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Posted: 19 Sep 2011 05:38 AM PDT

HONG KONG (Reuters): China's box office is expected to rise by nearly a third to hit 13 billion yuan ($2 billion) this year as consumers are more willing to buy tickets for the rising number of domestically made movies, the chief of film distributor Bona Film said.

Bona Film Group Ltd, a private film distributor in China that is Nasdaq-listed, has also invested in film production and also operates over 10 cinemas in China.

Bona, which competes with Shenzhen-listed Huayi Brothers, has distributed Chinese language blockbusters such as Overheard 2, A Simple Life whose actress Deanie Yip won the best actress award at the Venice film festival, and Red Cliff, starring Jet Li.

''China's movie industry will see sharp growth over the next so-called golden decade as we're producing many more movies now,'' Yu Dong, chairman and CEO of Bona Film, told Reuters in an interview.

''China is now the world's second-largest market in terms of the number of movies produced this year, which roughly matches the U.S., and just behind India.''

Bona, which now has about 10 percent market share in China's box office, plans to open around 5 more new cinemas by the end of the year, with the total number of movie theatres hitting around 40 over the next few years, Yu said.

Bona's shares have lost almost 30 percent since it was listed in New York last December, mainly due to worries over the U.S. economy and accounting irregularities at some U.S.-listed Chinese companies.

On Friday, Bona's shares ended 0.6 percent lower, underperforming the Dow's 0.66 percent rise.

New dimension to the spy genre

Posted: 19 Sep 2011 12:44 AM PDT

The British Military Intelligence agents are not what you'd presume them to be ... especially at the movies.

AS far as arriving in style for a world premiere goes, pulling up in front of crowds of cheering fans in an elegant one-of-a kind Rolls Royce Phantom while a boisterous marching band plays on is certainly hard to beat. Under bright sunshine and picture perfect blue skies, Brit comedy legend Rowan Atkinson made this show-stealing entrance when he turned up to walk the red carpet in Sydney recently for the world premiere of his latest film, Johnny English Reborn.

Joining him in the beautiful harbour city for the occasion were co-stars Rosamund Pike, The X-Files star Gillian Anderson and the film's director Oliver Parker. Not forgetting the beautiful blue Rolls – fitted out with a powerful 9 litre, V-16 engine and flown in especially for the occasion from Britain – which actually plays a pivotal role in the film.

An avid car enthusiast, Atkinson proclaimed the car's new engine "fantastically powerful".

"A monumental amount of torque really," he said. "At one point, it actually comes to the rescue of Johnny English in a pretty important way."

Speaking to regional journalists, Pike revealed that Sydney was chosen for the world premiere of the British film because of Atkinson's sizable Australian fanbase.

"I think the first one did very well out here, so I think we wanted to open somewhere where we'd be guaranteed a warm reception," she said, making a reference not only to the loudly enthusiastic crowd which had gathered at Sydney's Entertainment Quarter to cheer the stars on, but also the lovely spring weather that graced the event.

Born again

In the sequel to the 2002 spy-comedy Johnny English, Atkinson reprises his role as the inept secret service agent who is called in to stop a group of international assassins from taking down the Chinese premier.

The years since MI7's top spy disappeared off the grid found him honing his unique skills in a remote region of Asia. But when his agency superiors learn of an attempt against the Chinese premier's life, they are compelled to seek out the highly unorthodox agent.

With the world in peril, Johnny English is again called back into action. And with one last shot at redemption, English must employ the latest in hi-tech gadgets to unravel a web of conspiracy that runs throughout the KGB, CIA and even MI7.

Cue comedic high jinks and action-packed slapstick comedy as one doggedly determined but slightly clueless agent employs every trick in his arsenal to save the day. As the catchy tagline for the movie goes: "For Johnny English, disaster may be an option, but failure never is."

Waiting eight years to bring out a sequel obviously makes no commercial sense at all, so one has to wonder what compelled the filmmakers to contemplate having another go at bringing Johnny English to life on the big screen again.

After all, as Atkinson rightly reasoned during a roundtable interview at Sydney's plush Intercontinental Hotel a day after the premiere, if this were Austin Powers, there would have been three movies already, with a fourth in the works.

"We've been very slow and I can be quite lazy between projects. Also, what happened was that we got distracted because we thought we could make another Mr Bean movie (2007's Mr Bean's Holiday) and that took three years," he explained.

"The first script meeting for Johnny English Reborn we had in 2004 and we worked on it for 18 months, so we really came back to it only two-and-a-half years ago."

For the sequel, the character of Johnny English has been redesigned. While the character from the first movie was closer to Mr Bean, the latest sees him moving closer to its original prototype of Richard Latham, the role Atkinson originated for a series of popular British TV commercials for Barclaycard back in the early to mid-nineties.

"I always got a bit annoyed at the first film being described as Bean meets Bond," said Atkinson.

"My personal belief is that Johnny English is a slightly more sophisticated character than Mr Bean. He's obviously more verbal, more vocal and I think he's more likable. I never regarded Mr Bean as a likable character. He's fun to watch but I would never want to have dinner with him, whereas I'd be happy to dine with Johnny English."

Atkinson mused that while the character may be somewhat full of himself, he believes Johnny English to be one of the good guys.

"He's a man of integrity and he tries hard to succeed. He's a little bit smug and not quite as good as he thinks he is – that's the critical problem with Johnny English – but still, he'll give it a go, even if he's not qualified to."

Commercial considerations aside, Atkinson said he jumped on board for a sequel because he felt that there was a different and better film to be made using the character Johnny English.

