Father Geek here with Asia-AICN #25, Darius has built us a great column this week. And later this week Moriarty's interview with Jackie Chan will grace these pages, so you readers of this weekly report will have two real treats to dive into...

Asia-AICN #25

Hi all. Hope you've all had a good week. Happy Canadian Thanksgiving (on Oct. 9) to all.

We have a pretty packed column for you all (esp. you HK fans), but I am sorry to say that we don't have any Japanese or Korean news this week. "Pigmon" fell ill this week and was unable to report anything this week. Be sure to wish him well in the TBs. Also, I was unable to get a hold of "Matrix1966" but I am sure he has his reasons. Anyway, now here's the latest from Asia:

INDIA

- The major news for this week is that Shahrukh Khan has finally decided to appear in a Hollywood film. Naturally, he is not really taking any major acting risks (at first) and is doing a straight-up romantic comedy. No other details were announced other than the fact that SRK is in negotiations with a major Hollywood studio to be the lead in an upcoming rom-com. Shahrukh was previously offered roles in "Goldeneye" and "A Perfect Murder" but declined them both because he felt that the roles were too small.

- Director Santosh Sivan's Ashoka the Great has already been under fire for its historical (in)accuracy while still being under production. There have been peaceful protests outside the film sets (in Orissa) due to the fact that the film's script has made drastic changes regarding the life of the famous emperor and his notorious invasion of Kalinga. Ashoka the Great was a famous emperor who succeeded in conquering Kalinga after a bloody war in which 100 000 men were killed, 150 000 injured and thousands were captured and retained as slaves. The sight of the slaughter involved in his conquest deeply distressed Ashoka and deeply affected his mind. This was a turning point in his life. He renounced war and sought peace in Buddha's preachings of love and non-violence. Afterwards, he was known as one of the most peaceful Indian rulers of all time.

In the film, the turning point of Ashoka's savagery will be caused by not the massacre itself, but instead a princess named Kabuki, for whom he invaded Kalinga. In response to the accusations, Sivan said that the Archeological Survey of India (ASI) has approved the script and that he has not distorted any historical facts. It should be noted that while the film may be historically inaccurate, we can (at the very least) expect some of the most glorious battle scenes since Braveheart. Ashoka the Great stars Shahrukh Khan, Kareena Kapoor, and Arwind Swami. It will be released sometime next year.

- One of Boney Kapoor's upcoming productions will feature Aftab Shivdasani, Sanjay Kapoor and Esha Deol. Boney Kapoor's wife, Sridevi, was supposed to appear in this film as Esha's mother but had to drop out due to her pregnancy. The film does not yet have a title.

- Director Dharmesh Darshan's next film will star Akshay Kumar, Abhishek Bachchan, Shilpa Shetty and Karisma Kapoor. The film does not yet have a title.

Now here's "Dilwale" with a few tidbits:

- The Vikram Bhatt film with Hrithik Roshan and Amisha Patel has been given the title Aap Mujhe Ache Lagne Lage (You Have Become Desirable To Me).

- Actress Preity Zinta has been signed opposite Hrithik Roshan for director Rakesh Roshan's Karodpati (Millionaire).

- The Mahesh Manjrekar film which is being produced by Time Magnetics has signed Sunil Shetty and Neha for the lead roles. The film does not yet have a title.

- Last week's new release was the film Dhai Akshar Prem Ke (Two and a Half Words of Love), which was directed by Raj Kanwar and stars Abhishek Bhachchan, Aishwarya Rai, Sonali Bendre, and Amrish Puri. Right off the bat let me just say that the film is just plain ordinary. There is nothing special, nor is there anything interesting, in this film. Yes Javadevil, the film is boring despite Aish and Sonali's presence. (Actually Sonali is on-screen for less than 10 minutes!!) If anyone is interested, the plot is a rehash of the film Kunwara (Single), which came out less than 3 months ago (see Asia-AICN #15) - A guy (Abhishek Bachchan) meets a girl (Aish) who needs him to impersonate her husband in order to save her from some trouble with her family. The guy goes home with her, pretends to be her husband and manages to impress the whole family including the mean father. Aish falls in love with him but he loves another girl. After some more tensions, everything ends happily. That's it! Director Raj Kanwar tries too hard to make a clean family drama, and puts in all the usual trick that one would expect from this type of films. Tensions, comedy, romance, some (unimpressive) action, etc. are all included. I don't know how but even Aish failed to impress me in this flick. Her role was basically to cry and cry ALL the time, and yes she's good, but we've seen it before. Abhishek still hasn't learned how to act yet and is therefore pretty bad in the dramatic and the romantic scenes. The rest of the cast do perform their parts adequately, but again nothing that we haven't seen before.

