Just another day at Cannes: Johnny Depp, Bernardo Bertolucci and a 3D sex film
BY JAY STONE, POSTMEDIA NEWS MAY 14, 2011
Japanese adult actress Saori Hara is interviewed during the making of " 3D Sex and Zen" at a studio in Hong Kong August 13, 2010.
Photograph by: Bobby Yip, Reuters
CANNES, France — This is a story about Johnny Depp, Jack Sparrow, and a Hong Kong guy who made a movie called 3D Sex and Zen — being promoted as the world's first 3D erotic film — that broke Avatar's record in Hong Kong for an opening day weekend. It's about a Ming Dynasty scholar of lustful temperament but modest endowment who has a transplant of a donkey's penis.
BY JAY STONE, POSTMEDIA NEWS MAY 14, 2011
Japanese adult actress Saori Hara is interviewed during the making of " 3D Sex and Zen" at a studio in Hong Kong August 13, 2010.
Photograph by: Bobby Yip, Reuters
CANNES, France — This is a story about Johnny Depp, Jack Sparrow, and a Hong Kong guy who made a movie called 3D Sex and Zen — being promoted as the world's first 3D erotic film — that broke Avatar's record in Hong Kong for an opening day weekend. It's about a Ming Dynasty scholar of lustful temperament but modest endowment who has a transplant of a donkey's penis.
What's more, if you stick around, we'll also bring Bernardo Bertolucci into this.
What these things have in common is the Cannes film festival, a meeting place of ideas and cinematic scholars, not to mention promoters of "extasy," as the sex movie is subtitled. It's a place where you can hear Depp talk about his role as a pirate in the new film Pirates of the Caribbean: On Stranger Tides — retelling the legend, for instance, about how he developed Capt. Jack as "a wild combination between an 18th Century rock and roll star, Keith Richards, and Pepe le Pew, who's a skunk. Very romantic skunk" — and an hour later talk to an Asian producer about the future of erotic cinema.
The connection is 3D, which is part of the extravaganza of Pirates, although not as extravagant as Depp himself, resplendent in khaki pants, a white vest, black-and-white striped shirt, a black scarf and sunglasses, happily retelling those great buccaneer war stories. Depp famously made executives at the Disney company very uncomfortable when he brought his Keith Richards skunk act to the first Pirates film, but now that the franchise has gone on to make $2.7 billion and counting, he's more of a hero.
"It wasn't a group of Disney upper-echelons who had any enthusiasm whatsoever for what I was doing," he said about those early days. "They almost subtitled me."
Speaking after the new film was shown as a special presentation (it opens May 18) Depp said that the possibilities for more Pirates films are endless, as long as the public wants to "pay their hard-earned money to see these things. And if the people get tired of it, or something, that's where it stops, I guess." The Pirates franchise is slowly becoming the most lucrative in movie history, but Depp says that he'll stop when "the process becomes impure."
"It's not just all about the k-ching k-ching. . . .We do it for the people. So as long as the people I want it, I'm there."
Coincidentally, much the same thinking animated 3D Sex and Zen, according to producer Stephen Shiu Jr., He said he got the idea while watching Journey To The Centre of the Earth, another 3D adventure, and wondering if he could make such a film in Hong Kong and, if so, what kind.
What these things have in common is the Cannes film festival, a meeting place of ideas and cinematic scholars, not to mention promoters of "extasy," as the sex movie is subtitled. It's a place where you can hear Depp talk about his role as a pirate in the new film Pirates of the Caribbean: On Stranger Tides — retelling the legend, for instance, about how he developed Capt. Jack as "a wild combination between an 18th Century rock and roll star, Keith Richards, and Pepe le Pew, who's a skunk. Very romantic skunk" — and an hour later talk to an Asian producer about the future of erotic cinema.
