upcoming epic film about Kazakhstan w/ Jay Hernandez & Jason Scott Lee

[Seamus]

"The Nomad" -- which will probably premier at Cannes in May 2005. Here is a synopsis of it from the Hollywood Reporter. It looks interesting. I hope it's a high-quality film.

Jason Scott Lee and Jay Hernandez are set to topline the indie historical epic "The Nomad," which is being executive produced by Miles Foeman and Ram Bergman.
Ivan Passer (HBO's "Stalin") will direct the film from a script by Rustam Ibragimbekov. "Nomad" is set in 18th century Kazakhstan and tells the story of a boy who is destined to one day unite the three warring tribes of die country. Lee will star as a veteran soldier and master of martial arts who spends his life raising and teaching the destined leader Mansur to guide the Kazakhs to victory and independence.
Hernandez takes the role of a gifted warrior who is intent on proving himself as the best fighter and the one who will lead the Kazakhs. Kuno Becker will play Mansur, a high-making warrior-in-training, with Mark Dacascos rounding out the cast as Sharish, an imposing leader of a group of Jungar warriors who tries to kill Mansur.
The project, which is expected to carry a $22 million [rest of article chopped off]

From IMDB.com:

Director:
Ivan Passer

Writing credits
Rustam Ibragimbekov

"The Nomad"

Plot Outline: An historical epic set in 18th-century Kazakhstan, where a young man is destined to unite the country's three warring tribes.

Credited cast:
Jay Hernandez .... Erali
rest of cast listed alphabetically
Dilnaz Akhmadieva .... Hocha
Kuno Becker .... Mansur
Mark Dacascos .... Sharish
Archie Kao .... Shangrek
Jason Scott Lee .... Oraz
Ayana Yesmagambetova .... Gaukhar
Ron Yuan .... Abulkhair
Doskhan Zholzhaksynov .... Galdan Ceren
Erik Zholzhaksynov .... Barak
(more)

[Faithless]

Very interesting movie, when it finally hits theatres.

Wonder how much the movie will reflect the actual history of Kazakhstan's independence.

(I'm not sure of what that is. Was it around the 1700's and involve the area of Chechnya, as mentioned in this PBS article? --
http://www.pbs.org/newshour/bb/europe/chechnya/history.html)

The conflict over the region now known as Chechnya has raged intermittently since the mid-18th century. Reports of fighting between czarist Russian forces and Muslim tribes in the region date back as early as 1722. By mid-century, Russian troops had occupied much of the area.

At the same time, Sheikh Mansur, a Muslim cleric, unified the Chechen tribes and declared holy war on the czar and his army, delivering a shocking defeat to Russian forces in 1785. Mansur is still seen as a mystical figure and an inspiration to generations of Chechen separatists.

Wonder how accurate the casting is. You have a couple of Asians playing key figures, but the supposed leader, Sheikh Mansur, is played by Kuno Becker.

[Seamus]

Very interesting movie, when it finally hits theatres.

Wonder how much the movie will reflect the actual history of Kazakhstan's independence.

(I'm not sure of what that is. Was it around the 1700's and involve the area of Chechnya, as mentioned in this PBS article? --
http://www.pbs.org/newshour/bb/europe/chechnya/history.html)

The conflict over the region now known as Chechnya has raged intermittently since the mid-18th century. Reports of fighting between czarist Russian forces and Muslim tribes in the region date back as early as 1722. By mid-century, Russian troops had occupied much of the area.

At the same time, Sheikh Mansur, a Muslim cleric, unified the Chechen tribes and declared holy war on the czar and his army, delivering a shocking defeat to Russian forces in 1785. Mansur is still seen as a mystical figure and an inspiration to generations of Chechen separatists.

Wonder how accurate the casting is. You have a couple of Asians playing key figures, but the supposed leader, Sheikh Mansur, is played by Kuno Becker.


No, Chechnya is in western Asia, in the North Caucasus. Kazakhstan is to the east, between the Caspian Sea and China. The story is that the Kazakh people arose from three different bands that united at some point in history. I'm not familiar with Kuno Becker. The average Kazakh looks more similar to an average East Asian than to an average European, but perhaps a Latino isn't that much of a stretch for a more European-looking Kazakh. I was also relieved to see that, in addition to Chinese and Latinos, they also have some real Kazakhs in key roles.

