I tried to depart a little from the traditional martial-arts genre. Instead of treating these characters as heroes, I wanted to see them as ordinary people – at the stage before they became heroes. – Wong Kar-wai

Wong Kar-wai’s restored, re-scored, expanded, recolored and re-edited Ashes of Time Redux premiered tonight at the New York Film Festival. Playing before a sold out crowd at the 1,131-seat Ziegfeld Theatre, Wong Kar-wai was joined on stage afterward for Q&A with the still beautiful actress Brigitte Lin and cinematographer Christopher Doyle.

The acclaimed film has has been digitally colorized from the 1994 print, at times adding beauty to the cinematography, but sometimes too digitally enhanced for some viewers of the original release depending on who you asked at the screening. It seemed everyone was in agreement the subtitles received a nice revision. Regardless, if you’ve only seen this film on DVD, you’re in for a special treat when this story of swordplay and ill fortunes gets a wider theatrical release in the USA on October 10.
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Tags: Ashes of Time, Brigitte Lin, Christopher Doyle, cinema, hong kong, kung fu, Maggie Cheung, martial arts, new york city, New York Film Festival, Sony Pictures Classics, Tony Leung, Wong Kar Wai, Yo-yo Ma

http://www.boston.com/ae/tv/articles/2008/09/05/samurai_girl_fights_with_might/

I watched this miniseries this weekend all by myself in my living room. I was skeptical of it at first sight due to the murder of Jamie’s brother Jack Yang. I was like “oh here we go again, someone who could of served as a strong Asian male character was murdered within the first 15 minutes of the show yet AGAIN”. After that I wanted to grind my teeth out of my head. I proceeded to watch it moaning and groaning. Then I found out my mind was getting very biased, so I tried to make it as unbiased as possible.

So the plot involves what they call a “Japanese princess” whose destiny is written from a 500 year old scroll to become a sort of savior. She was adopted into a family that turns out to be warring with a rival Yakuza clan, equipped with a ninja assassin army. How many of us haven’t seen a ninja, samurai, or yakuza movie in our time? BUT it’s all about delivery. I feel that this mini-series wasn’t delivered well at all.

It left me feeling empty. I did enjoy some of the fighting scenes. I did not like the fact that her savior had to be someone non-Asian who happened to know all about the arts of the shinobi. He trained her to be such an excellent warrior. *rolls eyes really slow* Yeah, I’ve seen that before a blue million times. *yawns* What also pained me was that her “yakuza groom” to be was such a schmuck. He was annoying and uncaring. There was a part in the movie where he told her that he wished he was a better man. He said he was too selfish and weak for her. I was like omg! That certainly didn’t go over well for me with how an Asian male would/should be portrayed in the media. Her father was also uncaring and just about every Asian male on the show, save for her family’s driver, Sab Shimono.

Last mini-episode airs tonight.

Tags: abc, jack yang, jamie chung, japanese, martial arts, ninja, samurai girl, san francisco, yakuza

Everyday we are sure to hear terms like Viral Videos, Web Episodes, and Cyber Blogging. These are all common day words used by the most ordinary people. The Internet revolution has changed the way people seek entertainment in today’s world.

Enter the stylish, Shyaporn Theerakulstit (Tearahgunsehtaet) a YouTube comedian that is anything but a fly by night talent.

Ever the modest gentleman, he lives up to his nickname “Shy” and admits his videos are no Film Phenomenon. This charming actor proves he is not just another pretty face, as his videos are more than the commonplace, resentful drama web-cam video blog dairies, (called vlogs), but humorous sketches, that sometimes have an ethnic twist. He is best known for his “500 impressions in 2 minutes” video, he then taught us that kittens can fly, documented the daily grind of an unemployed hitman and wrote a zombie musical. He even has represented the only Asian super-friend and put him at the forefront of one of his videos. Never one to loose a clever sketch idea he keeps them on a mirror using dry erase marker. Be assured that each upcoming Holiday there will be another one of his immensely enjoyable videos premiering on YouTube. With such a diverse profile like this, you can easily see Shyaporn is a brilliant artist that is as sophisticated as he is creative.
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Tags: actor, asian, Comedy, Hiking, martial arts, new york, Pittsburgh, Sketch, Thailand, Youtube