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Zhong Kui Snow Girl Dark Crystal Li BingBing

Li Bingbing is a snow demon in Zhong Kui: Snow Girl and the Dark Crystal

Zhong Kui Snow Girl Dark Crystal Li BingBing

Production has becon on Zhong Kui: Snow Girl and the Dark Crystal (鍾馗伏魔 雪妖魔靈), a new 3D fantasy film from China starring Chen Kun (陳坤) and Li Bingbing (李冰冰). Zhong Kui will be directed by Zhao Tianyu (趙天宇), who is mainly known for the 2011 romance film The Law of Attraction.

Zhong Kui follows the story of Zhong Kui, a ghost whose job it is to keep other ghosts in line. So basically RIPD. Li Bingbing will play a snow demon, and expect appearances from Winston Chao, Bao Bei-Er, and Summer Jike Juanyi. There is no promotional shots yet as it is still filming, with a release date set for 2015’s Chinese New Year on February 19th.

I’ve had my reservations about some of the big budget Chinese films, as they’re track record is worse than America’s big budget films, but some productions look neat, and Li Bingbing is always amazing in whatever she does. So at worst this will be sort of entertaining, and at best this is either going to be awesome or going to be so campy it becomes awesome by reverse opposite reaction, or something. It’s a Newton Law, it can’t be avoided.

via FilmBizAsia
photo via

Lupin III Live Action

Live-action Lupin III looks amazing!

Lupin III ルパン三世 Live Action
Lupin III Live Action

For those of you who aren’t familiar with Lupin III (ルパン三世), it’s a long-running manga series written and drawn by Monkey Punch (a pen name) about master thief Arsène Lupin III, who is the grandson of Maurice Leblanc’s gentleman thief Arsène Lupin (and Monkey Punch didn’t get permission to use Arsène Lupin, which lead to rights problems outside of Japan until Arsène Lupin entered public domain in France.) The series has run since 1967, and has spawned numerous anime series, films, OVAs, live-acton television shows, and a 1974 live-action film entitled Lupin III Strange Psychokinetic Strategy (ルパン三世 念力珍作戦). And the big news is the new live-action film directed by Ryuhei Kitamura (of Godzilla: Final Wars fame) that comes out August 30th.

The live-action film will star Shun Oguri as Lupin III, Meisa Kuroki as Fujiko Mine, Tetsuji Tamayama as Daisuke Jigen, Go Ayano as Goemon Ishikawa XIII, and Tadanobu Asano as Inspector Koichi Zenigata. And thanks to some recently release publicity images, you can see they are going for a style that’s similar to the classic character styles and looks fantastic. Hopefully the film will live up to the art and be a great ride!

Shun Oguri trained for 10 months to do the action sequences as Lupin III, and the filming locations are across Asia, with some local stars thrown in for box office juice. I’ve never watched any of the anime or read the manga, but this looks and sounds cool enough from the promotional material that it’s on my “must watch” list, especially since Ryuhei Kitamura is directing and Tadanobu Asano is in it!

via itMedia and AsianWiki

Zombie Tigers

Killer Lampreys, Zombie Cats – Is Animal Planet the future home of SyFy Creature Features?

Lamprey

Animal Planet has deviated from animals in recent years with lame tv shows like Finding Bigfoot (spoiler: they don’t) or ridiculous specials on Mermaids, which had two whole specials about how mermaids just may be real and also Animal Planet has been huffing too much glue. But enough on how stupid the Mermaids: The Body Found and Mermaids: The New Evidence are, and how the US government had to put out a press release saying mermaids aren’t real (This actually happened!), because now Animal Planet is airing original movies.

Most notably, they are airing Asylum’s Blood Lake: Attack of the Killer Lampreys on Memorial Day, May 25th. Blood Lake: Attack of the Killer Lampreys stars Shannon Doherty, Christopher Lloyd, and Jason Brooks as lampreys attack a Michigan town like lampreys are known to do.

Brooks and Doherty are Mike and Cat, who have moved to the new town so Mike can help Mayor Akerman (Lloyd) deal with the lampreys. Animal Planet series River Monsters star Jeremy Wade also appears, odds are he’s gonna get chomped to show how serious the situation is.

And that’s not all, there is something called Man-Eating Zombie Cats also airing on Animal Planet –

An incurable zombie-like pathogen is spreading fast, turning big cats around the world into fearless man killers. These mindless predators have a sensational thirst for blood and the human population is now their biggest target.

Basically, it’s The Corpse Grinders, except with tigers. I can’t find any other information about this…film?

And let’s not forget Nature’s Most Wanted, which will be a series where people look for man-eating crocodiles and alligators and things. I’m sure it will be a serious discussion about man’s encroachment upon nature and the lack of sufficient natural space for apex predators, and not a ridiculous farce.

All of the prior films are part of Monster Week, but…

That’s still not all, because Animal Planet has ordered another film called Revenge of the Whale, based on the tale that inspired Moby Dick and starring Martin Sheen!

Sheen will portray Thomas Nickerson, who tells a story about his life as a cabin boy on the ill-fated voyage of the whaling ship The Essex. The movie is a co-production with the BBC and reimagines what happened when the most hunted sea creature finally turned on its killers and fought back.

