Father Geek here with Darius25, AccSpy, and Ms.Moon Yun Choi, and another of our regular weekly Asia-AICN Reports...

Asia-AICN

Happy Halloween all! I hope you enjoyed the festivities by watching many ghoulish flicks and enjoying countless amounts of tasty treats. During the break today, don’t forget to catch up with your weekly Asian fix, with many new scoops including info on India’s official entry to the Academy Awards, “Desh (Our Land)”, “Plan”, “The Twins Effect”, “Internal Affairs”, the Chinese New Year lineup, and news from the "Hawaii International Film Festival". Enjoy.

INDIA

- This year’s biggest hit (and the most expensive Bollywood film of all time), “Devdas” has been selected as India’s official entry to the Academy Awards for this year. The film has been selected over 6 other films – “The Legend of Bhagat Singh”, “Kabhi Khushi Kabhie Gham (Happiness and Sorrow)”, “Agnivarsha (The Fire and the Rain)”, “Kannathil Mutthamittal (A Peck on the Cheek)”, “Manda Meyer Upakhyan”, and “Saanjhbatir Roopkathara”. Now let’s hope that the film could actually bag a nomination like last year’s “Lagaan”.

- More SRK news. Shahrukh Khan has signed on to play the lead role in director Ashutosh Gowariker (“Lagaan”)’s next film, “Desh (Our Land)”. The role was first offered to actor Aamir Khan ofcourse, but he declined it for fear of repeating his role in “Lagaan”. Nonetheless, with a quality script from a well-regarded filmmaker and an extremely talented actor in the lead, the film looks to be even better than its Oscar-nominated predecessor. Filming is due to begin sometime next year, with an expected release date of summer 2004.

- Model/Actress Priyanka Chopra has been cast as one of the leading ladies for Sanjay Gupta’s next production, “Plan”. Principal photography is set to start on the gangster thriller from November 15. The film stars Sanjay Dutt, Dino Morea, Sanjay Suri, Bikram Saluja, Isha Koppikar, and model Cleo Issacs. Before “Plan”, you can first see Priyanka make her debut in December’s “Andaaz (Style)” with Akshay Kumar and then in January’s “The Hero” with Sunny Deol.

- The cast for director Rajkumar Santoshi’s next film, “Khakee” gets larger every week. This time both leads from this week’s release, Ajay Devgan and Akshaye Khanna, have joined the cast of the film – which already includes Amitabh Bachchan and Akshay Kumar. With the casting of these two actors, the male leads have been finalized and now the hunt begins for the leading ladies. Production is set to start early next year.

DEEWANGEE (Madness)

Last week’s new release was director Anees Bazmee’s “Deewangee (Madness)”, which stars Ajay Devgan, Akshaye Khanna, and Urmila Matondkar. The thriller is the latest in a trend of stylish new suspense flicks consisting of very few characters, upbeat music, plenty of blood and gore, and a villainous turn by a major leading actor. Unfortuneatly unlike the recent “Humraaz (The Confidante)” and “Ajnabee (The Stranger)”, this new thriller fails to live up to its hype.

The first half is pretty much a straightforward copy of “Primal Fear”, complete with the last minute plot twist at the Interval point. The film opens up with a meeting between hotshot defense lawyer Raj Goyal (Akshaye Khanna) and famous popstar Sargam (Urmila Matondkar). They talk, flirt a bit, and we see that Raj is instantly smitten by the gorgeous singer. Sound like a normal romance flick, no? We then switch instantly to a very brutal murder, commited by an unseen stranger. The cops chase the fleeing suspect and see him hiding in an abandoned house. The suspect turns out to be the victim’s employee, Tarang (Ajay Devgan), who seems nothing but to sing the praises of his employer. Sargam (who turns out to be Tarang’s best friend) convinces Raj to take on Tarang’s defense, and the lawyer immediately takes the case. The rest of this half pretty much follows the plot of “Primal Fear”, and let’s just say that after a bit of trouble Raj manages to win the case with Tarang getting off scot-free. However things take a nasty turn at the interval, and we get a generic stalker-thriller plot in the second half, where the good guy defends the girl, the girl runs around like an idiot, and the bad guy has all the fun! You can probably guess every single thing before it happens (in this half), and what we get is a routine thriller we’ve seen countless other times.

