It's a semi-prequel in the sence that Iron Monkey has Wong Fei-Hung as a child, and OAaTiC has him as an adult. It's also made by the same people, and has the same theme tune.

Haven't seen Iron Monkey in a couple of years.  Love it, but, is the kid Wong Fei Hung?  As in the wandering guys kid?  Never really noticed that.  How does that fit with other Wong Fei Hung mythology?

well, i suppose that was a fairly decent introduction to contemporary japanese cinema. roll on hong kong...

It was good hour or so time killer, but not as informative as I had expected.  They only grazed Takashi Miike's work, ignored Takeshi Kitano's later and better work.

Thought it was interesting that Ryuhei Kitamura admitted to being wholly influenced by Hollywood - he has rarely bettered his first film.

Next week should be good...Stephen Chow interview.

Zinda: Dutt shines in a very dark filmSukanya Verma



Cinema of the new millennium is dangerous, honest. And, best of all, it doesn't hold back. Whether it is for the better or worse depends on your individual capacity to accept and appreciate.

The new trend in movies, for which South East Asian filmmakers are largely responsible, is being very dark, brilliantly violent and characteristically unapologetic.

Now Hindi films too are increasingly being 'inspired' by the brute-force bandwagon. Hence, The Eye and Dark Water became Naina; Acacia; Ju-On: The Grudge became Vaastu Shastra. And Oldboy becomes Zinda.
A profusely bleeding guy walks through the crowded streets of Bangkok. Screen fades.

A happy troika of man, woman and best friend share life and laughter. Screen fades.

A delighted wife rushes through a wooden boardwalk to give her other half some good news. Screen fades.

A man begs for his freedom. Desperation reaches its peak as he abuses and apologises in turns. Screen fades.

Locked up in solitude, without any explanation whatsoever, life becomes unbearable for software engineer Balajeet Roy (Sanjay Dutt). Reflecting the mood and the murkiness to the viewer, everything visible wears a shade of black. The walls, the bed sheet, the pillow cover, the crockery and even Bala's confinement uniform. The same monotony is maintained in his meal too -- fried wantons, fried wantons, more fried wantons and still more.



Framed of murdering his wife Nisha, Bala's only touch with the outside world is a television set which reports tragedies through the years, from Princess Diana's death, the Kargil War, 9/11, America's war on Iraq, Saddam Hussain's capture, the tsunami and other natural disasters.

Bottomline: Bala has completed 14 years in the black hole.

One fine day of the 14th year, Bala is let loose. And a seething Bala wants to hunt down the man responsible for his ruin and ask him the million-dollar question: 'Why?'

He makes a deal with cabbie Jenny Singh (Lara Dutt) to show him around Bangkok and every single restaurant that serves wantons. Wantons are his only link to the unknown enemy. Every person Bala lays his hands on finds himself either drilled, maybe axed, or toothless -- but mostly dead.

The nameless and faceless tormentor finally reveals himself to Bala. What roused a filthy rich business baron like Rohit Chopra (John Abraham) to take upon himself to send Bala to hell and back? That's what the second half of the film deals with.

Director Sanjay Gupta dubs Zinda as a homage to every Korean film he has ever seen. But that would mean he has only seen Oldboy.

Zinda is pretty much an identical twin of Oldboy. Some of the dialogues carry the same punch too. Even the weapons, Dutt's hairstyle and mannerisms of Abraham's character are lifted from the Korean film.

What Gupta has changed is the motive. The original, directed by Park Chanwook, involves incest. Perhaps he thought that would make Zinda, which is already high on aggression, impossible for the orthodox moviegoer to digest?

It is usually not very easy to like a reproduction of an acclaimed original. But to its credit, Zinda keeps you involved. All credit goes to Sanjay Dutt. Take him out of the movie and you are left with below-average actors, uninspired dialogue and a crippled plot twist.

A still from ZindaDutt, however, makes it all plausible. He superbly conveys the inner suffering and the outward anguish. He shows his range going from a pitiful prisoner to a ruthless survivor. His body language screams with manic urgency as he goes on a killing spree -- hurting and getting hurt. He is particularly impressive in the sequences that show him silently breaking down into moments of tender vulnerability.