Overall - there is nothing original in this film, absolutely nothing. If you like plain formulaic family films, watch Dhai Akshar Prem Ke. If not, just download some pictures of Aish and make your own slideshow. You'll be more entertained.

I'll use every excuse I have to put more Aish on AICN. Here's the lovely Ms. Rai with Abhishek Bachchan:

- The recommendation for this week is a 3 hr. 45 min. biopic about a CLOWN!!! Yes, I finally saw Raj Kapoor's masterpiece Mera Naam Joker (My Name is Joker) and I LOVED it! Despite its long running time and a full frame transfer on DVD (the film is 27 years old!), I was still mesmerized by the stunning film all the way throughout. I actually really can't describe the plot (you have to see it for yourself), but here's one line of dialogue, delivered by Raj Kapoor's naïve clown: "Life is made up of three hours - the first hour is childhood, the second hour is adulthood and the third hour is old age". Well, the movie is over 3 hrs and we never get to see the clown as an actual old man, but you still get the point. If any of you liked PT Anderson's "Hard Eight", "Magnolia" or even Altman's "Short Cuts", you will absolutely love this film. The acting, direction, editing and the songs are all very, very good. Raj Kapoor rightly won the Filmfare award for directing, but he was robbed for the best actor award!! His portrayal of a simple naïve man who gets hurt by life's many injuries is one of the best examples of acting I have EVER seen. If you think Hanks deserved that Oscar for Gump, you better see this. Kapoor puts him to shame even though Hanks was very good. That's about all I can say about this film - just remember, if you go in knowing absolutely nothing, you will be extremely happy when the film ends. Trust me, you'll remember it for a LONG time.

CHINA / HK

The following was reported by "The Accidental Spy":

- Director Johnnie To's next project is "Chung Mo Yim (lit. title)", a comedy which tells an Chinese ancient tale about a king torn between two lovable concubines; one (Chung Mo Yim) is ugly but clever and the king wants her whenever he needs help for his political business; another one, named Ha Ying Chun, is extremely beautiful and street-smart who is favoured by the king whenever he doesn't need to take care of any business. Chung Mo Yim, the title role, is played by "the queen of romance" Sammi Cheng (Needing You...", "Summer Holiday", a major HOTTIE - D25), and the bitchy Ha Ying Chun is played by Cecilia Cheung ("King of Comedy", "Help!!!"). So who would be the king? Well, overcome your disbelief - "he" will be played by Anita Mui ("Drunken Master 2", "Rumble in the Bronx")! Anita jokes that she finally has the opportunity to do some lesbian scenes... er..well, sort of; and Sammi Cheng said she won't mind how ugly her make-up would be, as long as she doesn't need to shorten her hair. The comedy will start shooting later this month.

- "Rush Hour 2" will start filming in HK from November 9, and is scheduled to compete against "Jurassic Park 3" next summer. The action comedy will add a new female role, who is neither asian nor african-american, to the sequel in order to create more cultural conflict. The sequel might be titled "Another Rush Hour" or "Rush Hour: The Return of the Dragon" (That's a WICKED title - D25).The film will also more HK actors since half of it will be shot in HK. RH2's director, Brett Ratner, is truly a fan of Jordan Chan ("Y&D series") and really wantd him to join RH2 but failed due to scheduling conflicts. Brett invited him to join the first installment three years ago but was unsuccessful due to the same reason.

- Daniel Wu ("Gen-X Cops", "Purple Storm") is about to join Michelle Yeoh's "The Touch", a movie about a group of circus performers who moonlight as thieves in order to avenge their father's betrayal. Rumors say that Michelle Yeoh also wants Jean Reno to join the project as the male lead. Michelle has asked him personally (since Jean has never been in a HK movie), and the screenplay has already been handed to Jean, which is a rare exception because HK productions seldom have a complete screenplay before the filming.

- A newcomer named Andy On will step in the title role of "Black Mask 2". On is an Asian-American who was just signed by Chinastar Studio. In order to establish his action star status, Chinastar has planned to develop more action projects for him in the coming years.

