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Posted: 23 Oct 2012 07:16 AM PDT

What happens when a woman is insanely in love? Funny things.

What is the measure of true love? Why is it beautiful for some and painful for others? Releasing yet another of his quirky love stories, Hong Kong filmmaker Patrick Kong (also known as Yip Lim Sum) examines how love can drive a person insane in Natural Born Lovers.

The movie revolves around the relationship of popular pastry chef Tailam and neurotic nurse Meibo.

Things are great at first but soon, it becomes apparent that Meibo is an obsessive lover: she's suspicious, jealous, controlling and even slightly violent! The over-sensitive girlfriend keeps tabs on her handsome new beau by tracking his whereabouts, and even secretly checks his computer, cellphone, blog and social media accounts to spy on his private life.

This, of course, drives Tailam crazy and prompts him to investigate the reason why Meibo acts in such a way.

In separate telephone interviews with Kong, 37, and the lead actors – Hong Kong actor Chilam Cheung, 41, and Taiwan-born actress Annie Liu, 31 – Star2 delves into the psyche of "natural born lovers".

"It's actually inspired by a true story that grabbed headlines in Hong Kong recently, so I decided to make it the theme of my once-a-year Hong Kong love story," offered Kong, who made two romantic comedies, Love Is The Only Answer and Mr And Mrs Single, as well as horror flick, Hong Kong Ghost Stories, last year.

"There was a girl who continually harassed her ex-boyfriend after they broke up, and their affair made a huge impression on Hong Kong natives.

"This sort of thing may be scary to the victim, but turns out to be rather amusing when made into a movie. Also, I look at the whole affair differently.

"To me, the girl's insane behaviour is directly proportional to her love for her intended. Hence, the more she loves him the crazier she behaves," explained Kong, who added all the episodes of the female character harassing her boyfriend were completely fictitious.

Meanwhile, Cheung who plays Tailam, shared, "I've previously filmed a music video with Annie, and she is really a kind woman. But, the director has made it such that I became the kind fellow, while she morphs into this scary person.

"Since Annie is not at all like that, and the character is rather extreme, I imagine she also had quite a fun time playing Meibo," said Cheung who has a six-year-old son named Morton with fellow actress Anita Yuen, his wife of eleven years.

So, between him and the equally-outspoken Yuen, who is the "natural born lover"?

"I'm the clingy one. I even check her WhatsApp!" teased Cheung, alluding to the excessively neurotic antics of the "obsessive lover" in Natural Born Lovers.

The dashing actor is also featured in two other movies, The Grandmasters and Uncle I Love You, as well as a TVB series Triumph In The Skies 2, this year.

Playing the girl who becomes crazy for love, Liu opined, "If you look at things from her point of view, you will sympathise with her. She finds many ways to love Chilam's character but forgets how to love herself.

"She does all these things, and ends up hurt too, but cannot stop herself. Unfortunately she doesn't realise this because she is a very insecure girl," said Liu, who is playing the character of an unreasonable girl for the first time.

Commenting on the extreme behaviour of the nurse character, Liu reasoned, "Those who watch this movie, whether male or female, will probably see themselves reflected in the characters in some way or other. For those who have devoted so much of themselves to their love, it is too hurtful to be so easily forgotten after a breakup."

Liu also stars in the last episode (titled Artist) of the 10-episode mainland Chinese "nano-movie", Refresh 3 + 7.

Natural Born Lovers opens nationwide on Thursday.

Game on

Posted: 23 Oct 2012 03:51 AM PDT

Visit Silent Hill: Revelation 3D and get your fill of nightmarish things and beings.

ON the set of Silent Hill: Revelation 3D, actress Adelaide Clemens would give a piercing scream each time she did a new take. Far from being a scream queen, this was her way of getting ready to play the main character Heather Mason in the film, a sequel to the 2006 film based on the popular video game.

In a telephone interview with director Michael J. Bassett – who was doing press rounds for Silent Hill in New York – he and his crew would take off their headphones when Clemens was about to give one of her earth-shattering screams.

"When we first started shooting, Adelaide needed to find a way of getting herself into the place where Heather would be in this fearful world," said Bassett, whose previous directorial work was Solomon Kane.

"What she finally discovered is that, if she gave a really, really, ear-piercing scream before every take, she could really focus her energy. It was important to her to find that special place, and so we have hundreds and hundreds of out-takes of her screaming that we could do a compilation and put in the DVD."

Silent Hill: Revelation 3D picks up where the first film left off six years ago.

The little girl Sharon who lost her mother in the desolate town in Silent Hill is now 18-year-old Heather who is on the run with her father (Sean Bean). While she doesn't know why they are constantly moving, she finally figures out it may have something to do with her nightmares of – wait for it – a desolate town where terrible creatures and things live. But this new knowledge comes with a price – her father is taken to this God-awful place and it is up to her to save him. Naturally, the journey is not easy.

Having been a fan of the video game and the 2006 film, Bassett found the opportunity to immerse himself in the world of Silent Hill too good to resist.

"When I was younger and played the game, I didn't realise it had details and complex storytelling. Only when I went back (to the game) to research for the film, did I notice the level of thought that is incorporated even in the smallest of characters."

When producer Samuel Hadida and Bassett came together to work on the project, they talked about how they were going to put the movie together as the first movie ended in a particular way.

Bassett was also in a conundrum as to which game was the best one to adapt to film. Then again, Bassett also discovered that having too much information could be overwhelming.

After some trial and error as to how to approach the story, he decided to concentrate on the third game of Silent Hill to further the story in the film.

"When you have hours and hours of game-play, there is lots of material. So I had to figure out what was the film-storytelling and game-storytelling. The real challenge is to put a human story in the middle of a nightmarish fantasy," he said.

