The Girl Who Played with Fire

[GeneChing]

The sequel to The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo to be followed by The Girl Who Kicked the Hornet's Nest.

Our mag appears prominently. It's our 2008 Sep/Oct issue.

What's more is it appears right after a hot lesbian kickboxer scene. We couldn't ask for more. So I love this movie.

That being said, I have Hornet's Nest too, but I'm going to wait a while until watching it as Fire was equally intense as Dragon Tattoo. Fire clocks in at over 2 hours, and it's another gritty, gripping ride. There are homages to Ong Bak (exactly copying the lighting and composition of the scene), Kill Bill and Luke & Leia. I'm also really getting into Bloomquist as he's in the mag biz and I can totally relate to what he experiences. My real work is exactly like that - hot lesbian kickboxers with tattoos, Aryan villains who don't feel pain, lots of tasering, just not as many guns. Our mag appears fairly early in the film, but I was again riveted to the rest of the movie. Naomi delivers again, albeit a bit more caricature than the first film, but when she gets all made up, how can you resist that? I find myself genuinely fearing for Lisbeth, as I know already that this story line won't shy from going to some very dark places with her.

I have no desire to read the books. The films are intense enough and I think reading about it in detail would only give me nightmares.

[GeneChing]

First, from a Huffington Post blog

Marshall Fine
Author and film critic, hollywoodandfine.com
Movie review: The Girl Who Played with Fire

While some have complained that Stieg Larsson's follow-up to The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo lacked the depth and mystery of its predecessor, The Girl Who Played with Fire simply offers different pleasures as a second episode - or the middle book in a trilogy.

That's true of the Swedish film version of this book, the second in the series to reach the U.S. this year, which goes into limited release Friday (7/9/10). The third installment, The Girl Who Kicked the Hornet's Nest, comes out at year's end.

Daniel Alfredson has made a very different film from Neils Oplev, whose Dragon Tattoo had the tension and energy of The Silence of the Lambs. But that's because Girl Who Played with Fire is a very different story, a cat-and-mouse game of tricks and traps within schemes within plots and conspiracies.

Larsson holds it all together in the three-volume Millennium series, giving each book its own plot without losing sight of the larger, overarching story that set all of this in motion. The challenge with the three different films is keeping them bound together by a style that reflects the ongoing and ever-fascinating characters.

The most fascinating of these, of course, is Lisbeth Salander, perhaps the most evocative fictional female character since Lara Croft - and she started as a near-live-action videogame character. Salander has more depth, more kinks and more sheer zest for living than any nihilist in recent fiction.

As played by Noomi Rapace, she is at once distinctively tough and contained and easily disguised. She moves casually through society with only minimal changes - a blonde wig, a lot less eyeliner - to keep her hidden from a nation that is hunting her down.

Yes, in this second novel, Salander, the ultimate undercover agent and researcher, has her cover blown when her fingerprints are found on a gun used in a triple murder. Suddenly her face is all over the newspapers as the subject of a manhunt, even as her few - but highly placed - friends begin the legwork to prove that Salander is innocent.

Alfredson paces this film like a brisk episode of some no-nonsense British mystery series, like Prime Suspect. And the script by Jonas Frykberg tightens the plot without sacrificing any of its brutal color.

Larsson's novels (and his career, really) take as their subtext the notion that all government has secrets, things that wouldn't pass the smell test if the public knew about them.

[GeneChing]

Here's the rest from Fine's site. Interesting blog strategy, I must say...

Larsson’s novels (and his career, really) take as their subtext the notion that all government has secrets, things that wouldn’t pass the smell test if the public knew about them. In the case of these stories – and this one in particular, - the area of concern is the Cold War-era defection by a high-placed KGB thug, who becomes an asset to Swedish intelligence. The bargain for information, in this case, included turning a blind eye to the violent home life and extracurricular criminal activities of the defector, known as Zala.

Frykberg’s screenplay hints at revelations to come in the third part of the story, but unearthing government corruption is meat-and-potatoes for the book and film’s journalist hero, Mikael Blomkvist. Having won back his reputation thanks to the skillful online shenanigans of Salander, it’s now up to Blomkvist to use his own investigative skills to find the truth about Salander and, as it turns out, her past.

