The Auteurs Film & Cast Member Database
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What’s interesting in The Departed is the fact that everyone is a motherfucker. If I were an American audience, I might find it quite… realistic, and possibly a very pleasant movie experience.
Bio:
Felix Chong Man-Keung (simplified Chinese: 庄文强; traditional Chinese: 莊文強; pinyin: Zhuāng Wénqiáng) (born January 1, 1968 in Hong Kong, China) is one of the most celebrated screenwriters in Hong Kong and has won several prestigious awards at the Hong Kong Film Awards. Chong is known for frequently working alongside cinematographer/director Andrew Lau, and writer/director Alan Mak.
Chong’s best known film as a screenwriter is Infernal Affairs, which he co-wrote alongside Alan Mak. Martin Scorsese’s 2006 American remake, The Departed, was adapted from Chong and Mak’s screenplay and would win four Academy Awards including Best Picture and Best Director. Other films written by Chong include Infernal Affairs 2, Infernal Affairs 3, Initial D, Dance of a Dream, and Confession of Pain. — wikipedia
Quote:
When we make personal movies, then basically the entire world is ours: we can do whatever we want.
Bio:
Wai Ka-Fai is a Hong Kong writer, filmmaker, producer and former TV director and producer.
Wai is best known for his frequent collaborations with Johnnie To, another former TV turned film director and producer. In 1996, they formed Milkyway Image, which is now one of the most successful independent film studios in Hong Kong. The films that the two have made together as directors and producers include Needing You…, Fat Choi Spirit, Love on a Diet, Help!!!, Love for All Seasons, Fulltime Killer, Turn Left, Turn Right and Running on Karma. — wikipedia
Quote:
[On Jean-Claude Van Damme:] He couldn’t act for shit.
Bio:
One of Hong Kong’s most respected film-makers, Ringo Lam was born in 1955. He began his career in 1973 when he entered TVB’s (the television division of the Shaw Bros. studio) Actor’s Training Programme. One of Lam’s classmates was a young actor named Chow Yun-Fat. The two quickly became friends and went out drinking a lot, often getting into trouble with local hoods. One of these incidents, where Chow and Lam were almost forced to drink their own urine, made its way into two John Woo-directed films, A Better Tomorrow (1987) and more graphically in 1990’s Bullet in the Head. (For those that do not know, John Woo is also a good friend of Chow, so he heard the urine story and wanted to use it in ABT. BITH was originally meant to be a prequel to ABT, so Woo showed the story in more detail in that film).
Lam soon realized that acting was not his forte, and became a production assistant for TVB. Shaw Bros. (and TVB) were notoriously cheap and did not allow much (if any) creativity from its’ actors and crews, so in 1978 Lam emigrated to Canada, where he attended York University’s film school. He found the film program too slow-moving for his tastes and so after learning all he could, he returned to Hong Kong in 1981. Several other directors, such as Tsui Hark, who had trained at film schools in the West were also working in HK’s film industry at this time. They came to be known as Hong Kong New Wave directors, as a nod to the European directors (such as Francois Truffaut) from the 1960’s that melded American and European film-making techinques to create a new form of cinema. HK New Wave directors such as Lam were less concerned with showing glamorized Manchu-era heroics as shown in the kung-fu films of the ’70’s as with showing the gritty reality of modern Hong Kong.
Ironically, Lam’s first films were anything but gritty. 1983’s Esprit D’Amour (which was actually only finished by Lam after the original director left the film unfinished) was typical of the ghost comedies popular at the time. Aces Go Places 4 (1986) offered Lam little leeway, since he had to work within the confines of the popular action/comedy series. However, both films turned in a profit at the box office and so Lam was given the green light for his first original film, 1987’s City on Fire.
City on Fire told the story of an undercover cop (Chow Yun-Fat) who goes in too deep infiltrating a gang of jewel thieves, befriending an older gangster (Danny Lee). It featured Lam’s trademark style — a dark, almost documentary-like feel combined with sudden, explosive doses of extremely bloody violence. Coming off the heels of John Woo’s A Better Tomorrow (and sharing the same star), City on Fire was a huge hit and Chow took home a Hong Kong Film Award for his work. The movie also gained some international recognition as well; Quentin Tarantino (though he has never publicly acknowledged it) basically lifted the plot and some of the shots of City on Fire for his debut Reservoir Dogs (1991).
