# War and Peace (film series)
### Analysis
Lev Anninsky, on the contrary, viewed Bondarchuk\'s picture as a symbol of state-approved cinema, writing it was the \"antithesis\" and the \"total contrast\" to *Andrei Rublev*, which he saw as representing the nonconformist approach in the field. Anninsky commented that *War and Peace* was imbued with patriotic motifs and \"warm Russian tradition, which engulfs the viewer\" while Tarkovsky had no such sense of \"history as if it is a mother\'s womb.\" Mira and Antonin Liehm considered it \"foremost\" among the early Brezhnevite films which received \"official support\" in order to bring \"Russian classics ... and history to the screen in a manner in line with the official standards of taste.\" However, they added that \"if measured by models and ambitions\" it could \"stand on its own merits.\"
David C. Gillespie noted orthodox Soviet messages in the film: \"There are ideological touches .... Russian and Austrian soldiers (but not their officers) show proletarian-like solidarity .... There is no mention in the film of Pierre\'s early dalliance with freemasonry, as if contact with a foreign creed might erode some of his Russianness.\" He wrote that it \"remains a paean to Russian military might and the strength of the Russian \'soul\'.\"

### Restoration
In 1986, Bondarchuk was requested to prepare *War and Peace* for a television broadcast. A 35-mm. copy of the series, which was filmed in parallel to the main version and had a 4:3 aspect ratio, rather than the 70-mm. 2.20:1, was submitted, after being adapted by a team headed by Petritsky.
In 1999, as part of an initiative to restore its old classics, Mosfilm resolved to restore *War and Peace*. As the original 70-mm. reels were damaged beyond repair, the studio used the 1988 4:3 version and the original soundtrack to make a DVD edition, in a process that cost \$80,000.


# War and Peace (film series)
### Restoration
In 2006 Karen Shakhnazarov, director of Mosfilm, announced that a new \"frame by frame\" restoration was being made. Which elements were being used is unclear, but the restoration would, claimed Shakhnazarov, probably be finished by the end of 2016.
The completed restoration was first shown at the Film Society of Lincoln Center in New York City, then in Los Angeles and other major cities. The Criterion Collection released the restoration onto 3-disc DVD and 2-disc Blu-ray sets on 25 June 2019.
- Ah Vy, Seni, Moi Seni, Russian folk song
- *Waterloo*, a film about the Battle of Waterloo, also directed by Bondarchuk
- List of highest-grossing films in the Soviet Union
- List of Soviet submissions for the Academy Award for Best Foreign Language Film.
- List of submissions to the 41st Academy Awards for Best Foreign Language Film.


# The Park (2003 film)
***The Park*** is a 2003 Hong Kong horror film originally released in 3-D. The film was directed and produced by Andrew Lau. The film was shown at the 2004 Sundance Film Festival as part of the midnight screenings.
14 years ago, a girl fell to her death from the Ferris wheel in an amusement park and the park\'s owner hanged himself from the wheel in guilt for the casualty. The park has been closed down by the government since then. Alan, a reporter, travels to the park out of curiosity and disappears after being pulled underground by an unseen force. Alan\'s sister, Yen, decides to enter the deserted park to search for her brother. Yen\'s mother, a ghostbuster who captures spirits with a magic camera, tells Yen that she knows Alan is dead and asks Yen not to find him. However, Yen insists that Alan is still alive and she goes to the park against her mother\'s will, bringing along six of her friends (Ka-ho, Dan, YY, Ken, Pinky and Shan).


# The Park (2003 film)
They meet the park\'s caretaker, a weird-looking old man, who shouts at them to leave, warning them that the park is haunted. They do not believe him and return to the park again at night, thinking that the old man is asleep. While waiting, Ka-ho tells them that he heard that the park used to be a cemetery before it was built. Strange things start to happen when they split up to find Alan. Ka-ho sees something on his camera recorder and follows it into the Haunted House. One hour later, when everyone comes back to the meeting point, they see that Ka-ho is missing too. They split up into two groups again to find him. Ken and Pinky take a ride on the carousel but it starts spinning at a fast speed on its own. Ken manages to jump off the carousel but accidentally knocks Pinky out in the process. Shan is left behind with Pinky while Ken runs away in fear and almost dies from being drowned by a ghost. Ken\'s crucifix saves him but does not prevent him from being decapitated on a wire later on. Pinky is possessed and dies after slitting her wrist. Shan is apparently killed after being strangled by the possessed Pinky but his lucky charm saves him. Yen, YY and Dan enter the Haunted House and the wax figures inside come to life and attack them. YY is killed by the figurines while Dan dies after being set on fire by the ghosts.


# The Park (2003 film)
Only Yen is left alive and she weeps over YY\'s body, while the possessed caretaker approaches her from behind with an axe. Before he can kill her, Yen\'s mother arrives and starts to fight the evils. She is possessed by the demon and she asks Yen to capture the demon with her magic camera, which Yen does reluctantly. Yen\'s mother dies and before dying, she asks Yen to snap pictures of her deceased friends and other victims, and burn the photos to put them to rest. Yen is also briefly re-united with her deceased brother. At the last moment, Shan appears and reveals that he had been saved by his lucky charm. In the epilogue, Yen is seen taking over her late mother\'s duties as a ghostbuster while Shan continues to work as a car mechanic. When Yen calls Shan at work, Shan does not answer as he is killed mysteriously after being crushed by a car. In fact, the demon had survived in their group photo and it returns to haunt Yen as the film ends.
- Bobo Chan as Yen
- Kara Hui as Mrs Yu
- Tiffany Lee as YY
- Derek Tsang as Dan
- Johnathan Cheung as Alan
- Pubate Maganit as Ken
- Laila Boonyasak as Pinky
- Matthew Paul Dean as Shan
- Chalerm Taweebot as Park caretaker


# Seraphim Falls
***Seraphim Falls*** is a 2006 American revisionist Western film directed by television producer and director David Von Ancken in his only feature film. The storyline was conceived from a screenplay written by Von Ancken and Abby Everett Jaques. The fictional story focuses on a bounty hunt for a Union soldier by a Confederate colonel following the American Civil War in the late 1860s. Pierce Brosnan, Liam Neeson, Michael Wincott, Tom Noonan, and Ed Lauter star in principal roles. *Seraphim Falls* explores civil topics, such as violence, human survival and war.
The film was produced by the motion picture studio of Icon Productions. It was commercially distributed by Samuel Goldwyn Films and Destination Films theatrically, and by Sony Pictures Home Entertainment for home media. The film score was composed by musician Harry Gregson-Williams, although a soundtrack version for the motion picture was not released to the public.
*Seraphim Falls* premiered at the 2006 Toronto International Film Festival and was released to theatres in limited release in the United States on January 26, 2007, grossing \$418,296 in domestic ticket sales. It earned an additional \$801,762 in box office business overseas for a combined worldwide total of \$1,220,058 in revenue. The film generally received positive critical reviews before its initial screening in cinemas. The widescreen DVD edition of the film featuring scene selections and a bonus featurette, was released in the United States on May 15, 2007.
Notable similarities have been found between the film and the 1976 revisionist western, *The Outlaw Josey Wales* directed by Clint Eastwood.
In 1868, within the Ruby Mountains, Gideon roasts hare over an open fire. Suddenly, gunshots ring out with one striking his left arm. He grabs what he can and races down the mountain. His attackers emerge from their cover to inspect his campsite. Colonel Morsman Carver, a former Confederate officer, is accompanied by Pope, Hayes, Parsons and the Kid, who are all engaged in a bounty operation to apprehend him.


# Seraphim Falls
After removing the bullet from his arm with his hunting knife at a secluded location, Gideon leaves an open fire burning, which attracts the posse. He ends up killing Pope with his knife and then ventures out again into the wilderness. He attempts to steal a horse, but is caught by a young woman named Charlotte who helps him after she realises he is injured. She dresses his wound and her family let him sleep overnight in their farmhouse. He later offers to buy their horse and leaves before daybreak. As the group of men approach Gideon\'s trail, he lays an ambush using a bear trap which impales the Kid, who is then shot by Carver as an act of mercy. Later, Parsons decides to leave the other men following the discovery of a dead bank robber, whom Gideon had killed earlier in an act of self-defence and whose bounty money exceeds Gideon\'s. As Parsons is preparing to load the dead body to take to Carson City for the reward money, Carver shoots the horse -- which he declares is his -- leaving Parsons to walk the 30 miles back to town carrying the body.


# Seraphim Falls
Coming across a railroad under construction, Gideon hitches his horse and steals some food. The foreman recognises the horse as stolen and detains Gideon. Carver and his remaining man, Hayes, also reach the railroad site and search for Gideon. Meanwhile, he escapes from custody and makes off with another horse. As Carver and Hayes draw closer, Gideon\'s horse can no longer take the strain of the heat and collapses. Gideon euthanises the horse with his knife. When Carver and Hayes finally reach the horse\'s carcass, Hayes dismounts and marvels at what type of an animal would disembowel the creature. Suddenly Gideon leaps out from the horse\'s belly, where he had been hiding, and grabs Hayes, threatening to kill him if Carver doesn\'t give up his gun. Carver instead shoots Hayes with his last bullet. Confronting each other, Carver and Gideon recall the events that put them at odds. After the end of the American Civil War, Gideon was ordered to track down former Confederate officers. When he arrived at Carver\'s home in Seraphim Falls to interrogate him, Carver was out in a nearby field. To coerce Carver\'s wife into revealing his whereabouts, and believing that their house was empty, Gideon orders their barn to be set on fire. The blaze quickly spreads to the house, as Carver returns from the cropland. While the soldiers restrain him, his wife and son run inside the house to save their infant child who is still in a bedroom. Both men look on with horror at the unfolding tragedy; trapped by the flames, Carver\'s wife and children perish. Gideon, racked with guilt over the tragedy, is seen dropping his gunbelt and walking away from his men.


