The Cantopop duo the Twins, Charlene Choi and Gillian Chung, are drowning in a new mass of rumors they are splitting up. Charlene is denying those rumors:
Recently, there have been rampant rumors concerning the disbanding of Twins when it was revealed that Gillian Chung had departed for Hollywood.
Charlene Choi appeared at an event yesterday at the Shatin Horsetrack with Jackie Chan, Joey Yung, Nicholas Tse, Yumiko Cheng, Raymond Lam among others, and responded to the rumors.
Once again, Charlene Choi strongly denied the disbanding rumors and firmly stated that Twins will collaborate again in the future, “From the second day that Twins was established, there have already been rumors of us splitting, I am already used to them.”
Charlene Choi revealed that she found out about the recent disbanding rumors from the newspapers. She emotionally said, “Gillian Chung and Ah Sa used 7 years of time to establish Twins.
It was created with little sleep, no rest, and hard work. At this time, we are thinking the same thing, it is not the best time to appear together. As a result, we are each independently learning and gaining experience.
There will be a day when we will appear together again. While that day is not today or tomorrow, at this time, we are silently accepting jobs, because every job is an opportunity. I do not wish to hear about the disbanding rumors again.”
So they ain’t splitting up, but they aren’t being together anytime soon. Hmmmm……
These rumors have been popping up constantly since the Edison Chen Sex Photo Scandal (aka SexyPhotosGate) and will probably continue until either they make and official announcement, or Charlene joins in the sex tape fun and the Twins are united in shame. Guess which one I support?
2008 Directed by Rob Minkoff
Some people are upset over the fact the first time Jackie Chan and Jet Li meet on screen has to be a Western film with a white kid as the main character. I will admit that at first I was skeptical, especially with Michael Angarano’s more than passing resemblance to Shia LaBeouf and how much I hated Transformers. From the surface, this film looks like another example of weak Asian men needing a White Man’s giant magic rod to save the day and show the Asian woman love. The film doesn’t follow that convention, and even ends up not being a terrible film. It’s not a great film, but it could have been much, much worse. Instead, it’s a love letter to old-school kung fu films, even if it isn’t expertly executed. References to older films permeate the movie and help speak to the fans in the audience while giving newer martial arts watchers nuggets to go seek out for themselves. Jason doesn’t become a kung fu master overnight, he gets regularly beat up even though he’s training.
Jackie Chan and Jet Li have both been around for a long time, time in which any number of Chinese film companies could have made a movie with both of them. Heck, Jackie Chan even has his own production company, and still nothing with Jet Li! Maybe the whining should be redirected towards those that did nothing instead of directed at those that finally did got around to it but failed to make whatever dream movie you wanted.
Kaiju independent film Deep Sea Monster Reigo is seeing the light of day after three years of news. First announced around 2005, there will finally be releases later this year! In theaters at first, but I would suspect it will show up on DVD soon after that. The brainchild of director/writer/producer Hayashiya Shinpei, who has several other kaiju offerings to his credits, as listed below. Quoted information is taken from the official Reigo website.
The original idea, planning, scene writing and direction are done by Hayashiya Shinpei, who has received rave reviews from special effects fans at home and abroad for his work on “Godzilla x Desugirasu” and “Gamera 4”
Gamera 4: Truth (Gamera 4: Shinjitsu) is a 45 minute fan film. Here is a well-written description of one of the sporadic screenings. Gamera 4 features a white Gyaos! I had not even heard of Godzilla x Desugirasu, but as Hayashiya is supposed to have a Godzilla fan film as well this must be it. It may also be titled Godzilla VS Seadora for us Americans. Searching for images from this film proved fruitless, but I did stumble across a bizarre Japanese website that may have something else even weirder on it, more on that in another update. If you have Godzilla vs. Seadora (Desugirasu) info, please let me know. As the director is from a fan film background, I am not expecting the best acting in the world, but he should at least know how to make something fun and well paced. That alone can forgive even the worst acting (unless they are annoying Kenny children, which hopefully aren’t on a WW2 battleship.)
The character design of Monster REIGO:
Reigo was designed by Amemiya Keita, who is known as the director of SF film “Zeiramu” and as the designer of characters for a number of special-effects films.
Based on his design, the character was made by Haraguchi Tomoo, well-known for the Heisei “Gamera” series.
