| Nov 30 2008 |
WuJing.org just popped this bit of news: one of Huayi Brothers' big productions for 2009 is a remake of Tsui Hark and, earlier, King Hu's DRAGON INN directed by none other than Francis Ng. Mr. Ng has long been one of Hong Kong's best actors and he was honored a few years ago along with Lau Ching-wan and Anthony Wong, but Ng has shown that he gives even less of a @$#* about his career than those two: as Lau has made a big comeback in recent years and Wong has gone from strength to strength, Ng has directed the "Say wha - ?" flick DANCING LION (of which LoveHKFilm says, "Coherence, thy name is not DANCING LION...") and besides starring in EXILED he's appeared in the bargain basement SHAMO among others. And what ever happened to his movie with Harvey Keitel, ONE LAST DANCE, that has been finished for about 2 years but never released?
Anyways, all you need to know about his DRAGON INN remake is that one of the heads of Huayi Brothers is calling it "wuxia 2.0." Say no more.
(Also, did anyone else see that Andy Lau's MOMENT OF ROMANCE just got picked up for a Korean remake courtesy of director Kim Jung-Woo? Supposedly, Jay Chou will do the soundtrack.)
(The "In a world..." trailer for ONE LAST DANCE)
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Other than that, I really don't get your point in regards to Ng not giving a crap about his career: Wong in fact has not gone from "strength to strength" if you include his numerous appearances in crappy Wong Jing films and similar stuff; to a lesser degree the same can be said about Lau during that whole time where he only starred in cheap mainstream comedies.
What it comes down to for all these three actors is that, since they have no popstar side careers, they need to feed themselves and their families, and sadly, Johnnie To films can only keep your bank account afloat for so long. This has always applied to HK's pure actors and it's nothing you can possibly hold against them.
It was a funny little film with a few nice in-jokes near the end. Relying on subtitles, we are probably missing *some* of the humor, though.
It helps if you are a fan of Ng to begin with. But even he couldn't save Shamo for me.
His name is pronounced like "End" without the D -- I think.
Am I right?
Take the "Ung", and you will feel most of the sound emanating from the space between your nasal cavity and your soft palate.
Now dial down the hard "U" sound, and let it ring a little.
There! Wasn't so hard now, was it?
he picks unconventional roles and sometimes it's crap (ie karmic mahjong), but when everything clicks it's magic (ie bullet over summer, a war named desire). and with the HK film market is so bad, I wonder how many lead roles he actually gets offered. after all the available leading roles go to the andy laus, tony leungs, louis koos, and daniel wus (why??), how many good roles are left for francis? also I don't know why johnnie to doesn't use francis for more of his films, he was great in the 3 films he did with him.
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