The vehicle is a lengthy investigative report on sex trafficking in Sweden, researched by one of Blomkvist’s freelancers. It eventually provides the thread that Salander and Blomkvist both need to track down Zala, to whom Salander also has a connection.

New characters are introduced, including the fearsome Ronald Niedermann (Micke Spreitz) and a variety of police detectives. Alfredson makes the film complete in and of itself, without losing track of the bigger picture – the unfolding Salander saga – that this trilogy ultimately is about.

Larsson’s point is that politics corrupts everything and that a free press is needed to keep an eye on its government. If only there were more Mikael Blomkvists, in a wolrd where Larsson, himself an investigative reporter who took on far-right wing crazies in Sweden, lived under constant threat before his heart-attack death.

It is all connected is Larsson’s world and “Girl Who Played with Fire” is a worthy and entertaining entry in the trilogy. Rapace and Nyqvist seem born to these roles; the idea of a Hollywood version seems ridiculously redundant.

[GeneChing]

The Girl Who Played with Fire - Trailer HD with English Subtitle [ Flickan som lekte med elden ]

[doug maverick]

gonna watch this in the theaters just like i watched the first one...great books great series i cant wait for finchers remake.

[GeneChing]

While I respect Fincher's work, I don't believe anyone can replace Noomi as Salander. I'm not alone in that opinion.

Noomi Rapace clearly makes Salander film role hers alone
By: Randall King
8/07/2010 1:00 AM

The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo, the first film to be adapted from the late novelist Stieg Larsson's so-called Millennium trilogy of thrillers, broke box office records before it even ventured into the North American movie marketplace in March of this year. Its subsequent US$8-million gross in North America actually helped it top the $100-million mark, making it the most successful film in Scandinavian film history.

So how do you follow an impressive act like that?

You hedge your bets.

On the phone from Stockholm, Sweden, filmmaker Daniel Alfredson acknowledges Larsson's two followup novels, The Girl Who Played with Fire and The Girl Who Kicked the Hornet's Nest, are essentially one epic story told over the course of two lengthy novels. So Alfredson signed on to translate the books to two different media simultaneously. He made a movie of each book. And he made a longer TV series based on both books.

"We actually had two scripts, the TV series script and the film script," he says. "So we did it at the same time and we did No. 2 and No. 3 back to back.

"We had 100 days of shooting in a row," he says. "And it was quite tough."

In the first film, star Noomi Rapace had her work cut out for her as punk computer hacker Lisbeth Salander in scenes depicting her sexual brutalization at the hands of her legal guardian.

In the latter two films, Salander is on a mission to avenge herself on the men who harmed her and institutionalized her as a young girl, as well as helping solve the murders of a pair of researchers digging into Sweden's prostitution underground.

Filming was again challenging for the actress, but for different reasons.

"In a way, I think it was tougher for her in Nos. 2 and 3 because she had so little scenes with dialogue," Alfredson says. "She's practically alone all the time. She's in her flat, she's looking at a screen on her computer, and she's in a car driving. She has so little opportunity to play her character with dialogue. She has to be just doing what she's supposed to do and not really speaking, so that was hard."

But after the trial by fire of playing Lisbeth in the first film, Rapace had firm ideas about how Salander was to be played.

"She was protecting her character immensely," Alfredson says. "She actually talked about herself as Lisbeth in a way: 'Lisbeth wouldn't do that'; 'Lisbeth would prefer to do it this way.'

"It was almost like talking to Lisbeth Salander some days."

Indeed, Rapace is so indelible in the role, she may be the fly in the ointment of the planned American remake by David Fincher according to Alfredson.

"I wish them luck, but I don't think they'll find a Lisbeth Salander like Noomi Rapace," he says. "That's going to be very hard."

On the subject of American remakes of European films, Alfredson is less charitable than Dragon Tattoo director Niels Arden Oplev. Bear in mind that Alfredson is the brother of filmmaker Tomas Alfredson, whose sublime horror film Let the Right One In has already been remade in the U.S. as Let Me In.

"That's how it is. They have the money," Alfredson says.

The Girl Who Played With Fire opens at Grant Park on Friday.

