See actual found footage on Home Movie Day

Celebrated annually worldwide, Home Movie Day this year falls on Saturday, October 20, and the Thai celebration is set for 11am to 6pm in the FA Cinematheque on the second floor of the Bangkok Art and Culture Center.

There's a crop of "found footage" movies playing now in Bangkok cinemas, like Sinister, Paranormal Activity 4 and even End of Watch. They aren't necessarily all bad, but here's a chance to see real found footage.

For the event put on by the Thai Film Archive, the theme is Thai home movies from Southeast Asian countries, just to get into the spirit of preparations for the Asean Economic Community 2015.

According to Limitless Cinema, the movies will include footage shot by King Rama VII when he visited neighboring countries in 1929-30, a clip of Italian-born artist Silpa Bhirasri (1892-1962) sculpting the monument of King Taksin the Great and Chun Suwannaboon's film of the opening ceremony of the Lam Tong Game (1959).

From 2 to 3pm, Khonthaptip Veeraprawat will talk on her family's home movie collection. Film Archive Director Dome Sukwong will talk from 5 to 6 on "The Surprising Discovery in Home Movies".

Home Movie Day comes at a busy time for Bangkok movie-goers. This weekend, there's also the Indian Centenary Film Festival. And on Saturday afternoon, there's the screening of the Filipino drama Niño as part of the BACC's Cinema Diverse series. A reception at 5pm will welcome the film's director Loy Arcenas and star Fides Cuyugan Asensio.

Thai action back in action with Fighting Fish

Seems like it's taking forever for Tom Yum Goong 2 with Thailand's leading action stars Tony Jaa and company. Production has reportedly wrapped up, but it won't be until next year before we see the film.

In the meantime, there's Fighting Fish (ดุ ดวล ดิบ, Du Duan Dib), which was released in Thai cinemas this week.

The story is about a French expat ex-boxer who becomes friends with a Thai fighter ("JJ" Jakkris Kanokpojnanon). The pair then get mixed up in an underground boxing club.

The Frenchman is portrayed by Jawed El Berni, a stuntman who's made a name for himself as the double for Bollywood superstar Salman Khan.

In Fighting Fish, fans of Thai action films might recognize Suchao Pongvilai as the mob boss from his turn as the villain in Ong-Bak. French-Vietnamese stunt performer Kazu Patrick Tang from Raging Phoenix and BKO: Bangkok Knockout also turns up.

Produced by Saga Studios, Fighting Fish is helmed by a seemingly unlikely director – former pin-up model and sexy video star "Ying" Julaluck Kittiyarath (จุฬาลักษณ์ กฤติยารัตน์). A decade ago she starred in the controversial erotic mermaid fantasy Phra-Apai-Mani (พระอภัยมณี), based on the Suntorn Phu epic poem.

Since then, she's gotten married and had a baby with French martial artist and stunt performer David Ismalone – none other than Mad Dog from Ong-Bak.

Rechristened as Julaluck Isamalone, Ying recently relaunched her acting career playing a villain in Bangkok Revenge, starring Jon Foo, one of the bad guys who fought Tony Jaa in the first Tom Yum Goong.

And now, with all those connections to past Thai action films and experience of her own, she's making her directorial debut with Fighting Fish.

Check out the trailer (embedded below) as well as more clips on the Saga Studios channel.

Mumbai Film Festival: Best Director for Anocha

Anocha Suwichakornpong continues to pick up prizes as she travels the world with her debut feature Mundane History (Jao Nok Krajok, เจ้านกกระจอก), most recently picking up the Best Director Award at the Mumbai Film Festival.

It's another busy month for Anocha and her film, which has also played in the East Meets West Film Forum and Festival in Ulaanbaatar, Mongolia, and is among a bunch of Thai films in Warsaw for the Five Flavours Film Festival, where there's a special program dedicated to her Electric Eel Films.

Mundane History was also featured this past week at the first Doi Saket International Film Festival in Chiang Mai.

It's also playing in the Sao Paulo International Film Festival and on Sunday, it will screen in Washington, D.C., at Freer and Sackler, the Smithsonian’s Museums of Asian Art.

Mundane History has previously picked up prizes in Rotterdam, Transylvania and Wroclaw.

Lekha Shankar was in Mumbai for Anocha's win, and she sent this report.

Story and photos by Lekha J. Shankar

Anocha Suwichakornpong won the Best Director award at the 12th Mumbai Film Festival, which concluded on Thursday. Anocha’s Mundane History was one of 14 entries from as many countries, in the International Competition, which focuses on the first films of directors.

The top award was won by Majority from Turkey, an award-winner from the prestigious Venice festival. Other award winners were R from Denmark and Blackfield from Greece.

The young group of filmmakers in the competition seemed to share a great camaraderie, and all agreed that it was the highlight of their one week’s stay at the fest. Anocha, the only woman in the group, was extra popular.

The Mumbai festival, popularly known as MAMI, because it’s organised by the Mumbai Academy of Moving Images (MAMI), has evolved into a mega festival after being supported by India's largest congomlerate, Reliance Industries, which has moved into film production.

This year, the festival boasted of a record 215 films from 60 countries. These included the award winners of top festivals like Cannes, Berlin and Venice, such as Certified Copy, Biutiful, Poetry, Somewhere and Faith.

Mundane History, which has been to nearly 30 festivals, evoked mixed responses from the Indian audiences as well as the jury.

"Interesting but strange," said a film student named Nitin. "I hear that the Cannes award-winning Thai film Uncle Boonmee is the same,” he added.

Festival Director Srinivasa Narayanan described Anocha’s film as “unique and excellent”, and said he hoped to screen more Thai films in the future.

Well-known Indian actress and director Suhasini Maniratnam who was on the jury confessed it was not her first choice.

But Oscar-nominated director Jane Campion, who was the president of the unique all-women jury, said she enjoyed "the sensitivity of the drama and the unique cinematic expression".

The other members of the Jury were Iranian actress-director Samira Makhmalbaf and South Korean actress Yoong Jeong-hee.

The latter fractured her arm the day she arrived in Mumbai, but that did not stop the vibrant actress from partaking in her jury duties.

Samira, from the famed Makmalbaf filmmaking family, confessed it was a tough time for her family, living in Paris, as they had to move from Iran last year, thanks to the restrictions clamped by tough new regime in the country.

As for Campion, she said she had enough film projects to last her the next 10 years! A long-time India-lover, the renowned New Zealand director said she had been to India many times. Infact she had even shot a film there, her 1999 drama Holy Smoke!

As for Thailand, she said "I was there many years back, when I was only 21 years old!"

India’s film festival circuit shifts into top gear after the Mumbai Film Festival.

The Third Eye Asian Film Festival, which is currently the only festival on Asian cinema in the country (the famed Osian's Cinefan Festival of Asian and Arab Cinema was not held this year, although many hope it will be held next year), opened in the city immediately after the MAMI festival, and this writer is totally relishing watching some intense Asian films in the grand, old-world Plaza cinema complex. (I’m also serving on the NETPAC Jury of the Third Eye fest.)

The two Mumbai festivals are as different in size and character as the Bangkok International Film Festival and the World Film Festival of Bangkok.

The Kolkata film festival will be held from November 10 to 17, and will screen one Thai film – the hit of 2009, Bangkok Traffic (Love) Story.

