Indian film director Sanjay Leela Bhansali has seen it all – from being physically attacked on the sets of “Padmaavat” to walking the red carpet at a triumphant Cannes screening of “Devdas” – in his 25 years of filmmaking.
A graduate of the prestigious Film and Television Institute of India, in Pune, Bhansali equally consumed the oeuvre of Tarkovsky, Uday Shankar’s “Kalpana” and Francis Ford Coppola’s “One From the Heart.” While he could not fathom the Russian auteur’s work in its entirety, “something about how a visual works on the soul of the audience if it’s receiving correctly, and the power of the images, is what I imbibed more than anything else,” Bhansali told Variety.
These days, striking imagery and grand storytelling is what Bhansali is best known for.
He made his mark choreographing the songs of Vidhu Vinod Chopra’s “1942: A Love Story” (1994), starring Anil Kapoor and Manisha Koirala,...
A graduate of the prestigious Film and Television Institute of India, in Pune, Bhansali equally consumed the oeuvre of Tarkovsky, Uday Shankar’s “Kalpana” and Francis Ford Coppola’s “One From the Heart.” While he could not fathom the Russian auteur’s work in its entirety, “something about how a visual works on the soul of the audience if it’s receiving correctly, and the power of the images, is what I imbibed more than anything else,” Bhansali told Variety.
These days, striking imagery and grand storytelling is what Bhansali is best known for.
He made his mark choreographing the songs of Vidhu Vinod Chopra’s “1942: A Love Story” (1994), starring Anil Kapoor and Manisha Koirala,...
- 8/10/2021
- by Naman Ramachandran
- Variety Film + TV
To international audiences more accustomed to the relative restraint of China’s arthouse exports, “Only Cloud Knows,” a slab of toothcrackingly sentimental mooncake from regular national box-office conqueror Feng Xiaogang, might come as a bit of a surprise. This episodic, determinedly winsome love story, told in honeyed flashback, follows a grieving husband as he journeys to the places of significance to his beloved, dead wife across their adoptive New Zealand homeland.
The locations are stunning, the actors attractive and Feng — initially a comedy director, though he’s branched out in recent years to historical epics like “Back to 1942” and dramas like 2017’s record-breaking “Youth” — did not get where he is without learning a thing or two about playing an audience’s responses. So while your rational mind is rebelling against its more shameless manipulations, your hands may well be scrabbling through your bag for tissues, napkins, store receipts, candy...
The locations are stunning, the actors attractive and Feng — initially a comedy director, though he’s branched out in recent years to historical epics like “Back to 1942” and dramas like 2017’s record-breaking “Youth” — did not get where he is without learning a thing or two about playing an audience’s responses. So while your rational mind is rebelling against its more shameless manipulations, your hands may well be scrabbling through your bag for tissues, napkins, store receipts, candy...
- 12/22/2019
- by Jessica Kiang
- Variety Film + TV
Takita is known for directing the Oscar-winning ‘Departures’.
Japanese filmmaker Yojiro Takita, best known as director of Oscar-winning drama Departures, is making his Chinese-language debut in Media Asia’s Silence Of Smoke.
Han Geng (So Young), Zhang Guoli (Back To 1942) and Summer Xu (Looper) head the cast of the film about a young cakemaker who takes over the family business but finds he can’t replicate his father’s success. When his daughter is diagnosed with leukemia, and his father dies after coming out of retirement to help him, the cakemaker starts to understand his father and appreciate everything he has done for him.
Japanese filmmaker Yojiro Takita, best known as director of Oscar-winning drama Departures, is making his Chinese-language debut in Media Asia’s Silence Of Smoke.
Han Geng (So Young), Zhang Guoli (Back To 1942) and Summer Xu (Looper) head the cast of the film about a young cakemaker who takes over the family business but finds he can’t replicate his father’s success. When his daughter is diagnosed with leukemia, and his father dies after coming out of retirement to help him, the cakemaker starts to understand his father and appreciate everything he has done for him.
- 10/31/2018
- by Liz Shackleton
- ScreenDaily
More Hollywood actors are expected to appear in starring roles in Chinese films as China’s film industry continue to expand, with bigger productions looking to meet international standards and feed the growing appetite for domestic blockbusters.
So far, however, the top Hollywood stars joining the ensemble casts of these blockbusters have almost all been men. Opportunities for Hollywood actresses in China still remain largely unavailable because of the lack of suitable roles and limited genres. Agencies have been pushing for female starring roles, however, and Milla Jovovich has a role in upcoming action-thriller “The Rookies.”
