Peter Chan (Perhaps Love) is quoted as saying: "Without Jet Li, we would not dare to invest $40 million in a Chinese-language film." He went on to say that Li was a "guarantee" for global sales. I would hope so, because that's a big chunk of change that they are investing on that belief. They say about half of the budget went to the cast, and since Li has $13 million, that still leaves about $7 million for the rest of the cast -- House of Flying Daggers stars Andy Lau and Takeshi Kaneshiro, as well as actress/director Xu Jinglei (A Letter from an Unknown Woman). Set amidst the Taiping Rebellion during the Qing Dynasty, Warlords focuses on an unresolved crime, and three brothers who turn on each other because of a beautiful woman. Chan says that it is influenced by the 1973 film, The Blood Brothers, but isn't a remake. We'll find out if the film holds up to expectations soon enough -- it's getting released in Hong Kong next month.

The multi-talented Andy Lau Tak-Wah may be best known in North America for Zhang Yimou's House of Flying Daggers, but in Asia and other parts of the world he's a superstar. He's made more than 100 films (Days of Being Wild, Fulltime Killer, Infernal Affairs) and his box office popularity ranks with Stephen Chow and Jackie Chan. He's also well-known for his award-winning singing career. While he's always had charm and looks, his dramatic films in the last decade have displayed growing talent and impressive range as an actor. His film production outfit, Focus Films, made six films in their Focus First Cuts program to showcase promising talent from across Asia, and now another program has been announced.

A series of four films will be made under the Focus Fight banner. As suggested by the title, the project is all about making action movies, but the intent is also to uncover "new and talented action movie stars and young directors," as explained at the web site. "The films will encompass a variety of genres and tastes, and allow young Asian directors to express their innovative visions." Another objective is to grow the movie-going audience "in terms of geography, age groups, industry, interests and socio-cultural and economic backgrounds." To help keep costs down, all projects will be shot in HD.

Focus established a fine track record with First Cuts, releasing a healthy variety of films that produced one genuine box office hit (Crazy Stone) and good critical reaction in general. They are actively recruiting directors, script writers and actors, with applications due by September 30. Andy Lau starts his "Wonderful World" concert tour on September 1. He recently shared in a press conference about the upcoming Brothers, to be directed by Derek Chiu; he will also be featured in Peter Chan's The Warlords, due in December, and Three Kingdoms: Resurrection of the Dragon, due in 2008.

[ Via ScreenDaily ]

The last we heard about John Woo's long-simmering The Battle of Red Cliff was back in February, at which point there were rumors that it actually might be moving forward. And now, a mere seven months later, the project finally has financing lined up, a cast in place, and a confirmed start date. Woo (if you will) hoo! For those of you who have forgotten, the movie is based on a classic Chinese novel, and tells the true story of "the final days of the Han Dynasty in the year 208, ... [covering] the war that established the Three Kingdoms period, when China had three rulers." The central battle of that war took place, as you might have guessed, at Red Cliffs, and involved as many as a million soldiers. Damn.

Surprisingly, the mutterings about the cast have turned out to be mostly true: This morning's Variety reports that the film will star frequent Woo collaborator (back in the Hong Kong days) Chow Yun-Fat, as well as Ken Watanabe, Tony Leung and Lin Chi-Ling, who apparently is a Taiwanese model. The IMDb also lists Andy Lau in the cast, but his presence is unconfirmed.

Production is expected to begin next March, with release planned for early 2008.

Protege, a movie described as Hong Kong's answer to Traffic and Donnie Brasco, recently got script approval from the Chinese government, and immediately went into production in HK. The film, which is budgeted at about $4.5 million and is expected to be ready for release early next year, is "a realistic portrayal of the underworld shot in a contemporary way" that centers on a drug dealer (supposedly a real-life figure, though no one has any details about the guy) and his protege. Derek Yee will direct a cast that includes the ageless Andy Lau (who I'm always surprised to see can actually act) as the dealer and Daniel Wu as the protege; also in the movie are Louise Koo and Anita Yuen.

Though the film's producers claim that no changes were made to please government censors, the constant emphasis in the press on their positive message -- "drugs kill and drugs are bad" -- at least makes clear the angle they used to get approval. Whether the finished product will get approval, of course, remains to be seen.

According to reports on the foreign wires, ageless Hong Kong legend Andy Lau is in talks to star in the next film from critic-turned-director Olivier Assayas, a project that would mark Lau's English-language debut. As we reported back in February, the film, entitled Boarding Gate, already features a cast including Asia Argento and Maggie Q (and, if you believe the IMDb and various web reports, Michael Madsen and both Tony Leungs), and is set to shoot this summer in Hong Kong and France.

