And the APSA goes to . . . .

Out of 31 films, representing 15 countries and territories, it was China's highest grossing film of all time that shocked judges at the 4th annual Asia Pacific Screen Awards last night. Chinese film Aftershock (above) took out two of the major categories including Best Feature Film and Best Performance By Actor for Chen Daoming at the awards ceremony at the Gold Coast Convention and Exhibition Centre. Academy-Award winning producer Lord David Puttnam (Chariots Of Fire, The Killing Fields) was the President of the International Jury for 2010 and said Aftershock was the standout film.
``Ultimately Aftershock won best film because, in my own view, it has everything,'' he said.
``It is as good a `big' movie as any I've seen from Hollywood in years.
``It doesn't disappoint at any level.
``It has already attracted a huge audience and it has every chance of going on to capture a bigger international audience.
``It is incredibly moving and, at the same time, it is really an extraordinarily restrained film and it ends beautifully.''


Aftershock is China's official entry for the 2011 Academy Awards and Puttnam said it, along with several other APSA-nominated films, have good chances in the foreign film category. Another big winner on the night was Korean film Poetry, which won an Achievement In Directing award for Lee Chang-dong and Best Performance By Actress for Yun Jung-hee. Writer/Director Samuel Maoz took out the Screen International Jury Grand Prize for his film Lebanon (below) and the Israeli, French and German co-production also won Best Screenplay.

One of the big upsets was New Zealand favourite Boy losing the Best Children's Film category to Iranian film The Other. Boy's Oscar-nominated producer Ainsley Gardiner attended the event with 13-year-old star of the film, James Rolleston, who wore his signature `jandles' with a tuxedo. Gardiner said although they lost, she said loved the `quality of the films we were up against.'

For my video of the vent click HERE and the full list of winners is below:

BEST FEATURE FILM
Aftershock
People's Republic of China
Produced by Guo Yanhong, Han Sanping, Wang Zhonjun, Peter Lam Kin Ngok, Wang Tonguan and Albert Yeung.

SCREEN INTERNATIONAL JURY GRAND PRIZE
Actress Shinobu Terajima for Caterpillar
Japan
Writer/Director Samuel Maoz for Lebanon
Israel / France / Germany

ACHIEVEMENT IN DIRECTING
Lee Chang-dong for Shi Poetry
Republic of Korea

BEST PERFORMANCE BY ACTRESS
Yun Jung-hee for Poetry
Republic of Korea

BEST PERFORMANCE BY ACTOR
Chen Daoming for Aftershock
People's Republic of China

BEST SCREENPLAY
Samuel Maoz for Lebanon
Israel / France / Germany

ACHIEVEMENT IN CINEMATOGRAPHY
Sudhir Palsane for The Well
India

BEST CHILDREN'S FEATURE FILM
The Other
Islamic Republic of Iran
Produced by Mohammad Ali Najafi

BEST ANIMATED FEATURE FILM
Piercing I
People's Republic of China
Produced by Lynne Wang

BEST DOCUMENTARY FEATURE FILM
Last Train Home
People's Republic of China / Canada
Produced by Mila Aung-Thwin and Daniel Cross.
Co-Produced by Bob Moore

FIAPF AWARD FOR OUTSTANDING ACHIEVEMENT IN FILM
Christine Hakim

UNESCO AWARD
Honey
Turkey / Germany
Written and directed by Semih Kaplanoglu

HIGH COMMENDATION
High Commendation for Performance by an Actor
Tony Barry for Home By Christmas
High Commendation for Outstanding Technology and Special Effects
Legend of the Guardians: The Owls of Ga'Hoole

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From a "Freudian sex Tarzan" to an adaptation of Ramayan 3392 A.D . . .

Australian-based screenwriter John Collee (above) is not afraid to tackle any project, and I mean any project. From a sexy version of Tarzan to a script for Steven Spielberg on the Battle of the Bismarck Sea, Collee is known as one of the most versatile wordsmiths in the industry. Renowned for his work on Oscar-winning films such as Master and Commander: The Far Side of the World and Happy Feet, he most recently brought Charles Dawrin to life in the new biopic Creation.

