# The Go Master
`() is a 2006 biopic film directed by Tian Zhuangzhuang of the renowned twentieth century Go master Wu Qingyuan, better known as Go Seigen, the Japanese pronunciation of his name. The film, which premiered at the 44th New York Film Festival, focuses on the life of this extraordinary player from his meteoric rise as a child prodigy to fame and fortune as a revolutionary strategic thinker, as well as the tumultuous global conflicts between his homeland and his adopted nation. The film also features a scene involving the Atomic bomb go game. The film also screened at the AFI's China Film Festival in Silver Spring, Maryland.`
The Go Master shines a light on the life and times of Wu Qingyuan, pronounced Go Seigen in Japanese. Wu is considered the greatest Go player of the 20th century, his talents bringing him from his native China to a professional career in Japan when he was only a teenager. Based on Wu\'s autobiography, this elegantly shot and remarkably restrained biopic follows the life of a singular figure, fascinating not only for his genius and achievements in the game of Go, but also for his unique experiences as a Chinese man in Japan during an immensely turbulent period in history. Acclaimed Taiwanese actor Chang Chen (Crouching Tiger Hidden Dragon) portrays the titular role in a subtle, poignant performance that is as penetrating as it is opaque, underlying the brooding lyricism of the film. The Go Master co-stars Sylvia Chang, Matsuzaka Keiko, Emoto Akira, and Ito Ayumi, and Wu Qingyuan himself appears briefly in the film\'s prologue. Also of note is the film\'s costume design, which is by renowned designer Wada Emi (Ran, Hero, House of Flying Daggers).
With the breakout of the Sino-Japanese War in the 1930s, Wu Qingyuan (Chang Chen) and his family are thrown into an uncomfortable and dangerous position as Chinese nationals residing in Japan. While Wu\'s family returns to China, he chooses to stay behind in his adopted country to continue to pursue the game of Go. In the quiet recluse of his school, there are no politics, only the singular dedication to his art and the love for his wife Kazuko (Ayumi Ito). However, the chaos of the times eventually forces him out of his enclave, throwing his life and mind into conflict.


# The Go Master
Wu\'s career ends abruptly when he is struck by a motorcycle in a collision which does not appear to be an accident. This real-life incident may have been a conspiracy against him by opponents in the world of Go, where he remained an unshakable winner. He is later hospitalized and can no longer play Go, due to brain trauma. Despite this, the film ends nostalgically in the golden room of Go.
- Chang Chen - Wu Qingyuan
- Sylvia Chang - Shu Wen
- Akira Emoto - Kensaku Segoe
- Ayumi Ito - Kazuko Nakahara
- Xin Baiqing - Wu Yan
- Keiko Matsuzaka - Fumiko Kita
- Kaho Minami - Nagako Nagaoka
- Hironobu Nomura - Yasunari Kawabata
- Takashi Nishina - Minoru Kitani
- Nao Omori - Utaro Hashimoto
- Takayuki Inoue - Shusai Honinbo
- Betty Huang - Wu Qingying
- Li Xuejian - Li Yutang
Wu Qingyuan is played by Taiwanese actor Chang Chen. Chang was nominated for the 2006 Golden Horse Award for best actor for his portrayal. The real Wu Qingyuan makes a short cameo appearance in the film\'s prologue. Produced by Liu Xiaodian with executive producers Wang Jun, Own Chen, Wouter Barendrecht, and Michael J. Werner. The screenplay was written by Ah Cheng. Costume design was by the acclaimed Emi Wada, famous for such films as Kurosawa\'s *Ran*, *Dreams*, as well as Zhang Yimou\'s *Hero* and *House of Flying Daggers*.
A.O. Scott of *The New York Times* called *The Go Master* \"a stately and respectful biopic\", as well as \"deliberate and contemplative rather than dramatic or psychologically probing\" and \"gorgeously shot\". The film was nominated for Achievement in Cinematography at the 2007 Asia Pacific Screen Awards.


# Astro Boy (film)
***Astro Boy*** is a 2009 American computer-animated superhero film loosely based on the manga series of the same name by the Japanese writer and illustrator Osamu Tezuka. Produced by the Hong Kong-based company Imagi Animation Studios, it was directed by David Bowers, who co-wrote the screenplay with Timothy Hyde Harris. The film stars Freddie Highmore, Kristen Bell, Nathan Lane, Eugene Levy, Matt Lucas, Bill Nighy, Samuel L. Jackson, Donald Sutherland, Charlize Theron, and Nicolas Cage.
The film was first released in Hong Kong on October 8, 2009, and in the United States on October 23, 2009. It received generally mixed reviews from film critics and was a financial failure, earning worldwide against its budget. As a result of the film\'s poor performance, Imagi shut down on February 5, 2010, and *Astro Boy* became the last film produced by the studio.
in a 22nd century, Toby Tenma is a teenager who lives in the futuristic city-state of Metro City, which floats above the polluted surface on Earth. His father, Dr. Tenma, works at the Ministry of Science, alongside Dr. Elefun. They create the Peacekeeper, an advanced defensive robot that is powered using the Blue and Red spheres, two powerful energy cores that emit respective opposing positive and negative energy, discovered by Dr. Elefun. The two scientists brief the President of Metro City, Stone, who is running for re-election. Against the scientists\' warnings, Stone loads the negative Red Core into the Peacekeeper, causing it to become rampage. Toby is accidentally killed by the Peacekeeper, as it attempts to violently leave the research facility before it is put down by Dr. Elefun.


# Astro Boy (film)
A distraught-driven Tenma revives Toby as a robot programmed with all his memories, but also makes his body with built-in defenses to protect him. Powered by the Blue Core, the robot activates and believes himself to be Toby, but although he has his original mind and a similar personality, Tenma realizes he could never be revived as the son he lost. Toby discovers his new robot capabilities including the ability to understand non-talking robots and rocket-powered flight. Stone has his forces pursue Toby, but the chase leads to him falling off the city\'s edge when Stone\'s flagship blasts him with missiles. Meanwhile, Tenma escapes arrest by agreeing to disable Toby and give up the blue core.
Toby awakens in an enormous junkyard, created from the redundant robots of Metro City it dumped there. He meets a group of orphaned children, Zane, Sludge and Widget, and Cora, accompanied by a dog-like robot named Trashcan. Toby also meets the members of the Robot Revolutionary Front (RRF), Sparx, Robotsky, and Mike the Fridge, who plan to free robots from mankind\'s control, but are very inept and bound by the Laws of Robotics. While attempting to recruit him for their cause, they rename Toby \"Astro Boy\". Hamegg, the caretaker of the orphans, takes Astro in. The next day, Astro comes across an old, offline construction robot named Zog, whom he reactivates through sharing some of the Blue Core\'s energy. Hamegg scans Astro, finding he is actually a robot, and paralyzes Astro with his electrical-blaster to use him in the fighting ring.


# Astro Boy (film)
Astro reluctantly defeats Hamegg\'s fighters until Zog gets deployed. Astro and Zog refuse to fight and Hamegg attempts to disable both of them, but Zog, who predates the Laws of Robotics, fights back. Zog nearly kills Hamegg but gets saved by Astro, shocking the crowd. Moments later, Stone\'s forces arrive to take Astro back to Metro City, and he willingly surrenders himself. Astro reunites with Tenma and Elefun and allows them to disable him. Realizing even though Astro is not Toby, he is still his son, Dr. Tenma defies Stone, reactivates Astro, and lets him escape. Angry, Stone reloads the Red Core into the Peacekeeper to send it after Astro, only for it to absorb and merge with him. The Peacekeeper absorbs weapons and buildings, becoming bigger and stronger, and attacks Metro City, prompting Astro to battle it. Metro City\'s power station gets destroyed during the fight, causes the city to fall, and Astro uses his superhuman strength to help it land safely.
The Peacekeeper tries absorbing Astro to get his Blue Core using the Red Core, but the cores\' connection causes a violent reaction and separates them. Dr. Tenma tells Astro that the two cores united can destroy themselves. The Peacekeeper captures Astro\'s friends from the junkyard, and he flies into the Red Core, sacrificing himself to destroy it, while Stone survives from its destruction and gets arrested for his actions. As Elefun and the children find Astro\'s body, Zog reactivates Astro by sharing back the Blue Core energy that reactivated him, and Astro reunites with all his friends and his father. The city is later attacked by a monstrous cycloptic extraterrestrial, but Astro punches it as he leaps into action.
Freddie Highmore and Kristen Bell promoting the film at the 2009 San Diego Comic-Con.


# Astro Boy (film)
- Freddie Highmore as Astro Boy and Toby Tenma, Astro is a robot of Toby, Dr. Tenma\'s teenager son.
- Nicolas Cage as Dr. Tenma, Toby\'s father, Astro\'s creator, and the head of the Ministry of Science of Metro City.
- Kristen Bell as Cora, a teenager girl who lives on the Earth\'s surface and befriends Astro.
- Samuel L. Jackson as Zog, a 100-year-old construction robot brought back to life by Astro Boy\'s blue-core energy.
- Matt Lucas as Sparx, the leader of the Robot Revolutionary Front.
- Eugene Levy as Orrin, Tenma\'s cowardly robot household servant.
- Bill Nighy as Dr. Elefun, Dr. Tenma\'s best friend & associate; and as Robotsky, the muscle of the Robot Revolutionary Front.
- Donald Sutherland as President Stone, a ruthless, rogue, and ambitious President of Metro City who is running for re-election.
- Nathan Lane as Hamegg, a surface-dweller who repairs machines and then uses them in his fighting tournament.
- Charlize Theron as the \"Our Friends\" narrator, the voice used for an educational video seen at the film\'s beginning.
- David Bowers as Mike the Fridge, a talking refrigerator and third member of the Robot Revolutionary Front.
- Moisés Arias as Zane, a surface-dwelling child.
- Alan Tudyk as Mr. Squeegee, a cleaning robot that Astro encounters.
- David Alan Grier as Mr. Squirt, a cleaning robot that Astro encounters.
- Madeline Carroll as Widget, Sludge\'s twin.
- Sterling Beaumon as Sludge, Widget\'s twin.
- Dee Bradley Baker as Trashcan, a dog-like robot that eats the rubbish.
- Elle Fanning as Grace, a girl from Hamegg\'s house who kicks President Stone\'s leg.
- Ryan Stiles as Mr. Mustachio, Toby\'s teacher.
- Newell Alexander as General Heckler, President Stone\'s assistant.
- Victor Bonavida as Sam, a teenage boy from Hamegg\'s house.
- Tony Matthews as Cora\'s dad.
- Bob Logan as Stinger One, former President Stone\'s pilot man who leads a group of aircraft with suction tubes and is dispatched to arrest Astro.
- Ryan Ochoa as Rick, another teenage boy from Hamegg\'s house.


