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141-409: Reindeer Games (alternatively titled Deception ) is a 2000 American action thriller film directed by John Frankenheimer in his final feature directorial outing before his 2002 death. It stars Ben Affleck , Gary Sinise , Charlize Theron , Dennis Farina , James Frain , Donal Logue , Danny Trejo , and Clarence Williams III . The film revolves around ex-convict Rudy Duncan, who is dragged into

282-401: A Procter & Gamble employee, and Larry M. Kutcher, a factory worker. He has Czech, German, and Irish ancestry. Kutcher was raised in a "relatively conservative" Catholic family. He has an older sister named Tausha and a fraternal twin brother named Michael, who had a heart transplant when the brothers were young children. Michael also has cerebral palsy and is a spokesperson for

423-586: A "desperate attempt to mask the lack of content." Geoff King argued that the spectacle can also be a vehicle for narrative, opposed to interfering with it. Soberson stated that Harvey O'Brien had "perhaps the most convincing understanding of the genre", stating that the action film was "best understood as a fusion of form and content. It represents the idea and ethic of action through a form in which action, agitation and movement are paramount." O'Brien wrote further in his book Action Movies: The Cinema of Striking Back to suggest action films being unique and not just

564-428: A "hunky young actor [who] is heading in all different directions at once", including "the hot L.A. restaurant Dolce": "If anything, I'm a trier," says Kutcher between puffs of filtered Lucky Strikes. "I think, more than anything, it comes from the fact that my father always had several irons in the fire. Also, I don't want to fail. If something doesn't work out—if That '70s Show got canceled or if I wasn't going to have

705-553: A 50% stake in Veldskoen Shoes fledgling US business. In 2021, Kutcher invested in MeaTech , an Israeli company that develops meat using 3D printing . In 2009, Kutcher established an international human rights organization with his then-wife Demi Moore . DNA Foundation, later known as Thorn: Digital Defenders of Children , works to address the sexual exploitation of children and the proliferation of child pornography on

846-510: A Global release status of Chinese-language martial arts films, most notably Zhang Yimou 's Hero (2002) and House of Flying Daggers (2004), Stephen Chow 's Kung Fu Hustle (2004) and Chen Kaige 's The Promise (2005). Most Hong Kong action films in the first quarter of the 21st century, such as those in Cold War (2012), Cold War 2 (2016) and The White Storm film series have their violence toned down, especially compared to

987-438: A charity to expose the sexual exploitation of children. After the backlash, Kutcher and Kunis apologized in a video, in which the two claimed that the letters were only intended for the judge and not for the public. The apology was similarly criticized as "performative and insincere." In response to the further backlash, Kutcher stepped down as chairman of the board of Thorn. Since he started acting, Kutcher has been nominated by

1128-483: A date, but that she had not answered the door. His information helped establish the time of death. Gargiulo was found guilty and sentenced to death on July 16, 2021, for her murder. In late 2002, he began dating Brittany Murphy , his co-star in Just Married . Kutcher and Demi Moore met in 2003 and married on September 24, 2005. Six years later, on November 17, 2011, Moore announced her intention to end

1269-436: A fight sequence. In the 1980s, American martial arts films reflected the national move towards conservatism, reflected in films of Chuck Norris and other actors such as Sho Kosugi . The genre would shift from theatrical releases towards the end of the decade with the rise of home video, the lower box-office of American martial arts productions, and a significant portion of direct-to-video action films that first were made in

1410-488: A film career—I always wanted to have backup contingency plans. So I just started doing other things; and on a half-hour sitcom, you're really only working for 30 hours a week. It allows a lot of time for sitting around, which I always kind of filled with work. Because of scheduling conflicts with the filming of The Guardian , Kutcher was unable to renew his contract for the eighth and final season of That '70s Show , although he appeared in its first four episodes (credited as

1551-500: A global audience of these films in the United States and Europe, but was cut short on Lee's death in 1973 leading the phases popularity to decline. Following a period of stagnation, Chang Cheh and Lau Kar-leung revitalized the genre with shaolin kung fu films and Chor Yuen 's series of darker swordplay films based on the novels of Gu Long . Kung Fu comedies appeared featuring Jackie Chan as martial arts films flourished into

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1692-506: A global scale. On March 23, 2011, Kutcher launched his own Twitter client with UberMedia called A.plus. While the app was initially available exclusively for desktop computers with Adobe Air installed, it eventually became available on mobile platforms, for iPhone , Android , and BlackBerry . In order to download on one of the 3 mobile platforms, users must first have the UberSocial client installed on their device and then proceed to

1833-566: A hero overcoming enemies or obstacles and physical conflicts or challenge, usually battling other humans or alien opponents. By late 2010s studies of genre analysis, the term "genre" itself is often replaced or supplemented with the words "mode" and "narrative form" with all three terms often being used interchangeably. Johan Höglund and Agnieszka Soltysik Monnet said that the difference between these concepts are elusive, but stated that genre could be defined as belonging to specific historical and cultural moments while "mode" and "form" can refer to

1974-454: A larger pattern that operates across a wider historical and cultural field. In their book Action Cinema Since 2000 (2024), Tasker, Lisa Purse, and Chris Holmlund stated that thinking of action as a mode is more helpful than thinking of it as a genre. The three authors suggested that action frames a certain manner of filmmaking and viewing exceed genre without eclipsing it stating that websites such as IMDb and Misplaced Pages rarely label films by

2115-405: A moment when he demands to know where the "PowWow" safe is. When Jack opens the safe, he grabs guns from inside and kills Jumpy as the rest flee. Jack dies during the shootout while Rudy kills Merlin. Rudy is grabbed out the back door by Gabriel and Ashley who tie him up in their 18-wheeler truck. The two plan to drive Rudy off the cliff in a burning car with some of the money, so it will be assumed