The country’s biggest film festival, the International Film Festival of India, runs from November 22 to December 2 in the beach town of Goa.

The IFFI, which did a retrospective on Nonzee Nimibutr last year, has GTH’s Dear Galileo on its film list this year.

A major highlight of the IFFI will be a specially curated section on the best films of this year’s Cannes Festival, headed by the Palme d’Or winner Uncle Boonmee Who Can Recall His Past Lives.

Boonmee director Apichatpong Weerasethakul, who is intensively travelling around the world, from Vienna to Buenos Aires to Dubai, with his film, will not be able to attend the Goa festival, but his editor Lee Chatametikool, may attend.

However, Joei will attend the Kerala International Film Festival, which will hold a retrospective of his films.

It will be the last festival of a tumultous year for Thailand’s most-talked-about contemporary director, who said he was looking forward to “relaxing and enjoying” Kerala, the Indian state often referred to as "God’s own country".

At the Mumbai fest, organized by Reliance Big Entertainment Initiative, gave Lifetime Achievement Awards to Hollywood director Oliver Stone and Bollywood hero of yesteryear, Manoj Kumar.

Stone told this writer that Bangkok was the best city in the world!

Indian actor Manoj Kumar said what he remembered most about Bangkok was a review of his 1975 film Roti Kapda Aur Makan in a Bangkok newspaper, describing him as the "Victor Hugo of the Indian masses"!

"I'm still trying to get a copy of this article. Can you help me?" asked the 76-year-old actor with his characteristic simplicity.

Phuket Film Festival 2010: Schedule slashed

After three days of sparse attendance, Phuket Film Festival director Scott Rosenberg felt he had no choice but to cut his losses and reduce the screenings, slashing the fest from 10 days to seven days of programming.

Rain over the weekend was partially blamed for keeping audiences away from the films at the Coliseum Paradise Multiplex in Old Phuket Town.

The high cost of hiring the digital projection equipment is another factor prompting the move.

“It’s embarrassing to have directors come all this way and not have buns in the seats,” Scott told me last night.

Though I have to say, I accidentally ducked in to a screening of the Thai comedy Po Taek and there were lots of "buns in the seats".

Meanwhile, just four or five souls watched the rousing 1979 action-adventure The Mountain Lion (Sua Poo Khao), with director Kom Akadej – also owner of the Coliseum Cineplex Group – in attendance.

Around 30 people hit last night's screening of The Prince & Me 4: The Elephant Adventure – actually a lot of fun – though around half of the crowd were badged VIP guests of the fest. The screening has held in an incredible ancient Egyptian-themed meeting hall, built behind the Green Man pub. That's another story in itself, but I don't have time to tell it.

The fest still ends on Sunday, with the world premiere of Yuthlert Sippapak's Friday Killer. The movie will be shown at a dance club, Stereolab, in Surin Beach.

But during the week, there are no screenings some days at Coliseum Paradise. Monday was dropped, as was Thursday, and most of Tuesday, except for the IIFA-award-winning Bollywood hit, 3 Idiots.

Oh, and Thursday will still have the Meet the Directors night at Cape Yamu, with Darnell Martin of Cadillac Records. She's been hanging out, taking in the sights and enjoying the sun, sand and surf – when it's not raining – with her young son.

At the Coliseum, the focus is on the 35mm prints – French films from the Alliance Francaise, Bollywood films from Bollywood Thai and Repo Men, which looks likely to be the only screening the Forest Whitaker and Jude Law sci-fi movie is going to get in Thailand.

Also, Clash (Bay Rong) director Le Thanh Son came from Vietnam toting 35mm reels of his action film starring Johnny Nguyen and Veronica Ngo.

Which is about the coolest thing I can think of.

The Hollywood-Thai romance Bitter/Sweet (ข้ามฟ้า หาสูตรรัก) will still make its star-studded Thailand premiere at the festival on Friday night, with another screening on Saturday. It opens in a wide release on June 17.

Indie filmmakers, who had their movies on DVD or other digital formats, have had their movies cut completely.

“I’ve been to a lot of film festivals, but never …,” said director Bradley Cox, his words trailing off in disappointment, just after he got the news his film was being dropped.

Cox’s documentary about the slain Cambodian labor activist, Who Killed Chea Vichea?, was to have been shown on Monday.

"Some filmmakers pissed off due to schedule changes," the festival tweeted early in the day. "What's better, being pissed off or embarrassed when film runs without 'buns' in seats?"

The rain has hampered other aspects of the fest. Saturday's gala opening party at Royal Phuket Marina abruptly ended by a shower.

The rain started shortly after a bizarre awards presentation, which had Scott handing the same clear-acrylic conch shell trophy to all the festival sponsors. Because of the red-shirt protests in Bangkok, individual trophies couldn't be completed in time, so Scott had to hand over the sample symbolically and then wrest it away from the person he just gave it to.

Ironically, Dr. Prof. Apinan Poshyananda, the deputy permanent secretary of the Ministry of Culture, gave a short welcoming speech that alluded to "stormy weather", but he was talking about politics. Some guy was there with a video camera, and you can watch it at The Nation's website.

And it's not just the red shirts Apinan was talking about. Just days before, Culture Minister Teera Slukpetch, who was to attend the festival, was stripped of his portfolio in a cabinet reshuffle by Prime Minister Abhisit Vejjajiva. The new culture minister, Niphit Intharasombat, was royally endorsed over the weekend.

In his address, Apinan said he thought the Phuket fest had a lot of potential.

“You have Cannes in France, Pusan in South Korea. Why not have Phuket as the heart of the film industry in Southeast Asia?”

But after three days of tiny audiences for the second edition of the festival – scheduled and then cancelled last year – the rocky path of the Phuket Film Festival appears to have hit a dead end.

Said Scott last night: “Phuket just isn’t ready for an international film festival.”

Check the schedule.

Phuket Film Festival 2010: Tribute to Khun Kom Akadej

The Phuket Film Festival this year has a Tribute to Khun Kom Akadej, honoring an major figure in Thai cinema history.

I asked Regis at Thai World View, who chronicles classic Thai cinema, to tell me a bit more.

Kom Akadej (คมน์ อรรฆเดช) made a string of around 12 action movies and dramas from 1975 to 1987. According to ThaiFilmDb.com, he was also an actor in around eight films from 1971 to 1975.

Among his films was 1979's The Mountain Tiger (เสือภูเขา, Sua Poo Kao, also The Mountain Lion) and 1983's The Opera Hero (พยัคฆ์ยี่เก, Payak Yeekay, literally “The tiger of Thai song and dance theatre”).

Probably his most ambitious production was 1982's Diamond Cuts Diamond (เพชรตัดเพชร), which included Hong Kong superstar David Chiang in the cast. It's also known as Operation Bangkok, not to be confused with the 1966-7 Mitr Chaibancha movie of the same name.

Kom then switched to directing Thai TV series.

He served as president of the Federation of National Film Associations of Thailand from 1999 to 2002.

And, Phuket Film Festival director Scott Rosenberg calls him "the dean of film distribution in southern Thailand".

Kom is the owner of the Coliseum chain of cinemas – the home of movie-goers in Phuket and southern Thailand.

