Acting Auditions Are Guilt Trips!

(Note: this post has nothing to do with the Takashi Miike movie, Audition)

I've held a few auditions for several occasions, from my own short films last year (VERTICAL DISTANCE and GIRL DISCONNECTED) to the two tv movie productions I'm involved in this year, I find auditions rather exciting but sometimes frustrating.

Last Day In Taipei. Tried the Stinky Tofu!

It's my last night in Taipei, will be taking the morning flight back to Malaysia in a couple of hours.

One of the most distinctive features of the city, to me, is the unbearable odour of stinky tofu emitted from their many stalls around Taipei. They smell like a combination of sewers and rotting carcasses, I cannot help but feel all puked up whenever I walk past one of these stalls.

However, being my last day in the country, I wanted to go home and tell everyone that I'm gutsy enough to try out the infamous stinky tofu, so I decided gather my courage and try one at a roadside stall:

Conversation on John Carney's 'ONCE' with Sebastian

A MSN conversation I had with Sebastian:

Shilin Night Market and Pirated DVDs

Photos I took of the Taipei Train Station during the day, along with the buildings nearby:

Taipei 101, The Tallest Building In The World (... for now)

Visited Taipei 101, the tallest COMPLETED building in the world today.

Trying understand Tsui Hark's career arc

Dad had finally finished his conference, so he could finally join us (that's me + mom + Uncle Beau) on our Taipei exploration.

First place of the day we went to was the Guanghua Market, which is Taipei's equivalent of Low Yat Plaza or the Digital Mall (or Japan's Akihabara)

KURUS Production Diary - Photos from Semenyih

Four photos I took with my mobile phone when I was location hunting with Ming Jin the Mentor at Semenyih for our upcoming production KURUS (I posted about the problems I faced with casting the main role few days ago). It was the day before I flew off to Taiwan.

Half-day Taipei City Tour

The middle building is the hotel I'm staying at.

Taipei Film House, Ding Tai Feng and street vendors of Taipei

I tried out the Tonkatsu Burger in McDonald's for lunch for one reason:

It's pork.

We don't have pork burgers in Malaysia.

Raohe Street Night Market

I'm in Taipei right now. Arrived just a few hours earlier. Came with my parents. Dad was supposedly going to have a meeting regarding some music publishing stuff, so he has two of his colleagues with him, so mom decided to tag along, and since mom tagged along, I decided to tag along as well, and since I tagged along, my uncle (mom's cousin) decided to tag along too, so now we have six people going to Taipei together.

Reached Taipei around seven in the evening, wasn't too impressed by the airport as it didn't look that different from the last time I visited... 11 years ago (I've never actually been to the country, but had stopped by at the airport during several occasions for transit). After checking in at the Donghwa Hotel, we decided to go for food. One of the receptionists (who bore a slight resemblance to Elva Hsiao) recommended the Raohe Street night Market just a few blocks away from the hotel, and that's where we went.

The place looks really beautiful at night, and reminds me of Petaling Street (which is also one of those places which looks much better at night compared to the day).

Film adaptation of STARDUST, my favourite Neil Gaiman book

I saw Stardust in Perth last month and had long wanted to review it, but never had the time. While I like some of Gaiman's works, Justin and I had been rather outspoken about our problem with Neil Gaiman. I never understood the fuss about AMERICAN GODS, I found it underwhelming and paled in comparison with his earlier works, STARDUST and NEVERWHERE and even the short stories he wrote in SMOKES AND MIRRORS (won't be bringing the graphic novels into the fray).

KURUS Production Diary - The Quest To Find A Skinny Malay Boy

The next production I'm going to get involved in will be another telemovie for NTV7 called KURUS. Borrowed the DA HUANG office last Friday to organize an audition. Was casting the three main roles, the skinny protagonist (the title character, a Malay boy), his plump comic relief sidekick (can be a boy of any races) and a Hermione Granger-like girl (can be a girl of any races).

Many turned up for the audition, the youngest was 12, the oldest was 22, half of them accompanied by parents, and almost all of them were girls (in fact, only two were males but neither skinny nor plump nor look the age of 15). So, while we had a pool of actresses to choose from, the other two main male roles remained a problem.

Fueled by desperation (and the lack of time, I'm flying off to Taiwan tomorrow), I decided to ask people I know whether they know any skinny 15-year-old Malay kids that we can cast for the protagonist last night. The first person I asked was my cousin, who had just finished his PMR (and bears an uncanny resemblance to me, albeit more rotund, look at photo below!)

