Saturday, December 04, 2004
CENTRO - Hong Kong's Cinematic Powerhouse
You've heard of Pixar, Dreamworks and Industrial Light and Magic by now. Their animation and creative talents have set the trends for much of the Hollywood film industry in the last decade. But now that elite club has an emerging Asian counterpart.
2005 will be a breakout year for one of Hong Kong cinema's big success stories - Centro Digital Pictures. Their latest project with Columbia Pictures, Kung Fu Hustle, is ready and loaded for movie theater release this December. From reactions to initial screenings, this thing is going to pack a whallop. Set in 1940's Shanghai, it's an high octane tribute to chop-shlock kung fu movies and action comedy directed by and starring Stephen Chow, one of the biggest stars in Hong Kong and Asia. Describing Chow to those who have never heard of him is always challenging. Imagine Jim Carrey stirred up with Jackie Chan, the shape of Bruce Lee, a dollup of Robin Williams, and a dash of Moe, Larry and Curly, and you start to get an idea.
So what about Centro Digital Pictures? I visited their offices in Hong Kong's Cyberport, a special high tech facility in the south west corner of the island, to get a first hand look at their creative team. While their "bread and butter" has been CG animation for advertisements and video games, their forays into feature film have been a series of successes. Founder and CEO John Chu is particularly proud of their 1998 film Storm Riders, which was a breakthrough in CG for Hong Kong film and set box office records. Shaolin Soccer was their 2001 megahit with Stephen Chow. The over-the-top special effects combining sport and martial arts were expertly blended by the creative team at Centro. That, and a storyline of Bad News Bears meets Seven Samurai, had audiences mesmerized. And to drive it all home, they also did the special effects for Tarantino's latest tribute to the Shaw Brothers, Kill Bill.
The newest Kung Fu Hustle, says Chu, will be "five times more" in terms of features and intensity. Kung fu film vet Sammo Hung and famed choreagrapher Yuen Wo-ping (The Matrix and Crouching Tiger Hidden Dragon) inject a whole new level of martial arts magic. From the trailer they screened to me in their digital HDTV projection theater, audiences should get an exhilirating experience. The offices of Centro look like many other computer graphics animation firms - a large but dim open space with numerous animators at computer workstations. Even though Cyberport has a gorgeous panoramic view of the South China Sea, the windows are all blocked off with curtains in order to create the ambient light conditions of a movie theater. (I guess there's always lunchtime to enjoy the seascape.)
The computer workstations at Centro are covered with miniature action figures, comic books and other objects of creative inspiration. But the interesting thing is that nearly all the talent appears to be local - young, thin, bespectacled and lanky Hong Kong kids. One clutches a pillow like a five year old kid, while she's hunched over the keyboard and digital drawing pad. Another in jeans and black T-shirt slouches back in a zombie-like state in his chair while scrubbing through a series of animation frames of a pink cartoon creature. When I asked animation director Tommy Tom about the prevalence of Hong Kong locals, he said many, like himself, had studied in Canada's film or animation schools. Places such as Sheridan College in Toronto have been a great training ground for Hong Kong's next generation of filmmakers. It's one of the interesting side effects of the 1997 handover, when large waves of Hong Kongers immigrated to Canada, Australia and the US as a hedge on the reversion to China. As an aside, this should convince Hong Kong government, more than anything else, that diversity for Hong Kong's education system and college community is a good thing.
Just this year, Shaolin Soccer was released in the US with English language trailers and a marketing splash. CEO Chu says the reason for the two year delay in releasing it in the U.S. was a confusion over how to present the slapsticky, fast paced movie to Western audiences. American moviegoers have a reputation for hating subtitles. Whether this is a truism or not, is questionable. But overdubbing Stephen Chow's frenetic movie style would certainly ruin the experience as well. This state of limbo will not be a problem for Kung Fu Hustle, since Columbia Pictures has had American audiences in mind from the beginning. While some reviewers have expressed doubts whether all the references will be appreciated by audiences not familiar with the Hong Kong kung fu genre, it will be the biggest stage for Centro. And so far they have only had successes.
