Johnnie To's (杜琪峰) masterful gangster movie Election (黑社會) is a formidable contender heading into tomorrow's Hong Kong Film Awards, but could be knocked off its pedestal in the top acting categories by strong performances in Perhaps Love (如果愛) and Everlasting Regret (長恨歌).
Election doesn't have the most nominations. The musical Perhaps Love and Tsui Hark's (徐克) kung fu epic Seven Swords (七劍) each have one more at 11, but To's film is a nominee in most of the top categories, including best film, best director and best actor.
In a tightly told story, To tracks the rivalry between two Hong Kong gangsters and their respective bosses in a battle for leader-ship. The movie boasts an outstanding ensemble cast that create a brilliant mosaic of individual performances against the intrigue of Hong Kong gangsters, also known as triads.
Both best film and best director could be a tight race.
Peter Chan's (陳可辛) Perhaps Love, a unique cultural creation blending Broadway-style musical sound, Bollywood choreography and a multinational Chinese and Korean cast, poses the most credible threat in the best film contest.
Seven Swords is a technically superb and beautifully crafted movie, but falls thin on plot.
Initial D (頭文字 D), a comic book-inspired movie about Japanese street car racers starring pop star Jay Chou (周杰倫) is a solid overall production, but lacks the originality and tight pace of Election. The movie is directed by Andrew Lau (劉偉強) and Alan Mak (麥兆輝), who also did the 2002 crime thriller Infernal Affairs (無間道).
To's chances are boosted by the fact that he's on home turf. In Taiwan in November, Election got 11 nominations at the Golden Horse Awards -- the Chinese-language equivalent of the Oscars -- but only netted two prizes.
The best actor contest is more complicated. Election has two nominations for Tony Leung Ka-fai (梁家輝) and Simon Yam (任達華), who play rival gangsters. Leung is also nominated for Everlasting Regret, in which he plays a man with a crush on a lifelong friend, a Shanghai beauty.
Antonio Banderas has signed on to star as Spanish conqueror Hernan Cortes in a new big-budget historical epic called Conquistador, the industry press said Wednesday.
The movie, which will trace the exploits of the 16th-century explorer, will reportedly be armed with the biggest ever production budget accorded a Spanish-language film, one worth more than US$40 million.
The film, to be directed by Brazilian Andrucha Waddington, is tentatively scheduled to begin filming in September in Spain and Mexico, Daily Variety and the Hollywood Reporter said.
It tells the story of Cortes' internal and external struggles as he and a small band of soldiers arrive in the New World -- modern-day Mexico -- and clash with the Aztec empire.
US film director John McTiernan, the maker of such blockbusters as the Die Hard movies, was charged Monday in connection with a fast-spreading Hollywood wiretapping scandal.
McTiernan, 55, is the 14th person to be charged in a snowballing criminal investi-gation that has threatened to envelope some major stars over alleged phone bugging carried out for Hollywood heavyweights by jailed private-eye-to-the-stars Anthony Pellicano.
A criminal complaint released by US federal prosecutors said the director of 1988's Die Hard, starring Bruce Willis, and 1990's The Hunt For Red October with Sean Connery, was charged with lying to investigators over whether he hired Pellicano to tap the phone of a Hollywood producer.
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