The Phuket Film Festival is showing seven of Kom's films. Here's the lineup:

• Grand Pa’… My Hero (อยู่กับก๋ง, Yoo Gap Gong), 1979
• Great Ruby (ทับทิมโทน, Taptim Tohn), 1985
• Super Cops (ตำรวจเหล็ก, Tam Ruat Lek), 1986
• Super Hero (มหาหิน, Maha Hin), 1978
• The Opera Hero (พยัคฆ์ยี่เก, Peeyak Yeekay), 1983
• The Mountain Lion (เสือภูเขา, Sua Poo Khao), 1979
• Operation Bangkok (เพชรตัดเพชร, Phet Tat Phet, Diamond Cuts Diamond), 1982

I'm told that only The Mountain Lion has English subtitles, and it's showing on Saturday, June 5, at 5 and on June 13 at 11am. The rest are on Sunday, June 6, in back-to-back free screenings, starting at noon. Seating is limited to 90 people

The festival opens tomorrow with Harishchandrachi Factory by Paresh Mokashi. India's submission to the Oscars is a comedy-drama about the making of the first Indian silent feature.

Saturday has a Bollywood smash-hit, 3 Idiots, a sprawling road-trip comedy about a pair of friends looking for their heroic college friend (Aamir Khan) and recalling their days at the university while under terrible stress from a beastly professor. There's also the Festival of Short Films.

They're also showing Chadni Chowk to China, a crazy mash-up of Bollywood and Shaw Brothers martial arts, starring Akshay Kumar, Gordon Liu, Deepika Padukone and Conan Stevens.

Sunday also has The Prince and Me 4: The Elephant Adventure, which was shot in Thailand, as well as two tsunami documentaries, Kepulihan: Stories from the Tsunami and the benefit screening Revealed: Anatomy of a Recovery, proceeds from which go to help the Moken community in the Phuket area.

Aside from films, the weekend is packed with parties and receptions, including the opening gala at the Royal Phuket Marina.

Update: The full schedule is here. They aren't really maintaining that B-Side thing for now.

Phuket Film Festival bags Friday Killers as closing film

The second edition of the Phuket Film Festival will close with a bang with the world premiere of Friday Killers, the first in director Yuthlert Sippapak's planned trilogy of hitman dramas.

Friday Killers (มือปืน ดาวพระศุกร์, Meu Puen Dao Prasook or Venus Hitman) is a drama starring actress Ploy Jindachote and veteran comedian Thep Po-ngam. It's the first in a trilogy that Yuthlert is producing and directing for release by Phranakorn Film, all with well-known comics paired up with leading ladies. Others due to come are Saturday Killers (มือปืน ดาวพระเสาร์) with Choosak "Nong Cha Cha Cha" Iamsuk and Bangkok Traffic (Love) Story star Cris Horwang and Sunday Killers (มือปืนพระอาทิตย์) with Kotee Aramboy and "May" Pitchanart Sakhakorn.

Here's the synopsis for Friday Killers:

Friday Killers is the story of Pae Uzi (comedian Suthep Pho-ngam) aka “The Eagle of Chantaburi”, a professional hitman who was just set free from prison. After his release, he learns for the first time he has a daughter Dao (Ploy Jindachote – actress played lead role with William Hurt and Cary Elwes in the supernatural thriller Shadows). The tables are turned on Pae when his daughter tries to kill him because she thinks that he killed the only father that she knew.

The trilogy marks a return to the hitman genre for Yuthlert, a prolific genre-hopping filmmaker who made his debut with 2000's comedy-action-drama Killer Tattoo, which also starred Thep as a gunman.

The Phuket Film Festival's calendar of events (PDF) is firming up.

The closing day on June 13 will also see the Phuket premiere of Sawasdee Bangkok (สวัสดีบางกอก). Premiered last year in Toronto and shown at several other festivals, this is the abbreviated four-segment version of the nine-part omnibus produced by the Thai Public Broadcasting Service (Thai PBS or TV Thai). It comprises the films by Wisit Sasanatieng, Pen-ek Ratanaruang, Kongdej Jaturanrasamee and Aditya Assarat.

Another Thai highlight will be a tribute and retrospective of the work of Kom Akadej (คมน์ อรรฆเดช), an actor and director who made a lot of action films in the 1980s, including many Hong Kong co-productions. He gave action director Panna Rittikrai his start in the industry. A past president of the Federation of National Film Associations of Thailand, Kom Akadej is also the cinema mogul of southern Thailand, the owner of the Coliseum chain of multiplexes. Days 2 and 3 of the festival on June 5 and 6 will be dedicated to Khun Kom, with his movies being screened for free all day from noon.

Of course, the festival's venue this year is the Coliseum Paradise Multiplex in Phuket Town. It's the island's first and only facility with 3D projection.

First held in 2007, the second edition of the Phuket Film Festival was to have taken place a year ago after a hiatus in 2008. But festival organizer Scott Rosenberg pulled the plug because of a scheduling conflict with the planned Association of Southeast Asian Nations summit and a heavy security presence to counter possible protests. Heartbreakingly, he was perhaps too hasty, because 15 minutes after he sent his cancellation e-mail, the government announced it was postponing the ASEAN meeting. But it was too late to call back the mass e-mails and tell everyone it was a false alarm.

This year, Thailand's political situation is as unstable and insecure as ever. The red-shirt anti-government protesters are keeping parts of Bangkok locked down, but there's no foreseen threat to Phuket, which can be reached by direct flights from many countries and transfers from Bangkok's main international airport.

Much of this year's Phuket Film Festival line-up is the same as last year's, with many guests who were to have come in 2009 finally making their way to the Pearl of the Andaman.

Director Gus Van Sant will be on hand to go surfing. He's the guest of honor for the fest's Alternative Lifestyle night on June 9 when Van Sant's Harvey Milk biopic Milk, My Private Idaho and shorts Ajumma Krazy and Boy Meets Boy will be shown.

Also invited back is director Darnell Martin, whose Cadillac Records will screen. The movie, starring Adrien Brody, is about Leonard Chess, head of Chicago's pioneering blues-and-R&B label Chess Records. Beyonce is featured as Etta James.

Van Sant and Martin are also expected to take part in the festival's new "Meet the Directors Series" with screenings and parties at The Yamu resort at Cape Yamu.

Also, a year later, the Thai-Hollywood romantic drama Bitter/Sweet will finally make its Thai premiere. Produced by Urs Brunner and Jon Karas and directed by Jeff Hare, the romance stars Kip Pardue as an American coffee buyer who locks horns with a spirited young Thai woman (Art of the Devil's Mamee Nakprasit) on a coffee plantation in southern Thailand's Krabi province. James Brolin, Spencer Garrett and Akara Amartyakul and Tong Pakaramai are among the mixed cast of Hollywood and Thai players. Singer Tata Young makes an appearance. Shot in Thailand in 2008, Bitter/Sweet won awards at last year's WorldFest in Houston and has appeared in many other festivals.

The Phuket fest opens on June 4 with Harishchandrachi Factory, the debut by Paresh Mokashi and India's submission to the Oscars for best foreign-language film. The comedy-drama is about Raja Harishchandra, who made India's first feature-length silent film in 1913. Mokashi is expected to be in attendance.

The opener goes in line with the festival's Spotlight on India, which also includes 2009's Chadni Chowk to China, the crazy and fun-filled mash-up of Bollywood romance and Shaw Brothers martial-arts action that stars Akshay Kumar and Gordon Liu. Though partly filmed along China's Great Wall, most of the film was actually shot in Thailand. It's showing on Saturday, June 5. No word on whether the Thailand-based co-star villain, 7-foot-tall stuntman and actor Conan Stevens, will be in attendance.

