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2005優質電影第一擊
日本＋泰國＋香港最強mix & match！

日片《盲俠座頭市》人氣威尼斯影帝
淺野忠信

泰片《六九兩頭勾》柏林影展導演
彭力雲坦拿域安

港片《花樣年華》康城影展最佳攝影
杜可風

《宇宙只有我和你》
Last Life in the Universe

代表泰國入選為2004年奧斯卡金像獎競賽作品

榮獲
威尼斯電影節 (Upstream部份) 最佳男演員大獎
泰國影評人協會12項大獎
(包括最佳影片、最佳導演、最佳男主角、最後女主角、最佳編劇、最佳攝影等)
世界電影節評審團大獎
曼谷國際電影節FIPRESCI獎
墨西哥電影節特別攝影大獎

全球超過30個電影節參展或競賽
包括：多倫多電影節、溫哥華電影節、倫敦電影節、
韓國斧山電影節、台北金馬獎等
香港國際電影節參賽作品
香港藝術中心特別點睛推荐

2005年1月13日難得一見好戲共賞

國際好評停不了！

"The only film so far to really get the critics crooning has been Pen-ek Ratanauraung's romantic black comedy LAST LIFE IN THE UNIVERSE, showing an audacious command of narrative, the film purposely blurs its levels of reality, and features a hilarious cameo from Miike Takashi as a gangster in a slick suit and blue-tinted glasses."
-- Leslie Felprin (Indiewire)

"This Thai film is so beautiful that real life, even in Venice, feels unbearable afterwards."
-- Fiachra Gibbons (The Guardian)

"Thailand can finally join the big boys... LAST LIFE IN THE UNIVERSE could make distributors happy."
-- Lee Marshall (Screen International)

"…shot with great elegance in blues and greys by Chris Doyle - beguiles throughout…"
-- Nick James (The Observer)

"Seductive....Luminous.... Exquisite..."
-- David Rooney (Variety)

"A quietly unsettling love story about people lost (and found) in the margins of one another's cultures, LAST LIFE IN THE UNIVERSE doesn't just confirm Pen-ek Ratanaruang's reputation as Thai's finest commercial filmmaker; it propels him into the ranks of the most consistently innovative filmmakers working anywhere in the world. Strange, funny, tender, and subtly devastating LAST LIFE IN THE UNIVERSE is a minor masterpiece."
-- Chuck Stephens (Film Comment)

"There is a certain naiveté and simplicity to the story that is well-matched by Ratanaruang's dark humour and singular perspective: he fills LAST LIFE IN THE UNIVERSE with blissful, authentic moments. The elegant fusion of reality and surreal visions confirms that Ratanaruang remains one of the freshest, most engaging voices in the panorama of contemporary Asian cinema."
-- Giovanna Fulvi (Toronto Catalogue)

"Thai director (and Pratt alum) Pen-ek Ratanaruang teams with Hong Kong based cinematographer Chris Doyle and Japanese dreamboat Tadanobu Asano for this lovely, bruised rumination on chance, symmetry, and international relations. Asano's neat-freak librarian, adrift in Bangkok and compulsively concocting suicide scenarios, bonds with a mutually bereft local girl days before she leaves for Osaka. A minor-key ballad filled with delicate but haunting shifts in register, the film is best summed up by its original Thai title translation: Tiny Enormous Love Story"
-- David Lim (Village Voice)

故事大綱

住在泰國的日藉圖書館管理員健二（淺野忠信飾）流連於曼谷，多次自殺不遂，卻錯手殺掉了一名日本黑幫──這位黑幫恰巧要收買他哥哥的性命，殺得錯有錯著。

諾（仙妮達邦雅淑飾）是一名奇異而神秘的泰藉妓女，住在芭堤雅一所破屋內，與妹妹妮（賴烈亞邦雅淑飾）相依為命。兩姊妹在偶爾機緣下跟健二相遇，可惜妮不幸地離去，諾和健二頓成孤家寡人，只好和對方相依為命。

諾為人直腸直肚，而健二則沉靜有禮、又整潔得要命；諾要到日本大阪追尋金錢慾望時，健二卻為了一個秘密急需逃離大阪，毅然跑到泰國曼谷去。兩位言語不通、被哀傷埋沒的男女，命運交纏起來，譜出一段悲喜交雜愛情故事……

影片特色 -- 節錄自香港藝術中心場刊

為甚麼《宇宙只有我和你》？跟寂莫心有共鳴的人就會明白。這個世界滿是人，但每日擠在你四周的都是陌生人，像沒有個性似的。科技並沒有把我們更緊密地連接起來；相反，我們更疏離。現代文明注定我們會變成孤單的生物，棲息在自我「宇宙」中，只是日常瑣碎和見慣見熟的人。我們如何能跟陌生人產生共鳴？我們如何打破人與人之間由性別、文化、種族或背景所造成難以超越的差異？

