GET READY FOR SOME ASIAN FALL MOVIE RELEASES

SEEDIQ BALE

Director Wei Te-sheng's epic “Seediq bale" aka "Warriors of the Rainbow” will represent Taiwan in the foreign-language film category at the 84th Academy Awards, and the most expensive film in Taiwan's history, which portray a 1930 uprising by aboriginal Seediq warriors against the Japanese when Taiwan was colonized, has just been premiered at Venice Film Festival.
The film, set in 1930s Formosa (now Taiwan) tells the true story of the Wushe Incident in which Seediq tribe warrior Mouna Rudo led his people to rebel against the Japanese occupation.

During the Japanese rule of Taiwan, the Seediq were

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These Horrors are Hungrier Than the Hungriest Ghosts

Scary movies may come in many different forms, but our most favorite here is the supernatural one, a creepy atmospheric ghost story pepper with a little pleasant touch of gothic ambiance. Therefore, here are some that likely meet the criteria in our list of upcoming horror flicks that you (probably) never heard of before, another horrific addition to the “August Bloody Wicked Month of Horror”:

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Coming out in October this year, just in time to celebrate the Halloween, is Singapore

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Summer Reviews: Super 8, Ladda Land, Hangover 2

Super 8
Score: 8/10

With “Super 8”, J.J. Abrams has captured the spirit of growing up and flawlessly unified it with a gripping, action-packed, science-fiction excitement that pays homage to the early works of Steven Spielberg and films like “Stand By Me” and “The Goonies” without ever losing its spark of originality. As the movie is dated back to 1979, Abrams has just presented it perfectly with the set up and costumes, all reflecting the 1970’s. Besides, mystery, action and coming of age drama there is also a perfect sense of humor in the movie. And while there are exciting action sequences and perfectly crafted special effects to complement them, there is also a rather sweet and sad side story that stays just on the

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Review Mix: A Chinese Fairy Tale & Mindfulness and Murder

A Chinese Fairy Tale
Score: 6/10

The success of 1987 Hong Kong classic “A Chinese Ghost Story” lies in its mix of genres and the appeal of its stars. As the most well-known version to the original tale, written by 17th century Chinese author Pu Song Ling, the film has everything that makes Chinese fantasy films so much fun, and has it in spades. Even more than two decades later, it still remains one of the finest examples of its genre—a sumptuous, breathtaking masterpiece that brilliantly blends horror, comedy, fantasy and romance. So, it does gonna be a very bold move for any filmmaker to try bringing their new reinterpretation of it. But director Wilson Yip who just had the most successful years in his directing career with “Ip Man” films is bravely enough to go and waking the monsters of Black Mountain. Not only that, Yip also changes a lot of the details of the familiar tale. Instead of a straight-forward

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Review Mix: Norwegian Wood, Bangkok Knockout, Scream 4

Norwegian Wood
Score: 7/10

Some have thought that most novels of one of Japanese great writers, Haruki Murakami, are unfilmable. It because not only much of the content of his books were based on the characters’ observation and their state of emotion, or even the writer’s observation on the world he creates, but they also have complex themes and heavily poetic prose. However, unlike his former stories, Murakami’s “Norwegian Wood” is one of the most down to earth of his works, setting in a real world with a realistic tone, which made it quite a good entrant to be adapted into a film. And in the hands of Vietnam-born director whose past works include the award winning “Cyclo” (1995) and “The Scent of Green Papaya” (1993), Tran Anh Hung, Murakami’s bestselling 1987 novel has indeed successfully turned into a feature film. Set in late 1960s Tokyo, the story focuses on Watanabe (Kenichi Matsuyama), a student who begins a relationship with beautiful but

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2011 Asian Packed Summer Tentpole Movies: Episode 1

Summer is almost here. We can feel the heat of the sun again. But this season is now more than beaches and barbecues. It's also when Hollywood studios releases some of their biggest motion pictures, star-studded and full of sequels, also ranging from good to not-so-good to downright embarrassing. Though not as extravagance as Hollywood blockbuster, Asian also have their tradition to release some of the most anticipated films in summertime. They can be nice choices for some moviegoers who might want a different taste of Summer movies, or just getting a bit bored with those Hollywood dishes. Saying that, what do we have in store for 2011? Here are our choices for Asian summer films that should be entertaining enough to be worthy of your time driving off the beach and heading to the theater.

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Review Mix: Adjustment Bureau, Forever, My Ex: Haunted Lover

Forever (Singapore)
Score: 7/10

Joey (Joanna Dong), a video consultant from W.E.D (wedding education department), dedicates herself to promoting romance and lasting marriages to young Singaporeans through her unique videos. Now she is about to fulfill her own dream with Gin (Mo Tzu Yi), a handsome music teacher whom she has been in a whirlwind romance with after casting him along side with her in a W.E.D video. When Joey announces her upcoming wedding to Gin, her colleagues at W.E.D. are surprised; none of them has ever met Gin in person or heard of him until the video. But they are happy, as Joey was the only unmarried staffer at W.E.D. While Joey’s star is rising at W.E.D, the path to her own wedding is elusive. Joey gets stood up by Gin on her birthday and finds him out and about with a beautiful girl, Cecilia (Sarah Ng Li-Wen). Crushed, Joey is desperate to find out what’s

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Café’s 2010 Best of Eastern Cinema

Before the clock struck midnight, and we all screamed "Happy New Year" and gave each other best wishes, we've finalized our list of the 20 best movies of year. But let me be perfectly clear first. The list that follows may not represent the best movies of 2010 in everyone’s mind, but they certainly were our favorite. And coming foremost below in no particular order are the 10 Best of Eastern Cinema. By the way, since tomorrow is Christmas so I want to Wish you all a special Merry Christmas day and above is our sweet Merlion whishing card. Enjoy.