Lam’s next film Prison on Fire (1987), which again featured Chow Yun-Fat, was a hit was well. The filming of Prison on Fire almost became a prison for Lam himself. The conditions were squalid to say the least; the film was made in an actual prison, which was still in operation at the time. Lam’s tight schedule (Lam made the movie — from scripting to final edit — in about three weeks) saw Lam having several temper tantrums and outbursts, as well as imposing tight restrictions on the cast and crew. He gained the nickname dark-faced god which he still retains to this day.
Despite the troubles faced on the set of Prison on Fire, Lam seemed to have a successful career going. However, with School on Fire (1988) things began to go downhill. Critics, politicians and, perhaps most importantly, the film’s producers all thought the film was too violent and glamorized the Triad (Hong Kong gangster) culture. Audiences, on the other hand, thought the film was too unglamorous and dark with not enough action, and stayed away from the movie.
Lam’s first attempt at an international production, Undeclared War (1990) was a flop that virtually bankrupted Cinema City studios, and 1991’s Touch and Go was also a box-office disappointment despite having the popular Sammo Hung as a star. Lam redeemed himself somewhat at the box office with two films featuring Chow Yun-Fat, Wild Search (1990) and Prison on Fire 2 (1991), but then got into even more trouble with the image-conscious Hong Kong studios by commentating publicly about the Tieannemen Square Massacre.
Lam commented on the controversy in a quote from the book City on Fire: After the bloodshed everyone is crying and showing so much emotion in the media. Almost every fifteen minutes the television repeats the same news. Everyone is so sad. Okay, I feel sad too. But the thing lasted too long. After two or three weeks I said ‘Can we break for a while? Let’s have the Dragon Boat Festival [a popular yearly event in Hong Kong].’ All of a sudden, everyone came after me. I said ’I’m sorry’ and went to Singapore and stayed there for a month. There were threats sent to my company. After that, my movies didn’t get a good response [locally].
It was Lam’s good friend Chow Yun-Fat (who had become one if the biggest stars in Hong Kong and carried quite a bit of power with the studios) that would come to his rescue by demanding that Lam direct 1992’s Full Contact. The film broke somewhat with Lam’s more traditional style, concentrating more on pyrotechnics and stylized bloodshed than relationships (one memorable sequence has a gunfight shown from the bullet’s point of view) and seems to have given Lam a clean slate with Hong Kong audiences, as well as gaining a large international cult fanbase. Full Contact was quite successful in Asia, and allowed Lam to get a huge (by Hong Kong standards) budget for Burning Paradise (1994). The film was a hit with critics, but failed to make up its US$ 4 million budget and once again, Lam was in hot water with the studios. His actions during the filming of 1995’s The Adventurers (which included publicly criticizing star Andy Lau, who, by some accounts, refused to listen to Lam’s direction) didn’t help matters any.
So when Lam received an offer in 1996 from the US studio Columbia Pictures to direct Maximum Risk, he accepted. Things didn’t go any better for Lam in America. From the start, he didn’t get along with star Jean-Claude Van Damme, saying he couldn’t act for sh*t. The film also went over poorly with test audiences and was taken out of Lam’s hands, then re-edited by the studio. Lam returned to Hong Kong in disgust. It was at this – one of the darkest points in his career – that Lam produced one of his finest movies, 1997’s Full Alert, which cannily mixed in his older, more gritty style along with some Hollywood touches, such as rapid-fire editing. The film was a huge hit in Hong Kong and once again Lam had redeemed himself in front of his peers.
Even though his latest film, The Suspect (1998) was not that successful, Lam seems determined to stick it out in Hong Kong (as well as Hollywood, as evidenced with his continued endeavors with Jean-Claude Van Damme such as 2000’s Replicant and The Monk) and continue to produce challenging, stylistic and entertaining movies for years to come. — hkfilm.net
Dolph Lundgren
Quote: “Hollywood is great for entertaining people, it’s a wonderful business but it’s make-believe, you must remember that. That’s one of the most important things to remember and the distinction in your own life, otherwise people get lost in their own fame, and it makes them unhappy.”
Bio: Dolph Lundgren was born in Stockholm and lived there until the age of 13 when he moved to his grandparents in Nyland, Ångermanland, Sweden. Despite an early interest in music and the fine arts, Dolph decided to follow in his father’s footsteps and pursue an Engineering degree. After having completed his military service he enrolled at the Royal Institute of Technology in Stockholm.