# Seraphim Falls
The two men fight, Gideon eventually getting the better of Carver. He points Carver in the direction of a town and tells him that he will get nothing but torment if he continues his pursuit. Gideon takes the horses ridden by Carver and Hayes and sets off deeper into the countryside. When Carver later catches up with Gideon, both men are on the brink of exhaustion. They confront each other again with their pistols. Gideon shoots Carver in the side but, instead of finishing him off, he offers himself to Carver. Carver decides not to shoot him and throws his pistol aside. Gideon helps Carver to his feet and the two men walk into the distance away from each other. As a final gesture Gideon abandons his knife (his primary tool throughout the film), throwing it into the ground.
- Liam Neeson as Colonel Morsman Carver: Like Brosnan, Neeson described being \"kind of steeped in that western mythology growing up in Ireland.\" He likened his character, Carver, to Captain Ahab in *Moby-Dick*, \"he\'s Carver totally governed by this idea of revenge where he's practically lost his humanity.\"
- Pierce Brosnan as Gideon: The role was originally to be played by Richard Gere but after he dropped out, Pierce Brosnan replaced him. Brosnan spoke of his love of Western films during production and promotion of *Seraphim Falls*, which had stemmed from watching them as a child in Ireland.
- Michael Wincott as Hayes
- Xander Berkeley as McKenzy, a railway foreman.
- Ed Lauter as Parsons
- Tom Noonan as Minister Abraham
- Kevin J. O\'Connor as Henry
- John Robinson as Kid
- Anjelica Huston as Madame Louise, a vanishing con artist, who figures in the end of the film. Huston first joined the cast in November 2005.
- Angie Harmon as Rose
- Robert Baker as Pope
- Wes Studi as Charon
- Jimmi Simpson as Big Brother
- James Jordan as Little Brother
- Nate Mooney as Cousin Bill
- Shannon Zeller as Charlotte
- Adon Cravens as Nathaniel
- Boots Southerland as Tall Henchman


# Seraphim Falls
### Filming
David Von Ancken first researched the script for six months before joining Abby Everett Jaques to create the screenplay. The film was originally announced at the Cannes Film Festival with Liam Neeson and Richard Gere in the lead roles. Gere dropped out in August 2005 and was soon replaced by Pierce Brosnan. Shooting on *Seraphim Falls* started on October 17, 2005 and actress Anjelica Huston later joined the cast the following November. The film was filmed on location for 48 days, primarily in New Mexico; some of the opening scenes were filmed along the McKenzie River in Oregon.
Oscar-winning cinematographer John Toll was responsible for cinematography work on the film. Toll later noted it was a \"great opportunity to work with a director who was interested in visual storytelling.\"

### Music
The soundtrack, composed by Harry Gregson-Williams, was produced at Bastyr University\'s chapel in Kenmore, Washington. Gregson-Williams wrote the music in three or four weeks, describing it as \"very atmospheric\". However, a CD soundtrack version of the film\'s score was never released to the public. The sound effects in the film were supervised by Kami Asgar. The mixing of the sound elements were orchestrated by William Sarokin and mastered by Steve Maslow.

### Critical response
On Rotten Tomatoes, the film has an approval rating of 55%, based on reviews from 85 critics, with an average score of 5.7 out of 10. The website\'s consensus reads, \"A brutal, slow-moving drama that unfolds among some great-looking scenery.\" On Metacritic, the film has a weighted average score of 62 out of 100, based on 21 reviews, indicating \"generally favorable reviews\".
Neeson, who has more presence doing nothing than most actors do playing Hamlet, gives Carver hints of a psycho drive beneath his righteous scowl.
---Owen Gleiberman, writing in *Entertainment Weekly*


# Seraphim Falls
### Critical response
In a mixed review, Christy Lemire writing in the *Deseret News* mused about the lead characters, stating, \"Their climactic confrontation is visually arresting in its starkness. But as an anti-war statement, a call to lay down arms that\'s clearly intended to be relevant today, it\'s a bit too clunky in its literalism.\" She ultimately found the film to be \"technically solid\" but a \"dramatically unremarkable Western\". Todd McCarthy of the *Variety* staff believed the film was \"nothing rousing or new\" and that Brosnan along with Neeson wouldn\'t be enough \"to muster more than modest theatrical B.O. for this very physical but familiar oater.\" He did however reserve praise for the cinematography noting, \"Its physical beauty notwithstanding -- Toll\'s work, which emphasizes the blues and greens of the forests, is always a pleasure to behold\". The film was not without its supporters. Claudia Puig writing for *USA Today* offered an almost entirely positive review recalling how she thought the film was a \"psychological drama with an intriguing ambiguity that challenges the viewer\'s loyalties and preconceived notions.\" She remarked that the storyline was an \"elaborate and relentless chase that takes those involved into primal psychological terrain.\"


# Seraphim Falls
### Critical response
Stephen Holden writing in *The New York Times* applauded some of the realism displayed in the film, commenting, \"Nothing in the rest of the film comes close to matching the impact of Gideon's carving the bullet from his arm with his hunting knife, then cauterizing the wound while emitting agonizing howls. This scene is enough to give you vicarious hypothermia.\" He also expressed his satisfaction with the visual attributes of the picture by saying \"Its strongest element is the austere majesty of the cinematography by John Toll (*\"Braveheart,\"* *\"Legends of the Fall,\"* *\"The Thin Red Line\"*), in which the severe beauty of the Western landscape looms over the characters as a silent rebuke.\" Critic Josh Rosenblatt, writing for *The Austin Chronicle* viewed *Seraphim Falls* as \"Meditative, beautifully shot, and blessed with a healthy dose of cynicism\" and a \"morality play without the morality and a Western Purgatorio that, in the end, demands its protagonists resign themselves to their loneliness and brutality and avail themselves of the redemptive power of sheer exhaustion.\" Kevin Crust of the *Los Angeles Times* gave the film a somewhat mixed rating calling it \"A beautifully shot chase film by writer-director David Von Ancken and co-writer Abby Everett Jaques, it moves along with minimalist efficiency\" but overall admitting it ran out of \"gas during an overlong allegorical final section.\" Author Joshua Rothkopf of *Time Out* commented that the film \"has all the good looks of its wintry Oregon locales, not to mention the equally craggy faces of Liam Neeson and a grizzled-up Pierce Brosnan, embroiled in a Fugitive-like pursuit with the latter on the run.\"
When actors of Neeson and Brosnan\'s quality stoop to material so obviously beneath them, a lashing at least might be in order.
---Ruthe Stein, writing for the *San Francisco Chronicle*


# Seraphim Falls
### Critical response
Peter Rainer of *The Christian Science Monitor* highlighted the film\'s merits by declaring that it was \"essentially one long, bleak stalk-and-kill action thriller. From the rugged snowscapes to the cracked desert vistas, director David Von Ancken and cinematographer John Toll serve up a whole lot of eye candy from the great outdoors.\" He added, \"The film functions as a kind of survivalists\' guide, and there\'s a morbid pleasure in seeing how Gideon extricates himself from one impossible situation after another.\" Alternately though, columnist Joe Morgenstern of *The Wall Street Journal* sadly mentioned, \"things take a turn from simplicity to sententiousness, then to surreal silliness, and finally to a mano-à-mano contest, on a parched desert floor, over which man gets the best close-ups.\"
Following its cinematic release in 2007, *Seraphim Falls* received a nomination from the Gotham Awards for the Breakthrough Director Award. In 2008, the film won the \"Best Specialty Stunt\" award from the Taurus World Stunt Awards for Mark Vanselow and Craig Hosking.


# Seraphim Falls
### Box office
The film premiered in cinemas on January 26, 2007, in limited release throughout the U.S.. During its opening weekend, the film opened in a distant 42nd place grossing \$155,560 in business showing at 52 locations. The comedy film, *Epic Movie* came in first place during that weekend grossing \$18,612,544. The film\'s revenue dropped by 49% in its second week of release, earning \$79,181. For that particular weekend, the film fell to 48th place screening in 48 theaters. The film *The Messengers*, unseated *Epic Movie* to open in first place grossing \$14,713,321 in box office revenue. During its final weekend in release, *Seraphim Falls* opened in 73rd place with \$10,526 in revenue. The film went on to top out domestically at \$418,296 in total ticket sales through a 6-week theatrical run. Internationally, the film took in an additional \$801,762 in box office business for a combined worldwide total of \$1,220,058. For 2007 as a whole, the film would cumulatively rank at a box office performance position of 276.

### Home media
Following its cinematic release in theaters, the Region 1 Code widescreen edition of the film was released on DVD in the United States on May 15, 2007. Special features for the DVD include; Audio commentary with Pierce Brosnan, writer-director David Von Ancken and production designer Michael Hanan; and a \"Behind the Scenes of Seraphim Falls\" featurette. Currently, there are several European Blu-ray releases of the film, although it is also available in other media formats such as video on demand.
- List of Western films of the 2000s


# Zathura: A Space Adventure
***Zathura: A Space Adventure*** (also known simply as ***Zathura***) is a 2005 American science fiction adventure film directed by Jon Favreau. It is an adaptation of the 2002 children\'s book *Zathura* by Chris Van Allsburg, author of the 1981 children\'s book *Jumanji*. It is a standalone spin-off of the 1995 film *Jumanji* and the second installment of the *Jumanji* franchise. The film stars Josh Hutcherson, Jonah Bobo, Dax Shepard, Kristen Stewart, and Tim Robbins.
The story is about two brothers, Walter and Danny Budwing (portrayed by Hutcherson and Bobo respectively), who find a mysterious board game in the basement, which transports their house into outer space. Along with their older sister Lisa (Stewart) and an astronaut (Shepard), they try to survive the game so they can return home.
The film was shot in Los Angeles and Culver City, California, and was released on November 11, 2005 in the United States. Unlike *Jumanji*, which was distributed by TriStar Pictures, the film was distributed by Columbia Pictures, which is co-owned with TriStar through Sony Pictures Entertainment. It received positive reviews from critics, but was not commercially successful, grossing \$65.1 million worldwide against a production budget of \$65 million.
Walter and Danny are two brothers who do not get along with each other or with their cantankerous teenage sister, Lisa. While their divorced father is away at work and Lisa, whom he left in charge, is napping, Danny discovers an old science fiction-themed board game called *Zathura* in the basement. When he starts playing, the game produces a card that details a meteor shower. After an actual meteor shower occurs in the living room, Walter and Danny realize the game is affecting reality.


# Zathura: A Space Adventure
The boys discover the house is floating in outer space. Lisa thinks she has overslept and it is evening and prepares to go out. The next card puts her in cryonic sleep for the next five turns of the game, leaving her frozen solid. Walter soon concludes they must win the game to return everything to normal. As they continue to play, Walter and Danny overcome the dangers presented by the game, including the appearance of a defective robot, passing too close to a star, and an attack on the house by a race of reptilian aliens called Zorgons. One of Danny\'s turns causes an astronaut to appear, who methodically eliminates the house\'s heat sources, as the Zorgons are attracted to heat. He tells Walter to blow out the pilot light on the furnace, but Walter does not do so, out of fear of getting attacked by the robot. The astronaut lures the Zorgons\' ship away by setting the boys\' father\'s couch on fire and ejecting it from the house.
Walter demands that the astronaut leave, but Danny chooses to let him stay. Growing increasingly agitated, Walter accuses Danny of cheating by supposedly moving his piece prematurely; when Walter tries to move the piece back and takes his next turn, the game reacts as if Walter was cheating and ejects him from the house, but the astronaut rescues him. On Walter\'s next turn, he receives a card that brings a shooting star that allows him to make a wish, resulting in another heated argument between the boys. The astronaut warns Walter not to make a wish out of anger. Fearing the worst, the astronaut is relieved to discover that Walter merely wished for an autographed football. He explains his origins, saying that he and his brother had played the game fifteen years before. He received the shooting star card that allowed him to make a wish, but after an escalating fight, he wished his brother was never born. This resulted in him being trapped, as he was unable to finish the game without the second player. Upon hearing this, Danny and Walter finally put their differences aside.