[GeneChing]

Review: Larsson's Millennium part 2 holds up
Amy Biancolli, Hearst Movie Writer
July 9, 2010 04:00 AM
Friday, July 9, 2010

The Girl Who Played With Fire

POLITE APPLAUSE Suspense. Directed by Daniel Alfredson. Starring Michael Nyqvist and Noomi Rapace. In Swedish with English subtitles. (R. 129 minutes. At Bay Area theaters.)

Daniel Alfredson's "The Girl Who Played With Fire" isn't as pointed or mesmerizing as Niels Arden Oplev's "The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo," but for a middle part, normally a placeholder that sets up characters and themes for the climactic final third, this installment of Stieg Larsson's mondo-popular Millennium trilogy holds its own.

The constants in all three films ("The Girl Who Kicked the Hornet's Nest" already is released in Sweden and elsewhere) are the leads: Michael Nyqvist as crusading journalist Mikael Blomkvist and Noomi Rapace as Lisbeth Salander, the tiny, freaky, violently damaged hacker with pressing gender issues.

"The Girl Who Played With Fire" opens as Lisbeth returns to Stockholm after a year on the lam. With trademark fierceness she drops in on Bjurman (Peter Andersson), the legal guardian who abused her. She threatens him with his own gun. Soon afterward, a young journalist and his girlfriend (Hans Christian Thulin and Jennie Silfverhjelm) show up dead, their heads plugged with bullets from that very firearm. Then Bjurman gets whacked. Guess who's a suspect for triple murder?

At its simplest, "Fire" tells of Mikael's efforts to exonerate Lisbeth. At its most baroque, it explores a vast web of sex trafficking and deep-rooted conspiracy that goes back decades and touches on Lisbeth's inflammatory background. Alfredson directs with a perceptive eye and a roving camera, using oblique angles for a script that unfolds with programmatic efficiency. The stars help. Nyqvist's face is soft and bemused; Rapace's angular and ironclad from pain.

Too bad they spend most of the film apart. And too bad the villains populating this latest movie are even more cartoonishly evil than the villains populating the last one.

Despite its imperfections, "The Girl Who Played with Fire" is still a mean Scandinavian noir with a gynocentric message, and it still makes for a good two hours of moody entertainment.

-- Advisory: Brutal violence including a rape, some strong sexual content, nudity and language.

Daniel Alfredson discusses 'Millennium' films
Walter Addiego, Chronicle Staff Writer
San Francisco Chronicle July 9, 2010 04:00 AM
Friday, July 9, 2010

Daniel Alfredson credits the character of Lisbeth Salander for much of the films' success.

The "Millennium" novels by Sweden's Stieg Larsson have been a phenomenon in Europe, along with the movies based on the trilogy.

The first film, "The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo," which played here in March, introduced audiences to the series' drawing card, an intense and intriguing action heroine called Lisbeth Salander, played by Noomi Rapace.

Lisbeth is a leather-clad, motorcycle-riding, punkish sort with nose piercings and a bad attitude. She can handle herself in a fight, and she's a genius-level computer hacker.

In the series' second film, "The Girl Who Played With Fire" (opening today ), Lisbeth teams again with crusading reporter Mikael Blomqvist (Michael Nyqvist). The plot involves an investigation into sex trafficking and finds Lisbeth suspected of murder.

The Swedish title of the first novel translates as "Men Who Hate Women" (it was changed for the English edition), which is a pretty accurate description of the trilogy's villains.

An American remake of the films is in the works, with David Fincher directing the first. Numerous top actresses are interested in the title role.

"The Girl Who Played With Fire" was directed, (along with the third film) by Daniel Alfredson, who spoke to The Chronicle by phone from his home in Stockholm.

Q: Why do you think the "Millennium" novels and films have been so popular?

A: I think it has to do with the character of Lisbeth Salander. She's a very special character, and we love to see her make her way. She's a ****y, sort of a surreal character. She's so strong and so bright, but still has all these problems.

Q: The performance of Noomi Rapace is intense. You didn't select her for the role, but how was she chosen?

A: I was working on the first film (as second unit director) when Niels (director Niels Arden Opley) was doing the casting. ... I knew Michael (Nyqvist) from the past, and Noomi. I thought she was a good choice, but I really didn't know how good, because she hadn't had such a big part in any production before this one. She made quite an effort to create this part, she built herself up (physically), she got a license to drive a motorcycle, she was extremely on this project. She worked 24 hours a day.