All of this I prefer to Animal Planet’s current programming, including a fake and animal mistreating show called Call of the Wildman that deserves to get a bunch of fuckos arrested for animal abuse.

So. Yeah. Animal Planet. Your new home for monster movies. After all, SyFy hasn’t aired a film all year (Bermuda Tentacles on April 12th will be their first all year!), so the diaspora must go somewhere. And with Animal Planet’s increasingly stupid programming, it is the perfect fit for killer zombie tigers.

Zombie Tigers

I would watch this film!


Zombie Tigers via PlasticAndPlush

Lamprey image via Wikimedia commons

Asian Schoolgirls Asylum

Asylum’s Asian Schoolgirls gets a poster!

Asian Schoolgirls Asylum

We mentioned it when casting first popped up, but Asian School Girls is now far enough along Asylum is releasing media for it. Thus this huge poster! Maybe Asylum will get around to releasing a trailer, what with this coming out in less than two weeks. But who wants to have hype so their film does better, right?

Asian high schoolers Hannah (Sam Aotaki), Vivian (Minnie Scarlet), and May (Catherine Hyein Kim) are kidnapped by a sex slavery ring, but the girls eventually turn the tables on their kidnappers and get revenge. Minnie Scarlet put up some behind the scenes pictures at the not safe for work (NSFW) RebelMayhem – http://rebelmayhem.com/asian-school-girls-behind-the-scenes-of-my-first-movie/

But beyond that, there isn’t much info out there still! Crazy. Asian School Girls drops April 15th!

Minnie Scarlet not safe for work social media:
Twitter (NSFW) – https://twitter.com/MinnieScarlet
Tumblr (NSFW) – http://minniescarlet.tumblr.com
RebelMayhem (NSFW) – http://rebelmayhem.com/author/minnie-scarlet/

Sam Aotaki social media:
Twitter
Tumblr
Instagram
Facebook

Catherine Hyein Kim social media:
Twitter
Instagram

via Asylum

Jesus Dinosaur

Jesus comes to Lifetime in The One

Jesus Dinosaur

Coming soon to Lifetime!


Jesus isn’t just for The History Channel and movie theaters any more, now he’s coming to Lifetime, television for women, because….

uh….

Because ratings!

Darn, I was hoping Jesus would be a woman. Because that would be awesome! Or maybe Jesus is killing all his wives, like every other man on Lifetime. I’m on to you, Jesus! Just as long as you don’t meet Jesus on the internet, you should be safe. For now!

Called The One, this new feature will be from the producers of History Channel’s Hatfields & McCoys miniseries and Gene Simmons: Family Jewels, Leslie Grief. The One will document Jesus’s early life, between ages 13 and 30. If you know about Jesus, you know there isn’t much written about that time in his life. So how much is made up and how much is drawn from apocryphal sources will remain to be seen. The One is written by Frank DeJohn and David Alton Hedges, and claims to “stay true to the spirit of Jesus’ image as chronicled in The Bible.” Whatever that means.

But kudos to Leslie Grief for trying to make a prequel to the story of Jesus. Will Jesus be played by a white guy? Probably. Will I make Matrix jokes when I review The One? Probably. Will I make Jet Li jokes when I review The One? Probably.

via Deadline
image via tumblr

A day late and a dollar short lifetime tv

A Day Late and a Dollar Short pays its dues on Lifetime!

A day late and a dollar short lifetime tv

The network that watches you back!


Lifetime’s latest original movie is A Day Late and a Dollar Short, and it’s yet another cool-looking black cast family dramedy. Whoopie Goldberg and a bad wig star as Viola Price, the Price family matriarch who will probably be dead by her next asthma attack, leading her to try to fix all her family’s problems as soon as possible. Note that all solutions involve listening to what Viola says to do! And don’t worry, her family has a lot of problems. Luckily, they’re all played by awesome actors, so it will be an entertaining time. The only bad thing is the Tyler Perry movie they chose to make this a double feature with. So instead watch the Gabby Douglass movie that airs before, then watch A Day Late and a Dollar Short at 8 (7 central), then quickly change the channel before Madea’s Family Reunion airs. Or watch Madea’s Family Reunion if that’s what you are in to. It doesn’t bug me, really.

A Day Late and a Dollar Short stars Whoopi Goldberg, Ving Rhames, Anika Noni Rose, Tichina Arnold, Kimberly Elise, and Mekhi Phifer. It premieres April 19th at 8 pm Eastern/Pacific.

In “A Day Late and a Dollar Short,” when irascible matriarch Viola Price learns that her next asthma attack will likely kill her, she is determined to fix her fractured family before she leaves this world, from her relationship with her husband to the lives of her four children and grandchildren. While on this quest, she must contend with sibling rivalry, teen pregnancy and drug addiction – and that is only one child. Additionally, her jailbird son needs to learn how to be a better father, her granddaughter is in bigger trouble than her daughter is willing to admit and Viola’s estranged husband needs saving from his scheming younger girlfriend. It’s the kind of meddling that the Price family hasn’t experienced from Viola in decades, and she won’t have an easy time bending her loved ones to her will.

via Lifetime