But as Asians, we have a lot to be be proud of. Stephen Chow's epic-ly hilarious Kung-fu Hustle and Chen Kaige's The Promise both received Golden Globe nomination nods for Best Foreign Film. Here's a bit of info on The Promise which stars Korean actor Jang Dong-gun (Te Guk Gi) and Hongkong's Cecilia Cheung (One Night in Mongkok). Lifted from English.chosun.com:
Jang Dong-kun in Bid for World Stardom at Cannes
Jang Dong-gun at the Cannes
Jang Dong-kun, the winner of last year's Blue Dragon Award for best leading actor, stepped on the international stage when “The Promise” by world-famous Chinese director Chen Kaige premiered at the Cannes International Film Festival to a packed house. The promotional party for the pan-Asian fantasy epic on Friday at the Chateau de la Napoule gave guests a 15-minute video sneak preview that triggered a storm of applause from some 300 film distributors from all over the world.
Jang is in the spotlight along with director Chen Kaige and co-stars Cecilia Cheung, Hiroyuki Sanada and Nicholas Tse. Guests said Jang showed international caliber and with his charisma proved himself a perfect fit for the starring role.
Dubbed an Asian “The Lord of the Rings,” the epic film of a fateful triangle between legendary slave Kunlun (Jang), imperial concubine Qingcheng (Cheung), and General Guangming (Hiroyuki Sanada) unfolds across vast battle fields in ancient China. Three years of planning and production costs of US$ 30 million have been invested on the film, a joint production between Korea, China and the United States. Korean producers Showist put up 10 percent of the total.
If the film had been made in Hollywood, it would have cost more than US$ 140 million. But thanks to support from the Chinese government, which even built roads for the shooting of the film, the production crew were able to save both money and time.
Jang suffered sunstroke several times during filming but displayed great enthusiasm for the movie until the very end, learning Chinese to record his dialogue himself. “The Promise,” a thrilling story on a grand scale, is scheduled to debut in Korea and China simultaneously in December.
3 comments:
The problem might be the audience, more than anything else. For every one like you and me ,there are at least ten Makati yuppies who would rather plow through Just Like Heaven or Must Love Dogs or Flightplan than be caught dead inside a Tagalog movie. Beneath them probably?
After all these years, and despite the response Maximo Olivera has been getting, I don't think the Filpino masses (and by this I mean the increasingly indifferent middle class and the so-called AB crowd) don't deserve a quality Filipino film. Let's still make them but show them around Asia.
Of course, that Oscar nom is waiting for the debut feature of the Wachowski Sisters - - - Pinoy Zombie. Hehe.
The Da Vinci-decoding, pogi rock-listening demographic. Expanding by the second. And I heard there's an Anne Rice meets Dan Brown book, "The Historian."
God help us all.
Uh huh. Saw it. Fad book. So it's selling like hotcakes.
Utang na loob, di ba?
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