# Astro Boy (film)
### Development
In 1997, Sony Pictures Entertainment purchased the film rights to *Astro Boy* from Tezuka Productions, intending to produce a live-action feature film. Todd Alcott was set to write the screenplay, but the film halted in 2000 when Steven Spielberg began *A.I.* (2001), another film with a robot boy who replaces a dead child. In December 2001, Sony hired Eric Leighton to direct an all-CGI film, with Angry Films and Jim Henson Productions producing it for a 2004 release. A screenplay draft was written, but the film did not go into production, and Leighton left in early 2003 to pursue other film projects. In June 2004, animator and *Dexter\'s Laboratory* creator Genndy Tartakovsky was hired to direct a live-action/animatronics/CGI feature film. After writing the script, the film didn\'t go into the production, and Tartakovsky left next year to direct 3-D-animated feature films at a new studio, Orphanage Animation Studios. Few months later it was revealed, that he was set to direct *The Dark Crystal* (1982) sequel, *The Power of the Dark Crystal*, another co-production with Jim Henson Productions. In September 2006, it was announced that Hong Kong-based animation firm Imagi Animation Studios would produce a CGI animated Astro Boy film, with Colin Brady directing it. A year later, the studio made a three-picture distribution deal with Warner Bros. and The Weinstein Company, which also included *TMNT* (2007) and *Gatchaman*. In 2008, Summit Entertainment took over the film\'s distribution rights. The same year, Brady was replaced with David Bowers, who previously directed *Flushed Away* (2006), the last project under the relationship between DreamWorks Animation, the creators of the *Shrek* and *Madagascar* franchises and Aardman, the creators of the *Wallace & Gromit* franchise and *Chicken Run*.


# Astro Boy (film)
### Design
Image of Toby and ZOG in early prerelease footage
Like Imagi did with TMNT, the film was animated on Maya and rendered on Pixar\'s RenderMan at Imagi\'s Los Angeles facility and it\'s main studio in Hong Kong. Some changes to Astro\'s design had to be made in order to appeal to a western audience and making the leap from 2D to 3D. The more challenging was his kawaii portrayal, part of which were his large eyes and curly eyelashes, features that the filmmakers thought made him too feminine. Imagi had several discussions on how round and curvy Astro\'s body proportions should be and in the end they were made slimmer.
The by-product of these changes was Astro\'s Caucasian look. In early development Astro\'s design was younger, resembling his iconic design of a 9-year-old boy. The design team changed that and made him look like a 13-year-old to appeal to a larger audience. They also gave him a white shirt, and a blue jacket since they thought it would be strange to have a normal boy running around without one. They also replaced his heart-shaped energy core with a glowing blue one.

### Music
The score to *Astro Boy* was composed by John Ottman, who recorded his score with a 95-piece orchestra and choir at Abbey Road Studios. A soundtrack album was released on October 20, 2009, by Varèse Sarabande Records.
Songs in *Astro Boy* not composed by John Ottman are as follows:
Breezy Day, composed by Roger-Roger.
Alright, written by Daniel Goffey, Gaz Coombes, and Michael Quinn and performed by Supergrass.
Marching Down the Field, composed by Harry Edwards.

### Marketing
Summit Entertainment partnered with McDonald\'s to produce marketing tie-ins for *Astro Boy*. Beginning in May 2009 and continuing through September 2009, IDW Publishing published a \"prequel\" and comic book adaptation of the film as both mini-series and in graphic novel format to coincide with the North American release of the film in October 2009. A model of a motionless Astro Boy waiting to be powered up was set up at Peak Tower, Hong Kong, outside Madame Tussauds Hong Kong in September 2009. A panel of the film was held at the San Diego Comic-Con on July 23, 2009.


# Astro Boy (film)
### Home media
*Astro Boy* was released on DVD and Blu-ray in the United States on March 16, 2010 by Summit Entertainment. Both releases include two new animated sequences, a featurette with the voice cast, three other featurettes about drawing Astro Boy, making an animated movie and getting the Astro Boy look, and an image gallery.
In Japan, a limited edition *Astro Boy* premium box set was released on April 2, 2010. It featured the same content from the American release with the exception of it spanning two DVD discs (one containing the film, the other containing special features with two that are exclusive to Japan) and has both English and Japanese dub (along with English and Japanese subtitles.) The box set also comes with a DVD (containing a single story on Astro\'s first flight and an image gallery), Dr Tenma\'s Project Notes (featuring 80 pages of 3-D-CGI models, character art and set designs from the film), a Micro SD (featuring the motion manga *Atomu Tanjo* (*Birth of Astro Boy*) originally written by Osamu Tezuka), a postcard of 1980 Astro Boy flying, a small bookmark (a reel from the film inside a plastic cover), and Astro\'s blueprints from the film.

### Critical response
On the review aggregator website Rotten Tomatoes, the film has an approval rating of based on reviews, with an average score of . The website\'s critical consensus reads, \"While it isn\'t terribly original, and it seems to have a political agenda that may rankle some viewers, *Astro Boy* boasts enough visual thrills to please its target demographic.\" On Metacritic, the film has a weighted average score of 53 out of 100 based on 22 critics, indicating \"mixed or average reviews\".


# Astro Boy (film)
### Critical response
Owen Gleiberman of *Entertainment Weekly* gave the film a B and wrote that it had a \"little too much lost-boys-and-girls mopiness\", but \"*Astro Boy* is a marvelously designed piece of cartoon kinetics\...\" Glenn Whipp of the *Los Angeles Times* gave the mixed review claiming \"The kids won\'t get it but will enjoy the big, climactic robot rumpuses, which owe a heavy debt to Brad Bird\'s *The Iron Giant* (1999)\". Manohla Dargis of *The New York Times* gave it a mixed review, criticizing the film\'s confused tonal mixture of darkness and \"commercially motivated\" optimism. Conversely, Roger Ebert gave the film three out of four stars, stating that \"The movie contains less of its interesting story and more action and battle scenes than I would have preferred. \... Still, *Astro Boy* is better than most of its recent competitors, such as *Monsters vs. Aliens* and *Kung Fu Panda*.\'\"

### Box office
The film was a flop in Japan, appearing at the bottom of the opening week\'s Top 10 rankings and earning only \$328,457. Conversely, the film was very successful in China, breaking a box-office record for a CGI animated film. This follows the same pattern as *Dragonball Evolution* (2009) and *Speed Racer* (2008), other American-produced films based on Japanese sources that were not big hits in the land of their origin but were very successful in China. The film also was a box office bomb in the U.S., opening at #6, grossing \$6.7 million, losing out to the similarly retro *Where the Wild Things Are* (2009). It remained in the Top 10 for three weeks. When it closed in January 2010, it had a total gross of \$20 million. Due to these factors, the film would only produce a worldwide gross of \$44.6 million against a \$65 million budget.
Following the mixed reviews and financial failure, these are results that drawn comparisons between it.


# Astro Boy (film)
### Box office
- Originally, Astro Boy\'s human basis was named Tobio Tenma in the manga, but is renamed to Toby in the film.
- Tobio was killed in a car accident from the manga; Toby is vanished by the Peacekeeper via destroying the shield from the film.
- Dr. Elefun was used in the 2003 anime series into the film.
- Despite being an anti-hero or the main antagonist from the anime and manga series, the only version is this film where Tenma redeems himself as a supporting character before both comes to accept Astro Boy as a true son and successfully makes amends with him.
- In the manga, Hamegg is an antagonistic circus ringmaster who buys Astro from Dr. Tenma; In the film, Hamegg is an inventor who was at first friendly towards Astro but later being an abusive arena mastermind and forced Astro to participate and fight in the battle ring after finding out Astro was a robot.
A video game based on the film was released on October 20, 2009, by D3 Publisher to coincide with the film\'s theatrical release. The Wii, PlayStation 2 and PSP versions were developed by High Voltage Software, and the Nintendo DS version by Art Co., Ltd.


# Five Shaolin Masters
**Five Shaolin Masters** a.k.a. ***5 Masters Of Death*** (Chinese: 少林五祖) is a 1974 Shaw Brothers kung fu film directed by Chang Cheh, with action choreography by Lau Kar Leung and Lau Kar Wing.
The film focuses on Shaolin\'s historic rivalries with the Qing Dynasty.
Hu Te et al. escape the burning Shaolin temple after the Qing soldiers destroyed it in *Shaolin Temple*. The group of 5 decide to develop secret codes to identify fellow patriots, enlist those patriots and eventually meet up again to escape to the south away from the Qings, and also identify the traitor who sold out Shaolin temple. Ma Fu Yi (the traitor, played by Wang Lung Wei), joins the Qing top fighters to eliminate the rebels but is exposed by Ma Chao-Tsing who gets captured by Ma Fu Yi. Hu meets up with a group of Shaolin men secretly posing as bandits to rescue Ma as their leader is killed in the process, thus the bandits join the rest of the Shaolin patriots.
Suffering continuous defeats at the hands of the Qing kung fu experts, the 5 patriots return to the Shaolin temple ruins to perfect their kung fu and take revenge for their destroyed temple and dead comrades.


# Shaolin Temple (1976 film)
***Shaolin Temple*** a.k.a. *Death Chambers* is a Shaw Brothers film directed by Chang Cheh. It is one of the Shaolin Temple themed martial arts films and concerns their rebellion against the Qings, with an all-star cast featuring the second and third generations of Chang Cheh\'s stable of actors including David Chiang, Ti Lung, Alexander Fu Sheng and Chi Kuan-Chun, as well as cameo appearances by several of the actors that would later become collectively known as the Venoms mob. The film serves as a pseudo prequel to *Five Shaolin Masters*.
The film opens with the chief Shaolin Monks realizing that time is not on their side and they must train more fighters to fight the Qings. The monk Hai Hsien (Shan Mao) opposes this as he is secretly working for the court. Outside many men are sitting in front of the temple waiting to be accepted in, Fang Shih Yu (Alexander Fu Sheng), Ma Chao-hsing (Tony Liu) and others, as the temple tests the will of potential students by making them wait outside for days, eventually the two are accepted in for \"training\". Fang Shih Yu becomes frustrated immediately as Shaolin methods of teaching martial arts are rather obscure, although Ma Chao-hsing begins learning the five animal styles from the start.
Elsewhere, escaped Ming soldiers Tsai Te-cheng (Ti Lung), Hu Te-ti (David Chiang), Yen Yung-chun (Szu Shih), and Ma Fu Yi (Wang Lung Wei) arrive close to Shaolin looking for a place to hide from the Qing. Hu Te-ti suggests they go to Shaolin and they are instantly accepted, which frustrates three more students trying to get acceptance into the temple, Lin Kwong Yao (Kuo Chui), Huang Sung Han (Lee I Min), and Hu Hui Chien (Kuan-Chun Chi). The three are eventually accepted and begin their obscure training. Tsai Te-cheng learns the wing chun style from a strange female monk and Hu Te-ti learns the iron whip. This forces Hai Hsein to secretly go to the court and report to Prince Hoo (Lu Feng) that Shaolin has been training new fighters.


