'Little Soldier', Big Heart

Recording a commentary for Jackie's latest

In my capacity as Asian cinema expert in residence at the UK-based Cine Asia label, I get to provide commentaries and occasional other bonus materials for the British release of some great titles.

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End of an Era : The Fifties Closes...

Three generations gather for final (almost) bow...

Its long been the best kept secret in Lan Kwai Fong, my favourite hole in the wall, The Fifties. Many is the night that those walls have echoed to me belting out Elvis, Raymond Wong singing his signature Proud Mary, the houseband, The Mag...Read more

Shooting Red Dawn Rising # 5

The End of the Beginning

We awoke to find that we'd pushed Phoe a kick too far. Her back is so stiff from a week of warriordom, we have to summon the great Kong Sifu from Hong Kong to reallign her. Kong begans his career as a kung fu actor, and plays the comedic role of gunrunner Ding in 'Blood Bond...Read more

Shooting Red Dawn Rising#4

Shaw Bros Revisited

My old friend Peter Poon recently took over operations at Celestial, the company that owns the classic Shaw Bros library. I've had the pleasure of releasing a number of their titles in North America and the UK. He called  today and asked what I was up to; I told him it ...Read more

Shooting Red Dawn Rising#3

Still inside the kung fu temple of doom...

In this esoteric temple setting, the battle between Deva (Phoenix Valen) and the warrior monks continues. The rain thunders down; I'm glad we're inside the soundstage. A brazier burns at one end of the set: its like a James Taylor song, fire and rain...

<...Read more

Shooting Red Dawn Rising#2

**** 

Kung Fu Temple of Doom

As the Red Dawn Rising shoot continues, director Antony Szeto, action director Ken Ip and the team move into our temple set to stage a furious and fast fight between Deva and a sextet of weapon-wielding monks.

In ‘Blood Bond’, the most we had Phoenix fight at a time was three un...Read more

Shooting Red Dawn Rising #1

The Deva Saga Continues

Regular readers of this blog (all five of you) will remember that I shot a film called 'The Blood Bond' last year. It was directed by and starred the great Michael Biehn, who did a fantastic job on both counts, and the film was well-received at the various film markets. It soon be...Read more

In my life...

A round up of people and places...

I'm back up at our great studio in Nanhai, shooting the opening scenes for Red Dawn Rising (AKA Blood Bond 2). We spent so much time up here on the first film, it really starts to feel like home. If only someone would build a Nanhai Starbucks, it would be perfect! I'll write more about the RDR (BB2) experience later. Here are some other updates from Beyworld:

Firstly, my son Ryan graduated from primary school, making him officially the most well-educated...Read more

Bringing 'Shanghai' to Shanghai

Stars flood The Bund for latest film festival.

I'm sure the organisers of the Shanghai International Film Festival do their best, but its a chaotic event at best. This year, I attended with Harvey Weinstein and the rest of the TWC team, initially to promote the release of 'Shanghai'. Howe...Read more

'Shanghai' comes to Hong Kong

Launching an epic with style...  

After the successful Beijing premiere of this Weinstein Company produced period epic, we decamped for Hong Kong, where I had to put together a special preview screening. Given the time frame, this would have been impossible without the help of Nan W...Read more