The night of June 6 will have a another screening with a Thailand-location connection, The Prince and Me 4: The Elephant Adventure, with the Thai cast and crew in attendance. It was produced by Frank DeMartini with production services by DeWarrenne Films, which have teamed up to make the action film Elephant White, currently in production with director Prachya Pinkaew at the helm.

The festival this year is receiving major support from the Ministry of Culture as well as Vijitt Resort, TwoVillas, Phuket Beer, Siam Winery, the Phuket Gazette and Global i Care.

Further details are on the festival website and the schedule is expected to be finalized soon.

Tony Jaa in Hong Kong, Bollywood and a lawsuit

Three items involving Tony Jaa:

• Twitch has more on Vanguard (急先锋) the dream project by Hong Kong producer Raymond Wong that would see a match-up between Jaa and Donnie Yen. More speculative casting mentions South Korean soap-opera starlet Song Hye-kyo and English-born, Brooklyn-raised actor Wentworth Miller from Prison Break. The report is via the Chinese-language Mtime.com.
• Along with Hollywood hopes, Jaa says in an interview with the Indian press that he "would love to do a Bollywood project". That would probably be better than anything Hollywood could come up with. Doing a bit of my own speculative casting, I'd love to see Jaa star in an action movie with Akshay Kumar.
• Lastly, let the Ong-Bak 2 lawsuits begin. Trouble on the set of Ong-Bak 2 last year was mainly rooted in financial troubles the martial-arts star was having. Now the fallout begins. According to a brief in The Nation today ("Ong-Bak star hit with lawsuit", page 15A), "Thatchakorn Yeerum [that's Tony] was sued by a South Korean woman who claims the actor and director failed to repay a 1 million baht loan after the launch of Ong-Bak 2." The plaintiff, Park Aun-hee (also stated as Oon Hee Park) is in the business of buying and selling film copyrights. The item goes on to say "the dispute was more complicated, and more lawsuits might be filed". There's also a story in the Bangkok Post.
  

Tony was said to be taking a break from work on Ong-Bak 3 to spend the King's birthday holiday with his parents in Buriram.

Update: The Bangkok Post's Mae Moo gossip column recaps last year's meltdown. Here's a taste:

Jaa went back to work on [Ong-Bak 2], which was released in December. A third instalment is now planned, with Jaa again directing, though Sia Jiang [Sahamongkol head honcho Somsak Techaratanaprasert] said he does not want Jaa directing the fourth part.

During his troubles last year, Jaa's lawyer was Jarupol Reuangkeht -- the same man who has now emerged to represent Ms Park, who is in Korea. Mr Jaruporn said he is a lawyer for hire, and his new client is Ms Park.

Jaa's elder brother admits Jaa took out the loan, but said he had sent a lawyer to negotiate. Jaa was still waiting for his share of the proceeds from Ong-Bak 2. As soon as he received the money, he would repay the loan.

Kung Fu Cinema also has a piece on this.

Bitter/Sweet premiering at Mumbai Film Festival

For its Asian premiere, the Thai-Hollywood romance Bitter/Sweet has bypassed Thailand altogether. It was to have made its bow at the cancelled Phuket Film Festival back in June (fingers crossed that festival will happen in June 2010). Now the film's cast and crew are in Mumbai, where Lekha Shankar is following them.

Story and photo by Lekha J Shankar

The Thai-Hollywood film Bitter/Sweet, which was screened at various festivals in America and Europe and won awards but didn’t make the cut for the Bangkok International Film Festival, will have its Asian premiere in the Bollywood capital of Mumbai on Tuesday, November 3.

There for the event will be lead actress Mamee Nakprasit and Bangkok-based Swiss producer Urs Brunner. The film will be screened at the Fun Cinema, followed by a cocktail party at the Sun N Sand hotel, a popular haunt of Bollywood stars.

Producer Brunner admits he was disappointed the film was not selected for the Bangkok International Film Festival, as he would have liked to have held the film’s Bangkok premiere at the festival. But he was happy that film had been selected for the Mumbai Film Festival, which this year was being funded by the mega Reliance Industries and boasts many premiere screenings.

Among the jury are top filmmakers like Paul Schrader, Jafar Panahi and Brilliante Mendoza.

“I think Bollywood films are the ultimate in entertainment, and I’m proud to show my film there,” Brunner says. He’ll be attending with his Thai wife Maleerat Thanaprachoom.

Actress Mamee was excited to make her first trip to India , especially as it was her first visit to any film festival abroad. She hoped to buy a sari, meet many Indian film audiences and if possible even attend a Bollywood dance lesson!

An avowed lover of Bollywood films, Mamee impressively showed some Bollywood dance steps at the opening of the recent Bollywood Film Festival in Bangkok and also in the Superstar TV talent show.

From Mumbai, producer Brunner will fly to Los Angeles for the American Film Market to negotiate the film’s international sales. He hopes to release the film in Bangkok next year.

The other Thai film being screened at the Mumbai festival is Uruphong Raksasad’s Agrarian Utopia, which seems to have become the new darling of the international festival circuit.

Note: Agrarian Utopia is also in competition this week at AsiaticaFilmMediale in Rome.

PIFF '09: Busan bigger than Bangkok

Asia's biggest film festival is under way in the coastal city of Busan, South Korea, where the 14th Pusan International Film Festival is unspooling a record 355 films from 70 countries, with 98 world premieres. It's all happening in the Shinsegae mall in Centum City, a new purpose-built complex for the film industry that is being touted as "the Hub of Asian Cinema".

Thursday's opening night had a crowd of 10,000 people, on hand to greet a bevy of South Korean movie stars, watch a performance by K-pop's Girls Generation and be treated to a fireworks display. The opening film was the South Korean political satire, Good Morning President.

Josh Hartnett is there representing Hollywood’s A-list. He's starring in I Come with the Rain, a crime thriller set in Hong Kong and directed by Vietnamese-French filmmaker Tran Anh Hung. Another big name at the fest is Bryan Singer, whose latest producing project is a horror film, Trick ’r Treat. French director Costa Gavras and Italian cult-horror guru Dario Argento are giving master classes, as are Hong Kong director Johnnie To and China’s Jia Zhangke. Indian producer-director Yash Chopra is receiving the Asian Filmmaker of the Year award, which industry observers say is an "a belated olive branch" between the industries of South Asia and the East Asia.

As for the Thai involvement in the festival, I've been noting that all along here. There are films by Thai directors in the fest, including the world premiere of "Mai" Anocha Suwichakornpong's Mundane History, which will come back home next month to open the 7th World Film Festival of Bangkok.

Another premiere is the short, Phuket, by Aditya Assarat. Apichatpong Weerasethakul's short A Letter to Uncle Boonmee is there, as is Happiness of Kati, Khan Kluay II and the truncated Toronto cut of Sawasdee Bangkok.

Mundane History is competing in the New Currents line-up, which is being judged by a panel that includes Pen-ek Ratanaruang and is headed by French filmmaker Jean-Jacques Beineix.

Ekachai Uekrongtham is there to pitch his next project, Enemies, in the Pusan Promotion Plan. I'll have more on that.