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Contemporary Films That Were Born For Halloween

Every decade produces terrible horror movies and great horror movies and I think most universally recognized horror classics are from years ago. Such titles as “Halloween”, “Friday the 13th”, “Nightmare on Elm St”, “Carrie”, “The Exorcist”, and “Evil Dead”, are all antiques by today’s standards, but they were revolutionary at the time and heavily influenced modern horror. When it comes to the genre, the 2000s also have

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Phobia 2: When Fears Become Entertaining And Addictive

Like its first effort which is one of the best anthologies I’ve seen in a long time, “Phobia 2” also has these variety of short horror tales that each story was uniquely has its own beast and could have all worked as stand-alone shorts. But while there was no thread connecting them other than them all being horrors about karma, they flowed very naturally into one another. It’s like watching episodes of The Twilight Zone. There are lots of

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Two Times Of Phobia Bring An Addiction To Fear

Being clearly one of the better received films at Toronto After Dark Film Festival and also one of the biggest blockbusters in Asia last year, it’s no wonder if the produces of horror anthology “Phobia” (4bia) are eager to continuing the success with the next omnibus. As another effort from Thailand movie industry to flourish the horror anthologies in Asia, “4bia” had proven itself a consistently entertaining film with sufficiently original short shockers. In its favor, the film also

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Let’s Celebrate The Season of Love

We come to love not by finding a perfect person, but by learning to see an imperfect person perfectly.
- Sam Keen, from To Love and Be LovedFebruary is the month for love. With Valentine's Day just right around the corner make it’s so traditional to celebrate love this month. But for me Valentine is not just a day to show the love I have for my better half but to show my appreciation, affection and good feelings I carry for my friends, family and the special people around me. Although I do not need a special day to remind me of that, but having a specific day is a perfect opportunity to celebrate these feelings. The images of love we start to see everywhere are ones of diamonds, chocolates and flowers. These things are easy to associate with affection, aren't they? But somehow,

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Revisiting Asian Actions Charm With Ong Bak 2

Previously he was only a stuntman named Panom Yeerum who was working earnestly in the Thai film industry, looking for his big break, but nowadays Panom whose then westernize his moniker to Tony Jaa is probably one of the biggest names in Asian martial arts movie. “Ong Bak” is the film that launched his glamorous career, where he’d demonstrated the amazing Thai-boxing with all of the stunning moves and acrobatics, and there’s all performed very naturally, there are no wires, no CGI, just perfectly skilled performers executing

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Queens of Langkasuka Bombardiers The Box Office

It’s no surprise if the fantasy action epic “Queens of Langkasuka” topped the box office charts in Thailand last weekend. After so many times of rescheduling, finally the Nonzee Nimibutr's film is thrown to the market and achieving the strongest opening performance this year for a local pic. In production for three years and costing 140 million baht, Queens is Nonzee's most ambitious directorial effort to date. It had earlier

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Fear(s) Of Halloween Horror Episode 1

Like what I’ve said previously, October is the right time to talk more about horror movies and you know why. This time I’m gonna roundup and introduce some horrors that probably compatible with our watching mood this Halloween. These titles as listed below actually were foreign films which I’ve found some attraction on them; they are “Cold Prey 2” from Norway, Thailand’s “Coming Soon” and “Fear(s) of the Dark” of France. Maybe for the next episode of this post, I’ll be

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The Coffin And Phoonk: Notes From External Reviews

Have been following the hype of these Asian horror movies, “The Coffin” and “Phoonk”, but in fact, I haven’t got the chance to watch it both yet. Thai new supernatural story “The Coffin” by award-winning filmmaker Ekachai Uekrongtham (Beautiful Boxer, Pleasure Factory), and stars some of the most familiar

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Hazardous Road Trip In Bangkok Dangerous

“Bangkok Dangerous” is an action flick in Hitman genre which is a very good debut by the Pang brothers, who then gained their names bigger with their sophomore work on “The Eye”. With the film, the brothers are painted an explosive picture of the Bangkok underworld, illuminated with neon and saturated in violence, and going all the way with a very realistic action and as a result they had presented us every gunshot and pool of forming blood. Although, they also have all the conventions of the Hitman Genre down with a quite little variation, everything just seems as

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What Happen To The Delayed Queen

One of the most ambitious projects in Thai movie history, “Queen of Langkasuka” has proved as not only the biggest in budget and the longest in production of Thai film ever, but now also become the anxious one to determine it release date. When firstly the film is due for release on March 6th 2008, but then has postponed to August 12, now it has been re-postponed again to October 9, what really happen to the “Queen”? The director Nonzee has gives a statement about this issue and cited Thailand’s current unstable political scene as the reason of the re-scheduling. Nonzee thinks

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Thai Scary Ritual Out From The Coffin

What an interesting fact about Thailand’s horror flicks was it commonly based from a true event or from some real rituals that occur on that country. While “The Coffin” is not strictly a Thai film, but a co-production between Thailand's Live Inc. and NGR, Hong Kong's Global Entertainment Group and Singapore's Scorpio East Pictures, it's once again will introduces one true Thai ritual about lying in coffins to cheat death and get rid of bad luck. Wrapped in a spine-chilling supernatural thriller, “The Coffin” is a

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Queens of Langkasuka: Thai Answer For Pirates of Caribbean

I first bring on this film on December last year, that time “Queens of Langkasuka” has announced to release on March 6th 2008, but it seems that the schedule was pushed back again. This ambitious film from Nonzee Nimibutr and tipped to be the biggest budget production in Thai history anyway had have its premiere at the Cannes Film Market recently but due to opens in Thailand itself on August 12. With budget around 140-million-baht, the historical fantasy with lot of sea battle

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