The rest of the cast crumbles in Dutt's ferocious presence. Lara Dutta is reduced to a glamorous prop. Celina Jaitley makes a two-minute, lifeless (literally) appearance. Mahesh Manjrekar sticks to being loud. John Abraham has the I-just-got-into-my-Calvin-Klein-suit appeal about him. But the smug attitude does not compliment his sincere efforts at appearing vicious as the revenge-thirsty tycoon.
Zinda's music rocks

His co-stars may be of no help, but Dutt gets able support from the music of Strings and Shibani Kashyap. Both the signature Zinda tunes -- Yeh hai meri kahani and Zinda hoon mein -- add to the haunting nature and blood-curdling tempo of the subject.



And thumbs up to cinematographer Sanjay F Gupta and editor Bunty Nagi. The choice of setting the story in Bangkok works in Zinda's favour. The raw, exposed and sinister side of the city is inventively captured through its dingy by lanes and intimidating skyscrapers. Sure, there is ample of cussing, but a story of this magnitude cries for hard-hitting exchange in conversation. Zinda succeeds it in conveying visually, but not in voice.

The butchering is severe. Heads and hands get chopped off intermittently. There is no dearth of blood, gore or lovemaking. It is not a movie for those who get rattled easily.

Truth be told, you have to be angry, demented, numb, a Sanjay Dutt fan or a movie reviewer to be able to enjoy Zinda.

Did anyone else watch ping pong on BBC4 last night? I thought it was pretty good...a bit disjointed, but excellent visuals.

Did anyone else watch ping pong on BBC4 last night? I thought it was pretty good...a bit disjointed, but excellent visuals.

can anybody recomend any more films that i might like?

Have a look at this thread...

Ichi The Killer and Audition for horror, Kung Fu Hustle for comic martial arts, My Sassy Girl for romance, Infernal Affairs and Hana-Bi if you want crime thrillers, Battle Royale, Dead or Alive, A Tale Of Two Sisters, Ring, Zatoichi, Casshern... the list goes on.

can anybody recomend any more films that i might like?

Have a look at this thread...

Ichi The Killer and Audition for horror, Kung Fu Hustle for comic martial arts, My Sassy Girl for romance, Infernal Affairs and Hana-Bi if you want crime thrillers, Battle Royale, Dead or Alive, A Tale Of Two Sisters, Ring, Zatoichi, Casshern... the list goes on.

ive heard of audition its supposedly the inspiration for eli roths last film, hostel whats it about?

ok i have 2 admit i didnt really like th idea of asian cineama all that following subtitles,but how wrong i was!!!! a mate of mine lent i oldboyand its amazin along with donnie darko my favourite ever!!!! can anybody recomend any more films that i might like?

Audition is the story of a man who holds an audition for a made-up film, in order to meet a girl. The one he choses turns out to be more than she seems.

Hostel ...it's apparently heavily influenced by extreme asian cinema.

Battling the waves
Thai auteur Pen-ek Ratanaruang talks about his instinctive approach to filmmaking and why his latest movie is his darkest to date
Kong Rithdee


Cutting edge: Once again, Asano Tadanobu plays a Japanese expat lost in Southeast Asia's subconscious terrain.

Surviving trans-continental journeys is a physical requirement of an able filmmaker. Pen-ek Ratanaruang knows this, and come February the pressurised air of a jet's cabin will surely fill the director's healthy lungs. On February 14, Pen-ek will be present at the Berlin International Film Festival for the world premiere of his latest movie Invisible Waves, which made the cut into the Official Competition. Two days later, the director and his cohorts - Japanese actor Asano Tadanobu, Australian cinematographer Christopher Doyle, screenwriter Prabda Yoon - will be shipped (business class, of course) from subzero Germany to join the gala opening of the Bangkok International Film Festival 2006, where the film will have its local premiere at Paragon Cineplex.

Less than 24 hours after they've landed, the gang will again be leaving on a jet for Berlin, eating some more cold in-flight food and clocking in another 11 airborne hours, just in time for them to show their faces at the awards ceremony of the European cinefest on February 18. And sure enough, Pen-ek will have to fly back home the next day with a thirst to fill his lungs with ground-level air.

The jet-lagged trance the director will have to endure is perhaps the same feeling his audience will have while watching Invisible Waves, Pen-ek's darkest film to date. Its stark, mouldy look is a cushion to the story full of noirish twists and guilt-plagued characters, and the whole package marks a vital step in the Thai auteur's career when the movie was hand-picked for the competition at Berlin, the first Thai film in 25 years to receive such an honour. The film is scheduled to open in Thailand in late February.