And indie director Pramote Sangsorn is receiving script-development support for his feature Tam Rasisalai from the festival's Asian Cinema Fund. There's more coming on that too.

Of course the Bangkok Post's Kong Rithdee has a roundup of the Korean connections in yesterday's Bangkok Post. And he has connections of his own to the fest, as he co-scripted Ekachai's Enemies and has a hand in the documentary Baby Arabia, supported by PIFF's Asian Network of Documentary Fund.

All the glitz and glamor that are spinning around this "hub" in Busan must have Thai film industry leaders and government officials in a tizzy. While Thailand boasts many film-production houses and studios that make it A hub of Asian cinema, can it really claim to be THE hub as Busan has?

Not that they haven't tried. After all, it was only a few years ago they said the Bangkok International Film Festival would be "bigger than Busan". But that was before a coup curbed the festival's free-spending ways and a bribery scandal further tainted the BKKIFF's reputation.

Where were the A-list stars at this year's BKKIFF? Were there fireworks? Was there a crowd of 10,000 people, eagerly waiting to see their favorite stars?

Hey, it's possible. Someday. Maybe. But there's no need to force it and look hamfisted. I think it will be good programming that attracts crowds and builds genuine excitement. It's already happening. Eventually that excitement will be build and the stars will want to come, and they'll be coming to promote films that are actually showing in the festival.

And of course it could be argued that the Thai government doesn't show the same kind of support for its film industry as South Korea's does. So Thai filmmakers go begging to other countries and compete for handouts with other filmmakers from developing industries. One way of becoming a hub would be to offer that support, not just for Thai filmmakers but for the region's.

The festival scene in Bangkok might not necessarily ever get bigger than Busan's, but it might one day be better, just because it is in Bangkok and not Busan.

(Photo via AP/Yahoo News)

Bollywood returning to Bangkok

Bollywood films used to play regularly in Bangkok cinemas, but Hollywood has since dominated the big screens. In the past year or so, Bollywood films have been making a comeback, thanks to the efforts of Bollywood Thai, which organizes first-run Bangkok premieres of the latest Hindi-language films. The weekend screenings have been popular with the community of overseas-born Indians and expatriates. Seeing their success, Thailand's biggest multiplex operator Major Cineplex has decided to get in on the action, and is organizing the Bollywood Film Festival from October 9 to 18, playing such movies as the his Om Shanti Om as well as more recent fare like Kaminey and New York. Lekha Shankar explains more.

Story by Lekha J. Shankar

Barely has one recovered from the heavyweight Bangkok International Film Festival when there comes news of yet another film festival -- the Bollywood Film Festival, for the first time in Thailand.

It looks like Slumdog Millionaire has resurrected the magic of Mumbai’s cinema, even in Thailand.

The festival has come about at the initiative of the Major Cineplex group, who are keen to screen Bollywood films on a regular commercial basis, as they were once screened, more than three decades back.

This festival will be their first public announcement of their interest in Bollywood cinema and will be a "testing-ground" to check Thai tastes.

Bollywood films were screened regularly at public theatres in Bangkok more than three decades back and were very popular, especially as they were often dubbed in Thai. But with the upsurge of Hollywood cinema, the Bollywood movies died out.

In recent years, their only presence was during weekend screenings at select theatres by the pioneers of Bollywood cinema in Thailand, Bollywood Thai.

The screenings were held on the same weekend as the films' release in India, for fear of piracy. Despite of the high ticket prices, around 300 to 400 baht, the sizeable Indian community in Bangkok was excited to keep in touch with the latest releases from Mumbai.

Seven of these new releases figure in the forthcoming Bollywood film festival.

For the Indian community, the films will not be new, but for the non-Indians, they are an exciting introduction the "new" Bollywood cinema fare.

Here is the festival line-up:

• Jodhaa Akhbar -- A lush, spectacular historical drama about the Mughal king Akbar and his Hindu wife Jodha, starring the stunning beauty Aishwarya Rai and the hunky Hrithik Roshan.
• Rock On -- The new-age music film starring charismatic actor-director Farhan Akthar has become a kind of cult film with the youth in India. It will also be screened at 8pm on Monday, October 5 at the Foreign Correspondents Club of Thailand.
• Luck By Chance -- A lively comedy, with Farhan Akthar again, as a starry-eyed youngster wanting to make it big in Bollywood. Supporting him are indie actress Konkona Sen Sharma and the hit pair of the '90s, Rishi Kapoor and Dimple Kapadia.
• Kaminey -- This stars the two new superstars of today, Shahid Kapoor and former Miss World Priyanka Chopra in an arresting tale of cops and robbers, grittily told by the dynamic director Vishal Bhardwaj.
• New York -- A much-talked-about drama of terrorism set in New York City in 2001, where the dashing trio of supermodel John Abraham, singer-actor Nitin Mukesh and the London-born Katrina Kaif make a rivetting combination.
• Rab Ne Bana Di Jodi -- Shah Rukh Khan is a simple man leading a humdrum life when he meets his total opposite and finds love in a flamboyant, fun-loving, vivacious woman (Anushka Sharma).
• Om Shanti Om -- The super hit of superstar Shah Rukh Khan, and the debut film of model Deepika Padukone, which made her a star overnight. If there’s one Bollywood film that will set your feet tapping, it’s this one, with its superlative range of songs and dances.

The gala opening of the Bollywood Film Festival October 6 is an invitation-only event that will be presided over by Major Cineplex president Anawat Ongkvasith and Indian Ambassador Latha Reddy. The cocktail reception will be followed by the screening of the 2007 blockbuster Om Shanti Om.

The Bollywood Film Festival will be held at Major Cineplex Sukhumvit (Ekamai) from October 9 to 18, with screenings at 7 on weeknights and 1, 4.20 and 7.20 on Saturdays and Sundays. All films will have English subtitles except for Om Shanti Om which will have English and Thai subtitles. The complete schedule is at the Major Cineplex website.

World Comedy Film Festival: Capsule reviews

The World Comedy Film Festival wraps up today (June 16) with the Hong Kong romantic comedy Look for a Star with Shu Qui and Andy Lau. However, because of scheduling conflicts -- a full-time job-type job -- I won't be attending any further screenings. Here's a look at what I did see.

Blind Pig Who Wants to Fly

Having paid millions of rupiah for the rights to the Stevie Wonder song "I Just Called to Say I Love You", it seems only fitting that director Edwin -- who like many Indonesians has only one name -- would use the tune as much as he could. It's first sung by a blind dentist, and then warbled through six more times over the course of this absurdist look at Chinese culture in Indonesia. And by the way, Edwin, present for a helpful question-and-answer session after this bizarre film, says he hadn't seen Apichatpong Weerasethakul's Syndromes and a Century, which also has a singing dentist. Blind Pig Who Wants to Fly shares many of the non-sequitur traits and meditative pacing of Apichatpong's films, evidencing the rise of another independent film voice out of Southeast Asia. In addition to the blind singing dentist, Blind Pig is full of abstract characters, like Linda, the girl who eats firecrackers (Ladya Cheryll), and a fragile badminton player who watches a television evangelist but is spurned by the singing dentist because he wants to convert to Islam. The dentist enters into a deal with an influential pair of heavies (one played by filmmaker Joko Anwar) to ensure his new girlfriend (Indonesian Playboy Playmate Andhara Early) wins a spot on the Planet Idol reality talent series. This involves a much-talked-about scene in the dentist office that was the reason the film was pulled from public screening at the Singapore International Film Festival because of censorship concerns. Appropriately for the World Comedy Film Festival, the scene had the audience laughing -- albeit uncomfortably. The dentist does not squeal like a pig, but he does grunt like one. And just to prove it, there actually is a pig. (4/5)