2005 will be a breakout year for one of Hong Kong cinema's big success stories - Centro Digital Pictures. Their latest project with Columbia Pictures, Kung Fu Hustle, is ready and loaded for movie theater release this December. From reactions to initial screenings, this thing is going to pack a whallop. Set in 1940's Shanghai, it's an high octane tribute to chop-shlock kung fu movies and action comedy directed by and starring Stephen Chow, one of the biggest stars in Hong Kong and Asia. Describing Chow to those who have never heard of him is always challenging. Imagine Jim Carrey stirred up with Jackie Chan, the shape of Bruce Lee, a dollup of Robin Williams, and a dash of Moe, Larry and Curly, and you start to get an idea.
So what about Centro Digital Pictures? I visited their offices in Hong Kong's Cyberport, a special high tech facility in the south west corner of the island, to get a first hand look at their creative team. While their "bread and butter" has been CG animation for advertisements and video games, their forays into feature film have been a series of successes. Founder and CEO John Chu is particularly proud of their 1998 film Storm Riders, which was a breakthrough in CG for Hong Kong film and set box office records. Shaolin Soccer was their 2001 megahit with Stephen Chow. The over-the-top special effects combining sport and martial arts were expertly blended by the creative team at Centro. That, and a storyline of Bad News Bears meets Seven Samurai, had audiences mesmerized. And to drive it all home, they also did the special effects for Tarantino's latest tribute to the Shaw Brothers, Kill Bill.
The newest Kung Fu Hustle, says Chu, will be "five times more" in terms of features and intensity. Kung fu film vet Sammo Hung and famed choreagrapher Yuen Wo-ping (The Matrix and Crouching Tiger Hidden Dragon) inject a whole new level of martial arts magic. From the trailer they screened to me in their digital HDTV projection theater, audiences should get an exhilirating experience. The offices of Centro look like many other computer graphics animation firms - a large but dim open space with numerous animators at computer workstations. Even though Cyberport has a gorgeous panoramic view of the South China Sea, the windows are all blocked off with curtains in order to create the ambient light conditions of a movie theater. (I guess there's always lunchtime to enjoy the seascape.)
The computer workstations at Centro are covered with miniature action figures, comic books and other objects of creative inspiration. But the interesting thing is that nearly all the talent appears to be local - young, thin, bespectacled and lanky Hong Kong kids. One clutches a pillow like a five year old kid, while she's hunched over the keyboard and digital drawing pad. Another in jeans and black T-shirt slouches back in a zombie-like state in his chair while scrubbing through a series of animation frames of a pink cartoon creature. When I asked animation director Tommy Tom about the prevalence of Hong Kong locals, he said many, like himself, had studied in Canada's film or animation schools. Places such as Sheridan College in Toronto have been a great training ground for Hong Kong's next generation of filmmakers. It's one of the interesting side effects of the 1997 handover, when large waves of Hong Kongers immigrated to Canada, Australia and the US as a hedge on the reversion to China. As an aside, this should convince Hong Kong government, more than anything else, that diversity for Hong Kong's education system and college community is a good thing.
Just this year, Shaolin Soccer was released in the US with English language trailers and a marketing splash. CEO Chu says the reason for the two year delay in releasing it in the U.S. was a confusion over how to present the slapsticky, fast paced movie to Western audiences. American moviegoers have a reputation for hating subtitles. Whether this is a truism or not, is questionable. But overdubbing Stephen Chow's frenetic movie style would certainly ruin the experience as well. This state of limbo will not be a problem for Kung Fu Hustle, since Columbia Pictures has had American audiences in mind from the beginning. While some reviewers have expressed doubts whether all the references will be appreciated by audiences not familiar with the Hong Kong kung fu genre, it will be the biggest stage for Centro. And so far they have only had successes.
