Two surprise works have just been announced for this year’s 74th Venice Film Festival. Both will premiere out-of-competition.
The first is Hong Kong filmmaker John Woo’s Manhunt, the highly anticipated return to the police thriller genre Woo helped pioneer with The Killer and Hardboiled.
A remake of the 1976 Japanese action film, Zhang Hanyu plays a prosecutor framed for robbery, rape and multiple murders who sets out to clear his name. Japanese singer Masaharu Fukuyama plays the detective chasing him.
The second is a 3D conversion of the John Landes-directed 14-minute music video for Michael Jackson’s Thriller – what still remains the only music video to be inducted into the National Film Registry by the Library of Congress.
Announced by the Estate of Michael Jackson, Landis teamed with Optimum Productions on an elaborate and labor intensive remaster and 3D conversion of the original 35mm film negative using the latest available technology. All of the audio has also been updated to 5.7, 7.1 and Atmos standards.
The Venice Film Festival runs August 30th-September 9th.
