John Woo on a new mission: boosting Chinese films

By Belinda Goldsmith
SYDNEY (Reuters) - Hollywood film director John Woo has returned to his roots to bring a traditional Chinese story to the big screen, and hopes this will garner new interest for Chinese films globally.
Woo, well known for his choreographed action movies such as "Mission: Impossible II," said "Red Cliff" aims to convince young Chinese that movies don't need a Hollywood stamp to be good and to prove the merits of Chinese films to Western audiences.
"Red Cliff," the most expensive Asian-financed movie made with a $80 million budget, is about the ancient Chinese battle of that name. It is Woo's first Chinese-language film since the 1992 thriller "Hard-Boiled" and his first U.S. release in six years.
Woo said the scale of the movie made it an epic with action and romance akin to "Troy," "Gladiator" or even "Lawrence of Arabia" that should appeal to an international audience.
"I wanted to prove that in China we have the ability and the talent to make big movies like Hollywood but adding something that's never been seen before," Woo told Reuters on the sidelines of the 56th Sydney Film Festival where "Red Cliff" is showing.
"I wanted to make a movie that would appeal to people all over the world, that would bring people together because even though we come from different cultures, we have a lot in common."
Woo, 63, who has directed over 26 films, is well known for his Hollywood movies such as "Face/Off" and "Broken Arrow." He is renowned in Asia for gangster dramas and action movies including "The Killer" and "A Better Tomorrow."
But Woo said he has struggled over the years to unite his two audiences, so with "Red Cliff" he set out to make a movie that rose above cultural and historical barriers.
However, the movie has had different versions released in Asia and elsewhere.
In Asia, the film was released in two parts, totally four hours in length, but for Western markets Woo cut the sub-titled movie back to a single film running for 2- hours.
"This was hard to do but trimming the movie has not changed the story or the spirit of the movie at all," said Woo. "But I would not do it that way again. It was too hard."
Woo said financing the film, despite its high price tag, had been easy and the movie had already made a good profit.
His own production company, Lion Rock Productions, was joined by China Film Group Corp, Taiwan's CMC Entertainment, Japan's Avex Entertainment, China's Chengtian Entertainment and Korea's Showbox.
"Everybody loves the story and most people in Asia have read the book ("Romance of the Three Kingdoms") on which it is based. They also had a lot of confidence in me," he said.
The film is set in the year 208 in the dying days of the Han dynasty, culminating in the battle of Red Cliff in which 2,000 ships were burned. Continued...
Source: Reuters

Rock festivals fighting financial washout

By Marton Dunai
BUDAPEST (Reuters) - The Prodigy or Fatboy Slim are not enough to persuade Dorina Keresztes to fork out for a rock festival ticket this summer. She says she will find other ways to party.
"Lounging in a park drinking wine with friends is, you know, free," said the 22-year old student from Budapest.
Glastonbury in Britain may be a sell-out, but in the north and east of Europe from Denmark's Roskilde to Romania's B'esfest and Hungary's Sziget, the uncertainties of recession are making 2009 as a rock festival 'summer of love' a hard sell.
As some sponsors pull out, the discounts on offer look geared to publicity. Bring 45 people to Sziget -- usually Europe's third-largest event after Roskilde and Glastonbury -- and all can go half price, organizers say.
Other festivals are postponing planned price hikes, particularly in eastern Europe where the crisis has fallen on countries with already much slimmer economic cushions than in the West. Many have had to scale back.
As a purely discretionary pastime, festivals have to strike the right balance between price and value, says Christof Huber, general secretary of Yourope, an organization of Europe's summer festivals. "That could be difficult this year."
Hungary's unemployment rate is near 10 percent, its highest in at least 13 years, and economic growth indicators are at their weakest since the end of Communism. The country is dependent on a $25 billion IMF loan. Public sentiment is in an abyss.
Luring foreigners by highlighting eastern Europe's relative affordability is just about the best hope some festivals have.
"As we raise prices to catch up with festivals in western Europe, the Hungarian audience slowly melts," said Gabor Takacs, financial director of Sziget. "But to westerners, this is still cheap."
Sziget has in recent years drawn French, German, Dutch and British visitors by its affordability relative to their home events, he said.
A six-day pass for Sziget, which means "island" and takes place on an island in the Danube river, costs 150 euros ($208) -- more affordable to a German on average take-home pay of 2,140 euros per month than to a Hungarian, who earns an average of 475 euros, according to the latest Eurostat data.
"That (price) is obscene," said Keresztes. "The ticket price is only the beginning. You have to eat, drink, smoke..."
However, the cost of staging a festival also rises if, like Hungary's, your currency has weakened sharply. Sziget's Takacs said foreign headliners' fees -- the biggest expense, which can reach as much as $1 million -- grew by about 20 percent as the forint weakened this year.
And if Hungary is an indication, Western tourists are also slowing: Hungary's Statistical Bureau said on its Web site foreign visits were down by a fifth so far in 2009 and the Tourism Board expects a 5 percent drop for the season, it said in a statement.
CHILL Continued...
Source: Reuters

