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EXCLUSIVE PREVIEW: CARRIE NG RULES IN “RED NIGHTS”!

Tuesday, Dec 22, 2009 7:45AM / News / Hong Kong Cinema

Today I had the chance to attend the very first (early) 35 mm screening of “Red Nights” a.k.a. “Les Nuits Rouges du Bourreau de Jade”, a fetish-mystery-thriller directed by Frenchies Julien Carbon and Laurent Courtiaud (scripwriters of Johnnie To’s “Running Out Of Time”) and starring Hong Kong goddess Carrie Ng 吳家麗 (“Naked Killer”). Also appearing are: French celebrity Frédérique Bel (“Vilaine”), French newcomer Carole Brana, French-Chinese-Vietnamese TVB actor Stephen Wong Cheung-Hing 黃長興, Taiwanese veteran Jack Kao 高捷 (Hou Hsiao Hsien movies, “Shinjuku Incident”) and two AnD artists: Tony Ho 何華超, who plays a cop, and the lovely Maria Chen 陳霽平, who has a very very very memorable scene with Carrie Ng.

Carrie Ng & Stephen Wong in "Red Nights" (2010)

“Red Nights” Cinematography by Ng Man-ching伍文拯 (“Infernal Affairs II & III”, “Initial D”); Editing by Sébastien Prangère (“Silent Hill”, “Martyrs”); Art direction by Horace Ma馬光榮 (“Rouge”, “Fist of Legend”, “One Nite in Mongkok”, “Three Kingdoms: Ressurection of the Dragon”); and Music by Willie & Alex Cortés (“Eden Log”, “Martyrs”).

Carrie Ng and her Fingers of Doom

I can’t give away anything about the movie since it was a private screening but I’ll share some “safe” information and some information that the directors gave me on the movie set last March in Hong Kong. The main action takes place in Hong Kong. The characters speak French, Cantonese and Mandarin (Generally each actor or actress speaks his/her native language, but Maria Chen speaks some French as well!).

Maria Chen, on the set of "Red Nights"

“Red Nights” is a thriller in which women rule and are really bad-ass, especially Carrie Ng, who gives one of her best performances in a long long time (The movie was obviously written for her). There are some Cantonese Opera scenes (with Stephen Wong as an opera actor) and there are some very brutal murders and vicious S&M scenes (no detail, but they’re quite original). There are also many shots of women’s feet (with or without high heels). The movie’s visuals are awesomely beautiful (reminds me of some gialli or Japanese 70’s movies like the Sasori/Scorpion series).

Carrie Ng, on the set of "Red Nights" (2009)

The following summary from the Films Distribution website is not really a synopsis of “Red Nights” (a contemporary movie, not a period piece), but is more a description of what happens in the Opera scenes. It also gives information about the jade skull everybody is looking for in the movie:

“During the reign of the first emperor of China, an ingenious torturer concocted an elixir that paralysed its victim's limbs, while increasing the sensitivity of their nerve endings tenfold. Kept in a jade skull, the elixir could provoke sensations in infinite variations - everything from erotic caresses to appalling lacerations. Haunted by the desire to experience the extreme sensations caused by the elixir, the executioner kills himself with his own poison, intensifying his death experience. His pursuers never found the skull, which had been concealed within a large imperial seal. But the curse of the jade skull, responsible for its creator's death, will endure within the seal, bringing misfortune to all of those who possess it. Until today...”

Carrie Ng, on the set of "Red Nights" (2009)

“Red Nights” will be initially released in France (probably between June and August 2010) by La Fabrique de Films, and Films Distribution will take care of the international sales. 2010 will be poisonous!

Frédéric Ambroisine (Dec. 21^st, 2009)

Photos (Behind the - Opera - scenes): ON THE SET OF "RED NIGHTS" WITH CARRIE NG

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JOCELYNE SAAB: KISS ME NOT ON THE EYES (AND LET ME SHOOT MY MOVIE)

Friday, Dec 4, 2009 7:22PM / Video / Cinema

Born and raised in Beirut, Lebanon, Jocelyne Saab became a war reporter in 1975, and began directing independent documentaries in the Middle East.

After more than 20 films and numerous international awards Saab moved into fiction. In 2005, living between Paris and Cairo, she directed an extremely beautiful and strong movie in Egypt, about female desire called “Dunia دنيا - Kiss me not on the eyes”.

Starring beautiful Egyptian actress Hanan Turk, “Dunia” had A LOT of trouble with the local censorship, before the shooting, during the shooting and after the shooting. The pressure were so intense that even the lead actress is now denying the movie (sad).

Here is the beginning of the synopsis (from Johanna Hypatia blog – warning: the complete article contains spoilers): “Dunia is a university student taking courses in poetry, and also a promising belly dancer, about to enter a dance competition. Her mother had been a star of belly dance, who was referred to in Arabic respectfully as fannān: an artist. She is studying with the same dance teacher who had taught her mother, and while revering the mother's accomplishments in dance, he urges Dunia to release her potential and stop imitating her mother, to find her own self in the dance...”