According to Jonah Greenberg, who left his role as head of CAA China in February to launch a Beijing-based development and production company called Salty Pictures, the agency helped Jovovich get the role, originally written as a male. Such a successful gender-switch of a role in a Chinese film to accommodate a Western actress is a first.
So far, however, the top Hollywood stars joining the ensemble casts of these blockbusters have almost all been men. Opportunities for Hollywood actresses in China still remain largely unavailable because of the lack of suitable roles and limited genres. Agencies have been pushing for female starring roles, however, and Milla Jovovich has a role in upcoming action-thriller “The Rookies.”
According to Jonah Greenberg, who left his role as head of CAA China in February to launch a Beijing-based development and production company called Salty Pictures, the agency helped Jovovich get the role, originally written as a male. Such a successful gender-switch of a role in a Chinese film to accommodate a Western actress is a first.
- 9/25/2018
- by Vivienne Chow
- Variety Film + TV
Director has reassembled the cast of his 2003 hit comedy Cell Phone for its sequel.
Chinese director Feng Xiaogang has reassembled the cast of his 2003 hit comedy Cell Phone for its sequel, Cell Phone 2, which started shooting this week in Beijing.
Ge You and Fan Bingbing again head the cast of the film, which also includes Zhang Guoli, Xu Fan and Fan Wei. The script is written by Feng’s long-time collaborator Liu Zhenyun, who also wrote the original Cell Phone and Feng’s I Am Not Madame Bovary and Back To 1942.
Set before the era of the smartphone, the...
Chinese director Feng Xiaogang has reassembled the cast of his 2003 hit comedy Cell Phone for its sequel, Cell Phone 2, which started shooting this week in Beijing.
Ge You and Fan Bingbing again head the cast of the film, which also includes Zhang Guoli, Xu Fan and Fan Wei. The script is written by Feng’s long-time collaborator Liu Zhenyun, who also wrote the original Cell Phone and Feng’s I Am Not Madame Bovary and Back To 1942.
Set before the era of the smartphone, the...
- 5/12/2018
- by Liz Shackleton
- ScreenDaily
Director has reassembled the cast of his 2003 hit comedy Cell Phone for its sequel.
Chinese director Feng Xiaogang has reassembled the cast of his 2003 hit comedy Cell Phone for its sequel, Cell Phone 2, which started shooting this week in Beijing.
Ge You and Fan Bingbing again head the cast of the film, which also includes Zhang Guoli, Xu Fan and Fan Wei. The script is written by Feng’s long-time collaborator Liu Zhenyun, who also wrote the original Cell Phone and Feng’s I Am Not Madame Bovary and Back To 1942.
Set before the era of the smartphone, the...
Chinese director Feng Xiaogang has reassembled the cast of his 2003 hit comedy Cell Phone for its sequel, Cell Phone 2, which started shooting this week in Beijing.
Ge You and Fan Bingbing again head the cast of the film, which also includes Zhang Guoli, Xu Fan and Fan Wei. The script is written by Feng’s long-time collaborator Liu Zhenyun, who also wrote the original Cell Phone and Feng’s I Am Not Madame Bovary and Back To 1942.
Set before the era of the smartphone, the...
- 5/12/2018
- by Liz Shackleton
- ScreenDaily
Director: Feng Xiaogang. Review: Stan Glick. Back to 1942 (Yi jiu si er), an epic film about a terrible famine that struck China’s Henan province during World War II, will begin its North American theatrical release on Friday, November 30th, 2012 in seven markets: San Francisco, Los Angeles, Seattle, New York, Washington, D.C., Toronto and Vancouver. The film, which has a 146 minute running time, will be shown in its international version, in Mandarin with English and traditional Chinese subtitles. The famine began in 1942 and lasted until the spring of 1944. Its primary cause was a severe drought, but the situation was made worse by, among other things, locusts, the ongoing war between Japan and China, and the incompetence if not outright corruption of the ruling Kuomintang government. More than 10 million fled the province and approximately 3 million people died. While telling the overall story, the film focuses on two families from Henan,...
- 11/29/2012
- 24framespersecond.net
IMDb.com, Inc. takes no responsibility for the content or accuracy of the above news articles, Tweets, or blog posts. This content is published for the entertainment of our users only. The news articles, Tweets, and blog posts do not represent IMDb's opinions nor can we guarantee that the reporting therein is completely factual. Please visit the source responsible for the item in question to report any concerns you may have regarding content or accuracy.