正是這種寂寞，感構成了泰國名導演彭力雲旦拿域安的《宇宙只有我和你》。彭力愛這些人生難以解釋的矛盾。《宇宙只有我和你》男女主角雞同鴨講錯有錯著，他又用細微的筆觸描述那段愛情的萌芽。例如，諾企圖以壽司打開僵局，但健二卻說他對魚類敏感。諾又問健二要不要到卡拉OK去，他卻推搪說不會唱歌。從這些小節，諾意識到健二不像那些她妹妹（可能還有她自己）服待過的典型日本男人。健二和諾相同的際遇，更突顯了各自分別。他們同樣有一段逃不掉的過去。二人分別失去了兄弟和姊妹──這邊廂諾大受打擊，健二卻不為所動。然而，健二在她最需要人的時候出現，而諾則令他忘記了尋死。就是這次偶然相遇中，兩個被哀傷濃罩的人命運交纏起來，充滿了生命荒謬。

《宇宙只有我和你》充滿泰國日常生活的節奏──緩緩有致、不慌不忙，而有點夢中迷幻的感覺，尤在偶然充斥著超現實手法，一切更為明顯。特別是模仿造夢的一幕，諾房子內亂糟糟的雜物飄浮四溢，又會自動走回原位，甚有細嚼的迷惑玩味。導演彭力無懼以暴力間場。《宇宙只有我和你》牽涉日本黑幫，找來日本新紮暴力導演三池崇史客串黑道中人，不以為奇。同樣，健二由淺野忠信擔演也非意外。淺野正是三池崇史導演、令人側目的《殺手阿一》男主角。他曾參演許多風格化佳作，包括未上映的候孝賢新作《咖啡時光》，及北野武的《盲俠座頭市》等。他在《盲俠座頭市》低調漠然的演出，令他成為去年「威尼斯影展」的最佳男主角。

《宇宙只有我和你》其他參與者，包括香港的杜可風。這位名攝影師施展招牌特色，繼續運用濃烈的色彩對比。然而，他今次更故意加用暗啞的色調，營造出濃郁氣氛。全片配合那扣人心弦、仿如天籟的配樂，效果醉人──那輕飄飄的感覺簡直像要飛出銀幕！跟阿基郭利斯馬基和占渣木殊的電影一樣，彭力曉得如何將一絲哀愁、準確幽默和潮流感性結合，難怪他自己也曾點名，表示占渣木殊的《天堂異客》是其電影製作的靈感來源！不管他曾受哪些影響，《宇宙只有我和你》足以自成一格──是一套真正以泛亞洲角度，看兩顆寂莫之心的電影，絕可引起你我共鳴。

製作資料

導演：		彭力雲旦拿域安
攝影指導：		杜可風
演員：		淺野忠信、仙妮達邦雅淑、賴烈亞邦雅淑
片長：		110分鐘
級數：		IIB
戲院：		未定
香港上映日期：		2005年1月13日

HK Distirubuted by LUCKY GEMS GROUP LTD.

Last Life in the Universe

《宇宙只有我和你》

Director: Pen-ek Ratanaruang
Producers: Nonzee Nimibutr, Duangkamol Limcharoen, Wouter Barendrecht
Associate Producer: Aihara Hiromi
Executive Producers: Arai Yoshikiyo, Charoen Iampuengporn, Meileen Choo,
Michael J. Werner, Fran Rubel Kuzui, Kaz Kuzui
Screenplay: Prabda Yoon, Pen-ek Ratanaruang
Director of Photography: Christopher Doyle, HKSC
Editor: Patamanadda Yukol
Production Designer: Saksiri Chuntarangsri
Casting: Sukumaporn Suthisrisinlpa
Costume Designer: Sombatsara Teerasaroch
Art Directors: Monchai Tongsrisuebsakul, Wittaya Chaimongkol
Sound Design: Amornbhong Methakunavudh
Music: Small Room, Hualampong Riddim
Main Cast: Asano Tadanobu, Sinitta Boonyasak, Laila Boonyasak
HK Releasing Information
Releasing Date: January 13, 2005
Running Time: 110 minutes
Category: IIB
Theatres: tbc

INTERNATIONAL AWARDS/ FILM FESTIVAL SELECTIONS

Special Cinematography Award, Mexico
12th Bangkok Film Critics' Assembly - Best Picture, Best Director, Best Actor (in a leading role), Best Actress (in a leading role), Best Art Direction, Best Cinematography, Best Editing, Best Screenplay
FIPRESCI Award Bangkok International Film Festival 2004
Grand Jury Prize at the World Film Festival in Bangkok 2003
Winner Best Actor (Asano Tadanobu) Venice Upstream Competition 2003
Toronto, London, Vancouver, Pusan, Sundance, Rotterdam, Competition Deauville, Istanbul, Hawaii, Tallinn, Karlovy Vary, Mar del Plata, Cinema Novo Bruges, Oslo, Belgrade, Hong Kong, Taipei Golden Horse, Ljubljana, Barcelona, NAT Copenhagen, Palm Springs, Philadelphia, Seattle, Transilvania, Tribeca New York, Brisbane, Durban, Warsaw, Melbourne, New Zealand

EXCELLENT QUOTES FROM INTERNATIONAL MEDIA

-- Leslie Felprin (Indiewire)

"This Thai film is so beautiful that real life, even in Venice, feels unbearable afterwards."