Reigo looks like Godzilla humped a seal! Okay, it moves more dangerously in the trailer than this marionette, but still! Godzilla with fins…
The cast:
The leading role, Kaido Takeshi, is played by Sugiura Taiyo, who opened up a new phase in his career by playing in “Ultraman Cosmos.”
The heroin, Kojima Chie, is played by Nanami Mai, who also play the heroine of “Haru-urara”. This fresh couple gives an excellent performance as childhood friends who are attracted to each other but are separated under the wartime conditions.
Hotaru Yukijiro, who played the part of detective Osako in the Heisei “Gamera” series, appears in this film as Divisional Officer Osako, as well as Kurobe Susumu, who played the role of Hayata in the first Ultraman. You will notice Director Hayashiya’s homage to special-effects films expressed in various ways in this film.
The story:
In the midst of World War II, the battleship Yamato – the pride of the Japanese navy – along with the other ships of the Combined Fleet are lurking in the South Sea in the waters of the Truk Islands.
Ensign Kaido Takeshi, (Sugiura Taiyo) is one of the officers serving on the Yamato on the front lines of the naval war, while his childhood sweetheart, Chie, (Nanami Mai) awaits his return back in their hometown. They were lovers, but Kaido, uncertain of the future, went off to serve his country without publicly declaring his love for Chie. Yet, he still carries her photo in his jacket pocket, always.
One day, the Combined Fleet spots what is believed to be an enemy submarine and commences firing. The attack is a success, however what sinks to the sea bottom is not a submarine at all but a massive mysterious creature that will later bring disaster upon the fleet. That creature turns out to be the offspring of REIGO, a legendary deep-sea monster whose story has been passed down for generations in this part of the world
Seething with rage at the murder of its cub, the 80-meter long REIGO suddenly appears and lashes out at the battleship and escort vessels with awesome destructive power. Even though they have been caught off guard with the battleship and escort vessels heavily damaged, they regroup and work out a plan of attack, but….
Thoughts of family and lovers back home…fear at being confronted by an unknown enemy… conflict and confrontation among the officers and crew over attack strategies. Now the stage is set for the fierce battle that is about to unfold between the world’s biggest battleship, the Yamato with all its onboard human dramas, and the mysterious dragon-like REIGO that moves through the seas at will.
Someone is a little bit too much in love with the Yamato…
More news about microbudget film Serpent Lake from director/writer Joel Trujillo Undead Backbrain has the new trailer for Serpent Lake, and has been keeping up on the news. The official site is also updated:
Every 30 years, in the summer there is a mysterious unidentified creature claimed to inhabit Astaire’s freshwater lake in Minnesota.
Along with Loch Ness monster Nessie and Lake Champlain’s Champ, this monster is one of the best-known mysteries of crypto zoology. Most scientists and other experts find current evidence supporting the creature’s existence unpersuasive and regard the occasional sightings as hoaxes or misidentification of known creatures or natural phenomena. Minnesotans believe in this legend, even though their theories may vary. The creature thought to be a plesiosaur being the most popular of these theories. But unlike Loch Ness or Lake Champlain, there is no canal linking Serpent Lake to the sea raising the question,” Where does this creature come from? And during this time some people in or around the lake come up missing.
In what seems like a miracle, the full version of Metropolis has been found sitting in a storage area in Argentina, where it has been since 1927. The versions of Metropolis you normally see are piecemealed together from various sources, but is still missing much footage. This version seems to have everything, but is only a 16mm print (as opposed to 32mm) so the quality isn’t superb. That, and it has been sitting around for 80 years, so it’s all scratched up. But here is a still from the new footage:
Published: 2 Jul 08 14:51 CET
Online: http://www.thelocal.de/12847/
Lost scenes from German-Austrian director Fritz Lang’s legendary silent film “Metropolis” have been discovered in Argentina, German weekly newspaper Die Zeit reported on Wednesday.
Paula Félix-Didier, head of film museum Museo del Cine in Buenos Aires, discovered an uncut version of the 1927 science fiction film when she looked into reports that a tape in the archive was unusually long. She travelled to Berlin with a copy of the film and met with experts who say they are certain it is the missing original-length version of Lang’s masterpiece that reveals key plot scenes and an expansion of minor roles, Die Zeit said ahead of the publication of its Thursday edition.
Hopefully we can get a full restoration of this masterpiece soon!