Dachimawa Lee

This South Korean spy spoof is so overstuffed with gags, it made me numb. I wasn't laughing so much because I was left catatonic by the onslaught of slapstick and action. Subtitle problems meant I missed a great deal of what was being said. Basically, it involves a jowly secret agent, who reminded me a bit of the swordsman in Lone Wolf and Cub, traveling around the world in a quest to retrieve a stolen Buddha statue and find a mole in his agency. In each place he lands, he's confronted by the enemy, and I guess their dialogue went something like, "Oh ho, so we meet again, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha!" Etcetera. Furiously fast martial-arts battles became a blur. The sumptuous costuming, period setting and intentionally exaggerated melodramatic acting made me think Dachimawa Lee would be the next Tears of the Black Tiger. But it didn't knock my socks off like Tears did. So I'm still looking. (3/5)

James Band 007 (เจมส์แบน 007)

A fitting bookend to Dachimawa Lee, here's proof that even in 1980, Thai comedies took brilliant concepts and ran them into the ground. Directed by Chai Nimitrchotinai, James Band 007 is a fish-out-water spoof about a Pattaya bicycle rickshaw driver who takes over a mission for a secret agent. Even the real secret agent was low rent. Sent to Pattaya to stop an evil plot of some sort, the tuxedoed hero takes the bus! No Aston Martin or Q Branch for this Bond. And then, apparently because of agency policy, the real Bond hires the samlor driver named Band (Tep Thienchai) to take him up the hill to the Hyatt Pattaya Palace (now Royal Cliff). The rest of the film only exists to string together a collection of gags and confusing situations that put the grinning, toothless Band in touch with as many skinny, skantily-clad women as possible. I'm trying to make this movie sound bad, and it is. But it's no more ridiculous than Roger Moore in say, The Man With the Golden Gun. I think I might prefer James Band 007 to that. The real reason to watch James Band 007 is legendary comedian Lor Tok taking on the role of the mastermind villain with gusto. But even he's a thankless afterthought behind a couple of robots in the villain's hideout, named A and B, who are obviously patterned after C-3PO and R2-D2 in Star Wars. And then there's the score, which liberally borrows cues from the James Bond theme, as well as John Williams (the Superman love theme "Can You Read My Mind" and "Cantina Band" from Star Wars), Isaac Hayes ("Theme from Shaft") and Ennio Morricone (The Good, the Bad and the Ugly). Update: Here's a review of the VCD at TarsTarkas.net. (3/5)

Singh is Kinng

Here's another broadly illustrated fish-out-of-water scenario -- a village idiot from rural Punjab becomes a crime boss in Australia. Akshay Kumar is Happy Singh, an “illiterate fool" who is packed off on a trip to Australia to fetch Lucky Singh and bring him home to his ailing parents. At least that's what Happy is led to believe. Actually, the villagers just want him gone, because he's a walking disaster area. For no reason other than staging a few song-and-dance sequences among the pyramids, the hero first lands by mistake in Egypt, where he meets the heroine Sonia (Katrina Kaif). Then, as quick as you can say, "Okay, let's go to Australia", the action shifts to Gold Coast, Queensland, where Lucky Singh (Sonu Sood) is the much-feared boss of the underworld. Through Happy's usual bumbling, Lucky is not so lucky and he's put in a wheelchair. The good-hearted Happy is placed in charge of the gang. More hijinks ensue when the turbaned Sikh gangsters all pose as servants for the benefit making Sonia and her fiance think her impoverished mother is wealthy. More songs and dancing, shootouts and action sequences ensue. Finally, after 2.5 hours, the end credits roll and we can hear rapper Snoop Dogg offer his take on the Bollywood phenomenon. (3/5)

Cinlok

Here's a more commercial example of Indonesian cinema than Blind Pig. In Cinlok or Love on Location, tattooed leading man Tora Sudiro (Quickie Express, The Rainbow Troops, Arisan!) stars as a fast-talking, slacker van driver named Cundra who strikes up a romance with Naila, a young woman he spots in the train station. Neither want to reveal they are single, so they both make up stories about their significant others, leading to the classic misunderstandings and humorous situations as can be expected from a romantic comedy. Naila's "boyfriend" Tio is a wealthy oilman and shipping magnate but is actually an eccentric farmer from her home village. She also fibs about her job, which leads to another humorous situation. Cundra's "girlfriend" Tika is an older woman, a fashion designer, but she's actually a village woman who's come to Jakarta to get a job as a maid with an employment agency. There's an inside joke when Tika and the other maids run away from the agency when they find out they are to be sold as prostitutes. Cundra is hired to find them. He describes Tika as looking like actress Ria Irawan. Well, she is veteran actress Ria Irawan. While not a ground-breaking film, Cinlok mainly works because of its easy-going pace, a talented, good-looking cast and competent production helmed by Guntur Soeharjanto, who somehow makes filming in the Jakarta railway station and other areas of the bustling Indonesian capital look painless. It was refreshing to watch this relaxed romance after the other comedies I'd viewed were trying too hard to make me laugh. (3/5)

Partly Cloudy/Up

Thanks to showtimes that stretched into the late night, well past when anything for the film festival was showing, I was able to go off the reservation and catch the latest animated feature from Disney-Pixar. It's telling that the one digital 3-D screening of Up I attended probably had a bigger audience than the entire run of the World Comedy Film Festival. Up has a bigger marketing budget -- there was a magician and other performers promoting the film in the cinema lobby -- while most of the money spent on the World Comedy Film Festival has been used to bring in a few celebrities in an effort to shore up Thailand's flagging tourism industry. So hardly anybody is actually watching the films. Even more telling is that I laughed harder and more loudly at the Pixar animated short Partly Cloudy than I'd laughed at anything I'd seen in the comedy fest. Up had laugh-out-loud moments too -- mainly having to do with the talking dogs. But maybe I'm too much of a grumpy old man, because I found Up overwhelmingly schmaltzy and the characters awkwardly drawn. I was still thrilled by the action sequences toward the end, but I wasn't as wowed by this effort as I have been on other Pixar films, like The Incredibles, Toy Story or Wall-E. (4/5)

Update: Asian Cinema - While on the Road has a couple of reviews.

Update 2: Celine Julie saw 14 films at the World Comedy Film Festival!

Chandni Chowk to China, but really it's Thailand

Chandni Chowk to China is billed as the first Bollywood movie shot on location in China, but the majority of the film was actually made in Thailand.

Bangkok's skyline stands in for Shanghai's, and Suvarnabhumi International Airport is dressed up as the Chinese city's airport. A sign for Nok Air - a budget domestic airline in Thailand - gives it away. There are also Bangkok's characteristic jellybean-colored Toyota Corolla taxicabs, though care was taken to fit them with Chinese license plates.

Other scenes were shot on a set built in Ratchaburi Province.

According to a Bangkok Post story, which I blogged about last week, the production only filmed about 15 days in China, basically making use of the Great Wall, which plays a crucial backdrop in the film.