-- Fiachra Gibbons (The Guardian)

"Thailand can finally join the big boys... LAST LIFE IN THE UNIVERSE could make distributors happy."

-- Lee Marshall (Screen International)

"…shot with great elegance in blues and greys by Chris Doyle - beguiles throughout…"

-- Nick James (The Observer)

"Seductive....Luminous.... Exquisite..."

-- David Rooney (Variety)

-- Chuck Stephens (Film Comment)

-- Giovanna Fulvi (Toronto Catalogue)

-- David Lim (Village Voice)

STORY OUTLINE

A magic-realist romance about the culture bridges we build -- sometimes wish we could jump off of -- Last Life in the Universe brings together three of the most exciting talents in current world cinema: director Pen-ek Ratanaruang, Japanese superstar Asano Tadanobu, and Hong Kong-based cinematographer Christopher Doyle. Under their guidance of this much-celebrated triumvirate, refugee elements of Japanese yakuza films, an unpredictable succession of lush and intoxicating images, and a host of eccentric narrative tics from the cutting edge of Thai cinema converge to tell the story of the mysterious Kenji, a lonely, obsessive-compulsive Japanese librarian's assistant and occasional suicide hobbyist quietly living -- and hoping to die -- in Bangkok.

Hiding from an unknown past, the Mishima-identified and moppishly-coiffed Kenji seems determined on a premature rendezvous with oblivion: when first we meet him, he's already swinging by the neck from a makeshift noose. (Or is he?) If only Nid, the beautiful Thai woman Kenji spies between the shelves one day, hadn't managed to die first. And if only Nid's acid-tongued sister, Noi -- who inadvertently begins seducing the suicidal loner back into the chaos of life -- weren't leaving for Osaka on the Monday morning plane...

Who are we? Where are we? Who do we desire? Where do we go when we're gone? A quietly unsettling love story about people lost (and found) in the margins of one another's identities -- national, cultural, and individual -- LAST LIFE IN THE UNIVERSE is a strange, funny, tender, and subtly devastating story about life and death, sisters and brothers, sushi and som tam -- and the strange way fate has of bringing people together just as their worlds seem on the verge of falling apart. Graceful, atmospheric, a jigsaw puzzle with pieces that slip between the fingers like drops of mercury, LAST LIFE IN THE UNIVERSE is a minor masterpiece about love's effortless insistence that under its influence, everything must change. It doesn't just confirm Pen-ek Ratanaruang's reputation as Thai's finest commercial filmmaker; it propels him into the ranks of the most consistently innovative filmmakers working anywhere in the world.

LOST (AND FOUND) IN COLLABORATION

FROM AN INTERVIEW WITH PEN-EK RATANARUANG

Where did the idea for LAST LIFE IN THE UNIVERSE originate?

It all got started while I was having dinner with some friends a couple of years ago. [One of them, LAST LIFE in the Universe producer Wouter Barendrecht.] They keep talking about this story idea, about a Japanese guy working in Manila booking tours for Japanese group tours. According to their story, one day he fucks up the schedule: it turns out he's booked two tour groups on the same day -- one group is a religious group and the other one is a sex tour -- and he has to try and juggle the two tours. So it's a story about fucking up schedules, and in the end, the sex tour group gets crucified and the religious tour gets fucked. Thinking it would be perfect for me -- very sick and very kinky -- they asked me to write it. Obviously they were just kind of joking, but they kept talking about it, and it got to the point where we thought, wouldn't it great if we could get Asano to be the tour guide?

The problem was, I couldn't really come up with anything else for their story. Instead, I came up with a kind of variation on it: a story about two Japanese brothers, one who's a priest and the other, a gay businessman. But what Wouter had in mind for all this was a kind of black comedy, and what I had written was really, really serious. There weren't any jokes in it at all. So I hit a wall. But at the same time I wasn't getting any work done on it, Wouter was out rounding up Asano and Chris Doyle. Suddenly we had the people together, and that's when I came up with the final version of the story and asked Prabda to help me write it.

Prabda Yoon is a very hot in Thailand right now. His books are very popular among young adults, he recently won the SeaWrite award for his short story collection, Probability (Khwam Na Ja Pen), and he's just released his first CD. Since none of Prabda's writing has been translated into English, can you say something about what you enjoy in it?