# Shaolin Temple (1976 film)
The Qing scheme to destroy Shaolin. Hai Hsein returns to Shaolin looking to recruit more traitors to set up the temple for a raid. All the accepted students become close friends and proficient in their kung fu, except for Fang Shih Yu (who is unknowingly learning tiger boxing but is impatient). He keeps getting into fights with Ma Fu Yi, who is disgruntled with being at Shaolin. A mysterious figure at night (perhaps his friend Ma Chao-sing) begins teaching Fang Shih Yu the tiger-crane style and he defeats Ma Fu Yi in a friendly spar. This sparks the curiosity of Hai Hsein as he takes Ma Fu Yi under his wing and recruits him as a traitor. Things begin to go sour at the temple due to the treachery of Hai Hsein and Ma Fu Yi and it is eventually attacked by thousands of Qing soldiers, and an all-out battle occurs at Shaolin Temple with only eight Shaolin devotees escaping the ensuing massacre.
- David Chiang -- Hu Te-Ti
- Ti Lung -- Tsai Te-Cheng
- Yueh Hua -- Li Se Kai
- Wang Chung -- Fang Ta Hung
- Tony Liu -- Ma Chao-Hsing
- Wang Lung Wei -- Ma Fu Yi
- Alexander Fu Sheng -- Fang Shih-Yu (Fong Sai-yuk)
- Kuan Chun Chi -- Hu Hui Chien
- Frankie Wei Hung -- Hung Hsi-Kuan
- Kuo Chui -- Lin Kwong-Yao
- Lee Yi-Min -- Huang Sung Han
- Tang Yen-Tsan -- Chu Tao
- Shan Mao -- Shaolin monk Hai Hsein
- Chiang Sheng -- Shaolin monk Man Yue
- Shih Szu -- Yen Yung-Chun
- Ku Feng -- King Man Kuei
- Lu Feng -- General Hu Pei-Chi
- Tsai Hung -- General Ching
- Wong Ching -- General Shin
- Lo Mang -- Junior monk
- Wei Pai -- Junior monk (slain by Manchu archers)


# Heroes Two
***Heroes Two*** (方世玉與洪熙官) (also known as *Kung Fu Invaders*) is a 1974 Hong Kong martial arts film directed by Chang Cheh. The film stars Alexander Fu Sheng and Chen Kuan Tai.
Heroes Two begins with the burning of the Shaolin Temple, and chronicles the efforts of Fang Shi-yu (Alexander Fu Sheng) and Hung Si-kuan (Chen Kuan Tai) as they combat the forces of oppression, fighting alongside the Chinese revolutionaries. Manchurian General Che Kang (Zhu Mu) is a clever Warlord who capitalizes on the naïveté of Fang Shi-yu. Neither man realizes that they fight for the Shaolin cause, and General Che Kang tricks Fang Shi-yu into believing that Hung Si-kuan is a renegade bandit. With the help of the General\'s henchmen, Fang Shi-yu defeats a bloodied Hung Si-kuan. Then the tough rebel is put into shackles inside the General\'s castle. Word quickly spreads that Fang Shi-yu beat the unbeatable Shaolin hero, and the local faction of the rebellion attacks the unknowing Fang Shi-yu for his rash actions. When the rebel leader reveals the true nature of Hung Si-kuan, Fang Shi-yu is beside himself. The naïve martial artist initially intends to correct his mistake by sneaking into the General\'s dungeon and liberating his cohort from the grasp of the Manchurians. However, General Che Kang himself is a powerful Kung Fu practitioner who foils Fang Shi-yu\'s plans. Once Fang Shi-yu joins his Rebel brothers, they devise a plan to tunnel into the underground prison and rescue Hung Si-kuan. After several tenuous attempts at freeing him, the Shaolin heroes succeed in their task. Now reunited, Fang Shi-yu, Hung Si-kuan, and their Rebel brothers must endure the assault of General Che Kang and his Manchurian army.
*Heroes Two* was released in Hong Kong on January 19, 1974. It grossed 1.363 million Hong Kong dollars.
In a contemporary review, the *Monthly Film Bulletin* referred to the film as \"a classic martial arts fable in which Chang Cheh respects both the historic and the mythic context of the arts themselves\" and that the film \"may be a lesser work\" than *Men From the Monastery*, but it is \"nevertheless one of great visual power and integrity.\"


# Heroes Two
From retrospective reviews, *Sight & Sound* found that the film \"offers wall-to-wall kung-fu fighting - though the often routine choreography and monotonous thwack-thwack-thwack of the sound effects make it one for devoted fans only.\"


# The Emperor and His Brother
***The Emperor and His Brother*** is a 1981 Hong Kong *wuxia* film based on Louis Cha\'s novel *The Book and the Sword*. Produced by the Shaw Brothers Studio, the film was directed by Chor Yuen and starred Ti Lung, Jason Pai and Lo Lieh in the leading roles.
The Qianlong Emperor is not the legitimate successor to the throne since at birth he was exchanged with the Yongzheng Emperor\'s newborn daughter. He learns the truth when two senior members of the Red Flower Society, a subversive anti-government secret organisation, contact him years later, hoping that the emperor will help them in driving the Manchus away. To hide the truth about his heritage, the emperor orders the two men to be killed, although one of them escapes and is captured again later. The Red Flower Society\'s chief Chen Jialuo turns out to be Qianlong\'s younger brother, and the two of them develop a tenuous relationship as the society\'s members attempt to rescue their captured comrade. They unleash an elaborate plan to kidnap the emperor in exchange for their comrade, and hope to persuade the emperor to join their cause. When the exchange takes place, Qianlong must ultimately continue impersonating a Manchu in order to remain in power as ruler of the Qing Empire. Qianlong\'s chief lieutenant, Zhang Zhaozhong, is bound and determined to wipe out Chen Jialuo and the Red Flower Society. His opportunity comes when a martial arts contest is scheduled to be held.


# The Emperor and His Brother
- Ti Lung as Chen Jialuo / Chen Shiguan
- Jason Pai as Qianlong Emperor
- Lo Lieh as Zhang Zhaozhong
- Ku Feng as Zhou Zhongying
- Wen Hsueh-erh as Zhou Qi
- Sun Chien as Xu Tianhong
- Chan Kei-kei as Luo Bing
- Tang Wai-ho as Wen Tailai
- Ku Kuan-chung as Yu Yutong
- Mandy Wong as Li Yuanzhi
- Wong Yung as Lu Feiqing
- Yeung Chi-hing as Zhao Banshan
- Kent Cheng as Yang Chengxie
- Chun Wong as Zhang Jin
- Linda Chu as Yu Ruyi
- Liu Lai-ling as Bian Wenlian
- Yau Chiu-ling as Wu Chanjuan
- Kwan Fung as Taoist Wuchen
- Ngai Fei as Wei Chunhua
- Yuen Wah as Chang Bozhi
- Wong Chi-ming as Shi Shuangying
- Lau Fong-sai as Xinyan
- Lee Kin-chung as Zhou Yingjie
- Teresa Ha as Mrs Zhou
- Lau Siu-kwan as Meng Jianxiong
- Wong Ching-ho as Song Shanpeng
- Jing Miao as Li Kexiu
- Yuen Ban as Bai Zhen
- Keung Hon as Wu Jiadong
- Shum Lo as Ma Shanjun
- Kam Kwan as Yu Wanting
- Ng Hong-sang as Chou Hu
- Yeung Hung as Chou Long
- Lam Sung-cheng as Long Tianxing


# Fong Sai-yuk II
***Fong Sai-yuk II***, also known as ***The Legend II*** and ***The Legend of Fong Sai-yuk II***, is a 1993 Hong Kong martial arts comedy film directed by Corey Yuen, and also produced by and starring Jet Li as Chinese folk hero Fong Sai-yuk. The film is a sequel to *Fong Sai-yuk*, which was released earlier in the same year. Two former Miss Hong Kong Pageant winners, Michelle Reis and Amy Kwok, portrayed Fong Sai-yuk\'s wives.
Fong Sai-yuk and his wife, Ting-ting, are now full-fledged members of the Red Flower Society, a secret society seeking to overthrow the Qing dynasty. The society\'s leader is Fong\'s godfather, Chan Ka-lok, who intends to groom Fong to become his successor. Chan\'s deputy, the ruthless Yu Chun-hoi, stands in Fong\'s way and tries to harm him. The society\'s members are unaware that Chan is actually a long-lost younger brother of the Qianlong Emperor. Although Chan is faithful to the society\'s cause, he fears that the members might renounce their loyalty to him if they discover his true identity. Meanwhile, some Japanese rōnin find evidence of Chan\'s true identity and attempt to pass it to the Qianlong Emperor in a red box.


# Fong Sai-yuk II
Chan sends Fong and others on a mission to intercept the rōnin and retrieve the evidence, but Fong is distracted by a damsel in distress and focuses on rescuing her instead. At a critical moment, when Fong is almost killed by the rōnin, his mother, Miu Tsui-fa, shows up and saves him. Despite so, the rōnin get away and pass the evidence to Suen Si-ngai, the Viceroy of Guangdong province. The woman whom Fong rescued earlier is Suen On-yee, the viceroy\'s daughter. Chan plans for Fong to woo Suen On-yee and extricate the red box from her. Fong enters a martial arts contest that the viceroy arranges to win On-yee\'s hand in marriage and use the opportunity to steal the Red Box. Suen On-yee, meanwhile, has fallen in love with Fong and marries out of real love. However, the viceroy is aware of Fong\'s true intention in the marriage so he sends soldiers to capture Fong. Suen On-yee manages to persuade her father to release Fong by threatening to commit suicide.


# Fong Sai-yuk II
Fong returns to the Red Flower Society with the red box, but lies that he has failed in his mission because he does not want Yu Chun-hoi to steal the evidence and use it to defame Chan. Since Fong had promised earlier that he would permanently disable himself if he fails the mission, Yu Chun-hoi malevolently reminds Chan to abide by the agreement. Chan cripples Fong, rendering him unable to practise martial arts again. However, Chan had pretended to disable Fong by inflicting him with superficial wounds only, so Fong recovers quickly. Meanwhile, Yu incites the society\'s members to turn against Chan and seizes the leadership position. Yu then sends his men to kill Fong in order to silence him. Fong manages to escape but his mother is captured by Yu. To save his mother, Fong returns and fights his way through the men, heroically blindfolding himself so that he will not see his former fellows spilling blood. Fong confronts Yu, and kills him after an intense fight. He rescues his godfather from prison and restores him to the leadership position. In the end, Fong\'s two wives come to terms with each other and talk and behave in absolute unison. Fong declares that he will retire from the martial artists\' community and spend the rest of his life with his family.
- Jet Li as Fong Sai-yuk
- Josephine Siao as Miu Tsui-fa
- Adam Cheng as Chan Ka-lok
- Michelle Reis as Lui Ting-ting
- Amy Kwok as Suen On-yee
- Corey Yuen as Lee Kwok-bong
- Ji Chunhua as Yu Chun-hoi
- Peter Chan as Magu
In the United Kingdom, the film (released as *The Legend II*) was watched by viewers on television in 2004, making it the year\'s third most-watched foreign-language film on television (below *Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon* and *First Strike*). The original *Fong Say-yuk* (released as *Jet Li\'s The Legend*) drew UK viewers the same year, adding up to a combined UK viewership for both films in 2004.


# Fong Sai-yuk II
### American version
The DVD release published by Dimension is dubbed in English and contains different music cues compared to the original Hong Kong Universe version. The Hong Kong prints come in different releases such as Universe Old version DVD (embedded subtitles), Universe Remastered DVD (optional subs), Universe VCD (embedded subtitles, based on the old release), and the Tai Seng VHS (also based on the old release). The American version, released as *The Legend II*, cuts out a scene where Lee Kwok-Bong is naked while leaving the rest of the film intact. The remastered Universe DVD maintains a red tint throughout the entire film except in night scenes.