The human element materialised when producer Hadida – serendipitously – spotted Clemens at the 2011 Sundance Film Festival, and immediately thought that she looked just like the character in the third game of Silent Hill. Bassett shared that, at that point, Hadida didn't even know if the young lady from Australia was an actress.

"Thank God she was," recalled Bassett. "Playing Heather is very tricky – she's someone who chooses to go into this horrifying world to rescue her father so she has to have strength and at the same time a kind of vulnerability.

"Adelaide really captured that. I direct very physical movies and Adelaide got bruised and beaten up all the time, but she never backed down or said I need five minutes to get it all back together. She's just wonderful."

While having a young woman in danger has always been a tradition in horror films, it is not unusual that this female protagonist ends up as the one who saves the day.

Bassett felt that having a woman as a lead works well in this genre because, unlike a man, she has to find her strength before being empowered. Hence, the male character – played by Kit Harrington – is there not to save the girl, but to help and support our heroine.

Another dimension

An element that goes hand-in-hand with any horror-based film is the monsters. Of late, filmmakers have opted to create these other-worldly creatures digitally. Not Bassett though. Well, not if he can help it.

Wanting to keep things real, Bassett and his "creature team" comprising Patrick Tatopoulos and Paul Jones designed new monsters on top of the ones that they've taken from the game.

"One of the things about the monsters in Silent Hill is they have to grow out of the psychology of the character. I have to make sure in some ways they mean something to Heather in a deep, sort of, dark psychological way.

"In the Silent Hill mythology, the executioner is from way back during the British Colony, so I had to find a way to make him resonate with Heather. There are really, really, cool monsters."

The creature designers, a special make-up artist and creature effects designer all worked together to bring these cool monsters to life. There is the fan favourite, The Nurses (these really grotesque, but sexy, ladies in strange latex skin-tight uniforms who are out to disembowel you), portrayed by dancers with more, erm, flexibility and The Missionary, the Silent Hill assassin with a featureless face.

Of course, not all monsters can be done up with prosthetics and make up. The Mannequin Monster – a creature with human body parts and spider-like moves – is a fully digital creature. Nonetheless, Bassett prefers to keep CGI creatures to a minimum.

"It's so much better to have an actor in prosthetic make-up standing in front of the performer. As a director, I can direct the monsters on the set ... there's really no comparison with something that's not there. (With digital monsters) an audience would psychologically know and that divorces them from the fear."

To heighten the horror element further, Bassett turned to using 3D in the film. Bassett confessed that he wasn't initially a fan of 3D because a lot of films he's seen in 3D were done in post-production, rendering the extra dimension as a mere gimmick and the end product not looking very good. So what he decided to do was to shoot the film live in 3D, which would allow him to use it as a tool to enhance the viewing experience.

"On the set, you can see the exact dimension you are going to put in that shot. That was something that was of importance to me, to make the best possible use of it – I realise that it was an interesting and creative tool.

"In (Silent Hill: Revelation 3D), we have the real world, we have the fog world and we have the world of darkness. In the fog world, we have ash falling all the time and it's really beautiful in 3D. It was something that was worth exploring. Worthwhile, to me, visually.

"My concern is the audiences who don't like 3D will go and see the 2D, and the truth is there is no real 2D version of this movie. It is shot in 3D, and the editing is done in 3D pacing, so if you choose to see it in 2D, then you are not seeing the movie I made. I would encourage the audience to watch it in 3D."

Silent Hill: Revelation 3D begins its scream fest this Thursday.

'Songlap' creating waves

Posted: 23 Oct 2012 02:08 AM PDT

THE critically-acclaimed local film Songlap (by Grand Brilliance), released in Malaysia 10 months ago, is now creating waves in the international film arena. The movie was recently seen in two prestigious international film festivals in Hamburg, Germany and Abu Dhabi, United Arab Emirates.

At Filmfest Hamburg, Songlap was one of the 151 films that made up this year's impressive line up. Filmfest Hamburg ran from Sept 27-Oct 6, and was held at seven venues across Hamburg, receiving an audience of around 40,000 people.

Among the celebrated guests who attended the fest were Hamburg mayor, Olaf Scholz, and renowned film and stage actor, Willem Dafoe.

Songlap's co-director Effendee Mazlan was on-hand to introduce the film in person. The movie was screened twice in the Asia Express section of the festival, a new section featuring seven films that take viewers on a fascinating cinematic trip through unusual and emerging Asian film cultures.

Meanwhile, the invitation from the Abu Dhabi Film Festival (ADFF) marks the Middle Eastern premiere of Songlap. ADFF is now in its sixth year and ran from Oct 11-20 at two glitzy locations: Marina Mall and Emirates Palace.

Effendee presented Songlap in the ADFF when it was screened at the New Horizons competition section. The New Horizons section featured a selection of 17 international feature-length narrative films by first-time directors.

"We are very honoured to receive these two invitations and extremely thankful to be given the chance to share this film with new audiences and open their eyes to what Malaysian filmmakers can do," said Tengku Iesta Tengku Alaudin, general manager of Grand Brilliance.

Songlap deftly probes the lives of two brothers, portrayed by Shaheizy Sam and Syafie Naswip, who are tangled in an illegal human trafficking syndicate.

The film takes you through the gritty underbelly of Kuala Lumpur's sprawling metropolis and keeps you on the edge of your seat as you join the brothers in their search for utopia.

Songlap was also screened at the 14th Far East Film Festival in Udine, Italy in April and at the Asian Pacific Film Festival in Los Angeles, California in May.

Kredit: www.thestar.com.my

Selasa, 23 Oktober 2012

The Star Online: Entertainment: Movies

The Star Online: Entertainment: Movies

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