[Faithless]

No, Chechnya is in western Asia, in the North Caucasus. Kazakhstan is to the east, between the Caspian Sea and China. The story is that the Kazakh people arose from three different bands that united at some point in history. I'm not familiar with Kuno Becker. The average Kazakh looks more similar to an average East Asian than to an average European, but perhaps a Latino isn't that much of a stretch for a more European-looking Kazakh. I was also relieved to see that, in addition to Chinese and Latinos, they also have some real Kazakhs in key roles.
I'm glad to see that the movie with feature Kazakh people as well. I'm the production company, kazakhfilm, is the national film company -- at least that's how I've been reading it. What would it say about their own people if they didn't cast any other their own? :rolleyes:

I'm looking at a map of Kazakhstan, and I swear that it spreads from the Caspian Sea to a border with China, and from the other "...stans" to Russia.

Kuno Becker appears to be white. He doesn't look Mongol or Turkic. I figure the casting of Asians is to reflect a Mongol look.

Check out the interview with Jason Scott Lee on the movie and his role (http://goldsea.com/Personalities/LeeJS/leejs.html)
...
Lee has emerged periodically to do movies. Most recently, he spent the late summer and fall of 2003 in Kazakhstan filming a historical epic with the working title Nomad. When we caught up with him, Lee had spent several weeks recuperating on his farm. During our conversation his mood ranges from gentle and contemplative to indignant. Through it all, he seems to draw strength and serenity from the holistic philosophy around which he has built his second incarnation.

GS: How did you become involved in The Nomad?
JSL: The script was presented to me a while back, I think maybe a couple of years back and I had read it and really liked it and expressed my interest in it. Much later they eventually contacted me.

GS: Who sent you the script?
JSL: I'm not sure. From what I understand, the director had seen Map of the Human Heart and I guess he felt that I could play this one character that had an age change.

GS: How big is the age change?
JSL: Twenty years.

GS: What age do you start at?
JSL: In my late thirties, and then aging into the fifties.

GS: I understand you're playing the advisor to the future king of Kazakhstan.
JSL: I'm sort of his mentor and teacher.

GS: Is it a physical role?
JSL: There are some fighting sequences.

GS: Your work has largely been in adventure and action. Is this along the same lines?
JSL: It's a more dramatic role with bits of fighting sequences set against an epic backdrop.

GS: Who is the king of Kazakhstan that you're mentoring?
JSL: He has two names. One is... [long pause] Forgive me! When I leave work I'm completely removed from it so the names and things... [laughs]

GS: That's okay. You've said that you only do one movie a year because it's so grueling.
JSL: Yeah, it takes about a month, maybe even a month and a half to come down off a trip like that.

GS: And you're not even done with it.
JSL: I'm not finished and that was four months of intensive involvement in a foreign country.

GS: Is it based on a true story?
JSL: The Kazakh people I guess are wanting their story to be brought to the world. Their country is kind of an obscure place. They just want to be accounted for.

GS: Are they really a branch of the Mongol race?
JSL: Yeah. You know when people say Asia very few times that area central asia gets accounted for. People mostly take into consideration Japan or Corea or China and places in the far east, India or so. This area surprised me quite a bit. I found the people looking very very Asian with some influence from Turkish tribes.

GS: Are they closer to the Genghis Khan stock?
JSL: Oh yeah.

GS: If you're walking around there, they can't tell you're not a Kazakh?
JSL: No, sometimes people start speaking to me in Kazakh.

GS: Are you playing a Kazakh? They weren't casting you because the mentor was maybe Chinese, Japanese or Corean?
JSL: No, that's what I mean. The impression that people get when they say Kazakhstan or Central Asia. These are all warring tribes with their heritage in the Mongol era. You look at what Genghis Khan did during his lifespan and what his sons did, what kind of territory they occupied. It was massive, it's bigger than China. In fact, they owned part of China.

GS: Does this take place during the Genghis Khan era?
JSL: This is much later. It takes place in the 1600s.

GS: Are you doing a lot of horseback riding and swordsmanship?
JSL: Yeah.

