New entries 'n' Updates (21 Apr 2012)

New entries for the scope filmography, from a variety of sources.

Despite my best efforts, I was unable to track down the original Urdu title of Pakistani film MALA (1965), apparently the first colour film from that country to employ anamorphic lenses (sadly unidentified in the various sources I referenced). The same sources don't mention whether scope lenses were used on earlier black and white pictures, so MALA might be the first scope film from Pakistan, full stop (or 'period', depending on which continent you happen to be reading this!).

I stumbled across a reference to the Thai/HK co-production RUEN PHAE in the Wikipedia entry for filmmaker Bhanubandhu Yugala, which avers that he "produced the first Thai film in CinemaScope, RUEN PHAE (Raft Home), a co-production with Shaw Brothers Studio". Unfortunately, the Wikipedia entry provides no production/release date, leading me to assume the film was produced sometime in the 1960's, around the same time that Shaw was making a huge virtue of the Shawscope format. In fact, the Wikipedia entry provides no further details at all, and every other online reference to this film simply repeats the same basic information. As such, I can't even confirm whether the film utilised bona fide CinemaScope lenses from 20th Century Fox, or whether the 'CinemaScope' mentioned in this article is a generic reference to another set of unspecified anamorphic lenses.

The 'trouble' with Thai cinema is that there are very few English-friendly websites dedicated to this country's cinematic output, and those which do cover it tend to favour newer productions whilst only occasionally dipping into movies from the past, leaving hundreds (perhaps even thousands) of titles in limbo for anyone - like myself - who is unfamiliar with the Thai language. Chinese is a similarly difficult language, but there are many, many English-friendly websites devoted to coverage of the entire history of Chinese cinema. Not so with Thai cinema, which is a shame. As such, all I can do is provide the small amount of material I've unearthed on such films and hope others can fill in the blanks.


ALL IN GOOD TIME
UK - 2012 - col
D: Nigel Cole

ANUK: DER WEG DES KRIEGERS
(aka: Anuk: The Path of the Warrior)
Switzerland - 2006 - col
D: Luke Gasser

ANUK: THE PATH OF THE WARRIOR
(see: Anuk: Der Weg des Kriegers)

GOOD AS YOU
Italy - 2012 - col
D: Mariano Lamberti

MALA*
Pakistan - 1965 - col
D: Mustafiz
Anamorphic

PACEMAKER
페이스메이커
S.Korea - 2011 - col
D: Kim Dal-joong

RUEN PHAE**
Thailand/Hong Kong - 196? - col
Anamorphic

RYNA*
Switzerland/Romania - 2004 - col
D: Ruxandra Zenide
Anamorphic

SHOUTING SECRETS
USA/Switzerland - 2011 - col
D: Korinna Sehringer


And a couple of corrections for existing entries:

The English title of ARME RIDDERE is JACKPOT.

ARME RIDDERE
(aka: Jackpot)
Norway - 2011 - col
D: Magnus Martens

JACKPOT
(see: Arme Riddere)

In the list of Indian films, the entry currently listed as Endhiran should be listed as ENTHIRAN (2010), and the original Tamil title is எந்திரன். Similarly the Hindi title for DABANGG (2010) is दबंग. As follows:

DABANGG [எந்திரன்] (2010)
ENTHIRAN [दबंग] / The Robot (2010)
THE ROBOT (see: Enthiran)