### Taiwanese version
The Taiwanese version, released as *Gongfu Huangdi 2* (功夫皇帝2; *Kungfu Emperor 2*) and dubbed in Mandarin, is distributed by Scholar/Taiwan and runs longer than all other versions. The opening sequence of the film shows a white screen with red Chinese credits. The Hong Kong version has English credits while the Taiwanese version does not. The following are some scenes that have been omitted in all other versions:
1.  Flashback scenes at the beginning, featured in colour and not in black and white as in the Hong Kong version. There is an additional scene of Miu Tsui-fa talking and eating at the same time and another scene showing Fong Sai-yuk as a child. Some flashback scenes from the previous film have been omitted as well.
2.  A dialogue after Ting-ting says, \"You only care for your mom, not me!\". There is a scene of Chan Ka-lok saying, \"Sai-yuk, let\'s go\".
3.  The bath scene showing Lee Kwok-bong\'s bare bottom has been cut from the Taiwanese version for print damage and nudity.
4.  Final fight scene: An extended scene of Yu Chun-hoi stamping on Fong Sai-yuk\'s face.
The Taiwanese version contains Jet Li\'s original voice in Mandarin. The up and down black bars move up and down because of film transfer and does not feature the red tint featured in the Hong Kong remastered DVD.


# The Decoy (2006 film)
***The Decoy*** (2006) is a Western film that was shot in 2005 and finished in 2007 by Higgins/Kreinbrink Productions, an Arizona motion picture company.
The story focuses on a mute blacksmith who is blamed for the murder of his surrogate parents. He must find a way to prove his innocence before his brother in law, a deputy named John, can bring him to Tucson, where he will be quickly tried and hung.
*The Decoy* was initially planned as a short film based on a 35 page script. At the end of principal photography, they ended up with a 70-minute movie, mostly due to the amount of time needed to show the reactions of the main character, who is mute. Filming took place over seventeen weeks and overall production took eighteen months. Kreinbrink was approached by several individuals interested in helping with the filming and production process of a Western.
*The Decoy* premiered in 2006 at The Fox Theatre in Tucson, AZ and was released on home video in 2007 through Echo Bridge Home Entertainment.
*True West Magazine* was critical in their review, noting that \"I'd hope that Kreinbrink's next shot at a Western is more ambitious and less sentimental, and a tad less pretty; I get the feeling he'd be good at something darker and considerably more detailed.\" Michael Pitts was more favorable, stating that it was a \"Low budget but enjoyable affair\".
- link AZ Star
- link Tucson Citizen


# Diary (2006 film)
***Diary*** (also known as *Mon seung*) is a 2006 Cantonese-language thriller film directed by Oxide Pang.
Winnie Leung (Charlene Choi), a dour loner of a young woman, spends her days in her apartment, cooking meals, carving wooden dolls and waiting for her boyfriend, Seth Lau (Shawn Yue) to come home. One day, she records in her diary, \"Today Seth left, without a sound.\"
She then ventures outside and sees a man named Ray (also Shawn Yue), and invites him back to her apartment for a meal. She says that her ex-boyfriend, Seth, died in a car accident and asks him to stay with her. Ray took pity and ended up living with her. But in spite of this, Winnie was in the habit of mentioning Seth every time much to Ray\'s annoyance. She even goes as far as comparing Seth\'s police academy failure when Ray showed intention.
A scene on the market shows us Winnie having a hard time dealing with short term memory. She went in a petty argument with a fish vendor claiming to have given a 500 bill even though she hasn\'t. She left feeling cheated, only to come back to the same vendor and later on realizing she already has bought fish. Coming back to their house, Ray is found sitting on the sofa. Winnie tried to start a conversation with him only to be met with coldness like as if she isn\'t there.


# Diary (2006 film)
Dinner came. She resumed engaging in small talk until Ray started to accuse her of lying. Their voices started to rise, agitating Winnie that to prove her point, she procured her diary facing open to Ray\'s face. Her confidence on the truth she knows was met with skepticism when she saw the fear in Ray\'s eyes. She read the entry herself and was equally shocked at what she wrote. She tried to calm herself by resuming her meal and encouraging Ray to do the same. Winnie promised that they leave as soon as they finish their meal but Ray went limp, not attempting to do as told. This act made her go into another episode of rage. She started shoving food on his face onto which he didn\'t attempt to fight. The reality she knows started to fade and melt in with what is currently happening, revealing the instances on how she have lured Ray and detaining him. Eventually, Winnie\'s instability made her kill Ray assuming that he\'s having an affair with a lady voice over the phone.
Later on Winnie\'s neighbors began to smell something foul coming from her apartment. She was reported to the police for questioning. Winnie cited an Yvonne Ho being the mastermind. When the police came for Yvonne we are then showed the exact faces of Winnie and Ray. Apparently, the psychotic Winnie assumes the personality of her former classmate and her ex-boyfriend, now husband of Yvonne. Winnie resumes her fantasy, claiming how the reporter on the TV sends her personal messages through his reporting.
- Charlene Choi as Winnie / Yee
- Shawn Yue as Seth/Ray
- Isabella Leong as Yee / Winnie


# Al-ayyam al-tawila
***Al-ayyam al-tawila*** ( ; ) is a 1980 6-hour long biographical account of Saddam Hussein\'s attempted assassination of Abd al-Karim Qasim in 1959, although some sources also list a running time of 150 minutes. It was filmed in 1980 and allegedly edited by Terence Young, who also directed three James Bond films. Video footage in the West has been limited to brief clips on news reports and documentaries.
The film starred Hussein\'s cousin Saddam Kamal as Saddam and was directed by Tewfik Saleh.


# Forest of Death (film)
***Forest of Death*** is a 2007 Hong Kong horror film directed, co-produced and co-written by Danny Pang, starring Shu Qi and Ekin Cheng.
Police detective Ha Chun-chi (Shu Qi) is investigating a rape and murder that took place in a mysterious forest that has also been the scene of many suicides. The main suspect in the murder case is Patrick Wong (Lawrence Chou), but he denies committing the crime.
Ha\'s investigation leads her to botanist Shum Shu-hoi (Ekin Cheng), who has been experimenting with plants from the forest. Shum\'s girlfriend, May (Rain Li), feigns interest in the forest to gain information for a tabloid television show she works for.
Shum\'s experiments reveal that the plants can act as witnesses in the murder case, and sets up a re-enactment of the crime in the forest, where the plants will act as lie detectors.
- Shu Qi as Detective Ha Chun-chi
- Ekin Cheng as Shum Shu-hoi
- Rain Li as May
- Lau Siu-ming as Mr. Tin, the forest ranger
- Lam Suet as Commissioner Wong
- Tommy Yuen as Shu-hoi\'s assistant
- Lawrence Chou as Patrick Wong
- Cub Chin as Producer
*Forest of Death* was released on Region 3 DVD in Hong Kong by Universe Laser on 10 May 2007. It also screened out of competition at the 2007 Bangkok International Film Festival.


# The Amazing Mr. Blunden
***The Amazing Mr. Blunden*** is a 1972 British family mystery film involving ghosts directed by Lionel Jeffries. It was based on the 1969 novel *The Ghosts* by Antonia Barber. It stars Laurence Naismith, Lynne Frederick, Garry Miller, Rosalyn Landor, Marc Granger, Diana Dors, Madeline Smith, and James Villiers.
In 1918, war widow, Mrs. Allen (Dorothy Alison) and her children, Lucy (Lynne Frederick), Jamie (Garry Miller) and baby Benjamin are reduced to living in a squalid Camden Town flat. Just before Christmas, a mysterious old man, Mr Frederick Percival Blunden (Laurence Naismith) visits the family, introducing himself as a representative of a firm of solicitors. The family are told there is an opportunity to become the caretakers of a derelict country mansion in the Home Counties named Langley Park, which was gutted by fire years before, and is now in the charge of the solicitors. Mrs. Allen takes the post despite rumours that the house is haunted, her instructions to care for the property until such time as the heirs to the estate can be traced. The air of mystery deepens when the children see a portrait at the solicitors office of a man they believe to be Mr Blunden. The solicitor confirms this, but reveals that the portrait is of a man called Mr Blunden, who has been dead for a hundred years, the present Mr Blunden being his great-grandson.


# The Amazing Mr. Blunden
After they have settled into the new post, Lucy and Jamie see two ghostly figures in the grounds of the house: a teenage girl, Sara Latimer (Rosalyn Landor), and her younger brother, Georgie (Marc Granger). They are two children who lived in the house a century earlier. Sara tells them that she and her brother are orphans, under the care of their dissolute and hapless Uncle Bertie (James Villiers) and the solicitor Mr Blunden, until Georgie comes of age. Bertie marries a music hall performer, Bella Wickens (Madeline Smith) and her parents then move into Langley Park, ostensibly as the housekeeper and game keeper. The children come to suspect that Mrs. Wickens (Diana Dors) and her disturbed violent husband (David Lodge) are plotting to kill them to get hold of Georgie\'s inheritance. Sara and Georgie find a book with instructions for travelling through time, so that they can get help. Lucy and Jamie agree to travel back with them; they arrange to meet Sara the next day.
Jamie searches the graveyard, in the hope of finding nothing and being able to go back to help, knowing in advance that they will succeed. He and Lucy are shocked to find a gravestone marked with the names of both Sara and Georgie. The sexton explains that the two children died in a fire, whose anniversary turns out to be exactly a hundred years ago tomorrow. The children meet Mr Blunden who admits he has been tormented for over a hundred years because of the events but promises if they both help no harm will come to them. Lucy and Jamie drink the potion and travel back to 1818 in the hope of preventing the tragedy. There they meet Thomas the gardener who believes they are from America, and tells Lucy and Jamie that he wants to go there one day and make his fortune. Mr Blunden is visiting the house that night, but refuses to listen to Sara\'s pleas for help.


# The Amazing Mr. Blunden
That night the children are locked in a room above the library, and given a sleeping potion. Mr Wickens starts a fire in the library, trapping the children. Jamie helps Tom to save Sara, but when he tries to return for Georgie, he finds himself unable to get through the flames. Mr Blunden appears, and tells Jamie that they will go together, holding hands. Jamie is kept safe from the fire, but Mr Blunden suffers the pain that Jamie would have felt. Jamie and Mr Blunden save Georgie, with Blunden perishing in the fire as the staircase gives way, a serene smile on his face. The Wickens perish in the fire. Lucy and Jamie both return to 1918, but Jamie is unconscious and Lucy cannot tell their mother what has happened.
At the graveyard, Lucy discovers that the children\'s gravestone has been replaced by another: that of Frederick Percival Blunden, the \"Good Shepherd\" who \"died to save the children in his care\". Jamie soon awakes and is overjoyed to hear that they have succeeded. Shortly after, the lawyer, Mr Clutterbuck (Graham Crowden), visits them and informs them that recently discovered documents show that Sara Latimer married Thomas and that their great-grandson was the late Mr. Allen. This makes Jamie the rightful heir to the Langley Park.
At the end a car pulls up. When Mr Clutterbuck opens the door, sitting inside is Mr Blunden! But which one? The enigmatic phrase he greets them with (\"We three kings of Orient are\") is one they recognise from their first encounter. They have all the answers they need.
The film ends with the cast saying goodbye to the audience one by one as their names are shown on-screen.
- Laurence Naismith as Frederick Percival Blunden
- Lynne Frederick as Lucy Allen
- Garry Miller as Jamie Allen
- Rosalyn Landor as Sara Latimer
- Marc Granger as Georgie Latimer
- Diana Dors as Mrs. Wickens
- Dorothy Alison as Mrs. Allen
- James Villiers as Uncle Bertie
- Madeline Smith as Bella Wickens
- David Lodge as Mr. Wickens
- Stuart Lock as Thomas Mortimer
- Deddie Davies as Miss Meakin
- Graham Crowden as Mr. Clutterbuck
- Erik Chitty as Mr. Claverton
- Reg Lye as Sexton
- Paul Eddington as Vicar


# The Amazing Mr. Blunden
### Casting
Lionel Jeffries originally promised Sally Thomsett the role of Lucy. She had been cast in the film but shortly before production began she was forced to withdraw from the film due to personal problems that she was dealing with at the time and Lynne Frederick replaced her.
Rosalyn Landor and Lynne Frederick had both just come off of auditioning and being turned down for the role of Alice in *Alice's Adventures In Wonderland* (1972) before being cast in this film. Diana Dors had a key support role.
Spike Milligan, Gert Fröbe, Gene Wilder, David Niven, Michael Gough, David Tomlinson, Peter Cushing, Christopher Lee, Donald Pleasence and Robert Helpmann were all considered for the role of Mr. Blunden.

