daniel wu Tagged Articles at Cinematical

In this week's edition of Asian Cinema Scene, we cover the unexpected and the surprising.

Oscar Shocker: One of the few genuine surprises of last night's Oscar telecast was the victory by Japan's Departures (Okuribito) as Best Foreign Language Film. Most observers thought that Israel's Waltz with Bashir or France's The Class would win; the former won the Golden Globe, while the latter picked up the Independent Spirit Award.

Of course, most observers haven't actually seen Departures, which played the Montreal film festival rather than Toronto last fall, and had its US Premiere at the Hawaii Film Festival shortly thereafter. As I reported in January, Regent Releasing acquired distribution rights and announced summer release plans. Regent has already updated the film's official site to reflect the Academy Award victory, but there's no word yet on whether they might push the release up to take advantage of the attention.

Yojiro Takita's film follows a young musician who is forced to take a job preparing corpses for cremation. It's a movie about "finding your bliss, even if the world thinks your bliss is odd, icky and a marriage breaker," as described by Mark Schilling in The Japan Times. Four subtitled clips are available at the official site.

Banned in China: As disheartening as it may be to hear, it's not really surprising that China's censors refused to pass Derek Yee's Shinjuku Incident because it is "too violent," according to the director (as reported by Variety). What is surprising is that the film stars Jackie Chan. The excellent-looking trailer is embedded below.

After the jump: More on Shinjuku Incident.

Have you ever continually noted that you wanted to see a movie, yet never got around to seeing it? I have been doing that for years with The Goddess of 1967. I spot it at any of the DVD stores I frequent, make a note that I should see it, and then get charmed away by something new that I've been itching to see, or something old that I couldn't find before. It doesn't help that the one friend I know will probably be totally into it is harder to make plans with than, well, anyone who is really hard to make plans with.

But I've got to get this wrapped because Clara Law, who directed the film, is gearing up for her next feature. Variety reports that she is going to return to China to direct a romance called Like a Dream. Law says: "The idea for the film sprang from a conversation I had with a friend who remarked how much Shanghai these days resembles New York." So, aptly, the film follows an American-born Chinese person who becomes part of a romantic mystery, and the story jumps between Shanghai, Taipei, and New York.

Daniel Wu (Legend of the Black Scorpion/The Banquet), associate producer, is starring with Yuan Quan (Shanghai Rumba), and production is set to span from August to October.

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.

Under it's original English-language title, The Banquet, Feng Xiaogang's loose, Chinese-language adaptation of Shakespeare's Hamlet played various film festivals (Venice, Toronto, AFI Fest, Palm Springs, Portland, Seattle, New York Asian) and garnered a fair amount of praise. Featuring many stately speeches, beautiful costumes, and stars Ziyi Zhang and Daniel Wu, The Banquet struck me as too inert for its own good, but I respected what the filmmakers accomplished.

The Banquet is a classy and distinguished moniker, somewhat anonymous, but reflective of the affairs of state depicted therein. The film's home video rights were finally sold to DVD distributor Dragon Dynasty. In their infinite wisdom, they decided to rename it as -- drum roll, please -- The Legend of the Black Scorpion. In the words of more than one message board commenter across the globe: "What the f***?"

This title is just as anonymous as the original but bespeaks a poverty of imagination, as though every Asian movie set in the past needs to be prefixed with "Legend." Dragon Dynasty's parent, The Weinstein Co., has done this for years, in fact, starting off by changing Drunken Master II (starring Jackie Chan) to The Legend of Drunken Master, and then retitling Fong Sai Yuk and Fong Sai Yuk 2 (both starring Jet Li) to the more English-friendly The Legend and The Legend 2, and changing Swordsman II (also with Jet Li) to The Legend of the Swordsman.

Justin Lin's Finishing the Game brought the point home strongly: Too often, Asian-American actors are relegated to bit parts (the food delivery guy, gangster #3, mysterious prostitute) simply because of their race. Of course, it can be argued persuasively that all actors of color are denied opportunities because of their appearance. As independent film producer Karin Chien pointed out in a television interview, though, people will say: "What about Jackie Chan? Or what about Jet Li? ... Asian cinema is a completely different thing altogether. It's a bit difficult, as an Asian-American producer, to fight for the cause of Asian-American films when we are grouped together with Asian cinema."

