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Posted: 27 Oct 2011 05:26 AM PDT

A kung fu take on the tale of a female revolutionary is director Herman Yau's way of attracting the audience.

HONG Kong director Herman Yau is nothing if not commercially oriented. He knew his new movie, historical biopic The Woman Knight Of Mirror Lake, needed something extra to bring in the audience.

The film is about a historical figure whom many people probably have not heard of.

Qiu Jin, who is played by Chinese actress Huang Yi, was one of the most prominent female revolutionists in the fight to bring down the corrupt Qing empire, which fell in 1912.

The movie's appeal is also limited by the fact that the only big names in the cast – Hong Kong actors Anthony Wong and Kevin Cheng – have small supporting roles.

Yau's brainwave: turn it into something closer to his 2010 movie, The Legend Is Born - Ip Man, a prequel to the popular movies about the grandmaster of the Wing Chun style of martial arts.

"I needed to repackage the film in some way, and I thought that kung fu would be a good way to do that.

"Hopefully, people who watch the film will enjoy the kung fu scenes but, at the same time, be interested enough about Qiu that they will then go and look up books or information about her after the movie," he says in a telephone interview.

He also tweaked certain historical details in the story to better fit his overall vision for the movie. For example, he made the character of Qiu's loyal servant Fu Sheng mute, despite no historical records stating this.

He says: "I did that because I wanted to inject some symbolism into the story. Qiu was a remarkable champion of women's rights at a time when most women were silent about being treated as inferior to men.

"Fu Sheng thus symbolises the type of silence suffered by all the women around Qiu."

Some of Qiu's descendants have not taken well to Yau's revisions. One almost slammed the door in the filmmaker's face.

Yau says: "I tried to contact as many of Qiu's family members as possible because I really wanted them to watch the film and tell me what they thought.

"But one of them, a descendant of Qiu's brother, refused to watch my film even though I took a copy of it to his house in China. He didn't think any non-related people had the right to tell Qiu's story, I think."

The response from the members of Qiu's family who did watch the movie has been generally positive, according to Yau.

He says: "Some of them were crying non-stop when they watched the movie. They appreciated the fact that I was getting Qiu's story out."

Qiu, who was also a poet, was executed after a failed uprising. She is considered a heroine in China today.

Yau says: "I am a big fan of Qiu. So to me, as long as I represent her fairly and get her message across to people, I think it's fine."

n The Woman Knight Of Mirror Lake opens in Malaysian cinemas today.

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From Tumpat to Toronto

Posted: 26 Oct 2011 10:37 PM PDT

From his boyhood adventures in cinema, Dain Said is today recognised internationally as the director of the critically-acclaimed Bunohan.

GROWING up in small town Tumpat, Kelantan, in the 1970s, filmmaker Dain Said, as a boy, eagerly awaited the travelling cinema that came to town every now and again. The two guys who brought the magic lantern and big screen to town would give out "sekla" (circulars, or leaflets) from their lorry, announcing the night's offering, often also blaring through loudspeakers urging the residents to come and see the film.

Sitting in his home in Kuala Lumpur now, Dain laughs when reminiscing about the old days and recalling the fun times he had back then being introduced to the magic of cinema.

"They didn't have current films," says Dain. "They showed old films, because it was cheaper. This was sometime around the 70s. I saw Ben-Hur, which was made in the 20s. I was like, wow! That was my first memory of cinema."

From the days of watching classic epics from halfway across the world, he is today presenting his own film to audiences halfway across the globe. Dain and his producer Nandita Solomon have just returned from the Toronto International Film Festival (TIFF), where his action-drama Bunohan was screened to the public and also industry players.

Dain and Nandita went there as a little-known team of director and producer, along with their Los Angeles-based co-producer Tim Kwok. Then something quite extraordinary happened. The response from the first two screenings of the film had been good, but what was better was when Variety reviewer John Anderson was in the audience.

Tracing the archetypal violent story of fathers and sons to The Godfather, Vietnamese director Tran Anh Hung's films, and even Biblical and Shakespearean origins, Anderson goes on to say in his review that Bunohan is "... a fight film with echoes of King Lear, and a ghost story about living people who occupy the edge of existence."

Anderson went on to praise the film's pace and momentum, even describing actor Faizal Hussein as "the Jack Palance of Malaysia".

That amazing review started getting the little film from Malaysia noticed by industry folks, critics and the general public, and Dain being recognised on the streets.

"There were instances where people stopped us on the streets," says Dain. "A couple of kids walked past us and kept staring at us. We looked back, and they looked back, and they kind of went, 'You're the director of that film, Bunohan, right?' I said, 'Yeah.' And they said they loved the film. That was kind of nice."

