Blood Brothers

[skulldugrey]

great news!; Blood Brothers, the new film starring Daniel Wu, Shu Qi, Liu Ye, etc. and produced by John Woo & Terence Chang has been selected to play at the Toronto International Film Festival this year, as well as closing at Venice. the trailer looks awesome, and if newcomer Alexi Tan can pull off this heroic bloodshed thing, then he could establish himself as a great new director for HK cinema. besides being produced by Woo and Chang, the action is designed by none other than Philip Kwok, so expect some great gunplay. I hope this is none other than a glorious film, and I hope the date it plays at TIFF is close to September the 13th, so I can make it to this. it opens in HK on August 23rd, so I'm sure Lovehkfilm will have a review of it out shortly after. that being said, another new HK film, Mad Detective which is Johnnie To's latest is also set to play at Toronto. starring Lau Ching-Wan it sounds promising, but I'm still hoping for Triangle to play there as well!

[Beat TG]

reviews out now are mostly negative. expectations are somwhat low now but I'll still see it.

[Beat TG]

Mad Detective is one of some movies of 2007 that I look forward to as well. Good to see To and Lau Ching Wan work together again.

[skulldugrey]

yeah, Mad Detective is looking good from the pics and premise. it plays tomorrow night at 8pm at TIFF, which i'll be right there. the problem is i already bought a ticket to the gala of Blood Brothers which is at 9:30, so that means no Mad Detective for me! however, I'll hang around outside the theater to see if Lau Ching-Wan comes!

[Beat TG]

he's gonna be there?! sweet!

[skulldugrey]

ok, I checked out the theater that Mad Detective played at and there was no poster or anything. I didn't see anybody show up, not even Johnnie To, but I didn't have a ticket so maybe he came later.Somebody told me that they didn't think anybody was gonna show up for the film, but possibly for Q&A afterwards. however, I did attend the Gala of Blood Brothers, to which Alexi Tan, Daniel Wu, Chang Chen, Lulu Li, and Terence Chang all came to. I must say I don't agree with all these negative reviews out there, I thought the film was quite good. certainly people can't expect it to be as good as Bullet in the Head, but Blood Brothers is one of the better HK films out so far this year that I've seen (even though it's a Taiwan/HK coproduction). it has affecting music, decent drama and acting from mostly all involved, and some good heroic bloodshed/gunplay. it obviously wasn't as bullet-riddled as the handful of John Woo's HK films, but the finale was nicely done, although a little bit short. also, at a running time of 90 minutes, the film is brisk. I'll end it this way, the second round of HK films I've seen from this year (Eye in the Sky, Hooked On You, Invisible Target, Flash Point, and Blood Brothers) has been far more satisfying than the first round (Protege, Twins Mission, Ming Ming, A Mob Story, Kidnap).

[skulldugrey]

ok, if anyone's interested, the Taiwan version of this popped up to preorder the other day on Yesasia.com. here's the link...
us.yesasia.com/en/PrdDept...005067325/ (http://us.yesasia.com/en/PrdDept.aspx/section-videos/code-c/pid-1005067325/)
unfortunately, no hk version available yet, but this one has english subs and should be decent enough, so if no hk version by nov. 2nd, then the Taiwan version it is for me!

[will91XingYu]

I might have to check this film out if Philip Kwok coreographed the fights!

[Beat TG]

there are mostly bad reviews but I'll still watch it.

[J-L]

I use this topic to tell you we interviewed the young director Alexi Tan. He speaks us about the movie and the producers John Woo and Terrence Chang.

direct link to the interview (http://www.hkcinemagic.com/en/page.asp?aid=268)

PS : we interviewed Johnnie To too (but the very long and interesting interview is only in french, for the moment...)

[Milkyway]

can't wait to read the Johnnie To interview.