Ready to shoot: Director Pen-ek Ratanaruang on the set of his latest movie.

Once again, Pen-ek's leading man is a Japanese chap lost in Southeast Asia's subconscious terrain. Asano plays Kyoji, a Macau-based chef who flees to Hong Kong and Phuket on a mysteriously deserted cruise ship after he's murdered his Thai boss's mistress. On the ship he meets a half-Thai, half-Korean woman (played by Korean actress Kang Hye-jeong) and runs into a jolly hitman sent to whack him. Kyoji first wanders the labyrinthine bowels of the ship, then gets stuck in an old Phuket hotel before his final destiny is decided once and for all.

Real.Time has featured interviews with Pen-ek several times; my first chat with him was in 1998, and I'm still having a fun time talking to this man whose long, sometimes irrelevant drift reveals some cool insights about the idea of contemporary filmmaking - and about his own labyrinthine expedition into the unknown artistic dream-land.

In "Invisible Waves", what need you were trying to satisfy as a filmmaker?

Perhaps the need that for once my film will make some money! No, I mean for me my filmmaking career is like a journey. If I'm going somewhere, that place is where my movies finally
acquire a certain language, a certain thinking process, it's where my movie resembles a world of its own. But before I get there, I'm happy with the fact that I'll have to go on making the journey. I'm not a very disciplined person, so I change direction all the time, and I often find myself straying from the path I've set myself. But then again, I guess it's much more fun this way - to search for something, to get close to it then get lost again. Maybe it's not so fun knowing exactly what your goal is or where your destination will be.

Is "Invisible Waves" in any way a continuation from your previous film, "Last Life in the Universe", which also featured a Japanese man who get tossed around by fate?
I didn't mean it as a continuation, but because I've had the same team from Last Life back to work with me - Asano and Chris Doyle especially - we feel like we've already started something together and we should go on doing it. I like Last Life a lot but I'm not totally happy with it, so with Asano and Chris back on board I thought we all could improve what we did in our previous effort.

But if you're talking about the fact that the leading character in Waves is tossed around by fate, then it's the same for all characters in all my previous movies, from Fun, Bar Karaoke, to 6ixtynin9 and Monrak Transistor. In Waves, my first idea was to make a movie that looks like a movie, you know, like in a film noir. But I'm not sure if that's what I get at the end!

This is your darkest film to date, both in terms of style and storytelling, and especially in the destiny of the characters.

Pen-ek: "Everything I do is inevitably an experiment."

This is your darkest film to date, both in terms of style and storytelling, and especially in the destiny of the characters.

I have no intention of setting myself on a course to making darker pictures. Many depressing things happened to me around the time I tried to get this movie made. I had the script ready, but the process of financing it and trying to get all the diverse elements together was so complicated. My love life, too, wasn't exactly satisfying to say the least! I guess all these things were channelled into the tone of the movie. I didn't mean to make a dark film, but if it turns out to be one, then that's what it is.

"Invisible Waves" is not exactly a thriller, a drama or a love story. It seems to have a bit of everything as the story progresses.
It's a story of self-punishment. I was thinking a lot about guilt, maybe because I felt guilty all the time. As a director, you're trained to be selfish person, since everybody has the job of satisfying your demands - to give you the script you need, the location you want, the image you have in your head. But at a certain point, I felt wrong about it all. And then I realised I was shouldering all this guilt. Perhaps the story in the film, about this man who feels guilty for the crime he's forced to commit, says something about my state of mind too.

In all your films, a female character is integral to the mechanism of the plot. Likewise in "Waves", though I think the female character in this film has a smaller influence than in your other movies.

I once said that I wanted to make Invisible Waves a Clint Eastwood movie, you know, a kind of macho-man movie. But for me, I never created my characters based on their sex. I mean, I didn't think of them as a man or a woman, and when I write a part for a female character, I don't try too hard to understand how a woman thinks. In Last Life, my feeling is that the male character, Kenji, ended up looking more like a female who needs protection from his woman, who becomes more and more like a man in the house.