# Zathura: A Space Adventure
Lisa awakens from her stasis and, still oblivious to the situation, turns up the heat. The Zorgons return and anchor their ships to the house. Lisa finally discovers the predicament and the quartet hide, but realize that they left the game behind. Danny finds the game aboard one of the Zorgon ships, but is spotted. Walter uses a \"Reprogram\" card he drew earlier to fix the robot, who attacks the Zorgons instead, causing them to retreat.
Walter receives another wish card; he uses it to bring the astronaut\'s brother back into existence in gratitude for his help and support and he appears, and looks similar to Danny. The astronaut reveals he is actually an older version of Walter from an alternate timeline and commends his past self for making a better choice than he did. The astronaut and the alternate Danny merge with their counterparts as the timeline changes.
The Zorgons return to the house with a massive fleet, intent on destroying it. When Danny makes the winning move, it is revealed that Zathura is a black hole, which proceeds to suck up the Zorgons\' fleet and the house. The siblings find themselves back in the house as it was before the brothers started the game, just as their father returns home. Their bond renewed, they promise to each other and Lisa to not tell anyone about the game and their adventure. After they leave with their mother, Walter\'s bicycle, which had been orbiting their house, falls from the sky.
- Josh Hutcherson as Walter
- Jonah Bobo as Danny
- Dax Shepard as Astronaut
- Kristen Stewart as Lisa
- Tim Robbins as Dad
- Frank Oz as the voice of Robot
Additionally, John Alexander performed as the Robot, Derek Mears as Lead Zorgon, and Douglas Tait, Joe Bucaro, and Jeff Wolfe, portray individual Zorgons.
Director Jon Favreau acknowledged the influence of other films saying *Zathura* had some bits like *Star Wars*, *Indiana Jones*, *Battle Beyond the Stars*, and *Superman*. Favreau was aware of Dax Shepard from the TV series *Punk\'d* but was convinced to cast him because Mike Judge put him in *Idiocracy* and because of his background in improvisation with The Groundlings that Will Ferrell had also come out of.


# Zathura: A Space Adventure
Favreau preferred to use practical effects instead of computer generated imagery (CGI) in the film. He said, \"it\'s so fun to actually shoot real spaceships or have a real robot running around on the set, or real Zorgons built by Stan Winston. It gives the actors, especially young actors, so much to work off of\". Dax Shepard, who plays the astronaut, said he would not have been interested in doing the film if the effects had been CGI-based. Actor Kristen Stewart enjoyed the on-set effects, saying, \"When we harpooned walls and ripped them out, we were really doing it. When there was a fire on set, there was really fire,\" and that \"the only green screen I was ever involved with was for getting sucked out into the black hole.\" The exteriors for the house were filmed at Oaklawn Avenue, South Pasadena.
Miniature models were used to create the spaceships; Favreau enjoyed using techniques used in many earlier films, such as the *Star Wars* trilogy. in some shots the Zorgon ships were computer-generated, and in many of the scenes digital effects were used to create, for example, meteors and planets, and limbs for the robot suit built by Stan Winston Studios. CGI was used to augment the Zorgon suits, which were constructed so that the head came out of the front of the suit where the actor\'s chest was and the actor wore a blue screen hood over his own head, and to create an entirely computer-generated Zorgon for one scene. A full life size frozen model of Kristen Stewart was also made by Stan Winston Studios, she described the process of modeling and being scanned to make it as arduous, it included details down to the freckles on her arm, and called the result an incredible experience, comparing it to having a twin. Real goats were used and extra eyes were later added using CGI. According to visual effects supervisor Pete Travers, from Sony Pictures Imageworks, it \"was a very important aspect of the effects\" to retain the stylized \"1950s sci-fi look\" from Van Allsburg\'s book, and was inspired by the pointillist style in painting.


# Zathura: A Space Adventure
Favreau says the most complicated shot in the film was when the house was caught in the gravity field of Tsouris-3. The stage was mounted on top of a gimbal off the ground, and the gimbal allowed the set to be tilted close to 40 degrees. All the cast and crew had to be safely secured with cables and harnesses. Favreau called it \"an overwhelming experience\".
Favreau discouraged the notion that the film is a sequel to the 1995 film *Jumanji*, having not particularly liked the film. Both he and author Chris Van Allsburg---who also wrote the book upon which *Jumanji* is based---stated *Zathura* is very different from *Jumanji*. The film was marketed by the studio as taking place within the same fictional universe, and series actor Jack Black considers it the second installment of the *Jumanji* franchise. Author Chris Van Allsburg attributed the lack of box office success to marketing and timing.
The studio marketed the release of the film in an attempt to generate word of mouth with tie-ins, including an episode of *The Apprentice*. Favreau appeared as a guest judge, the show\'s two teams were assigned the task of designing and building a float to publicize the film.
Favreau attended Comic Con for the first time to promote the film.
The film was released on VHS and DVD in 2006, and a Bluray 10th Anniversary edition was released in 2015.

### Box office
With its \$65 million budget, *Zathura: A Space Adventure* was considered a flop, grossing \$13,427,872 in its opening weekend, while the holdover Disney animated film, *Chicken Little* earned more than twice as much that weekend. The film lost 62% of its audience the following weekend, in part due to the opening of *Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire*. *Zathura* ended its theatrical run with a gross of \$29,258,869. The international box office total was \$35,820,235, bringing its total worldwide gross to \$65,079,104.


# Zathura: A Space Adventure
### Critical response
On Rotten Tomatoes, the film has an approval rating of 76% based on 161 reviews, and an average rating of 6.54/10. The website\'s critical consensus reads, \"Dazzling special effects for the kids + well-crafted storytelling for the parents = cinematic satisfaction for the whole family.\" On Metacritic, the film has a weighted average score of 67 out of 100, based on reviews from 30 critics, indicating \"generally favorable reviews\". Audiences polled by CinemaScore gave the film an average grade of \"B+\" on an A+ to F scale.
Roger Ebert of the *Chicago Sun-Times* gave it 3 out of 4 stars, praised Favreau, and wrote: \"*Zathura* lacks the undercurrents of archetypal menace and genuine emotion \... but it works gloriously as space opera.\"
Justin Chang of Variety magazine said it was \"arguably the best adaptation of a Chris Van Allsburg book to date\" and praised \"Favreau\'s amiably low-key sense of humor and assured handling of well-trod emotional territory.\" John DeFore of The Hollywood Reporter called it a \"rare beast \-- a family film that even childless adults can enjoy\", and praised the performances both from child actors and from Dax Shepard. Stephen Holden of *The New York Times* said *Zathura* richly gratifies the fantasy of children; \"not just to play a board game, but to project themselves into its world\". Desson Thomson of *The Washington Post* wrote that *Zathura* has \"an appealing, childlike sense of wonder\".
The connection to *Jumanji* may have been a disadvantage, with critics such as Luke Baumgarten for the *Inlander* referring to it as \"*Jumanji* in space without Robin Williams\".

### Accolades
Zathura was nominated for two Saturn Awards, for Best Fantasy Film, and Josh Hutcherson for Best Performance by a Younger Actor.


# Zathura: A Space Adventure
### Accolades
At the Hollywood Film Awards Avy Kaufman won the award for Casting Director of the Year, for her work on Capote, Brokeback Mountain, Get Rich or Die Tryin\', Syriana, and Zathura.
At Young Artist Awards Josh Hutcherson won in the category \"Best Performance in a Feature Film (Comedy or Drama)\" by a Leading Young Actor, and Jonah Bobo was nominated in the category \"Best Performance in a Feature Film\" by a Young Actor Age Ten or Younger.

### Legacy
In a 2018 review for Den of Geek, Tim George called it \"a terrific movie worthy of reappraisal\" praising the witty, efficient script, sense of directorial whimsy, and focus on character over special effects.
Favreau said the film wasn\'t released so much as it \"escaped\". He further described the experience: \"After the highs of the success of Elf, Zathura was sobering and, though it was well-received by the critics and I learned a tremendous amount about visual effects, the grim reality of the movie business hit me like a bucket of cold water.\"
Jack Black expressed interest in the possibility of the franchise returning to space. Hiram Garcia, a producer of the Jumanji sequels, said the game contained multiple universes and that the Bazaar introduced in the 2017 film was added to be a central hub for a larger game universe that the core characters would not know about, and that it could even go into space.
The film is based on the illustrated children\'s book *Zathura* by Chris Van Allsburg and to tie-in with the film several other books were released including a novelization *Zathura: The Movie -- Junior Novel* as well as several other activity and play books.
A board game that sought to mimic the film\'s eponymous game was released by Pressman Toy Corporation. Titled *Zathura: Adventure is Waiting*, the game incorporated a spring-driven, clockwork card delivery mechanism, an astronaut, the Zorgons, the haywire robot and the disintegrating house in various ways.
A video-game tie-in was released on November 3, 2005, developed by High Voltage Software and published by 2K Games for PlayStation 2 and Xbox. The games received \"generally unfavorable reviews\".


# The 14 Amazons
***The 14 Amazons*** is a 1972 Hong Kong *wuxia* film directed by Cheng Kang and produced by the Shaw Brothers Studio. The award winning film featured a predominantly female cast. The story is about the female generals of the Yang Family.
The film\'s Chinese title is . Its alternative title is The Fourteen Amazons. It is also known as Les 14 Amazones, in French. The film is a historical drama martial arts film that sets in the Sing dynasty.
The Yang family, men and women, had served their country (Song Dynasty) loyally for generations. During the war with Western Xia, General Yang Tsung-pao is ambushed and killed. His death leaves his only son, Yang Wen as the only male heir left to the Yang family. His widow, Mu Kuei-ying, the grand matriarch and the entire family set out to avenge his death and defend the country. Due to the interference of a corrupt official, Wang Ching, the Yangs were unable to have the emperor\'s consent to use the imperial army.
Thus, they set off with whatever volunteer troops they could muster. Knowing of Mu Kuei-ying\'s reputation as a warrior and tactician, the king of West Hsia and his sons try various ways to stop her to no avail. They are outsmarted at the end as Mu Kuei-ying, the Yang family and Sung soldiers successfully storm their stronghold.


# The 14 Amazons
- Ivy Ling Po as Mu Guiying
- Lily Ho as Yang Wenguang
- Lisa Lu as She Saihua
- Yueh Hua as Lü Chao
- Chen Yen-yen as Geng Jinhua
- Lin Ching as Zou Lanying
- Hsia Ping as Dong Yue\'e
- Betty Ting as Huang Qiongnü
- Huang Chin-feng as Ma Saiying
- Ouyang Sha-fei as Chai Meirong
- Tina Chin Fei as Du Jin\'e
- Lee Ching as \"8th sister\" Yang Yanqi
- Yeh Ling-chih as \"9th sister\" Yang Yanying
- Wang Ping as Yang Qiuju
- Liu Wu-chih as Yang Qiulan
- Shu Pei-pei as Yang Paifeng
- Ku Wen-tsung as Yang Hong
- Fan Mei-sheng as Jiao Tinggui
- Huang Chun-hsing as Meng Huaiyuan
- Tien Feng as Wang Wen
- Wang Hsieh as Wang Wen\'s 1st son
- Nam Seok-hun as Wang Wen\'s 2nd son
- Tien Ching as Wang Wen\'s 3rd son
- Chin Pei as Wang Wen\'s 4th son
- Lo Lieh as Wang Wen\'s 5th son
- Tsung Hua as Yang Zongbao
- Yang Chih-ching as Kou Zhun
- Ching Miao as Wang Qin
- Yang Ai-hua as Pearl
- Ting Chien as Shen Gu
- Eric Zeng Zhiwei as Soldier
- Michelle Yim - Yang female soldier
- 1973 Best Feature Film - Runner Up. 11th Golden Horse Awards.
- 1973 Cheng Kang won Best Director. 11th Golden Horse Awards.
- 1973 Lisa Lu won Best Supporting Actress. 11th Golden Horse Awards.
- 1973 Wang Yung-hua won Best Sound Effects. 11th Golden Horse Awards.
- 1973 Lily Ho won Outstanding Female Lead Performance. 19th Asian Film Festival.


