CURSE OF GOLDEN FLOWER PREMIERE

Zhang Yimou's sumptuous and surprisingly-well-regarded CURSE OF THE JADE SCORPION GOLDEN FLOWER will close the AFI Fest on November 12 in Los Angeles. Presented by Audi, the festival is the posh film fest arm of the ginormous, marginally insane American Film Market. It'll also be screening RE-CYCLE, THE HOST, Kim Ki-Duk's TIME, Ken Watanabe's MEMORIES OF TOMORROW (which is not a world premiere no matter what their site says), ELECTION 1 and 2, LUXURY CAR, THE BANQUET and a bunch of others.

While it's certainly amazing that the film is completed and ready to go, again it is not a World Premiere as the AFI Fest is claiming, since the movie publicly played in China to qualify for next year's Oscars. This would be called an International Premiere, guys. But I guess that's not as sexy as a World Premiere, and frankly I think most people (myself included) would do the same thing. Thank goodness blogs like this are around to keep everyone on the straight and narrow!