I think the main thing I like about Prabda's writing is that while it's really very strange, it's also very funny. You get the sense when you read his stuff -- which is filled with strange wordplay and unusual juxtapositions -- that he was having fun while he was writing it. That's the way I make films -- and even the way I watch films. I have to have a sense of the filmmaker having had fun while he was making the film. You watch films by someone like Paul Thomas Anderson and you know he's obviously having fun while he's doing it. I also knew he'd be good for me work with because the way I write scripts is so straightforward -- if Prabda is James Joyce, I'm Ernest Hemingway.

This is the first time you've collaborated with another writer on one of your scripts; what was the process like?

I basically told Prabda the entire script as I had it in my head: a story about Japanese guy who lives in Thailand and is always wanting to commit suicide. One night while he's waiting to jump off a bridge, a girl jumps off before him -- right in front of him -- and dies. He's sitting there on the railing, and all of a sudden she's over the rail and gone. And then gets to know her older sister. I got to know Prabda a little bit on the set of Mon-rak Transistor [star Siriyakorn Pukkavesa was Prabda's girlfriend at the time.] I hadn't read his stuff at then, but during the Mon-rak shoot, someone gave me the paperback edition of Prabda's collected movie reviews. I read it and thought, Wow, finally I've found somebody who doesn't like Run Lola Run just like me. I mean, that film's not terrible, it's just way overrated; it's like candy -- you don't mind having it, but you don't praise the candy. And I thought if I was going to write the script with someone else, Prabda was probably the guy who was going to get what I had in mind. In a way, I chose him the way I choose actresses: purely out of instinct.

Throughout LAST LIFE IN THE UNIVERSE there is a string of references to Asano's work on ICHI THE KILLER, and to that film's director Miike Takashi, who has a rather significant supporting role in this film. Given that LAST LIFE is temperamentally rather different from your previous work -- moodier, more meditative, less propelled by narrative forces than subtle shifts in tone -- one might also be tempted to see other sorts of stylistic influences from Japanese cinema as well. Did you and Prabda set out to work in a particularly Japanese style?

If the film has that, I think was very instinctual, and it was probably Prabda's script that really helped bring that to the film. He came up with a first draft that was much more elegant than I would have, or even could have; something far more graceful. If I hadn't met him, it would certainly have turned out more like a black comedy, and probably as plotty as my films always have been. It was Prabda's script that I gave me the confidence to think, shit, this is actually something I can try.

Chris Doyle is well-known as a very active collaborator with directors, and often very involved in a film's overall production design and mood. How did you meet and what was your experience of working him?

I first met Chris in Rotterdam about two years ago. He'd never seen my work. I think Chris watches most films on fast forward, anyway; he doesn't have the patience to sit still for two hours. Everybody warned me about working with this guy: "He'll take over your movie, it'll end up looking like Wong Kar-Wai." I told him in the beginning, I don't want your typical film -- but I also don't want my typical film. The thing I learned when we actually started working together was that he's as sick of his own work as I am of mine. And I think the style of the film comes out organically from the places we found, from the clothes the characters are wearing -- even if there are shots that may be typically Chris, and situations that may seem typically me. He absolutely loved the house that Noi lives in, for example. You can see it in every image. No matter where Chris would put the camera in the house, it worked. He fell in love with the space in almost the same way that you fall in love with this woman: no matter which angle you look at her from you're going to see something very fresh.

MON-RAK TRANSISTOR had a sense of timelessness about, a feeling that one was never sure whether the story was taking place today or thirty years ago. In LAST LIFE IN THE UNIVERSE, you take things a step further: there's a sense of placelessness, as well. For example, though much of the film is set in Bangkok, the city itself is entirely absent from the film.

This film goes so much inside the characters, as opposed to my other films, which are more about the things going on around the characters, that the place almost becomes transparent. When Chris and I were scouting locations we'd spend a lot of time in the van, riding around and talking about the film. And the more time we spent doing that, the more we got this sense of the days -- in terms of the period of film's time frame, the four days or whatever over which the story takes place -- kind of disappearing. We thought, why don't we make this film one big day -- you don't know when its night or day, and all the places they go tend to become the same. It just grew out of what Chris and I saw and talked about.

LAST LIFE very subtly flirts with episodes of identity slippage as well.

A lot of that also came from my working with Chris. The change of the two sisters at one point during the film -- that wasn't in the script. That came from drinking with Chris one night and joking about things, because we'd had a bad, frustrating day, and we were kind of letting of steam. We started joking about the scene with Kenji and Noi on the sofa: what if he takes the pillow and puts it on her face and kills her? Or what if he puts the pillow on her face, and when he it takes it away, she's become her sister? We'd joke this way everyday, but normally we'd just laugh these things off. But this time Chris and I just looked at each, and we realized we weren't laughing. So I called up my producer and said, "I have this idea" It was a good idea anyway, since this girl was very sexy and we wanted to be able to work with her again.