It was in the military when Dolph first came in contact with the martial arts. Five years later, Dolph had become a World-Class competitor in Japanese Karate and was deeply involved with a discipline that was to become an important part of his life.
After graduating High School, Dolph spent considerable time studying in the Unite States and abroad on various academic scholarships. He attended Washington State University and Clemson University in South Carolina. In 1982, he received a scholarship to complete his Masters Degree in Chemical Engineering at the University of Sydney, Australia. In 1983 he was awarded a Fulbright scholarship to the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in Boston, one of the world’s top engineering schools.
That same year, Dolph decided to move to New York City and take up acting. He started studying drama at the Warren Robertson Theatre Workshop in Manhattan, not knowing how quickly his life was about to change.
Dolph’s motion picture debut came in the James Bond feature A View to a Kill (1985). However, it was his performance in Rocky IV (1988) later that year that definitely got him noticed. After a 9-month audition process among 5,000 hopefuls, he was cast opposite writer-director Sylvester Stallone, as his Russian opponent, Ivan Drago. Following the success of Rocky IV (1985), Lundgren moved to Los Angeles and has since starred in more than thirty feature films. Lundgren portrayed the classic action-heroic lead in such films as Gary Goddard’s Masters of the Universe (1987), Showdown in Little Tokyo (1991) co-starring Brandon Lee, and Blackjack (1998) (TV) by Hong-Kong action legend John Woo.
Lundgren has also continued to turning memorable performances as the main adversary to other action-stars, most notably in Universal Soldier (1992) opposite Jean-Claude Van Damme, directed by Roland Emmerich, as well as Robert Longo’s Johnny Mnemonic (1995) opposite Keanu Reeves. In February 2004, Dolph Lundgren directed his first feature film, the thriller The Defender (2004) in which he also starred. In 2005, he directed and starred in yet another feature, The Mechanik (2005) (a.k.a “The Russian Specialist”). In January 2006, he finished principal photography of The Inquiry (2006), an Italian/American/Spanish co-production, directed by Giulio Base in which he played against, amongst others, Daniele Liotti, Max von Sydow, and F. Murray Abraham. In the fall 2006, Lundgren starred in Diamond Dogs (2007), a Chinese/American co-production filmed on location in Mongolia. In the Spring 2007 he directed a a modern day western shot in Texas, Missionary Man (2007).
In 2009 he completed two new directorial efforts, the action-packed Command Performance (2009) which showcases Lundgren’s longtime musical talents as a drummer; and the neo-noir thriller The Killing Machine (2010/I).
Lundgren also reunited with co-stars Jean-Claude Van Damme and Sylvester Stallone for Universal Soldier: Regeneration (2009) and the highly anticipated action blockbuster The Expendables (2010).
Dolph has managed to not let his Hollywood career stand in the way of his athletic background. He has been awarded his Third Degree Black Belt by the World Karate Organization in Tokyo. His accomplishments include being the Captain of the Swedish National Karate Team, as well as a Champion of the Swedish, European and Australian Heavyweight Division titles. Lundgren still regularly performs Karate exhibitions at international tournaments worldwide.
In addition to his Karate expertise, Dolph was selected by the U.S. Olympic Committee to serve as the Team Leader of the 1996 U.S. Olympic Pentathlon Team during the Atlanta Games. He is actively involved in promoting the image of this sport.
Lundgren’s production company, Thor Pictures, is developing several projects in which he will produce, star and/or direct. He is also a founding member of “Group of Eight”, a New York theater group started in 1994.
Lundgren has also been working on a fitness book and sports wear line for men, the creation and launch of a new Dolph Lundgren brand, a licensing, media and publishing program and the development of future entertainment and media projects.
Lundgren is married to Anette Qviberg-Lundgren, an interior decorator and fashion designer. The couple, along with their two daughters, currently resides in Marbella, Spain. —IMDb
John McTiernan
Quote: “You take it one step at a time and the basic rule is to work on movies you would like to go see because it takes too long and it’s too hard to work on a project for somebody else just because it’s a job. When it’s four in the morning and you’ve been working 18 hours a day for 10 months straight you had better care about the film, otherwise you couldn’t put out the way you have to. To do it well you don’t have any other life, so it better be something you enjoy.”
Bio: A master craftsman notable for his almost Hitchcockian ability to create suspense and keep action moving at an exhilarating pace, director John McTiernan began his involved with theatrical arts early in life. His father was an opera singer, and McTiernan made his theatrical debut at age seven playing bit roles in his father’s shows. After high school he became involved with summer stock, where he directed, acted, and designed until attended Julliard and New York University, where he studied film. He then became designer and technical director at the Manhattan School of Music.
