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FANTASIA XXV: Twenty Titles You Don’t Want To Miss At This Year’s Hybrid Festival

Lee B. Golden III

The third wave just recently hit for the 25th Fantasia International Film Festival, which is hosting in-person and virtual screenings and events from August 5 through 25. Thus, peep the first wave and the second wave before hitting up the latest article and take in the full line-up as things rev up to help make for one awesome post-Covid semi-comeback. This site has a team of four which will be reviewing titles and hopefully getting to do an interview. As such, our obligatory curtain raiser is here to help spotlight some recommendations. We took the initiative to put together at least thirty selections, but I’m reducing it to at least twenty; At this rate, choosing for the list was quite the challenge, but that’s part of the fun though. Isn’t it? I’m fully aware the gallery function isn’t working properly, so I’m doing this in list format, citing descriptions directly […]

Poster for Blade Runner : Black Lotus

BLADE RUNNER: BLACK LOTUS – What We Know

Edward Orndorff

Crunchyroll and Adult Swim have shared further details on their project set in the beloved Blade Runner universe, to air in the fall. The series is produced by Shinichiro Watanabe (Cowboy Bebop, Samurai Champloo), and directed by Shinji Aramaki (Ghost in the Shell: SAC_2045, Fullmetal Alchemist, Ultraman [Manga] ) and Kenji Kamiyama (Ghost in the Shell: Stand Alone Complex, Eden of the East, Ultraman [Manga] ). Sola Digital Arts is the animation studio. The show, originally announced in 2018, will be available on Crunchyroll with Japanese Voice-Over and English Subtitles. Adult Swim will carry the dubbed series on it’s Toonami block., and will run for 13 episodes of 30 minutes each. It’s announcement was accompanied by an original short anime film, BLADE RUNNER BLACK OUT 2022, which can be streamed on Crunchyroll. Black Lotus takes place in 2032, and will feature both new and familiar characters from the franchise in […]

Gordon Lam Ka Tung, Hand Rolled Cigarette

NYAFF 2021: Variety Star Asia, Daniel A. Craft Honorees Announced Among Others For This Year’s Festival

Lee B. Golden III

Tickets are now on sale for the 20th edition of the New York Asian Film Festival which runs from August 6 through 22, and more than ever today’s announcements prove this is a festival you don’t want to miss. More than 70 films are now listed for the hybrid line-up with a closing title soon to be announced. Among its ceremonies currently in store, the festival will be handing actor Gordon Lam Ka Tong the Variety Star Asia Award. The festival will be showcasing four titles, three of which are screen-credited to Lam: Soi Cheang’s Limbo, Chan Kin Long’s Hand Rolled Cigarette and Vincent Kok’s star-studded All U Need Is Love. Lam also produced Ricky Ko’s assassin pic, Time, which will screen for the festival. Lam now joins the ranks of previous Star Asia Award recepients such as Donnie Yen (2012), Sandra Ng (2014), Aaron Kwok (2015), Lee Byung-hun and […]

DREAMS ON FIRE Trailer: Bambi Naka Set To Ignite Fantasia With Illustrious Underground Dance Drama

Lee B. Golden III

International dance sensation and former lead back-up for Madonna, actress Bambi Naka, makes her latest screen outing in a role that will surely set the dance floor ablaze next month at Fantasia Festival in Dreams On Fire, from director Philippe McKie. The film has since released in Japan and is currently set to screen on August 8 at Cinéma du Musée as part of the festival. After running away from home to become a dancer in Tokyo, Yume (Bambi Naka) struggles against the harsh realities of what it takes to achieve success. She works as a hostess in the red-light district while taking dance lessons, and refuses to abandon her ambitions. DREAMS ON FIRE features the first leading role from celebrated Japanese dance idol, Bambi Naka, former lead dancer on Madonna’s Rebel Heart Tour and internationally recognized icon. An electrifying and dazzling feature debut from Canadian-born, Japan-based filmmaker Philippe McKie, DREAMS […]

