News - November 19th Infectious Hollywood Pretty Boy in Final Negotiations to Star in Paycheck As my late beloved father would say, Sheeit. 0 0 Sources Reel.com 0 0 News - October 22nd Woo's Next Project Not Chow/Cage Historical Epic, but a Sci-Fi?!? IGN Filmforce reports that John Woo's would-be reunion with Chow Yun-fat will be delayed indefinitely due to budget problems. Moving on from the often-renamed The Divide that was to co-star Woo regulars Chow Yun-fat and Nicolas Cage, Woo's upcoming project, reported to start filming in February 2003, is an adaption of a Philip K. Dick novel of the same name, Paycheck. The story is reportedly about a man who can't remember the past two years of his life, but finds a bag of various objects that might eventually piece together and reveal his past. This would be the second Philip K. Dick adaption in two consecutive years, following the Steven Spielberg blockbuster Minority Report. Some previous film adaptions of Dick's work include Ridley Scott's Blade Runner (based on the novel Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep) and Paul Verhoeven's Total Recall (from the short story We Can Remember it For You Wholesale). See the IGN article here. Hell. I don't know why I find this as utterly shocking as I do. It seems to, for some reason, have shaken me terribly. Of course what this means to me is no Chow Yun-fat/Woo collaboration. AGAIN. HELL. HELLY HELL HELL HELLY HELL. But on the flipside, I am a fan of Dick's stories (I just finished A Scanner Darkly) and Dick adaptions seem to be pretty hot at the moment, so if Woo's able to team with a bankable star, perhaps Paycheck will be successful enough to get Woo the clout to do what he wants to do (say, the western, musical, King's Ransom or The Divide). I don't know. The thought of Woo doing sci-fi does not compute. I don't know why, I've just never associated the two. Woo and Star Wars. Woo and 2001. The noir-ish vibe I get from descriptions of the story sound awfully cool, as do the '50s-style landscapes, but I just don't see something like this going together with Woo (sort of like a World War II movie. D'oh!). But I guess this'll all just have to sink in. KEEP IN MIND this isn't concrete yet, though IGN sounded awfully confident in reporting it. Hell. If you want to do what I'm going to do, check out Barnes and Noble or Amazon (or your favorite book retailer) to get your copy of a book of short stories that contains Paycheck to get a grip on the whole thing. Finally, you can also give Coming Attractions a peek to see what they have to say to flesh out the premise of the story a bit (and to strengthen the plausibility of this whole thing being a reality; they seem to independently confirm what IGN says). Hell. 0 0 Sources IGN.com Coming Attractions 0 0 News - September 27 Chow Yun-fat to Hit Video Game Consoles! IGN.COM reports that MGM Interactive is set to publish a game, developed by Empire Interactive, based on 2003's Bulletpoof Monk. The game is scheduled to be released simultaneously with the film on unspecified platforms. Woohoo! I've been hankering to play as a polygonal Chow yun-fat since the talk of a John Woo/Chow Yun-fat collaborative RPG for the PS2 was going around back in the late nineties. This isn't quite as thrilling as an RPG based on CYF's trademark Hitman-with-a-Conscience character, but it's a step in the right direction. My only fear is that developer Empire Interactive is known for racing games such as Crazy Taxi and, well, Mother Trucker. Will they be able to handle what I suspect will be a 3rd-person action game? Only time will tell. To check out IGN's full article, click here. In addition to this project, a game based on Woo's 2000 hit Mission: Impossible 2 is late in its developement life, but it unfortunately has strayed far from Woo's formula and looks to offer none of the slow-mo, double-fisted, pigeon-flying action that made the film popular. Besides that is the long time-coming, reportedly mediocre fighting game with the Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon license, for which there has been no media released featuring Chow Yun-fat's character in the film, Li Mu-bai. 0 0 Sources IGN.COM The Official Empire Interactive Website 0 0 News - August 2 Woo Produces New USA Network TV Movie "Don't miss this high-octane martial arts action-adventure, a 90-minute special event presented by JOHN WOO. Federal agents are carefully tracking a ship as it approaches the coast of San Diego. The cargo: a large load of Chinese immigrants - as well as a group of Triad Gangsters, led by drug lord Zhao Lo (ROGER YUAN). But also aboard are a pair of undercover Chinese military police officers, Po and Li (VIVIAN WU), who have been tracking the gang for more than three years. When FBI agents Cross (SHAWN CHRISTIAN) and Riley (KADEEM HARDISON) catch up with the ship as it docks, a fight quickly erupts. Po is killed, and Zhao slips away. Determined to avenge the death of her partner, the strong-willed Li agrees to join a special FBI task force charged with tracking the Triad Gangsters down. But Zhao is already aware that the Feds are on his trail - and that Li has followed him to America. As tensions rise, it's only a matter of time before the two sides face off in a final, decisive confrontation. Also starring RACHAEL CRAWFORD and SIDNEY LIUFAU. Directed by ROBERT LIEBERMAN (THE DEAD ZONE) and LARRY CARROLL (THE HUNTRESS)." (exerpt from the official USA Network website) Set to air on Wednesday, August 7 at 8PM/7C and again at 9:30PM/8:30C (and surely many more times after that), Red Skies looks to follow up John Woo's Once a Thief and Blackjack as made-for-TV efforts by Woo, though he is only executive-producing this one (think The Big Hit and The Replacement Killers). I really don't know what to expect other than Kadeem Hardison (who learned how to do it HK-style in the classic Drive), seeing as I only heard of it just now. And with it being only five days away, I'd feel kind of silly searching all over for details about it. So I'm just going to walk into it blindly, and I suggest you do the same. 