nicholas tse Tagged Articles at Cinematical

Subtitle of the Week: "My kung fu skills aren't too bad, eh?" -- Donnie Yen in Ip Man.

This week's edition of Asian Cinema Scene includes capsule reviews of films that were recently released on DVD in Asia.

Departures Takes Off: Yojiro Takita's drama Departures, the Academy Award winner for Best Foreign-Language Film, was a popular success during its initial run in Japan last fall. It resurged in the wake of the Oscar victory, ascending to the top of the charts. Departures also swept the 32nd Annual Japanese Academy Awards two days before the Oscars. The director's follow-up film, Sanpei the Fisher Boy, is due for release later this month. [Sources: Screen Daily; Japan Times; Toronto J-Film Pow-Wow; Nippon Cinema.]

Ip Man Inspires: Biopics are always better with martial arts, aren't they? Highly respected Wing Chun master Ip Man (Donnie Yen) lives a comfortable life in Fo Shan, China, but after the Japanese invade in 1937, he is reduced to living with his wife and young son in abject poverty. He works humbly alongside his fellow countrymen in a coal factory until he is forced to use his martial arts skills to defend his country's honor against the Japanese.

Teaming again with director Wilson Yip (SPL, Flash Point), Yen is perfectly suited to play the stoic, peaceful man who refused to buckle under to imperial rule. Simon Yam plays a factory owner and Hiroyuki Ikeuchi embodies General Miura. The great Sammo Hung choreographed the action scenes, which are pretty terrific. I don't think it's a spoiler to say that Ip Man eventually counted Bruce Lee among his students. (Trailer embedded below.)

After the jump: Brief looks at Beast Stalker and Legendary Assassin -- plus trailer!

When I saw The Incredible Hulk yesterday at a matinee screening, I was entertained. (My feelings were very similar to what Scott Weinberg wrote in his review, so no sense repeating them here.) But, truthfully, the CGI-to-death battle scenes made me long for hard-core, physical action sequences involving real people, an itch that was easily scratched by watching Invisible Target, which came out on DVD earlier this week.

Directed by veteran action maestro Benny Chan, Invisible Target is a very basic Hong Kong "cops and criminals" tale with a couple of deeper psychological layers thrown in for good measure. As I wrote in my review when I saw it at Fantastic Fest last fall, "Invisible Target may not be strikingly original in either its plot or action choreography, but there's definitely something entirely positive to be said for a film that intends to be nothing more than a delivery system for adrenaline and keeps its promise in a very satisfying fashion."

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.

Do you want to look forward or backward? Out on DVD this week are two Japanese films separated by more than half a century. Animation director Satoshi Kon first made his mark with Perfect Blue (1997), a trippy journey into a pop singer's psyche that transcended time and space. He reversed course with Millennium Actress (2001), which crossed decades to tell the story of of a reclusive movie star, and slid into the mainstream with the much more straightforward Tokyo Godfathers (2003) before returning to more familiar territory with the made for television multi-episode series Paranoia Agent (2003).

His most recent film, Paprika, is a "visually rich tale," wrote Kim Voynar, "about a group of private scientists at a research facility who have invented a device called the DC Mini that allows 'dream detectives' to enter other people's dreams." The DVD includes a "making of" documentary, several featurettes and a filmmaker commentary.

Is it possible to summarize the career of Akira Kurosawa? Suffice it to say that his 1948 noir Drunken Angel was his first step into personal filmmaking and his first collaboration with the great actor Toshirô Mifune. As is their custom, The Criterion Collection has produced a DVD that features a new, restored high definition transfer, audio commentary by Japanese film expert Donald Richie, a "making of" documentary, a new "video piece" on the challenges that faced Kurosawa, and more.

Quite frankly, Wilson Yip's Dragon Tiger Gate is an unholy mess that tries to pretend 40-something Donnie Yen is about half his age -- and that's just the starting point for the foolishness unleashed. It could be argued that the action and the dramatics are intended to be over the top, since it's based on a popular manga, but I think that's probably insulting to the source material, which I haven't read. If you're a glutton for punishment -- or just a sucker for any kind of martial arts action and/or pretty boys Nicholas Tse and Shawn Yue -- you might like this more than I did. The DVD includes an audio commentary by Ric Meyers, a "making of" featurette and deleted scenes.

Crunch! Bam! Ouch! Wow! Great action movies make you want to express yourself in exclamation marks. As evidenced by Invisible Target, the Hong Kong film industry has forgotten more about making action films than Hollywood will ever learn. Invisible Target may not be strikingly original in either its plot or action choreography, but there's definitely something entirely positive to be said for a film that intends to be nothing more than a delivery system for adrenaline and keeps its promise in a very satisfying fashion.

A gang of thieves led by Tien (Wu Jing) and Yeng-yee (Andy On) blows up an armored truck so they can steal the millions of dollars that are secured inside. The explosion is so huge and fiery that it wipes out nearby cars and stores, including a jewelry shop where a woman is shopping for wedding rings. The woman is the fiancee of police detective Chan Chun (Nicholas Tse); six months later, he is still grieving her loss and aching for a chance to avenge her death.

Having fled Hong Kong after the robbery, Tien's gang is forced to return in search of their share of the booty, which was not paid as promised by their "invisible" boss. They cross paths with another police investigator, Fong Yik-Wei (Shawn Yue), who is as arrogant as Chan is brooding. Fong and his squad are in the process of making a drug bust when Tien's gang bursts in, displaying a brazen defiance of police authority. Fong suffers further when he is forced to (literally) eat lead. He aches for the chance to avenge his humiliation.

On the strength of an 11-minute trailer that earned a standing ovation at Cannes, as well as the chaotic story of its distribution here -- rights were snatched up by The Weinstein Company, only to be dropped after a re-edit and re-naming; Warner Independent Pictures ended up with the film -- Chen Kaige's The Promise had developed considerable buzz in the US. Set to open here early next month, it’s now one of the handful of jarringly commercial, big-budget films showing at the Tribeca Film Festival. Unfortunately, however, the movie fails to live up to either its buzz or the visual potential hinted at in that Cannes trailer.

The Promise is set in a fantastic land, in which gods and men live side-by-side, and giant, color-coded armies battle for dominance. The film is dominated by set-piece combat scenes, none of which adhere to normal rules of physics; each features reams and reams of billowing fabric, movements of impossible grace, and long chases across whatever lovely obstacles present themselves, from trees and rooftops to human-sized birdcages and craggy landscapes. The plot, as you might expect, is of little consequence, serving primarily as an excuse for those battles and other CGI-enhanced scenes of dramatic beauty. Such as it is, however, the plot revolves are Quingcheng (Cecilia Cheung), a woman who, as a young girl, made an unfortunate promise to a goddess, accepting endless devotion and wealth in exchange for the inability to find and keep a true love. Inevitably, she falls in love with a man who kills for her, but because of circumstances and the man’s hidden face, she believes her rescuer to be the fabled Master of the Crimson Armor (Hiroyuki Sanada), when in fact it is his slave (Jang Dong-Kun). Needless to say, great dramatic sacrifices are made, loves are lost, and lives are changed, all in gorgeous ways.