‘Parasite’ Star Lee Sun-kyun Investigated in Drugs and Blackmail Affair – Reports

Taylor Swift has been forced to cancel today’s (November 18) show in Rio de Janeiro due to extreme heat. The announcement comes in the wake of the tragic news that a fan died yesterday (November 17) before her previous show in the city. Writing on Instagram, Swift said: “I’m writing this from my dressing room in the stadium.

The Wrens’ Charles Bissell, has released their first song, ‘Old Death’. Listen to the track below. In October, Bissell announced that he had left New Jersey indie rock band The Wrens, of which he was the co-frontman, and was launching this new solo project.

Shane MacGowan’s wife has shared an update on her husband’s condition, saying that she hopes he will be home by Christmas. Writing on X, formerly Twitter, yesterday (November 17), she wrote: “Shane is feeling much better today! I am so grateful to everyone who is willing him to get home for the Christmas!” In July, it emerged that the Pogues singer was recovering in hospital after being admitted to intensive care for an unspecified health issue.

Taylor Swift was given a special welcome in Rio de Janeiro on Thursday (November 16) when the iconic Christ the Redeemer statue was lit up to honour her arrival.The personalised projection incorporated images and symbols associated with Swift’s career, including a bow and arrow, in tribute to her song ‘The Archer’, and a scarf that recalls the ‘Red’ song ‘All Too Well’.The statue was also adorned in a giant white shirt bearing the names of Brazil’s states, in reference to the shirt Swift wears in the video for ‘You Belong With Me’, which was covered in the names of her school friends.

PJ Harvey delivered a five-song performance on the latest edition of NPR’s Tiny Desk Concert series – watch the video below. The musician dropped by the NPR studio with her bandmates John Parish and James Johnston, playing songs primarily taken from her latest album, ‘I Inside the Old Year Dying’. Harvey performed ‘I Inside the Old I Dying’, ‘A Noiseless Noise’, ‘A Child’s Question, August’ and the album’s title track, before rounding off the set with ‘White Chalk’, the title song of her 2007 album.

Drake song ‘Wick Man’. Fans had noticed that the songwriting credits on the track included the name ‘K.

Crawlers have returned with their grungy new single ‘Call It Love’ – listen to the track below. The song is the latest taste of the group’s upcoming debut album, ‘The Mess We Seem to Make’, which will be released on February 16, 2024. You can pre-order the album here.

The Stone Roses bassist Mani, has died, with Ian Brown paying tribute to her online. The singer posted a photograph of Imelda and Mani together, adding: “RiP @imeldamounfield GOD BLESS MANI and his boys X”.

When Julianne Moore first was approached for May December, a dark dramedy that would have her star opposite Natalie Portman under the direction of frequent collaborator Todd Haynes, she said yes immediately. But only in looking more closely at the material and her Gracie character did she come to understand the complexity of what she’d just signed on for. 

“I definitely didn’t want to try and make a puff piece Barbie. I wanted us to run at the scary things as much as we celebrated the wonderful things,” executive producer and star Margot Robbie said during a panel for the movie at Deadline’s Contenders Film: Los Angeles panel on the film. “That’s exactly why I went after Greta [Gerwig], because I was like, ‘She would do that.'”

SPOILER ALERT: This post contains details from the plot of John Wick: Chapter 4. 

Roger Ross Williams, the director of Cassandro, opened up about why it was important to portray a positive queer story in the biopic based on a real-life gay amateur wrestler that turned Mexican lucha libre on its head.

Colman Domingo plays civil rights activist Bayard Rustin, an organizer of the 1963 March on Washington, in the Netflix film Rustin. Domingo said he felt a responsibility to introduce Rustin to modern audiences.

Air screenwriter Alex Convery and editor William Goldenberg represented the film at Deadline’s Contenders Film: Los Angeles. The film tells the story of how Nike signed then-rookie Michael Jordan to the sneaker line that became Air Jordan. Even though Air Jordan is one of the most famous brands in the world, Convery said it remained suspenseful because Nike executive Sonny Vaccaro (Matt Damon) became such a strong character.