Brothers 兄弟 starring Eason Chan, Andy Lau, Michael Miu Kiu Wai

The generically-titled 'BROTHERS' is a reunion for four of TVB Five Tigers (five of the most popular TV actors in Hong Kong during the 80s): Andy Lau, Michael Miu Kiu Wai, Felix Wong Yat Wah and Kent Tong Chun-Yip

Produced by Andy Lau's Focus Pictures (same one who brought us Ho Yuhang's Rain Dogs), BROTHERS is a triad film about brotherhood and honour, which is just like the hundreds of other Hong Kong triad films out there, it doesn't help that director Derek Chiu takes a laidback, craftsman-like manner to make this film, taking a seat back and relying solely on the charisma of the actors.

Triangle 铁三角 by Tsui Hark, Ringo Lam and Johnnie To

TRIANGLE is a wet dream come true for HK film purists. Three iconic Hong Kong directors, Tsui Hark, Ringo Lam and Johnnie To, working together on a film. They have known each other since their TVB days 30 years ago, and the idea of a story being handed to a director to develop and film separately came from Tsui Hark.

Liew Seng Tat's 'Flower In The Pocket' Won 2 Awards At Pusan International Film Festival

(Blog post no. 999. Look out for the next one, I'm announcing a contest.)



I'm a couple of days late, but gonna post this:

'Dear Frankie' made me weep like a little girl.

Pardon my lack of updates these days, been busy setting up casting sessions for an upcoming film, while working on submitting mentor Woo Ming Jin's film, The Elephant and The Sea to the local censorship board (some re-editing for the film had also been done, coupled with some new background music composed by yours truly), and I also had this new addiction for ENTOURAGE (watched the first two seasons) and HEROES (watched the first 8 episodes). Ah well, just your usual producer stuff.

Anyway, I watched 'Dear Frankie' on DVD yesterday. It's about a 9-year-old deaf boy, Frankie (Jack McElhone), who writes letters to his absent father all the time, but the letters he received from the father are actually make-believe letters written by his mother Lizzie (Emily Mortimer), telling the boy his adventures as a sailor in exotic lands on the ship HMS ACCRA (a name invented by Lizzie).

Conversation on 'Brave Story ブレイブ・ストーリー' with DMJ

It's rare to have a Japanese animated film shown in local theaters, not a single Ghibli film had ever gotten theatrical distribution in Malaysia, yet this year, I was surprised to see not one, but TWO anime films screened in theaters, the first one being a Doraemon movie (Nobita's Dinosaur 2007 or something like that) and BRAVE STORY.

I'm reviewing this film with DMJ because she's an anime specialist. I said specialist, because she is self-aware, cynical, witty and intellectual enough NOT to be a mere constantly squealing anime otaku fangirl.

HOWEVER, our exchange contains MAJOR SPOILERS and is better read if you have already seen the film and is interested to jump into a discussion with us.

Otherwise, if you want more conventional, spoiler-less reviews, you should check out A Nutshell Review's... review, Saffron Star's review or SHTUFF: Anime Blogage's review

All I can say is that it's a visually amazing animated film that sucks you right into its fantasy world, but is plagued with a weak storyline and underdeveloped characters and subplots. Enjoyable, but not mindblowing.

RESIDENT EVIL 3: EXTINCTION

The one semi-cool scene in Resident Evil 3, where Milla Jovovich was burning infected crows and shit

The Resident Evil films are an important part of video game adaptation history. It is the first and only trilogy of live-action films based on video games (disregarding spin-offs and straight-to-DVD sequels) so far. We haven't had a Tomb Raider 3, yet we have the privilege to endure a third Resident Evil film.

Goodbye old laptop. Hello new laptop.

My old laptop died early last month. It happened in an afternoon without warning. Just the sounds of clicking and whirring from the insides, and everything froze, the LCD screen went black.

I never understood what happened. The motherboard got fried, along with other things inside. Repairing it would cost nearly as much as buying a new laptop, so I made a painful decision. She was put down.

The Detective C+侦探 by the Pang brothers

When I saw 'THE DETECTIVE' (Chinese title of the film translates as C+ Detective, a Cantonese wordplay for 'Private Detective') the newest film from the Pang Brothers two nights ago, my immediate thought was that Chewxy would have benefited a lot from watching it if this film had came out before he did his debut short film.

Returning to the filmmakers' roots, THE DETECTIVE is set entirely in Thailand, and the film begins with a Thai song. The story is simple, like an old-fashioned film noir, a nearsighted private detective Tam (Aaron Kwok) is visited by an acquaintance, Fat Dragon, one morning, who seeks his help in finding a woman named Sum (Fat Dragon claims that the woman is trying to kill him). So Tam takes this seemingly innocuous case that becomes increasingly complex as it goes on, especially when each lead he gets will bring him to a dead body.