It looks like The Wachowskis and Tom Tykwer have been hitting the Asian film section of their local video store (or more likely, their Netflix queue).
The eagle eyes over at Filmonic picked up on a report from South Korean outlet Sports Chosun which reveals that actress Bae Doona has joined the upcoming “Cloud Atlas.” Boona is not completely unknown on this side of the ocean as genre and arthouse fans may recognize her from “Sympathy For Mr. Vengeance” or “The Host,” but this will clearly be her biggest role to date. The film was already touted as the most expensive German production of all time with a budget of $100 million and now, with additional funding coming into place, the total pricetag is now up to $150 million. That’s a big piece of wurst.
Unlike the principal cast who are expected to play multiple roles, Doona is said to be taking the part of Sonmi~450 who is described by Wikipedia as “a genetically-engineered fabricant (clone) server at Papa Song’s diner (a stand-in for McDonald’s), is interviewed before her execution after she rebels against the capitalist totalitarian society that created and exploited her kind. The next character watches Sonmi’s story projected holographically in an ‘orison’, a futuristic recording device.” Geez, that’s enough plot for one movie let alone just serving as one character in a much bigger, quilt of a story.
Adapted from the complex novel by David Mitchell, the story follows six plot threads across time — a 19th century notary on a Pacific expedition, a bisexual musician in the 1930s, a female journalist in a thriller in 1970s California, an aging publisher in London in the present, a clone in a futuristic dystopia, and a Pacific survivor in a post-apocalyptic world — all of which fold in on themselves. We’re tremendously excited to see how the filmmakers bring the material to the big screen, and they won’t be lacking talent as Tom Hanks, Hugo Weaving, Ben Whishaw, Halle Berry, Susan Sarandon and Jim Broadbent are all on board.
Production on “Cloud Atlas” begins this fall with a late 2012 release date being eyed.