“The day of using Gunsmoke and Bonanza portraying us is over. We have a voice, and we use it,” said Julia O’Keefe, the Osage Nation costume consultant for Apple Original Films‘ Killers of the Flower Moon.

By diving headlong into the title role for Flora and Son, Eve Hewson — the daughter of U2 frontman Bono — conquered her fear of singing, the actress said at Deadline’s Contenders Film: Los Angeles in a panel with co-star Joseph Gordon-Levitt and the film’s composer and primary songwriter Gary Clark.

Kelly Fremon Craig, the writer, director and producer of Are You There God? It’s Me, Margaret, opened up about what inspired her to reach out to Judy Blume to adapt the beloved coming-of-age novel into a film.

Maggie Betts, writer-director of The Burial, spoke about her film’s Oscar-winning stars Saturday at Deadline’s Contenders Film Los Angeles event. Jamie Foxx plays a lawyer representing a funeral home owner (Tommy Lee Jones) in a lawsuit against a big corporation. Betts learned she had to give Foxx space for his process.

Neon introduced the Michael Mann-directed Ferrari with a panel at Deadline’s Contenders Film Los Angeles on Saturday that featured a discussion with Mann and stars Adam Driver, Penélope Cruz and Shailene Woodley.

Michael B. Jordan made his directorial debut with the release of Creed III earlier this year. Ever since, there have been questions about if the franchise would return for a fourth movie.

Patrick Frater Asia Bureau Chief The immediate family of leading Taiwanese film director Hou Hsiao-hsien said on Wednesday that he had retired from filmmaking due to illness and is now living peacefully in retirement. They said that their family-run company remains active and in business. The statement (see below) was issued in response to news articles earlier this week that followed an introductory speech given in London by critic and curator Tony Rayns before a screening of 1985 title “A Time to Live and a Time to Die,” one of Hou’s best-known features. Rayns was reported to have said that Hou has dementia, will not direct again and that members of Hou’s company had lost their jobs. The family statement – signed by Cao Baofeng, Hou’s wife, son Isaac Hou and daughter Bess Hou – explained that Hou had been diagnosed with Alzheimer’s Disease before the COVID pandemic and that COVID had, to their surprise, worsened the problems. They continued by saying that Hou has recovered from the COVID-related complications and is now resting quietly at home with his family.

Patrick Frater Asia Bureau Chief Ichiyama Shozo assumed control of the program of the Tokyo International Film Festival after a long programming career that included Tokyo and the slightly more indie Tokyo Filmex events. He is also a regular producing partner of Chinese art-house darling Jai Zhangke. These influences have shaped his approach to this year’s Tokyo IFF lineup, he told Variety.

Patrick Frater Asia Bureau Chief Japan’s Nikkatsu studio is pitching “River” at the top of its TIFFCOM sales slate. The film – on which it shares rights with Third Window Films – is a time loop comedy from Yamaguchi Junta, director of “Beyond The Infinite Two Minutes.” The one-hundred-year-old Fujiya inn stands in a quiet region of Kyoto. An employee is standing in front of the Kibune river at the back of the building when she is called back to work.

Patrick Frater Asia Bureau Chief “Only the River Flows,” a pitch-black crime noir from auteur Wei Shujun, comfortably topped the mainland China box office on a quietish weekend. The film, ostensibly a murder mystery, but one concerned more with atmosphere than linear plotting, earned $12.6 million (RMB90.8 million) in its opening three days, according to data from consultancy Artisan Gateway, or close to a third of the market. The film had its premiere in Cannes where Variety gave it a rave review, calling it an “inventive riff on Asian-noir” and making comparisons with films by Park Chan-wook and Diao Yinan. “Only the River Flows” has since played at a succession of festivals ever since, including New Zealand, BFI London, Vancouver, Adelaide and last week’s Pingyao event in China. Falling to second place at the box office after three weeks on top was Zhang Yimou’s “Under the Light,” which earned $6.9 million for a four-weekend cumulative of $176 million. Chen Kaige’s war, propaganda film “The Volunteers: To the War” earned $5.3 million in third place.

