In had a mediocre showing at Cannes 2007 and its release date kept getting pushed back (A September release was rumored and test screenings were shown in New York around July too). Then rumors swirled that notorious hatchetman, Harvey Weinstein (the film’s distributor) was taking his scissorhands to the film (or maybe not); either way, edits were being made.
In October of last year, it was announced that the film was coming out February 13 (and the soundtrack featuring Jones, Cat Power and Ry Cooder would come out Feb 5), but of course mid-February rolled around and there was no broken hearts roadtrip movie in time for Valentine’s day.
Now the film has been pushed once more. Indiewire reports it has been moved to an April 4 date (and Blue Note has confirmed that the soundtrack has been pushed to April 1 to coincide with the release) and it is indeed a new cut. In a statement, The Weinstein company said, “This is a new cut of the film, different than the version shown at Cannes,” trying to avoid the memorable stain of the poor reception the film met in France.
At this point, it’s received such lousy press, April’s probably not going to make a huge difference, but we are big Wong Kar-Wai fans so we’ll be holding out some hope. You can preview the original song Norah Jones wrote for the film, “The Story,” here.
Man, I cannot wait for the soundtrack for this movie – Cat Power, Norah Jones, Ry Cooder…
Well this has been released in the UK and I can honestly say that the soundtrack is so much better than the film – I’ve been watching film since 1958 and this is only the second one that I’ve fallen asleep to at a cinema – cinematography is OK but such a trite, cliched storyline.