During the shooting of LAST LIFE you mentioned two conditions you'd wanted to set for the film: 1], that it have no jokes, and 2] that it be austere as something by Ken Loach. Even though seeing is not believing (since the film is both funny and far from gritty realism), why those two conditions?

It was a reaction to the fact that, when I'd looked again at my films -- all my films -- I started to think that they're all just too obvious. Obvious, obvious, obvious. Not that that's altogether bad. But one of the things that really impressed this on me is the way that audiences always laugh at my films. So I thought, I'll try to make a film where there aren't any jokes, and if the audience can't laugh, what could their reaction be? I think I said those two things not literally, but to set challenges for myself; to admit that I was looking for change. I wanted to see how I would feel if I tried to make a film that was a bit more subtle, a bit more controlled. I wanted LAST LIFE to be more of a mood film; to pay more attention to the pace and the visuals, to focus more attention on the windows and the doors and the space. I wanted space to be more of a character in this film. And being able to trust Asano as an actor freed me up and helped me with that to a large extent.

What was it about Asano Tadanobu that compelled you to choose him as the actor for whom the part of Kenji was designed?

Actually, I think he chose me. I mean, he's a star, and Chris is so well-known -- I'm the least known part of this three-person package. And we had to sell the script to Asano, so he chose me. Japan is a country that has produced many, many great films for a very long time. But they lack great actors. I actually think Thailand has better actors and actresses than Japan. That's why, in Japan, if you get one cool guy, he's in every film -- like Asano, or the star of SHALL WE DANCE? and all of Kiyoshi Kurosawa's films [Koji Yakusho.] He's in everything. And when he goes from one film to the next, it's like he hasn't even changed his costume; it looks like he's just walked over from another movie set.

At first, I wasn't even sure if Asano was any good or not, because some of the films he's been in are absolutely horrible. But when I saw in a film called FOCUS, it blew me away because at first I didn't even know it was him. Afterwards someone asked me what I thought of Asano in that film and said no way, that wasn't him, but when I realized it was?You know, he's very fearless. He can be dazzling in a Miike [Takashi] film one day, but he can also be in a Kore-eda [Hirokazu] film, where he's treated like an ashtray. You don't even see him -- when Kore-eda shoots something you end up seeing the trees in the shot more than the people. But Asano, to his credit, is a very consistent actor -- maybe even a little too consistent. For me, I think I'd like to see a little something more Almodovar from him.

Your films are beginning to cast a rather long shadow over contemporary mainstream Thai cinema, particularly in the sense the risks you take in filmmaking, and in challenging audiences in your own country, are pushing other Thai filmmakers to do the same. They have even started to be imitation Pen-ek films being made of late. Where do you see yourself in relation to current Thai cinema, and in what direction would you like to see Thai cinema go? Do you even see LAST LIFE, with all it's international influences, as a Thai film?

I see all my films as Thai films, though I don't think many people in Thailand are going to count this as a Thai film. I think many people in the Thai film industry regard me, or rather my films, as "A Pen-ek Film", rather than as a Thai film per se. You have some people who say that my films are very Thai, and you have others here who kind of despise me and say he doesn't make Thai films, just because I was educated abroad and things like that. All the things you say sound very nice -- casting a long shadow and all that -- but I also have to say, I never think about the Thai film industry. I don't give a shit, really, because I believe that what's important is that I push myself with each film I make. If every Thai filmmaker did it like me, without having to be aware of the Thai film industry, Thai cinema would soar. It's up to the industry types to change the industry; Thai directors and writers should be busy pushing themselves. If you push yourself, the worst that can happen is that you fail. But at least you can push yourself fail interestingly -- and that's not bad.

Is LAST LIFE a Thai film? I look at it this way: I have certain challenges I have to meet with every film I make until I die, and I have to meet them one by one. And every time, I have no choice but to meet those challenges with a Thai film. Even though LAST LIFE is, well, maybe it's hard to say exactly what it is, but to me it's a very Thai film. Even the character of a Japanese guy who works around Asoke [a boulevard where the Thai branch of the Japan Foundation is located, and around which many Japanese expatriates live ] is a very local, very Bangkok notion for me; these are the kinds of guys who live around my house. I want to take myself further and further with the kinds of films I make. And the possibilities still seem endless to me. If they didn't, I'm sure I'd lose interest in filmmaking. But until I do, I can't help but keep meeting those challenges with essentially Thai films.

from an interview by Chuck Stephens

(Bangkok, 16 March 2003)

BIOGRAPHIES

PEN-EK RATANARUANG (DIRECTOR/WRITER)

Pen-ek was born in Bangkok, 1962, and majored in Art History at the Pratt Institute in New York City. After working as a graphic designer at Designframe Inc in NYC, he returned to Thailand and became Head of Art at the Leo Burnett agency. He subsequently began directing commercials for the Thai production house The Film Factory (with which he remains associated). His advertising work has won more than 20 national and international awards. He directed his first feature in 1997, and premiered it in the International Forum of New Cinema at Berlin Film Festival. In 2001, he served on the jury for Singapore International Film Festival.