Patrick Frater Asia Bureau Chief Best-selling Australian novel, Runt” is to be adapted as a feature movie that will begin shooting from next month. Studiocanal is handling international rights sales and local distribution in Australia and New Zealand. The story is a heartfelt, contemporary Australian tale, set in the country town of Upson Downs, where eleven-year-old Annie Shearer and her best friend, an adopted stray dog called Runt, try to save their family farm by competing in the Agility Course Grand Championships at the prestigious Krumpets Dog Show in London. The book was released in 2022 and won a clean sweep of the major Australian literary awards including the Children’s Book Council of Australia’s book of the year for young readers, book of the year for younger children at the Australian Book Industry Awards, and overall book of the year at the Australian Indie Book Awards. The movie is adapted for the screen by its West Australian author Craig Silvey (“Jasper Jones”), to be directed by John Sheedy (“H is for Happiness”), and produced by Jamie Hilton (“Breath,” “June Again”). See Pictures is producing with major production investment from Screen Australia, Screenwest and Lotterywest and the WA Regional Screen Fund.

Patrick Frater Asia Bureau Chief “The Quiet Yakuza,” is one of two late additions made by Japanese indie sales firm Free Stone Productions to its slate of films being pitched at TIFFCOM, the film rights market attached to the Tokyo International Film Festival. Directed by Yamaguchi Kento, the two-part-film is adapted from the highly popular manga “Shizukanaru Don – Yakuza Side Story” by Nitta Tatsuo, which runs to 108 volumes and has sold nearly 50 million copies. It sees Ito Kentaro as Shizuya, the only son of the Shinsen Group, the largest yakuza group in Kanto,. However, Shizuya has zero interest in the yakuza and wants to be a regular civilian. He is perfectly happy working at a design company, living a simple, puritan life and lusting after his colleague Akino.

Patrick Frater Asia Bureau Chief Recently-released titles by – very different – Japanese film icons Yamada Yoji and Shimizu Takashi adorn the TIFFCOM sales slate of Shochiku, one of Japan’s oldest and most powerful film studios. The 91-year-old Yamada, known for classics including “The Yellow Handkerchief” and “The Twilight Samurai,” is behind “Mom, Is That You?,” a heartwarming drama that marks the third picture in his recent “Mother” series, following “Kabei, Our Mother” and “Nagasaki: Memories of My Son.” Starring Yoshinaga Sayuri and Oizumi Yo, the film tells how a dissatisfied salaryman pays a rare visit home and discovers his mother’s previously hidden fashionable and outgoing sides. It released in Japanese theaters on Sept.

Patrick Frater Asia Bureau Chief Along with the expansion of streaming, among the unintended consequences of COVID and the SAG-AFTRA actors strike has been global consumers’ growing consumption of non-English-language films and TV shows. That in turn has elevated familiarity with and acceptance of Asian local shows and Asian performers – not just those riding the Korean wave.

“Incredibly weird — but delightful” was one audience member’s indelible comment after the UK premiere of Lee Won-suk’s insane comedy Killing Romance on Friday. Starring Lee Hanee, a former Miss Universe recently seen in the sci-fi romp Alienoid, it tells the story of Hwa Yeo-rae, a viral internet star who becomes trapped in a controlling marriage to the evil Jonathan Na (Lee Sun-kyun, who played the head of Parasite’s rich Park family). To escape from Na, Yeo-rae teams up with her new neighbor Beom-woo (Gong Myung), a young superfan who dreams up a series of increasingly bizarre murder plots.