The cast is pretty good acting wise. Ajay Devgan portrays a new type of character that he’s never done, and is pretty believable in the role. Unlike his co-star’s turn in “Humraaz”, Devgan manages to pull off both shades of his character and is convincing in his dual characters. However the nature of the film is made that you’re never really seem to hate his character – he’s just so wickedly evil that you would actually want him to succeed (which he does, kind of…). Akshaye Khanna is ok during the first half as the hot shot attorney. The actor’s been getting a bunch of great roles lately, and this one is atleast on par with some of them. However his character pretty much goes to hell in the second half, where he’s turned into the generic hapless hero. At no point in the movie do you ever feel sorry for him, and wish that he would get killed immediately. The same goes for Urmila, who’s relegated to the hapless heroine role she’s done so many times in the past. She looks good, and can seriously act well, but needs to stop taking these meaningless roles for money. The rest of the cast is basically composed of extras, just there to be bumped off.

The main fault of the movie lies in its second half. The cast does their part in the first half and that portion is executed fairly well – for those who haven’t seen “Primal Fear”. Every single twist comes at an appropriate point, and all of the suspense is there during this segment. The film should have been a straight copy, and paced accordingly to fit a 150 minute film instead of separating the story into 2 distinct halves. The second half is a routine thriller which fails at every attempt to create any type of suspense. I mean seeing the bad guy succeed is good and all, but what’s the point of him kidnapping the girl, placing her in a house, and then fighting the idiotic hero?? We’ve seen this many different times and it needs to stopped right here. And it doesn’t help when the hero doesn’t even come close to being as cool as the villain – and can easily get his ass kicked several different times!! The songs also leave a lot to be desired and are of the general, time-wasting variety. A bunch of slow romantic songs don’t exactly match the pace of a sleek and stylish thriller! The directing is adequate, I suppose (only because Devgan’s performance is really likeable), but there’s nothing special here.

In summary, “Deewangee (Madness)”, is just a routine thriller which could be worth watching only for Ajay Devgan’s performance. However the actor has been in many other great films, which are much much better than this one. You could easily wait for this one till it hits DVD.

Akshaye Khanna and Ajay Devgan: See Them Here

The gorgeous Urmila, with Akshaye: I Think I'm In Love

A pic of Akshaye doing the action hero thing: See It Here Now

A pic of Ajay doing the same, but looking way more convincing: The Action's Here

Another pic of Urmila with Akshaye: Click Here

CHINA /HK

Here’s the latest report from AccSpy:

- EEG will invest $40 mil hkd for the big-budget-sci-fi-action-Twins-starrer "The Twins Effect", starring the president of HK.. I mean the Twins, with male talents like Ekin Cheng and Edison Chan in the supporting roles. Jackie Chan would also have cameo role involving five-days of the shooting, a master role, and something like a $10 mil hkd paycheck. Donnie Yen is the fight cheorographer, Dante Lam from "Jiang Hu:The Triad Zone" will direct this summer blockbuster. Here's some training and press con pics:

Charlene, Donnie Yen and Gillian: See Them Here

Charlene doing wire-fu!: HOT Action

The cast: They are All Here

Ekin on a Harley: Too Cooooool!!!

Ekin and Jackie: They're Right Here

The Twins look really CUTE while pretending to be tough: Go Here

Pulling the blades: Click!

Edison walking on the red carpet: Just Click

- HK actor Simon Yam, recently in "Fulltime Killer" and "My Left Eye sees Ghost", will play the main villain in “Tomb Raider 2”.

- The wait is almost over. Here's the one-sheet poster and story description of the Andy-Lau-Tony Leung cop/triad drama "Internal Affairs". Tony Leung is the HK Leonardo Dicaprio as he will go against himself with two films releasing in Christmas: That's right, "Hero" is also slated to open in time for the holidays. Here’s the link to the poster and synopsis: http://www.infernalaffairs.com/e_index.html

- By this time the Chinese New year films line-up have changed, but appear to be finalized. Last year's New Year winner Vincent Kuk ("Marry a Rich Man") will direct the Fung Shui comedy "Superman in Luck" for Golden Harvest, with Tony Leung Chiu-wai signed on after Andy Lau's walk out (see below), pairing up with Miriam Yeung.

