CHRIS DOYLE'S NEW MOVIES

Chris Doyle - go figure, right? The guy will turn out some movies so visually stunning that they become milestones in movie making (CHUNGKING EXPRESS, FALLEN ANGELS, AWAY WITH WORDS, HERO) and then he'll do some stuff that just looks blah (PSYCHO) or movies that look like they're almost Chris Doyle movies, but not quite (THE QUIET AMERICAN, RABBIT PROOF FENCE).

Here's a fistful of news of what he's got coming down the pipeline:

First up there's PERHAPS LOVE (out in December), the Peter Chan musical that's getting good reviews (read Variety's review here, read a brief Peter Chan interview here) which he shot with Peter Pau (Doyle's films often have a second cinematographer: Andrew Lau shot part of CHUNGKING EXPRESS with him, and Lee Pin-bing shot part of IN THE MOOD FOR LOVE).

Then there's the last movie from the full Merchant-Ivory team, THE WHITE COUNTESS, a spy drama set in 1930's Shanghai and starring Ralph Fiennes, Hiroyuki Sanada and Natascha Richardson (isn't Wong Kar-wai's next movie, THE LADY FROM SHANGHAI, a spy drama set in 1930's Shanghai, too?). WHITE COUNTESS was written by Kazuo Ishiguro who wrote REMAINS OF THE DAY and THE UNCONSOLED, and Chris Doyle, of course, shot it.

There's a great interview with Hiroyuki Sanada here where he talks about getting drunk with Ralph Fiennes, the difficult dialogue, working on THE PROMISE, and his bad Mandarin. In case you don't know, Sanada is one of Japan's great actors, and you probably saw him in the Michelle Yeoh vehicle ROYAL WARRIORS back in the 80's or in THE TWILIGHT SAMURAI. (Note: Yeoh and Sanada are both in Danny Boyle's new sci fi flick, SUNSHINE)

(Thanks to Michi at Hoga Central for the Sanda interview)