WILDWOOD Action Romance Adventure Sets “Queen Of Mean” Muay Thai Champion For Starring Debut

Lee B. Golden III

Delany Bishop (Terror Eyes) will direct Wildwood, according to a press announcement and key art (above) presented by Screen Anarchy‘s Andrew Mack. Production is set to commence later this year on the action adventure romance, which has set “Queen of Mean” MMA fighter Miriam Nakamoto to make her starring feature film debut from a script by screenwriter and novelist Cara Vescio. On the run from her mother and a pair of hired killers, a young woman (Nakamoto) stumbles into a small town where she’s mistaken for a local girl who mysteriously vanished years earlier. Keith Wells, whose Number 11 Entertainment is producing the pic and handling international sales, is producing alongside Michelle Seañez. Nakamoto is an 8-time Muay Thai World Champion and MMA fighter, who’s been in the field for sixteen years fighting professionally. She’s appeared in Joaquin Phoenix’s 2005 music video for “Tired Of Being Sorry” by indie rock […]

NINJA GIRL (NYAFF 2021)

Heads’ Up! The Official Trailer For NYAFF 2021 Is Here!

Lee B. Golden III

The twentieth New York Asian Film Festival line-up is looking pretty damn good so far, and you’re more than welcome to check out the latest titles here. I’m thinking there’s more to come so my antennae are still up on this, but the official trailer is finally here and fitting for the occasion with the launch set for August 6. The 20th edition of the New York Asian Film Festival (NYAFF), a hybrid event with NYAFF’s largest film lineup to date, will screen over 60 films, both virtually and in-person, to audiences in New York and across the country from August 6 – 22, 2021. NYAFF’s 2021 lineup will include two world premieres, six international premieres, 29 North American premieres, eight U.S. premieres, and nine New York premieres, showcasing the most exciting action, comedy, drama, thriller, romance, horror, and art-house films from East Asia. Following an unprecedented year in which […]

FANTASIA XXV: THE GREAT YOKAI WAR: GUARDIANS Tops Out The Third Wave As The Festival’s Closing Premiere!

Lee B. Golden III

The 25th Fantasia International Film Festival is in full-throttle with its final wave of titles now available for viewing. This completes the full list among which the first and second waves are now available for sifting, but don’t sift too long… You’ll definitely wanna get a handle on those tickets first as they go on sale this Friday at 1:00pm ET. So read on below and head over to the website to learn more about partaking in this extraordinary hybridized 25th event! FANTASIA 2021 TO CLOSE WITH TAKASHI MIIKE’S THE GREAT YOKAI WAR – GUARDIANS AND PRESENT CAREER AWARDS TO SHUNJI IWAI AND PHIL TIPPETT FOR UPCOMING 25TH EDITION Lee Won-tae’s THE DEVIL’S DEAL, Paul Andrew Williams’ BULL, Vincent Grashaw’s WHAT JOSIAH SAW, Masashi Ando and Masayuki Miyaji’s THE DEER KING, Rob Jabbaz’s THE SADNESS, and Alexandre Bustillo & Julien Maury’s THE DEEP HOUSE are among the wealth of […]

THE GREAT YOKAI WAR: GUARDIANS

JAPAN CUTS XV: The Great Yokai War: Guardians, Kiba: The Fangs Of Fiction, Docs, Narrative Shorts And More In The Full 2021 Line-Up

Lee B. Golden III

2021 has been riddled with its share of strife, personally, but that hasn’t slighted or stunted the progress of festival coverage on this site. Gladly, this includes this year’s hybrid virtual/in-person installment of Japan Society’s Japan Cuts, launching one month from today as of this article. Illustrious docs and shorts and some major headliners are in-bound, including a couple of encore such as Nobuhiko Obayashi’s Labyrinth Of Cinema to which our own Mike Garcia took a liking for last year’s festival, as well as premieres for The Great Yokai War: Guardians, Kiba: The Fangs Of Fiction and Kiyoshi Kurosawa’s Wife Of A Spy to name a select few. There’s a whole raft of titles to start choosing from with tickets going on sale beginning August 16. Do yourself one of the biggest favors you can if you love Asian film and world cinema in general, and put this festival on […]

Sammo Hung and Donnie Yen in "Ip Man 2"

Celebrate Sammo Hung With A Hip-Hop-Flavored Fistful Of Well Go USA’s IP MAN 2 This Friday!