Early reports indicated the movie has an awesomely convoluted plot, involving "An Italian woman [Argento] who lives in London [and] has a passionate affair with a former financial big gun [Madsen]. She also had a second lover [a Leung], a contract killer who has to kill the big gun. Her second lover's wife [Yeoh] is behind the scenes, pulling the strings." So it sounds pretty damn great, no matter who Lau might play. The problem, however, is that Lau is supposed to be shooting a film with Derek Yee this summer as well, and it may be difficult for him to find time to appear in Boarding Gate. According to Lau, though, there is still hope, because Assayas has said he'll "try to work around my schedule."

I just wish we had a damn release date for this thing -- the combination of cast and director on this one is making it one of my most-anticipated upcoming projects.

• Even though it played on only half as many screens as Steve Martin's latest, it's still disturbing to read that V for Vendetta was beaten to the top of the international box office by the dreadful The Pink Panther. Now showing in countries including Germany, Hong Kong, and Australia, the comedy made a total of $12.3 million for the weekend to only $8.5 million for Vendetta, which nevertheless dominated the charts in the Asian markets in which it opened.
  

• If anyone needed a sign that relations between North and South Korea are thawing, this is it: a South Korean film about a Northern spy is expected to be shot in Pyongyang, the capitol of the North. The movie, tentatively titled Yun Isang, The Wounded Dragon, will be shot in both Pyongyang and Germany, which is where Yun, a well-known composer, both spied and ended up living after he was released from prison.
  

• Hong Kong's Media Asia announced its slate for the next year this weekend, and among the eight-to-ten projects in the works are a pair from Infernal Affairs directors Andrew Lau (the director, not the actor) and Alan Mak. The first, Behind the Sin, stars Tony Leung #1, and is about "a cop and...a private detective - who investigate the murder of the cop's father-in-law." The second, meanwhile, is an untitled period piece set in 1940s Hong Kong which "revolves around a trader from mainland China who moves to Hong Kong, attempts to set up a business and inevitably gets mixed up with local gangsters."

• Breaking News - Hong Kong action director Johnny To delivers this watchable Woo-alike about a police force that loses the support of the public when a robbery goes bad and is covered by a local news program. The set pieces are pretty tight, even if the drama and the statement To tries to make about the power and responsibility of the media doesn't fully come through.
• Free Enterprise: Special Edition - A self-effacing turn akin to Marlon Brando's in The Freshman and Pauly Shore's in Pauly Shore Is Dead is William Shatner, sending up the cult of personality that has followed him since the original Star Trek series ended its five year mission two years early in 1969. When fanboys Rafer Wiegel and Eric McCormack meet their boyhood idol, he is far from the super-cool man for all seasons they have long worshiped. He's bent on staging a one-man musical version of Shakespeare's Julius Caesar, a great running joke that culminates in the brilliant payoff that is the Shatner/The Rated R rap duet, "No Tears For Caesar". Writer-director Robert Meyer Burnett has created a love letter, not just to Trek, but to anyone who has ever loved anything with fanatical passion, and this long-overdue 2-disc treatment gives it the respect it was not afforded when it was first released in 1999. Check out the Pop-Up Video style trivia track, which annotates the geekery, new special effects, the making-of feature Where No Man Has Gone Before, and the unaired TV pilot, Café Fantastique, which features the real fans who inspired this smart, hardy-har-har trek. A sequel, My Big Fat Geek Wedding, has been listed on the IMDB for nearly 3 years now, and Mindfire Entertainment's website features a rudimentary mention of it, though no firm details are available as yet.
• Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire: Special Edition - Death, and the gloomy heft that comes with it, visits Hogwarts in the fourth and most satisfying installment in the ongoing series so far. When an evil thought vanquished literally rears its ugly head again, Harry (Daniel Radcliffe), Ron (Rupert Grint) and Hermoine (Emma Watson) team up to expose it. Like the overwhelmingly dark Revenge Of The Sith, this is the first to bear the PG-13 rating (for "sequences of fantasy violence and frightening images"), though its decidedly down ending makes it feel more like The Empire Strikes Back. It is not unreasonable to expect studio Warner Brothers to keep their three leads on through Harry Potter and the As-Yet-Unwritten-and-Untitled Year 7 Story. This, of course, is despite the fact that they will be in their early 20's by then, but let us not forget that at least one of the 90210 kids was practically eligible for Social Security by the end of that run. Even at 157 minutes, the book has still been truncated, but it is doubly encouraging to know that kids will know what is missing and will sit still for that long in order to be able to go on smartly about it. The second disc is chock-full-o' extra goodies, and is available in full- and widescreen editions. A single disc version is also available.