You shot the film on location in Macau, Hong Kong and Phuket. Did these places influence the story and the mood of the film?
Very much. I made my first three movies in a conventional way: I wrote the scripts and went out to find the places that would suit the pictures I had in my head. That means I was the centre of the process, and everything had to be found to fit my vision. But since Last Life and especially in Waves, I tried to see more, to listen more, to take more from what's available on the set, on location. I fixed the scripts several times after I had scouted the locations in Phuket and Macau. In this way I was influenced by Chris Doyle's working method. He's a cinematographer who can't just sit down and listen to me describing the story; he has to go out to confront the space and let his ideas develop once he sees what he has to shoot.

There's a scene in a hotel in Waves. When I went down to inspect an old hotel in Phuket, I found the place had a similar mood, a strangely time-frozen quality, as in the cruise ship scenes. So I rewrote the script to emphasise the idea that the character will always get lost, on a ship or in a hotel. It's as if he's cursed to wander without direction, as if he's stuck in a horror movie. I wouldn't come up with that hadn't I felt the location.

"Invisible Waves" has a heftier plot than "Last Life", but at the same time it's also more ethereal, almost fantasy-like in a way. Is there any point while you were making the film that you had doubts that it would all turn out to be a futile experiment?
I feel it all the time! I started making movies because I am curious. I didn't start making movies because I had a fixed idea of what I'm trying to do. Unlike [Thai directors] Wisit [Sasanatieng] or Apichatpong [Weerasethakul], who are visionaries, who know exactly what they want to do with cinema, I never have a clear vision. Hence with this attitude, everything I do is inevitably an experiment. If it's a futile experiment, that's what it is. I just don't know any other approaches to filmmaking besides this one.

Like I said, it's all a journey. And when I'm on a journey I am curious to go into some strange alleys, just to see what it's like. I'm happier this way. Of course, the outcome is important because there are people who put in a lot of money for my movies. At the end my finished work is a product that needs to be sold. But I believe that technically, I'm not so bad as a filmmaker, so even though my experiment doesn't really work out, the film won't come out so bad.

In both "Last Life" and "Waves", your stories deal with characters who exist in certain places though they also exist in a void where nationalities and languages are not concrete. It's especially so in "Waves", with the main character drifting into different countries and speaking different tongues. A lot of people will comment, even criticise, that this is not a Thai movie.
I've been travelling a lot and I have a lot of friends in different countries who speak different languages. When my film is shown in Thailand, there are people who like it and who don't like it. When my film is shown in, say, Bolivia and Somalia, there are people who like it and who don't like it. I've had less belief in race or nationality, in the colour of your eyes or the language you speak. So, for me it's easier to classify humankind not according to countries but to taste, and more than ever people with the same taste in movies, music or books feel they belong to the same race.

Has anyone seen the film R-Point??

Has anyone seen the film R-Point??

I saw it in HMV the other day and it looked quite good. It's supposed to be a cross between The Blair Witch and Battle Royale.

Has anyone seen the film R-Point??

I saw it in HMV the other day and it looked quite good. It's supposed to be a cross between The Blair Witch and Battle Royale.

Tom-Yum-Goong: 2-disc Edition (region 3)
[Tony Jaa,Mum Jokmok,Tuk Bongkot]


 
Directed by
Prachya Pinkaew

Synopsis:
Kham (Tony Jaa) is a country boy whose life is turned upside down when international mafia figures turn up at his sleepy village to capture his two prize bull elephants and take them to Australia. These are no ordinary elephants. They are majestic, grand creatures due to be offered to His Majesty the King as a token of devotion: they are.... Kham's elephants. He has no choice : he can't allow anyone to take his beloved elephants away, he must travel to Australia, right into the heart of the Mafia-run district to track down the kidnappers and bring his elephants home.

Special Features:
-Behind The Scenes & Special Scenes including Fully Fighting Scenes.
-Studio Tours
-Actors' Interviews
-Poster Gallery (collected all designs)
-List of places "Tom-Yum-Goong" on screen and schedules for the first theatrical date for over than 50 countries worldwide
-Stills Pictures (over than 100 pictures)
-Interviews and TV Spot Collection
-Trailer on "Cannes"

Disc/Encoding: Dvd region 3 (PAL)/DVD9-Asia
Picture: Anamorphic Widescreen
Audio: Thai Dolby 5.1
Subtitle: None
Studio: Sahamongkol Films
No. of Disc: 2
Running Time: TBC
Year: 2005

This product will be in stock on Thursday 23 February, 2006.