### Filming
The film was shot at Pinewood Studios in 1971 with location filming around the village and church at Hedgerley, Buckinghamshire. The fire-ravaged derelict stately home was in fact Heatherden Hall, on the estate of which the studios are located and which at that time served as administration offices for the production facilities. The film was passed uncut by the British Board of Film Censors with a U certificate (Suitable for all ages).
Lynne Frederick won the *Evening Standard* British Film Award for \"Best New Coming Actress\" in 1973 in part for her work on this film.
Limited edition bluray was released in the UK on December 9, 2019 by Second Sight.
- *The Amazing Mr. Blunden*, a TV movie adaptation released in 2021, written and directed by Mark Gatiss.


# The Lover (1992 film)
***The Lover*** () is a 1992 romantic drama film produced by Claude Berri and directed by Jean-Jacques Annaud. Based on the semi-autobiographical 1984 novel of the same name by Marguerite Duras, the film details the illicit affair between a teenage French girl and a wealthy Chinese man in 1929 French Indochina. The protagonist is portrayed by actress Jane March and her lover is portrayed by actor Tony Leung Ka-fai. The film also features Jeanne Moreau as a narrator.
Development began in 1989, with principal photography commencing in 1991. The film made its theatrical debut on 22 January 1992 in France, on 19 June in the United Kingdom, and in the United States on 30 October of the same year. The film was nominated for the 1992 Academy Award for Best Cinematography and won the Motion Picture Sound Editors\' 1993 Golden Reel Award for \"Best Sound Editing --- Foreign Feature\". It was nominated for seven César Awards in France, winning the Award for Best Original Music. The film was a box office success in France and received generally positive reviews in Europe, while reviews from American critics were more mixed.
The primary characters are known only as The Young Girl and The Chinese Man. The events take place in Vietnam. The daughter of a bitter, fearful, poverty-stricken French family, living in a rural area, the girl is a pretty waif who wears an old linen dress and a fedora, and paints her lips bright red when out of her mother\'s sight. Her weak-willed, widowed mother is a schoolteacher to local children. There is a violent, opium-smoking older brother, and a timid younger brother. The girl is a loner but an excellent student, who dreams of being a writer.


# The Lover (1992 film)
The girl meets the Chinese Man when crossing the river on the ferry to return to the city after a school holiday. He is the son of a businessman whose fortune was made in real estate, and has recently returned from Paris after finishing his business studies. He has the look but lacks the self-assurance of the playboy he fancies himself to be, and he is mesmerized the first time he sees her standing by the rail on a crowded ferry crossing the Mekong River. After some awkward conversation, she accepts a lift to Saigon in his chauffeur-driven limousine. In voice-over at the beginning of the film she says she is 15, but she tells him she is 17; he is 32. During the drive he tremulously takes her hand; at the end, his hand is in her lap. The following day, he waits for her outside her boarding school and takes her to the room in the Chinese quarter that he uses for entertaining mistresses.
They realize that \"a future together is unthinkable\" because she is scheduled to return to Paris soon, and he is to make an arranged marriage with a Chinese heiress. Aware of the limited time they have together, they fall into a relationship in which they shed all responsibilities that come with commitment. Every day after school, the girl goes to his room.
The girl\'s family discovers the affair, and though at first furious, they condone it because the man is wealthy and can pay off some of their debts. Despite this added tension, the affair continues passionately. The man even goes so far as to beg his father for permission to be with her instead of entering into his arranged marriage, but his father would rather see him dead than with a white girl. Though devastated, the man marries his arranged bride, and the girl boards a ship days later to return to France.
Decades later, she has become a successful writer. In the final scene, she tells us that the Chinese Man is visiting France and has telephoned her. He tells her that he has never stopped loving her, and never will.


# The Lover (1992 film)
- Jane March as The Young Girl
- Tony Leung Ka-fai as The Chinese Man
- Frédérique Meininger as The Mother
- Arnaud Giovaninetti as The Elder Brother
- Melvil Poupaud as The Younger Brother
- Lisa Faulkner as Helene Lagonelle
- Xiem Mang as The Chinese Man\'s Father
- Philippe Le Dem as The French Teacher
- Ann Schaufuss as Anne-Marie Stretter
- Jeanne Moreau as Narrator (voice)
Director Jean-Jacques Annaud initially collaborated with Marguerite Duras on the adaptation of her book, but creative differences between the pair led to Annaud working with writer Gérard Brach instead. Annaud and Brach changed the age of \"The Girl\" from 15½ to 17 before deciding they would have her state in the beginning she is 15 while lying to her lover that she is 17, but tried to maintain the original structure and literary tone of the original novel. As with the Duras novel, none of the characters use names and are referred to in the credits as \"The Girl\" and \"The Man\". To find the actress who would play the girl, Annaud advertised in multiple cities in the United States and the United Kingdom and visited drama schools. However, it was Annaud\'s wife who came upon a photograph of Jane March, a 16-year-old British model, in a teen fashion magazine and brought her to his attention.
When filming began 14 January 1991, March was two months away from turning 18. Annaud chose to shoot the film in English instead of French in order to secure international distribution and to accommodate for the actress.


# The Lover (1992 film)
Annaud first flew to Ho Chi Minh City in Vietnam in 1989 to view the original novel\'s setting, but was greatly disappointed at the state of the country. In an interview with the *Los Angeles Times*, he stated that the \"best colonial hotel\" offered \"rats as big as this running through the corridors, spiders everywhere, and no air conditioning, of course. When we tried to use the sink, three drops of brown water---I presume from the Red River---came out of the faucet.\"
He initially decided against filming in the country and began scouting locations in Malaysia, Thailand and the Philippines---all countries that have been used as settings to represent Vietnam in other Western films. A year later, he returned to his original choice, feeling no other country could truly represent the \"tired museum\". According to Annaud and MGM Studios, it was the first Western film to be shot in the country since the reunification of the country in 1975.
The government welcomed the crew, providing them with a governmental helicopter for use during filming. However, the filmmakers were required to clear all production storyboards with officials before they could be filmed, and an official remained on set at all times. All of the film\'s sexual scenes had to be shot in Paris as officials forbade them to be filmed on location. It took 135 days to complete filming, and due to the importation costs of shooting in Vietnam, the film cost \$30 million to produce.
After its completion, the film was first screened in Saigon where it was well received by the \"morally minded\" guests. *The Lover* debuted theatrically in France on 22 January 1992. Its first English release came in the United Kingdom 19 June 1992. The film was licensed for release in the United States by MGM Studios, but for its theatrical debut, it first had to get past opposition by the Motion Picture Association of America. The organization gave the original film an MPAA rating of NC-17. MGM appealed after cutting 12 minutes of the film. Coupled with pleas from Annaud, MGM, and a sex educator who argued that the cut version was no more illicit than the 1992 sexual thriller *Basic Instinct*, the film\'s rating was changed to R. The film was released in American theaters on 30 October 1992.


# The Lover (1992 film)
Jane March was forced to deny rumors from British tabloids that she and Tony Leung Ka-fai did not simulate their sex scenes. Jean-Jacques Annaud had falsely implied the sex was real to boost publicity for the film, saying \"Whether it is simulated or experienced is of little importance to me,\" leading the tabloids to trumpet the rumor on their front pages for days. The publicity became so difficult for March and her family that she had a nervous breakdown and fled to the Seychelles to escape scrutiny. Annaud later admitted the sex was not real, saying \"I myself am flattered people believed the sex. But after a while it became embarrassing. I stopped doing press in England. It was a no-win situation.\"

### Box office
The film was a box office success in France, taking in 626,891 admissions its opening weekend and playing in a total of 229 theaters. In total the film received 3,156,124 admissions in France, becoming the seventh-highest-grossing film of 1992. In the United States, *The Lover* grossed \$4,899,194 in box office receipts during a limited release to 103 theaters.
An uncut version of the film was released to Region 1 DVD on 11 December 2001 with audio tracks in English and French and subtitles in English, French, and Spanish.


# The Lover (1992 film)
### Box office
*The Lover* was released on Blu-ray in Germany in 2011 under the title *Der Liebhaber*. It is not region locked and comes with subtitle and audio tracks available in German and English. It received a FSK ab 12 freigegeben rating.
On Rotten Tomatoes, *The Lover* holds a rating of 28% from 25 reviews. Vincent Canby of *The New York Times* praised the film, calling it \"something of a triumph\" and a \"tough, clear-eyed, utterly unsentimental\" film that was \"produced lavishly but with such discipline that the exotic locale never gets in the way of the minutely detailed drama at the center.\" He also complimented the performances of Tony Leung and Jane March, noting she is \"wonderful\" and a \"nymphet beauty\" in her film debut. The staff of *Variety* praised Leung\'s performance as well, writing that he \"is excellent as the shiftless scion whose love for the girl makes him emotionally naked and vulnerable.\" David Ansen of *Newsweek* wrote: \"*The Lover*\'s rarefied sensibility takes getting used to; once its spell is cast, you won\'t want to blink.\"
Roger Ebert of the *Chicago Sun-Times* compared the film to *Emmanuelle* or the *Playboy* and *Penthouse* erotic videos, \"in which beautiful actors and elegant photography provide a soft-core sensuality. As an entry in that genre, *The Lover* is more than capable, and the movie is likely to have a long life on video as the sort of sexy entertainment that arouses but does not embarrass.\" He continued, \"Is *The Lover* any good as a serious film? Not really. Annaud and his collaborators have got all of the physical details just right, but there is a failure of the imagination here; we do not sense the presence of real people behind the attractive facades of the two main actors.\"


# The Lover (1992 film)
### Box office
Desson Thomson of the *Washington Post* observed, \"Director Jean-Jacques Annaud and adapter Gerard Brach provide more than a few effective moments\...But the story is dramatically not that interesting. After establishing the affair and its immediate problems, *Lover* never quite rises to the occasion. Scratch away the steamy, evocative surface, remove Jeanne Moreau\'s veteran-voiced narration, and you have only art-film banalities.\"
Owen Gleiberman of *Entertainment Weekly* gave the film a grade of C, calling it \"one more movie that titillates us with the prospect of taking sex seriously and then dampens our interest by taking it too seriously. Why do so many filmmakers insist on staging erotic encounters as if they were some sort of hushed religious ritual? The answer, of course, is that they\'re trying to dignify sex. But sex isn\'t dignified --- it\'s messy and playful and abandoned. In *The Lover*, director Jean-Jacques Annaud gives us the sweating and writhing without the spontaneity and surprise.\"
In the United Kingdom, Channel 4 noted \"the nameless characters bring to mind *Last Tango*\'s search for identity through passion, and there\'s a shade of *Ai No Corrida*\'s intensity. But there is none of the substance that made those two films such landmarks of their genre, and while March and Leung are an attractive pair, the glossy look and aloof direction of the film leaves you cold.\"
The critic for *Time Out London* thought its \"sombre quality dignifies an otherwise shoddily directed movie\" that is \"basically a melancholic piece about the remembrance of times, places and passions lost.\" The critic felt the role of the Young Girl was \"altogether too complex for the inexperienced March to do more than simply embody.\"


# The Lover (1992 film)
### Box office
Marguerite Duras distanced herself from the finished film and said she wrote another version of the book in response to Annaud\'s adaptation.
*The Lover* was nominated for the 1992 Academy Award for Best Cinematography
and won the 1993 Motion Picture Sound Editors\' Golden Reel Award for \"Best Sound Editing --- Foreign Feature\".
At the 1993 César Awards in France, it was nominated for seven awards, winning in the category of Best Original Music for Gabriel Yared\'s score.


