Word: chan
(lookup in dictionary)
(lookup stats)
Dates: all
Sort By: most recent first
(reverse)
When the producer Andr? Morgan proposed making a movie musical in 2003, indie filmmaker Peter Chan was less than receptive. "I thought there was a reason no one had made a musical for 35 years," says Chan. "Audiences wouldn't go to them." But the lure of shooting in mainland China for the first time was enticing, and Chan saw an opportunity to make a modern musical without compromising dramatic complexity. With Morgan, the producer behind Oscar-winning Million Dollar Baby, and a $10 million budget, Chan assembled a starry cast: Taiwanese-Japanese icon Takeshi Kaneshiro, rising mainland actress Zhou...
...there be no doubt: Perhaps Love is absolutely wonderful. Chan's film brims with pop energy, without sacrificing emotional punch. He creates real characters we care about, then lets them sing, dance and break each other's hearts. Yet he lavishes as much attention on stillness as on sound. And while Perhaps Love has an Asian feel, its production values match those of any international film. The result is dazzling proof that Chinese cinema will no longer be confined to the twin ghettos of martial arts and art house...
...Modern audiences are bound to be suspicious of any film in which actors break out in song, but Chan avoids cheesiness by embedding the musical scenes in a movie being shot inside his movie. Arty director Nie Wen (Cheung) is making a blockbuster musical in Shanghai, starring his longtime lover Sun Na (Zhou) and a hot Hong Kong idol, Lin Jian-dong (Kaneshiro). Nie's musical is set in a Chinese circus, which allows Chan to use acrobats, contortionists, fire-breathers, trapeze artists, clowns and dwarves to liven up the dance numbers. But the musical inside the movie is just...
...Chan deftly switches between the pulsing musical scenes, the growing tension among the cast in Shanghai and lengthy flashbacks to Sun and Lin's love affair in Beijing. The songs have a sense of the subcontinent, courtesy of top Indian choreographer Farah Khan, who taught the Chinese cast how to use their hips and added a few Bollywood dancers to round out the action. Two of Asia's best cinematographers?Peter Pau and Christopher Doyle?split time behind the camera, and each creates distinct visuals. Pau shoots the baroque hotels and classic Bund streets of Shanghai with a warm...
...Shakespeare’s famed tragedy “Othello.” Told from a purely female perspective, the play features the three-person cast of Beth R. McLeod as Desdemona, Anna M. Resnick ’09 as Desdemona’s maid Emilia, and Julia C.W. Chan ’05 as the prostitute Bianca. Levy writes in an e-mail, “I picked ‘Desdemona’ because it is extremely well written and entertaining. Those persons very familiar with the Shakespeare version will be in for a delightful surprise. However...