McTiernan went on to make over 200 television commercials before making his feature film debut by directing the fantasy horror movie Nomads (1985). He followed that up with Predator (1987), a sci-fi action film featuring Arnold Schwarzenegger that spawned a franchise.
In 1988, McTiernan helmed his best-known film, the blockbuster Die Hard. Starring Bruce Willis, the film was a hit with both audiences and critics and would become one of the most influential action films ever made, inspiring countless “Die Hard in a [Blank]” followers.
In the wake of Die Hard, McTiernan scored another hit with 1990’s The Hunt for Red October, the first in a series of films based on Tom Clancy’s Jack Ryan series. However, his luck would change with 1992’s Medicine Man and get even worse with 1993’s Last Action Hero, a post-modern action fantasy regarded as one of the decade’s biggest flops.
To get Last Action Hero’s taste out of his mouth, McTiernan returned to familiar territory in 1995, helming Die Hard with a Vengeance, the third in the series. It proved to be another hit, but McTiernan’s career hit the skids over the next decade, with films like The 13th Warrior and Rollerball filling his resume.
The Die Hard series proved yet again to be McTiernan’s lucky-charm in 2007, when the series’ fourth outing scored at the box-office. —amctv.com
Walter Hill
Quote: “[on working with Charles Bronson on Hard Times (1975)] Well, Charlie does things in terms of performance that are hard for a lot of other people to comprehend as being part of an actor’s tool, and that is being visually interesting. There is a great poetry in Charlie’s face. With just a look, he can suggest moods that are quite interesting. He’s always on time, he always knows his lines, and he never misses a mark.”
Bio: Hill was born in Long Beach, California and educated at Mexico City College and Michigan State University. He worked in oil drilling and construction in the 60s before becoming a 2nd assistant director in 1967. He has written and co-written screenplays, including several uncredited works. He has produced and directed films since 1975. —IMDb
Quote for Konstantin Lopushansky
[On his intention for Visitor To A Museum (1990, Tatyana Mushtakova, Road to Kindness)] “help the viewer to open up his soul for compassion, for understanding religious truths, for a desire to comprehend them and apply them to his own fate”
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At eighteen our convictions are hills from which we look; at forty-five they are caves in which we hide.
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F. Scott Fitzgerald’s life is a tragic example of both sides of the American Dream – the joys of young love, wealth and success, and the tragedies associated with excess and failure. Named for another famous American, a distant cousin who authored the Star Spangled Banner, Fitzgerald was born in St. Paul Minnesota on September 24, 1896. The son of a failed wicker furniture salesman (Edward Fitzgerald) and an Irish immigrant with a large inheritance (Mary “Mollie” McQuillan), Fitzgerald grew up in a solidly Catholic and upper middle class environment.
Fitzgerald started writing at an early age. His high school newspaper published his detective stories, encouraging him to pursue writing more enthusiastically than academics. He dropped out of Princeton University to join the army and continued to pursue his obsession, writing magazine articles and even musical lyrics.
At 21 years of age, he submitted his first novel for publication and Charles Scribner’s Sons rejected it, but with words of encouragement. Beginning a pattern of constant revising that would characterize his writing style for the rest of his career, Fitzgerald decided to rewrite “The Romantic Egoist” and resubmit it for publication. Meanwhile, fate, in the form of the U.S. army, stationed him near Montgomery, Alabama in 1918, where he met and fell in love with an 18-year-old Southern belle – Zelda Sayre. Scribners rejected his novel for a second time, and so Fitzgerald turned to advertising as a steady source of income. Unfortunately, his paltry salary was not enough to convince Zelda to marry him, and tired of waiting for him to make his fortune, she broke their engagement in 1919. Happily, Scribners finally accepted the novel after Fitzgerald rewrote it for the third time as “This Side of Paradise”, and published it a year later. Fitzgerald, suddenly a rich and famous author, married Zelda a week after its publication.
In between writing novels, Fitzgerald was quite prolific as a magazine story writer. The Saturday Evening Post in particular served as a showcase for his short works of fiction, most of which revolved around a new breed of American woman – the young, free-thinking, independent “flapper” of the Roaring Twenties.