Right after TIFF, Bunohan went on to screen at the Fantastic Film fest in Austin, Texas, where it garnered a full house (probably due to the Variety review and positive word from other publications and websites). There was reportedly a queue at the box-office of people wanting to see if there were extra tickets.

Not bad for a local film set in a borderland that has tomoi fight action, wayang kulit, a dead Ho Yuhang, and a woman who turns into a crocodile. Although some things were cultural-specific, says Dain, foreign audiences still managed to digest the drama and action, the relationship between the father and his sons, and the backdrop of folklore. Surely, the story about strained familial ties and estrangement, and the poignancy when tradition is washed away by the currents and tides of time and modernity, should have a universal resonance.

"They understood the story," says Dain. "There were certain cultural nuances that they might not have gotten, but they translated it through their own cultural experiences. One blogger wrote about Ilham living on a boat, and he referred it to his own American cultural experience, which was Miami Vice where Don Johnson's character lives on a yacht!"

Dain admits they had a slow start, but after the second screening of the film and the Variety review, things started to roll a little easier.

"We had a reception, and we could only have a small one (for industry and media people)," explains Dain. "What was really nice was that the people we wanted to meet did come, and they stayed till the end. They didn't have to because there were 15 parties going on all over town. But they did and it was great."

And then there was the unexpected local element that added to the TIFF experience, and brought some cheer for Dain during the Aidilfitri season. A family from Ipoh that ran a restaurant in Toronto cooked dinner for Dain and gang and also laid out the food for the reception.

"They said, 'It was Raya recently, so let us make some rendang for you!'" says Dain. "They were very, very proud that a Malaysian film was there. Their sons are also really into films and had done film studies and worked on small productions. The food also helped to bring people to our reception and got them to stay!"

I ask Dain if the endorsement from Variety provided some kind of vindication after the times of uncertainty he and his team have had to face, and gave them even more confidence to forge ahead.

"For me it's not so much that," Dain replies. "I'm sure other filmmakers also face this. I've worked on this for a long time, I don't actually know what it means. When that kind of accolade comes, it's very ... strange. I don't know what to make of it.

"But of course, one is happy. Emotionally I've been living with (the film) for so long, I don't know how to judge it anymore."

Snakes and leeches

For a while, it seemed one couldn't escape news about Bunohan. Almost every week, someone was either reviewing the film or interviewing Dain. And thanks to one online interview, everyone became intrigued by "heat-seeking vipers". It probably made a lot of people want to visit the village in Kelantan where the movie was filmed, to see if there were indeed such snakes.

There are, Dain confirms. The vipers and giant leeches were some of the biggest concerns of filming in the bog on the east coast, and during the monsoon too. He relates how a documentary-maker friend of his once encountered one of these vipers on a night shoot. The snake, sensing heat from the guy's helmet-lamp, shot for his head, but thankfully only grazed him.

Scary stuff, but such things only confer upon Dain the title of "maverick director", going fearlessly into the unknown to capture the real thing, much like one of his filmmaking heroes, Werner Herzog, who's known to venture into the remotest places on earth to shoot a film.

And like Herzog, Dain's not stupid. No one goes into these things unprepared. His team had contingency plans in case of emergencies, the nearest hospital and clinics were noted, and even locals familiar with the waterlogged area were hired to keep everyone safe.

Few directors today would bother getting their hands dirty, so to speak, to get that perfect shot or lend their films more authenticity and immediacy. Most things can be done with CGI in post-production nowadays. But for Dain, that perfect sky, perfect light or beautiful landscape meant sparing no effort, sometimes getting into the water among the lalang himself.

"This is part and parcel of how I work, I guess," says Dain. "Sometimes I get lost in it. Sometimes time is of the essence. For one scene I was in the water because Azura (supermodel Tengku Azura who plays a mysterious woman who appears time and again in fever-dream sequences) was supposed to come out of the water. Time was really running, and I didn't want to lose those clouds.

"It was towards the end of the day already, and I didn't want to lose the light. I also wanted her to come out of the water in a particular way. It was difficult to explain, so it was better to get in there and show her how I wanted it."

Meeting Godard

Dain seems to believe in the old aesthetics, the classic way films were made, from when directors immersed themselves in certain locales (think John Ford and Monument Valley) or fleshed out the imaginary with the real (think Terrence Malick and nature).

