‘Grosse Pointe Blank’ At 25: How A Knock-Off Became A Groundbreaker In The Assassin-In-Existential-Crisis Comedic Subgenre

Patrick Frater Asia Bureau ChiefKenneth Tsang, a veteran Hong Kong actor who starred in pioneering martial arts movies, has died. He was 86.Tsang (aka Tsang Kong) was staying in the Kowloon Hotel on Nathan Road, a venue used for passenger quarantine after overseas travel, and was found dead in the room on Wednesday. No immediate cause of death has been given by Hong Kong authorities.

Patrick Frater Asia Bureau ChiefNew York-headquartered documentary distributor Icarus Films has picked up all North American rights to Hong Kong protest film “Blue Island.” The film plays this week at the HotDocs Documentary Festival in Toronto, Canada.Directed by Chan Tze Woon (“Yellowing”), the film confronts the large-scale protests in Hong Kong, describing events through a mix of documentary footage and filmed reenactments. The distributor has not yet elaborated release plans, but says that it is taking booking requests from museums, arts organizations, film festivals and theaters across North America.“A new wave of young people took back the streets, as one generation after another has done throughout Hong Kong’s history.

Toyah Willcox and her husband, King Crimson founder Robert Fripp have shared a cover of The Who’s ‘Won’t Get Fooled Again’ – check it out below.The clip comes as the next chapter in their long-running ‘Sunday Lunch’ series which was launched in 2020 due to Fripp missing live performance as a result of lockdown.The series has so far seen the couple share renditions of songs by Ramones, Nirvana, David Bowie, Metallica, Billy Idol, The Rolling Stones, Judas Priest, The Prodigy, Guns N’ Roses, Alice Cooper and many more through Willcox’s YouTube channel.In recent weeks, they’ve covered ‘Bullet With Butterfly Wings’ by the Smashing Pumpkins, Red Hot Chili Peppers’ ‘Can’t Stop’ and Kaiser Chiefs‘ ‘I Predict A Riot’. Last week’s cover saw the pair deliver their take on Michael Jackson’s ‘Give In To Me’ with Fripp dressed up like Slash from Guns N’ Roses.This week though (April 24) the pair have taken on The Who classic, ‘Won’t Get Fooled Again’ complete with wind machine and outtake compilation.

Patrick Frater Asia Bureau ChiefThe Hong Kong International Film Festival will shift to new dates in August, having been postponed earlier this year due to the COVID pandemic.The 46th edition of the festival will take place Aug. 15-31, 2022, at multiple venues across the territory. Like last year’s HKIFF45, the hybrid festival will feature in-person and online screenings and events.The annual spin-off event, Cine Fan Summer International Film Festival, which usually takes place around the same time in August, will be shelved and likely return in 2023.The main HKIFF was scheduled to have started on March 31.

Patrick Frater Asia Bureau ChiefChinese TV producer Linmon Media has filed an application for an initial public offering in Hong Kong. It is the third time that the eight-year-old company has sought a stock market flotation.The heavily-redacted draft prospectus, sponsored by Morgan Stanley and CICC, does not reveal how much fresh capital the company aims to raise, nor the company’s anticipated valuation.

Todd Spangler NY Digital EditorAmid the massive sell-off in Netflix stock triggered by the streamer’s Q1 stumble, billionaire hedge fund manager Bill Ackman liquidated his entire holdings in the company citing new uncertainty about Netflix’s long-term business.Ackman’s Pershing Square Capital Management had acquired about 3.1 million Netflix shares in January. On Thursday, the firm sold that stake — resulting in about a $400 million loss on the investment.In a letter to Pershing shareholders, Ackman cited Netflix’s plans to adopt a lower-cost, ad-supported streaming plan and to try to monetize on password-sharing users as introducing new X-factors that threw off his original analysis of the company’s prospects.

Canadian actress Franchesca Wong came under fire for her role in the Hong Kong series “Barrack O’Karma 1968”.