"I was also keen to acknowledge that the actor (playing Johnny English) was getting older and that therefore by default, the character is getting older. I was keen to have some jokes in the movie about the fact that he is older than he was and this sort of spiritual lesson that with age comes wisdom, the idea that as you get older, you don't need to confront problems head on, you can just go around them," he said, laughing.

International appeal

Calling the shots behind the director's chair for Johnny English Reborn is Brit filmmaker Oliver Parker (2009's Dorian Gray) who came aboard the project with the idea to make it more of an international movie than the first.

"We've had Bond with Daniel Craig and we've had Jason Bourne and these guys have injected a new kind of energy and life (into the spy film genre) which gave us more meat to play with," said Parker. "One of the appeals of this project was to try and flesh out the character of Johnny English and make him distinct from Mr Bean. So what I enjoyed in the script and what we tried to do with the film was to give him more heroic potential, so that he's not a klutz," he added.

Filming began last year, taking in Hertford-shire, Hampshire, as well as exotic location shoots in Macau and Hong Kong. But the real coup of the production was managing to convince the authorities to allow the crew to close The Mall outside Buckingham Palace in order to shoot an audacious chase scene which sees Atkinson racing past the iconic London attraction in a motorised wheelchair.

"I think somebody up there really likes Rowan's work," quipped Parker.

Leading ladies

Modifed luxury cars and cool gadgets are all well and good, but it's not attractive unless there are attractive women present to spice up proceedings.

So, in keeping with well-worn motion picture tradition, Johnny English Reborn arrives with two stunning beauties in leading roles.

Playing Kate Sumner, MI7's gorgeous behavioural psychologist, is former Bond girl Rosamund Pike. While it's understandably difficult to make a love interest for Johnny English simply because clowns are not necessarily romantic, Pike's character comes with the veneer of believability essential to the plot.

"The fun thing about having Rosamund Pike in the movie is that she really is fascinated by eccentricities and weaknesses. So there was something very real for me in that she enjoyed that he was a field day, if you like, for psychoanalysts," smiled Parker.

The way Pike – looking every inch the quintessential radiant Bond girl in real life – tells it, the quality of the script was so good that it was easy to say "yes" to the role of love interest for an awkward character like Johhny English.

"I realised that it was a really good script, the idea of being something like a homage to a Bond film, but with added humour. I thought this was very cool because it's written and conceived by people who clearly love the Bond films. There are all these set pieces – the golf scene; the car chases, except it's with a wheel chair; the villains ...

"It's like copying but with this comic undercurrent, so I think it's brilliant. The plot is on an international scale and it's worthy of a Bond plot," she said.

Weighing in with another deadly serious government role, albeit in a much transformed MI7, is Gillian Anderson, instantly recognisable as Agent Scully from the ever popular TV series The X-Files.

Playing MI7 head "Pegasus" Pamela Head, complete with impeccable English accent, Anderson is in her element as the straight authority figure to Johnny English's madcap maverick.

"Was it hard to keep a straight face? Well, comedy is a serious business in itself and Rowan is a very technical actor so before we got into any of the comedy, the seriousness of it played very much into who my character was," she explained.

"Anyway, I'm used to it, especially in The X-Files where Scully always had to keep a straight face when all sorts was going on."

And having "worked" in the FBI and now MI7, how do they compare?

Anderson laughed and said: "Actually I worked in MI5 in something else that I did, but no, they are completely different. It's interesting to have an opportunity to do things that could potentially be similar but try and make them as different as possible. I find that challenge interesting."

And finally, the last word on Johnny English from the man resurrecting the movie for one more shot. After eight years, will the wait for a new instalment be worth it?

"I hope people enjoy it," smiled Atkinson. "I think it's a slightly better film, from an objective point of view, than the first one. I think it's got a better story and better characters. I think you are more interested in what happens next rather than waiting for the next jokes. I hope people kind of want to know how the story works out at the end."

Johnny English Reborn is now playing in cinemas nationwide.

Deanie triumphs

Posted: 19 Sep 2011 12:43 AM PDT

ANDY Lau's birthday wish came true when his co-star Deanie Ip took the Best Actress prize at the Venice film festival last month.

"Hong Kong films have again triumphed overseas. The wish I made when I received my first birthday cake this year has come true," said the Hong Kong actor. He turns 50 on Sept 27.

Lau had left for home on Sept 10 when Ip's win, for her role as a maid in the Ann Hui-directed A Simple Life, was announced. In the movie, based on producer Roger Lee's real-life story, Ip plays a Ma Jie or amah who serves her employer's family for 60 years before retiring to a nursing home, while Lau plays her master who cares for her.

A jubilant Hui, 64, said: "I had thought that if the film wins in Venice, I could retire. But, with the win, I now will have many films to make. So I'm happy yet conflicted."

In 1992, Gong Li was the first Chinese to win Best Actress at the same event for The Story Of Qiu Ju.

Ip, 63, received four Best Supporting Actress titles at the Hong Kong Film Awards and Golden Horse Awards in the 1980s and 1990s. She and Lau, her godson, starred in movies together before she stopped acting in 2000. It was Lau who invested in A Simple Life and invited her to star in it.

"I will put the trophy in Andy's office," said Ip, before arriving home last Monday, where she was greeted by hordes of reporters at Hong Kong airport. She said she had hoped the movie would win as Lau "had the heart and courage to invest in an art film. He should be encouraged". But she told reporters she would not let success go to her head. "I must distance myself from it. One can't be smug." – The Singapore Times/Asia News Network

Kredit: www.thestar.com.my

Isnin, 19 September 2011

The Star Online: Entertainment: Movies

The Star Online: Entertainment: Movies

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