2256-593: A new management team in the summer of 2008, replacing Kutcher as their creative director. Rich Buchanan, from Sling Media, became Ooma's Chief Marketing Officer. Kutcher has invested in an Italian restaurant called Dolce (other owners include Danny Masterson and Wilmer Valderrama ) and a Japanese-themed restaurant named Geisha House with locations in Atlanta, Los Angeles, and New York City. Geisha House went out of business on June 1, 2013. In 2019 Ashton Kutcher, Mark Cuban , Steve Watts, and Watts' wife Angela, invested

2397-455: A passion for acting and appeared in school plays. During his senior year, he broke into his high school at midnight with his cousin in an attempt to steal money; he was arrested leaving the scene. Kutcher was convicted of third-degree burglary and sentenced to three years of probation and 180 hours of community service. Kutcher stated that although the experience "straightened him out", he lost his girlfriend and anticipated college scholarships, and

2538-554: A propensity for violent action, identified with the films of Chang Cheh . Violent female characters have been part of cinema since its early inception, with characters such as Kate Kelly brandishing a shotgun in The Story of the Kelly Gang (1906). Women traditionally appear in action films as romantic interests, tomboys , or sidekicks to male protagonists. Violent white women would appear in other genres as well such as

2679-422: A public service announcement campaign to end child sex trafficking . Kutcher claimed that 100,000 to 300,000 American children were sold into sexual slavery. The number was criticized by newspaper The Village Voice . Kutcher and others including The New York Times , C-SPAN , and CNN used a peer-reviewed study referring to minors at risk for sexual exploitation. The Village Voice , from their research, said it

2820-511: A series of action sequences, stating that that the difference between Raiders of the Lost Ark (1981) and Die Hard (1988), that while both were mainstream Hollywood blockbusters with hero asserting masculinity and overcoming obstacles to a personal and social solution, John McClane in Die Hard repeatedly firing his automatic pistol while swinging from a high rise was not congruent with

2961-745: A significant portion. These films include Taxi 2 (2000), Kiss of the Dragon (2001), District 13 (2004) and Unleashed (2005). Whan asked about the Americanization of these French films, Christophe Gans , director of Brotherhood of the Wolf (2001) stated that "Hollywood ownership of certain elements [...] must be challenged, in order to show that these elements have also long been present in European culture." The most significant producers of French action films with international ambitions

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3102-658: A similar level of popularity to that of the Western in the United States. The most internationally known films of this era were the films Kurosawa with Seven Samurai (1954), The Hidden Fortress (1958), and Yojimbo (1961). By at least the 1950s, Japanese films were looked upon as a model to be emulated by Hong Kong film production, and Hong Kong film companies began actively enlisting professionals from Japan, such as cinematographer Tadashi Nishimoto to contribute to color and widescreen cinematography. New literary sources also developed in martial arts films of this period, with

3243-406: A single genre and that streaming services such as Amazon Prime and Netflix similarly dilutes what is marketed and received as action. In transnational cinema, there are two major trends in action films: Hollywood action films and their style being imitated around the globe and the other being Chinese-language martial arts films. The roots of action films extend into the beginning of film but it

3384-543: A situation against his will: he must help a group of thieves rob a casino in Michigan's Upper Peninsula , or he will be killed. Reindeer Games was released by Miramax Films on February 25, 2000. It received generally negative critical reception and was a box office failure , grossing $ 32 million against a budget of $ 42 million. In a prison near Iron Mountain, Michigan , cellmates Nick Cassidy and Rudy Duncan are two days from release. Nick has been exchanging letters with

3525-575: A son in November 2016. The family resides in a sustainable farmhouse, designed by the couple and architect Howard Backen , in Beverly Hills . In 2009, Kutcher described himself as a fiscal conservative and a social liberal . He is a gun owner but supports new gun laws to help stop mass shootings. Following the 2017 mass shooting in Las Vegas , he said on Twitter "I've had a gun since I

3666-444: A special guest star) and returned for the series finale. Kutcher produced and starred in the 2010 action comedy, Killers , in which he played a hitman. In May 2011, Kutcher was announced as Charlie Sheen 's replacement on the series Two and a Half Men . Kutcher's contract was for one year and was believed to be worth nearly $ 20 million. His debut as the character Walden Schmidt , entitled " Nice to Meet You, Walden Schmidt ",

3807-451: A three-act structure centered on survival, resistance and revenge with narratives where the physical body of the hero is tested, traumatized and ultimately triumphant. The third shift in action cinema, the postclassical, was defined by the predominance of Eastern cinema and its aesthetics, primarily the wire-work of Hong Kong action cinema from the classical era, through the convention of the increasingly computer generated effects. This saw

3948-594: A tough police officer protects society by upholding the law against systematic corruption. This extended into films which O'Brien described as "knee-jerk responses" to perceived threats with rogue cop and vigilante films such as Dirty Harry (1971) and Death Wish (1974) where the restoration of order is only possible by force and antisocial characters prepared to act when society does not. The vigilantism reappears in other films that were exploitative of southern society such as Billy Jack (1971) and White Lightning (1973) and "good ol' boy" comedies like Smokey and

4089-742: A trip to New York City's International Modeling and Talent Association (IMTA) Convention. Leaving Iowa for a stay in New York City, Kutcher then returned to Cedar Rapids, before relocating to Los Angeles to pursue a career in acting. After participating in an IMTA competition in 1998, Kutcher signed with Next modeling agency in New York, appeared in commercials for Calvin Klein , and modelled in Paris and Milan. Following his success in modeling, Kutcher moved to Los Angeles after his first audition. He