Q: I was surprised to read that a character from children's books, Pippi Longstocking, was one of the inspirations for Lisbeth.

A: If you're a Swede and you read the novels, you can see that Stieg Larsson had an idea of Pippi Longstocking in the 21st century. You can see very small things in the novel, but I don't believe that's possible to read in a translation. But as a Swede you can see that he thought of a very strong character that was a bit superhuman, very strong, and good to the good guys and bad to the bad guys. And that's Pippi Longstocking.

Q: There are some quite violent scenes in the movies. Has there been any criticism of this, since the movies strongly condemn violence against women?

A: No, not really. I've never heard that question, and that's interesting, because I've done so many interviews. Of course, it is violent in a way. But the boxing situation in the end of ("The Girl Who Played With Fire") is not really for real, it's comic strip, in a way. I was afraid with this second film, well, we have this lesbian scene, and that could be problem in some countries. But the violence, well, no, no one ever said anything.

I love the Pippi reference. I never would have seen that had he not said it.

[GeneChing]

I love this story. Almost as good as the new Harry Potter exhibit opening up in FL.

Stockholm Tour for 'Girl With Dragon Tattoo' Fans
Follow the 'Girl with the Dragon Tattoo' on Stieg Larsson tour of Stockholm
By MALIN RISING Associated Press Writer
STOCKHOLM July 12, 2010 (AP)

Fans of the late crime novelist Stieg Larsson are getting lost in the Swedish countryside, searching for the quaint town of Hedestad featured in "The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo."

The problem is, it doesn't exist.

But international readers of Larsson's best-selling Millennium crime trilogy could be excused for thinking otherwise, because most locations in the books are authentic.

Some of them include the Kaffebar cafe in Stockholm — a favorite haunt of Larsson's fictional journalist Mikael Blomqvist — and the Kvarnen bar, where Larsson has tattooed computer hacker Lisbeth Salander spending evenings with her friends from the rock band Evil Fingers.

Both places are located on the trendy island of Sodermalm, a former working-class area with narrow streets where old wooden cottages are squeezed between 20th century stone houses.

The hilly Stockholm district — with popular bars, fashion stores and art galleries — is one of many islands that form the city center and the home of Larsson's characters.

Blomqvist and Salander, the trilogy's main characters, both have apartments there. Salander's friendly first legal guardian Holger Palmgren also lived there before he was hospitalized.

Eager Millennium fans can take the Stockholm City Museum's Larsson tour, an increasingly popular pastime for aficionados who visit the Swedish capital. Or they can venture out on their own, visiting the scenes of Blomqvist's and Salander's exploits with maps provided by the tourist office.

Starting with Blomqvist's small apartment in the brown 19th century building at 1 Bellmansgatan, Millennium fans can relive the books' plots in the real settings, while listening to the guide's detailed descriptions.

"It is great to identify the addresses and see what the buildings look like," said Roland Ojeda, a retired banker from San Francisco, who took the tour in June with his wife, Linda. "I think it brings it to life."

Larsson's books about a darker side of Sweden, where Blomqvist and Salander become involved in murder mysteries, sex trafficking scandals and a secret government department, have sold more than 30 million copies worldwide.

The tour has attracted visitors from as faraway as Japan, Canada and Australia, said Eva Palmqvist, who leads the museum's tour.

"I think a lot of people want to savor the experience, the story and the characters," Palmqvist said. "I think they want to see this and feel the atmosphere."

During the two-hour walk, Palmqvist guides the group past the scenic Monteliusvagen, a promenade overlooking other islands that are home to some of the more dubious characters in the book. The guide makes the point that Larsson's good characters live in one area, while the evil ones live elsewhere.

"When Stieg Larsson started to write the story in 2001, he decided that Sodermalm, where he also lived, was to become the land of the good people," Palmqvist says, smiling.

"Those that are not presented so nicely, they live in other parts of Stockholm, like Ostermalm, for example," she adds, pointing to the east.

Palmqvist also points out the courthouse where Blomqvist is put on trial in the first book and the home of Salander's second guardian, the evil Nils Bjurman, located in the northern part of Stockholm by Odenplan.

The group continues past a small Lebanese eatery on 22 Tavastgatan, which is believed to be the inspiration for Samir's, the restaurant where Blomqvist dines several times.

