Remember this truth: There's always statues being handed out somewhere. The Hong Kong Film Awards were held this weekend past. Swiftly Writing has commentary on the various wins and losses. It seems that the superstar-studded war epic The Warlords with Best Actor winner Jet Li and House of Flying Daggers' reunited co-stars Takeshi Kaneshiro and Andy Lau won big. Really big. Lau is pictured to your left winning Best Supporting Actor (albeit for a separate film). You'll remember he played the Matt Damon role in the before-it-was-remade version of The Departed back when it was called Infernal Affairs. It's worth seeing (IA I mean -- compare and contrast, compare and contrast). You can read reviews of The Warlords at Gone Elsewhere or Love HK Film if you're interested. Apparently it's not getting a US release after all. The DVD is out.Here's a video report of Hong Kong's big movie night. Red carpet dresses and all. You'll spot a few familiar faces.
Posts
3 comments:
Thanks for posting this, Nathaniel. This is the first time I've seen that video, and now I feel like I was there!
That WARLORDS DVD on Amazon is a bootleg, burned off of the Hong Kong DVD (which you can find in Cinatown). If I recall correctly, the Weinsteins have THE WARLORDS and are just sitting on it; meanwhile the bootlegers run rampant and no one stops them. It's a real problem for Asian film here in the U.S., but that's a rant for another time.
undertsand that you can't always have your first choice as a filmmaker but some of the problem does rest with them.
why, after all these years are ANY asian films making deals with the Weinsteins? Sony Pictures Classics actually releases their foreign films.
there are other companies.
To be fair (and I hate to be fair when it comes to the Weinsteins), TWC has gotten a lot better with their Asian output recently. While they still pick up films mainly for the DVD market, they're doing small theatrical releases on some films (FLASH POINT played for a week last month in some cities) and are getting titles out quicker, just a few months after their Asian releases. They've also stopped cutting the films for the most part, so as long as they keep this up they could get back into the good graces of many an Asian film fan. I think the reason they're waiting on WARLORDS is because of FORBIDDEN KINGDOM (which they co-produced), but don't quote me on that.
As to why TWC gets these films, it's simply due to good relationships with the sales companies that handle these films. They pay good money and that's all that matters to them, especially considering the sad box office for Asian films over here (CJ7, a huge hit in Asia, made about $150,000 here). What happens to the films once they're in the Weinstein's hands is none of their concern. Sad, but true.
Post a Comment