4230-492: A young woman named Ashley Mercer, although they have never met. He plans to meet Ashley after being released, while Rudy wants to join his family in Sidnaw for Christmas. A fight then breaks out in the prison, and Nick is killed while protecting Rudy. Upon release, Rudy poses as Nick and meets Ashley. They go to a diner then have sex in a cabin. The two are then kidnapped by Gabriel, Ashley's gang leader brother. He tells Rudy that

4371-463: Is Luc Besson 's France-based EuropaCorp , who released films like Taxi (1998) and From Paris with Love (2010). EuropaCorp produced Transporter franchise starred British actor Jason Statham and made him an action film star, which led him to feature in The Expendables series by the end of the 2010s. The action film genre has been a staple of Bollywood cinema . In the 1970s,

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4512-574: Is a generic term to refer to several types of films containing martial arts. The wuxia film is the oldest genre in Chinese cinema. Stephen Teo wrote in his book on Wuxia that there is no satisfactory English translation of the term, with it often being identified as "the swordplay film" in critical studies. It is derived from the Chinese words wu denoting militarist or martial qualities and xia denoting chivalry, gallantry, and qualities of knighthood. The term wuxia entered into popular culture in

4653-525: Is also an executive producer of the reality television shows Beauty and the Geek , Adventures in Hollyhood (based around the rap group Three 6 Mafia ), The Real Wedding Crashers , and the game show Opportunity Knocks . Many of his production credits, including Punk'd , come through Katalyst Films , a production company he runs with partner Jason Goldberg . A 2004 interviewer described Kutcher as

4794-501: Is an American actor, producer and entrepreneur. Kutcher began his acting career portraying Michael Kelso in the Fox sitcom That '70s Show (1998–2006). He made his film debut in the romantic comedy Coming Soon (1999), followed by the comedy film Dude, Where's My Car? (2000), which was a box office success. In 2003, Kutcher starred in the romantic comedies Just Married and My Boss's Daughter . That year, he created and produced

4935-729: Is based on Twin Dragons (1992). Other films such as the martial arts film Bhadrachlam (2001), borrows from American cinema with the Jean-Claude Van Damme film Kickboxer (1989). SS Rajamouli 's RRR (2022) was among the highest budgeted films made in India, and became a rare hit film outside of Indian diaspora, where it broke box office records in Japan and performed exceptionally well in American box office. Japan

5076-474: Is in the Voice over Internet Protocol business and Kutcher's role was as Creative Director. He spearheaded a marketing campaign and produced viral videos to promote this service. Kutcher also created an interactive arm of Katalyst called Katalyst Media , with his partner from Katalyst Films, Jason Goldberg. Their first site was the animated cartoon Blah Girls . Ooma revamped its sales and marketing strategy with

5217-442: Is itself empowering and, if not, whether a hypersexualized female character can still represent strength and autonomy. Hypersexualized female action leads had tight fitting or revealing costumes that Tasker identified as "exaggerated statements of sexuality" and in the tradition of "fetishistic figure of fantasy" derives from comic books and soft pornography . This originated in television with characters like Buffy Summers ( Buffy

5358-463: Is near and dear to my heart ... coming to Israel is sort of coming back to the source of creation – trying to get closer to that. And as a creative person, going to the source of creation is really inspiring. And this place has been really inspiring for me – not only on a spiritual level, but also on an artistic and creative level." On April 16, 2009, Kutcher became the first Twitter user to reach more than 1 million followers, beating CNN in

5499-578: The femme fatales in film noir and horror films of the 1970s. Violent women were common in action films since the 1960s. These films featured working-class women exacting revenge. Films of the 1970s featured black women such as Pam Grier in films like Foxy Brown (1974). In the 1980s, a new symbolically transgressive character emerged in the form of Ellen Ripley in Aliens (1986) and Sarah Connor in Terminator 2: Judgment Day (1991) and

5640-550: The Bollywood action film consolidated with two films starring Amitabh Bachchan : Prakash Mehra 's Zanjeer (1973) and Yash Chopra 's Deewaar (1975). The box office success of these films made Bachchan a star and spawned the "angry young man" film in Bollywood cinema. Throughout the 1980s and 1990s, the action genre film declined considerably with new films predominantly featuring former bodybuilders failing to reach

5781-588: The CBS sitcom Two and a Half Men . In 2013, Kutcher portrayed Steve Jobs in the biographical film Jobs . He also led the Netflix sitcom The Ranch (2016–2020). He has since starred in the comedy thriller Vengeance (2022). Beyond entertainment, Kutcher is also a venture capitalist . He is a co-founder of the venture capital firm A-Grade Investments . At SXSW in March 2015, Kutcher announced Sound Ventures,

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5922-517: The Hong Kong action cinema , such melodramatic male bonding and marginalized women characters, while the Korean films also have greater elements of tragedy and romance emphasized. Most martial arts films made before the mid-1960s were Cantonese-language productions. In comparison, Mandarin-language films were an integral part of Hong Kong cinema due to the influx of Shanghai film talent in

6063-403: The Netflix series The Ranch alongside Danny Masterson , Elisha Cuthbert and Debra Winger , playing the role of Colt Bennett, the son of a Colorado rancher ( Sam Elliott ) returning home from a semi-pro football career to run the family business on the ranch. On April 30, 2022, it was announced that Kutcher would have a guest appearance in the follow-up sitcom, That '90s Show . Beyond

6204-564: The September 11 attacks in 2001, which suggested an end to fantastical elements that defined the action hero and genre. Following the release of Quentin Tarantino 's Kill Bill: Volume 1 (2003) and Kill Bill: Volume 2 (2004) revisited the tropes of 1970s action films leading a renaissance of vengeance narratives in films like The Brave One (2007) and Taken (2008). O'Brien found that Tarantino's films were post-modern takes on

