Jackie Chan (成龍) said Thursday he hopes to finish an animated movie based on him that late Cannes-winning Taiwanese-American director Edward Yang (楊德昌) was working on at the time of his death.
A spokesman for Chan also said Thursday the Hong Kong actor is working on the script for an action movie that he will direct, but denied that it would be the third installment of Chan's Armor of God (龍兄虎弟) series, as reported in Chinese media.
In a blog entry on Chan's Web site Thursday, Chan mourned the death of Yang, who passed away on June 29 from complications from colon cancer.
photo: EPA
Chan had been working with Yang on the animated movie The Wind, which revolves around a character inspired by Chan. A spokesman for Chan, Solon So, said the movie was partly finished.
Chan said in his blog he wants to complete the movie.
"I've started to wonder how I would finish The Wind ... . I can't let his (Yang's) efforts go to waste,'' Chan said.
PHOTO: AP
Yang, known for his realistic portrayals of modern Taiwan, won the Cannes Film Festival's best director award in 2000 for Yi Yi (一一),'' a film about a Taiwanese family that copes with the serious illness of their elderly mother.
Spokesman So also denied reports that Chan plans to shoot the third installment of Armor of God. The first two installments revolve around an Indiana Jones-style treasure hunter named Asian Hawk.
Chan suffered one of the worst injuries of his career while filming the first installment, which led to a brain hemorrhage.
Actor Tom Hanks and his wife have joined the star and screenwriter of My Big Fat Greek Wedding in suing a film company behind the 2002 low-budget comedy hit for a share of profits they claim have gone unpaid.
The suit, filed on Monday in Los Angeles County Superior Court, accuses movie co-financier Gold Circle Films of a lack of transparency in its accounting, leaving writer-star Nia Vardalos, Hanks and his fellow producers uncertain of how much they are still owed.
The court action, which was brought by business entities controlled by Vardalos, Hanks, his wife, Rita Wilson, as well as producer Gary Goetzman, seeks unspecified monetary damages and a full accounting of film profits under court supervision.
In addition to Gold Circle, which is backed by billionaire Norm Waitt Jr, co-founder of Gateway Inc, the suit names Big Wedding Prods and Vortex Pictures as defendants.
In a statement obtained by the Hollywood Reporter, Gold Circle executive Scott Niemeyer called the lawsuit "frivolous" and "completely without merit."
Melville "Mel" Shavelson, who wrote, directed and produced dozens of films with such stars as Lucille Ball, Jimmy Cagney and Frank Sinatra and was twice nominated for Academy Awards, died Wednesday at age 90.
Shavelson died at his Studio City home of natural causes, family spokesman Warren Cowen said.
Shavelson worked as a gag writer for Bob Hope's radio show in the 1930s before going on to write or co-write more than 35 movies and direct a dozen films.
He was nominated for best screenplay Oscars for The Seven Little Foys, the 1956 film that starred Hope as legendary vaudevillian Eddie Foy, and for the romantic comedy Houseboat. He also directed both films.
But making movies was not always the glamorous business many people imagine, Shavelson related in an essay he recently completed commemorating what would have been Ball's 96th birthday on Monday.
The two had a contentious relationship on the set of the 1968 movie, Yours, Mine and Ours about a couple raising 18 children, and Shavelson said that after the final scene was shot the actress asked how he liked directing her.
He said he replied, "Lucy, this is the first time I ever made a film with 19 children.''
"To my surprise, she started to cry,'' Shavelson said. She would not talk to him for months.
The making of 1958's Houseboat was also complicated, Shavelson said, because Cary Grant, who was married to someone else, fell in love with his co-star,
Sophia Loren, who was in love with producer Carlo Ponti, who was splitting with his wife.
On the day she was filming a marriage scene with Grant she married Ponti by proxy in Mexico.
"And that's how you make a successful family comedy in Hollywood,'' Shavelson told columnist Patrick Goldstein of the Los Angeles Times.
In late October of 1873 the government of Japan decided against sending a military expedition to Korea to force that nation to open trade relations. Across the government supporters of the expedition resigned immediately. The spectacle of revolt by disaffected samurai began to loom over Japanese politics. In January of 1874 disaffected samurai attacked a senior minister in Tokyo. A month later, a group of pro-Korea expedition and anti-foreign elements from Saga prefecture in Kyushu revolted, driven in part by high food prices stemming from poor harvests. Their leader, according to Edward Drea’s classic Japan’s Imperial Army, was a samurai
Located down a sideroad in old Wanhua District (萬華區), Waley Art (水谷藝術) has an established reputation for curating some of the more provocative indie art exhibitions in Taipei. And this month is no exception. Beyond the innocuous facade of a shophouse, the full three stories of the gallery space (including the basement) have been taken over by photographs, installation videos and abstract images courtesy of two creatives who hail from the opposite ends of the earth, Taiwan’s Hsu Yi-ting (許懿婷) and Germany’s Benjamin Janzen. “In 2019, I had an art residency in Europe,” Hsu says. “I met Benjamin in the lobby
April 22 to April 28 The true identity of the mastermind behind the Demon Gang (魔鬼黨) was undoubtedly on the minds of countless schoolchildren in late 1958. In the days leading up to the big reveal, more than 10,000 guesses were sent to Ta Hwa Publishing Co (大華文化社) for a chance to win prizes. The smash success of the comic series Great Battle Against the Demon Gang (大戰魔鬼黨) came as a surprise to author Yeh Hung-chia (葉宏甲), who had long given up on his dream after being jailed for 10 months in 1947 over political cartoons. Protagonist
Peter Brighton was amazed when he found the giant jackfruit. He had been watching it grow on his farm in far north Queensland, and when it came time to pick it from the tree, it was so heavy it needed two people to do the job. “I was surprised when we cut it off and felt how heavy it was,” he says. “I grabbed it and my wife cut it — couldn’t do it by myself, it took two of us.” Weighing in at 45 kilograms, it is the heaviest jackfruit that Brighton has ever grown on his tropical fruit farm, located