Editors have shared their new single ‘Heart Attack’ and confirmed the addition of composer and producer Blanck Mass to their line-up as a full member.Blanck Mass, real name Benjamin John Power (also of Fuck Buttons), previously worked with the band on their sixth album ‘Violence’, which arrived in March 2018.“Having worked with the band for coming up to five years now, joining Editors seemed more like a natural progression than a decision that had to be made,” Power said in a statement. “We know that we work well together, are on a similar page creatively, and are all very close friends.“Being part of a ‘creative conglomerate’ is something that I haven’t experienced for a while now so to be part of something that works in that way again is both liberating and exciting in equal measures.”Editors have also shared their first new music since 2019 with the song ‘Heart Attack’, which frontman Tom Smith has described as “a song of obsession, about losing yourself in someone, a love song, a morbid love song”.The video for ‘Heart Attack’, which you can see above, was made by the director and visual artist Felix Geen.

Michelle Yeoh was adamant about one script change before committing to “Everything Everywhere All At Once."The main character's name had to go. She was named Michelle as a love letter to her from the directors.“I’m like ‘No, no, no’ because I believe this person, this character that you’ve written so rich, deserves a voice of her own. She is the voice of those mothers, aunties, grandmothers that you pass by in Chinatown or in the supermarket that you don’t even give a second glance to.

Patrick Frater Asia Bureau ChiefYouTube, the Google-owned video streaming platform, has removed the account of John Lee Ka-chiu, the policeman-turned-politician who is poised to take over as Hong Kong’s next leader.All content on Lee’s YouTube page has been removed. In its place is a message that reads: “This account has been terminated for violating Google’s Terms of Service.”Lee’s campaign office said on Wednesday that it had been informed by Google that the removal of the account was in accordance with the company’s compliance with U.S. sanctions.“We find this very regrettable and completely unreasonable, but we think they can’t stop us from spreading our candidate’s message – our campaign’s message – to the public,” said Tam Yiu-chung, head of Lee’s campaign office.

Liam Gallagher is to play a one-off charity show at the King George’s Hall in Blackburn. The gig happens on April 27, and is aiming to raise funds for local Blackburn homeless charity Nightsafe.

EXCLUSIVE: UTA has signed Korean filmmaker Kim Yong-hwa, one of the most important figures in the Korean screen industry.

In the Apple TV+ series Pachinko, Solomon (Jin Ha) speaks Korean, Japanese and English. The show, based on Min Jin Lee’s book, traces four generations of his family from Korea and Japan (as Zainichi Koreans), so all three languages are involved. Ha does not speak Japanese and studied the different dialects with vocal coach Yu-Mi Kang.

EXCLUSIVE:  2021 Academy Nicholl Fellow scribe Laura Kosann has been hired to adapt the female-driven comic book Mercy Sparx for MGM, The Picture Company and Assemble Media.

Us Weekly has affiliate partnerships so we may receive compensation for some links to products and services.

Patrick Frater Asia Bureau ChiefVeteran Hong Kong director Herman Yau has assembled a top-notch cast for “War Customised,” a high-octane action thriller that is one of the highest-profile commercial productions to emerge from the territory in the past couple of years.The cast is headed by Jacky Cheung (“Private Eye Blues,” “Bullet in the Head”) and Nicholas Tse (“Raging Fire,” “Gen-X Cops”), along with Karena Lam (“Inner Senses,” “July Rhapsody”) and Francis Ng (“Infernal Affairs 2,” “Bullets over Summer”). The supporting cast includes Liu Yase (“Limbo”), Michelle Wai (“Caught in Time,” “Triad”), Angus Yeung (“Raging Fire”), Melvin Wong (“Above the Law”), Ben Yuen (“Tracey,” “Anita”), Amanda Strang (“Final Romance”), and Brahim Chab (“Monkey Man,” “Vanguard,” “Ganopath”) as the villain of the piece.

Jimmy Wang Yu, a Taiwanese actor who was once one of the biggest stars of martial arts cinema, died Tuesday in a Taipei hospital from an undisclosed illness he battled for six years. He was 79 and his death was announced on Instagram by his daughter, Linda Wang.

Vivienne Chow Two Hong Kong protest-related films that are unlikely to ever be screened in their home territory will take center stage at the Taiwan International Documentary Festival, in the event’s Chinese independent documentaries section. The festival runs at multiple venues May 6-15, 2022.The eight-title Chinese independent documentaries section will give “Blue Island” by Chan Tze Woon (“Yellowing”) its Asian premiere and a world premiere to “The Grass is Greener on the Other Side” by Crystal Wong.The two films explore the fate of Hong Kong against the backdrop of the aftermath of the 2019 protests.