6345-704: The Teen Choice Awards the most. He has also won awards for his romantic comedies A Lot like Love, What Happens in Vegas and No Strings Attached. In 1999, he was nominated by the Young Artist Award for Best Performance in a TV Series by a Supporting Young Actor as Michael Kelso in That '70s Show . He has also been nominated by the Kid's Choice Awards , MTV Movie Awards , People's Choice Awards , and

6486-510: The xinpai wuxia xiaoshuo (or "new school martial arts fiction") coming into prominence with the success of Liang Yusheng 's Longhu Dou Jinghua (1954) and Jin Yong 's Shujian enchou lu (1956) which showed influence of the Shanghai martial arts films but also circulated from Hong Kong to Taiwan and Chinese communities overseas. This led to a growing demand in both local and regional markets in

6627-428: The 1960s with films like The Born Losers (1967) which was predominantly a drama, interspersed with martial arts scenes. American martial arts films predominantly came into production following the release of Enter the Dragon (1973), with the only higher-budgeted American film to follow in its wake being The Yakuza (1974). Lott noted the two films would lead to the two subsequent styles of martial arts films in

6768-609: The 1970s. James Monaco wrote in 1979 in American Film Now: The People, The Power, The Money, the Movies that "the lines that separate on genre from another have continued to disintegrate." Tasker said that most post-classical action films are hybrids, drawing from genres as varied as war films, science fiction , horror , crime, martial arts , and comedy films . In Chinese-language films, both wuxia and kung fu are genre-specific terms, while martial arts

6909-784: The 1980s. Other films again modernized the form with gangster films of John Woo ( A Better Tomorrow (1986), The Killer (1989)) and the Wong Fei Hung saga returning in Tsui Hark 's Once Upon a Time in China featuring Jet Li which again revitalized the swordplay styled films. By the turn of the century Hollywood action films would look towards Hong Kong cinema and bringing some of their major actors and directors over to apply their style to their films, such as Chan, Woo, Li, Michelle Yeoh and Yuen Woo-Ping . The release of Ang Lee 's Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon (2000) led to

7050-486: The 1980s. This was followed by the post-classical era where American action films were influenced by Hong Kong action cinema and the growing using of computer generated imagery in film. Following the September 11 attacks , a return to the early forms of the genre appeared in the wake of Kill Bill and The Expendables films. Scott Higgins wrote in 2008 in Cinema Journal that action films are both one of

7191-453: The 2003 family film Cheaper by the Dozen as a self-obsessed actor. In the 2004 drama film The Butterfly Effect , Kutcher played a conflicted young man who time travels. While the film received negative reviews, it was a box office success. In 2003, Kutcher produced and starred as the host in his own series, MTV's Punk'd , that involved hidden camera tricks performed on celebrities. He

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7332-706: The 21st century have been comic book adaptations, which commenced with the X-Men and is seen in other series such as Spider-Man , and Iron Man series. Tasker wrote that despite the central characters in superhero cinema being extraordinary, occasionally even God-like, they often followed the traces of the central character becoming powerful of which is fundamental to action films, often dealt with origin stories in superhero films. Action films often interface with other genres. Tasker wrote that films are often labelled action thrillers, action-fantasy and action-adventure films with different nuances. Tasker later discussed that

7473-522: The Bandit (1977). This era also emphasizes the car chase scenes as moments of spectacle in films like Bullitt and The French Connection (1971). O'Brien described these films as emphasizing "the fusion of man and machine" with the drivers and vehicles acting as one, concluding with what he described as "the ultimate in apocalyptic modernity and social erasure" in Mad Max 2 (1981). O'Brien described

7614-754: The Bollywood press who reported on him in the headlines of Bollywood magazines for his public brawls and affairs with leading actresses. In Dabangg (2010), Khan continued with this public persona, which was repeated in several of his later films such as Ready (2011), Bodyguard (2011), Ek Tha Tiger (2012) and Dabangg 2 (2012). From the 1980s, generations of actors in Telugu cinema have invoked Hong Kong action films, such as Srihari who stated he wanted to become an actor after watching his first Bruce Lee film. Several films in Telugu cinema were remakes of Hong Kong films, such as Hello Brother (1994) which

7755-598: The Dragon briefly allowed an influx of Hong Kong films to Japan, but the trend did not last, with 28 Hong Kong films, mostly kung fu films, being released in 1974, and the number decreasing to five in 1975, four in 1977 and only two in 1978. Ryuhei Kitamura , director of Versus (2000), said in 2004 that he grew frustrated with the Japanese film industry as producers felt they couldn't make action films in competition with Hong Kong or American productions. Versus grew to become popular outside of Japan, and Kitamura said he

7896-602: The Hong Kong film industry after the handover in 1997. Anglophone action film scholarship has tended to emphasize bigger budget American action films, with academics tending to find films that fall out of Hollywood productions as not quite fitting definitions of the genre. By 2024, many national and regional industries were known for action films. These include international films such as Hindi, Tamil, Telugu, Malayalam , South Korean, Japanese, Thai , Brazilian , Chinese , South African , French and Italian action titles. At

8037-807: The Red Lotus (1965) and King Hu 's Come Drink with Me (1966). In the 1970s, the Hong Kong martial arts films began to grow under the format of yanggang ("staunch masculinity") mostly through the films of Chang Cheh which were popular. This transition led to the kung fu film sub-genre at beginning of the decade and moved beyond the swordplay films with contemporary settings of late Qing or early Republican periods and had more hand-to-hand combat over supernatural swordplay and special effects. A new studio, Golden Harvest quickly became one of independent filmmakers to grant creative freedom and pay and attracted new directors and actors, including Bruce Lee . The popularity of kung fu films and Bruce Lee led to attract

