Elevated into critical acclaim with the modest yet affecting short “Windowbreaker,” which in turn led to his 2009 Sundance feature “Children of Invention,” writer/director Tze Chun's career has grown more promising with every new development. The filmmaker's next effort looks to be his most accomplished yet in terms of genre and the caliber of talent involved.
Syncopated Films are set to release Chun's take on the crime drama with “Eye of Winter,” starring Bryan Cranston, Alice Eve (“Star Trek Into Darkness”) and Logan Marshall-Green (“Prometheus”). Eve plays a struggling motel owner who, along with her daughter, is taken hostage by a nearly blind career criminal (Cranston) who uses her as his eyes as he attempts to retrieve his cash package from a crooked cop (Marshall-Green). Penned by Chen, who also co-wrote the script with Osgood Perkins and Nick Simon, the film will also star Ursula Parker (“Louie”) and Leo Fitzpatrick (“The Wire”).
As films like “The Disappearance of Alice Creed,” “Retreat,” and “Deadfall” have attempted in the past few years, the contained thriller exercise holds with it an excellent opportunity to play within the genre, and one that Chun could do wonders with, especially using this cast. Regardless, we'll be sure to see soon, as “Eye of Darkness” is deep into filming now in upstate New York.