Watched New Police Story on Friday night. Pretty cool. Loads of gunplay and cool camera work. Only let down was the lack of martial arts. Jackie wasn't in the film much and only did one fight sequence. Its a shame that Jackie is nearing the end of his martial arts days, though I cant blame that bloke for cutting back at his age.

Kham (Tony Jaa) is a country boy whose life is turned upside down when international mafia figures turn up at his sleepy village to capture his two prize bull elephants and take them to Australia. These are no ordinary elephants. They are majestic, grand creatures due to be offered to His Majesty the King as a token of devotion: they are.... Kham's elephants. He has no choice : he can't allow anyone to take his beloved elephants away, he must travel to Australia, right into the heart of the Mafia-run district to track down the kidnappers and bring his elephants home.

Play "Old Boy" to Be Staged Mar. 10 to Apr. 30  

"Old Boy," the award-winning film based on a Japanese comic book, will be staged as a play. The play "Old Boy" produced by JTCulture will be staged at Uri Theater in Daehakno, Seoul from Mar. 10 until Apr. 30.

The play will be quite different from the film version. The storyline is the same, including abduction, revenge and incarceration. But compared to the original comic book or film version, the play will present different reasons for and method of revenge by the avenging character. The play will not deal with such themes as incest.

The main character Mu Tae-cheon (Oh Dae-soo in the film) boasts that he is good at escape. On a visit to an agency specializing in kidnapping and confining people, Mu signs an incarceration contract with the agency on the condition he be released after six months.

But he is released ten years and six months later. Though he has chosen the incarceration himself, Mu realizes that he has been driven into a trap of revenge set meticulously by somebody else.

An official from the production agency said, "We produced the play, regardless of the film version, after we bought the copyright from Japan. So, it's not an adaption from the film, but almost a new creation. This has nothing to do with the film version."

The play written by Choi Chi-eon will be directed by Kim Kwan. Through an audition of about 700 applicants, the agency has double cast TV actor Kim Jung-kyun and actor Chu Sang-rok as the main character.

Also performing will be Choi Kyung-won, Lee Min, Ryu Jin, Kim Koo-kyung, Shin Hyun-seung, Lim Jung-eun, Chung Jin-ah, Park Ji-han, and Kim Hyun-jung. It will be open to those aged 16 years or older.

The performances will be given at 8:00 p.m. on weekdays, 5:00 and 8:00 p.m. on Saturdays, and 3:00 and 6:00 p.m. on Sundays.

brothel-based gorefest

Park Chan-Wook burst onto the film scene with 'JSA: Joint Security Area', a politically charged thriller that became the most successful release in Korean history.

Chan-Wook followed that with the first part of his celebrated 'vengeance' trilogy, the critically acclaimed (and at times hard to stomach) 'Sympathy for Mr Vengeance'.

He then made part two in the shape of 'Oldboy', an international smash that won awards all over the world, including the coveted Grand Prix in Cannes.

Tomorrow sees the release of the final part of the trilogy, 'Lady Vengeance', and we caught up with the writer-director earlier today to discuss his stunning new film.

Where did the concept 'Lady Vengeance' come from?

It has two origins, one of which was when I thought to myself: 'How-come I've been making such male-oriented films? I don't share many things with men, most of my friends are women, I empathise more with women, so why have I been making these man-oriented films?' At the end of 'Oldboy', the film finished without the girl knowing the truth. I didn't like that, so I thought that with my next film I'd make a film where the woman is the main character.

The other origin came from a crime that was committed a long time ago in Korea, when a child was kidnapped and found dead on the roof of a high-rise building in a water tank. Everybody was very angry wanting to catch the murderer. Then everybody was shocked when the perpetrator was caught and turned out to be a young pregnant woman. Like everybody, I was very curious – she was tried in a court of law while she was pregnant. How could a mother who has a life within herself commit such a murder? She would have been jailed and would have given birth to the child in prison, so what would happen to the child? That was in my mind when I started the film. It's not a story where the woman goes to jail pregnant, but that's where it began.

Does this trilogy of films come from any personal experiences or demons that you have?

