Right on the heels of the delayed release date for Dragonball, Slashfilm has managed to score an early look at the teaser poster for the feature film, courtesy of blurry photos from a fan. Maybe it is because I am not all that familiar with the intricacies of Dragonball (beyond their awesome hairstyles), but this poster isn't exactly piquing my curiosity to find out -- and isn't that the whole point of a teaser?

Dragonball was written and directed by James Wong (Final Destination), and stars Justin Chatwin as Goku; a young man put on a quest to retrieve seven "mystical Dragonballs." James Marsters (of Buffy the Vampire Slayer fame) plays Goku's nemesis Piccolo, who is also trying to get his hands on the orbs. Other classic Dragonball characters making an appearance in the film are Bulma (played by Emmy Rossum) and Master Roshi (Chow Yun-Fat). So can anyone tell me what exactly these Dragonballs are supposed to be? Because every time I have to read a line like "Goku searches for Dragonballs," I giggle like a 12 year old girl (call me immature if you must).

You can't really blame Fox for delaying the release date for the flick. Dragonball might be a favorite among fans of anime, but it definitely doesn't have the same audience reach as titles like Star Wars: The Clone Wars and Tropic Thunder. Now that there is plenty of time before Dragonball hits theaters, I just hope that Fox can come up with some more exciting marketing materials. Dragonball is due to arrive in theaters on April 8th, 2009.

The man behind Election might not be heading to Hollywood yet, but he is heading to Europe, and he has a certain pirate in his sights. The Hollywood Reporter posts that Hong Kong filmmaker Johnnie To is heading to France to take on Red Circle, a remake of the 1970 crime thriller Le Rouge Cercle, and Wai Ka-Fai is developing it. So far, so funky, until you imagine that he wants Orlando Bloom to star in it.

I want to like Bloom. Really, I do. But the man just kills me. Rather, he has in his post-Lord of the Rings work. He inspired people to hope for his demise in Pirates, sunk with Elizabethtown, and is now being eyed to lead a crime thriller? A crime thriller that would have him star as a cool thief straight out of prison, no less. I just don't see it; he doesn't have the charisma for a tough thieving heist.

At least it's far from definite. To is said to have sent an offer to the actor, but negotiations haven't happened yet. Meanwhile, Chow Yun-Fat and Liam Neeson are in negotiations to co-star. Those two -- they sound just about right, but it makes me even more nervous about Bloom, who couldn't even begin to battle the presence of Johnny Depp. So, I ask you -- do you agree with To's selection, or can you think of someone better?

As I reported in December, Danny and Oxide Pang (Bangkok Dangerous, The Messengers) were hired to direct the sequel to action fantasy The Storm Riders. More details have surfaced at the Hong Kong Filmart, according to Variety. Filming begins next month with original stars Aaron Kwok and Ekin Cheng set to return; Simon Yam, Nicholas Tse, and Charlene Choi will also star. The picture will be the first Hong Kong movie filmed exclusively on blue screen, a la 300, though the budget is just $12 million, compared to 300's estimated cost of $65 million. The Storm Riders II is due for release at the end of 2009.

Variety is also reporting that the wonderfully versatile Gary Oldman is in "advanced negotiations" to star in Rain Fall, the "story of a hit man who is forced to protect the daughter of one of his victims against assassination by the C.I.A." If the deal goes through, Oldman would join Shiina Kippei (Shinobi) and actress Akiho Hasegawa. Max Mannix will direct the Japan-set thriller; veteran producer Satoru Iseki is employing "sophisticated Western financing techniques" to get the picture made.

We've been tracking World War II action epic Shanghai since last summer. Production was expected to start this spring in Shanghai, but the Chinese authorities denied the shooting permit after the Weinstein Co. had spent nearly three million dollars building sets. Variety says that production has now been shifted to Thailand and England, though there's no word on a new start date. The film will be directed by Mikael Håfström and stars John Cusack, Chow Yun-Fat, Gong Li and Ken Watanabe.

Recently we passed on the news that Japanese master Hayao Miyazaki had completed the storyboards for his upcoming animated film Ponyo on a Cliff, and now it appears that a release date has been set.

Nausicaa.net says we can expect the film to be released in the middle of July, very likely on Saturday, July 19. Their source is Variety Japan. According to a publicist for Studio Ghibli, Miyazaki's animation studio, more information on the film will be made available after the Tokyo International Anime Fair, which will be held March 27-30.