# Inside the Forbidden City
***Inside The Forbidden City*** is a 1965 Hong Kong Huangmei opera musical film. Depicted is the famous tale known as \"Civet for Crown Prince\" which allegedly took place in China\'s Song Dynasty.
While passing through the town of Caoqiao, the famous Song Dynasty official Bao Zheng is stopped by a villager on behalf of his blind mother. Bao discovers that the blind woman was Consort Li, a concubine of the late Emperor Zhenzong.
Twenty years ago, right after Li gave birth to a son, a jealous rival Consort Liu conspired with eunuch Guo Huai to have the infant swapped with a dead civet. She then ordered her maid Kou Zhu to throw the baby into the river. At the Jinshui Bridge, a hesitant Kou was approached by eunuch Chen Lin. Chen was able to carry the infant to Eighth Imperial Prince, one of Zhenzong\'s brothers, who raised the baby as one of his own. Eventually the baby became crown prince as Zhenzong had no other sons.
As a result of giving birth to a monster, Li was banished to Yu Chen Palace, while Liu was elevated to the status of Empress. One day, the 10-year-old crown prince wandered to the forbidden palace and met Li. Liu came upon them and became suspicious. She convinced Zhenzong that Li was cursed and needed to be burned to death along with her palace. Kou ran off to warn Li and was interrogated harshly when she returned. After Kou killed herself by slamming into a pillar, Guo and the soldiers went to Yu Chen Palace to carry out the burning order, when they saw a hanged body with Li\'s clothing. Unbeknownst to them, eunuch Yu Zhong had sacrificed himself, allowing Li to escape.
The crown prince had become Emperor Renzong, and Bao uses the Lantern Festival for an opportunity to tell him the story. Then, Bao tricks Guo to the Kaifeng court but Guo stubbornly refuses to confess. Playing on Guo\'s fear of the supernatural, Bao invokes the \"Ghost of Kou Zhu\" to finally get a confession. Liu is ordered to commit suicide while Renzong welcomes his mother back to the palace.


# Inside the Forbidden City
- Ivy Ling Po as Kou Zhu
- Cheng Miu as Bao Zheng
- Go Bo-shu as Consort Liu
- Ouyang Sha-fei as Consort Li
- Chan Yau-san as Guo Huai
- Goo Man-chung as Chen Lin
- Chin Feng as Emperor Zhenzong of Song & Emperor Renzong of Song
- Yeung Chi-hing as Eighth Prince
- Chan Wan-ma as Princess Di
- Tien Feng as Pang Ji
- Fan Dan as Bao Xing
- Fung Ngai as Wang Chao
- Kwan Yan as Ma Han
- Tsui Kwan-sang as Zhang Long
- Wong Nin as Zhao Hu
- Fuk Yan-cheng as Qin Feng
- Lee Ching as Ghost of Kou Zhu

### Huangmei opera dubbing
- Ivy Ling Po as Kou Zhu
- Tsui Ping as Consort Li
- Kiang Hung as Bao Zheng


# Jumanji
***Jumanji*** is a 1995 American fantasy adventure film directed by Joe Johnston from a screenplay by Jonathan Hensleigh, Greg Taylor, and Jim Strain. Loosely based on Chris Van Allsburg\'s picture book of the same name, the film is the first installment of the *Jumanji* franchise. It stars Robin Williams, Bonnie Hunt, Kirsten Dunst, Jonathan Hyde, and David Alan Grier.
The story centers on a supernatural board game that releases jungle-based hazards upon its players with every turn they take. As a boy in 1969, Alan Parrish became trapped inside the game itself while playing with his friend, Sarah Whittle. Twenty-six years later, siblings Judy and Peter Shepherd find the game, begin playing and then unwittingly release the now-adult Alan. After tracking down Sarah, the quartet resolves to finish the game in order to reverse all of the destruction it has caused.
The film was released on December 15, 1995, to mixed-to-positive reviews, but was a box office success, grossing \$263 million worldwide on a budget of approximately \$65 million. It was the 10th highest-grossing film of 1995.
The film spawned an animated television series, which aired from 1996 to 1999, and was followed by a related film, *Zathura: A Space Adventure* (2005), and two indirect sequels, *Jumanji: Welcome to the Jungle* (2017) and *Jumanji: The Next Level* (2019), with Columbia Pictures taking over distribution for all subsequent films.
In 1969, Alan Parrish lives with his parents Sam and Carol in Brantford, New Hampshire. One day, he escapes a group of bullies and retreats to Sam\'s shoe factory. He meets his friend, Carl Bentley, who reveals a new shoe prototype he made by himself. Alan misplaces the shoe and damages a conveyor belt, but Carl takes responsibility and loses his job. After the bullies attack Alan and steal his bicycle, Alan follows the sound of tribal drumbeats to a construction site. He finds a board game called *Jumanji*, which was buried 100 years earlier, and brings it home.


# Jumanji
That night, after arguing with Sam about attending a boarding school, Alan plans to run away, but his friend, Sarah Whittle, returns his bicycle. Alan shows her *Jumanji* and invites her to play. With each roll of the dice, the game piece moves by itself and a cryptic message describing the roll\'s outcome appears in the crystal ball at the center of the board. After Alan inadvertently rolls a five, a message tells him to wait in a jungle until someone rolls a five or eight, and he is sucked into the game. Afterwards, a swarm of bats appears and chases Sarah out of the mansion.
Twenty-six years later, Judy and Peter Shepherd move into the now-vacant Parrish mansion with their aunt, Nora, after their parents died in an accident on a ski trip in Canada the winter before. Discovering *Jumanji* in the attic, Judy and Peter begin playing it. Their rolls summons a swarm of giant mosquitoes and a group of monkeys. The game rules state everything will be restored when the game ends, so they continue playing. Peter next rolls a five which releases a lion and a grown up Alan. As Alan makes his way out, he meets Carl, who is now working as a police officer. Alan, Judy, and Peter go to the now-abandoned shoe factory and learn that Sam abandoned the business to search for his son after his disappearance, until his 1991 death. Eventually, the factory closed, sending Brantford into economic decline.
Realizing they need Sarah to finish the game, the three locate Sarah, now haunted by both *Jumanji* and Alan\'s disappearance, and persuade her to join them. Sarah\'s first move releases fast-growing carnivorous plants which grab Peter, who was saved by Alan. Alan\'s next move releases a big-game hunter named Van Pelt, whom Alan first met in the game's inner world and start to hunt. The next roll summons a stampede of rhinos, elephants and zebras, after avoiding the stampede, a pelican steals the game and takes it to a river. Van Pelt begins to hunt Alan again after he bought a new gun from a gun store. Peter retrieves the game, but Alan is arrested by Carl. Peter starts to transform into a monkey after he tried to cheat the game. Back in town, the monkeys and the stampede wreaks havoc, and Van Pelt steals the game.


# Jumanji
Peter, Sarah, and Judy track Van Pelt to a department store, where they set booby traps to subdue him and retrieve the game, while Alan, after revealing his identity to Carl, is set free. When the four return to the mansion, it is now completely overrun by jungle wildlife. They release one calamity after another such as a monsoon where they were attacked by crocodiles, quicksand which Alan and Sarah gets stuck, giant spiders that attack them, and an earthquake which splits the house in half. Suddenly Van Pelt arrives and prepares to kill Alan, however Alan drops the dice, and wins the game which causes everything that happened as a result of the game to be reversed.
Alan and Sarah return to 1969, just in time for Alan to reconcile with Sam, who tells him that he does not have to attend boarding school. Alan also admits his responsibility for damaging the conveyor belt. After realizing that they have memories of the game, Alan and Sarah throw *Jumanji* into the river, then share a kiss.
In an alternate version of the present, Alan and Sarah are married and expecting their first child. Alan\'s parents are still alive and Alan is now successfully running the family business. Alan and Sarah meet Judy, Peter, and their parents Jim and Martha for the first time during a Christmas party. Alan offers Jim a job and convinces them to cancel their upcoming ski trip, averting their deaths.
Meanwhile, two young girls hear drumbeats while walking on a beach. *Jumanji* is seen lying partially buried in the sand.


# Jumanji
- Robin Williams as Alan Parrish, a man who has been trapped in *Jumanji* for twenty-six years.
  - Adam Hann-Byrd portrays the young Alan.
- Bonnie Hunt as Sarah Whittle, a psychic who encountered *Jumanji* in 1969.
  - Laura Bell Bundy plays the young Sarah.
- Kirsten Dunst as Judy Shepherd, a young girl who resides in the Parrish house in 1995 and is also Peter\'s older sister.
- Bradley Pierce as Peter Shepherd, Judy\'s younger brother.
- Jonathan Hyde as Sam Parrish, Alan\'s father and the owner of Parrish shoe factory in 1969
  - Hyde also portrays Van Pelt, a big-game hunter who resides in *Jumanji*.
- David Alan Grier as Carl \"The Sole-man\" Bentley, a police officer who previously worked at the Parrish shoe factory.
In addition to the main cast, the film features Bebe Neuwirth as Nora Shepherd, Judy and Peter\'s aunt who resides in the Parrish house in 1995. The cast also includes Malcolm Stewart and Annabel Kershaw as Judy and Peter\'s parents Jim and Martha Shepherd, respectively. Carol Parrish, Alan\'s mother, is played by Patricia Clarkson. Darryl Henriques portrays gun salesman Ralph Smigel and James Handy appears as an exterminator. Gary Joseph Thorup portrays Billy Jessup, a bully and Sarah\'s ex-boyfriend.
While Peter Guber was visiting Boston, he invited author Chris Van Allsburg, who lives in Providence, Rhode Island, to option his book. Van Allsburg wrote one of the screenplay\'s drafts, which he described as \"sort of trying to imbue the story with a quality of mystery and surrealism\". Van Allsburg added that the studio nearly abandoned the project if not for his film treatment, which earned him a story credit given it added story material that was not from the book.


# Jumanji
TriStar Pictures agreed to finance the film on the condition that Robin Williams plays the starring role. Williams turned down the role based on the first script he was given, but director Joe Johnston and screenwriters Jonathan Hensleigh, Greg Taylor and Jim Strain undertook extensive rewrites and Williams accepted. Johnston had reservations over casting Williams because of the actor\'s reputation for improvisation, fearing that he wouldn\'t adhere to the script. However, Williams understood that it was \"a tightly structured story\" and filmed the scenes as outlined in the script, often filming duplicate scenes afterwards where he was allowed to improvise with Bonnie Hunt.
Tom Hanks was the first choice to play Alan Parrish but turned it down due to his commitments to *Apollo 13*. Other stars were considered, including: Dan Aykroyd, Bruce Willis, Michael Keaton, Kevin Kline, Chevy Chase, Sean Penn, Kevin Costner, Richard Dreyfuss, Michael Douglas, Rupert Everett, Harrison Ford, Sean Connery, Bill Paxton, Bryan Cranston, Arnold Schwarzenegger and Alec Baldwin. Willis was unavailable because he was working on *Die Hard with a Vengeance*.
Kirstie Alley was considered for Sarah Whittle while Scarlett Johansson auditioned for Judy Shepherd.
Shooting took place in various New England locales, mainly Keene, New Hampshire, which represented the story\'s fictional town of Brantford, New Hampshire, and North Berwick, Maine, where the Olde Woolen Mill stood in for the Parrish Shoe Factory. Additional filming took place in Vancouver, British Columbia, where a mock-up of the Parrish house was built.
Special effects were a combination of more traditional techniques like puppetry and animatronics (provided by Amalgamated Dynamics) with state-of-the-art digital effects overseen by Industrial Light & Magic. ILM developed two new software programs specifically for *Jumanji*, one called iSculpt, which allowed the illustrators to create realistic facial expressions on the computer-generated animals in the film, and another that for the first time created realistic digital hair, used on the monkeys and lion. Actor Bradley Pierce (Peter) underwent three and a half hours of prosthetic makeup application daily for a period of two and a half months to film the scenes where he transformed into a monkey.