8178-484: The United States, Europe and Japan had during this period. Yip described Japanese cinema as the most advanced in Asia at the time. This was showcased by the international breakthrough of Akira Kurosawa 's films like Rashomon (1950). The film genre known as the chanbara was at its height in Japan. The style was a sub-genre to the jidai-geki , or period drama with an emphasis on sword fighting and action. It had

8319-557: The United States, has an Alexa rank of about 11787 (4019 in the US), and is ranked by Quantcast as a top-50 site in the US in terms of unique visitors. In 2016, Kutcher was assailed onstage by a protestor while speaking at an Airbnb event in Los Angeles, who criticized the company for allowing Israeli settlers list their homes in the illegally-occupied West Bank on its website. Kutcher

8460-406: The United States, with films like Enter the Dragon about people who reveled in combat, often in a tournament setting, and The Yakuza which had several genres attached to it, but featured several martial arts sequences. By the end of the 1970s, the style was an established genre in American cinema, often featuring tough heroic characters who would fight and not think about their actions until after

8601-591: The Vampire Slayer (1997–2003)) and Xena ( Xena: Warrior Princess (1995–2001)). These series popularity demonstrated a growing market for female action film heroes, in films of the 2000s like Lara Croft: Tomb Raider (2001), Charlie's Angels (2000), Ultraviolet (2006), Salt (2010) and series like Underworld and Resident Evil . These series like their television series earlier, had their leads eroticized as active and physically capable while also being scantily-clad, hyper-feminized similar to

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8742-594: The action film genre has been a subject of scholarly debate since the 1980s. Soberson wrote that repeated traits of the genre include chase sequences, fights, shootouts, explosions, and stunt work while other scholars asserted there were more underlying traits that define the genre. David Bordwell in The Way Hollywood Tells It wrote that audiences are "told that spectacle overrides narrative" in action cinema while Wheeler Winston Dixon echoed that these films were typified by "excessive spectacle" as

8883-553: The action heroine's dual status of an active subject and sexual object was overturning the traditional gender binary because the films "assume that women are powerful" without resorting to justify her physical aggression through narratives involving maternal drive, mental instability or trauma. Purse found that female leads in films like Elektra (2005), Kill Bill , Underworld , Charlie's Angels and Mr. & Mrs. Smith (2005) did showcase women having expensive cars, clothing, travel, homes and often high-paying jobs, but that this

9024-495: The advocacy organization Reaching for the Stars. Michael's cardiomyopathy caused Kutcher's home life to become increasingly stressful. He has said he "didn't want to come home and find more bad news" about his brother, stating, "I kept myself so busy that I didn't allow myself to feel." Kutcher stated that, when he was 13, he contemplated committing suicide to save his brother's life with a heart transplant; when he told his father he

9165-407: The biggest loot is in the "PowWow safe" in manager Jack Bangs's office. Gabriel wants Rudy to draw a map of the casino, but Rudy claims that the casino has been remodeled. At the casino Rudy, dressed as a cowboy, snoops around to see any changes, and is almost caught by Jack Bangs but escapes by switching clothes with a college student. Merlin discovers that the casino was never remodeled and has been

9306-435: The book Australian Genre Film , Amanda Howell suggested that this label was used to help distance Australian cinema from Hollywood films as it would be suggesting commerce over culture and that it would be "quite unacceptable to make Australian movies using conventions established in the U.S.A." Howell stated this to be the case with action films of the 1970s and 1980s with Brian Trenchard-Smith 's Turkey Shoot (1982) being

9447-456: The car, and reverses it, crushing Nick's legs. Millie desperately tries to shoot him but Rudy rams the burning car into her. He dives out as the car and Millie go over the cliff. Nick tries to convince Rudy to share the money, but Rudy locks him in the truck and sends it over the cliff. Rudy picks up the cash and begins distributing it in mailboxes on the way home to Sidnaw, where he joins his family for Christmas dinner admitting to himself that he

9588-550: The classical form of action cinema to be the 1980s. The decade continued the trends of formative period with heroes as avengers ( Lethal Weapon (1987)), rogue police officers ( Die Hard (1988)) and mercenary warriors ( Commando (1985)). Following the continuity of the car and man hybrid of the previous decade, the 1980s featured weaponized men with who were either also carrying weapons such as Sudden Impact (1983), trained to be weapons ( American Ninja (1985)) or imbued with technology ( RoboCop (1987)). O'Brien noted that

9729-566: The course of a year. After the conviction of That '70s Show and The Ranch castmate, Danny Masterson , for rape, Kutcher, along with Mila Kunis, wrote letters to the judge in support of Masterson. The letters stated that Masterson was a good person and that he treated people with "decency, equality, and generosity." After the letters were made public, Kutcher and Kunis received immediate backlash and criticism for their support of Masterson, especially due to Kutcher and Kunis' involvement in Thorn,

9870-464: The decline of overt masculinity in the action film which corresponded with the end of the Cold War in 1991, while the rise of self-referential and parodies of this era grew in films like Last Action Hero (1993). O'Brien described this era as being soft where the hard bodies of the classical era were replaced with computer generated imagery such as that of Terminator 2: Judgment Day (1991). This

10011-514: The device's browser to download A.plus. In 2013, Kutcher and Evan Beard and Kendall Dabaghi launched A Plus , where Kutcher is chairman of the board. Initially, a product discovery service, it morphed in April 2014 to a social media-driven content platform focused on upbeat stories. It was officially launched in that incarnation in January 2015. It has reported 27.5 million monthly uniques in

