Movie News

ASIA AICN: US Trailer Premiere for WARRIORS OF THE RAINBOW (SEEDIQ BALE) and More from Korea!

Published at: March 30, 2012, 1:29 p.m. CST by AICNStaff

"Monty Cristo" here with another installment of ASIA AICN.

This is a short one, but thankfully, it once again includes more great stuff from our man in South Korea, "Seoulster". Again, if you are interested in contributing to AISA AICN, drop me a line.

WARRIORS OF THE RAINBOW: SEEDIQ BALE (US Trailer Premiere)

The good folks at Well Go USA have sent over the premiere of the trailer for the US version of this Academy Award-shortlisted Taiwanese film.

That trailer gets you amped to see it, huh?

The cut in US theatres differs from the 4.5-hour original cut, and has been trimmed down to a much more manageable 2.5 hours. Pals have told me that the 4.5-hour version is a bit of a tough sit due to it's as-long-as-CHE runtime. Worry not, Blu-ray fiends, the super-long cut will be included on the home video release.

WARRIORS OF THE RAINBOW: SEEDIQ BALE hits North American theatres on 27 April. Here's the theater list:

NEW YORK

New York City
AMC Empire 25

CALIFORNIA

City of Industry
AMC Puente Hills 20

Monterey Park
AMC Atlantic Time 14

San Francisco
AMC Metreon 16

Cupertino
AMC Cupertino 16

TEXAS

Houston, TX
AMC Studio 30

Austin, TX
AMC Barton Creek 14

Dallas, TX
AMC Stonebriar 24

WASHINGTON

Seattle
AMC Pacific Place 11

HAWAII

Honolulu
Pearlridge West 16

BRITISH COLUMBIA

Richmond, BC
Silver City Riverport Cinemas

ONTARIO

Toronto, ON
Scotiabank Theatre

"SEOULSTER" Reports from South Korea

I love this guy, folks. Without him, I wouldn't have known about PRELUDE TO THE BARSUM WAR. Read on:

"Seoulster" reporting in from Korea.

GABI (aka RUSSIAN COFFEE)
Opened March 15th. Dir. by Jang Yun-hyun

The story is set in 1839 during the chaotic aftermath of Queen Min's assassination by the Japnese, the last royal queen of Joseon dynasty. This was an era of great international power struggle for the control of Korean peninsula, and the players included Imperial Japan, Qing China, and to some extent Russia (pre-revolutionary).

King Gojeong and his court fled to the Russian embassy after Queen's butchered body was found, and within the embassy Gojeong was planning to re-assert the power of his monarchy by re-organizing the kingdom as an empire and re-naming himself as the emperor of Korea. The movie details a fictional story of a Korean barista and other agents and assassins who were sent in by Japanese to poison Gojeong to stop this from happening. (note: Gojeong is wearing all-white royal robe because he is in mourning for his dead queen).

HOWLING
Opened February 16th Dir. by Yu Ha

Starring the inimitable Song Kang-ho in his first police/detective role since "Memories of Murder", the story follows Song's slightly-corrupt, career-advancing veteran detective and an idealistic rookie played by Yi Na-young as they follow the trail of grisly serial murders.

They found out that the murders are perpetrated by...a killer dog (also called "wolf dog" in the movie). The movie has gotten okay reviews, and over here most movie goers are buying the tickets to see Song Kang-ho.

JOHN CARTER: PRELUDE TO THE BARSUM WAR

One more thing: Korean posters for the movie "John Carter" are pretty interesting because of the title that is in Korean: "존 카터: 바숨 전쟁의 서막" (John Carter: Barsum Junjang Eui Suhmak) which translates as "John Carter: The Prelude to Barsum War." And because the original novel is not widely known in Korea, the planet in the movie is never referred to as Mars in any of the TV advertisements: the planet is only referred to as "Barsum."

Could mean anything I guess, but perhaps "prelude" might mean that we are going to have a huge cliff hanger ending at the end.