The Fitzgeralds enjoyed fame and fortune, and his novels reflected their lifestyle, describing in semi-autobiographical fiction the privileged lives of wealthy, aspiring socialites. Fitzgerald wrote his second novel – “The Beautiful and the Damned” a year after they were married. Three years later, after the birth of their first and only child, Scottie, Fitzgerald completed his best-known work: “The Great Gatsby.”
The extravagant living made possible by such success, however, took its toll. Constantly globe-trotting (living at various times in several different cities in Italy, France, Switzerland, and eight of the United States), the Fitzgeralds tried in vain to escape or at least seek respite from Scott’s alcoholism and Zelda’s mental illness.
Zelda suffered several breakdowns in both her physical and mental health, and sought treatment in and out of clinics from 1930 until her death (due to a fire at Highland Hospital in North Carolina in 1948). Zelda’s mental illness, the subject of Fitzgerald’s fourth novel, “Tender is the Night,” had a debilitating effect on Scott’s writing. He described his own “crack-up” in an essay that he wrote in 1936, hopelessly in debt, unable to write, nearly estranged from his wife and daughter, and incapacitated by excessive drinking and poor physical health.
Things were looking up for Fitzgerald near the end of his life – he won a contract in 1937 to write for Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer in Hollywood and fell in love with Sheilah Graham, a movie columnist. He had started writing again – scripts, short-stories, and the first draft of a new novel about Hollywood – when he suffered a heart attack and died in 1940 at the age of 44, a failure in his own mind. Most commonly recognized only as an extravagant drunk, who epitomized the excesses of the Jazz Age, Fitzgerald’s work did not earn the credibility and recognition it holds today until years after his death.—pbs.org
Aleqsandre Rekhviashvili needs DIRECTOR status.
Quote:
I am proud of my rebellious moments, but I wish I`d handled them with more wit.
Bio:
The daughter of a Dublin attorney, Geraldine Fitzgerald was still in her teens when she made her theatrical bow with the Gate Theatre. In films from 1934, she played a series of petulant ingénues in a string of forgettable quota quickies; in later years, she sarcastically summed up her early screen roles by repeating her most frequent snatch of dialogue, “But daddy, it’s my birthday!” With her first husband, she moved to New York in 1938, where she was hired by her old Gate Theatre colleague Orson Welles to star in the Mercury Theater production Heartbreak House. This led to several choice Hollywood assignments in such films as Dark Victory (1939) and Wuthering Heights (1939). Forever battling with studio executives over her often inconsequential screen assignments (exceptions included such roles as Edith Galt in the 1945 biopic Wilson), Fitzgerald briefly gave up films in 1948 to return to the stage. Carefully picking and choosing her subsequent movie roles, she established herself as a reliable character actress in quality films like Ten North Frederick (1958) and The Pawnbroker (1965). She briefly pursued a folksinging career before returning to Broadway in the ultra-demanding role of Mary Tyrone in the 1971 revival of Long Day’s Journey Into Night. Active into the late ’80s, Fitzgerald has added a welcome dash of Hibernian feistiness to such projects as Arthur (1981) and Easy Money (1983). Geraldine Fitzgerald is the mother of prominent British film director Michael Lindsay-Hogg.—All Movie Guide
Vampyr
(The film still I submitted before is too high in contrast, so I was wrong. This one is taken from the Eureka DVD. I’m sorry for causing you unnecessary trouble, Joe!)
Fontane – Effi Briest
(The contrast of the actual film still is much too high.)
For both Hills of No Return and The Puppetmaster, the composer is Ming Chang Chen (he is known as Bobby Chen in imdb) and his name should be spelled as Chen Ming Chang
The Maxim Gaudette in Polytechnique and the Maxim Gaudette in Incendies is the same guy. Please fix this.
Bio:
Born into a family of vaudevillians (her parents were the popular “bickering” comedy team of Johnny Hyams and Leila McIntyre), Leila Hyams started out as a juvenile performer. Leila’s movie career was an outgrowth of her many appearances in magazine advertisements of the 1920s. She often played conventional ingenues, though she was allowed a bit more three-dimensionality in such roles as a baseball team owner in The Busher (1927), the prime murder suspect in The Thirteenth Chair (1929), and the wisecracking circus-artiste heroine in Freaks (1932). Hyams’ finest film hour was as the good-natured saloon girl who teaches Roland Young how to play the drums in Ruggles of Red Gap (1935). Retiring from the screen in 1936, Leila Hyams maintained her show business contacts through the activities of her husband, agent Phil Berg.—All Movie Guide
Margaret Tait currently has three cast member pages going that should be combined into one.
http://mubi.com/cast_members/180300
http://mubi.com/cast_members/180317
http://mubi.com/cast_members/180299
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[On being listed as one of the screen’s all-time best heavies]: I guess they never saw me in most of my pictures. Still, I’ve never stopped working so I can’t complain.