When can we expect to see the film in the US? I haven't seen a hint so far, but Miyazaki's previous production, Howl's Moving Castle, was released in Japan in November 2004 and in the US in June 2005, while the one before that, Spirited Away, took more than a year to reach US theaters. I'd love to see this one by the end of the year.

Ponyo revolves around a boy and goldfish who wants to become a girl. A family story of a very different sort has won favor with Hong Kong critics. The Postmodern Life of My Aunt features Chow Yun-Fat as an amateur Chinese opera singer who lures the 60-something heroine into a bogus scheme involving cemetery plots. David Rooney's Variety review says that's only one of the film's narrative strains.

The Associated Press reports that he Hong Kong Film Critics Society rewarded the picture this week with three prizes: Best Film, Best Director (Ann Hui) and Best Actress (Siqin Gaowa, who plays the heroine). Other awards went to Tony Leung Ka-Fai (Best Actor, Eye in the Sky) and Wai Kai-Fai and Au Kin-Yee (Best Script, Mad Detective).

According to The Hollywood Reporter, Chow Yun-Fat (Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon) has signed on to play Master Roshi in the live-action adaptation of Dragonball. Rounding out the cast are Justin Chatwin (Tom Cruise's exceedingly obnoxious son in War of the Worlds), James Marsters (Spike on Buffy the Vampire Slayer), Emmy Rossum (from such disaster movies as The Day After Tomorrow, Poseidon, and The Phantom of the Opera), and Jamie Chung. Marsters will play Piccolo, Rossum will play Bulma, Chung will play Chi-Chi. Master Roshi is Goku's mentor, and he "helps him achieve the highest state of fighting and spiritual powers." He's the Yoda of Dragonball, if you will. James Wong (Final Destination) wrote the screenplay and is directing the film.

The world of Dragonball has already been made into several anime series, animated feature films, a live-action Chinese movie, action figures, a collectible trading card game, comic books, and electronic games. The new film will focus on Goku (Chatwin, whose Caucasian-ness didn't set well with Cinematical commentors), "a warrior alien who protects the Earth from an endless stream of rogues bent on dominating the universe and controlling mystical objects known as Dragon Balls." Hm. I liked this movie better the first time when it was called Gandhi. I don't have much more to say on this project, so let me just ask you -- given the opportunity, do you think you would be able to handle Dragon Balls? Like if Dragon Balls were suddenly thrust into your face, would you know what to do with them? I am immature.

John Woo was first cool in Hollywood back in the Stone Age (AKA the early 90s), thanks to festival exposure and a limited theatrical run for The Killer in 1990. The Killer is a superb action melodrama starring Chow Yun-Fat as a hitman who accidentally blinds a beautiful singer (Sally Yeh). He tries to make things right by carrying out another hit so he can earn enough money to pay for a cornea transplant for her, all while dealing with unhappy mobsters and a hard-nosed cop (Danny Lee) who becomes sympathetic to his cause.

A remake was planned; Walter Hill was to direct, and Richard Gere and Denzel Washington were mentioned as the leads. The purported script for the remake, set in Hong Kong, is still floating around the Internet, but the project became mired in Development Hell. The rights now evidently reside with Woo and his producing partner Terence Chang, and Chang says that a director has been hired for a remake, according to The Hollywood Reporter. The director is John H. Lee, with two features to his name: 1998's The Cut Runs Deep, a gangster coming of age tale set in New York City, and 2004's A Moment to Remember, a slow-paced romantic drama that drove me nuts -- and not in a good way -- but which is beloved by 895 voters at IMDb (8.5 rating).

Chang says that Lee will "move the action through L.A.'s Koreatown, Chinatown and South Central" and that "the actor has to be Korean in this version." Sounds like a good opportunity for a Korean actor. Director Lee told the trade paper: "I ask myself why they chose me and whether I can top it ... But then I realize it's not about making it better. It's about making my own version." Still sounds good; here's the part that makes me leery: "My strength is dealing with human emotions, austerity and elegance," says Lee. The original was overblown and over-the-top in every wonderful, melodramatic sense, so if Lee plans to make an "austere" and "elegant" action film, how is that going to get my blood pumping? Is he going to downplay or reduce the action scenes? A new script is in process.

