While the South Korean remake is already available in high definition for some time now, Kam & Ronson finally decided to release all three parts of John Woo and Tsui Hark’s HK classic A Better Tomorrow series on Blu-ray Disc. All three films will be released in Hong Kong on August 5th and will probably be locked to Region A.
I really hope K&M will use better material for these films than they did for their Police Story and Once Upon A Time in China releases, but knowing K&M I bet they won’t…

5 Comments

Dante Lam finally gets the chance to blow up stuff outside of Hong Kong! His latest action thriller The Viral Factor starring Jay Chou and Nicholas was filmed on location in Jordania and will open in February 2012.

Synopsis:

The Viral Factor stars Jay Chou and Nicholas Tse as two Brothers who stand on opposite sides of the law but finally have to unite in order to stop a maste criminal from releasing a fatal strain of mutating virus onto the world.

[via Wildgrounds & Film Business Asia]

1 Comment

Full trailer for the live-action adaptation of Shohei Manabe’s Smuggler manga by The Taste of Tea and Funky Forest director Katsuhito Ishii.

Synopsis:

A failed actor named Ryosuke (Satoshi Tsumabuki) takes a part-time job at a pachinko parlor. After racking up a huge debt, he’s forced to take a smuggling job from a yakuza company chief (Yasuko Matsuyuki) who offers him 50,000 yen per successful delivery.
Unfortunately for Ryosuke, the reason for this big payout is that his new job actually entails disposing of corpses in the middle an escalating gang war, and making even the slightest mistake could prove deadly.

[via ANN & Official Website]

1 Comment

First Teaser Trailer for South Korean Thriller Hindsight (Blue Salt) by a Il Mare director Lee Hyun-Seung.

Synopsis:

Retired mob boss Du-heon enrolls in a cooking class with the hopes of making a fresh start as a restaurant owner. In the class he meets a quirky girl, Se-bin, and finds himself drawn to her mysterious charms. Despite his determination to wipe the slate clean, Du-heon is summoned back into the criminal fold by his old colleagues to stop his successor expanding the mob business into prostitution and drug-dealing.

But there’s more to the girl from the cooking class than meets the eye: Se-bin is a contract killer hired by the new boss. She keeps a close eye on Du-heon and watches for an opportunity to take him out. However, she comes into conflict with herself as she grows attached to him.

[via Film Smash & Official Site]

9 Comments

Life time as currency is a pretty interesting concept that director and writer Andrew Niccol (Gattaca, Lord of War) uses in his upcoming action thriller In Time. I’m just not sure if Justin Timberlake and Olivia Wilde are fit for the roles, but maybe Cillian Murphy can save this thing as the bad guy.

Synopsis:

Welcome to a world where time has become the ultimate currency. You stop aging at 25, but there’s a catch: you’re genetically-engineered to live only one more year, unless you can buy your way out of it. The rich “earn” decades at a time (remaining at age 25), becoming essentially immortal, while the rest beg, borrow or steal enough hours to make it through the day. When a man from the wrong side of the tracks is falsely accused of murder, he is forced to go on the run with a beautiful hostage. Living minute to minute, the duo’s love becomes a powerful tool in their war against the system.

[via IGN]

8 Comments

After several delays from distributor Contents Zone, Asian retailer YesAsia finally listed the South Korean Blu-ray Disc release of A Bittersweet Life.
Kim Ji-Woon’s thriller starring Lee Byung-Hun will hit the shelves on August 30th in two editions with different packages but both including the Director’s cut and English subtitles. The standard edition comes with a simple slipcover while the limited Coffee Book edition keeps the disc in a thick hardcover book. Both editions will also be packaded with four stills from the film.

6 Comments

20th Century Fox has released a trailer for the upcoming Blu-ray Disc release of the Star Wars Trilogies that shows some legendary deleted scenes (like the Wampa attack on Hoth Echo Base, Tatooine sand storms etc.) from the classic trilogy.
Of course these deleted scenes will only be available in the Complete Collection Set that includes all six films instead of those three you actually want to see again and again…

[via Rope of Silicone]

8 Comments

What kinda looks like a cover artwork for a Criterion Collection release is in face the first poster for James McTeigues thriller The Raven starring John Cusack as Edgar Allan Poe who has to hunt down a killer that’s using his writings as an inspiration for his crimes.

Synopsis:

When a mother and daughter are found brutally murdered in 19th century Baltimore, Detective Emmett Fields (Luke Evans) makes a startling discovery: the crime resembles a fictional murder described in gory detail in the local newspaper–part of a collection of stories penned by struggling writer and social pariah Edgar Allan Poe (John Cusack). But even as Poe is questioned by police, another grisly murder occurs, also inspired by a popular Poe story. Realizing a serial killer is on the loose using Poe’s writings as the backdrop for his bloody rampage, Fields enlists the author’s help in stopping the attacks. But when it appears someone close to Poe may become the murderer’s next victim, the stakes become even higher and the inventor of the detective story calls on his own powers of deduction to try to solve the case before it’s too late.

[via IMPAwards & Wild About Movies]

1 Comment

Square Enix produced a very emotional promotion clip for their upcoming game Deus Ex: Human Revolution about the less enjoyable sides of cyborg implants.
Kinda makes you think…

[via Dark Diamond]

6 Comments

THR reports that the US and Dominican Republic-based production group The Indomina Group announced during Comic Con the plan to produce a live-action adaptation of Takeshi Okazaki’s Afro Samurai manga.
Samuel L. Jackson, who voiced the grunty samurai in Studio Gonzo’s award-winning anime series will co-produce the film together with the animation studio. Shootings are supposed to start in the Dominican Republic next year, but footage of early stuntmen training sessions has already leaked…
This should be pretty interesting, especially if they’re trying to bring all of Afro’s weird enemies to the screen.

1 Comment