Bio:
Chicago born, distinguished US actor and long time civil rights campaigner, Robert Ryan served in the United States Marines as a drill instructor (winning a boxing championship) and went on to become a key figure in post WWII American film noir and western productions.
Ryan grabbed critical attention for his dynamic performances as an anti-Semitic bully in the superb Crossfire (1947), as an over-the-hill boxer who refuses to take a fall in The Set-Up (1949) and as a hostile & jaded cop in On Dangerous Ground (1952). Ryan’s athletic physique, intense gaze and sharply delivered, authoritarian tones made him an ideal actor for the oily world of the film noir genre, and he contributed solid performances to many noir features, usually as a vile villain. Ryan played a worthy opponent for bounty hunter James Stewart in the Anthony Mann directed western The Naked Spur (1953), he locked horns with an intrepid investigator Spencer Tracy in the suspenseful Bad Day at Black Rock (1955) and starred alongside Harry Belafonte in the grimy, gangster flick Odds Against Tomorrow (1959). Plus, the inventive Ryan excelled as the ruthless “John Claggart” in Billy Budd (1962), and two different WWII US generals – firstly in the star filled The Longest Day (1962) and secondly in Battle of the Bulge (1965).
For the next eight years prior to his untimely death in 1973, Ryan landed some tremendous roles in a mixture of productions each aided by his high calibre acting skills leaving strong impressions on movie audiences. He was one of the hard men hired to pursue kidnapped Claudia Cardinale in the hard boiled action of The Professionals (1966), a by-the-book army colonel clashing with highly unorthodox army major Lee Marvin in The Dirty Dozen (1967), and an embittered bounty hunter forced to hunt down old friend William Holden in the violent Sam Peckinpah western classic The Wild Bunch (1969). Ryan’s final onscreen performance was in the terrific production of The Iceman Cometh (1973) based on the Eugene O’Neill play and also starring Lee Marvin and Fredric March.
Legend has it that Sam Peckinpah clashed very heatedly with Ryan during the making of The Wild Bunch (1969), however Peckinpah eventually backed down when a crew member reminded Sam of Robert Ryan’s proficiency with his fists !
Primarily a man of pacifist beliefs, Ryan often found it a challenge playing sadistic and racist characters that very much were at odds with his own personal ideals. Additionally, Ryan actively campaigned for improved civil rights, restricting the growth of nuclear weapons and he strongly opposed McCarthyism and its abuse of innocent persons. A gifted, intelligent and powerful actor, Robert Ryan passed away on July 11th, 1973 of lung cancer.—IMDb
Please fix duplicate entry for Ye-cheng Chan to Chan Ye-cheng
and Chen Chang to Chang Chen
Thanks :)
Quote:
[On playing the cult ‘60s siren] Angélique has been an important part of my life and everything that ties me to her still moves me. Even 30 years later. Maybe she resembles me too much, or maybe I put too much passion into my interpretation. I don’t know…and yet, I have played in many other movies but everywhere I go, people don’t speak of my career, they only speak of Angélique.
Bio:
For Michèle Mercier, the role of Angélique, “the Marquise of the Angels”, was both a blessing and a curse. It catapulted her to almost instant stardom, rivalling Brigitte Bardot in her celebrity and popularity, but ruined her acting career. The character of Angélique made to forget the other aspects of the career of Mercier, but it is true that general public discovered her only in “Angélique”, and made her a real star of the French cinema of that time. By the end of the 1960s, the names Angélique and Michèle Mercier were synonymous, and to escape type-casting, Mercier was compelled to leave France and try to re-start her career in United States, unfortunately without any success.