- Unlike the last few years, there are much more HK productions this year and lots of A-list films are fighting for this year's Christmas' slot. Temporarily, "For Bad Boys Only", a comedic action movie starring Ekin Cheng, Hsu Chi and Louis Koo; and "Lavender", an angel/human romance starring Takeshi Kaneshiro, Kelly Chan and Eason Chan; are scheduled to release this Christmas. These two film are forcing Stanley Tong and Aaron Kwok's "China Force Strike", Andy Lau's "A Fighter's Blue", the teenage-crowd pleaser "Gen-Y Cops" and Leon Lai and Jordan Chan's "Downtown Torpedoes 2 (temp. title)" to move down to either the New Year or the Chinese New Year's slots.

- Here's two on-set pictures of "For Bad Boys Only".

Hsu Chi and Ekin Cheng as spy agents:

Hsu Chi, one more:

- Last weekend was a busy weekend for HKBO - six new movies were released, and landed on the top 6 spots. Enjoying the strongest debut was Tony Leung Chiu-Wai's "Healing Hearts", a hospital drama which also stars Michelle Reis, Stephen Fung, Kenny Bee, Ray Lui and Pinky Cheung. The claymation adventure, "Chicken Run" debuted second and the Joan Chen-directed "Autumn in New York" landed at no.3. Another Tony Leung Chiu-Wai starrer, the much-anticipated "In the Mood for Love" debuted at no.4. But don't be freaked out by the results, since ITMFL was only shown in half as many theatres as "Healing Hearts", and as a matter of fact, Wong Kar Wai's films are never really big hits in HK. The Japanese hit, "White Out" opened in fifth place. Finally, another Japanese movie, "Sakuya" landed in the sixth place. "Space Cowboys" was at no.7 and the no.1 movie for the last three weeks, "Hollow Man", fell drastically to no.8. "The Iron Ladies" continued to stay in the top 10 at no.9, while Sandra Ng starrer "Jiang Hu : The Triad Zone" rapidly dropped to no.10.

The following was reported by "Crashpoet":

- There was a report in a Chinese newspaper that Michelle Yeoh may star in the fourth installment of Indiana Jones. It was reported that Michelle was "moved by Steven Spielberg's sincerity" and is "very keen" on the role.

- Joey Wong Cho Yin[from A Chinese Ghost Story] will return to the big screen after three years as she replaced Michelle Reis (Lee Ka Yun) in Yonfan (Yeung Fan)'s new film YAU YUEN GAING MUNG MAU DAN TING. Her role is of a wealthy daughter who rebels against the traditional arranged marriage and runs away to join an Opera troupe. She eventually falls for a prostitute played by Rie Miyazawa (Gung Jat Lei Wai).

PHILIPPINES

The following was reported by "AznFob55":

- After having MTV South-East Asia for like 5 years now, the Philippines has broken off from the feed (the network feeds to Philippines, Thailand, Indonesia, and many other countries) and will launch its very own MTV Philippines sometime in January.

- The country is joining the bandwagon with "Who Wants To Be A Millionaire?" and launches its own local show hosted by the star of the movie "Yakapin Mo Ang Umaga" (Embrace The Morning), Christopher De Leon.

- Also, E! Philippines is coming as reported in Manila Bulletin. Watch out for it!

- 300 movies have been entered for the Metro Manila Film Festival vying for only six slots in the actual competitions. The greatest contender would be "Death Row" from GMA Films which stars Eddie Garcia and boasts director Joel Lamangan. The action movie contenders (with all stars action legends) will be "And Sundalo" (The Soldier); "The Ping Lason Story" with Rudy Fernandez; "Alas 12" (Ace 12) with Cesar Montano; "Huwag Mo Akong Susubukan" (Don't Try Me) with Philip Salavador; and Lito Lapid in "Huwag Mong Uubusin and Bait Ko". However, only two action movies are able to nab the slots. The Festival takes place during the Christmas season so a slew of family-friendly movies should invade the festival.

However, horror films (which has made a great resurgence this past year) will also compete with the best bets being "Bakit Ba Ganyan?" (Why Is It Like That?) with former-couple Vic Sotto and Dina Bonevie teaming up; "Tabo-Tabi Po", and "Spirit Warriors" with the StreetBoys. The Vic Sotto movie should be the one to surpass the others due to the star power involved. And the weirdest contenders, are the sexy films, which usually don't fare that well in the festival but Rosanna Roces hit it a few years back with "Babae Sa Bintana" (Woman on the Window). Some of the sexy films that will compete are "Virgin Wife", "Laro Sa Baga", "Babaeng Putik" (Mud Woman) and "Tuhog" (Speared).

Now I think it's time to end this week's column. Remember, if you have information regarding any movie industry in Asia, please contact our Asia-AICN offices by Mailing Here. See you all next week.

- Darius25