Feature Films:

1997 FUN, BAR, KARAOKE

Special Jury Prize, Festival des 3 Continents (Nantes, France)
Best Screenplay, Cinemag Spirit Awards, 1997

1999 6IXTY-NIN9 (RUANG TALOK 69)

FIPRESCI prize, Hong Kong International Film Festival, 2000
New Horizon Award for Best Screenplay, Bangkok Film Festival, 1999
Best Feature, Williamsburgh Brooklyn Film Festival, 2000
Best Director and Best Screenplay, Thai Critics Awards
Best Film, Best Director and Best Screenplay, Cinemag Spirit Awards

2001 MON-RAK TRANSISTOR

Official Selection, Quinzaine des Realisateurs, Cannes
Asian Trade Wind award, Seattle 2002
Best Film, Best Actress, Best Screenplay, Thai National Film Awards 2002
Thai Entry for the Academy Awards 2003

CHRISTOPHER DOYLE (CINEMATOGRAPHER)

Leaving the boredom of suburban Sydney as a sailor with the Norwegian Merchant Marine at the age of 18, Chris has spent most of his life "on the open road". He cut his teeth on occupations as diverse as a Thai-based Chinese quack-medicine "doctor", a "cowboy-nic" on an Israeli kibbutz, and a so-called irrigations expert on an agricultural collective in the North East Indian desert...and almost everything in between. In the late 1970s he was reincarnated by his poetry/Chinese language teacher at the University of Hong Kong, who gave him the evocative name Du Ke Feng ("like the wind.") He has never been the same since.

Present area of activities started in 1978, when he became a founding member of Lan Ling Theatre Workshop (Taiwan's first professional modern theatre group), from which he moved on to film and video works with the likes of The Cloud Gate Dance Ensemble and Hong Kong's Zuni Icosahedron theatre. He produced, directed, shot and edited Taiwan TV's ground-breaking non-fiction series TRAVELING IMAGES. He won numerous awards clandestinely under pseudonyms in various film and video festivals. Since Edward Yang invited him to shoot his first feature THAT DAY, ON THE BEACH in 1981, he has devoted most of his time and energy to photographing Chinese films. His attempts to sabotage the Hollywood ethic began with Gus Van Sant's masterwork of concept cinema, PSYCHO. He wrote and mis-directed his first feature AWAY WITH WORDS in 1999.

Feature Films include:

2003
2046 ( in Progress )
d. Wong Kar Wai
EROS
d. Wong Kar Wai
2002
HERO
d. Zhang Yi Mou
THE QUIET AMERICAN
d. Philip Noyce
2001
RABBIT PROOF FENCE
Philip Noyce
MADE
d. Jon Favreau
2000
IN THE MOOD FOR LOVE
d. Wong Kar Wai
1998
LIBERTY HEIGHTS
d. Barry Levinson
PSYCHO
d. Gus Van Sant
1997
MOTEL CACTUS
d. Park Ki Yong
HAPPY TOGETHER
d. Wong Kar Wai
TEMPTRESS MOON
d. Chen Kai Ge
1995
FALLEN ANGELS
d. Wong KarWai
1994
ASHES OF TIME
d. Wong Kar Wai
1994
CHUNGKING EXPRESS
d. Wong Kar Wai
RED ROSE WHITE ROSE
d. Stanley Kwan
1992
PEACH BLOSSOM LAND
d. Stan Lai
BEIJING BASTARDS
d. Zhang Yuan
1990
DAYS OF BEING WILD
d. Wong KarWai
1998
LOVE IS THAT ETERNAL ROSE
d. Patrick Tam
1985
THAT DAY ON THE BEACH
d. Edward Yang

Awards

Hong Kong film awards, best cinematography: 1995, 1994,1990,1987
Hong Kong critics award, best cinematography: 1997, 1998, 2003
New York Critics Circle, National Society of Film Critics, Village Voice Film Critics 2001: Best Cinematography -- In the Mood for Love 2000 Cannes Festival Artistic Achievement award, In the Mood for Love
Taiwan Golden Horse award, best cinematography: 2002, 2000, 1997

ASANO TADANOBU (ACTOR)

Feature films include:

2003:

Dead and Run d. Sogo Ishii
My Grandfather Taught Me Alot About Life d. Yoichi Higashi
Zatoichi d. Kitano Takeshi

2002:

Bright Future d. Kiyoshi Kurosawa

AWARD

Golden Osella Award, The Venice International Film Festival : Maboroshi
Dragons & Tigers Award, The Vancouver International Film Festival : Maboroshi
The Berliner Zeitung Reader's Award, The 47th Berlin International Film Festival : PiCNiC
NETPAC Award, The Berliner Zeitung Reader's Award, The 48th Berlin International Film Festival : Focus
Future Film Festival Digital Award, The Venice Film Festival (1999): Hakuchi aka The innocent
Golden Palm Award/nominated : Canne Film Festival(2000) : Gohatto aka Taboo
Best Actor in a Leading Role, The 18th and The 22nd Yokohama Film Festival
Best Actor in a Leading Role, The 11th and 14th Takasaki Film Festival
Best Actor in a Leading Role, The 6th Japanese Film Producer Awards
Best Character Award, The 8th Japanese Film Critic Awards The 20th Japanese Academy Awards

PRABDA YOON (CO-WRITER)

Prabda was born in Bangkok, 1973, and graduated from The Cooper Union School of Art in New York City in 1997. He worked as a graphic designer briefly in Manhattan, then returned to Bangkok for his military obligations. Immediately after completing the required military duties, Prabda started to write a weekly column on films and filmmakers in The Nation Weekend newspaper and wrote a script for a television series. Short stories, essays, and numerous magazine columns followed. Within 3 years as a writer, Prabda published 5 collections of short stories, 3 collections of essays, and a novel. He has also co-produced a music album. Currently Prabda is an editor and art director of the monthly magazine OPEN. He continues to write fiction and is working on a new novel. 'Probability', his collection of short stories published in 2000 won the S.E.A. WRITE AWARD, the most prestigious literary award in Thailand, in 2002. Publications: 2000, City of Right-angles 2000, Probability 2000, The Flooded Eyes 2001, Water For the Head 2001, The Parts That Move 2001, Unstill Pictures 2002, This Really Happened 2002, Please Don't Read, Carefully 2002, Chit-tak! 2002, Parallel Probability (with Win Leowarin) Film and Television scripts: 1999, Silk Knot 2002, Last Life in the Universe Music: 2002, Buahima: Chit-tak!

NONZEE NIMIBUTR (PRODUCER)

Nonzee was born in Nonthaburi, 1962, and graduated in Visual Communications from Silpakorn University. He began working in the entertainment industry as a director of commercials and music videos in 1984, and went on to found and manage the company Buddy Films and Video. His debut feature Dang Bireley's and the Young Gangsters (2499 Antapan Krong Muang, 1997) re-energised the entire Thai film industry, breaking box-office records and inspiring many other young directors to make their first films. It won the Grand Prix at the 19th Festival International du Film Independent in Brussels, and numerous domestic awards. His second feature, Nang Nak (1998), was even more successful domestically and went on to spearhead the recent advance of Thai cinema into international markets. It, too, won many awards at home and abroad.

In 2000, he produced the two inaugural productions of the company Film Bangkok: Wisit Sasanatieng's Tears of the Black Tiger (Fah Talai Jone, winner of the Dragons & Tigers Award, Vancouver International Film Festival) and the Pang Brothers' Bangkok Dangerous (FIPRESCI prize, Toronto International Film Festival). He co-founded the independent production company Cinemasia with Duangkamol Limcharoen, and his third feature Jan Dara was the company's first production. He has recently completed the episode The Wheel (Arom Atun Akat, 2002) for the portmanteau film Three.

DUANGKAMOL LIMCHAROEN (PRODUCER)

Duangkamol was born in Udontani, 1964, and majored in Drama Studies at the Faculty of Arts, Chulalongkorn University. She has fifteen years' experience in the television business as producer of drama series, sit-coms, talk shows and game shows, and as a scriptwriter. She went on to work with the entertainment conglomerate Grammy Entertainment, for which she produced the feature films O Negative and The Wall. She was inspired to move into pan-Asian film production by her involvement in the location filming in Thailand of Wong Kar-Wai's In the Mood for Love. She co-founded the company Cinemasia with Nonzee Nimibutr, and has since produced the company's first three productions: Jan Dara (directed by Nonzee Nimibutr), Mon-rak Transistor (directed by Pen-ek Ratanaruang) and The Wheel (directed by Nonzee Nimbutr). She has also served as associate producer for the Hong Kong production A Fighter's Blues, starring Andy Lau. In 1998, Hollywood Reporter cited her as one of the women who are influencing and changing entertainment around the globe.