# Jumanji
The film was dedicated to visual effects supervisor Stephen L. Price, who died before the film\'s release.
*Jumanji* was released in theaters on December 15, 1995.

### Home media
*Jumanji* was first released on VHS on May 14, 1996, and re-released as a Collector\'s Series DVD on January 25, 2000. In the UK, the film was also released on DVD as a special edition bundled with the *Jumanji* board game. The film was first released on Blu-ray on June 28, 2011, and re-released as a 20th Anniversary Edition on September 14, 2015. A restored version was released on December 5, 2017 on Blu-ray and 4K UHD to coincide with the premiere of the sequel, *Jumanji: Welcome to the Jungle*.

### Box office
*Jumanji* did well at the box office, opening at No. 1 and earning \$100.5 million in the United States and Canada and an additional \$162.3 million overseas, bringing the worldwide gross to \$262.8 million.

### Critical response
On Rotten Tomatoes, the film has an approval rating of 52% from 46 reviews, with an average rating of 6/10. The site\'s consensus reads: \"A feast for the eyes with a somewhat shaky plot, *Jumanji* is a good adventure that still offers a decent amount of fun for the whole family\". On Metacritic the film has a weighted average score of 39 out of 100, based on 18 critics, indicating \"generally unfavorable reviews\". Audiences polled by CinemaScore gave the film an average grade of \"A−\" on an A+ to F scale.


# Jumanji
### Critical response
Roger Ebert rated the film one-and-a-half out of four stars, criticizing its reliance on special effects to convey its story which he felt was lacking. He questioned the decision to rate the film PG rather than PG-13 as he felt that young children would be traumatized by much of the film\'s imagery, which he said made the film \"about as appropriate for smaller children as, say, *Jaws*\". He specifically cited Peter\'s monkey transformation as making him \"look like a Wolf Man\... with a hairy snout and wicked jaws\" that were likely to scare children. Regarding the board game\'s unleashing one hazard after another at its main characters, Ebert concluded: \"It\'s like those video games where you achieve one level after another by killing and not getting killed. The ultimate level for young viewers will be being able to sit all the way through the movie\".
Van Allsburg approved of the film despite the changes from the book and it not being as \"idiosyncratic and peculiar\", declaring that \"the film is faithful in reproducing the chaos level that comes with having a jungle animal in the house. It\'s a good movie\".

### *Zathura: A Space Adventure*
*Zathura: A Space Adventure*, the spiritual successor that was marketed as being from the same continuity of the *Jumanji* franchise was released as a feature film in 2005. Unlike the book *Zathura*, the film makes no references to the previous film outside of the marketing statement. Both films are based on books written by Chris Van Allsburg. With the films being based on books that take place in the same series, the films vaguely make reference to that concept from the novels by having a similar concept and themes.


# Jumanji
### *Jumanji: Welcome to the Jungle*
A new film, *Jumanji: Welcome to the Jungle* is a sequel to the 1995 film. The film contains a whole new set of characters with no original cast from the original film reprising their roles. The film sees four teenagers in 2016 who are stuck in *Jumanji* video game, where as game avatars must finish the game and save Jumanji.
Plans for a sequel started in the late 1990s by Sony Pictures Entertainment and the original director Ken Ralston, a visual effects supervisor of the original film, was hired to direct a film, with Christmas 2000 release date, but Ralston stepped down and the sequel was cancelled. The development of the sequel again emerged in 2010s upon which then-president of Columbia Pictures Doug Belgrad teased a possibility of the project in July 2012; the project was confirmed three years later in August, with a new director Jake Kasdan directing it and starring Dwayne Johnson. The film was released on December 20, 2017 as a tribute to Robin Williams\' lead and his character is mentioned within the film.

### *Jumanji: The Next Level*
A fourth film in the franchise titled, *Jumanji: The Next Level*, a sequel to *Welcome to the Jungle* was released on December 13, 2019. Bebe Neuwirth reprises her role as Nora Shepherd in a cameo at the end of the film.

### Television
An animated television series was produced between 1996 and 1999. While it borrowed heavily from the film -- incorporating various characters, locations and props, and modelling Alan\'s house and the board game on the way they appeared in the film -- the series retcons rather than using the film\'s storyline. In the series version, on each turn, the players are given a \"game clue\" and then sucked into the jungle until they solve it. Alan is stuck in *Jumanji* because he has not seen his clue. Judy and Peter try to help him leave the game, providing their motivation during the series, while Sarah is absent from the series, and Alan has a relationship with Aunt Nora instead of Sarah, which, unlike the film, gives a clear explanation about his position as Judy and Peter\'s uncle.

### Games
*Jumanji: The Game* is a board game originally published by Milton Bradley Company in the US in 1995.


# Jumanji
### Games
An updated version with new colorized artwork was released in 2017 by Cardinal Games. Some of the riddle message texts on the danger cards were changed, especially the unique danger messages. That year, designer Rachel Lowe won a British Game of the Year Award (awarded by the Toy Retailers Association) for the game.
*Jumanji: A Jungle Adventure Game Pack* is a North American-exclusive game for Microsoft Windows that was released on October 9, 1996. It was developed by Studio Interactive and published by Philips Interactive Media. It contains five different action-arcade-based mini-games that are based on popular scenes from the film. Clips of cutscenes from the film can also be viewed. There are five different mini-games that the player can choose from, with different rules and objectives. Animals from the film provide instructions to the player for each mini-game, except for the Treasure Maze mini-game, where the Jumanji board game spirit provides instructions instead. Notably, players cannot play the actual Jumanji board game from the film. All of these mini-games contain rounds (or levels) and when players reach a goal, that level is cleared and the player advances to a more difficult version of the mini-game. The player must try to score as many points as possible, and set the best high score.
A party video game based on the film was released in Europe for the PlayStation 2 in 2006.
In 2007, Fuji Shoji released a Pachinko game, using clips from the film and also 3D rendered CGI anime character designs for the game as part of the screen interaction.
Indian company Doptale created *Grendhaa* in 2017, a board game incorporating the \"real-life effects\" of Jumanji.
The Noble Collection created a special \"Collector\'s Replica\" based on the game\'s original board game form that also incorporates elements of the game\'s video game incarnation from the later films.

### Theme Parks
A Jumanji-themed dark ride is planned to open at Gardaland in the 2022 season, featuring a large animatronic figure.
In 2005, *Jumanji* was listed 48 in Channel 4\'s documentary *100 Greatest Family Films*, just behind *Dumbo*, *Spider-Man* and *Jason & the Argonauts*.


# Jumanji
### Theme Parks
In 2011, Robin Williams recorded an audiobook for Van Allsburg\'s book\'s 30th edition to coincide its release.


# The Last Man on Earth (1964 film)
***The Last Man on Earth*** is a 1964 post-apocalyptic science fiction horror film based on the 1954 novel *I Am Legend* by Richard Matheson. The film was produced by Robert L. Lippert and directed by Ubaldo Ragona and Sidney Salkow, and stars Vincent Price and Franca Bettoia. The screenplay was written in part by Matheson, but he was dissatisfied with the result and chose to be credited as \"Logan Swanson\". William Leicester, Furio M. Monetti, and Ubaldo Ragona finished the script.
*The Last Man on Earth* was filmed in Rome, with scenes being completed at Esposizione Universale Roma. It was released in the United States by American International Pictures. In the 1980s, the film entered the public domain. MGM Home Video, the current owners of the AIP film catalog, released a digitally remastered widescreen version of the film on DVD in September 2005.
*The Last Man on Earth*
It is 1968, and Dr. Robert Morgan lives in a world where everyone else has been infected by a plague that has turned them into undead, vampiric creatures that cannot stand sunlight, fear mirrors, and are repelled by garlic. They would kill Morgan if they could, but they are weak and unintelligent. Every day Morgan carries out the same routine: he wakes up, marks another day on the calendar, gathers his weapons, and then goes hunting for vampires, killing as many as he can and then burning the bodies to prevent them from coming back. At night, he locks himself inside his house.
A flashback sequence explains that, in December 1965, Morgan\'s wife Virginia and daughter Kathy had succumbed to the plague before it was widely known by the public that the dead would return to life. Instead of taking his wife to the same public burn pit used to dispose of his daughter\'s corpse, Morgan buried her without the knowledge of the authorities. When his wife returned to his home and attacked him, Morgan became aware of the need to kill the plague victims with a wooden stake. Morgan hypothesizes that he is immune to the bacteria from a bite by an infected vampire bat when he was stationed in Panama, which may have introduced a diluted form of the plague into his blood.


# The Last Man on Earth (1964 film)
One day, a dog appears in the neighborhood. Desperate for companionship, Morgan chases after the dog but does not catch it. Sometime later the dog appears, wounded, at Morgan\'s doorstep. He takes the dog into his home and treats its wounds, looking forward to having company for the first time in three years. He quickly discovers, however, that it, too, has become infected with the plague. Morgan starts burying the dog which is now impaled with a wooden stake. He sinks further into depression and loneliness.
After burying the dog, Morgan spots a woman in the distance. The woman, Ruth, is terrified of Morgan at first sight and runs from him. Morgan convinces her to return to his home, but he is suspicious of her true nature. Ruth becomes ill when Morgan waves garlic in her face, who claims that she has a weak stomach. Morgan\'s suspicion that Ruth is infected is confirmed when he discovers her attempting to inject herself with a combination of blood and vaccine that holds the disease at bay. Ruth initially draws a gun on Morgan but ultimately surrenders it to him. She tells him that she is part of a group of people like herinfected, but under treatmentand was sent to spy on Morgan. The vaccine allows the people to function normally with the drug in the bloodstream, but once it wears off, the infection takes over the body again. Ruth explains that her people are planning to rebuild society as they destroy the remaining humans, and that many of the vampires Morgan killed were still alive. Ruth desperately urges Morgan to flee, but he inexplicably refuses.


# The Last Man on Earth (1964 film)
While Ruth is asleep, Morgan transfuses his own blood into her. She is immediately cured, and Morgan sees hope that, together, they can cure the rest of her people. Moments later, however, Ruth\'s people attack. Morgan takes the gun and flees his home while the attackers kill the vampires gathered around Morgan\'s home. Ruth\'s people spot Morgan and chase him. He exchanges gunfire with them and picks up tear gas grenades from a police station armory along the way. While the tear gas delays his pursuers somewhat, Morgan is wounded by gunfire and retreats into a church. As he stands at the altar, one of his pursuers finally impales him with a thrown spear. In his final moments, Morgan denounces his pursuers as \"freaks\" and, as Ruth cradles him, declares that he is the last true man on Earth. As Ruth walks away from Morgan\'s body, she notices a baby crying and tries to assure the child that everyone is safe now.
Note that Carolyn De Fonseca, uncredited, dubbed for Franca Bettoia\'s voice in the English release of the film.