Daughter of Nice’s pharmacists, born on January 1st, 1939 and named as Jocelyne Yvonne Renée, she initially wanted to be a dancer. Wartime, no money to buy food, but little Jocelyne wept all week, cadging father, wellknown pharmacist in Nice, to buy her balletskirts and points. In return she promised to work in drug-store. Father took this only as childish whim. But little girl got her wish through: of “small ballet-rat”, as they call little dancers, who participate in stageshows, she grew up to soloist in Opera of Nice. Then came Paris. First she was engaged to the troupe of Roland Petit, then she danced in the company of the “Ballets of the Eiffel tower”. At 15, she met Maurice Chevalier, who predicted her success and glory. They did arrive, but by another way that the dance. Parallel to her career as dancer, Jocelyne followed courses of dramatic art in the class of Solange Sicard. Her début in French cinema was for Mercier another compromise: her birthname seemed too long and too old-fashioned for movie credits. What, if she’ll take a name Michèle? She winced – this was name of her little sister, who died at the age of five by the fever typhoide, but she agreed. And it was also as in testimony of admiration for her partner Michèle Morgan, as she borrowed her name to her. After some romantic comedies and a small role in François Truffaut’s “Shoot the pianist” (1960; her favorite role), she approaches the Sixties mainly in the cinema of district. She also worked in England and made then mainly small-budget films in Italy, always in the same register of easy girl. To this moment Michèle already competed with Sophia Loren and Gina Lollobrigida, continuously shooting in Italy. She needed a role, which could make her a star. Only in 1963, when was decided to make movie by sensational novel “Angélique”, Michèle got this kind of chance.
Many actresses were approached to play the role of Angélique. The Producer Francis Cosne absolutely wanted Brigitte Bardot for the part. She refused, but later judged Michèle Mercier to be fantastic in it. Annette Stroyberg was considered next, but judged not to be sufficiently well-known. Catherine Deneuve was too pale, Jane Fonda spoke French with an American accent, and Virna Lisi was busy in Hollywood. The most serious actress considered was Marina Vlady. She almost sign a contract, but Michèle Mercier won the role after trying out for it – which she did not appreciate very much since she was being treated like a beginner while she was already a big star in Italy. At the time she was contacted to play Angélique, she had already acted in over twenty movies. During four years she made five Angélique-movies, enjoying the real success. Nevertheless the moment came, when she finally wanted to interrupt with this aggravating character. Michèle played with Jean Gabin in “The Thunder of God” of Denys de la Patellière. Then with Robert Hossein in “La seconde vérité” of Christian-Jaque… But the time has gone. That was also confirmed by Mercier’s flop in Hollywood… What life didn’t taught her, that’s the skill how to dominate men. Every time Michèle captivated regardlessly. She was deceived, betrayed. She suffered. “Men in their way, shattered my life. What I wanted from them? Real, mutual love. What they wanted – no hard to guess,” candidly confessed Michèle after sensational story with a shah, who overwhelmed actress with diamonds and bouquets of flowers, and then tryed to rape her. Press enjoyed Michèle’s love affairs and divorces. For some reason or other, in real life this beautiful and kind woman met only rascals, without exception. First husband turned out to be alcoholic. With well known racer Claude Bourillot she lived together 12 years. And she was shocked, when in one day she found out that he vanished with her jewels. Full of dramatism was story of her romance with Italian prince N., who after many years of courtship got intimate with Michèle and at the end betrayed her, refusing to marry her. Incidentally, all these failures even more hardened the character of Michèle Mercier. After a very long eclipse, she decided to return to the cinema. In 1998, the actress made in Cuba and in Italy “La Rumbera”, a feature film by Italian director Piero Vivarelli. In 1999, swindled of several million francs in a business venture, Mercier had serious financial problems. She even planned to sell famous wedding gown of the Marquise of the Angels. The actress confessed in Nice Matin: “I am ruined, I’ll be obliged to sell part of my paintings, my furnitures, my properties, my jewels and the costumes of Angélique”. In 2002, she presented at the Cannes Film Festival her second book of memories in which she affirms in the cover that “she’s not Angélique!”, entrusting her irritation to be summarized to this glamour-image of the Sixties. In this book Mercier also tells about how Italian actor Vittorio Gassman tried to take her by force, but remembers also the gentility of Marcello Mastroianni and the suppers of Bettino Craxi, former Prime Minister, and Silvio Berlusconi. In the end she admits: “All the men who have made the court of me, tried to seduce Angélique… not me. But then one day I understood that Angelique could not make more harm to me, therefore I have learned to consider she’s like a little sister, with whom I had to live hand in hand”.—IMDb
better photo for Anthony Wong Chau-Sang
http://mubi.com/cast_members/35779
This is not Daniel Wu on the picture
Could you please add Cecilia Cheung and Karen Mok to the cast of Shaolin Soccer?
http://mubi.com/films/2873
http://mubi.com/cast_members/32731
http://mubi.com/cast_members/4243
Director’s name: Kongkiat Khomsiri
Photo: 
Quote: none. Really hard to find informations and interviews about him
bio: He graduated from the Faculty of Mass Communications at Bangkok University and started his career as a crew member on Mysterious Object at Noon, the first feature film by Apichatpong Weerasethakul. He then went to work for Five Star Production, working with director Thanit Jitnukul on the films Bang Rajan and Kunpan: Legend of the Warlord.
