New Wave? – Malaysians in Pusan 2009

Timing, as ever, is almost everything. I say almost, because of course there are many other factors that should be considered. Nevertheless, sometimes it is just something that the powers that be have determined. Thus, this year, I will have to give the Pusan International Film Festival (PIFF) a rather big miss, because it conflicted with the schedule that has been given to me for my graduation film shoot.

Nevertheless, that does not mean that I won’t be there in spirit, even if my spirit should actually be on location with me in Toechon rather than Pusan. Nevertheless, here’s a quick look at the films that I definitely would have been watching had I the chance and opportunity to do so.

RAW is WAR! – Ramly At War Begins

It was a innocuous, innocent and not-so-interesting night some time ago on Facebook. I find myself getting into it a lot more, enjoying the reactions and interactions, as it were, with my family (even my dad is on Facebook…which is nice ). Anyways, it seems as if other people’s moms and dads were also on, given the uninteresting nature of the night. I would define it as interesting if it were updated frequently, and if the statuses themselves were rather interesting to read. Funny, this: not a long time ago I hated Facebook. I hated how it seems to transplant all other modes of communications. Now, however, having tried it extensively, I realise I could make it work for me without going the way of others.

Another reason why I should thank Facebook, though, is ‘RAW’. “What on Earth is ‘RAW’?” I thought to myself as it constantly and almost-annoyingly popped up on Juliane Block’s status update. She had added me on Facebook after we had interviewed her and did a review for her film, ‘Emperor’, but communication has been at a minimum. I suppose we all have friends like that. For that past few days, though, almost everything was about ‘RAW’, and if her idea was to get my (and other people’s) attention…well, it worked.

15 Minutes of… – 15Malaysia

“Pete, what are you going to do next year?”

People asking Pete Teo what project he would do after the Malaysian Artists For Unity project.

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As the country makes its celebrations for Independence Day on Monday, I decided that there’s no better time to write about this nice little project than then. Well, there is: I could have written it on the date of its launch, which happened to be some time in the middle of August. For some reason, a combination of brain fade, constipation, and a lack of time, as well as the fact that…

…well, no, I just didn’t get round to doing it before now.

New Models – BMW Shorties 2009

This post will veer slightly away from what we have been doing so far, and turn our attention towards the upcoming short film competition called the BMW Shorties. It’s a competition that has been running for a couple of years now, and quite frankly, it has grown and grown more and more year on year. I myself never got round to submitting an entry myself. That can be put down to timing, and, slightly shamefully, the slipping of the mind. For some reason, that has been happening a little more often than I would have liked it to; we all have days when we’d wonder what day it actually is, but I think it has occured to me several times over the past month already.

But enough about me. This post is not about me. It is about the shorties.

Rain is Coming…Soon! – Ninja Assassin

When I first heard about this film, I had a good chuckle. “They just had to make his first film a martial arts one,” I thought to myself. “So typical of Hollywood.”

The ‘he’ I am talking about is Jeong Ji-hun (정지훈) a.k.a Rain (비). He is of course, the big-ass Korean supernova sensation who has often been compared to Justin Timberlake. With sweeps of fans across world who would gladly plonk down their hard-earned money for a chance to fix their gaze on him on the big screen, the movie will certain make back the production budget within a few weeks, I should think.

Hence, I had dismissed it as nothing than a movie that doesn’t seem very interesting.

Until now.

The Jeonju 10 – Jeonju International Film Festival 2009

It sounds like a mafia gang, doesn’t it? The Jeonju 10. Armed to the teeth with their bibimpap, and decked out in traditional takyeon gear, you don’t mess with the Jeonju 10. Partly because they’re not a happy bunch of old fellas, and…well, mainly because there are 10 of them.

Of course, that is not what I’m writing about here. It is that time of the year again when the film festival journey kicks off for me for the year 2009. Actually, I lied; it sort of kicked off two weekends ago at the Women’s Film Festival in Seoul (the ‘in Seoul’ part is actually a part of the name, so what you get for the abbreviation is WFFIS).

Same Old, Same Old – Oldboy Reborn

One of the most interesting bit of news to have come out from Hollywood in recent times is that Hollywood has finally, totally, and utterly confirmed a remake ‘Oldboy’, a manga that initially spawned a Korean film by the same name.

This has actually been rumoured to be the case for a while, and it’s no wonder: the point of reference when people here the word ‘Oldboy’ in this context tends to be of Park Chan-wook’s masterpiece, rather than the original source material. As such, news of its Western remake has been met with a fair amount of people raising their arms together in despair, and say, “Not again!”

For those not in the know, ‘Oldboy’ is tells the story of a man who, without warning, was one day taken away from his family, and is locked inside a hotel room for 15 years without knowing what’s going on. Eventually, he was released, with less than a week to find out why. Sounds simple enough, but the trick lies in the storytelling, which, in my personal opinion, is as good as any movie I’ve seen. “A powerful film not because of what it depicts,” claimed Roger Ebert, “but because of the depths of the human heart which it strips bare.”

KLIFFhanger – Kuala Lumpur International Film Festival 2008

Can you believe it? Another year has gone past and before you know it, the 2^nd edition of the Kuala Lumpur International Film Festival (cleverly shortened to KLIFF) is upon us. I know that it’s on some time at the end of the year, but the actual festival kinda crept up on my like a creepy crawly I didn’t know about hanging down from its almost-invisible web on the bottom of my roommate’s top bunk bed.

Did that make sense?

But that’s not a bad thing. At least it wasn’t one of the creepy crawly bugs that was all over one of the characters from ‘A Scanner Darkly’, which I saw recently. Now that is a scary scene; I felt an inclination to stop it and go for a quick shower quicker than a stone drop off the edge of the KLIFF (see what I did there? ).

PIFFing Around – 2008 Pusan International Film Festival

In a previous post on the Cannes Film Festival, I had written a similar preview. I wrote of the films that I would most probably watch given a free pass to the event itself. This time, for the 13th edition of the Pusan International Film Festival, I will do almost exactly the same thing. The only difference is, I will actually be going to the film fest itself, and have a realistic chance of catching the movies that I am about to write of here. Hopefully, time-permitting and with the grace of Allah, I will be able to write some updates while I’m at the festival itself. However, it is also far more likely that I will spend the days and the nights trawling around town, taking in as many movies as I can while enjoying the general festival itself.

Not unlike the Cannes posts, as I trawl through the entire list of films, I realise that whittling them down to a handful of films is tricky. After all, there is a total of roughly 300 films on offer. Not making things easier is the decision to lump all of the films here together: feature, short, documentary, animation, music videos, and what have you.

Sonic Boom – Street Fighter: Legend of Chun-Li

Interestingly, not many people know of this production (certainly not the ones that I’ve met thus far). It kinda gives you a slight hint of the filmmakers intentions, then: they’re probably aiming to make this a sleeper-hit, one that will make some money, but only after a certain period of time spent in cinemas around the world. It probably also points to the low-budget of the production (though having said that, ‘low’ is a term that is very relative these days: gone are the days where a $100 million film would be announced with pride. Certainly within the Hollywood context, at least). Let’s put it this way, then: for a film, based on one of the most popular video games series of all time, that’s due to be released in around 6 months time, they haven’t even released an official poster (teaser or otherwise) yet.

Is, however, such machinery required for a film like ‘Street Fighter’? The answer is: probably not.