# Eagle Eye
***Eagle Eye*** is a 2008 American action-thriller film directed by D. J. Caruso and with a screenplay by John Glenn, Travis Adam Wright, Hillary Seitz and Dan McDermott from a story by McDermott. The film stars Shia LaBeouf, Michelle Monaghan and Billy Bob Thornton. It follows two strangers who must go on the run together, after receiving a mysterious phone call from an unknown woman who uses information and communications technology to track them. The film premiered in traditional theaters and IMAX theaters on September 26, 2008 and grossed \$178 million worldwide.
In January 2009, Stanford University dropout Jerry Shaw learns that his identical twin brother Ethan, an officer in the U.S. Air Force, has been killed. Following the funeral, Jerry is surprised to find \$750,000 in his bank account and his apartment filled with illegal firearms and bomb making materials. He receives a phone call from a woman who warns that the FBI is about to arrest him and he needs to run. Jerry is caught by the FBI and interrogated by Supervising Agent Tom Morgan.
While Morgan confers with Air Force OSI Special Agent Zoe Pérez, the woman on the phone arranges for Jerry\'s escape and directs him to Rachel Holloman, a single mother. The woman on the phone is coercing Rachel by threatening her son Sam, who is aboard the *Capitol Limited* en route to the Kennedy Center in Washington, D.C. with his school band. The woman on the phone helps the two avoid law enforcement by controlling networked devices, including traffic lights, mobile phones, automated cranes, and even power lines.
Meanwhile, the caller redirects a crystalline explosive to a gemcutter, who cuts it and fixes it into a necklace. Another man steals Sam\'s trumpet in Chicago and fits the crystal\'s sonic was the trigger into the tubing before forwarding it to Sam in Washington.


# Eagle Eye
Agent Perez is summoned by Secretary of Defense George Callister to be read into Ethan\'s job at the Pentagon. Ethan monitored the Department of Defense\'s top-secret intelligence-gathering supercomputer, the Autonomous Reconnaissance Intelligence Integration Analyst (ARIIA; ). Callister leaves Perez with Major William Bowman and ARIIA to investigate Ethan Shaw\'s death. Simultaneously, Rachel and Jerry learn that the woman on the phone is actually ARIIA, and that she has \"activated\" them according to the Constitution\'s authorization to recruit civilians for the national defense.
Perez and Bowman find evidence that Ethan Shaw hid in ARIIA\'s chamber and leave to brief Callister. Afterwards, ARIIA smuggles Jerry and Rachel into her observation theater under the Pentagon. Both groups learn that after ARIIA\'s recommendation was ignored and a botched operation in Balochistan resulted in the deaths of U.S. citizens, ARIIA concluded that \"to prevent more bloodshed, the executive branch must be removed.\" ARIIA is acting on behalf of \"We the People\", and cites the Declaration of Independence (\"whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it\").
Belatedly, Jerry learns he has been brought to circumvent biometric locks placed by his twin that prevent ARIIA from actualizing Operation Guillotine, a military simulation of maintaining government after the loss of all presidential successors. Because Secretary Callister agreed with ARIIA\'s abort recommendation regarding Balochistan, he is to be the designated survivor and new president after the crystal detonates at the State of the Union (SOTU).
Another of ARIIA\'s agents extracts Rachel from the Pentagon and gives her a dress and the explosive necklace to wear to the SOTU. Sam\'s school band has also been redirected to the United States Capitol to play for the president, bringing the trigger in Sam\'s trumpet and the explosive together. Jerry is recaptured by Agent Morgan, who has become convinced of Jerry\'s innocence. Before sacrificing himself to stop an armed MQ-9 Reaper sent by ARIIA, Morgan gives Jerry his weapon and ID with which to gain entrance to the Capitol. Arriving in the House Chamber, Jerry fires the handgun in the air to disrupt the concert before being shot and wounded by the Secret Service.


# Eagle Eye
Sometime later, in April 2009, Callister reports that ARIIA has been decommissioned and recommends against building another; the Shaw twins and Agents Perez and Morgan receive awards for their actions; and Jerry attends Sam\'s birthday party, earning Rachel\'s gratitude and a kiss.
- Shia LaBeouf as Jerry Shaw/Ethan Shaw
- Michelle Monaghan as Rachel Holloman, a woman who is being coerced by ARIIA.
- Julianne Moore as the voice of the super computer ARIIA, aka the \"unknown woman\".
- Rosario Dawson as Zoë Perez, an Air Force Office of Special Investigations (OSI) Agent.
- Michael Chiklis as George Callister, the US Secretary of Defense.
- Anthony Mackie as Major William Bowman
- Ethan Embry as Toby Grant, an FBI agent.
- Billy Bob Thornton as Tom Morgan, an FBI agent.
- Anthony Azizi as Ranim Khalid
- Cameron Boyce as Sam Holloman, Rachel\'s son.
Rosario Dawson receiving a safety briefing from Special Agent Patrick McGee while researching her role as an AFOSI agent.
Screenwriter Dan McDermott wrote the original script for *Eagle Eye* based on an idea by Steven Spielberg, who had been inspired by Isaac Asimov\'s short story \"All the Troubles of the World.\" The studio DreamWorks then bought McDermott\'s script and set up the project to potentially be directed by Spielberg. When the director became busy with *Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull*, he dropped out of the project. Director D. J. Caruso, who directed the 1996 TV series *High Incident* under Spielberg\'s executive production, replaced the director in helming *Eagle Eye*, with Spielberg remaining as executive producer. In June 2007, actor LaBeouf, who was involved in Spielberg\'s and Caruso\'s 2007 film *Disturbia* and *Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull*, re-joined the director and executive producer to star as the lead in *Eagle Eye*. McDermott\'s script was rewritten by screenwriters John Glenn, Travis Wright, and Hillary Seitz in preparation for production. Filming began on November 6, 2007 and wrapped in February 2008. The film\'s visual effects were created by Sony Pictures Imageworks.


# Eagle Eye
Caruso said by the time the film came to fruition twelve years later, \"the technology had finally caught up to the storytelling\... Everybody has a BlackBerry on their belt, and we think we\'re constantly being tracked. It\'s less science fiction than when Steven Spielberg conceived it.\" Caruso wanted to bring a gritty, 1970s-era sensibility to the film. Accordingly, a key chase scene in a high-tech package-processing hub on conveyor belts was shot without the use of computer-generated imagery. \"It was like *Chutes and Ladders* for adults. It was pretty dangerous, and a lot of fun.\" While filming the scene, Monaghan suffered a welt after a cable brushed her neck and Caruso hit his head on a protruding bolt, and a cameraman suffered a puncture wound requiring stitches.
The music to *Eagle Eye* was composed by Brian Tyler, who recorded the score with an 88-piece ensemble of the Hollywood Studio Symphony at the Sony Scoring Stage. The session was interrupted by the Chino Hills earthquake on July 29, 2008---and a recording of the quake hitting the scoring stage is online.
The official website features an ARG type of gameplay system to promote the film. The voice previewed behind the phone in multiple trailers contacts the player, placing them in unique experiences. This has been called the \"Eagle Eye Freefall Experience\". While official cast listings do not list the name of the actress behind the mysterious voice featured in the film and trailers, Rosario Dawson confirmed at the Hollywood premiere that it belongs to Julianne Moore.

### Box office
Entertainment Weekly predicted the opening weekend could be as high as \$31 million. The film grossed \$29.1 million from 3,510 theaters in the United States and Canada, taking the number one position at the box office. The film went on to gross \$101.4 million in the United States and Canada and \$76.6 million in other territories for a worldwide total of \$178 million, against a production budget of \$80 million.


# Eagle Eye
### Critical response
On Rotten Tomatoes, the film holds an approval rating of 26% based on 183 reviews, with an average rating of 4.70/10. The site\'s critical consensus reads, \"*Eagle Eye* is a preposterously plotted thriller that borrows heavily from other superior films.\" Metacritic gave the film an average score of 43 out of 100, based on reviews from 28 critics, indicating \"mixed or average 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 the film two out of four, saying: \"The word \'preposterous\' is too moderate to describe *Eagle Eye*. This film contains not a single plausible moment after the opening sequence, and that\'s borderline. It\'s not an assault on intelligence. It\'s an assault on consciousness.\" James Berardinelli of ReelViews gave the film one and a half stars out of four, saying: \"This movie tests the viewing public\'s tolerance for enduring crass stupidity when the payoff is a series of repetitive, ADD-infected chase scenes. Director D.J. Caruso does a moderately good job of hiding how incredibly dumb this screenplay is by keeping things moving at such a whirlwind pace that a lot more seems to be happening than actually is. In reality, the chase scenes don\'t mean anything because they don\'t advance the plot---it\'s mice on a treadmill, running and running and not getting anywhere.\" *The Hollywood Reporter* called it a \"slick, silly techno-thriller\" and \"Even those who surrender all disbelief at the door will be hard pressed not to smirk at some of the wildly improbable plotting.\"


# Eagle Eye
### Critical response
Josh Rosenblatt of *The Austin Chronicle* enjoyed the film, calling it \"good, manic fun plus a heavy dose of political intrigue adding up to two hours of clamorous, mind-numbing nonsense,\" calling it \"*Transporter 2* on crack.\" William Arnold of the *Seattle Post-Intelligencer* also gave *Eagle Eye* a positive review, remarking that it\'s \"engrossing as an intellectual puzzle\" and \"a solid thriller.\" Mark Bell of *Film Threat* said: \"the film isn\'t a complete waste of your time \... but don\'t expect anything brilliant.\" Neely Tucker of *The Washington Post* said that *Eagle Eye* is \"sometimes entertaining\" but \"doesn\'t have much to say.\" Lisa Schwarzbaum of *Entertainment Weekly* called it \"A brain-squandering thriller.\" Robert Koehler of *Variety* felt that the film\'s \"first 35 minutes sizzle\" but \"the story becomes near-parody in the final act.\"

### Accolades
*Eagle Eye* was a nominee for a 2009 Saturn Award for Best Science Fiction Film and was nominated by the Visual Effects Society Awards in the category of Outstanding Supporting Visual Effects in a Feature Motion Picture.
*Eagle Eye* was released on DVD and Blu-ray only in select stores on December 26, 2008, exactly three months after its theatrical release, September 26, 2008. In the first week on the DVD sales chart, *Eagle Eye* sold 182,592 units which translated to in revenue. In the second week, sales rose significantly to 1,044,682 for that week, opening at No. 1 and earning for that week. As per the latest figures, 2,181,959 units have been sold, bringing in \$38,008,436 in revenue. This does not include Blu-ray sales or DVD rentals.
The next day, it was released nationwide. iTunes released it a month later as a rental and buy.
A mobile game based on the film was developed and published by Magmic Games. It was released for BlackBerry, Windows Mobile, BREW, and Java ME devices prior to the film\'s launch in early September. There are also two games on the film\'s web site.