He made his directorial debut in 2005 with Art of the Devil 2, credited as part of the seven-member “Ronin Team” of directors. His solo directorial debut was Muay Thai Chaiya in 2007. Khomsiri’s future project called Slice.-Wikipedia
Director-Dennis Dortch
Quote-‘My primary focus is sensuality and naturalness. To capture those fleeting real moments in life that we all have experienced but never have captured on film.’
PROFILE
Daoud Abdel Sayed, Director
Bio
Daoud Abdel Sayed was born in Cairo in 1946. He began his film career as an assistant director to Youssef Chahine. The Vagabonds (1985) established him as a pioneer of New Realism in Egyptian cinema; since then he has made a number of commercially successful films. The Land of Fear (1999) won Best Arabic Film at the Cairo International Film Festival. Selected filmography: Al KitKat (1991), Land of Dreams (1994), The Wedding Thief (1995) and A Citizen, a Detective and a Thief (2001). – Film ADFF
I think that the people of my country are ignorant of our history and I feel that it is my mission to make them know some of it and let the others go on with the rest. I regard cinema not as a consumerist art, but as a historical document for next generations.
Argghhhh It is deleting half of what I am writing!!!!!!!!!! I give up!! and will try again tomorrow!!!!!
Info and Pic for Howard E. Rollins and Howard E, Rollins, Jr
Towson State College graduate Howard E. Rollins Jr. has been a stage leading man since the mid-1970s. The tall, imposing African-American actor earned an Oscar nomination for his portrayal of fiercely proud Coalhouse Walker Jr. in Ragtime (1981). As impressive as his theatre and film resumés are his TV credits, including such roles as Andrew Young in the 1978 miniseries King and George Haley in the 1979 multiparter Roots: The Next Generation. Howard E. Rollins was seen on a more regular basis on the ABC daytime drama Another World (for which he was Emmy-nominated); as explosives expert Bannister Parks on the 1985 “buddy western” series Wildside; and as Virgil Tibbs on the long-running (1988-92) TV adaptation of In the Heat of the Night. He made his final feature film appearance in Drunks (1995), a slice-of-life drama set at an Alcoholics Anonymous meeting. Six weeks before he died on December 8, 1997, the 42-year-old Rollins had been diagnosed with lymphoid. Complications from the disease caused his demise. ~ Hal Erickson, Rovi
lianli
Alan Mak
Quote:
I think all the filmmakers in Hong Kong are influenced by John Woo.
Bio:
Mak made his directorial debut in 1997, with his first film being Nude Fear, which was written and produced by Joe Ma. After that, Mak had directed more films such as Rave Fever, A War Named Desire, Final Romance and Stolen Love, which would be his first collaboration with writer Felix Chong.
In 2002, Mak and Chong wrote their first script together. The movie was Infernal Affairs, which was produced by Mak’s directing partner, Andrew Lau, who also served as cinematographer. Lau and Mak also served as directors for the film, and it would be the first of many collaborations involving the directing duo.
Infernal Affairs starred the four top actors of its year – Andy Lau, Tony Leung Chiu-Wai, Eric Tsang and Anthony Wong – along with the year’s two top actresses – Kelly Chen and Sammi Cheng. Infernal Affairs was the number one box-office hit in Hong Kong that year, breaking several box office records alone. Furthermore, the film won many Hong Kong Film Awards, including Best Picture, Best Directors (Lau and Mak), Best Screenplay (Mak and co-writer Chong), and Best Supporting Actor (Wong). Infernal Affairs also went on win awards at the 40th Golden Horse Awards and the Golden Bauhinia Awards. Not only was the film successful worldwide, but it later became the inspiration for Martin Scorsese’s 2006 film, The Departed.
In 2003, Lau and Mak had completed the trilogy with the prequel Infernal Affairs II and the sequel/prequel Infernal Affairs III. That same year, Mak received the 2003 Leader of the Year award in the Sports/Culture/Entertainment category. — wikipedia