Thai police will know how Carradine died in one month

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By Kittipong Soonprasert
BANGKOK (Reuters) - Thai police said on Monday that the cause of U.S. actor David Carradine's death in a Bangkok hotel room would not be known until they had the results of the autopsy and toxicology tests in a month's time.
The police refused to give further details about their investigation into the 72-year-old actor's mysterious death, amid intense media speculation about causes ranging from suicide to murder via accidental autoerotic asphyxiation.
"We are still investigating but we will not make any assumptions about his death until we have gathered all the facts," the deputy Bangkok police chief, Lieutenant-General Amnoy Nimmino, told a news conference.
"We have to wait for the toxicology reports, the result of the autopsy and forensic evidence. We will know everything in one month."
Carradine, the star of U.S. 1970s show "Kung Fu," was filming the movie "Stretch" in the Thai capital when a maid found him dead in his suite at the plush Swissotel Nai Lert Park on June 4.
The police also refused to confirm the authenticity of a grainy photo published by a tabloid-style Thai newspaper, which said it was of Carradine's naked, hanging body.
Carradine's family said it was "profoundly disturbed" by the photo, printed on Saturday in the Thai Rath newspaper, and threatened legal action, the actor's brother, Keith Carradine, said in a statement issued by lawyer Mark Geragos.
"The family wants it understood that ... any persons, publications or media outlets will be fully prosecuted for invasion of privacy and causing severe emotional distress if the photos are published," the statement said.
Thai Rath, the country's top-selling newspaper, is known for its lively coverage of crime and celebrities. It did not give a source for the photograph and the face could not been seen.
"I cannot say anything about this photograph," said Amnoy. "The media were not present at the crime scene and this picture was not leaked by the police."
Initial police reports said the actor had committed suicide, but relatives insisted Carradine would not take his own life.
Thai police and media then speculated that accidental autoerotic asphyxiation was a possible cause of death.
The Thai coroner has said it could be several weeks before the results of the toxicology tests and autopsy are known.
Carradine's family called on U.S. authorities on Saturday to help explain how he died, and a U.S. embassy official in Bangkok said the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) was discussing the case with Thai police.
Amnoy said the FBI was welcome to take part in the investigation, but only after Thai prosecutors had received a formal request from the U.S. government. Continued...
Source: Reuters

Key hearing set in Anna Nicole Smith death case

By Dan Whitcomb
LOS ANGELES (Reuters) - A judge on Monday ordered Anna Nicole Smith's longtime boyfriend and two doctors to face a hearing in August to determine if they must stand trial for illegally supplying the Playboy model with prescription drugs for years before she died of an accidental overdose.
Los Angeles Superior Court Judge David Wesley said the preliminary hearing would begin within 10 days of Aug 12 for Howard K. Stern, who was also Smith's lawyer, her psychiatrist Khristine Eroshevich and Dr. Sandeep Kapoor.
Stern, 40, and the two doctors are charged with conspiracy and prescribing painkillers, sleeping pills, anxiety medications and other drugs to Smith between 2004 and her death on Feb 8, 2007 from an overdose of prescription drugs.
Wesley began the hearing by issuing a bench warrant for Kapoor, 41, after the doctor didn't turn up but quashed it after he arrived late, saying that a patient had an emergency.
Stern and the two doctors are accused of obtaining the pills for Smith by using false names, but their lawyers say they were merely carrying out Smith's wishes and that the drugs were prescribed for legitimate medical reasons.
If convicted, all three defendants could face more than 5 years in prison.
Smith was found unresponsive at the Seminole Hard Rock Hotel and Casino in Hollywood, Florida on February 8, 2007 and was pronounced dead at a local hospital within hours.
Her death came shortly after the birth of her daughter and the death of her 20-year-old son, who also died of an overdose from prescription drugs and methadone.
Smith, who was 39 when she died, is best known as a Playboy Playmate and Guess jeans model. With her buxom blond looks, she often emulated Marilyn Monroe, who died of a drug overdose in August, 1962 at the age of 36.
(Editing by Bob Tourtellotte)

Source: Reuters