February 2008

Impact looks ahead to the action movies and blockbusters heading our way in the coming year...

What can be said about Cloverfield - the new movie from J J Abrams (currently ensconced with rebooting the Trek franchise)? Well, not too much given the good job they have done of keeping the plot and details of the movie under wraps. They’ve executed a great internet campaign and the film seems to entail a massive monster attack on New York a la Godzilla and a slew of Japanese movies (hence the poster image of the decapitated Statue of Liberty) but largely shot with steady-cams and with a nod to The Blair Witch project style. The film debuts just as this issue of Impact hits the shelves and we’ll be covering it extensively next month.

Another up-and-coming thriller is the sci-fi romp Jumper in which Hayden Christensen discovers he can teleport himself anywhere he desires. With great power comes no responsibility and soon he discovers that he (and others like him) are being tracked by Samuel L. Jackson. Will Jackson be able to bring him to justice and is there a greater threat to both of them? (Opens February 14th.) George A. Romero’s Diary of the Dead (see page 22) will get a limited distribution in the...

[To read this article in full you must buy the February 2008 edition of Impact]

This month Calum listens as Takashi Miike has One Missed Call and explores some of the Audition director’s most horrifying ‘hits’!

Ever experience deja vu? You know - the idea that you have been in a place or situation before? Well Takashi Miike’s 2003 effort One Missed Call will give even the most passive connoisseur of Asian horror films that feeling because this is basically a straightforward remake of Ringu - only without the use of a videotape. However, everything else is present: a supernatural phone call that informs the victim about the date of their forthcoming demise - a male-female duo who have to race against time to save lives - a spooky long haired ghoul who was once abused - a rotting corpse in a secret location... It seems as if the sole reason that Miike and screenwriter Minako Daira decided to leave out the concept of a haunted VHS tape was because Hideo Nakata might end up suing them. Yet, Premier Asia are releasing One Missed Call to DVD in 2008, obviously in an attempt to cash-in on the American remake that is scheduled to hit UK cinemas in February (and which carries the relative star power of Edward Burns).

All the same, it is probably safe to conclude that even the most ardent horror buff must...

[To read this article in full you must buy the February 2008 edition of Impact]

Whoever wins, we lose? Is the latest monster mash more of a superior FX outing than a final conflict?

Aliens vs. Predator: Requiem opened behind reigning box office champions National Treasure: Book of Secrets and I Am Legend but scored a higher per-screen average than either of the larger films. Part of that success can be attributed to the loyalty of the franchise’s fans, but much credit is also due to the film’s creators for giving the fans what they’d been asking for ever since Danny Glover glimpsed an Alien skull on the Predator trophy wall in Predator 2.

Impact was able to score one-on-one telephone interviews with special effects supervisor (and creature effects designer) Tom Woodruff of Amalgamated Dynamics, Inc. (ADI) and first-time directing duo Colin and Greg Strause, who head up their own special effects company called Hydraulx.

From the beginning, the Strauses and ADI were on the same page about doing things the old-fashioned way. Woodruff says, “When we were first told that they were doing a deal with these guys, our initial reaction was, ‘They’re probably going to be huge proponents for doing digital creatures.’ Because especially for first-time directors on set, why wouldn’t you? If you have the machine behind you to do digital creatures and it’s your first feature for 20th Century Fox,...

[To read this article in full you must buy the February 2008 edition of Impact]

Comics supremo Beau Smith looks at movie adaptations of hits from other media. Are changes inevitable or should the original creators accept the cash and run?

Recently I was talking with some writer friends of mine (yes, I have friends). A couple of them had recently had properties of theirs optioned for film and TV. Both of them got fairly decent option money and credits. Neither were signed on to write the properties if they get made into film or TV, but they knew that when they signed the papers, or at least they should’ve.

Time passes. TV and film writers are assigned to the projects by the folks that optioned the properties. My buddies get to read the scripts. They’re both a little shocked that their characters and stories are nothing much like what they created as comic books. The names are the same, but that’s about it.

They never saw it coming... Then again, maybe they did, but like a lot of other creators they didn’t think it would ever happen to them. After all, their agents, reps and managers all said it was the right thing to do. The option money is pretty good. Where did they go wrong?

Well, they weren’t realistic. They read their option and their lawyers explained it to them, but they still clouded their own thinking...

[To read this article in full you must buy the February 2008 edition of Impact]

Before he became the Governator, he was still a commanding presence. Impact takes a look at Arnold’s army outing.