0 0 Sources USANetwork.com Mom 0 0 News - May 24 New Woo-style game unveiled at E3 Is Woo the new flavor-of-choice for video game developers? Luxoflux, developers of the old car combat game Vigilante 8, are jumping on the bandwagon with True Crimes: Streets of LA for all three major consoles. Video game sites report it as a mixture of styles, from Grand Theft Auto 3 to Max Payne. More info when it becomes available. With Max Payne out and Dead to Rights set to hit within the next couple of months, it seems that slo-mo diving pistoly-fu is a hot trend in video games right now. I personally couldn't be happier. From the video I've seen (courtesy of IGN), it appears that some fisticuffs are thrown in with the gunfights, bringing True Crimes: Streets of LA a little closer to Namco's Dead to Rights than to Gathering of Developers' Max Payne. Add some car combat and Luxoflux has an intriguing genre-bender on their hands. View the PS2 article (with movies) View the X-Box article (text only) 0 0 Sources IGN.com 0 0 News - Feb. 2 Disney shooting for Hong Kong movie monopoly Okay, I'm all for censorship. Nudity is evil. Video games breed serial killers. Cuss words make kids rebel against authority. But I can't think of anything more wholesome and good than Simon Yam stabbing a drug-dealing pimp in the neck. So why in the world might something so just and right be censored? Because Disney doesn't think you should see it. "Bah, censorship concerns me not!" you say. Well, that's fine and dandy, it's not a huge hair up my butt either. But what Disney is doing, you see, is basically outlawing the sale of specific (unedited, undubbed) Hong Kong movies by import retailers that they themselves release (edited, dubbed, all screwed up) in the states. What this means to you and me is, say you want the Hong Kong version of Jet Li's Fist of Legend because you heard that the American version is dubbed, and that dub changes much of the dialogue in the film, altering the storyline. Poker Industries says "you got it!". Disney says "Poker Industries, if you sell a foreign version of this film that we've released domestically under our Miramax banner, our lawyers will leather their softballs with your scrotums". Poker Industries says "Eep!". You say "Damn!". The Web Alliance for the Respectful Treatment of Hong Kong's Best says "Hey, cut that out, you big bully!". Could it be any simpler? The Alliance are all about standing up for your right to see Jet Li smoke opium whenever and wherever you damn well please. So why not drop by there, get a much more accurate and sensical idea of what they do, and see if it grabs you. Because wanting to see a blind, brain-damaged Jackie Chan at the end of Drunken Master 2 isn't too much to ask for. The Web Alliance for the Respectful Treatment of Hong Kong's Best 0 0 Dragon to manufacture Official The Windtalkers toys Dragon Models, the Japanese toy company infamous for its line of 12" figures modeled after real-life action heroes (without official license) such as Chow Yun-fat, Tony Leung Chiu Wah, Jude Law and others, has gotten the official green light from Metro Goldwyn Mayer to produce figures based on the characters of this summer's John Woo WWII drama The Windtalkers. Anyone familiar with Dragon's toy and model work knows that this is great news for us fans, because there are no more capable hands to produce extremely well-detailed and poseable toys. Proposed figures include Nicolas Cage, Christian Slater and Adam Beach's characters from the film. Due to the film's delay, release of the figures has been postponed as well. Pre-Order Pre-order Nicolas Cage from Voyager Toys Pre-order Adam Beach from Voyager Toys Pre-order Christian Slater from Voyager Toys More information www.dragon-models.com www.marcopoloimports.com 0 0 Woo's next film: King's Men? The Internet Movie Database lists John Woo's next project, under the working titles of King's Men (US) and Honor Among Thieves (HK), has begun production in some facet. Referred to as a comedy in an interview by Asia Week with the man himself, IMDB reports casting of Michael Jai White (Spawn, Tyson, Exit Wounds) and Ho Sung Pak (Drunken Master II) and script-writing credits to Michael Colleary (Face/Off co-writer) and John McCormick. With the similarities between the American working title (King's Men) and the working title of the perpetually delayed Chow/Woo American production King's Ransom, one might assume that this could be the modern incarnation of that project, a proposed lighthearted heist action/comedy homage to The Thomas Crowne Affair in the vein of 1992's Once a Thief. How accurate this information is is up to IMDB, but with the casting of Michael Jai White and Ho Sung Pak, I'm not exactly chomping at the bit to see this get done. It sounds like another Violent Tradition/Blackjack to me, a direct-to-video/TV project because Woo gets bored between big budget flicks. Can Colleary really help this project out? If he was indeed responsible for the early drafts of Face/Off, then he was responsible for a futuristic action/sci-fi that, only after major rewrites and some polishing by Woo, was servicable. But only time will tell, anyone with information or rumors, of course, please drop them to me at the burnt hundred-dollar bill at the bottom of the screen. 0 0 CYF to voice Battlefield Earth cartoon show In case you hadn't heard, Variety reports that Chow Yun-fat will voice "Terl", John Travolta's character in the 2000 Sci-Fi movie bomb, in an upcoming animated, hour-long cartoon series based on the movie (based on the book) Battlefield Earth. I guess the bright side is CYF will get a chance to really sharpen his English, and I sincerely doubt that, even if this idiotic idea of a cartoon gets made and aired, it will last longer than its initial contract. But I don't know, maybe in this day and age kids long to learn about Scientology with a bowl of Fruity Pebbles every saturday morning. There are worse ideas on the air now. Details forthcoming. 0 0 Sources Press Release Network The Internet Movie Database

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