Marvel Studios’ Hall H panel at San Diego Comic-Con 2019 has unveiled a slew of upcoming projects that include not just films but also TV series for Disney+. Shang-Chi was one of them.

The film on the character is titled Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings. So not only we are getting a Shang-Chi film, we will also get to explore the shady terrorist organisation called the Ten Rings that has made its presence felt in some of the previous MCU movies.

Add to that, Tony Leung will don the role of the real Mandarin, the leader of the Ten Rings, instead of the impostor played by Ben Kingsley in Iron Man 3. Simu Liu will play the title role and Awkwafina will also star in a yet undisclosed role.

Also called the Master of Kung Fu, the China-born superhero Shang-Chi will be first Asian superhero in the Marvel Cinematic Universe. He was raised as a master of martial arts by his father but later turned on him after learning he was evil.

The character, while a superhero, does not have any superpowers (beyond controlling the life force called chi), but is the master of hand-to-hand combat. To give you an idea, he has taught the likes of Wolverine in the art.

Now that MCU is teeming with immensely powerful superheroes like Captain Marvel and Scarlet Witch, it is not clear how the character will fit in the universe.

Destin Daniel Cretton will direct Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings.

We expect Mandarin with his mystical rings to be the main Big Bad. While the character is traditionally an Iron Man villain, he is also eminently flexible. And with his Chinese background, the makers might choose to create a link between Shang-Chi’s origin story and the Mandarin.

Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings will release on February 12, 2021.

Dhaka, July 23 (UNB) - Once upon a time, not too far from Hollywood, two of the world’s biggest movie stars were talking about what it’s like to screw up on set, reports The Indian Express.

“Messing up the lines in front of the entire cast and crew?” Leonardo DiCaprio said. “It’s the going to school in your underwear nightmare.”

“It’s awful,” Brad Pitt chimed in. “When a scene’s not working. When YOU’RE not working in a scene…It goes beyond not being able to get the lines. You have 100 people there who are all ready to get on with their day and get home.”

DiCaprio hasn’t exactly had to resort to dunking his head in ice water after a too-late and too-fun night out, as his actor character does in Once Upon a Time In Hollywood.

But Pitt? “Oh I’ve done that,” he laughed.

The two actors, who skyrocketed to fame around the same time more than a quarter century ago, have joined forces for the first time in a major motion picture to take on their own industry, their own town and even their own egos in a time of great change — 1969 Hollywood. Out nationwide Friday, it’s also reunited them with Quentin Tarantino.

Once known only as Tarantino’s Manson Movie, the actual film is something very different. Manson is a character, as are his most notorious followers. And of course, Sharon Tate is depicted too and played by Margot Robbie. But as with most Tarantino movies, it’s not exactly what you think.

“The best of what 1969 had to offer you kind of experience through Sharon,” Robbie said.

Like going to the Playboy Mansion with Mama Cass and go-go dancing the night away. Or rolling up to a movie theater to check out your latest matinee and getting a free ticket because you’re on the poster.

“She kind of represented the arms open, doors open sort of policy,” she added. “After 1969 and after her death, things kind of changed in Hollywood and people closed their doors and shut the gates.”

The light and the dark of the imminent end of the ’60s is the backdrop to what is otherwise a classic star-driven two-hander. Once Upon a Time… is awash in nostalgia, showbiz lore (and cameos), wistfulness and Tarantino-wit that allows DiCaprio, as a past his prime television cowboy in a moment of crippling self-doubt, and Pitt, as his devoted stuntman, to do what they do best: Charm.

“I don’t think you can completely act that kind of dynamic,” Pitt said.

The change happening in Hollywood around 1969 led to many on-set discussions of what was going on at the time with the new batch of filmmakers upending the establishment and leaving room for the Coppolas and the Scorseses to break in.

“The ‘take and wait’,” Pitt said. “Like, we’ll get the take but we’re getting through this story.” Tarantino does that often.

It also made them all reflect on their own industry at the moment, where streaming is disrupting the old ways but once again ushering in new voices. As producers, Pitt, DiCaprio and Robbie all find it exciting.

“What’s incredible is this wealth of talent from writers to directors to actors that are getting opportunities now. It’s quite extraordinary,” Pitt said. “You see that we’re not so special.”

DiCaprio is even a little jealous to see some “out of the box ideas” and “really ballsy storytelling” that he tried and failed to get made just a decade ago now not only being financed, but made at a high quality too.

“There’s so many more opportunities,” Robbie added. “I’m very grateful to be playing roles in this day and age than perhaps when Sharon was.”

But it’s not lost on them that they all happen to be promoting a “a big budget art piece like this,” as DiCaprio called it, from one of the major studios whose future is going to depend on people actually going to see films like “Once Upon a Time…” in a movie theater.

“Hopefully it becomes like a concert experience,” DiCaprio said. “People want to get together on the Friday night and feel the energy of the crowd and the excitement of a movie coming out that they’ve been anticipating rather than the isolation of being home. Hopefully that’s not lost in the sauce, because that’s half the fun of it, right?”

“Once Upon a Time…” is Tarantino’s ninth film, and, according to him, his second to last.

Pitt and DiCaprio believe him too.

“I always imagined it as his little box set that he wants to just hang up on the wall and that’s it,” DiCaprio said. “That completes the Tarantino, you know, cinematic experience.”

“The Tarantino 10,” Pitt added.

As with many button-pushing Tarantino projects, Once Upon a Time… has been at the center of a few heated public discussions, including the morality of making a movie about Tate and Manson, and the casting of Emile Hirsch, who in 2015 pleaded guilty to assaulting a female studio executive at Sundance.

Then there was that tense moment at the Cannes Film Festival press conference where a reporter asked why Robbie’s character has so few lines and Tarantino curtly responded that he rejected the hypothesis.