- Meanwhile, Andy Lau will star in Media Asia's period comedy/drama, based on the tale of Justice Pao. Andy will play Pao's bodyguard hence right hand man Jin Zhao, while Anthony Wong will play Justice Pao. Cecilia Cheung co-stars and Gordon Chan will direct.

- Chinastar will go for a safe bet in the coming Chinese New Year, teaming up with Johnnie To and Sammi Cheng again in a no-brainer romance. Louis Koo will also join the fun in this Sammi-trademark romantic comedy.

- As a result of the increased competition from the Lunar New Year films, Sandra Ng's "Legend of Golden Chicken" will move up to the Christmas slot. And don't be surprise if any big name male stars drop in to play the "customers" in the film.

HAWAII INTERNATIONAL FILM FESTIVAL

We’re pleased to announced that a new reporter, Ms. Moon Yun Choi, has offered to cover some of the films from this year’s Hawaii International Film Festival – a festival which celebrates Asian and Pacific Rim films in addition to some of the more traditional fare offered at other festivals around the world. While the festival doesn’t start until Nov. 1, here’s a review of “Obachaan’s Garden” which will be premiering during the main run. Special thanks goes to Ms. Moon Yun Choi.

Review of “Obaachan’s Garden” (Canada – 2001 – 35 mm – 94 minutes) by Ms. Moon Yun Choi

Possible SPOILERS ahead...

“Obaachan’s Garden” hardly sounded like a movie I’d be excited about seeing during the Hawaii International Film Festival 2002 (HIFF) sneak preview premiere, which played in a Honolulu theater on October 23.

The movie, a docudrama more than a feature, turned out to be truly an enjoyable experience – a labor of love by the filmmaker Linda Ohama about her “obaachan,” or grandmother, in Japanese.

While the title evokes an image of grandmother in her favorite place, a garden filled with flowers and vegetables, Ohama’s story unfolds in a stark nursing home where the grandmother is nowhere to be seen at her own birthday party, which her family had arranged to mark “obaachan’s” 100 years. Rather the family, or what looks like a clan just by the sheer number of relatives that span, I believe the narrator said five generations, waits in the party room giving their “obaachan,” Asayo Murakami, space to come to them.

The drama begins with an actress playing a younger Asayo in Japan. She looks sad and concerned. The narrator, Asayo as the younger version, tells us that her husband went to Tokyo to look for housing for her and their two children. But there was an earthquake and he came home badly injured.

Then one day, Asayo recounts, he left her just like that and took their two girls with him to live behind the Emperor’s wall. Heartbroken, she became a Japanese picture bride and left for Canada. By around that part of the narration, you go back into the present time and get a close up of Asayo as she appears today – a Japanese grandmother with a sweet face, soft eyes and wrinkles that show character as well her current age of 100 years. She’s slouched in a wheelchair and communicates to us in Japanese.

English is not necessary to understand that while she and the family she helped propagate in Canada are doing well today, there is an underlying sadness coming from what she left behind. She reveals three photos of the young daughters she left in Japan that she has kept to herself for the 75 years she has been in Canada.

Asayo tells us that as a picture bride, she knew from the moment she got off the ship and saw her husband to be that he was not at all her type. She reneged on the marriage contract and worked at a cannery to pay off the money he spent to bring her over. It took her three years but after that she was a completely free woman. She often got lonely and took solace in the violin that she played.

She eventually remarried a boat builder and bore him, if I remember correctly, ten children. They had a stable life that was disrupted by World War II. The family was uprooted and moved to a remote part of Canada where they worked on a sugar beet farm. It was sad for Asayo to see her husband cleaning his shipbuilding equipment every night, even though they were in a landlocked area. Life was hard and she had no time to play the violin. But what she missed the most was her garden. She carried seeds from her garden with her up to the new site but, as a viewer, it looked like a place that was too cold for a nice garden.

At the place where they use to live, Asayo created a lovely garden with flowers arranged a little wild and unruly as she. Father was strict and a man of few words. He worked hard on his boat building. Their home overlooked the water. Even though Asayo had many children, she loved to socialize with her friends. The exact opposite of her husband, Asayo participated in many social activities. She loved to perform traditional Japanese dance and visit her friends at their homes.