### Development
Producer Anthony Hinds purchased the rights to Matheson\'s novel for Hammer Film Productions. Matheson wrote a script, and Hammer announced in 1958 that they would make it. However, British censors would not allow the film to be produced, so Hinds resold the script to American producer Robert L. Lippert.
Lippert had wanted to make a \"last man on Earth\"-type film for a while. In the late 1950s, Charles Marquis Warren and Robert Stabler optioned a novel by science fiction writer George R. Stewart called *Earth Abides*. Harry Spalding, who worked for Lippert, said the release of *The World, the Flesh and the Devil* (1959) killed off plans for that project. Spalding then read Matheson\'s novel and suggested Lippert film that book instead. The project was announced in August 1962.
Lippert originally told Matheson that Fritz Lang would direct the film, and Matheson thought that would be \"wonderful\". Eventually, however, Sidney Salkow was chosen to direct. Matheson made the follow-up comment: \"Well, there\'s a bit of a drop.\"


# The Last Man on Earth (1964 film)
### Shooting
To save money, the film was shot in Italy with a predominantly Italian cast and crew. The climax was shot in San Pio X alla Balduina, a real Catholic church in Rome.
Matheson later said the film was the most faithful adaptation of his book, but he also called the result \"inept\" and used a pen name for his screenplay. (He later said he thought Harrison Ford as star and George Miller as director would have been the ideal creative combination\".)
There are several differences between the film and the novel *I Am Legend* from which it is based:
- The protagonist of the novel is named Robert Neville, not Robert Morgan.
- The protagonist\'s profession is changed from a plant worker to scientist.
- The vampires are almost zombie-like, whereas in the novel, they are fast and capable of running and climbing.
- The dog that shows up on Neville\'s doorstep in the novel is timid and comes and goes as it pleases, in contrast to the dog in the film.
- In the novel the relationship with Ruth differs slightly, in that no transfusion takes place; a cure seems implausible, even as Neville hopes he will find one; and Ruth escapes after Neville discovers that she is infected.
- Neville is not captured in the novel until many months later; even then he barely fights back.
- The novel ends shortly before Neville is to be executed; Ruth returns to give him suicide pills and finds it ironic that he has become as much of a legend to the new society as vampires once were to Neville\'s world (hence the title).
- The novel implies that the vampire plague resulted from a biological disease; the origin of the disease is never explained in *The Last Man on Earth* (and is altered in the subsequent adaptations).
Although the film was not considered a success upon its release, it later gained a more favorable reputation as a classic of the genre. As of September 2021, *The Last Man on Earth* holds an 81% rating at the film review aggregator Web site Rotten Tomatoes from 26 reviews. Phil Hall of *Film Threat* called *The Last Man on Earth* \"the best Vincent Price movie ever made\".


# The Last Man on Earth (1964 film)
### Shooting
Among the less favorable reviews, Steve Biodrowski of *Cinefantastique* felt the film was \"hampered by an obviously low budget and some poorly recorded, post-production dubbing that creates an amateurish feel, undermining the power of its story\", while Jonathan Rosenbaum of the *Chicago Reader* remarked, \"Some would consider this version better than the 1971 remake with Charlton Heston, *The Omega Man*, but that isn\'t much of an achievement\".
Among the film\'s creators, Price \"had a certain fondness for the film\" and felt it was better than *The Omega Man*. Richard Matheson co-wrote the film\'s screenplay, but was unhappy with the results. To keep receiving residual income from the film, though, he had to be credited, so he used the name \"Logan Swanson\", a combination of his wife\'s mother\'s maiden name and his mother\'s maiden name. Matheson said: \"I was disappointed in the film, even though they more or less followed my story. I think Vincent Price, whom I love in every one of his pictures that I wrote, was miscast. I also felt the direction was kind of poor. I just didn't care for it\".
- List of American films of 1964
- Vampire films
- *I Am Legend* (2007 film) starring Will Smith
- *The Omega Man* (1971 film) starring Charlton Heston


# Armaan (2003 film)
***Armaan*** () is a 2003 Indian Hindi-language medical drama film that was co-written and directed by Honey Irani. Starring the ensemble cast of Amitabh Bachchan, Anil Kapoor, Preity Zinta, Gracy Singh, and Randhir Kapoor, the film is set in a hospital and follows the travails of its principal, Dr.Akash (Anil Kapoor), to sustain the institution financially. Meanwhile, a schizophrenic woman named Sonia (Zinta) comes into his life and offers to help by donating to the hospital on the condition that Akash marries her.
Irani wrote the story of *Armaan* and also wrote the screenplay with Javed Akhtar. Principal photography (handled by Ravi Varman) took place in India and Africa, and Shirish Kunder edited the film. It was released on 16 May 2003 and declared a commercial failure, only earning against a budget. Although the film garnered mixed reviews, critics praised Irani\'s direction and the actors\' performances, particularly those of Bachchan and Zinta. Zinta received nominations for her performance as the film\'s antagonist at the Filmfare Awards, the Producers Guild Film Awards, and the Screen Awards.
In a hospital founded by Dr. Siddharth Sinha, he and his adopted son, Akash, work as doctors. Siddharth wishes to run a state-of-the-art hospital, but his profession requires him to dedicate his time to his patients. Soon, a new doctor, Dr. Neha Mathur, joins the hospital and falls for Akash. However, the arrival of Sonia Kapoor later changes the relationship between Akash and Neha. Sonia is a jealous, spoilt woman who is used to having things her way, and it is not long before she wants Akash for herself. She decides that since Akash is the man for her, she can win his love with a financial agreement. The agreement states that once Akash marries Sonia, her father Gulshan Kapoor will help finance the hospital.


# Armaan (2003 film)
Siddharth dies in an attempt to bring an injured child to the hospital after suffering a heart attack. His last wish is for the hospital to be properly completed. Akash, now burdened with the increasing debts to purchase equipment for the hospital, cannot arrange for further funds. With a broken heart, he agrees to marry Sonia to set up the hospital, thus fulfilling his father\'s final wish. Neha understands his dilemma and agrees to break up with Akash, but because of her dedication and professionalism, she offers to continue working in the same hospital.
After the marriage, Sonia begins to suspect that Akash is having an affair with Neha, and starts annoying both of them. She cannot stand Neha, who is still working at the hospital, and keeps coming up with all kinds of reasons to get her out. She is involved in a serious accident and has severe brain damage requiring Akash to operate on her. For a moment, he is in a dilemma---curing Sonia would mean again having to face the problems she causes. However, he decides to fulfill his duty as a doctor and Sonia later recovers. She learns that Akash operated on her, despite her behaviour. Sonia asks for Akash\'s forgiveness and divorces him, allowing him to marry and settle down with Neha.
Credits adapted from Box Office India:
- Amitabh Bachchan as Dr. Siddharth Sinha
- Anil Kapoor as Dr. Akash Sinha
- Preity Zinta as Sonia Sinha
- Gracy Singh as Dr. Neha Mathur
- Randhir Kapoor as Gulshan Kapoor
- Aamir Bashir as Dr. Sanjay


# Armaan (2003 film)
Hrithik Roshan made a cameo appearance.
In April 2002, the entertainment website Rediff.com reported that Honey Irani would make her debut as the director of a then-untitled film. Having written stories and screenplays for many films, she said she had long aspired for a project she could direct. She wanted to feel how directors executed their ideas by themselves with no intervention from others. She spoke of her experiment with her first self-directed film: \"It is a great feeling to create a film from the story you have written. It is all about words taking shape in the form of visuals. I just love it \... it is wonderful. I am enjoying it immensely.\" According to Irani, she had planned to work on a medical drama---which was later titled *Armaan* ()---to explore peoples\' innermost desires and relationships. Iran wrote the screenplay with her ex-husband and then-close friend Javed Akhtar, who also wrote the film\'s dialogues and lyrics, and completed it later that year in September.


# Armaan (2003 film)
Irani\'s daughter, Zoya Akhtar, handled the casting for *Armaan*. When the screenplay was finished, it was announced that Bachchan, Anil Kapoor, Singh, Zinta, and Randhir Kapoor had been chosen for the leads. This marked the first time Amitabh Bachchan and Anil Kapoor had been in a film with a female director. Playing the role of a doctor for the first time, Anil Kapoor admitted the film had given him chances to do many things. Bachchan, the first actor Irani wanted to cast since the film was conceived, played his father; it is also the first film to feature Anil Kapoor and Bachchan in a scene together. In an interview with journalist Subhash K. Jha of Rediff.com, she confessed it was her dream to work with Bachchan---who immediately agreed after she had offered him the part---adding it was modelled after his personality. Bachchan himself has spoken of his excitement after learning the venture was to be directed by a woman. It was originally intended that Tabu would play the role of Dr. Neha Mathur. But Irani later replaced her with Gracy Singh, whose performance in the sports film *Lagaan* (2001) attracted Irani to meet her and offer her the role. Irani believed that Singh\'s role as a doctor made her less glamorous.


# Armaan (2003 film)
Preity Zinta plays Sonia, the first time she has played an antagonist. Describing herself as an honest and outspoken person, Zinta liked the role, particularly for its \"insane\" character, because it allowed her to \"vent \... all of her frustrations\". Calling it the best role of her acting career, she commented: \"If Sonia didn\'t like something, she would show it in a sneaky way. I loved the freedom of saying anything I wanted to and not worrying about what the other person would think.\" In an interview published by *Filmfare* in their September 2003 issue, talking about her acting career and on-screen image, Zinta added she took part solely to put an end to her \"cute-and-bubbly\" image, which she disliked. Before it was offered to her, several actresses were asked to take the part, including Tabu, Rani Mukerji, and Aishwarya Rai. Randhir Kapoor played Zinta\'s father, the businessman Gulshan. This was his first feature since *Mother* (1999) was released. Roshan made a cameo appearance.
Irani revealed her colleagues called her a \"trendsetter\" as she was the first female director at the time to direct a big-budget Bollywood film; the total production cost of *Armaan* was . Ravi Varman worked as the cinematographer, while Yunnus Pathan and Kiran Khanna completed the production design. As the film\'s main set is a hospital, soft contrast and diffused lighting were required. The choreographers were Farah Khan, Geeta Kapoor, and Saroj Khan, and Kaushal--Moses handled the action direction. The film was shot in Mumbai, Mussoorie, Mauritius, and Sun City in 82 to 92 days. After filming ended in late 2002, Shirish Kunder edited the film, using sync sound; Raju Singh composed its background score. Dinesh Gandhi of Aarti Enterprises produced the film, which was distributed by Eros Entertainment.


