As you know, from time to time I like to entertain you with lavish productions from Asia, and today we shall spotlight some of the upcoming oriental epics!
First, there's a period film which was considered rather scandalous last summer over in its homeland of South Korea due to tones of explicit sex scenes... but of course, if you ask us, that is always a delightful plus in any movie :)
THE CONCUBINE stars gorgeous
Yeo-Jeong Jo as Hwa-yeon who, in order to escape a life of poverty, is forced to offer herself as one of the king's concubines. Once inside the royal palace, two men are immediately captivated by her. The Grand Prince Seong-won
(Dong-wook Kim), a powerful, lust filled megalomaniac and Kwon-yoo (Min-jun Kim), who has everything to lose if his desire for Hwa-yeon is exposed. The film hasn't been sold for US distribution yet, but you can find the whole movie over at YouTube with English subtitles.
Then, there is also the long awaited and long delayed $100 million fantasy epic
THE MONKEY KING from
Donnie Yen and
Soi Cheang in which the story is based on the legendary Chinese novel
“Journey To The West”. The plot of the film will follow the adventures of the Monkey King as he rebels against the Jade Emperor of Heaven. The first instalment of a planned fantasy trilogy revolves around Sun Wukong, (The Monkey King), a monkey born from a heavenly stone who acquires supernatural powers. After rebelling against heaven and being imprisoned under a mountain for 500 years, he later accompanies monk Xuanzang on a journey to India. According to the legends this is how Buddhism was
brought to ancient China. The first movie is the origins story - beginning with the birth of Sun Wukong and ending with his imprisonment for his crimes under the Five-Peaked Mountain. Along the way he acquires incredible powers. Ready to open up in Chinese cinemas this July, as one of summer's leading blockbusters, the enchanting fantasy adventure has a whole gallery of the most famous Chinese actors in the cast -
Donnie Yen as the Monkey King,
Aaron Kwok as Bull Demon King,
Joe Chen Qiao-En, Chow Yun Fat as the Jade Emperor,
Peter Ho, Faye Wong, Gigi Leung, Cecilia Cheung and
Fan Siu-Wong! PS ignore the truly horrid narrator in the otherwise lovely and intriguing teaser below!
And as a proof that Hollywood studios aren't the only ones which often compete against eachother with rival projects on the same topic, China
will see yet another movie this year based on the same legend about the Monkey King.
JOURNEY TO THE WEST, directed by famous comedian
Stephen Chow, will hit cinemas first
, ready to premiere this spring after a long postproduction. Although the director claims he had a 500 member special effects team, as you can see from the teaser trailer, the visuals in this one are much weaker and looking incomparably cheaper to
Soi Cheang's THE MONKEY KING. The cast is also filled with less known names unlike the ones in the rival project: the cast includes
Shu Qi, Huang Bo, Wen Zhang and
Show Lo.
Sorry about the turd on your blogroll. It made me laugh when you left that comment on my blog.
ReplyDeleteIf it helps, my husband has the same post on his main page up on the right.
Cheers and boogie boogie.
I have had worse things appear in my blogroll and stay there for a whole day or longer :) One of the bloggers once put there a nasty picture of toe fungus.... a nightmare.... I was thinking of taking down the whole blogroll for a day or two in that occasion :)
DeleteThat is understandable.
DeleteNo chefs at the steakhouse. Just line workers and two kitchen managers. It's not a high-end place or anything, but it's super duper fun.
we do love kitchen fun!
DeleteAnd if I get it, I won't have to do Cinderella closing shifts anymore. I'll be back to starting at 7AM - which I love.
DeleteAnd, out in time to have supper with my husband.
Now that's good livin'.
wow, 7AM is really early, that is when the classes started back when I worked in a High School as a teacher, most of my students at the early lessons were still sleeping at their desks, but I love working in the morning since then you get the rest of the day free.