Arnold plays retired Special Forces Colonel John Matrix, who has turned his back on his military past and now lives the quiet life with his daughter Jenny (Alyssa Milano). However, when former members of his team start getting brutally murdered, the past soon catches up with Matrix. His home is attacked, his daughter taken hostage and he learns that Bennet (Vernon Wells), a man he thought dead is behind the attack. His objective to force Matrix to carry out a political assassination for a deposed warlord, Arias (Dan Hedaya) so he can return to power with a military coup to restore order.

With his daughter’s life at stake Matrix agrees to take the mission, and is put upon a plane to Val Verde. He manages to escape from the plane during take off, and with the reluctant help of Cindy (Rae Dawn Chong), begins to track down Arias’ men after one of them, Sully (David Patrick Kelly), tries hitting on her. After a brawl at a shopping mall, and subsequent car-chase, Sully is apprehended and killed after giving the whereabouts of another of the kidnappers, Cooke (Bill Duke), who gives up Jenny’s whereabouts eventually.
Matrix and Cindy raid a...

[To read this article in full you must buy the February 2008 edition of Impact]

He’s known as the Godfather of Gore, but as George A. Romero exclusively tells Impact, he’d rather be mixing with zombies than watching the modern horror industry’s torture-porn.

George Romero. He’s been called the Grandfather of Gore, the Elder Statesmen of the Circulatory-Challenged and, rightly, the absolute king of the zombie genre. If zombies had a pulse, his finger would be on it. In a career that stretches back to the late 1960s when he began filming shorts and commercials, he’s carved out a niche for himself with no-nonsense suspense and horror. The film that put him on the map was 1968’s Night of the Living Dead, a movie financed on a shoestring budget which involved Romero and his friends forming ‘Ten Productions’ and inputting $10,000 each to the project. The back-to-basics formula which existed in a time where there were few other choices anyway, allowed him a certain creativity which one could argue is missing in a modern Hollywood so dominated by the bottom line and its passion for FX budget alone. Here was a man who wasn’t interested in bureaucratic paper-cuts but more visceral slicing and dicing as long as there was method in the madness.

Over the last forty years he’s returned to the ‘Dead’ scenario a number of times, including Dawn of the Dead (1978) which was named one of the top cult...

[To read this article in full you must buy the February 2008 edition of Impact]

Artist Adi Granov was launched as one of Marvel Comics’ ‘Young Guns’. Now he’s working on designs for the upcoming Iron Man movie. In an exclusive interview he talks about hardwiring Hollywood...

During the course of last November we had two opportunities to meet up with top comics artist Adi Granov. The first was the Thought Bubble event forming part of Leeds Film Festival at which Adi was taking part in a Q&A panel. The second was a week later in Dublin at the city’s Comic-Con. On both occasions it’s clear to see that Granov is both enjoying and a little bewildered by his success. In a few short years he’s risen through the ranks of the comic-book artist firmament and in the last year has found himself courted by Hollywood and giving the film industry’s art departments some pointers. But the truth is that while he’s enjoyed the experience, he seems just at home hanging in the bar with the other professionals or chatting with the fans about his career. For a man who was born in Sarajevo, Bosnia and Herzegovina, lived in the US and now makes his home in Leeds, West Yorkshire this has just been another year of passenger flights, painting and Photoshop.

“I think... the first time I realised I could do this as a real job was pretty much the first time somebody decided...

[To read this article in full you must buy the February 2008 edition of Impact]

Covered this month:
Games: Unreal Tournament 3, SOCOM: US Navy SEALs Tactical Strike, Syphon Filter: Logan's Run and Pursuit Force
DVDs: Resident Evil Extinction and War

[To read this article in full you must buy the February 2008 edition of Impact]

Anime Attack checks out Hell Girl, a new release from Revelation Films.

Vengeance is a funny old business - they say it’s best served cold and this is probably because taking revenge in the heat of the moment could cost you, oh, I don’t know... your eternal soul... Or at least, that’s part of the premise behind Hell Girl.

The series opens with a classic case of school-yard bullying - a young girl is blackmailed by the class bully into stealing money from her parents. As the bullying gets worse and she spirals into depression, she overhears a chance conversation where a website is mentioned that can avenge wrongs done to you. The site can only be accessed at midnight though, and the revenge taken on your behalf comes at a terrible personal cost. Desperation drives folks to extreme lengths though and, as she’s teetering on the brink of suicide anyway, the girl logs onto the Hell Correspondence site at the aforementioned hour... She’s confronted with a black screen and a box inviting her to submit the name of her tormentor, below which is a send button - all fairly innocuous for a hot-line to hell. Soon after entering the bully’s name we, and the girl, are introduced to Hell Girl...