Patrick Frater Asia Bureau Chief “This Time,” a romantic drama reminiscent of Richard Linklater’s “Before Sunrise” trilogy, but not officially based on it, has been picked up for global distribution by fast-moving sales company EST N8. The story follows two high school sweethearts who unexpectedly reunite in Los Angeles 23 years after they were separated in Jakarta and must decide if they’re still in love. The film, directed by Sebastien Tobler, stars Ken Kirby (“Good Trouble,” “Dynasty”), Leila Perry (“Filthy Animals”) and was produced by Theresa Chiu. It had its world premiere at the Los Angeles Asian Pacific Film Festival in May. The rights deal was brokered by Tenten Wei and Sophie Shi of EST N8.

Patrick Frater Asia Bureau Chief The inaugural edition of the Cinema at Sea – Okinawa Pan-Pacific International Film Festival will be held next month (Nov. 23-29) on the Japanese island of Okinawa.

Patrick Frater Asia Bureau Chief Taking a positive look at visual impairment, rather than focusing on it as a disability, “Coyote Ugly” star Adam Garcia joins producer and actor Tsu Shan Chambers in the lead roles of “My Eyes,” a drama film now shooting in Melbourne, Australia. When optometrist Alana discovers her daughter has a rare inherited eye disease, she must look into her past to realize her vision for the future. She discovers that a judo athlete with a visual impairment halfway across the world may hold the answers she seeks.

Patrick Frater Asia Bureau Chief VVS Films, a leading Canada-based film distributor, will expand its operations to Australia and New Zealand. A24’s Nicolas Cage-starring comedy “Dream Scenario” is set as its first title for the new markets and will release on Jan. 1, 2024.

Patrick Frater Asia Bureau Chief Causeway Films, the Australian film production house behind recent breakout “Talk to Me,” has opened a U.K. operation. The company has hired Daniel Negret, formerly of Head Gear Films, as its CEO. Causeway Films was established by producers Kristina Ceyton and Samantha Jennings in 2014, launching with Jennifer Kent’s Sundance hit “The Babadook.” It followed that by producing Kent’s follow up feature “The Nightingale,” which won the special jury prize at the Venice Film Festival in 2019. Innovative horror film, “Talk to Me,” from filmmaking duo Danny and Michael Philippou screened in Sundance, Berlin and SXSW 2023 and was acquired by A24.

Patrick Frater Asia Bureau Chief India’s Yash Raj Films has set a mid-November release date through the Diwali holidays for “Tiger 3,” its anticipated spy-action film starring Salman Khan, Katrina Kaif and Emraan Hashmi. Holiday complexities have caused the company to devise what it called a “strategic and unique release plan.” Having previously only released teaser footage, YRF has now also unveiled a full trailer. Unusually, the film will open in Indian and international theaters on a Sunday – Nov. 12 – the first day of Diwali. “2023 is the year of ‘Adhik Maas’ which has led to complications regarding festival dates.

Patrick Frater Asia Bureau Chief Unrecognizable from her co-starring and breakout role in 2018 hit “Burning,” Jeon Jong-seo is the centerpiece, the tortured protagonist and the athletic avenger, but not the titular dancer, in Netflix movie and Busan International Film Festival selection “Ballerina.” In the hands of fast-rising director Lee Chung-hyung, Jeon is a coolly calculating female former bodyguard who, until roused, looks like she is half dazed. The suicide of her best friend, a sweet wannabe ballerina, who had been blackmailed into sex slavery by a nasty gang, however, is enough to set Jeon’s character, Ok-ju, on the path towards “John Wick”-like ultra-violence. While Lee never leaves the audience in much doubt as to where the film is heading – an early scene in a convenience store is cool, shocking and righteous – his “Ballerina” is typically Korean in that it spends most of the first two reels establishing Ok-ju’s moral standing and motivation for the bloodshed that is going to dominate the latter portions. Once justified, Lee pours it all on, with a dose of weapons fetishization, a horde of mostly disposable villains and heaps of neon-lit bloodshed.