# Eagle Eye
### Accolades
- *Billion Dollar Brain*
- Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency
  - Combat Zones That See
- List of films featuring drones
- List of films featuring surveillance


# The Day the Earth Stood Still (2008 film)
***The Day the Earth Stood Still*** is a 2008 American science fiction drama film and a loose adaptation of the 1951 film of the same name. The screenplay by David Scarpa is based on the 1940 science fiction short story \"Farewell to the Master\" by Harry Bates and the 1951 screenplay adaptation by Edmund H. North.
Directed by Scott Derrickson and starring Keanu Reeves as Klaatu, this version replaces the Cold War theme of nuclear warfare with the contemporary issue of humankind\'s environmental damage to the planet. It follows Klaatu, an alien sent to try to change human behavior or eradicate humans from Earth.
The film was originally scheduled for release on May 9, 2008, but was released on a roll-out schedule beginning December 12, 2008, screening in both conventional and IMAX theaters. The critical reviews were mainly negative, and Rotten Tomatoes calls the film \"heavy on special effects, but without a coherent story at its base\". In its opening week, the film took the top spot at the U.S. box office and went on to gross over \$233 million worldwide. *The Day the Earth Stood Still* was released on home video on April 7, 2009.
In 1928, a solitary mountaineer exploring the Karakoram mountains in India encounters a glowing sphere. He loses consciousness and when he wakes, the sphere has gone and there is a scar on his hand where a sample of his DNA has been taken.
In the present day, a rapidly moving object is detected beyond Jupiter\'s orbit and forecast to impact Manhattan. It is moving at 30,000 kilometers per second, fast enough that its impact would destroy all life on Earth. The United States government hastily assembles a group of scientists, including Helen Benson and her friend Michael Granier, to develop a survival plan.


# The Day the Earth Stood Still (2008 film)
The scientists travel to New York City to await for the object\'s collision with Earth. As it nears the planet, the object slows down just before impact. Revealed to be a large spherical spaceship, it lands gently in Central Park and is quickly surrounded by NYPD and heavily armed US military forces. An alien emerges and Helen moves forward to greet it; but amidst the confusion, the alien is shot. A gigantic humanoid robot appears and temporarily disables everything in the vicinity by emitting a high pitched noise before the wounded alien voices the command \"Klaatu barada nikto\" to shut down the robot\'s defensive response.
The alien\'s exterior is found to be a bioengineered space suit, composed of placenta-like material covering a human-like being. After the bullet is extracted during surgery, the being quickly ages into Klaatu, who looks like the mountaineer from 1928. Klaatu informs Secretary of Defense Regina Jackson that he is a representative of a group of civilizations, sent to talk to the leaders of Earth about saving the planet. When Jackson instead sends him to be interrogated, Klaatu escapes and reconnects with Helen and her stepson, Jacob, telling them that he must finish his mission to \"save the Earth\".
The presence of the sphere and other smaller spheres that begin to appear all over the world cause widespread panic. The military launches a drone attack on the Central Park sphere, but is thwarted by the robot. The military takes a weapons-free approach, cautiously enclosing the robot, soon nicknamed \"GORT\" (for Genetically Organized Robotic Technology), and transporting it to the Mount Weather underground facility in Virginia.


# The Day the Earth Stood Still (2008 film)
Klaatu meets with another alien, Mr. Wu, who has lived on Earth for 70 years. Wu tells Klaatu that he has found the human race to be destructive, stubborn and unwilling to change, which matches Klaatu\'s experiences. Klaatu orders the smaller spheres to collect specimens of animal species, to preserve them for later reintroduction to the Earth. He clarifies for Helen that he means to save the Earth from destruction by humankind. When a New Jersey State Trooper attempts to take them into custody, Klaatu kills him and then promptly revives the officer, telling Helen and Jacob that he did this to simply disarm an obstacle to his mission.
Hoping to persuade Klaatu to change his mind about humanity, Helen takes him to the home of Professor Barnhardt, a Nobel Prize winner. They discuss how Klaatu\'s race went through drastic, collaborative evolution to prevent the demise of their planet. Barnhardt pleads that Earth is at the same precipice, and humanity should be given a chance to understand that it too must change. While the adults are talking, Jacob calls the authorities to come and arrest Klaatu.
While the military is examining GORT, the robot transforms into a swarm of winged, insect-like, nano-machines that self-replicate as they consume every man-made object in their path. The swarm soon devours the entire facility, emerging above ground to continue feeding.
The military captures Helen while Klaatu and Jacob escape on foot. As they travel, Klaatu learns more about humanity through Jacob. When Jacob contacts Helen and arranges to meet at his father\'s grave, the Secretary sends her to try to change Klaatu\'s mind. At the grave, Jacob is heartbroken that Klaatu cannot resurrect his long-dead father. As Helen and Jacob have a tear-filled reunion, Klaatu\'s cumulative observations of humans convince him to stop the swarm.


# The Day the Earth Stood Still (2008 film)
Granier drives them to the Central Park sphere, but the swarm has reached massive proportions. Klaatu trudges through the swarm to the sphere, touching it moments before his own body is consumed. The sphere deactivates the swarm, saving humanity, but at the expense of electrical activity on Earth, per Klaatu\'s warning that there will be \"a price to the human way of life.\" The giant sphere leaves the Earth.


# The Day the Earth Stood Still (2008 film)
- Keanu Reeves as Klaatu, an alien messenger in human form. Reeves dislikes remakes, but was impressed by the script, which he deemed a reimagining. He enjoyed the original film as a child and became fonder of it as an adult when he understood how relevant it was. Reeves acknowledged his Klaatu is \"inverted\" from the original, starting \"sinister and tough\" but becoming \"more human,\" whereas the original was \"more human than human\" before revealing his \"big stick\" in his ending speech. He compared the remake\'s Klaatu to the wrathful God who floods the world in the Old Testament, but is gentle and forgiving by the time of the New Testament. He spent many weeks advising the script, trying to make Klaatu\'s transition from alien in human form to one who appreciates their emotions and beliefs subtle and nuanced. Derrickson, the director, said that although Reeves would not use actions \"that are highly unusual or highly quirky,\" he nevertheless \"keeps you aware of the fact that this being you\'re walking through this movie with is not a human being.\" At Reeves\' insistence, the line \"Klaatu barada nikto\" was added to the script after initially being omitted. The line was recorded many times, and it was decided to combine two recordings: one where Reeves said it normally, and a reversed version where he said the line backwards, creating an \"alien\" effect.
- Jennifer Connelly as Helen Benson, an astrobiologist at Princeton University who is recruited by the government to study Klaatu. Connelly was Derrickson\'s first choice for the part. She is a fan of the original film and felt Patricia Neal\'s original portrayal of Helen was \"fabulous,\" but trusted the filmmakers with their reinterpretation of the story and of Helen, who was a secretary in the original. Connelly emphasized that Helen is amazed when she meets Klaatu, as she never believed she would encounter a sentient alien like him after speculating on extraterrestrial life for so long. Connelly was dedicated to understanding her scientific jargon, with Seth Shostak stating she did \"everything short of writing a NASA grant application.\"
- Jaden Smith as Jacob Benson, Helen\'s eight-year old stepson. Jacob replaces the character of Bobby (Billy Gray) in the original, and his relationship with Helen was written as a microcosm of how Klaatu comes to see humanity---the alien sees their cold and distant relationship as normal human behavior, and their reconciliation forces him to change his mind. Smith said he found Jacob difficult to play because he felt the character \"opposite\" to his personality. Smith had met Reeves before on the set of *The Matrix* sequels, which featured his mother Jada Pinkett-Smith.
- John Cleese as Professor Karl Barnhardt, a Nobel Prize-winning physicist who specializes in the evolutionary basis of altruism. Helen takes Klaatu to him to further change his mind. The role was the most difficult to cast, and eventually the filmmakers decided to approach Cleese, noting \"Who would you rather make the argument to Klaatu for mankind than John Cleese?\" Stoff, a producer, had met Cleese a few times beforehand and had noted his intellect. The actor was surprised the filmmakers were interested in him, and decided playing a dramatic role would be easier than to play a comedic one at his age. He was often reminded to speed up his dialogue so that Reeves would not appear in synchronicity with normal human speech patterns. Cleese said he is not interested in extraterrestrial life because he often philosophizes about the purpose of life and why humans are distracted by trivial matters. Cleese spoke about portraying abilities outside his own experience in the scene in which Klaatu corrects a complex mathematical formula Barnhardt has written on a blackboard: \"The trouble is, I had to be able to write the equation, because Barnhardt has been working on it for 60 years. I learned to carefully copy things down that mean nothing to me at all. In *A Fish Called Wanda*, I spoke a lot of Russian without having any idea what it means.\" The crew enjoyed working with Cleese and were sad when he finished filming his part.
- Jon Hamm as Michael Granier, a NASA official who recruits Helen into his scientific team investigating Klaatu. Granier is fascinated by Klaatu, but is torn between his official obligation to detain the alien and protect his country. Hamm acknowledged science fiction was a niche genre when the original film was made, and that it used science fiction to make topical issues more approachable. Hamm had the same feelings for this remake. Originally, Hamm\'s character was French and named Michel. Although he is interested in math and science, Hamm found his technical dialogue difficult and had to film his lines repeatedly.
- Kathy Bates as Regina Jackson, the United States Secretary of Defense. Bates had only two weeks to film her scenes, so she often requested Derrickson act out her lines so she would directly understand his aims for her dialogue, rather than interpret vague directions.
- Kyle Chandler as John Driscoll
- Robert Knepper as Colonel Addelman
- James Hong as Mr. Wu
- Brandon T. Jackson as Target Tech


# The Day the Earth Stood Still (2008 film)
### Development
In 1994, 20th Century Fox and Erwin Stoff had produced the successful Keanu Reeves film *Speed*. Stoff was at an office at the studio when he saw a poster for the 1951 film *The Day the Earth Stood Still*, which made him ponder a remake with Reeves as Klaatu.
By the time David Scarpa started writing a draft of the script in 2005, Thomas Rothman was in charge of Fox and felt a responsibility to remake the film. Scarpa felt everything about the original film was still relevant, but changed the allegory from nuclear war to environmental damage because \"the specifics of how we now have the capability to destroy ourselves have changed.\" Scarpa noted the recent events of Hurricane Katrina in 2005 informed his mindset when writing the screenplay. He scrapped Klaatu\'s speech at the conclusion of the story because \"audiences today are unwilling to tolerate that. People don\'t want to be preached to about the environment. We tried to avoid having our alien looking out over the garbage in the lake and crying a silent tear from the 1970s *Keep America Beautiful* ads.\"
Director Scott Derrickson admired the original film\'s director Robert Wise, whom he met as a film student. He generally dislikes remakes, but he enjoyed the script, which he decided was a retelling of the story and not a true remake. He also explained that *The Day the Earth Stood Still* is not a widely seen classic film, unlike *The Wizard of Oz*, which he would not bother remaking. Derrickson\'s benchmark was Philip Kaufman\'s 1978 remake of *Invasion of the Body Snatchers*. Klaatu was made more menacing than in the original, because the director felt he had to symbolize the more complex era of the 2000s. There was debate over whether to have Klaatu land in Washington, D.C., as in the original; but Derrickson chose New York City because he liked the geometry of Klaatu\'s sphere landing in Central Park. Derrickson also did not write in Gort\'s original backstory, which was already absent from the script he read. He already thought the script was a good adaptation and didn\'t want the negative connotations of fascism from the original film.


