When September rolled around this year, the city welcomed back the Toronto International Film Festival and the city brought with it a grand celebration for the festival’s 40th anniversary. Fans and members of the film industry from around the world came to join in on this momentous occasion, whether to participate in the activities, attend the screenings or to catch a glimpse of their favourite stars during the premiere events. When it comes to TIFF, there is a slice of cinematic entertainment for everyone.
There were quite a few film adaptations featured at the festival that had their stories originally told through books.
One example was the 2011 novel “The Martian” by Andy Weir, which had its adaptation directed by Ridley Scott with Matt Damon starring as Mark Watney, an astronaut that struggles to stay alive after being left stranded on Mars.
Another was Scott Cooper’s “Black Mass” (an adaptation of the 2001 book by Dick Lehr and Gerard O’Neill) which starred Johnny Depp as Whitey Bulger, a gangster in the 1970s who was an FBI informant while climbing up the criminal hierarchy in Boston.
What about a retelling of a true story? Tom McCarthy directed “Spotlight” which exposed the shocking child abuse scandal in Massachusetts that a team of Boston Globe reporters (portrayed by Mark Ruffalo, Rachel McAdams, Michael Keaton and Brian d’Arcy James) uncovered back in 2001.
Another was Tom Hooper’s “The Danish Girl” (based off the 2000 novel by David Ebershoff). This biopic film explored gender identity with Eddie Redmayne as Lili Elbe, one of the first recipients of sexual reassignment surgery back in the 1920s.
In the new Primetime segment, TIFF premiered the first two episodes of Tim Kring’s “Heroes Reborn”, a mini-series that continued from its television predecessor “Heroes” (2006-2010) where normal people discovered that they have special abilities. Day 6 of the festival welcomed actress Kiki Sukezane (Miko Otomo) and her fellow co-stars to the red carpet premiere.
Then there are the international films.
Directed by Hsiao-hsien Hou from Taiwan, “The Assassin” was a martial-arts masterpiece that starred Shu Qi who portrayed the beautiful assassin that was ordered to kill her former betrothed, a powerful lord (Chang Chen).
Takashi Miike from Japan directed “Yakuza Apocalypse” which was a film that featured a mix of martial arts with vampires, gangsters, monsters, natural disasters and many more as the city turned to chaos when vampires roamed free. Takashi Miike also participated in an introduction and Q&A for his screenings.
From Hong Kong, Johnnie To directed the musical “Office”, which was based off Sylvia Chang’s 2008 play Design for Living, and it starred Chow Yun-fat and Sylvia Chang, who dealt with their billion dollar company’s struggle through a financial crisis.
IMDb Film Credits:
Publication Note:
This was published in Volume 12, Issue 2 of AsianWave Magazine.
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