This list is an attempt to identify just a few of the Asian-American actors who have not yet crossed over to broad, mainstream recognition but who caught my eye this year. (Among others, you won't find Lucy Liu, John Cho or Kal Penn here; they're all folks that have established varying degrees of stardom.) It's also intended to serve as a starting point for Cinematical readers to name other talented Asian-American performers: Who do you like, who should be better known, who is ready to break out as a star?

Roger Fan

Fan made an impression in Justin Lin's Better Luck Tomorrow as the class leader who lured Ben (Parry Shen) into a life of crime. Before that, he played parts like Student #2 (Party of Five), Hood #1 (Blue Haven) and Student #15 (ER). His next two parts after BLT were not much bigger: Executive #1 (Stuck on You) and News Anchor #1 (D.E.B.S.). With his performance as Bruce Lee-imitator Breeze Loo, who lives in a delusional dream world in which he's a much bigger star, Fan brought a human touch to his comedy. In person, Fan is so funny he can make you spit; at a post-screening Q&A in Dallas, he had the crowd in stitches. Fan's comic genius deserves a much bigger stage -- and more starring roles.

I watched Finishing the Game with an enthusiastic audience as the Asian Film Festival of Dallas (AFFD) got underway last week. As Scott Weinberg pointed out in his Sundance review, the film's humor is scattershot and inconsistent, but overall "delivers a solid parcel of good, goofy chuckles." In the post-screening Q&A, director Justin Lin noted the challenges he's faced in meetings with Hollywood executives as "the only Asian guy in the room." He feels that Asian Americans are underrepresented -- on screen and in the stories told -- not so much due to racial discrimination but because studio execs are not convinced that a market exists that will support them. Lin and two of his superb actors, Roger Fan and Sung Kang, kept the Q&A lively and stayed late to sign posters in the lobby.

My Friday screenings began with The Heavenly Kings, a quasi-mockumentary about the Hong Kong pop music scene. Cinematical's Jeffrey M. Anderson wrote a positive review when it played at the San Francisco Film Festival and the AFFD audience obviously enjoyed it. Personally, I thought the editing was choppy and the tone inconsistent. Still, Daniel Wu has come a long way from the late 90's, when he first started landing roles in Hong Kong after moving there from San Francisco. He was considered a pretty boy who didn't speak Cantonese very well, and some of his work was barely tolerable. He's blossomed into a fine actor and definitely shows promise and ambition in his directorial debut.

The Victim (from Thailand) looked gorgeous but its unimaginative use of horror movie conventions (loud! bang!!) and "twists" that were telegraphed far in advance quickly became tiresome. Happily, Dorm (also from Thailand) was much better. It's immediately captivating, relating the tale of a boy sent away to a private school where things go bump in the night. While the thrills and chills are not entirely original -- the premise is reminiscent of The Devil's Backbone -- the filmmakers do a great job of making you feel for the lost little kid. And there are just enough original touches to keep you off balance. Dorm was a pleasant surprise. Even better if you missed its festival showings: it's available on Region 1 DVD from Tartan Home Video. The Asian Film Festival of Dallas continues through Thursday, August 30.

In 1984, Christopher Guest and company refined and co-opted the "mockumentary" genre, and for over 20 years others have tried and failed to copy it. Some forgettable examples include Drop Dead Gorgeous (1999), The Big Tease (2000) and Confetti (2006). Last year Sacha Baron Cohen finally did it with Borat, but that's another story; if Guest's troupe stamped their handprints on the mockumentary, then that goes triple for the "mock-rockumentary." No one, not even Cohen, can crawl out from under the shadow of This Is Spinal Tap. At this point, it's like re-doing Citizen Kane.

For his directorial debut, American-born Hong Kong movie star Daniel Wu decided to make a documentary about a terrible boy band, but rather than tread upon sacred Spinal Tap territory, he and three friends actually formed a terrible boy band, recorded music and went on tour to conjure up material for this film. Of the four members, Wu, Conroy Chan, Andrew Lin and Terence Yin, none could dance and only one, Yin, could sing (he had a short-lived career as a pop star in Taiwan).

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.