[To read this article in full you must buy the February 2008 edition of Impact]

Lucky Sevens: Andrez Bergen previews garden of sinners, a hyper violent series of seven movies from Aniplex currently premiering on Tokyo cinema screens.

While Christianity contents itself with one big-wig deity - as does the Jewish faith and Islam - Japan is providential enough to have seven lucky gods, called the Shichifukujin, even though only one of them (Ebisu) is native to Japan and the country’s indigenous Shinto tradition. Japanese Buddhists also believe people are reincarnated only seven times, and seven weeks of mourning are required following death. Girls (age seven) are welcomed into womanhood, and allowed to wear the obi decorative sash with their kimono for the first time. And let us not forget Akira Kurosawa’s Seven Samurai.

So this number seven is big biz in Japan and the way the nation seems to think. Hot news in Japan right now is the ongoing unveiling of Kara no Kyoukai, aka Garden of Sinners - suitably enough a seven-part series of movies that commenced in December and will continue into 2008, and is currently showing only at Theatres Shinjuku, in Tokyo.

While Aniplex (Blood+) are the movers and shakers behind this unique concept, the superb animation production has been rendered by ufotable (Honey and Clover). The director’s chair is being shared about - the first three installments having been helmed by Coyote...

[To read this article in full you must buy the February 2008 edition of Impact]

Karate Ka and Hollywood distributor, Don Warrener, pulls on his Gi and tightens his black belt as he checks out Klock Worx ‘real’ Karate movie, Kuro-Obi...

Since the Bruce Lee movies of the 1970s, Chinese Kung Fu movies have dominated the action film genre throughout the world. Then the Muay Thai movie Ong Bak exploded on the screen in 2003. Given all that Japan is best known for - its creation of Karate, Judo, Aikido and Kendo - why are there no movies that feature these arts? Martial arts movie fans have grown tired of the impossible flying through the air and wire work of not just Hong Kong films but those in the west who have taken on these same traits. Klock Worx is a Japanese Production company that has finally made a real karate movie. They appointed real karate masters to the leading roles in order to show genuine karate. It is their hope that they have made a real Japanese karate movie that goes beyond the existing ‘action’ category and which will show the people of the world the true technique and spirit of karate.

Occasionally there comes along a Gichin Funakoshi, a Jigaro Kano, a General Choi Hong Hi, or yes, even a Bruce Lee. These are shining stars who appear in our martial arts world. The same can be said...

[To read this article in full you must buy the February 2008 edition of Impact]

What’s worse than finding out you’re the last man on Earth? Maybe finding out you’re not! However, where there’s a Legendary Will Smith, there’s a way...

New York has never been as quiet as it is in I am Legend. No honking of cars. No hustle and bustle. No more hot-dog vendors and money-makers. But the stakes are higher and in some ways the film itself reflects that. After all, this is Will Smith taking on a role that has previously been played by Charlton Heston (in The Omega Man) and was, for a long time, ear-marked for Arnold Schwarzenegger.

Smith plays Robert Neville, a brilliant scientist, but even he could not contain the terrible virus that proved to be unstoppable and incurable. By a miraculous or cruel twist of fate, he finds that he is immune to the virus. While everyone else died, he lived on. Now he spends his days sending out radio messages across the devastated New York, hoping and praying that someone will hear his voice and help him figure out the reason he survived and to help him find a solution using his own blood as a cure. In the shadows lurk the infected - the mutated victims of the plague no longer fully human - waiting for the moment that Neville will make a mistake...

Ask Will Smith, who has...

[To read this article in full you must buy the February 2008 edition of Impact]

The star of Five Deadly Venoms and a slew of Shaw Brothers Kung Fu classics visits Philadelphia - the home of Rocky - to receive a citation from the Mayor! Impact reports...

For several minutes, I stood by and watched him interact with the event’s MC, Ric Meyers. Lo seemed very enthusiastic about his trip to the US as he conversed with the audience through his translators, joyfully boasting of finally getting to jog up the museum steps made famous by Rocky Balboa. The discussion then moved on to his first movie, Shaolin Temple, which made me rifle through the small bag I was carrying. I produced a glossy photo of him from the film and handed it to the seated ‘Venom’. His face lit up with a big smile as he relived his youth working on his first ever Shaw Brothers’ production. Hopkins explained to Lo that I was the one who had created the webpage for this event and again Lo smiled. He had seen it and seemed very pleased. The nervous energy I first had upon my arrival now subsided. Not only had I finally met my favorite Venom but he was aware of who I was. It was a good feeling. Just after 11am, the bakery shop emptied and we joined the growing crowd gathered out front. In traditional Chinese spirit, a lion dance then erupted welcoming the...