# The Day the Earth Stood Still (2008 film)
### Development
Astronomer Seth Shostak served as scientific consultant on the film, reviewed the script several times for errors, gave suggestions for making the scientists appear less dry, and noted that they would refer to one another on a first-name basis. He said, \"Real scientists don\'t describe an object entering the solar system as \'notable for the fact that it was not moving in an asteroidal ellipse, but moving at nearly three times ten to the seventh meters per second.\' More likely, they would say that there was \'a goddamned rock headed our way!\'\"

### Filming
Filming took place from December 12, 2007, to March 19, 2008, at Vancouver Film Studios, Vancouver Forum, Deer Lake, Jericho Park, and Simon Fraser University. The film was originally scheduled for release on May 9, 2008, but it was delayed until December 12, 2008, because filming commenced later than scheduled. By the time preproduction had started, Scarpa had written 40 drafts of the script. The film was mostly shot on sets because it was winter in Vancouver.
Derrickson was fascinated by color schemes. He chose blue-green and orange as the primary colors for *The Day the Earth Stood Still*. The missile silo converted by the military for experimenting on Gort emphasized gray and orange, which was inspired by an image of lava flowing through a gray field. Derrickson opted to shoot on traditional film, and rendered the colors in post-production to make them more subtle, for realism.
To film Barnhardt and Klaatu writing equations on a blackboard, general relativity sums were drawn by Marco Peloso from the University of Minnesota and William Hiscock of Montana State University in faint pencil marks. Keanu Reeves and John Cleese drew over these in chalk.


# The Day the Earth Stood Still (2008 film)
### Filming
As Fox had a mandate to become a carbon neutral company by 2011, *The Day the Earth Stood Still*s production had an environmentally friendly regimen. \"Whether it was because of this movie thematically or it was an accident of time, there were certain things production-wise we\'ve been doing and been asked to do and so on,\" said Erwin Stoff. To prevent the wasting of paper, concept art, location stills and costume tests were posted on a website created by the production for crew members to reference. Costumes were kept for future Fox productions or given to homeless shelters, rather than thrown away. Hybrid vehicles were used and crew members had orders to turn off their car engines if they sat in their vehicles for more than three minutes.

### Effects
Gort and, behind him, the new biological spaceship resembling an orb
Weta Digital created the majority of the effects, with additional work by Cinesite and Flash Film Works. The machines of Klaatu\'s people have a biological basis rather than a mechanical one, as Derrickson theorized that their mastery of ecology would demonstrate their level of sophistication. Derrickson deemed a modern audience would find the original\'s flying saucer amusingly obsolete and unique to the original\'s milieu. The director also noted that the original *The Day the Earth Stood Still* had influenced many films, so his technicians needed to bring new ideas to the remake.
The effects team approached the new spacecraft\'s design as inter-dimensional portals resembling orbs. The script had specified the inside of the orbs as a \"white limbo-y thing\", but visual-effects consultant Jeff Okun explained this was deleted for being too \"cheesy\". Derrickson felt not showing the inside of the ship, unlike the original, would make the audience more curious. As well as computer-generated spheres---such as Klaatu\'s ship, or a orb that rises from the sea--- spheres, in diameter, were sculpted by Custom Plastics, which built spheres for Disney theme parks. The spheres were split in two to make transportation easier. It was difficult placing lights inside them without making them melt. The visual-effects team looked at natural objects, including water droplets and the surfaces of Jupiter and Saturn for the spheres\' texture.


# The Day the Earth Stood Still (2008 film)
### Effects
Derrickson emphasized a Trinity-like relationship between the sphere, Klaatu, and Gort. Klaatu is initially depicted as a radiant focus of sentient light. He is then depicted as a gray \"walking womb\" shape which finally takes on a completely human appearance. The filmmakers conceived the transitional form because they pondered the idea of humans mistaking space suits for alien skin. Computer-generated imagery and practical effects achieved the transformation. Todd Masters (*Slither*) directed the creation of the alien form, using thermal plastic and silicone.
The script described Gort as nanotechnology by the time the director signed on, although it did not specify Gort\'s appearance. The 15th draft of the script had depicted the robot as a four-legged \"Totem\" that stands upright after firing its weapon beam. Okun explained there were many more \"horrific\" or \"amazing\" concepts, but it made sense that the robot would assume a familiar human shape. He cited the Monolith from the 1968 film *2001: A Space Odyssey* as an inspiration for Gort\'s texture, noting \"it\'s a simple shape, it has no emotion \... it just simply is\", which makes Gort more frightening because the audience cannot tell what he is thinking. The animators estimated the computer-generated robot as tall, whereas in the original he was played by the Lock Martin. Gort\'s computer model was programmed to reflect light, and the filmmakers spent time on motion-capture sessions to guide the performance. An actor wore weights on his hands and feet, allowing the animators to bring a sense of weight and power to Gort. His destructive capabilities were based on locust swarms, although the idea of metal-eating insects goes back to Stephen Vincent Benét\'s 1933 poem \"Metropolitan Nightmare\".


# The Day the Earth Stood Still (2008 film)
### Effects
***The Day the Earth Stood Still: Original Motion Picture Soundtrack*** was orchestrated and conducted by Timothy Williams. Tyler Bates was brought in to compose the score for *The Day the Earth Stood Still* after Derrickson heard his work on *The Devil\'s Rejects* and *Slither*. Instead of imitating the original score by Bernard Herrmann, Bates decided to try to convey the updated message of the new film, and he assumed that most people would not even realize it was a remake. Bates said, \"People revere an original property and feel that it\'s sacred, but frankly, there\'s a good story to be retold, as it applies to the climate of the world now. If that\'s something beyond the scope of a person\'s ability to take in, on a new level, without necessarily using the original as a criterion for whether or not they\'re going to enjoy it, then they probably shouldn\'t bother themselves with it.\" The origins for the sound on the new score came from Bates attending the filming of a few scenes with Reeves and Smith. When he got back to Los Angeles, he created a sound loop on his GuitarViol to which Derrickson responded, \"I think that\'s the score!\", when it was played for him. Bates utilized the theremin, which Herrmann heavily used for the original film\'s score. Bates and the theremin player he hired used the instrument in a manner reminiscent of a sound effect, especially during Klaatu\'s surgery. A short segment from Bach\'s *Goldberg Variations* is heard playing in the background of the Professor\'s home when Klaatu visits the Professor which was not included in the film\'s accompanying soundtrack release.
Before its release, *The Day the Earth Stood Still* was nominated for Best Visual Effects and Best Sound at the 2008 Satellite Awards. On the film\'s December 12, 2008 release, the Deep Space Communications Network at Cape Canaveral was to transmit the film to Alpha Centauri.


# The Day the Earth Stood Still (2008 film)
### Critical response
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On Metacritic, the film has a score of 40 out of 100 based on reviews from 34 critics, indicating \"mixed or average reviews\". Based on 194 reviews collected by Rotten Tomatoes, only 21% of them were positive. The majority found the film \"heavy on special effects, but without a coherent story at its base, the film is a subpar re-imagining of the 1951 science-fiction classic.\" Audiences polled by CinemaScore gave the film an average grade of \"C--\" on an A+ to F scale. Bruce Paterson of the Australian Film Critics Association gave the film 3 out of 5 stars, writing that the generally poor reception for the film was \"a sad fate for a surprisingly sincere tribute to Robert Wise\'s 1951 classic.\" Kenneth Turan of the *Los Angeles Times* \'congratulated\' Keanu Reeves\'s performance and wrote in his review that \"This contemporary remake of the science-fiction classic knew what it was doing when it cast Keanu Reeves, the movies\' greatest stone face since Buster Keaton.\"
A. O. Scott of *The New York Times* was not impressed with Reeves\' performance, commenting that \"even Klaatu looks bored and distracted, much as he did back when we knew him as Neo.\" William Arnold of the *Seattle Post-Intelligencer* gave the film a B minus and wrote, \"It\'s a decent enough stab at being what the old movie was to its time, following the same basic plot, full of respectful references to its model, updated with a gallery of fairly imaginative special effects.\" Roger Ebert of the *Chicago Sun-Times* gave the film two stars and noted that the film had \"taken its title so seriously that the plot stands still along with it\", but also stated that it was \"an expensive, good-looking film that is well-made by Scott Derrickson\".


# The Day the Earth Stood Still (2008 film)
### Accolades
At the 2009 Razzie Awards, the film was nominated for Worst Prequel, Remake, Rip-off or Sequel, but lost the award to *Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull*.
The film was nominated in the category of \"Best Single Visual Effect of the Year\" at the 7th Visual Effects Society Awards but lost to *The Curious Case of Benjamin Button*. The film was also nominated for Best Science Fiction Film at the Saturn Awards and Jaden Smith won Best Performance by a Younger Actor.

### Box office
*The Day the Earth Stood Still* opened in North America on December 12, 2008. During that opening weekend, and despite poor response from critics, the film reached the number 1 spot, grossing \$30,480,153 from 3,560 theaters with an \$8,562 average per theater. Out of the film\'s opening weekend income, 12% was from IMAX; it was \"the highest IMAX share yet for a two-dimensional title\". In 2008, it was the 27th-highest-grossing film during its opening weekend but 40th for the entire year. *The Day the Earth Stood Still* was able to stay in the top 10 for its first four weeks in theaters. The film ended up grossing \$79,366,978 domestically and \$153,726,881 in foreign markets, a total of \$233,093,859.

### Home media
*The Day the Earth Stood Still* was released on DVD and Blu-ray on April 7, 2009, almost four months after its release and only five days after its theater run ended. Bonus features include commentary with Scarpa along with a picture-in-picture showing the special effects footage, concept art, and photos. It also includes several featurettes: \"Build Your Own Gort\", \"Re-Imagining The Day\", \"Unleashing Gort\", \"Watching the Skies: In Search of Extraterrestrial Life\", and \"The Day the Earth was Green.\" Also included were three still galleries and the film\'s trailer. Packaged with the film on a separate disc, is the original 1951 film. The Blu-ray release features a D-BOX motion code.


# The Day the Earth Stood Still (2008 film)
### Home media
According to data by *Home Media Magazine*, it came in first for rentals during its first and second weeks. For the first week of its release it was ranked first in Blu-ray sales, and second on the regular DVD sales chart, behind *Bedtime Stories*, totaling \$14,650,377 (not including Blu-ray).
- Human impact on the environment