Shanghai Jan 7, 2011 -- No budget feature film LaoBans announces a second round of casting for this community film production.http://blog.sina.com.cn/laobans A Treatment: Lao Bans – The MovieA college graduate yet unable to find a “real job” then dumped by his wealthy girlfriend, Dennis is introduced to Jamie by her grandmother, the ‘box rice lunch” lady that feeds Dennis and his fellow fast food franchise employees. Circumventing Jamie’s parents’ recent arranged-marriage attempts, “love at first” sight fuels a failed pawning to a successful series of thefts to an underestimated loss to “quirk of fate” return of a rare, culturally significant and valuable “China Stone” as given to Dennis at his grandfather’s deathbed.Two star-crossed young lovers seeking to find a new life within an old world of money and power; the Shanghai Boss flanked by his foreman and mistress; the “Three Dragons” are American, Japanese, and Hong Kong laobans move $100’s millions while gaming to see who can best the other; Texas Dave and Donny Bronx at the “hand-off” in a sex club of Hong Kong; the Japanese Hit Girl in Macau; two Korean Bookends bested by the black-belt “Ingresh” teacher; prurient interests of the American-Playboy-Shanghai-Boss-Mistress-Roommate’s Boyfriend: .“Laobans” draws upon an emerging focus of interest in the East/West juxtaposition of a famed dragon motif: Asian (water) auspicious or European (fire) evil are triangulated among the movie’s “Three Dragons” who portray just how personal business is among laobans. A remembrance of Homer’s “Odyssey” and “Iliad” is referenced to old/new orders relative to what may be considered “traditional” in society. Lookdown/Lookup scenes (open/close) reference the metacircularity of life, while “door opening/door closing” scenes reference to “switching tracks of time” which draw out…
Richard Trombly richard@trombly.com www.obscure-productions.com is an American writer, journalist and filmmaker who has been living in China since 2003 and has