Disney producer Frank Marshall announced some cuddly details for the US video release of Hayao Miyazaki’s Ponyo. Perfectly fitting the missed Christmas sales, Walt Disney Home Entertainment will release Ponyo in a limited gift set that will include a plush toy of our favourite goldfish on March 2, 2010. The day-to-day Blu-ray Disc release will have to live without the fluffy companion.

The avid importers among you who pre-ordered the December Ponyo Blu-ray Disc releases from Japan or France don’t have to wait till march to get the Ponyo plush, J-List has the same plush toy in small and medium size ready to order.
[via The Blu-ray Blog, thanks to Brenden!]

3 Comments

Twitch’s X has spotted the first trailer for Zhang Yimou’s reinterpretation of the Coen Brother’s Blood Simple., Amazing Tales: Three Guns over at Sina. The film is set in a desert town in China where a neglected owner of a noodle shop (Dahong Ni) hires a corrupt patrol officer (Honglei Sun) to kill his wife (Ni Yan) and her secret lover (Xiao Shen-Yang).
While the trailer looks quite nice (at least from the visual standpoint), I can’t quite get my head around a comedy from the director of “serious” works like Hero and Curse of the Golden Flower.

2 Comments

Three reasons to look forward to Wilson Yip’s Ip Man 2 (Yip Man 2: Chung si chuen kei):
1) Donnie Yen
2) versus
3) Sammo Hung

[via Filmsmash]

19 Comments

Sometimes, but just sometimes it must be great to live in a film-loving nation like France, because our friendly south-western neighbors were not only the first that could see Johnnie To’s Vengeance on the big screen back in May, but will also be the first to get a DVD and Blu-ray Disc release. On December 11th, TF1 Video will release the film in three flavors, a standard one disc edition, a two disc collector’s edition and of a Blu-ray Disc edition in a nice looking steelbook.

Sadly none of these releases will included English subtitles and TF1 Video also has the bad habit to enforce the French subtitles when the original (mostly english in Vengeance) language track is selected. But since Vengeance opened in Hong Kong on August 20th, I bet English friendly HK DVD and Blu-ray Disc releases will pop up by the end of the year as well. Until then, enjoy the film’s (ironically French subbed) trailer below.

[via @wildgrounds]

3 Comments

Directors Kazuaki Kiriya and Gary Shore are sitting in a tree…K I S S I…but seriously, the first trailer for Shore’s The Cup of Tears could as well be a preview for a new film from the director of Casshern and Goemon. There’s little known about the film currently under production at the Irish One Punch Films studio, but if the full the full film will bring more overstylized samurai action and swordfights in outer space, I’m on board!

Update: Synopsis via Quiet Earth:

The narrative follows a scorned geisha who creates a magical cup made of tears that causes any man who drinks from it to fall under a stasis of permanent sleep. One night the cup is stolen, setting off a chain of events that threatens civil war amongst the clans. Taro, a once gifted samurai, and his companion Jin set out to find the cup and the one who can break the spell before inner turmoil.

[via Twitch]

15 Comments

ComingSoon.net reports that Dreamworks Pictures has hired Laeta Kalogridis as the screenwriter for the 3D live-action adaptation of Mamoru Oshii’s Ghost in the Shell that has been floating around the net for quite some time now. Until now, (im at least in April 2008), Jamie Moss (Street Kings) was supposed to write the script for Avi Arad, Ari Arad and Steven Paul’s Seaside Entertainment.
Well, color me unimpressed. For the live-action adaptation of Akira, Warner got Mark Fergus and Hawk Ostby (who wrote the screenplay for Children of Men) so there is a bit of hope for that, but looking at Kalogridis’ career so far (Alexander, Night Watch, Pathfinder) I just can’t see how she’s supposed to properly transfer the Ghost in the Shell universe into the reel (eh) world.

16 Comments

[via 24fps]

3 Comments

DVDTimes.co.uk has posted the cover artworks for Palisades-Tartan’s much delayed Blu-ray Disc release of the three Korean classics, A Tale of Two Sisters, and Chan-wook Park’s Sympathy for Mr. Vengeance and Sympathy for Lady Vengeance. All three discs will be released on November 2nd and are currently only available from/listed at HMV.co.uk.

1 Comment

wheeee! Pretty amazing stuff is going on in the first trailer (promotion teaser here) for old school director Yuen Woo Ping’s all star show (Zhao Wen Zhuo, Zhou Xun, Gordon Liu, Michelle Yeoh, Andy On, Jay Chow, David Carradine and more) True Legend that will open in 2010. Even though some scenes look like they’ve been nicked from Jet Li’s Fearless where Yuen Woo Ping was responsible for choreographing the action.

Synopsis via Filmsmash Forum:

All his life, Su Can has been pursuing the summit in martial arts. There are two things he holds dearest to heart …quot; the dream of creating a unique kind of martial arts that will pass on to generations and his beloved wife. But owing to a turn of fate and Su’s own stubbornness, he loses his wife and his family is destroyed.
After losing his wife, Su collapses totally. He is constantly drunk and becomes a crazy beggar in people’s eyes. Everyday, his young son leads him through the streets by a rope, greeted by people’s disdainful gazes.
But during his spiritual exile, his dream for martial arts is still alive. In his madness, Su continues to perfect his skills. Until one day a crisis happens that threatens the life of his young son, the only person Su still cares about and his last bit of human hope. At the vital moment, the flame of life re-ignites in Su.

[via Twitch]

7 Comments

Good news for those of us who want to see Hayao Miyazaki’s latest Ponyo on the Cliff by the Sea in glorious HD as soon as possible without paying a premium price for the Japanese Blu-ray Disc release.
According to Rope of Silicone, Walt Disney Home Entertainment will bring the significant cheaper US DVD and Blu-ray Disc release on the same day as in Japan, meaning December 8th. So the October date mentioned back in July was (just as espected) just some retailer related date.
[Oct. 20] Update: According to Disney producer Frank Marshall, Ponyo will be released in the US in March 2010! I asked him about the date Rope of Silicone stated but I didn’t receive an answer yet. Hard to believe that Disney won’t take advantage of the upcoming Christmas sales, especially since a French BD release for December was announced two days ago. [via The Ghibli Blog]

1 Comment