DeleteYeah, it's nice. Use preppies have our own kitchen - salad bar has their own, which is an extension of ours, but there own space to work at least, and the line cooks have their own space at the other side of the steakhouse.
DeleteWe're the ground pounders though, coming in first - whilst the rest snooze. Then we get to leave early.
It's fantastic!
love the monkey king sound fun Dezzy!!:)
ReplyDeleteit should be a fun fantasy, Gloria Dear!
DeleteCan I tell you how much I truly love the word "concubine"? The way it rolls off the tongue just sounds so scandalous.
ReplyDeletewe do love a tasty little scandal :) And the concubine in the trailer is lovely and we love the naughty scenes in it too.
DeleteI love origin stories and mythology. I'm not familiar with a lot of those in Asian culture, so this Monkey King is new to me. But what a cool story. And aren't these Asian films always so lush and brilliantly filmed? They're beautiful to look at, even if you don't know what they're saying.
ReplyDeleteit's apparently their most famous legend :) Obviously a rather fun and crazy one :)
DeleteI always watch Asian films for the visuals and colours.
OMG TOTAL NERDGASM! I love WUKONG! I play him on the famous MOBA game League of Legends and he's incredibly powerful.
ReplyDeleteI've also read about his tales and saw a movie a few years ago where Jet Li played him. Hopefully this will be better.
ooooh, glad to have given you a nerdgasm, T.D. :p
DeleteYeo-Jeong Jo, period. she is coming over to my house to walk on my back, my walls and kick me in the face. i will be there with one stupid grin... great post!
ReplyDeleteOh, just keep it a secret, we don't want your missus to know that you're dreaming about concubines....
DeleteWhen is someone going to make a movie out of "Frozen Turd" referenced on your sidebar? LOL!
ReplyDeleteYou is ever so naughty, Debs, I swear you is :PPP
DeleteThese films all look sumptuous and intriguing. I'd love to see each of them. wonderful spotlight, sweetie.
ReplyDeleteI went to an exhibit at the Museum of Science and Industry today and snapped a couple of pics that made me think of you. I thought they were gorgeous and I will send them along via email. :)
oooh, sounds marvellous, I adore visits to great museums.... wish I had them in my city.
DeleteGoku from Dragon Ball Z was based on Sun Wukong (in Japan he's known as Son Goku) but I don't know much of the story.
ReplyDeleteI knew you would have some info on that, Adam
DeleteYikes - that narrator is indeed horrible! 'Journey to the West' looks like it might be bordering on campy.
ReplyDeleteThe Concubine looks sublime.
I didn't understand half of what the narrator was trying to say :)
DeleteOh my!!! 2 monkey king at the same time!!! It'll be perfect for a review of comparison ... if both are played in my country, I will watch them both :)
ReplyDeleteI love the series...fun and interesting
the Asian countries will love those two movies this summer
DeleteOh the Concubine sounds intriguing indeed. I must see it, txs for the tip :).
ReplyDeletebe welcome, glad you like the film :)
DeleteYou're speaking the Spawns language today darling.
ReplyDeleteThe Monkey King looks really good and you're right, the narrator was horrid. The Concubine should be a good one to watch as well. Put some spice in my love life :)
I'll be back to commenting more regularly next week. Still staying offline as much as possible at the moment.
miss u a lot, dahlink! You know you can find me at Face if you want to talk, rant, pour your heart out... whatever....
DeleteSpeaking of Spawn, did you bake her a cake for B-day?
Concubine sure is a sexy film, makes you wanna have an Asian harem of your own :)
Thanks for the trailer and info Dezzy ~ I must say the first one looks amazing ~ Have a good weekend ~
ReplyDeleteit does look very erotic and sensual, doesn't it? Very spicy :)
DeleteI may have to go over to YouTube and watch The Concubine. It looks delicious :)
ReplyDeleteI'm tempted to do it myself :) I watch a number of films over there so far :)
Delete