From there, it's just a short walk to Kaffebar on the wide, bustling street of Hornsgatan.

The cafe, renamed Mellqvists Kaffebar in 2008, is frequently visited by coffee-quaffing Blomqvist and was also one of Larsson's favorite spots, before he died of a heart attack in 2004 at age 50.

"This is where Lisbeth Salander will ask Mikael for a loan so that she can go to Zurich," Palmqvist chuckled.

The picturesque, hilly streets of Sodermalm have also inspired other writers.

Leading Swedish 20th century authors, such as Ivar Lo Johansson and Per Anders Fogelstrom, both lived here and described the neighborhood's working-class history in classics, including Fogelstrom's "City of My Dreams."

Playwright August Strindberg's famous novel, "The Red Room," also describes Stockholm as seen from a spot in Sodermalm near Salander's 21-room luxury apartment on Fiskargatan 9, where the tour ends.

The tour doesn't quite stretch to Salander's other, gloomy, apartment on Lundagatan at the western end of Sodermalm, or to the Kvarnen bar on Tjarhovsgatan, which Salander regularly visits and where she once kisses another character, Miriam Wu, in front of Blomqvist.

But the places are marked on the map and are worth a visit.

Kvarnen, with its tall ceilings and arched windows, has been in the same spot for more than 100 years. A popular working-class bar and home drinking hole for fans of Hammarby football club, it serves traditional Swedish fare like pickled herring, deer stew and meatballs.

Dedicated Larsson fans may also want to visit Sandhamn in the outer Stockholm archipelago, where Blomqvist has a small cottage that acts as a refuge from his hectic city life.

Boats to the popular resort island, with its red fishing huts, bare cliffs and small sand beaches, depart daily from Strandvagen in downtown Stockholm and take roughly two hours.

Then there is always Hedestad — often vividly imagined by Larsson's readers but nowhere to be found along the coast north of Stockholm, as described in the books.

Still, there is one way to get to know Hedestad — the sleepy town of Gnesta, 45 miles (70 kilometers) south of Stockholm.

This is the place used to illustrate Hedestad in the Swedish movie of Larsson's books, with signs about the town showing filming locations.

"Last year, some Italian guys came here just because of the books," says Jonathan Olsson at Gnesta's tourist office. "We have printed a brochure about the sites."

———

If You Go...

MILLENNIUM TOUR: http://www.stadsmuseum.stockholm.se. Two-hour tour of sites associated with the Stieg Larsson Millennium crime trilogy, including "The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo." Offered Wednesdays at 6 p.m. or Saturdays at 11 a.m., departing from 1 Bellmansgatan. Tickets are $16 or 120 Swedish kronor and can be purchased at Stockholm City Museum, the Stockholm Tourist Centre, or online at http://www.ticnet.se.

WALKING ON YOUR OWN: Buy the Millennium map for $5 or 40 Swedish kronor at the Stockholm City Museum, or the Stockholm Tourist Centre.

[doug maverick]

second part was really good, not as good as the first but thats ok cause it just serves as a bridge to the third film...but got to see some pretty decent fight scenes in this one... and best of all got to see kung fu magazine, which got a really nice show...the other kung mag was in there two but it was cut off by our(i use the word our cause read it, hopefully gigi and gene dont send the nacho ninjettes after me...or hopefully they do )magazine...hehehe, take that IKF. but yeah i cant wait for the third one..which is coming out next month, so ill be patient...didnt know all three movies were shot and released in the same year in sweden...hollywood would never ever, ruin a tentpole like that.

[lkfmdc]

I never see movies in theaters anymore, always end up renting them, so I rented "the Girl who played with fire" and what do you know, the magazine is in it in a cameo? Was this discussed here before? gene? Wow, I am out of touch

[MasterKiller]

Originally Posted by lkfmdc

I never see movies in theaters anymore, always end up renting them, so I rented "the Girl who played with fire" and what do you know, the magazine is in it in a cameo? Was this discussed here before? gene? Wow, I am out of touch

D'oh!

http://kungfumagazine.com/forum/show...girl+played%22

[GeneChing]

lkfmdc,
If you'd stop arguing with all those glorified kickboxers on the main forum and come down here to the media forum once in a while, we'd keep you up to date.