Most of the rest of the movie was made in Thailand.

"We started filming in China, and then realized how much easier it would be to make the movie in Thailand," actor Conan Stevens told me after the movie's screening on Saturday night in Bangkok.

But a highlight of the production, Stevens says, was getting to work with martial-arts coordinator Ku Huan-Chiu, who's had a hand in such films as Kill Bill, Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon, Romeo Must Die and Lethal Weapon 4.

Stevens, a 7-foot-tall Australian stunt actor and wrestler, is based in Bangkok. In the film, he wears a white wig and eyebrows to play the role of Joey, the hulking albino right-hand man of the villain, Hojo, played by Hong Kong martial-arts film legend Gordon Liu. It's Stevens' most prominent role yet, this being a Hollywood (Warner Bros.) and Bollywood co-production -- and higher profile than supporting roles in such Thai films as Hanuman: The White Monkey Warrior, E-Tim Tay Nae and Somtum. Stevens is a blast to watch as he growls and stomps his way around, and actually punches a chunk out of what's supposed to be the Great Wall.

Playing on the same weekend it premiered in India and the U.S., Chandi Chowk to China was brought to Bangkok for a series of special screenings by BollywoodThai.com.

The movie stars Akshay Kumar as a humble cook on the streets of Delhi who is dissatisfied with his lot in life. Sidhu finds a potato that contains an icon of Lord Ganesh and takes it as a sign of better things to come. So, when a pair of Chinese villagers show up and say he's the reincarnation of an ancient Chinese warrior, he believes them (with encouragement of his shady friend the fortuneteller Chopstick, played by Ranvir Shorey).

More confusion ensues when Sidhu crosses paths with Sakhi (Deepika Padukone), the glamorous half-Indian, half-Chinese model and TV presenter of hi-tech Chinese crapgadgets. She is going to China to look for her long-lost twin sister, who it turns out is a breathtakingly fiesty diamond thief in the employ of the bowler-hatted villain Hojo.

The story gets even crazier with the long-lost amnesiac Chinese father of the twin girls (Roger Yuan) getting his memory back, and as a high-ranking cop and martial-arts master, he goes after Hojo and trains the bumbling Sihdu.

All the tropes of martial-arts films are adhered to, and so are those of Bollywood. So along with the kung-fu training sequence and heroic bloodshed, you also get song-and-dance numbers and romance that comes ever so close but not quite to a kiss.

Criticizing Chandni Chowk to China for being overly long is insane, because it's a Bollywood flick, and at around 2.5 hours isn't really that long at all - it's just more time for more slapstick, songs, dancing and crazy action.

At the box office, the film scored US$6.8 million, according to Variety, which notes that CC2C is the widest worldwide day-and-date release ever for a Bollywood movie.


Reviews are mixed. The Golden Rock points to reviews at Hollywood Reporter and Variety. Singapore's A Nutshell Review chimes in as well.

And The Storyboard Daily points to a couple CC2C items, including critics and audiences in India not digging the movie.

Nonetheless, a sequel is planned, though it's uncertain whether it will really be Chandni Chowk to Africa like the last joke in the movie, which had Thai dwarves in blackface, clicking their tongues. They were supposed to be Pygmies I suppose.

Chandni Chowk to China to Bangkok

Genre-film fans were left gape-mouthed when trailers for Chandni Chowk to China first emerged a few months ago. I think the expression was WTF, or something to that effect.

A breathless blend of Bollywood song and dance, Chinese martial arts and
slapstick comedy, Chandni Chowk to China is not only a melding of Indian and Chinese culture, it's also Bollywood's biggest push yet into Hollywood's back yard. This weekend, not only will the movie open across India, it's opening in a number of cities in North America, where it is distributed by Warner Brothers. It had a premiere last weekend in London and there were sneak previews in the States as well.

The movie is opening this weekend in Bangkok too, thanks to BollywoodThai.com, which routinely brings first-run Hindi-language movies to Bangkok for limited screenings. It's playing at 8 on Friday and Saturday night and at 4 and 7pm on Sunday at at SF World at CentralWorld. On Monday it’s playing at 8pm at SFX Emporium. Tickets are a bit dearer than ordinary, running from 250 to 400 baht. You can call (089) 488 2620 reservations.

Jumbo star Akshay Kumar stars as a humble cook in Delhi's Chandni Chowk neighborhood who is convinced by some Chinese villagers that he is the reincarnation of a great kung-fu warrior. Only he can save the village from a nefarious smuggler, played by martial-arts legend Gordon Liu.

Chandni Chowk to China also has some solid Thai connections - it was actually filmed in Thailand.

The Bangkok Post has more on that. From today's Outlook section (cache):

According to Benetone Films, who coordinated the entire film shoot in Thailand, a huge Chinese village set was created in Ratchaburi, 100km outside Bangkok, where the crew shot for 55 days. Most of the song-and-dance sequences, and a few action scenes, were filmed here as well.

The shooting stint in China (mostly near the Great Wall) lasted 15 days.

More interesting for Thai audiences is that the movie is based on the life of Bollywood action star Akshay Kumar. Before becoming a Bollywood actor, Kumar lived in Bangkok and worked as waiter at a guesthouse in Pahurat, where he also learned Muay Thai.

An article back in December at Thaindian News had more details about the shoot.

A Village Voice review also picks up on the autobiographical theme for Akshay, who really did work as a cook in Chandni Chowk and is sincere in his devotion to East Asian martial arts.

In addition to Akshay and Liu, there's new-face actress Deepika Padukone and martial-arts actor and coordinator Roger Yuan.

Bangkok-based 7-foot-tall Australian stuntman and wrestler Conan Stevens is featured as a right-hand man of Liu's character. Stevens says that CC2C is the biggest and best role he's had yet.

Update: Twitch's Todd Brown (yeah, that's him in the comments below) has his thoughts about Chandni Chowk to China. Twitch also has music videos and promo clips.

Khan Kluay is Jumbo in India for Christmas

Thailand's plucky animated blue elephant Khan Kluay has received the Bollywood treatment. Under the title Jumbo, he gets the voice of Bollywood leading man Akshay Kumar and an additional "60-odd scenes and sequences ... with a love angle and all the other jazz". Set for release on December 19, it's being marketed as a Christmas movie.

Originally directed by Kompin Kemgumnird, it's the story of a wild young pachyderm who wanders away from his mother in the jungle, becomes a work elephant in a village, and eventually is claimed as the prized war elephant of King Naresuan the Great. Thailand's first computer-animated feature, it took three years to make and was released in Thailand in 2006. It won several awards, including Best Picture at the Subhanahongsa Awards.

In addition to Akshay, other Bollywood stars lending their voices to Jumbo are Lara Dutta, Dimple Kapadia, Mithun Chakraborty, Paresh Rawal and Asrani lending their voices to the characters.

The Indian press is rife with reports about Jumbo. Here's Akshay quoted by Kerala Online:

“It’s a very simple story. I am playing the blue elephant and I fall in love with the pink elephant,” says he.

The film is about the connection that the baby elephant is unable to have with his father, and how his father sacrifices everything for his country. It’s also about the love and support a mother gives her child.

“The reason for me doing this animation film is purely because how it made me feel. Watching it, brought back so many emotions. Children don’t just need humour or action in their lives, they also need lessons, love and understanding. This film made me think so much about my son that I was ready to be part of it. Like my father used to say, ‘It’s not just about doing the big and best things all the time. Life is about doing what is important and what is right.’ This is exactly how I felt.”