Back to the present, we see “obaachan’s” great-granddaughter with Asayo in her room at the nursing home. She has come to take her to “obaachan’s” birthday party. During interviews, Asayo’s adult sons and daughters recount memorable moments in their childhood, especially about dad’s strictness and how he scolded them. This is funny to them because as Japanese it is not out of the ordinary for traditional Japanese fathers, particularly of that time, to be gruff and strict disciplinarians. His children as adults say they would raise their own children strictly so they won’t become wayward adults.

The cast of characters depicting the internment years of Asayo’s life carry on their usual daily lives when one day in the kitchen Asayo and her husband hear on the radio that the Americans have dropped nuclear bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki. Ohama, the director as well as the granddaughter, shows newsreels and old photos.

Upon hearing this news, it’s as if Asayo’s world was over. All these years she was able to bear the separation from her children she left behind in Japan because she knew they were in a good place. They were behind the Emperor’s walls. Now the Emperor who was a God to the Japanese people has become a mere mortal. Where were her two lovely daughters? How will she find out if they survived?

Asayo screamed, took out her violin and ran into the field. She sobbed and played her violin until she dropped to the ground. After the war, the family left the farm but decided not to go back to their previous home, which by coincidence survives and is now in Canada’s historic registry.

They go to live on another farm and it isn’t until Asayo is shown carted off in her wheelchair to that site do we see her revisit her first Canada home. When she does, her children surprise her with a garden the entire family planted themselves. She is happy; she smiles and claps but her joy is bittersweet.

She shows her daughters pictures of the two girls she left behind in Japan. And she tells her great-granddaughter the tale of the two girls living behind the Emperor’s wall. The great-granddaughter and mother make a trip to Japan to retrace Asayo’s history. Ohama documents their trip and conversation with Asayo’s Japanese relatives who she hopes will help them solve the mystery. They discover that the two girls had never lived with the Emperor. Through documents, they find that the two were separated and put up for adoption. They aren’t able to solve what happened to the father. But they piece together the reason for the unfortunate separation. Asayo’s mother-in-law didn’t like her and wanted them to divorce. In those days, Ohama reports, parent’s decisions ruled. Asayo and her husband had a plan for sticking together. They were lucky that they had married for love. Her husband would go to Tokyo to find them a place to live. They would make it seem to their parents like they had separated, but the earthquake foiled their plan. Also, a document showed that Asayo had fostered a son who died soon after birth. In Japan, it is a wife’s duty to bear her husband a son. A feeling of failure must have propelled Asayo to leaving Japan and start life over in a faraway country.

Through a researcher, the daughters and great-granddaughter find out that one of “obaachan’s” daughters had passed away, but there was another still living. They meet for the first time in Tokyo. A few months later, Asayo’s long-lost daughter makes a trip to Canada to meet with her mother for the first time. It will have been about 75 years since Asayo held her little girl in her arms. Upon meeting each other at the airport, daughter and mother weep out of joy and quickly move forward to try to make up for lost time.

Now Asayo’s garden, her garden of life, is complete. This is a moving documentary. I would recommend this in particular to everyone of Japanese ancestry. I would love to have the Japanese people who are from Asayo’s time see the docudrama. I wish my step-grandmother got to see it. She is of Japanese ancestry and came to Hawaii during the sugar plantation days. Up until her death, she still didn’t speak a word of English even though she lived in Hawaii for many years. Japanese was spoken in the house and I guess you could get away with it at that time.

That was the beginning of the Louis Vuitton Presents the Hawaii International Film Festival 2002 (HIFF). I didn’t want the long, sponsored backed name to overshadow the lead into the review of the docudrama. The festival kicks off November 3rd with Korea’s “YMCA Baseball Team.”

HIFF has created a special category spotlighting Korean cinema in recognition of the 100th year anniversary of Korean immigration to the United States. The first immigrants from Korea arrived at Honolulu Harbor in January 2003. There will be special Korean seminars and screenings.

If you get a chance, make like Adam Sandler in his latest movie “Punch-Drunk Love,” and hop on a plane to Hawaii to pursue his love interest, a character played by Emily Watson. For film enthusiast, you can come to Hawaii just for the love of movies and catch a festival that celebrates films of Asian Pacific Rim.

We have now reached the end of this week's column. Remember, if you have information regarding any film industry in Asia, please contact our Asia-AICN offices at atshrivas@rogers.com. See you all next week.