Born in Chengdu, China, the lovely and often outrageous Bai Ling began
her acting career at age fourteen, as both a soldier and performer in the People’s
Liberation Army, entertaining the troops in Tibet. She made a number of films in China before
coming to the United States, and in 1994 made a splash opposite Brandon Lee in
THE CROW. Since then, Bai Ling has been
a busy actress, appearing in films of all genres that called for her exotic
brand of beauty, and in 1999 she made her first Western movie appearance, as Miss
East in 1999’s THE WILD WILD WEST. Fifteen
years later she’s returned to the genre, this time not just as stunning
eye-candy, in YELLOW HILL – THE STRANGER’S TALE.
Bai Ling in WILD WILD WEST
This time she’s a producer as well as the star. She’s collaborated with Ross Bigley, who
wrote, directed and edited the short film, which has been successfully making
the rounds of festivals in South Dakota and Wisconsin – it won for Best Short Narrative at the South Dakota Film Festival, and received
the Founders Choice Award at the Wildwood Film Festival.
Ross Bigley tells me the idea for YELLOW HILL came to him a decade
ago. “I have a love for the western genre, and years ago I came
across a book detailing the gold rush. I read about the brutality and
racism towards the Chinese immigrants coming to America for their
own dreams of striking it rich, and about the ways the Chinese settlers
came up with to hide their gold from those desperadoes. And it struck me
as a fantastic story never told on the screen before. I needed a hero for this, and I thought about
YOJIMBO and A FISTFUL OF DOLLARS, the anti- hero type. That seemed perfect
because if there were to be someone to help them, there should also be a level
of mistrust.”
Ross pitched the idea to
Bai Ling when he was directing her in the crime thriller PETTY CASH, and soon
the two of them and Glenn Popple formed a production company to make the
film. But before the feature, they
decided to do a stand-alone short, a section from the full story, that could be
used as a selling tool. It’s a small
film – half of the $10,000 budget was raised by crowd-funding through Indie-Go-Go. But they used their dollars wisely – it’s
peopled with professional actors, and shot in South Dakota, in the Badlands,
and in South Dakota’s Original 1880s Town.
The costumes, props and weapons look and feel right, although there’s a
noticeable shortage of horseflesh.
The short’s story
concerns Bai Ling’s Stranger character (the Leone influence is strongly felt throughout)
coming out of the desert, into a town, in search of her father – she hasn’t
seen him since he sold her to a brothel as a young girl. The flashbacks are unflinching and upsetting,
and when the townspeople are of less than no help, the action is fast and
bloody – in short, it’s brief, but a lot of fun, and Bai Ling’s character
happily doesn’t veer too close Eastwood’s emotionless Stranger. While she’s chillingly determined, she lets
her feelings flow unrestrained.
While the short film is
only available to be seen by the public in festivals, but it may be more widely
available soon. More to the point, hopefully
the attention the short is getting will lead to the funding of the feature. I’ll have word on their progress from Bai
Ling and Ross Bigley soon. In the
meantime, click YELLOW HILL
to go to the official Facebook
page, and below is a clip of Bai Ling discussing the movie.
‘NEW WEST’ CONCERT A HIT
– MORE GIVEAWAYS ON THE WAY!
I just heard from Danny
Ramblin’ Jack O’Connell, our winner of two tickets to last Thursday’s NEW WEST
concert in Santa Clarita, courtesy of those fine folks and Round-up sponsors,
OutWest. He brought along custom
knife-maker to the stars (he made the knife for Tarantino’s DJANGO UNCHAINED) Chuck
Stapel. Dan says, “I
thoroughly enjoyed New West. They were spot-on and the audience extremely
receptive. I discovered that their humor now rivals such mega Western acts ala
Riders in the Sky!”
And more good news, I hear from Bobbi Jean Bell, who with her
husband Jim are the purveyors of OutWest that they want to do another ticket
giveaway for the March 20 concert by The Stardust Cowboys! I’ll have details in next week’s Round-up!
YES, THIS IS A REAL AD!
I had to share this uh…really unusual ad for The Pennsylvania
Railroad, featuring the King of the Cowboys.
It’s from the folks at COLLECTORS WEEKLY, from their article, ’28 Cringe-Worthy
Vintage Product Endorsements’, which you can see HERE.
THAT’S A WRAP!
It’s a short Round-up tonight, because there’s been so much
going on. Yesterday I interviewed
screenwriter-turned-western-novel author C. Courtney Joyner about his first
Western novel, SHOTGUN, and tonight I’m off to cover the Red Carpet for the
opening night of the Los Angeles Italia Film Fest. I’ve also got three new westerns to watch and
review, so keep your eyes peeled – more is comin’ down the pike!
Happy Trails,
Henry
All Original Contents Copyright February 2014 by Henry C.
Parke – All Rights Reserved
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