Tarantino declined to be interviewed for this article. But his response touched a nerve culturally.

“He’s an incredibly unique filmmaker,” DiCaprio said. “And whatever choices he makes, he’s one of those rare filmmakers in this industry that has retained the right to say, ‘This is a piece of art that I’m going to give to the world. And this is what this character represents, and this is what this character represents. And it’s my piece of work.’… That’s why we consistently want to work with somebody like that.”

It’s clear his actors are in awe of him and what he brings to their art form. It’s the kind of admiration that can result in two true movie stars talking like fans.

“You know he’s got a four-hour cut of this?” Pitt said excitedly.

Dhaka, July 23 (UNB) - A stuntman was severely injured on the sets of Fast and Furious 9 after which the production on the film was halted, reports The Indian Express. 

The crew member has been admitted to a hospital. He received severe head injuries after a fall at the Warner Bros studios in Leavesden, Hertfordshire, where the film was being shot.

A spokesperson for Universal Studios confirmed the news to The Hollywood Reporter.

“We had an injury on the set of Fast 9 today in Leavesden with one of our stuntmen. We have halted production for the day to focus on this situation,” the representative said.

The authorities said the injured man was taken to a hospital through an air ambulance.

“An ambulance, three ambulance officer vehicles and Essex and Herts Air Ambulance were called to Leavesden Studios shortly before midday today (July 22), following reports of a man injured in a fall. One patient with a serious head injury was transported to the Royal London Hospital by air ambulance,” they said.

The shooting on the new film, which has a release date of May 2020, started last month.

Vin Diesel, Michelle Rodriguez, Jordana Brewster, Tyrese Gibson, Nathalie Emmanuel, and Chris “Ludacris” Bridges are returning to the action series, with new entrant John Cena.

Justin Lin, who was at the helm of franchise’s third, fourth, fifth and sixth installments, is directing the new film.

Dhaka, July 23 (UNB) - Marvel announced several projects during San Diego Comic-Con. Some with new characters in the MCU (The Eternals, Shang-Chi), but there were a few that brought back our favourite Avengers (Thor: Love and Thunder, Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness), yet there has been no talk of Avengers 5. The Avengers franchise has been the most successful in the Marvel Cinematic Universe and not surprisingly since they bring nearly all the major superheroes in one movie, reports The Indian Express. 

Avengers: Endgame, for instance, became the biggest film of all time globally, beating Avatar to gain the top spot.

Marvel Studios president Kevin Feige was asked about Avengers 5 by Terri Schwartz of IGN at San Diego Comic-Con. He replied, “We had a movie this year called Avengers Endgame, and it is very much an ending, as you saw, to so many of those characters.”

“So Phase 4 is about beginnings, and Phase 4 is about learning new things about characters you already think you know, like Black Widow; meeting incredible new characters like The Eternals and Shang-Chi; going on new adventures with Doctor Strange and Thor; and these Disney+ shows which I promise will be spectacular and what no one is expecting,” Feige added.

It makes perfect sense. Avengers movies were possible and we felt attached to them only because we intimately knew about characters like Tony Stark, Steve Rogers and Thor. With the newer superheroes, there is less of a connection since the characters like Black Panther, Doctor Strange and Spider-Man have appeared only in one or two movies.

Also, there would have to be a supervillain like Loki and Thanos who can bring several superheroes together. For now, we have none.

Loki and Thanos were teased in the movies that preceded their actual appearance as the Big Bad. Loki appeared in Thor movies and The Avengers and the Mad Titan made appearances in post-credit scenes.

It is also worth thinking that there might not be any more Avengers movies. Marvel might move on and introduce New Avengers instead or make the Eternals the elite superhero squad. One thing is for sure, that the era of Avengers, as we knew them, has ended.

Dhaka, Jul 22 (UNB) - HerNet TV, Asia’s first internet-based television channel solely focused on women’s wellbeing, was launched on Monday evening to help women share their stories with the world.

Road Transport and Bridges Minister Obaidul Quader MP opened the HerNet TV through a grand launching ceremony held at Gulshan Club in the city. 

With the slogan ‘Holding Hands Together’, the television channel will give them an opportunity to be heard on issues that may not necessarily command coverage in the mainstream media.

The goal of HerNet TV is to break away from the one-dimensional representation of women by creating such documentaries, factual entertainment, and educational, informative and reality programmes for female audiences.

Dhaka North City Corporation Mayor Atiqul Islam, State Minister for Women and Children Affairs Begum Fazilatunnesa Indira and RAB Director General Dr Benazir Ahmed spoke at the launching event as special guests.
 

Besides, US Ambassador to Bangladesh Earl R Miller, Brazil Ambassador to Bangladesh Joao Tabajara Jr, HerNet TV chairman Hosna Pradhan and HerNet TV managing director Alisha Pradhan, herself an actress and model, spoke on the occasion.

Addressing the event, Obaidul Quader said Bangladesh attained huge progress in women’s empowerment. “The change maker (in the area) is a woman who is our leader,” he said referring to Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina.

Quader, also the general secretary of ruling Awami League, said Sheikh Hasina steered Bangladesh to a new height. “In the last 44 years of history of Bangladesh, there was no efficient, bold and honest ruler like Sheikh Hasina, who is also a woman,” he added.

The Road Transport and Bridges Minister expected the newly launched HerNet TV will  maintain decency avoiding propaganda, obscenity and vulgarism.

He urged the media to criticize the government in constructive ways so that mistakes can be corrected.
Dhaka North City Corporation Mayor Atiqul Islam said they want to make Dhaka city as a women-friendly one. “We want to build a women-friendly Dhaka city.”

He said the city corporation will install complaint boxes in 58 places so that women can lodge their complaints over various issues particularly sexual harassment seeking remedy.