It's never so. The characters or the films I make have no direct relationship with my personal desires, experiences or life. It's just a film; a created story. It's difficult to say that it has no relationship whatsoever if you go to the deepest level, but then again everyone has that desire for revenge. If you go deep enough, it's the same for everybody.

At what point in the process did you decide to distort the narrative and move back and forth in time?

You will probably find my answer unexpected but it has something to do with Young-ae as an actress. She is very famous in Asia and her image is that she is good, docile and intelligent – the typical, traditional image of what a Korean woman should be. If you can make a list of actresses too use as a protagonist in a revenge story, then she would probably come at the end of that list. It is like Audrey Hepburn playing a serial killer. There's a great dichotomy between the image of Young-ae when she is in jail and when she is out of jail. When she's in jail it's the familiar image of Young-ae – she's kind to everyone and she smiles a lot. But when she's out of jail her expression changes completely and she's like a goddess of revenge. The juxtaposition of the two images – where one is familiar and the other is very unfamiliar – to combine them makes it a very interesting story.

The film is very colourful, so much so that at times it looks like a beautiful fairytale – where did the inspiration for this come from?

From the beginning I considered this story to be a fairytale. 'Sympathy for Mr Vengeance' is based on hard-boiled reality and 'Oldboy' is mythical, like a legend, and 'Lady Vengeance' is like a fairytale. A lot of fairytales, before Disney, tended to depict the dark side of life. In fact, when we were making this film, people thought it was like 'Alice in Wonderland' in that she meets a lot of people and then she parts from them. So yes, it does have a strong fairytale element, and I used the visual style to emphasise that. To create a world that is dreamy and surreal.

Do you think that you have improved as a filmmaker over the course of the three revenge films?

I don't know if I've improved artistically because when I look back sometimes I think that 'Mr Vengeance' is the best of the three, and sometimes 'Lady Vengeance' is the best. But I'm very proud of the fact that I've made a film in which the woman is the main protagonist.

Is your wife still your biggest and most important critic?

Not only is she my greatest critic, but she's also my greatest helper, creatively. She's not been able to help on all my films because of our child, but when the child grows up, I'd like to get her help as much as Hitchcock got help from his wife, Alma. So much so that she will be credited on the films.

Which films and filmmakers have influenced you over the years?

When I started studying film I was totally under the influence of Alfred Hitchcock, though since I've become a film director I feel like I've graduated from that. But there are so many directors that have influenced me and that I like. It's been a long time since I've watched a new film because there are so many good old films, it's just endless. I recently held an event in Korea at an arthouse cinema where filmmakers introduce their favourite film to the audience and then we have a Q&A session after as if it's his or her own film. That was a very special event – Kim Ji-yong introduced 'Spirit of the Beehive' and I introduced Don Siegel's 'The Killers'.
It's difficult for me to say one director, but I can say one actor – Lee Marvin.

He would have been great in one of the vengeance films.

Definitely.

How do you feel about the proposed remake of 'JSA' set on the Mexican border, and the American version of 'Oldboy' that's being discussed at the moment?b

Frankly I don't know much about them because I can't influence them. We sold the rights and they are going to do it by themselves – they don't report to us. It's going to be good for them because 'Oldboy' was based on a Japanese manga, and the author didn't say anything to me, so I won't put my nose into their business. Even if I had the power to influence them, I don't want to do that. I hope they make good films because the fans of the Korean film laugh at the thought of these remakes, so I hope they are good to prove them wrong.

Are you pleased with the impact that Korean cinema is having on western audiences?

I'm happy about it but I hope it will appeal to a broader audience than just students or intellectuals with exotic tastes and inclinations.

Have you got any interest in making a film in English in the future?

The difficulty is the language barrier. There have been lots of suggestions from Hollywood, and if I was a filmmaker who made action films it may be possible, but I'm not. And communication between me and the actors is so important – I find it difficult even in Korean – but in English it would be even harder.
If there is a wonderful script I will do my utmost to learn English or use an interpreter, but I haven't seen such a script yet. The upside might be that when I communicate with Korean people, they get unintentionally offended by little remarks I make without thinking. But if I use an interpreter, I can blame them!

Are you done with the theme of revenge now?

For the time being, but you never know about the future. The next film is not like this but the one after is a vampire story and is ultra-violent, so there may be an element of vengeance in that film.