10152-559: The direct-to-video field, or in similarly low-budget theatrical releases such as Bulletproof Monk (2003). While the American styled-films were predominantly made in the United States, productions were also made in Australia, Canada, Hong Kong and South Africa, and were predominantly shot in the English-language. Heroic Bloodshed is a that originates with English-language Hong Kong action and crime film fan communities in

10293-487: The earlier work of directors like Woo and Johnnie To . Antong Chen, in his study on the Hong Kong action film, wrote that the influence of China and the amount of Chinese co-productions made with Hong Kong created a shift in these films, particularly following the release of Infernal Affairs (2002). Harvey O'Brien wrote in 2012 that the contemporary action film emerged through other genres, primarily Westerns , crime and war films and can be separated into four forms:

10434-432: The early 1960s and saw a surge in production of Hong Kong martial arts films that went beyond the stories about Wong Fei-hung which were declining in popularity. These new martial arts films featured magical swordplay and higher production values and more sophisticated special effects than the previous films with Shaw Brothers a campaign of "new school" ( xinpai ) martial arts swordplay films such as Xu Zenghong's Temple of

10575-491: The end of the 1990s. Films such as Chunhang (2000) and Memento Mori (2000) and action films Shiri (1999) and Nowhere to Hide (1999) received commercial releases in North America, Asia, and Europe. The success of the latter two films was unprecedented, and was followed by other South Korean action films in the early 2000s reaching the top of the local box office. These South Korean films mimic some traits of

10716-497: The entertainment world, Kutcher has invested in several high technology startups. Kutcher has invested in six startups as of August 2017 : Neighborly , Zenreach , ResearchGate , Duolingo , Kopari Beauty, and most recently, Lemonade . He is a co-founder of the venture capital firm A-Grade Investments with Guy Oseary and Ron Burkle and fund manager Chris Hollod . Kutcher, Oseary, and Burkle started by initially investing $ 30m of their own funds in 2010 when they founded

10857-532: The female leads in implausible elements, such as in Charlie's Angels , Fantastic Four (2005) and My Super Ex-Girlfriend (2006). The fighting styles of women also tend towards more traditionally feminine fluid movements of martial arts, over using guns or directly punching. Purse wrote that the contemporary female action film lead's sexualized brand had her in close proximity of post-feminism discourse about choice, power and sexuality. Marc O'Day interprets

10998-418: The film an average grade of "C−" on an A+ to F scale. In a 2007 interview with Esquire , Charlize Theron said that she considered this movie as the worst film she ever did, saying that " Reindeer Games was not a good movie, but I did it because I loved John Frankenheimer". A CNN review said: " Reindeer Games isn't at the bottom of his creative barrel, but it's close". Action thriller film While

11139-470: The film grossed $ 32.2 million worldwide. On the review aggregator website Rotten Tomatoes 25% of 91 critics gave the film a positive review, with an average rating of 4.2/10. The site's critical consensus reads: "Despite a decent cast, subpar acting and a contrived plot disappointed reviewers." On Metacritic It has a weighted average score of 37 out of 100, based on 33 critics, indicating "generally unfavorable reviews". Audiences polled by CinemaScore gave

11280-462: The firm, by 2016 Forbes valued the firms holdings at $ 236 million. At SXSW on March 14, 2015, Kutcher announced Sound Ventures, the successor to A-Grade Investments managing a fund backed by institutional funding. On October 29, 2013, Lenovo announced that it hired Kutcher as product engineer. Kutcher was part of the management team for Ooma , a tech start-up launched in September 2007. Ooma

11421-414: The following films were voted the top ten best action films of all time. In Hong Kong, the "new school" of martial arts films that Shaw Brothers brought in 1965 featured what featured what Yip described as "strong, active female characters as protagonists." These female-centered films were challenged with the rise of a new male heroic prototype marked by a strong sense of youthful energy and defiance and by

11562-448: The formative trends at this point had become "identifiably generic" as film industries began to reproduced these films during the decade producers like Joel Silver and production companies like The Cannon Group, Inc. began to formulate production of these films with both high and low budgets. The action films of this era have roots in classical story telling, specifically rooted from martial arts films and Westerns, and are built around

11703-610: The formative, the classical, the post-classical and neoclassical phases. Yvonne Tasker reiterated this in her book on action and adventure films , saying that action films became a distinct genre during the New Hollywood period of the 1970s. The formative films would be from the 1960s to the early 1980s where the Anti-hero appears in cinema, featuring characters who act and transcend the law and social conventions. This appears initially in films like Bullitt (1968) where

11844-551: The former was one of the highest-grossing movies of the year in Japan. Following LoveDeath , Kitamura's next directing work was in the United States. The action cinema of South Korea mostly existed on the margins of the film industry in South Korea. The genre was initially called the Hwalkuk ("living theatre") was a term that indicated plays and films driven by action scenes, while this term has not been used regularly since

11985-447: The gang, composed of Pug, Merlin, and Jumpy, are planning to rob a casino where Nick used to work before going to prison. Rudy protests that he is not Nick, but Ashley reveals that she wrote to him knowing Gabriel would use him for the robbery. Realizing that he will likely be killed if they learn that he knows nothing about the casino, Rudy resumes the ruse. Rudy devises a robbery plan based on Nick's prison cell stories, and tells Gabriel

12126-466: The ground helping people in Poland and Romania. The couple promised to match the funding. Kunis is a native of Ukraine. In February 2001, Ashley Ellerin, whom Ashton Kutcher was dating at the time, was murdered. While never a suspect, Kutcher testified at the 2019 trial of serial killer Michael Gargiulo . Kutcher stated that on the night that Ellerin was murdered, Kutcher had arrived to pick her up for