Lee B. Golden III

Netizens are invited this Friday to partake in this month’s livestream celebration of actor and Asian action legend Sammo Hung for Shaolin Jazz’s latest livestream installment of Can I Kick It?. Presented in association with the National Museum Of Asian Art for the Made In Hong Kong Film Festival, Shaolin Jazz will premiere Wilson Yip’s 2010 franchise sequel hit, Well Go USA’s Ip Man 2: Legend Of The Grandmaster, bolstered by a live soundtrack performance by DJ 2-Tone Jones. The film bookends its three-title slate following this month’s screenings of Huang Feng’s The Final Plot, and Corey Yuen’s Yes, Madam. Since kicking off in 2013, Can I Kick It? is best known for rolling out the festivities with immense gala for in-person attendance as it has for the last six years – something that’s obviously become a factor due to the pandemic and the new rise of cases as of […]

IB 71: Vidyut Jammwal Sets Espionage Thriller As Launchpad For Action Hero Films Label

Lee B. Golden III

Actor and martial artist Vidyut Jammwal (Commando trilogy) is moving forward with IB 71, an espionage thriller that will kick off his Action Hero Films production banner after the label’s announcement earlier this year. Jammwal is producing the film and will be joined by Sankalp Reddy (The Ghazi Attack) who is directing, with the film signaling Action Hero’s firsr collaboration with Reliance Entertainment. Deadline’s Tom Grater has more in his Monday report: Set before the Indo-Pakistani war, Jammwal will play an intelligence officer in a story about how Indian intelligence agencies outwitted the Pakistani establishment and gave the Indian armed forces the required advantage they needed to face a two-front war. The move also comes following Jammwal’s recent signing with Wonder Street Entertainment. Reddy will direct from a screenplay storied by Aditya Shastri and written by Storyhouse Films. Abbas Sayyed is co-producing. Jammwal commented, “Some of the most interesting episodes […]

John Wick Spin-Off Series THE CONTINENTAL Sets Limited Event Series With Three Movie-Sized And Budgeted Episodes, Albert Hughes To Direct Two Episodes

Lee B. Golden III

With the fourth chapter of Lionsgate’s John Wick saga now filming and franchise co-star Ian McShane back on board as of Thursday for the role of Winston, all eyes of Wick fans are now on news that Good Lord Bird helmer and The Book Of Eli co-director Albert Hughes, will direct the first and third episodes of The Continental, a three-night event limited series which Hughes will also executive produce for Lionsgate and Starz. A prequel spinoff, Continental is set 40 years before the events of the Wick series and focuses on a young man named Winston. He will one day grow up to be the character played by Ian McShane in the Wick movies but in the prequel’s story is a young man starting as a hitman hotelier who, along with others, create a haven for unsavory types, all set against a backdrop of 1970s New York. The news comes long […]

ESCAPE FROM MOGADISHU - Still Photo

NYAFF XX Debuts 2021 Poster, Announces Kickoff With Well Go USA’s ESCAPE FROM MOGADISHU And Much More For Its Second Wave Announcement!

Lee B. Golden III

The twentieth installation of the New York Asian Film Festival is coming in as hot as the Summer sun. The festival just announced its second wave of titles in addition to the celebration and ceremony of NYAFF honoree, filmmaker and producer Ann Hui, and among other things, has also announced a brand new section for the festival titled Asian American Focus. The biggest update here though is the festival’s opening premiere of South Korean filmmaker Ryoo Seung-wan’s new political thriller, Escape From Mogadishu, which also kicks off its North American theatrical release the same day on August 6 from Well Go USA. Over 60 films will be screened for the festival through August 22, with screenings to be held both virtually AND in-person with tickets and passes currently on sale for hopeful attendees at Film At Lincoln Center, Walter Reade Theater, and the SVA Theatre all in Manhattan, NYC. Fore […]