The film was nominated at the Sundance International Film Festival, opened at the Singapore International Film Festival in 2006 and was screened at the Vesoul International Asian film festival 2009 during a retropective about Lebanese female directors. The following video is a (less than) 3-minute teaser of the Q&A which followed the screening in Vesoul The whole Q&A was about 25 minutes.

I also had a few solo interviews with Jocelyne Saab during the festival. Part of them will included in a documentary that I’m now editing about the 15^th edition of the Vesoul International Asian film festival.

Jocelyne Saab just finished a new movie, "What's Going On" starring Raia Haidar, a project which began in December 2008 was mainly shot in Beirut.

Frédéric Ambroisine (Dec. 4th, 2009)

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VIDEO: WILL YOU (KEEP THE FLAME) BY FRANCE DE GRIESSEN

Wednesday, Dec 2, 2009 8:15PM / Video / Music

"Will You" is an unreleased song by AnD artist France de Griessen, which will be on her upcoming album “Ghost Ballerina”.

France De Griessen @ Le Klub (Oct. 9th, 2008)
Photo : Pierre Villard / Sipa Press

The footage that I edited come from a live performance shot last year in Paris (at Le Klub on Oct. 9^th, 2008 – NB: The musicians who play with her are members of the powerful rock band Destruction Incorporated) and the audio that I used is an early demo version of “Will You” recorded in 2007. Enjoy...

If you like her music, check out the France’s 6-track EP “Six Uses for a Heart” featuring the song “I Want to be you” (that you can hear in the trailer of the new Bruce LaBruce new movie "L.A. Zombie"!).

Frédéric Ambroisine (Dec. 2nd, 2009)

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"UNE AFFAIRE D'ETAT": ERIC VALETTE'S KICK-ASS THRILLER (INTERVIEW EXCERPT)

Wednesday, Nov 25, 2009 8:48AM / News / Action Queens

"...What we liked about the characters of the novel (1) was the fact that they were shades of gray. Nothing was really black or white and they were all pretty ambiguous and complex. We decided to keep that edge for our material and keep the subtleties of the characters. But what we mainly changed was the character of Nora, the female cop, the “Action Queen” of the movie..."

"...We made her a little more physically involved in the action since most of the time in the novel she is more like a witness: she observes a lot, she learns a lot. She’s pretty cerebral; she doesn’t do a lot in the novel, especially in the second half. So we wanted her to be a little more physical, and also to provide a certain level of entertainment. We decided to have her more involved in the movie. Not being heroic in a silly way but in a kind of logical way. So that is what we changed quite radically in the second half of the movie..."

"...If you look back in time, action girls, action female characters are pretty scarce in French cinema. I think the name that first comes to mind, especially for foreign audiences, is “Nikita” [Luc Besson,1991]. After “Nikita” then you can consider Cécile De France in “High Tension” [Alexandre Aja’s “Haute Tension”, 2003]. Aside from that, there are not a lot of names that come to mind. This is why it was interesting to try to humbly add a new building block to this genre. But it is very tough; there are not a lot of action films, thrillers or adventure movies in France. And most of them do not have a female lead..."

Eric Valette's full interview, coming soon on http://www.actionqueens.com/

"Une Affaire d'Etat" (2009). Directed by Eric Valette. Written by Alexandre Charlot & Franck Magnier. Starring André Dussollier, Rachida Brakni, Thierry Frémont & Christine Boisson. French theatrical release: Nov. 25th, 2009

(1) The novel which inspired the movie, "Affairs of State" by Dominique Manotti, will be released in English next year (June 2010) http://tinyurl.com/yd36vx6

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ON THE SET OF "AVATAR" - 60 MINUTES (CBS NEWS)

Monday, Nov 23, 2009 4:22PM / Video / Cinema

Watch CBS News Videos Online

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Frederic Ambroisine

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Frederic Ambroisine is a Hong Kong cinema expert and documentary director who has made over 140 DVD bonus features for film distribution companies in France, the UK, the USA and Germany...
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Frederic Ambroisine is a Hong Kong cinema expert and documentary director who has made over 140 DVD bonus features for film distribution companies in France, the UK, the USA and Germany. Born in France, his passion and knowledge of Asian cinema led him to become a regular writer since 2002 for the French magazines Kumite, Asia Pulp and Mad Asia. He is an artistic consultant, writer and director of DVD extra features for Wild Side Film’s 100+ DVD/Blu-Ray collection “Shaw Brothers – Les Essentiels”. Fredederic visits Hong Kong annually and has interviewed hundreds of cinema industry personalities over the years. Many of his interviews and extra features have appeared on dvds/blu-rays from CTV International, Pathé Distribution, Des Films, StudioCanal, BQHL, One Plus One, Eureka Entertainment, Image Entertainment, Koch Media, Anolis, Tiberius Film and Galileo Medien Ag. His feature-length documentary “Fica: From the Near East to the Far East” was screened in 2010 at the Vesoul International Asian Film Festival. In 2011 Frederic directed the official “Making Of” documentary for Michele Placido’s action thriller “Le Guetteur” (The Lookout) starring Daniel Auteuil, Matthieu Kassovitz, Olivier Gourmet and Violante Placido.
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Occupation: Director , Screenwriter , Magazine Editor
Age: 37
Gender: Male
Total visits: 747,560