WOUTER BARENDRECHT (PRODUCER)

Hong Kong-based Wouter Barendrecht is a founder of Fortissimo Film Sales, a company dedicated to the development and international sales and marketing of quality art-house films by Wong Kar-wai, Iwai Shunji, Tsai Ming-liang, Hur Jin-ho, Nonzee Nimibutr and Steve Jacobs among others. In recent years, he has also worked as executive or associate producer on films by Clara Law, Tsui Hark, Sergei Bodrov, Pierre-Paul Renders and Tian Zhuangzhuang. Wouter has served as a juror in film festivals throughout the world, including Jerusalem, Berlin, Pusan, Rio de Janeiro, Edinburgh, Turin and Sydney, and was the director of the inaugural Hong Kong-Asia Film Financing Forum in 2000. He is a member of the European Film Academy, a board member of CineMart of the International Film Festival of Rotterdam, an advisory board member of the Thai Film Federation, and a recipient of the MIFED European Exporter of the Year Award.

BLOCK SHOTS AND SPANNERS

FROM AN INTERVIEW WITH CHRISTOPHER DOYLE

How did you come to be involved in LAST LIFE?

Pen-ek and Asano and I had all known each other in different ways and at different levels for a long time. The thing for me that really matters is that you work with people you really want to work with, and that happens basically because you get to know someone. Together, well, we knew we could either really fuck up a great script, which many people have done, or we could really make a great film out of nothing, which I've managed to do a few times with a certain tall Hong Kong director?

Given this film's multi-national financing,and the international diversity of its principle parties -- actor, director, cinematographer -- LAST LIFE may seem like something new to many people. But for you, pan-Asian shoots and crews are nothing new.

I think it's obvious from the films I've chosen in my career that I'm a bit more at home in this environment, I feel much more comfortable, no matter where it is in Asia, a more Asian environment. This is the road I've chosen, and where the road has taken me. I think what's happening with films like this, in a bigger sense, is that we're becoming both more idealistic and more reasonable about how things should and can get done inside Asia. So that this concept of pan-Asian films -- a number of which I've participated in -- is becoming more and more viable. People are actually seeing that there is not just an artistic and film festival validity to the films that we've been making, but that they're becoming commercially viable as well. I think audiences in general are becoming prouder of their participation in works of quality, in works of specialized interests, or great narrative style -- or even great action movies.

You've worked in Thailand before, not only while shooting parts of IN THE MOOD FOR LOVE and 2046, but earlier still -- selling snake oil medicines.

That's right. I was traveling around, running out of money, staying at a backpacker's hotel -- this was twenty-five years ago -- and somebody came into the hotel looking for people to help out, and I needed money. The job was to pose as a western doctor and drive around Thailand selling quack medicine. I'd say two lines in Thai, and the Thai guy would take it from there, selling the medicine out of the trunk.

Was there something new you encountered working with a Thai crew on a specifically Thai production?

In Thai cinema they use this Thai-English phrase, "block shot", which is a rather remarkable expression. It's what other people would call reparage, or location scouting. But what those expressions imply is that you're looking for the space. What "block shot" implies, at least for me, is that you're actually going out to the space, as if you already have that space, and you're just working out how to make the shots. I don't know if it's only Pen-ek that does that, or if other Thai filmmakers do it as well, but it seemed interesting to me that the concepts for the shots came at exactly at the moment the location was found, if not before. Whereas, especially in my experience with Wong Kar-wai, there's the no question whatsoever that the location is the thing, and the shots come somewhere in between finding a location that says something to you, and the point at which you're actually editing the film. And sometimes the shots don't really come to you until you're editing the film.

Had you seen Pen-ek's earlier films, and did you have a sense of what he might want from you on LAST LIFE?

I pretended I'd seen a couple of the films he mentioned. I have no idea about Pen-ek's educational background -- nothing, other than he speaks good English, so I know he must have studied English somewhere. Maybe he studied film somewhere, I don't know. But there is much more method to his way of working than many of the other directors I've worked with, which is fine for me. I've worked in Hollywood with Gus Van Sant, were we spent five days talking about which kind of curtains we'd use in PSYCHO, and we spent a month trying to find the shower head. I understand this kind of stuff. On PSYCHO, I took it as my job to throw a spanner in the works. That's my job on any film: I will respond to things. And that's how I light, not with a plan in mind. I work with the space, the mood, the color -- or else why would I be here? Why would they want me?

How did collaborating with Pen-ek compare with others in your experience?

There are two ways to go with making a film today. You can go the LA CONFIDENTIAL way: let's imitate something. Let's imitate film noir. Someone else might say: let's imitate IN THE MOOD FOR LOVE. Even people who sell films tend to talk that way: TEARS OF THE BLACK TIGER -- it's a cowboy movie filmed in Thailand. Well, yes and no, as far as I'm concerned. A film basically evolves in the direction someone is pushing it, hopefully the director, with perhaps a few little innuendos from me. I think of collaboration as conversation between the director and I, so if we're not clicking, it's not going to work. Fortunately, things were clicking here. I think Pen-ek and I were both working in the same direction anyway, so all of this is, for both of us, another step down the road.

from an interview by Chuck Stephens

(Bangkok, October 2002)

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