[To read this article in full you must buy the February 2008 edition of Impact]

If Ong Bak introduced worlwide audiences to Thai action cinema, will The Rebel do the same for Vietnam? Impact reviews the movie and speaks exclusively to the director.

Thai Action Cinema was introduced to most people by a little movie named Ong Bak which not only made Tony Jaa a star, but also had people rethinking their views on Asian action cinema. The release of The Rebel - the first truly mainstream action movie to come from there - hopes to do the same for Vietnam too. The film features both a meaningful plot and plenty of bone-crunching martial artistry to satisfy a wide range of filmgoers. Director Truc ‘Charlie’ Nguyen delivers an intense movie that broke box office records in Vietnam and has already been picked up by The Weinstein Company. Impact’s roving reporter Phil Wyatt brings us his views on the film...

Set in 1922, around the time of the French occupation in Vietnam, The Rebel tells the story of several Vietnamese agents employed by the French government. Once of these agents, Le Van Cuong (Johnny Nguyen) is becoming more and more affected by his role of betraying fellow countrymen who are rebelling against France’s harsh laws. He aids the rescue of the leader of the rebels, Vo Thanh Thuy (Thanh Van Ngo) and attempts to gain her trust and take her back to...

[To read this article in full you must buy the February 2008 edition of Impact]

In the first part of our Terminator coverage, we review the pilot for the much-anticipated The Sarah Connor Chronicles...

There’s that familiar maxim that sequels are rarely equals. Rarely does the follow-up do more than follow on behind. James Cameron has consistently bucked that particular trend, first providing us more xenomorphic excitement with Aliens, the follow up to Ridley Scott’s singular Alien and then later revisiting the Terminator franchise with a movie that started the trend for initials, T2. In 2003 there was another Terminator outing, T3: Rise of the Machines and while it was perfectly acceptable fare, the shadow of Cameron’s ground-breaking outing loomed large over the incoming director Jonathan Mostow. Despite some brave choices within the plot, it always felt a little like the poor relation through no fault of its own.

So there must have been some serious discussion before the green light was given to bring the franchise to the small screen. Yes, it’s always tempting to take a multi-million dollar movie franchise further and one can see the financial attraction of trying to extend its reach, but equally television rarely has the budget to match and spin-offs often spin off into oblivion simply because they can’t live up to expectations. Equally where do you go creatively? Two hour films can be tight and...

[To read this article in full you must buy the February 2008 edition of Impact]

There’s still ten of them and they’re still dead. Impact covers the final days of production...

If I asked you to think about what you remembered most from films like Police Story, Hard Boiled or KickBoxer I’m guessing it will probably be the action sequences. Hard Boiled for instance... who can forget the opening shoot out that left your mouth open, jaw to the floor. Or the dramatic hillside car chase in Police Story? Like these films, our intention with Ten Dead Men is to make a film with action scenes that will be remembered for years to come. Sitting in the edit suite with director and editor Ross Boyask I have just watched the final shootout through for the first time. It’s action pure and simple. Five, fifteen hour, long days, boiled down to several gun blazing, explosive minutes. From the start we knew that as good as the story is, as strong as the acting or direction... it’s what’s onscreen action-wise that will make this film rise or fall. Over the past year, with Jude Poyer heading our action unit and some of the UK’s best stuntmen working alongside him, we have fought at Wembley in a Cage, blown up buildings, squibbed up, shot, set fire to and jerk-wired stuntmen galore. It’s fair...

[To read this article in full you must buy the February 2008 edition of Impact]

Take one historical epic, add three legendary talents, stand back and admire...

Hong Kong born filmmaker Peter Chan Ho-sun began his career in the industry as an interpreter and assistant on John Woo’s Hero Shed No Tears, in 1983. That same year, Chan travelled to Europe working with Jackie Chan on Wheels On meals and later on Armour of God. Before his latest film The Warlords, Chan had never directed an action movie, instead he built his reputation on films that focused on people’s lives and loves, with such films as Alan & Eric, Tom, Dick & Hairy, He’s A Woman, She’s A Man, Comrades: Almost A Love Story, many of which were produced under the auspices of his own production company UFO (United Filmmaker Organization).

Chan showed the world there was more to the HK industry than kick ass action films or ‘mo lei tau’ styled comedy. He made his English language debut with The Love Letter and in 2005, Chan directed Perhaps Love, a Chinese musical. His new film The Warlords treads unfamiliar ground for Chan as a director, it’s a war movie, a period piece, shot on locations across China, with a stellar budget (estimated at more than US$40 million), a crew that includes cinematographer Arthur Wong and...

[To read this article in full you must buy the February 2008 edition of Impact]