Are you ever worried about the amount of violence in your films?

I think violence is unavoidable in my films because I talk about violent relationships. And I think violence is a form of communication.

Can you tell us anything about the vampire film?

I can't say any more because nothing has been decided, other than the fact that Song Kang-Ho from 'Sympathy for Mr Vengeance' will play the lead vampire. And it will be very dark – my darkest film yet. The English title is 'Evil Live' – the inverse of the word evil. American people have said that it sounds like a heavy metal band though.

And what about your next film?

It's called 'I'm a Cyborg, But That's OK', but I must emphasise that it's not a sci-fi film. It's a love story about a girl who imagines she's a cyborg, and a young man in his early 20s with a compulsive theft disorder, and he begins to think that that he can steal the abilities and personalities of other people. But I'm worried that the title is too long. What do you think?

Well it's quite long, but it made me smile when you said it.

That's good, because it is a romantic comedy. We start work in late March and I hope to release it in November.

Have you cast it yet?

The lead male will be played by a Korean singer called Rain, and the female character will be played by Im Soo-Jung, who played the elder sister in 'A Tale of Two Sisters'. That was just agreed two days ago and this is the first time I've told anyone, so you've got an exclusive there!

I'm a Cyborg, but that's OK"～

Which neatly brought me to my next question – something that I had been keen to ask him for a while. What are his thoughts on the ‘extreme’ label bestowed upon Asian cinema in the UK? His answer is surprisingly candid. “There are a lot of complaints about Asian films being interpreted in such a narrow way and consumed in a narrow way. We need to get away from that.” He leans forward and says, “This is not intentional, but my next film is a romantic comedy, and I don’t know how this will go down in this [UK] market. I don’t know if it will be included in ‘Asia Extreme’. How they are going to make a DVD of it? Extremely beautiful? Extremely funny? I am not sure…” He laughs, and pauses for a moment. “But I think there is a timing for everything and I think it was the right strategy to present Asian cinema as extreme, because that was the right way to attract attention. Now the challenge is to move beyond that. I think it is high time that we need to go beyond extreme, because in the minds of the Western people this is typical orientalism. It is wrong, it is simply not true.”

Park’s says of his next project excitedly, “It is called I Am A Cyborg But That Is OK [working title]. It’s not sci-fi! It’s about a little girl who suffers from a mental illness and imagines that she is a cyborg and is admitted to a mental hospital where she meets a man who suffers from a disease and they fall in love….” So no more vengeance, I ask? He confirms, “No more vengeance.” And there you have it.

Park Chan-wook starts shooting movie 'Cyborg' starring Bi

SEOUL, March 29 (Yonhap) -- South Korean director Park Chan-wook started shooting scenes for "I'm a Cyborg, But That's OK," in the southern port city of Busan on Wednesday with singer Bi as its male lead, the film promoter said.

"Cyborg" has drawn attention with the combination of the star director of "Old Boy" and "Sympathy for Lady Vengeance" and the Asian heartthrob, also known by his English name Rain, who performed in the Madison Square Garden in New York last month.

Its female lead is Lim Soo-jung, who played a blameless heroine in the popular Korean television drama series, "Sorry, I Love You," which aired last year in eight Asian countries, including China, Japan, Singapore and Vietnam. Oh Dal-su, who has teamed up with the director in his previous two movies, will offer his refreshing humor again, the promoter All That Cinema said.

Billed as a romantic comedy, the film tells a story of a woman in a mental institution who believes she is a cyborg and a man who loves her, it said.

The movie's primary location will be Busan, South Korea's second-largest city, which faces the East Sea, and it is expected to be released in December, it said.

Nice one Dan-dan. I've enjoyed Park Chan Wook's films to date and the concepts of the two in the pipeline appeal. If "I'm a Cyborg" is anything like Save the Green Planet I'll be ultra chuffed. Love that film.

I didn't rate either of the "Vengeance" films too highly - although they both had moments of undeniable power. Oldboy is still the film of his I enjoy the most, with JSA bumping up a close second. I'm really interested to see this Three Extremes film that's doing the rounds in the States.

I didn't rate either of the "Vengeance" films too highly - although they both had moments of undeniable power. Oldboy is still the film of his I enjoy the most, with JSA bumping up a close second. I'm really interested to see this Three Extremes film that's doing the rounds in the States.