# Armaan (2003 film)
The trio of Shankar--Ehsaan--Loy composed *Armaan*s soundtrack, with lyrics written by Akhtar. Bachchan, Udit Narayan, Mahalakshmi Iyer, Shankar Mahadevan, Alka Yagnik, Shaan, K. S. Chithra, Sonu Nigam, Sunidhi Chauhan, Shreya Ghoshal, and Roop Kumar Rathod performed the vocals. The T-Series label released it on 22 March 2003.
The soundtrack album garnered positive responses from critics. Writing for the entertainment portal Bollywood Hungama, Joginder Tuteja called it \"a class product\" that \"strikes a chord with everyone alike\". *The Hindu* believed that Shankar--Ehsaan--Loy had composed an \"uplifting\" soundtrack. Lalitha Suhasini of *The Indian Express* declared it one of the greatest albums of the year. Planet Bollywood\'s Rakesh Budhu added, \"For *Armaan*, Shankar--Ehsaan--Loy have shown us why their talent is worth our attention and how they are different from other great composers, like A. R. Rahman.\"
From left to right: Randhir Kapoor, Preity Zinta, Anil Kapoor, and Gracy Singh at the website launch of *Armaan* in 2003
*Armaan* was one of the most anticipated Indian films of the year, owing to the advertising describing it as the first film directed by Irani, known as an established screenwriter. This resulted in increased enthusiasm by moviegoers to see the film. However, talking to journalist Suchitra Behal of *The Hindu*, Irani said she had low expectations for the film and spoke of her nervousness over its commercial performance. As part of the promotion, an official website was launched at a press conference held in Mumbai in April 2003. In an article on Rediff.com, Subhash K. Jha wrote that people\'s word-of-mouth described the film as a *thanda* () film.


# Armaan (2003 film)
*Armaan* premiered on 16 May 2003 and was screened at the 2003 Cannes Film Festival the following day. It was released on 195 screens across India and grossed on the first day, which *Filmfare* magazine thought was poor. By the end of its first week, the film had collected . In the second week of its overseas run, *Armaan* had earned \$296,702 and \$691,121 in the United States and the United Kingdom, respectively. According to Box Office India, it collected a total gross of worldwide and was declared a commercial failure. The film remains as Irani\'s only directorial project; she is continuing her work as a screenwriter.
*Armaan* was subsequently released on DVD on 30 June as a single-disc pack in the NTSC widescreen format. Since 2 May 2016, it has been available for streaming on Amazon Prime Video.


# Armaan (2003 film)
### Critical response
Upon its release *Armaan* met with a mixed critical reception. The cast\'s performances (mostly those of Bachchan and Zinta) were praised lavishly. Critics, however, panned Irani\'s direction and the film\'s slow pace and the plot\'s lack of freshness. Sanjeev Singh Bariana of *The Tribune* was impressed by its technical detail and commended Zinta for having \"outclassed everyone\". In his review, Komal Nahta noted the resemblance between the film and the 2002 television series *Sanjivani*, in which the main set is also a hospital. Khalid Mohamed, writing for *Mid-Day*, noted Irani\'s sincerity but was critical of the outcome. He did, however, praise Bachchan as \"faultless\" and call Zinta \"the peppy scene-stealer, achieving her manic mood swings dexterously\". Similar views were expressed by Vinayak Chakravorty from *Hindustan Times*; he concluded in his review that there was \"nothing to write home about in this film\" except for Zinta\'s performance, which he felt \"takes over the script and, indeed, the film, unleashing a brilliant act as the deceptively bubbly but manipulative wife\". Dinesh Raheja referred to Zinta as the film\'s main attraction and had a positive opinion of Anil Kapoor and Randhir Kapoor as well, explaining their performance would lead the viewer to make \"a connection between good acting and the Kapoor surname\".


# Armaan (2003 film)
### Critical response
*Screen* Deven Sharma described *Armaan* as \"a truthful depiction of a professional\'s integrity to his calling and to himself, and despite the somewhat slow pace, manages to tug at your heart\". He wrote of the cast, \"The four principal actors have risen above their roles and have given splendid performances.\" Ziya Us Salam of *The Hindu* observed of Hirani\'s direction: \"Her ways have to be admired, her lines good enough to bear repetition, her sensitivity worthy of emulation. However, let\'s refrain from too much adulation as her debut venture *Armaan* has its bleak moments too, just as it has its sunny ones.\" He further praised Singh\'s \"poised, pleasant\" acting and Zinta for her \"verve and vivacity\" as a \"blundering, scheming spoilt child who marries innocence with guile\", hailing her performance as \"just about perfect\". Sify called the film \"an entertainer\" which is \"pleasing to the eye\" with a good storyline. The reviewer praised Irani for having \"brought out some of the best moments in Amitabh Bachchan\'s and Anil Kapoor\'s career\", and took note of Zinta\'s screen presence, commending her for proving \"she is one among those actresses who can combine good looks with histrionics\".


# Armaan (2003 film)
### Critical response
Jitesh Pillai of *The Times of India* was ambivalent about *Armaan*; he criticised its \"crippling pace\", but appreciated the credibility of the script, the cinematography, and the actors, calling Bachchan \"brilliant\", Kapoor \"first-rate\" and commending Singh for bringing dignity to her underdeveloped role and Zinta for adding \"vim, vigour and sparkles with comic timing\" to her part. Rediff.com\'s critic Deepa Gumaste was highly critical of the film, disliking the performances and finding the overall product to be \"way off the mark\". Giving the film two stars, Namrata Joshi of *Outlook* found it disappointing and after comparing it to the 1960 film *Dil Apna Aur Preet Parai*, said that *Armaan* only repeats the story but with a different ending. Taran Adarsh from Bollywood Hungama praised the acting while concluding the film \"leaves a lot to be desired. The content \... does not match the heavy star cast, which in turn will tell on its business.\" Another review for *Mid Day*, by Narendra Kusnur, wrote the film off as extremely slow but liked the actors\' performances.


# Armaan (2003 film)
### Critical response
Manish Gajjar of the BBC applauded Irani for revisiting \"the same formula \... adding freshness and zest\", further praising Kapoor for delivering \"his best\" performance, Zinta for her \"superb acting\" and Bachchan for \"outstanding performance\". Derek Elley of *Variety* declared Bachchan the film\'s headline, but believed his performance was largely overshadowed by the other leads, adding, \"Bollywood watchers should keep an eye out for this well-scripted item.\" He singled out Zinta\'s colourful performance noting, \"though playing an archetypal bad sort, manages to make the self-obsessed Soniya an almost sympathetic character through the sheer vivaciousness of her part-child, part-vamp playing\". Deepa Gahlot wrote, \"Anil Kapoor is earnest as always, but looks jaded. Preity Zinta in an awful \'Cleopatra\' get-up is irritatingly twittery, and Gracy Singh totally bland.\" She was disappointed by the casting of Bachchan in what she described as \"an insignificant role, which getting rid of him and then making him walk around as a ghost.\" In a review in *Stardust* magazine, the editor Ram Kamal Mukherjee felt the entire film was \"predictable and boring at times\", attributing this to the screenplay and Irani\'s direction.

### Accolades
`Award`
`Category`
`Recipient(s) and nominee(s)`
`Result`
`Filmfare Awards`
`Best Performance in a Negative Role`
`Producers Guild Film Awards`
`Best Actress in a Supporting Role`
`Screen Awards`
`Best Actor in a Negative Role`
`Best Female Playback`
`Stardust Awards`
`Breakthrough Performance – Female`


# Master of the Flying Guillotine
***Master of the Flying Guillotine*** is a 1976 Hong Kong *wuxia* film starring Jimmy Wang Yu, who also wrote and directed the film. It is a sequel to Wang\'s 1971 film *One-Armed Boxer*, and thus the film is also known as ***One-Armed Boxer 2**\'\' and***The One-Armed Boxer vs. the Flying Guillotine**\'\'.
The film concerns Wang\'s one-armed martial arts master being stalked by an imperial assassin, the master of two fighters (the Tibetan lamas) who were killed in the previous film. The title refers to the assassin\'s weapon, the \"flying guillotine\", which resembles a hat with a bladed rim attached to a long chain. Upon enveloping one\'s head, the blades cleanly decapitate the victim with a quick pull of the chain. The Boxer\'s adversary is the assassin Fung Sheng Wu Chi, who is blind, is an expert user of the Flying Guillotine, and relies on others to identify one-armed men, which he then kills. When the One-Armed Boxer is invited to attend a martial arts tournament, his efforts to lie low are unsuccessful, and the assassin soon tracks him down with the help of his three subordinates competing in the tournament: a Thai boxer, a yoga master, and a kobojutsu user.
The One-Armed Boxer leaves the tournament and, using a series of traps, defeats the assassin\'s subordinates. Unable to directly confront the deadly assassin himself, the One-Armed Boxer devises a plan that uses misdirection. Taking advantage of the assassin\'s blindness by using bamboo poles as a lure, each time the blind assassin throws his weapon, it becomes snagged on one of the bamboo poles effectively removing the inner blades of the assassin\'s deadly weapon; however, as it still contains a jagged outer edge it is still a formidable weapon. The One-Armed Boxer then proceeds to convert a coffin-maker\'s shop into an elaborate trap. Once the weapon is finally destroyed, the One-Armed Boxer engages the assassin in a duel and defeats him.


# Master of the Flying Guillotine
Rotten Tomatoes, a review aggregator, reports that 90% of 20 surveyed critics gave the film a positive review; the average rating was 6.9/10. Metacritic rated the film 57/100 based on eleven reviews. Elvis Mitchell of *The New York Times* called it \"near-great\" and \"a venerable example of the kung fu genre\". Kevin Thomas of the *Los Angeles Times* wrote, \"*Master of the Flying Guillotine* has been called the Holy Grail of the Hong Kong martial arts movies of the \'70s, and now that it has been lovingly restored and given a regular theatrical release, it\'s easy to see why.\" Joey O\'Bryan of *The Austin Chronicle* rated it 2/5 stars and called it \"a mess\" that fails to live up to the epic brawl promised by the alternate title. Nathan Rabin of *The A.V. Club* called it \"a delirious kung-fu saga\" that is \"wild even by the genre\'s lenient standards\". Rabin concludes, \"Goofy Z-movie fun of the highest order, *Master Of The Flying Guillotine* needs to be seen to be believed, and even then defies belief.\" Phil Hall of *Film Threat* rated it 1.5/5 stars and wrote, \"This silly production stands as a dinky reminder of why martial arts film fell out of favor during the mid-1970s\". J. Doyle Wallis of DVD Talk rated it 4/5 stars and called it \"a complete guilty pleasure that leaves you feeling high off its empty b-movie fun\". Mike Pinsky of DVD Verdict wrote that the film toys with and subverts many martial arts film cliches, which makes it surprising and entertaining.
Most of the music in the film is taken from Krautrock bands, and includes: \"Super\" (Opening theme) and \"Super 16\" (Master Fung\'s theme) from Neu!\'s second studio album, *Neu! 2*; \"Rubycon, Part One\" (The One-Armed Boxer\'s theme) from Tangerine Dream\'s sixth studio album, *Rubycon*, and \"Mitternacht\" (Suspense theme), \"Morgenspaziergang\" (courtyard music) and \"Kometenmelodie 2\" (End credits) from Kraftwerk\'s fourth studio album, \'\'Autobahn.


# Master of the Flying Guillotine
The soundtrack has been referenced and sampled extensively, including the use of \"Super 16\" in Tarantino\'s *Kill Bill*.
Quentin Tarantino has cited the film as \"one of my favorite movies of all time.\" The character Dhalsim from the *Street Fighter* video game series has been compared to the Indian assassin in the film. In *The Boondocks* episode *Stinkmeaner 3: The Hateocracy*, the Hateocracy member, Lord Rufus Crabmiser, used a flying guillotine disguised as a lobster trap to attack the Freeman family and ultimately kill Bushido Brown.

