News

Five Korean films have been selected to the 35th Toronto Film Festival. Invited films Poetry and The Housemaid will continue to make their push for an Best Foreign Oscar nomination, while the previously announced I Saw the Devil is riding in on the controversy around its graphic nature. Newly selected films announced this past Tuesday include, Oki’s Movie, which is preparing for it's debut in Venice, and the major World Premiere announcement comes in the shape of the multi-region co-produced Late Autumn (a.k.a. “Manchu”) -- a film which may have the best chance to leave the festival as Korea’s most heralded film of 2010. “Late Autumn” is a story about two foreigners—one Korean and one Chinese—travelling to Seattle. The woman (China’s Tang Wei from Lust, Caution fame) is on leave from prison to attend her mother’s funeral. On the bus, she meets a...

I know exactly what you’re thinking, and truthfully, I, too, am a little hesitant to fully embrace the upcoming Korean remake of the John Woo classic “A Better Tomorrow”. However, the latest trailer for “Invincible” actually looks pretty good, despite the fact that I’m still extremely uncertain as to how this one’s going to turn out. As much as I love the original, it will be extremely hard for me to view the picture objectively. Take a look at the latest trailer and let me know what you think about it. I’m sure someone out there has a very strong opinion about this particular production. Be sure to thank the folks at Film Smash for once again providing the scoop.

Tsui Hark, who produced John Woo’s A Better Tomorrow and directed Once Upon a Time in China is back in audacious epic form with Detective Dee and the Mystery of the Phantom Flame,...

We've known Korea's Song Hae-Sung was directing a remake of John Woo's A Better Tomorrow for a good while now and the first trailer has just arrived for his Invincible to give fans a look. The verdict? Kind of looks like a glammy K-drama to me, right down to the pretty young star power, at least until the bullets start flying. Is it too little, too late by the time those arrive? You be the judge.

As much as I hate to admit it, John Woo's tenure directing American films can only be described as a massive failure. With far more misses than hits, he was just never quite able to adapt his style and visual flair to American productions, with the results usually ending up poorly executed. While Broken Arrow and Face/Off entertained audiences when they came out, re-visiting them shows them to be pretty weak films. And his bad films (Mission: Impossible 2, Hard Target) are really bad. Which is a shame, because his earlier work in Hong Kong (The Killer, A Better Tomorrow and Hard Boiled being excellent examples) are far superior.

He's recently gone back to China and to making Chinese-language films, and he's hit his stride once again. 2008's Red Cliff was adored by our fearless Prisco, who said,"there wasn't a single moment that felt anything less than poetic.

One month, 280 films and 70,000 words later, my guide to the films of 2010 is now complete. I hope you've enjoyed reading it all - it's been utterly exhausting but an ultimately rewarding venture I've been single-handedly pulling together since early December. If you have liked it, my only request is that you help spread the word about it now that it's all done.

If you're a fellow blogger or site owner, please give it a plug on your site. If you're a reader, give it a mention on Facebook, Twitter or other online places you might venture. A lot of effort went into this, the greatest reward so far has been seeing it talked about and hearing your reactions. I'm glad many of you have gotten a lot of use out of the previous pages, so I hope you enjoy this final part:

Vincere

Opens: 2010

Cast: Filippo Timi, Giovanna Mezzogiorno, Corrado Invernizzi,...

"The Warlords', is the 2007 Chinese/Hong Kong feature, directed by Peter Chan, starring Jet Li, Andy Lau, Takeshi Kaneshiro and Xu Jinglei.

Currently available on Blu-ray, the Mandarin-language war epic is readying a North American theatrical release for April 2010.

Set in the 1860s, during the 'Taiping Rebellion' of the late 'Qing Dynasty', "Warlords" focuses on the sworn brotherhood of three men (Li, Lau, Kaneshiro) who are forced to turn against each other in a time of battle and political intrigue.

Director Chan said he was influenced by director Chang Cheh's 1973 film "The Blood Brothers", which was based on a high profile assassination of a local governor in 1870 and John Woo's 1986 feature "A Better Tomorrow", although Chan insists "Warlords" is not a martial arts film at its heart.

Shooting started December 2006 in Beijing with outdoor scenes also lensed in Shanghai and the town of Hengdian in Zhejiang province.

John Woo is to receive the lifetime achievement award at the 2010 Venice Film Festival. The Hong Kong movie director is best known for helming action films like The Killer, A Better Tomorrow and Face/Off. According to the BBC, festival organisers called Woo "a master who has changed the language of contemporary film for generations of filmmakers". "The acknowledgment (more)...

Red Cliff by John Woo (Magnet Releasing) John Woo will be the recipient of the 2010 Venice Film Festival’s Golden Lion for lifetime achievement. As per the Venice festival’s website, Woo was chosen by the Board of Directors of the Biennale di Venezia, chaired by Paolo Baratta, "at the recommendation of the Director of the Festival, Marco Müller. "The acknowledgment recognizes a filmmaker who in recent decades, with his revolutionary conception of staging and editing, has renewed action movies to the core, introducing an extreme stylization (close to visual art), both in Asia (in films such as A Better Tomorrow, 1987; The Killer, 1989; Bullet in the Head, 1990; Hard Boiled, 1991; the recent colossal film Red Cliff), and in Hollywood (Broken Arrow, [...]...

London -- Director-producer John Woo is to be awarded a Golden Lion for lifetime achievement during next year's Venice International Film Festival, organizers said Monday.

Venice organizers describe Woo as an "innovator of the contemporary language of cinema" and plan to dish the honor out during the 67th edition of the grand dame of film festivals, which runs Sept. 1-11.

The decision was made by the Biennale di Venezia board, chaired by Paolo Barattaa after Venice festival director Marco Mueller backed Woo for the plaudit.

