You know, back in the day, everyone was thinking that it was going to be Candice Hillebrand that would crack America wide open and bring much needed fame and glory to South Africa. She was very good looking, talented, loved by all thanks to her long-running stint as KTV child presenter, and well, just plain and simple one of those South African celeb icons that everyone knew about. Good on the fashion ramp, good behind a microphone and good on set. What more could you ask for?
So she left our shores seeking fame and fortune in the land of the brave and the free…
…and simply fizzled out into obscurity.
I hear now that she’s been contracted to play the part of Nina Williams in the upcoming 2009 Tekken movie, based on Namco’s extremely popular fighting game franchise. The screenplay is written by Alan McElroy (Spawn, The Marine) and is directed by Dwight Little (Anacondas, Murder at 1600) with fight choreography by Dion Lam (Spider-Man 2, Doom, Red Cliff).
So far, the press release for the movie pins the storyline as being: “In order to put to rest the ghosts of his past, Jin Kazama enters the Tekken tournament, a fierce and dangerous competition featuring the world’s best martial artists. Following close behind him is Zheng, a rebel monk looking to save Jin from his own inner demons. While on the surface Tekken appears to be the corporation of the future, Jin and Zheng expose a dark underbelly that could threaten the very threads of humanity.”
What worries me however is a) Crystal Sky Pictures is a rather small production house that seems rather intent on producing B-grade stuff and b) it has a director that says things like this: “Tekken will not be anything like Mortal Kombat or any of the Lara Croft movies. You will get the feeling of Bruce Lee’s Enter the Dragon. A chance to get to know the characters before the inevitable slap down. It will have plenty of ‘A’ list actors… Our budget is good so we shouldn’t have problem there.”
(That said, at least we do get Luke Goss (as British boxer Steve Fox), a name you might recognise from this year’s Hellboy 2 where he played the part of everyone’s favourite villain, Prince Nuada.)
Oh well, at least Candice will get to kick some onscreen butt then – because she certainly isn’t making any impact over there on the other side of the world. Perhaps she should think of trying to get on Charlize Theron’s friends list?
After all, Facebook must be good for something other than poking…