12267-430: The ground. While heroes in kung fu films often display chivalry, they generally hail from different fighting schools, namely wudang and shaolin . American martial arts films feature what author M. Ray Lott described as a more realistic style of violence over the Hong Kong wuxia films with more realism and are often low-budget productions. Martial arts began routinely appearing in fight scenes in American films in

12408-489: The image of Indiana Jones in Raiders swinging his whip to fend off villains in the backstreets of Cairo. British author and academic Yvonne Tasker expanded on this topic, stating that action films have no clear and constant iconography or settings. In her book The Hollywood Action and Adventure Film (2015), she found that the most broadly consistent themes tend to be a characters quest from freedom from oppression such as

12549-520: The late 1920s. These films were popular during the period, which comprised almost 60% of the total Chinese films. Man-Fung Yip stated that these film were "rather tame" by contemporary standards. He wrote that they lacked the kind of dazzling action choreography as expected today and had crude and rudimentary special effects. These films came under increasing attack by both government officials and cultural elites for their allegedly superstitious and anarchistic tendencies, leading them to be banned in 1932. It

12690-570: The late 1970s, with "action movie" becoming the more familiar term. The Korean action films came from Japanese cinema, James Bond series , and Hong Kong action cinema. As North Korea borders China, it block access to the continent from a South Korean perspective, the Cold War allowed South Koreans to substitute deferred travel beyond the border through films with locations shot in Hong Kong. While melodrama and comedy were staples in South Korean cinema, most action films were sporadic and tied to

12831-508: The late 1980s and early 1990s. In the Chinese language, the term used for these films is jinghungpin , literally meaning "hero films". Academic Laikwan Pang asserts that these gangster films appeared at a time when Hong Kong citizens felt particularly powerless with the handover of Hong Kong from the United Kingdom to China set for 1997. The key directors of the genre were John Woo and Ringo Lam , and producer Tsui Hark , with

12972-513: The late 1980s and early 1990s. Author Bey Logan stated that the term was coined by Rick Baker, in the British fanzine Eastern Heroes . The term is used broadly. Baker described the style as Hong Kong action films which feature gangsters and gunplay and martial arts that were more violent than kung fu films and academic Kristof Van Den Troost described it a term used to distinguish Hong Kong gun-heavy action films from period martial arts films from

13113-431: The late 1980s in the United States were martial arts films. Towards the end of the 1990s, production of low-budget martial arts films declined as no new stars in the genre developed and older actors such as Cynthia Rothrock and Steven Seagal started showing up in less and less films. Even internationally popular films like Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon (2000) had negligible effects in American productions in either

13254-723: The marriage. After more than a year of separation, Kutcher filed for divorce from Moore on December 21, 2012, in Los Angeles Superior Court, citing irreconcilable differences . The divorce was finalized on November 26, 2013. Kutcher began dating his former That '70s Show co-star Mila Kunis during the first half of 2012. After they became engaged in February 2014, she gave birth to a daughter in October 2014. Kunis married Kutcher in July 2015. She gave birth to

13395-624: The most notorious. Smith had previously released films like Deathcheaters (1976) and Stunt Rock (1979) when financial incentives were available for overtly commercial projects. She commented that action films did tell identifiably Australian stories such as the Sandy Harbutt 's biker film Stone (1974) and Miller's post-apocalyptic film Mad Max (1979) derived from Australia's social and cultural realities, as well as how George Miller 's later Mad Max: Fury Road (2015) derived from Australia's long-standing cinematic fascination with

13536-475: The most popular and popularly derided of contemporary cinema genres, stating that "in mainstream discourse, the genre is regularly lambasted for favoring spectacle over finely tuned narrative." Bordwell echoed this in his book, The Way Hollywood Tells It , writing that the reception to the genre as being "the emblem of what Hollywood does worst." In the Journal of Film and Video , Lennart Soberson stated that

13677-672: The night before. I played way too hard. I am amazed I am not dead." To earn tuition money, Kutcher worked as a college summer hire in the cereal department for the General Mills plant in Cedar Rapids and sometimes sold his blood plasma. While at the University of Iowa, he was approached by a model scout at The Airliner bar in Iowa City, Iowa , and entered the "Fresh Faces of Iowa" modeling competition. Placing first, he won

13818-604: The notion that traditional marks of masculinity are not exclusive to men and that musculature was not natural, but something to be achieved. Accusations of these muscular women of the era were levelled at that them by 1993 were that they were "men in drag" and that the films generally have to "explain" why their female leads displayed physical aggression and why they were "driven to do it." As the 1990s went on, Hollywood films began having more conventional looking women in their action films such as The Long Kiss Goodnight (1996). A vibrant debate exists about whether hypersexualization

13959-435: The physical effort required to completing a task and the abilities and skills acquired over time. Films from the period reflected on the cultural and social climate from the period, as seen in invoking Japanese or Western imperialist forces as foils. The kung fu film came out of the wuxia films. In comparison to the wuxia , film, the focus on the kung fu film is on the martial arts over chivalry, The martial arts films

14100-402: The pool area and learns they are not siblings, but lovers. The casino robbery does not go according to plan due to the inaccurate details of Rudy's map. Pug is killed in the count room. Everyone meets in the manager's office. Gabriel introduces Rudy to Jack as Nick, but the manager recognizes him only as the cowboy from earlier and not as Nick. Gabriel, furious at Rudy's deception, spares him for