RONNY CHIENG

Ronny Chieng, Sony Developing San Francisco-Set Martial Arts Comedy

Lee B. Golden III

Comedian and actor Ronny Chieng is one of the funniest funnymen ever to hit the airwaves. That he’s also stepping into the martial arts comedy genre now seems pretty damn enticing with word via THR‘s Mia Galuppo. Chieng, whose credits partly include Crazy Rich Asians, Bliss at Amazon, and upcoming Marvel’s Shang-Chi And The Legend Of The Ten Rings starring Simu Liu and Tony Leung, is teaming up with The Daily Show cohort Sebastian DiNatale to pen the untitled comedy for Sony, which the studio’s Jiao Chen is reportedly overseeing. Just as there is no title though, plot details are also being kept under wraps. The idea for the project initially originated at a roundtable hosted by Chieng and run by Ivan Reitman’s Montecito Picture Company, as well as Sony. Reitman is on board to produce via his Montecito banner with Amie Karp.

THE RED POST ON ESCHER ST. - North Bend 2021

North Bend 2021 Review: Sion Sono’s THE RED POST ON ESCHER ST., A Love Letter Written In Pain, Tragedy And Cinematic Jacquerie

Lee B. Golden III

More than thirty years into his career, ceremony remains on-going for acclaimed director Sion Sono’s eclectic approach to cinema. That no less includes the praise and approval among fans witnessing one of his latest film-within-a-film (within-a-film) effort, The Red Post On Escher St., a “graduation project” of sorts comprised of students from his acting workshop, and shot in a way that lends an extra layer of perceptive depth to the overall environment and setting. Dozens of women make way in The Red Post On Escher St. as aspiring screen hopefuls vying for a chance to star in the next big movie directed by Tadashi Kobayashi. Out of fifty audionees, there are about fifteen or more who become become central to the narrative, including – not limited to – a wanton theater actress in a secret affair with one of her troupe member’s exes, a Kobayashi-obssessed fan club with a member […]

CODE NAME: NAGASAKI - North Bend

North Bend 2021 Review: CODENAME: NAGASAKI, An Artist’s Rendering Of Self-Discovery And Forgiveness

Lee B. Golden III

Documentaries, the little slices of life they are… It’s always interesting to see how filmmakers approach a certain genre, and this no less concerns the work of Norwegian filmmaker Frederik S. Hana, having already wrapped up a number of shorts prior to pairing up with best friend, actor Marius K. Lunde for their latest striking endeavor, Codename: Nagasaki. Several parts dark horror fantasy, detective story, period chambara and regional drama, the remainder of Codename: Nagasaki encompasses the journey and discernible affects on Lunde as he and Hana ready themselves for a quest to find Lunde’s mother. Save for the few more personal moments, close to nothing is off the table as Lunde puts himself on the spot to prepare himself for the hopeful day he finally gets reunited with the mother he hasn’t known since she left him at age five. Codename: Nagasaki is told in seven chapters, each accounting […]

NINJABABY - North Bend 2021

North Bend 2021 Review: NINJABABY Strikes With The Stroke Of A Pen, And Hearty Comedy And Drama

Lee B. Golden III

Yngvild Sve Flikke’s sophomore feature, Ninjababy, is not unlike maternity-driven narrative comedies you might’ve seen in your heyday, except you’ve probably never seen one so well decorated with animated interludes and characters in between scenes and segments. This was an interesting story to watch unfold with graphic visual artistry key to the progression of the story with actress Kristine Kujath Thorp leading the cast from a script by Flikke and by Johan Fasting and Inga Sætre. We meet 23-year old Rakel (Thorp), a struggling comic artist with dreams of being more than what and where she is now, whilst spending most of her days either in her cluttered room and mustering what motivation she can to get her concepts off the ground, or getting hella wasted and philandering. She doesn’t sleep around like crazy though, but just enough to possibly recall and recognize from moment to moment who she might […]