It's easy to see why once you're familiar with his background. After Kuala Lumppur, as a boy he lived in Egypt (his father was a diplomat) and spent his time watching spaghetti westerns. But it was in London during his teens that his real adventure in cinema began, stealing out of Latin classes to sneak into a nearby repertory cinema to feast his eyes on European films.

"I skipped Latin classes because I thought 'Who wants to learn a dead language?'" says Dain. "So I ponteng lah. They were double lessons in the afternoon and you tended to fall asleep. So I thought, I can't do this! And it was so easy to get into the cinema because those back doors were loose."

The rep cinema played five to six different films a day, and one day, Dain came face-to-face with a Jean-Luc Godard film. But no, it wasn't the film that inspired him to become a filmmaker.

"It was the Godard that got me really, really pissed off! I didn't understand it!" he says. "And in those days in London, there were loads and loads of secondhand bookshops. There was always a huge film section. I would spend my lunch hours there. Each book was about 20 pence, which was really cheap, like 20 sen. So I started reading up on cinema."

It wasn't all just European cinema though. It was also the time of the then-new generation of filmmakers out of Hollywood, film school graduates ready to break old rules and make their own. Directors such as Martin Scorsese and Francis Ford Coppola were making films that had a literary quality to them yet was entertaining enough for the masses. Coppola's Apocalypse Now!, in fact, drew inspiration directly from Joseph Conrad.

Dain himself started his love affair with literature after seeing Kafka's The Castle televised on British TV. And he was only 12 at the time. His mother was a schoolteacher, so reading was cultivated at home. Literature and the love of 60s and 70s cinema in his formative years helped to shape his vision and his desire for films that have both entertainment value and substance.

He graduated in photography, film and video in 1990 from Harrow College, Polytechnic Of Central London (now Westminster University).

"For me, film was at its height in the 60s and 70s, with the new breed of filmmakers," says Dain. "The French, Italians and Germans were coming up with different things, and so was Hollywood, with (Bob) Rafelson and gang, and then Scorsese and (Paul) Schrader, and Coppola. It was a very, very exciting time for cinema because it was all so new. There was no precedent for anything and all the rules were being thrown out the window. But (the filmmakers) were very articulate, they weren't doing things haphazardly."

Made for Malaysians

Dain is currently travelling between here and Indonesia, working on a documentary. He's heard good things from our neighbours.

"The Indonesians say the film scene in Malaysia is very, very healthy at this moment," he reveals. "Malaysia is doing very well. There is diversity – there are the die-hard Hollywood wannabes and the more independent filmmakers producing things on their own, and our films touch on very diverse subject matters."

The word most often heard when Bunohan is mentioned, is "game-changer". Malaysian cinema may be robust and diverse at the moment, but we're still waiting for that one film, the game-changer, the one that will successfully bridge the gap between entertainment and artistic integrity, please both critics and the general masses.

Dain seems to identify most with Jean-Pierre Melville, Malick and Herzog, "outsiders" who don't fit easily into any category. Melville, who helped Alain Delon to become a star, influenced directors such as Johnnie To and John Woo. Malick has Hollywood A-list actors busting down his door for a role. Herzog, who had to steal a camera to make his first film, continues to work comfortably in various kinds of cinema. Game-changers they are, bridging art and entertainment.

Come March 8, Malaysians will get to see what the fuss has been about overseas over a little film called Bunohan. The film has been passed without cuts by the censorship board. Meanwhile, it is also going to Taiwan's Golden Horse Film Festival next month, in the Going South category.

"I made the film for Malaysians to watch and enjoy," says Dain. "We still need to make sure that we do well in our own country. The box-office is my producer's worry, but for me, I want audiences back home to see the film."

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Bruce Willis, Emma Heming expecting baby

Posted: 26 Oct 2011 10:16 PM PDT

LONDON, (Reuters): Hollywood star Bruce Willis and his wife, designer and model Emma Heming, are expecting their first child together, Willis' spokeswoman said on Wednesday.

"The couple ... are overjoyed with this news and they look forward to welcoming this newest addition into their family," the "Die Hard" star's representative said in a statement confirming Heming's pregnancy.

The baby, the couple's first child together, is due early in 2012.

Willis, 56, married Heming, 35, in 2009. He has three daughters with his ex-wife, actress Demi Moore, the youngest of whom is 17 years-old.

Willis shot to fame in the 1980s on the hit television series "Moonlighting," and went on to become a top box office star in such films as "Pulp Fiction," "The Sixth Sense" and "Armageddon," in addition to the "Die Hard" series.

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Kredit: www.thestar.com.my

Khamis, 27 Oktober 2011

The Star Online: Entertainment: Movies

The Star Online: Entertainment: Movies

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