But Collee says the highlight of his 23-year career as a screenwriter was working on a Tarzan script with Guillermo del Toro, the Mexican director of Pan's Labyrinth and the Hell Boy franchise.
"Guillermo is a very smart guy and has a great understanding of story.
" I worked with him for some months when he was doing Hellboy 2 and we were going to do a sexy Tarzan.
"A Freudian sex Tarzan.
"It emphasised his experience of seeing a woman for the first time and it was all about sex in the jungle.
"It was great fun, but as you can tell it's probably unmakable.
"It would have been quite an adult Tarzan.''Unfortunately Collee says the Tarzan project was `shelved' as Warner Brothers began work on other films and he and del Toro moved on to other projects.
"Scripts are funny - they pay you these huge amounts of money to write them and then they put them in a vault somewhere,'' he says.

It is a phenomenon the former doctor says he is used to. Several years ago Collee finished a screenplay for Steven Spielberg's big budget take on a famous World War II battle, however, that project too has been locked in a vault.
"It was a script on the Battle of the Bismarck Sea, which was like the death star of the second World War,'' he says.
"It was an extraordinarily impregnable fighting machine that this small group of Australian and American men were eventually able to defeat.
"It was a script that I was really happy with, but that one went off the radar too.''

Two Collee projects that have not gone off the radar are Dirt Music, an adaptation of the acclaimed Tim Winton novel, and The Drowner, based on the Robert Drewe book, both which are currently filming in Australia. He also wrote the early screenplay for the up and coming animated action film Legend of the Guardians: The Owls of Ga'Hoole from Zack Synder, the director of 300 and Watchmen. But the pressure is on for Collee's take on the cult comic book series Ramayan 3392 A.D (below), which has a huge international fan base.
"It's a really interesting one and an Indian epic,'' he says.
"It's a religious story at its core, but it's also a kidnap story.
"The Indian hero Rama's lover is kidnapped by the dark lord and it's a mission to get her back.''While the final adjustments are being made to his script and the studio searches for stars and a director, a similar process is happening to Collee's attempt to convert the Onimusha video game series (below) into a live-action feature film.
"It's a computer game set in medieval Japan and I've done a couple of drafts on that,'' he says.
"It's a fantasy about a double kidnapping where a princess and the hero's girlfriend are both kidnapped, so these two men go on a quest together.
"The film got very close to being made and then the global financial crisis happened and everything went pear shaped."

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An Owlin' good time

Super-stylish director Zack Synder’s latest project is the Australian film Legend Of The Guardians, which was previously known as The Guardians of Ga'Hoole. I prefer to call it the animated Owl movie, but hey, I’m a sickly mole person.

The trailer popped up online yesterday and while the film’s premise (in a nutshell) of talking Owl’s fighting each other gave me traumatic flashed to Howard The Duck, the taste-tester looks, well, pretty fly.

Like every other movie released these days, Legend Of The Guardians is based on a series of best-selling books. It follows Soren, a young barn owl, who is kidnapped by owls and forced into the St. Aggie’s orphanage where owlets are brainwashed into becoming soldiers. He and his mates escape to the island of Ga'Hoole to join its noble, wise owls who fight the army being created by St. Aggie's. In other news, is owlets just about the coolest term ever or what? It’s like Chipmunks, but not annoying.

The film is based on, sigh, the first book in a trilogy and features a huge range of vocal talent from Helen Mirren, Hugo Weaving, Geoffrey Rush, Sam Neill, Ryan Kwanten and Movie Mazzupial favourites David Wenham, Abbie Cornish and Emile De Ravin. Quite the cast, yet nothing compared to the AMAZING visuals shown in the trailer (from the artists behind Happy Feet no less).

This is the first animated film from Zack Synder, who has shown an interest in computer generated visuals before with his flicks 300 and Watchmen, but never gone full-retard into purely animated territory. Just quietly, I dig animated films that deal with adult themes and I can’t wait to see this. I’m going to have to wait a while though because Legend Of The Guardians isn’t released until December 9. Ho-hum.

Until then, since the above was a bird-related post I figure what better time to introduce to the . . . .

PIGEONSHARK!

Say what you will about owlets wearing body armour, I don't think they would win a fight against the Pigeonshark. For other badass hybrid monsters such as Bearsharktopus go here.

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