GS: What were the conditions like in Kazakhstan?
JSL: The culture and the food is very different. There are some western establishments but I always found myself eating more of the Uygur food or the Kazakh food. A lot of other tribes like the Uzbek people and their food is fantastic. I was leaning more on that kind of food. The city that we were staying in is fairly cosmopolitan.

GS: What city is that?
JSL: It's called Almaty.

GS: Is that the capitol?
JSL: It used to be but they moved the capitol up north to a place called Astana, so we stayed in Almaty.

GS: Would we consider it modern?
JSL: They have automobiles, they have electricity, they have air conditioning. They have quite a few modern conveniences.

GS: So it wasn't like when you were filming Rapa Nui?
JSL: No, Rapa Nui is much more primitive.

GS: There wasn't much hardship?
JSL: Not in that sense, but in the sense of climate changes and locations. Logistically it was pretty heavy duty for the crew. It was hard, the pace.

GS: Why is it taking so long to film a movie that normally takes about six to eight weeks?
JSL: There's a lot of things they overlooked because no one had ever tried to do an epic in the western sense with Hollywood people and such in Kazakhstan. When you're trying to organize 400 extras or so, and 400 horses, who have no idea what making a movie is all about, you tend to have a communication breakdown. Things that you thought you could shoot in a day would take a week.

GS: Is this a Hollywood project in the sense of being directed and produced by a Hollywood studio?
JSL: Yeah, the Kazakh people -- producers as well and investors -- are all looking to it as maybe their Lord of the Rings for like what it did for New Zealand.

GS: It might be a six or eight hour movie?
JSL: No, I think the only reason it's taking so long is... I mean, I don't really care how long it takes because Ivan Passer is given the latitude to make the shots right. Because everything is on location, he's waiting for the right setup, the right lighting and all these things.

GS: So you're having to hurry up and wait a lot.
JSL: Oh yeah. I don't mind if he's getting the shots. In a sense we're making a movie the way maybe Kubrick made it or maybe John Ford or David Lean.

GS: In the sense of the authenticity of location?
JSL: Yeah, yeah. I dreamed of working for a person who has this kind of attitude. Also the producers weren't as pushy as they are in Hollywood. They have a tendency to let him shoot and let him shoot. I'm grateful for having had this kind of experience because I've always wanted to work with those kinds of directors who took their time.

GS: So it's a high quality project?
JSL: Yeah.

GS: Do you think it will have mass appeal for American audiences?
JSL: I'm not sure. There is a quality to it that I haven't seen in epic movies for a while.

GS: Is it like The Last Emperor in terms of epic scope and grandeur?
JSL: The thing about this film is that there's a funny kind of gentleness about it. That's the rare thing that I don't find in ...

GS: So the pacing is not as tight as most Hollywood films.
JSL: No.

GS: You've done a lot of location work in the last two or three years.
JSL: My work throughout my career has been location.

GS: That's true.
JSL: Soldier I did in Los Angeles and maybe bits and pieces of Dragon.

GS: Who plays the main character?
JSL: His name is Kuno Becker. He's originally from Mexico and he lives in Los Angeles. They chose him because he's one of the up and coming young actors, on the hot list, I guess.

GS: So they really are shooting for mass appeal.
JSL: They told me how many countries are involved, something ridiculous like 28 countries.

GS: What's the budget?
JSL: We started at twenty million. The reason we broke down, weather was one reason and financing was another. I think they had to go back and look to the investors and refinance the movie because we spent the twenty million.
...

[Seamus]

It's always a little weird whenever governments dip their fingers in projects like these. It seems like the Kazakhstan government really tries to showcase their country, and it has the money to do so (perhaps because of all the oil revenues they now have). On the other hand, perhaps the government is merely overcoming a production externality, since the free market is unlikely to result in a lot of internationally recognized films about KZ being produced.

The film seems to be consistent with the government's other attempts to play up the Kazakh and pre-Soviet identities and to deemphasize Russian cultural influence, even though KZ strikes me as being in many ways a mini-Russia with a Central Asian face.

[moJo]

Just FYI, as this doesn't pertain to the film at hand, there will be a showing of another Kazakh film at the SF Asian Am Film Festival.

Schizo (http://www.naatanet.org/festival/2005/html/programs/schizo.html), Monday 3/14 @ 7:15pm, AMC Kabuki Theatre

[Seamus]

Cool. Thanks for the heads-up.