THE 44TH CHAMBER OF SHAOLIN: Filming Underway For NY Indie Director’s Kung Fu Comedy Proof Of Concept [EXCLUSIVE]

Lee B. Golden III

As prone as we are to including independent action films in our coverage, it was only a matter of time before I’d be back to covering New York-based filmmaker Jon Truei (Gamer’s Generation, Secondary Education), currently in production with kung fu comedy, The 44th Chamber Of Shaolin. Starring is Marshieh Johnson – son of celebrated Wu Shu master, champion and author Willie “The Bam” Johnson (WMAC Masters, Superfights, The Legend Of Kung Funk), along with Mario Marin, and appearances by action actors Angela Jordan and David Lavallee Jr., among others to be named at a later date. Truei has since completed ancillary footage as of last month, shot in collaboration with action director and Art School Dropouts founder Joey Min. Principal photography continues in Brooklyn, N.Y. this week as part of a proof of concept to help draw attention to hopeful feature financing. Inspired by the works of Hong Kong […]

Ryoo Seung-Wan’s ESCAPE FROM MOGADISHU Makes A Run For Well Go USA’s North American Release In August!

Lee B. Golden III

It’s been a long while since I’ve seen me a Ryoo Seung-wan flick. Well Go USA all but looks to change that now with their newly-announced acquisition of Ryoo’s new political thriller, Escape From Mogadishu. Based on a true story: as civil war rages in Mogadishu, rival North and South Korean diplomats are left trapped. With no aid from either government, their only shot at survival may require uniting with bitter adversaries to escape. Deadline‘s Jill Goldsmith is reporting the film’s July 28 open in South Korea will precede its theatrical releases throughout North America on August 6. Escape From Mogadishu stars Kim Yoon-seok (The Chaser, The Yellow Sea), Huh Joon-ho (Kingdom, Illang: The Wolf Brigade), Zo In-sung (The Classic, The Great Battle), Koo Kyo-hwan (Train to Busan Presents: Peninsula, Netflix’s Kingdom: Ashin of the North), Jeong Man-sik (The Swordsman, Rampant) and Kim So-jin (The Spy Gone North, The King). “The film […]

THE RED POST ON ESCHER ST. - North Bend 2021

North Bend 2021: A Shortlist Of Five Titles To Check Out At The 4th Annual Film Festival

Lee B. Golden III

Fans looking to engage the fourth-annual North Bend Film Festival launching on July 15 are in for a treat this year, with events available for both in-person AND remote viewing from home. Purchasing details are available at the website, and so while you’re sifting through the deets, some of us here at FCSyndicate have already managed to look at a few of the titles so far that have taken to our liking, some with screenings and reviews pending, of course. Peep our shortlist in the gallery below and click the ℹ to read the details and see trailers for each, and get your passes today! The following includes trailers, programming notes and their cited authors.

JAKOB’S WIFE Consumes Your Horror Needs This August On AMC’s Shudder

Lee B. Golden III

AMC’s Shudder is proudly releasing Girl on the Third Floor helmer Travis Stevens’ new film, Jakob’s Wife, as a Shudder exclusive on the streaming service from August 19. The film stars Barbara Crampton (Re-Animator, You’re Next), Larry Fessenden (Habit, Stake Land), Nyisha Bell (Coming 2 America), Mark Kelly (The Hot Zone), Sarah Lind (Wolfcop), Robert Rusler (A Nightmare on Elm Street 2: Freddy’s Revenge, Vamp), Bonnie Aarons (The Nun, The Conjuring 2) and former WWE wrestler, Phil Brooks, aka CM Punk (Girl on the Third Floor). In JAKOB’S WIFE, Anne (Crampton) is married to a small-town minister and feels like her life and marriage have been shrinking over the past 30 years. After a chance encounter with “The Master,” she discovers a new sense of power and an appetite to live bigger and bolder than before. As Anne is increasingly torn between her enticing new existence and her life before, the body count grows and Jakob (Fessenden) realizes he will have to fight for […]