The connection is 3D, which is part of the extravaganza of Pirates, although not as extravagant as Depp himself, resplendent in khaki pants, a white vest, black-and-white striped shirt, a black scarf and sunglasses, happily retelling those great buccaneer war stories. Depp famously made executives at the Disney company very uncomfortable when he brought his Keith Richards skunk act to the first Pirates film, but now that the franchise has gone on to make $2.7 billion and counting, he's more of a hero.
"It wasn't a group of Disney upper-echelons who had any enthusiasm whatsoever for what I was doing," he said about those early days. "They almost subtitled me."
Speaking after the new film was shown as a special presentation (it opens May 18) Depp said that the possibilities for more Pirates films are endless, as long as the public wants to "pay their hard-earned money to see these things. And if the people get tired of it, or something, that's where it stops, I guess." The Pirates franchise is slowly becoming the most lucrative in movie history, but Depp says that he'll stop when "the process becomes impure."
"It's not just all about the k-ching k-ching. . . .We do it for the people. So as long as the people I want it, I'm there."
Coincidentally, much the same thinking animated 3D Sex and Zen, according to producer Stephen Shiu Jr., He said he got the idea while watching Journey To The Centre of the Earth, another 3D adventure, and wondering if he could make such a film in Hong Kong and, if so, what kind.
"It is like a fantasy for our age," he said. "When you were young, and you saw those video boxes, did you ever fantasize, 'It would be so great in 3D?'"
3D Sex and Zen, which is being shopped around for distribution, was thus a different kind of dream, but Shiu acknowledges it has a short future. The audience is young — it includes many women and also Chinese visitors to Hong Kong who have turned the movie into a tourist destination — and they are accustomed to downloading movies and watching them on computers. Once the 3D technology is perfected in that arena, "it's better to see it at home, alone and unattended." He gives it two or three years.
In the meantime, though, he's pondering a sequel. But the 3D will have to improve, he said: young audiences are demanding, although they've never seen this kind of erotic movies before. "They didn't see Last Tango In Paris. They do not know what it is."
That's the cue for Bertolucci, 71-year-old director of Last Tango and recipient of a special award at this year's festival. Oddly — or maybe not to oddly — he spoke to the press on Cannes' opening day to say he also wants to make a 3D film.
"I've seen Avatar, and I loved Avatar, and I was fascinated by it, the 3D, and then I started to think why is 3D considered only good for horror or science fiction or this kind of movie?," Bertolucci told reporters. "I thought if 8 1/2 by Fellini was in 3D, wouldn't it be great?"
That's exactly the kind of thinking that inspired 3D Sex and Zen. The donkey's penis, though, is another story.
© Copyright (c) Postmedia News
3D Sex and Zen, which is being shopped around for distribution, was thus a different kind of dream, but Shiu acknowledges it has a short future. The audience is young — it includes many women and also Chinese visitors to Hong Kong who have turned the movie into a tourist destination — and they are accustomed to downloading movies and watching them on computers. Once the 3D technology is perfected in that arena, "it's better to see it at home, alone and unattended." He gives it two or three years.
In the meantime, though, he's pondering a sequel. But the 3D will have to improve, he said: young audiences are demanding, although they've never seen this kind of erotic movies before. "They didn't see Last Tango In Paris. They do not know what it is."
That's the cue for Bertolucci, 71-year-old director of Last Tango and recipient of a special award at this year's festival. Oddly — or maybe not to oddly — he spoke to the press on Cannes' opening day to say he also wants to make a 3D film.
"I've seen Avatar, and I loved Avatar, and I was fascinated by it, the 3D, and then I started to think why is 3D considered only good for horror or science fiction or this kind of movie?," Bertolucci told reporters. "I thought if 8 1/2 by Fellini was in 3D, wouldn't it be great?"
That's exactly the kind of thinking that inspired 3D Sex and Zen. The donkey's penis, though, is another story.
© Copyright (c) Postmedia News
(source:vancouversun.com/entertainment)
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