### Prequel
In 1977, a prequel titled *Fatal Flying Guillotine* was made by Hong Kong director Raymond Liu.


# Roja (film)
***Roja*** () is a 1992 Indian Tamil-language romantic thriller film written and directed by Mani Ratnam. It stars Arvind Swami and Madhoo, with the latter in the title role. It follows a simple girl from a village in Tamil Nadu, making desperate efforts to find her husband after he is kidnapped by militants during a secret undercover mission in Jammu and Kashmir.
The film was produced by K. Balachander under his Kavithalayaa Productions and distributed by G. Venkateswaran. The film\'s cinematography was handled by Santhosh Sivan and editing done by Suresh Urs. The film released on 15 August 1992, to positive reviews, receiving praise for its patriotic theme.
The film won three National Film Awards, including Best Film on National Integration, catapulting Ratnam to national acclaim. The film also gained international acclaim with its nomination for Best Film at the 18th Moscow International Film Festival. The film was re-released for international audiences in light of the growing fear of terrorist attacks across the world. It is the first in Mani Ratnam\'s Trilogy of films, with the others being *Bombay* (1995) and *Dil Se..* (1998), that depict human relationships against a background of Indian politics.
A. R. Rahman debuted as a film composer with this film. He won the National Film Award for Best Music Direction, Filmfare Award for Best Music Director -- Tamil and the Tamil Nadu State Film Award for Best Music Director for his work.
In Srinagar, a Kashmiri terrorist, Wasim Khan, is captured by a team led by Colonel Rayappa. In the southern state of Tamil Nadu, 18-year old Roja is a simple village girl born and brought up in Sundarapandiapuram in Tenkasi district/Bhanpur (Hindi). Roja fervently wishes that her sister Shenbagam\'s marriage proposal with Rishikumar, a cryptologist working with the R.A.W. agency of Indian Intelligence, goes smoothly. Unknown to her and her family, Shenbagam is in love with the son of her maternal uncle.


# Roja (film)
When Rishi wishes to speak to Shenbagam alone, she gathers enough courage to convey this and politely asks him to reject her in front of her parents, to which he obliges. To everyone\'s surprise, Rishi requests Roja\'s hand in marriage instead. Being unaware of Shenbagam\'s love affair, Roja is not willing to accept Rishi\'s proposal as she believes that he is the best match for Shenbagam but she marries Rishi, and the couple go to live in Madras while Shenbagam marries her cousin.
Initially, Roja does not like what Rishi did, but when she learns of Shenbagam\'s love story and consequent rejection of Rishi, she apologises and starts seeing him in a new light. Love blossoms and life is blissful for the couple for a short while. Meanwhile, due to the illness of his Chief, Rishi is assigned to an army communications centre in Baramulla to intercept military intelligence. The couple finds themselves in a beautiful yet alien land. Roja\'s world turns upside down when Rishi is kidnapped by terrorists whose agenda is to separate Kashmir from India and free their leader, Wasim Khan, from judicial custody.
Faced with the daunting task of rescuing her husband, Roja runs from pillar to post, pleading with politicians and the military for help. Further complicating matters is the language barrier: She can\'t speak their language, and they can\'t speak hers. Meanwhile, Rishi, held captive by a group of terrorists led by Liaqat, an associate to Wasim Khan, tries to reason with the terrorists, about their misdirected motive for the liberation of Kashmir. Liaqat\'s sister shows a little compassion towards him. Initially, when Roja\'s efforts fail, the Indian government denies any negotiations with the terrorists for the release of Rishi in the media.


# Roja (film)
The angered terrorists attempt to burn an Indian flag. Rishi risks his life to put out the fire and shows the terrorist how much the country means to him, a regular citizen. When Liaqat\'s younger brother, who with a few other youths from his village was sent across the border to Pakistan for training, is shot by the Pakistan Army, Liaqat\'s strong belief is shaken, but he still manages to convince himself of the cause. Consequently, Roja\'s efforts to apprise the politicians of her suffering and pain are successful as a minister pities her and offers to help.
Much to the chagrin of Rayappa, the government decides to release Wasim Khan in exchange for Rishi. Rishi, not wanting to be used as a pawn to release a dangerous terrorist, gets help from the sympathetic Liaqat\'s sister and escapes --- with Liaqat and his men chasing him. Rayappa, Roja, and other army officers get to the hostage exchange spot with Wasim Khan, but Liaqat does not show up. The Army locks Wasim Khan up in the prison.
Rishi has managed to get close to the exchange spot on his own after evading the terrorists. During his escape, Rishi subdues two terrorists. Liaqat catches up with him and holds him at gunpoint. Rishi reasons with Liaqat further and convinces him that his war is immoral. Liaqat lets Rishi go and he goes to the exchange spot. Liaqat escapes from the Indian Army while Rishi and Roja are united once again.


# Roja (film)
- Arvind as Rishi Kumar
- Madhubala as Roja
- Nassar as Colonel Rayappa
- Janagaraj as Achu Maharaj
- Pankaj Kapur as Liaqat
- Shiva Rindani as Wasim Khan
- Vaishnavi as Shenbagam
- C. K. Saraswathi as one of the village seniors
- Vijaya Chandrika as Roja\'s mother
- Sathyapriya as Rishi\'s mother
- Vatsala Rajagopal as Roja\'s paternal grandmother
- Sujitha as Chinna Ponnu
- S. Ve. Venkataraman as Chandramoorthy, Rishikumar\'s chief and RAW official
- Nirmala Periyasamy as Newsreader
- Raju Sundaram (special appearance in the song \"Rukmini\")

### Development
On 28 June 1991, K. Doraiswamy, an executive of the Indian Oil Corporation, was kidnapped by Kashmiri militants and put in captivity for two months. This inspired Mani Ratnam to make the film *Roja*. Doraiswamy\'s wife was fighting for his release, and according to Ratnam, it was her plight that the film was based on.


# Roja (film)
### Development
During the making of *Anjali* (1990), Ratnam told actor and director Kitty the outline of *Roja* and offered him to direct the film. Kitty declined, as he wanted to do something of his own. As Ratnam was telling him the outline, the subject became more crystallised. Kitty did not pick it up and when filmmaker K. Balachander asked Ratnam, he told him the outline. All the developments happened after that. It was Balachander who approached Ratnam to make a film for his banner. As Balachander was the inspiration and the reason for Ratnam entering Tamil films, when he asked him to make a film for his banner, Ratnam wanted it to be one of the best films they had produced. Ratnam was keen that it needed to be of Balachander\'s standard. Balachander instantly approved the outline of the film when Ratnam narrated. However, he disliked the title *Roja* (Rose) as he felt it sounded similar to the name of a brand of crushed betel nut. Ratnam thought the title represented Kashmir because \"the rose is something beautiful but with thorns\". To satisfy Balachander, he suggested another title *Irudhi Varai* (Till the end), but Balachander preferred *Roja*, which was finalised.


# Roja (film)
### Development
*Roja* was the first film for which Ratnam used a Steadicam, in the shot that introduces the terrorists\' hideout to the audiences. The film was made on a shoestring budget. The technicians worked for less money with the understanding that the film would also be sold for less money. It was not thought of as something that would work on a big scale. The film was composed mostly of newcomers, a new music director, and it was about Kashmir which, according to Ratnam, not much was known to Tamil people at that time. He called the film \"a bit of an experiment\". It is also the first in Ratnam\'s trilogy of films that depict human relationships against a background of Indian politics, including *Bombay* (1995) and *Dil Se..* (1998). *Roja* is a contemporary adaptation of the story of Savitri and Satyavan. According to Ratnam, it was not originally planned as a political film: \"It was a phase India was going through and these things affected me and found their way into my work.\"

### Casting
Arvind Swami was signed on to play the lead role in *Roja* after Rajiv Menon declined. Aishwarya and Ayesha Jhulka were initial choices for the female lead, but declined due to date issues; the role went to Madhoo, credited as Madhubala. Aishwarya later revealed that she deeply regretted her decision, which was made by her grandmother against her will, for a Telugu film which was later cancelled. Ratnam wanted a North Indian actor to portray Liaqat, a Kashmiri character, and Pankaj Kapur accepted when approached. Ratnam approached Karisma Kapoor to play a Kashmiri girl, but ultimately decided not to cast her, believing she was \"far too expensive for a Tamil film\"; the role went to another actress.


# Roja (film)
### Filming
Ratnam had planned to shoot *Roja* in Kashmir, but extreme terrorism there forced him to shoot the film in other hill stations resembling it. Shooting locations included Coonoor, Ooty, and Manali, Himachal Pradesh. The film\'s cinematographer Santosh Sivan said that a lot of images were written in at the script level. Even in the Kashmir sequences, the audience only sees the snow when Roja sees it for the first time. These things were written into the script. The song \"Chinna Chinna Aasai\" was shot at Hogenakkal Falls in Dharmapuri and in the Banatheertham falls in Papanasam R.F., Tamil Nadu. Shakti Singh dubbed for Arvind Swami in the Hindi version of the film, while Madhubala dubbed for herself. The whole film was completed in less than 60 days. The final length of the film was .
Writing for the magazine *Jump Cut*, Kumudan Maderya noted that *Roja* celebrates \"the middle-class yuppie hero's nationalistic fervor\" and positions the \"anti-national communalist terrorists in Kashmir\" as key threats to India as a whole. Vairamuthu, who was signed as the lyricist, felt the film\'s \"tense and action-packed\" content was in sharp contrast to the \"poetic\" title. Journalist Malini Mannath and a writer for *Bangalore Mirror* compared *Roja* to *Held Hostage* (1991), a television film about the kidnapping of journalist Jerry Levin whose rescue was organised by his wife.
The soundtrack and background score for the film was composed by A.R Rahman in his debut as a music director. Mani Ratnam, who previously worked with Ilayaraaja in his earlier films, replaced him with Rahman, who worked as a keyboard programmer for Ilayaraaja for his film *Moodu Pani* (1980), also marking their first collaboration as well. The album features seven tracks in Tamil and Hindi, and six tracks in Telugu, Malayalam Marathi and five tracks in the instrumental adaptation album.


# Roja (film)
### Filming
The song \"Thamizha Thamizha\" is a poem written by Subramanya Bharathi. \"Chinna Chinna Aasai\" was the first song Rahman had composed for the film. The song \"Kadhal Rojave\" has two versions in both Tamil and Hindi; a solo and a duet in the former. The Hindi version of the song, titled \"Roja Jaaneman\", has two versions -- one by S. P. Balasubrahmanyam and the other by Hariharan.
The album received critical acclaim and was also listed in *Time* magazine\'s \"10 Best Soundtracks\" of all time. The Tamil and Hindi versions of the album sold over million units in India, with the Tamil version selling over 200,000 units and the Hindi version selling 2.8million units.
*Roja* was released on 15 August 1992, and distributed by GV Films. In August 2015, it was screened at the 2015 London Indian Film Festival, in the retrospective series *Politics as Spectacle: The Films of Mani Ratnam*, along with *Bombay* and *Dil Se*. Owing to the film's success, the film was dubbed and released in Hindi, Marathi, Malayalam and Telugu languages.