This is another sign that Woo and Chang have tired of trying to get their own projects made in Hollywood. (The Battle of Red Cliff, directed by Woo, is due to wrap filming in Asia shortly and is looking for a US distributor.) But why do they feel the need to cannibalize the past? Blood Brothers, a reworking of Woo's earlier Bullet in the Head, met with mixed response in Asia and didn't make much headway with critics who saw it at the Venice and Toronto fests, which is not very encouraging when considering the prospects for a killer remake of The Killer. The announcement was made on the first day of the Asian Film Market, held in conjunction with the Pusan film festival.

It isn't uncommon for an actor to drop completely out of a movie, but how often does it happen that an actor drops out and then is later re-cast in a different role? That seems to be what is going on with Tony Leung Chiu-Wai and the Chinese epic The Battle of Red Cliff. Leung left the project a month ago claiming he didn't have time to prepare for his role (though there were other rumors), but now he's returned to the John Woo film, which has already begun shooting. Because his original part ended up going to another actor, Takeshi Kaneshiro, he is now likely attached to a different character than the one he abandoned.

The most simple speculation is that Leung is taking over for Chow Yun-Fat, who this week suddenly departed from the project, similarly claiming an inability to sufficiently prepare. For some reason Red Cliff producer Terence Chang won't specify which character Leung will play nor will he confirm that the actor is replacing Chow. The only things he will say is that all these casting changes are not affecting the shoot and that Chow's absence is not affecting the financing of the film. Hopefully more will be revealed about Leung's involvement when he arrives on set next week -- unless, of course, he drops back out. Maybe the next thing we hear will be that Ken Watanabe is back on the film, too, as a replacement for the replacement.

It made perfect sense: John Woo's return to Chinese-language cinema was to star Chow Yun-Fat, who last collaborated with the director on the Hong Kong action classic Hard Boiled. The new film (or films, as it might be too long for just one), titled The Battle of Red Cliff, is an historical war epic set in the year 208, and Chow was to play Zhou Yu, the chief strategist for the Kingdom of Wu. But Chow has just walked off the production, which has already begun shooting, and the actor and the producers have different interpretations of why he has left so abruptly.

According to Chow, his departure was due to his inability to prepare for the role; he claims he only last week received the script. Producer Terence Chang, on the other hand, says that Chow's demands were too high and that he walked because he didn't get what he wanted. The script handed to Chow last week was merely a revision to one the actor had been given last year. Another topic of conflict is Chow's salary. According to the actor, he took a pay cut and was being paid in installments. Chang says the actor was to be paid $5 million plus royalties.

Chow also pointed out that his contract followed the model he uses on Hollywood films and implied that Red Cliff's producers need to get used to the way things are done in Hollywood. As if abandoning the director who made him an international star wasn't enough, he had to go and confirm that he's now too important to go back to his roots. Of course, anyone familiar with Bulletproof Monk and Anna and the King can attest to Chow's true significance to Hollywood's audiences. Chow is now the third big name to be removed from Red Cliff; previously Ken Watanabe and Tony Leung were also involved, but each dropped out for different reasons. Anyway, if you were really dying to see another collaboration between Woo and Chow, there's always the new video game Stranglehold, which hits stores this summer.

I was never very big on the Pirates of the Caribbean ride at Disney. There were way too many ARR! exclamations, rum refrences and drunk, hairy men for my tastes. However, the film was one of those times where I was entirely sucked into a movie, loving its life, its actors and its disregard for reality. While the second instalment was also mind-bogglingly successful, it was filler -- the chance to enter all the little bits of story in before the big wrap-up, without the cohesive structure ... although it did have one hell of a fun, rolling fight scene and the best taunting that I've seen in years.

Although pictures have been lurking on the web in recent weeks, Disney has finally released official stills for Pirates of the Caribbean: At Worlds End that comes out five months from Christmas Day. If the pictures are any indication of the larger work, I think fans will be squealing in their seats. You've got Keira Knightley's Elizabeth Swann looking swanky and seeming perfectly comfortable at Captain Jack's right hand, and she's also the perfect inner strength for a Barbossa-Sparrow sandwich. And then, finally, Chow Yun-Fat looks right at home with Geoffrey Rush's stoic look and Johnny Depp's furrowed brows. Now the fangirl in me takes over, and I hope for Will Turner's swift demise, and for Ms. Swann to taunt the pants off Sparrow until she can't resist him any longer. ...

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.