Woo has plied his moviemaking trade both in Asia and Hollywood, making films such as "A Better Tomorrow," "The Killer" and "Bullet in the Head " in the Far East and "Broken Arrow," "Face/Off" and "Mission: Impossible 2, in the U.S. Woo also authors video games and graphic novels.

Woo will return to the Venice film festival for the fourth time. In 2004 he was...

Last word on 무적자 (Invincible), the Korean remake of John Woo's 英雄本色 (A Better Tomorrow), was that Song Hae-Sung of 파이란 (Failan) would direct, and that Korean Wave star Song Seung-Heon and possibly Lee Min-Gi would be cast as the leads. But now producers Fingerprint have finalized the cast, and I suppose the ladies will be pleased.

Lee Min-Gi seems out, unless they cast him in a lesser role (wouldn't be out of the question, considering in how many films he starred this year, regardless of screen time), but Song Seung-Heon is confirmed for Chow Yun-Fat's role, and the other three main characters will be played by interesting choices: Joo Jin-Mo, last seen on the big screen playing Goryeo's King Gongmin in 쌍화점 (Frozen Flower), will play Ti Lung's role, while Kim Gang-Woo of 태풍태양 (The Aggressives) and 마린보이 (Marine Boy) will essay Leslie Cheung's role.

Rating: 8/10

Most people only know John Woo from his American films. This includes movies like Face/Off and Broken Arrow, which, although they offer plenty of action, don’t do the director justice. If you haven’t seen his pre-Hollywood stuff, do yourself a favor and add A Better Tomorrow or Hard Boiled to your Netflix queue.

Read more on Theatrical Review: Red Cliff (Chi Bi)…...

(John Woo, above.)

By Terry Keefe

Director John Woo tells a story in the interview below about one major difference between his experience working on Hollywood blockbusters, and making Red Cliff (Chi Bi), his blockbuster-sized film which he shot in China with strong support from the Chinese government: he never had to sit through endless development meetings. He simply said he wanted to make the film, came up with a budget, received financing, and shot it. As someone who actually was a [very junior level] studio development executive at one time, I loved hearing this. The process by which films are created today at the studios, as it has been for a few decades now, is ridiculously time-consuming and both financially and creatively wasteful. Practically every script “fast“-tracked for production goes through a gauntlet of seemingly endless story notes in which not only the director, but also the studio, the producer, the stars,...

John Woo has become one of those directors whose name gets attached to so many projects that you can't help but adopt a believe-it-when-i-see-it approach to any new announcements involving him and his work.A quick look at the man's IMDb page shows 14 different projects listed as "In Development". Yep, you read that right. Fffffffffffffffourteen. Including what I assume are remakes of A Better Tomorrow and The Killer. Woo announcing or talking about a new project is still news, though, and it's still worth caring about because with Red Cliff, Woo has proven that his abilities as a great filmmaker didn't completely vanish while he was in Hollywood. So here we are.

John Woo has become one of those directors whose name gets attached to so many projects that you can't help but adopt a believe-it-when-i-see-it approach to any new announcements involving him and his work.A quick look at the man's IMDb page shows 14 different projects listed as "In Development". Yep, you read that right. Fffffffffffffffourteen. Including what I assume are remakes of A Better Tomorrow and The Killer. Woo announcing or talking about a new project is still news, though, and it's still worth caring about because with Red Cliff, Woo has proven that his abilities as a great filmmaker didn't completely vanish while he was in Hollywood. So here we are.

Two brothers on different sides of the law, are torn apart by the death of their father, and destined to play their childhood game of Cops and robbers in real life.

Over two decades ago way back in 1986 Hong Kong director John Woo made two films. The first was Heroes Shed No Tears and the other was A Better Tomorrow. Both where great films in there own ways and both featured lots of gunfire and violence. Although both films could be said to belong to the Heroic Bloodshed sub genre of Hong Kong cinema, they were very different celluloid outings for the director in several key ways. Heroes Shed No tears is undeniably a great fun film in my opinion, but in many ways it was thematically and stylistically a very Americanized take on the action genre. Ironically Woo's second action film that year A Better Tomorrow would instantly make his first feel dated.

The three main cast members (Ti Lung, Leslie Cheung, Chow Yun-Fat) from A Better Tomorrow are back. Kit(Leslie Cheung) is now working on a dangerous undercover mission. The authorities feel his currently incarcerated brother may be of use. Ho (Ti Lung) is offered the chance to get out of jail early if he agrees to help. At first he turns the offer down, but soon he realizes the best way to protect his brother is to take the offer. Useing his former status to infiltrate the syndicate himself. Meanwhile the twin brother of the now deceased Mark(Chow Yun-Fat) is living in New York running a Chinese restaurant and trying to avoid paying protection money to the local wise guys.

Once inside the gang Kit and Ho both make contact with former mob boss Si Lung(Dean Shek) who appears to be going straight but is finding it difficult.

Killer Imports [1] is a regular feature on Film Junk where we explore foreign-language films from around the world that haven’t yet had their chance to shine. Tsui Hark, “the Steven Spielberg of Asia,” is a legendary figure in Asian cinema. He is a multi-talented individual who has produced, directed, written, and acted. He was involved with the A Better Tomorrow series with John Woo and Chow Yun-Fat. He was involved with the Once Upon a Time series with Jet Li. He was one of the Asian directors who failed to make Jean-Claude Van Damme a superstar. His recent work hasn’t gotten the acclaim of his earlier stuff, but I enjoyed Time and Tide and Seven Swords, somewhat. All About Women is a comedy, a genre that Hark hasn’t been involved with for quite a while. I have not seen his earlier movies, but I was willing to...