palisades media Tagged Articles at Cinematical

Was it the elephants that sent a Thai action star over the edge? Tony Jaa, the memorably acrobatic actor and martial arts expert from Ong-Bak: The Thai Warrior and The Protector, disappeared while filming his directorial debut, Ong-Bak 2. Reportedly he became so stressed out that he sought solace in the jungle for two months -- with the film only 70% completed.

He emerged on Monday with tears in his eyes and vowed to return to work. Veteran director Prachya Pinkaew, who previously had a falling out with the star, agreed to come on board and help get the movie finished in time for its planned December 4 release. Jaa was expected to appear with his parents and production company execs at another news conference yesterday, but instead sent his lawyer with a list of seven demands (pictured). Wise Kwai's Thai Film Journal has been doing a bang-up job covering the story; as Wise Kwai comments, "This case is becoming increasingly weird."

Speaking of increasingly weird scenes, check out the trailer for Shinya Tsukamoto's Nightmare Detective 2 at Nippon Cinema, (which I found via Don Brown's ryuganji). I finally caught up with the first Nightmare Detective on Region 1 DVD last week; although the basic premise -- serial killer inhabitating a nightmare can make people wake up dead -- might sound like a simple riff on A Nightmare on Elm Street, Tsukamoto is such an amazing, visually inventive director that he stretches things far beyond the ordinary, in a way that's strikingly different than, say, the apocalyptic ambitions of Satoshi Kon's Paprika. Watch the trailer for the upcoming second installment, and rent the original to see Tsukamato's excellent, illuminating one-hour "making of" doc.