Jumbo is an emotional story of an elephant and also stresses on family values and relationships.

Akshay Kumar has been paid a whopping Rs. 9 crores [90 million rupees, or about US$1.8 million!] for dubbing the dialogues and participating in the picturisations of two promotional songs for Percept Picture Company’s animation film, Jumbo

A report at Midday details the work that went into making Jumbo a big-budget affair, as well as why they are paying Akshay so much to do the dub.

Jumbo producers, Percept Picture Company, have been telling anyone willing to listen that they spent a lot of time and money making the animated feature.

The truth is that the original movie is easily available through the film's co-producer Eagle Home Entertainment's office.

A source in the industry reveals, "Jumbo is clearly lifted from Khan Kluay, a Thai animation flick that was bought by Eagle at a paltry Rs 20 lakh.

They planned to dub the movie and release it on DVD in India. But when Percept got a whiff of the film, they got Eagle on board and planned a huge release and promised it would be dubbed by A-list stars."

The source further adds, "Khan Kluay was already in Indian markets before Percept came in the picture. The DVD of the film was being sold at Rs 300."

But with a big Bolly flick on the line, Eagle took the DVD's entire stock off shelves nationwide.

Akshay Kumar is already doing Percept's next, 8X10 being directed by Nagesh Kukunoor.

They offered the actor a huge sum to dub for Jumbo.

Percept wants to remain in Akki's good books as they plan on making several films with the star.

Their film 8X10 has been in the making for a while.

"They wanted to pamper him with some extra cash. Besides, they know that Akki's popular streak will ensure that the film has a decent run at the BO," adds the source.

Shailendra Singh, Percept Picture Company's head honcho says, "The original flick was made by a company called Kantana Animation in Bangkok.

"Eagle made us meet them, we overtook the project from them and developed it for over two years putting in Indian sentiments and remaking it for the Indian consumer.

"We have added some 60-odd scenes and sequences to the original with a love angle and all the other jazz to make the movie more appealing to every age. We did something similar with the first Hanuman in 2005."

A music video, "Everything Is Gonna Be Alright", has been shot to promote the film.

Another report accuses Percept of trying to cover up the Thai origins of Jumbo, while still another says Akshay is all wrong for voiceover work.

Earlier this year, Khan Kluay received the Hollywood treatment for its U.S. release on DVD as The Blue Elephant. With the Thai-language track entirely dumped, the version released by The Jim Henson Company features the voice work of Martin Short, Carl Reiner and Miranda Cosgrove.

Bollywood in Bangkok: 'The blood gushed out and was all over my face'

Bollywood leading man Zayed Khan was injured last weekend while shooting a stunt in Bangkok for an action film called Blue.

He jumped out of a high-rise building, the fall went wrong and Zayed’s forehead hit the windshield of a car. Here's more from Sindh Today:

The blood gushed out and was all over my face. It took a while for everyone to realise I was injured,’ Zayed told IANS from Bangkok.

After a visit to the hospital, a couple of stitches, heavy sedation and antibiotics on Sunday, Zayed was back to shooting Monday morning.

"Fortunately the cut is hidden by my hair. So no continuity problems," said Zayed, whose family back home panicked when they heard about the mishap.

(Via 2Bangkok.com)

Enthralled by Bollywood

Though the green carpet of the Indian International Film Academy has been rolled up and the steel gates used to separate the Bollywood elite from the Bangkok rabble have been stowed away until the next gala event, coverage from the IIFA weekend continues.

Bangkok's Daily Xpress had two stories in today's paper, a fashion story and coverage from the "world premiere" of Sarkar Raj. (I'm still trying to find that second story on the website.)

Actually it wasn't really a premiere at all, since the movie also opened the same day in India, Singapore and even in New York and elsewhere in North America, where, according to one box-office tally, it "almost cracked the Top 10". Of course, the gala Bangkok screening of Sarkar Raj was a special occasion because the movie's three stars -- Amitabh Bachchan, Abhishek Bachchan and Aishwarya Rai-Bachchan -- as well as director Ram Gopal Varma, were all present.

Here's an excerpt from the story by Daily Xpress correspondent Uma Pandey:

Sarkar Raj, loosely adapted from the 2001 Enron scandal, is a political drama about a conflict of business interests. Set in rural India, it follows the ambitions of Anita Rajan (Aishwarya Rai) and Shankar (Abhishek) to build a power plant in the suburbs of Maharashtra.

The cinematography is almost monochrome, with lots of sepia tones and close-ups adding to the intensity of the story. Verma’s lingering camera manages to portray the tension in the eyes of the characters, drawing you into the film as if you too were living the drama.

Explaining the secret of his success at the press conference after the screening, Bachchan said, “I have lived my life on my own terms and conditions.”

For Abhishek, starring opposite Indian cinema’s living legend is “always a pleasure”.

Sarkar Raj is a sequel to the 2005 hit Sarkar, which was inspired by Mario Puzo’s The Godfather.

Though, apparently, Sarkar Raj doesn't have anything to do with The Godfather, Part II.

It's the first film to feature the Bachchan trio since Aishwarya's marriage to Abhishek last year. Singapore's Electric New Paper has more (cache):

But the former Miss World denied at a press conference at the film's premiere last Friday that it was a deliberate plan to market the trio.

She said: "Ramu (Ram Gopal) had decided to make another film on Sarkar much before the actual filming started. I was offered the film when I was not married.

"When Ramu finally decided to make the film, the storyline and cast remained unchanged. It would be unfair to say that the film is a deliberate strategy to present all three of us together for the first time after my marriage to Abhishek."

Whatever her protests may be, the Bachchan family obviously believes that a family that schmoozes together on the red carpet stays together.

With Mrs Jaya Bachchan, Amitabh's wife, in tow, they appeared at last month's Cannes Film Festival, where Amitabh described the family as being Aishwarya's "entourage" on his blog, Big Adda.

Finally, there's the IIFA weekend as seen through the eyes of Bangkok's Indian community, who were well and truly held in thrall by the event, and despite complaints of high ticket prices, turned out in great numbers to catch a glimpse of the stars. Indians in Thailand has more (hat tip to 2bangkok.com):

“IIFA means a lot for us Indians living here. It is a perfect showcasing of India in terms of our stars and glamour,” Ravi Mathur, who works as general manager in a company here, told IANS.

Thailand has a nearly 85,000-strong Indian diaspora, with families of many having settled in the country three-four generations ago.

Ashima, a young woman, was over the moon as her autograph book was full.

She said: "It's like a dream come true for us. We usually see them (stars) in films and admire them. But the experience of meeting them in person is ecstatic. I can't explain in words how I am feeling right now.

"All the stars are so nice. My favourite actor is Kareena Kapoor and favourite director is Yash Chopra. His films are so lively and I was thrilled when he greeted me so nicely and gave me an autograph as well.”

Missed the chance to see Sarkar Raj at the Bangkok gala screening? Well, the enterprising folks at Bollywood Thai have managed to lock it in for another showing at 8.15pm on Saturday at Grand EGV Siam Discovery.



Related posts:

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• The glitz and glamour of Bollywood
• Bangkok is Bollywood, Bollywood is Bangkok