14241-574: The popularity Bachan had. These films predominantly earned their revenue through longer runs at B-grade theatres. A cycle of action films came from these films in the 1980s and 1990s called the Avenging Woman film, where female protagonists seek justice for a rape victim, where the protagonist seeks revenge through violence. In 2009, the action genre was re-popularized with the box office success of Wanted (2009) starring Salman Khan . Khan reinvented his screen persona with that of his image in

14382-543: The postwar period. These films were targeted at the more educated and more refined middle-class audiences who saw themselves as above the contemporary martial arts films. Scott Higgins wrote in 2008 in Cinema Journal that Hollywood action films are both one of the most popular and popularly derided of contemporary cinema genres, stating that "in mainstream discourse, the genre is regularly lambasted for favoring spectacle over finely tuned narrative." Bordwell echoed this in his book, The Way Hollywood Tells It , writing that

14523-402: The reception to the genre as being "the emblem of what Hollywood does worst." Tasker wrote that when action and adventure films secured awards, it is often in categories such as visual effects and sound editing. Time Out magazine conducted a poll with fifty experts in the field of action cinema, including actors, critics, filmmakers and stuntmen. Out of the 101 films ranked in the poll,

14664-441: The road and cars and a history of cultural anxiety towards a bleak and forbidding outback landscape opposed to the optimism of American action films. France is a major European country for film production and has made co-production commitments with 44 countries around the world. Around beginning of the 21st century, France began producing a series of films explicitly intended for international markets, with action films representing

14805-452: The same since it opened. Rudy runs with Ashley to a frozen lake pursued by Gabriel and his thugs shooting at them. Ashley falls through the ice and Rudy jumps in to rescue her. The thugs pull them out and are seen by an ice fisherman, whom Gabriel kills. Gabriel throws darts at Rudy to get answers and rants about his life as a truck driver. He decides to give him a second chance at drawing the map. Later, Rudy stumbles upon Gabriel and Ashley in

14946-529: The serialization of Jinaghu qixia zhuan (1922) ( transl.  Legend of the Strange Swordsmen ). In wuxia , the emphasis is on chivalry and righteousness and allows for phantasmagoric actions over the kung fu film 's more ground-based combat. The Kung fu film emerged in the 1970s from the swordplay films. Its name is derived from the Cantonese term gong fu which has two meanings:

15087-544: The site's "Million followers contest". In November 2011, Kutcher received heavy criticism for his tweet in response to the Jerry Sandusky child sexual abuse scandal , calling the firing of Penn State football coach Joe Paterno "in poor taste". Kutcher subsequently turned over management of his Twitter account to his team at the Katalyst Media company. In April 2011, Kutcher and then-wife Demi Moore began

15228-485: The starting point of the genre being traced to Woo's A Better Tomorrow (1986) make a record-breaking HK$ 34.7 million at the Hong Kong box office. The style of these films would influence American productions, such as Michael Bay 's Bad Boys II (2003) and the Wachowskis ' The Matrix (1999). Korean media recognized the more fatalistic and pessimistic tone of these films, leading to Korean journalists to label

15369-408: The stolen money had been burned. Ashley shoots and kills Gabriel, then Nick appears, having faked his death. Ashley's real name is revealed to be Millie Bobeck, and she was aware of Rudy's identity the whole time. Millie and Nick had collaborated to rob the casino using Rudy, Gabriel, and the gang. They tie Rudy to the steering wheel. Using a knife he had gotten earlier, Rudy cuts his bindings, hot wires

15510-433: The style as "Hong Kong noir ". The influence of these films was evident in early Korean films such as Im Kwon-taek 's General's Son (1990) and later films such Song Hae-sung 's A Better Tomorrow (2010), Cold Eyes (2013) and New World (2013). Postcolonial Hong Kong cinema has struggled to maintain its international identity as a provider of these types action films because the talents involved had abandoned

15651-539: The successor to A-Grade Investments, managing a fund backed by institutional funding. Kutcher has also invested in several high technology startups. He has investments in the companies Skype , Foursquare , Airbnb , Path and Fab.com . Kutcher has invested in six startups as of August 2017 : Neighborly , Zenreach , ResearchGate , Duolingo , Kopari Beauty, and Lemonade . Kutcher was born on February 7, 1978, in Cedar Rapids, Iowa , to Diane ( née Finnegan),

15792-505: The television series Punk'd , also serving as host for the first eight of its ten seasons. Kutcher starred in the science fiction film The Butterfly Effect (2004) and had a voice role in Open Season (2006). Kutcher appeared in more romantic comedies, including Guess Who (2005), A Lot Like Love (2005), What Happens in Vegas (2008), and No Strings Attached (2011). From 2011 to 2015, he starred as Walden Schmidt on

15933-406: The term "action film" or "action adventure film" has been used as early as the 1910s, the contemporary definition usually refers to a film that came with the arrival of New Hollywood and the rise of anti-heroes appearing in American films of the late 1960s and 1970s drawing from war films , crime films and Westerns . These genres were followed by what is referred to as the "classical period" in

16074-450: The term action film genre and adventure are often used in hybrid, and are even used interchangeably. Along with Holmund and Purse, Tasker wrote that the action films expansiveness complicates easy categorization and though the genre is often spoken of as singular genre, it is rarely discussed as singular style. Screenwriter and academic Jule Selbo expanded on this, describing a film as " crime /action" or an "action/crime" or other hybrids

16215-445: The themes that rescinded irony to restore " cinephile re-actualization of the genre's conventions." The genre went into full circle resurrecting films from the classical period with Live Free or Die Hard (2007) and Rambo (2008) finding the characters navigating a contemporary world while also acknowledging their age, culminating into The Expendables (2010) film. The most commercially successful action films and franchise of

16356-529: The title character in China O'Brien (1990) who were physically muscular and or enacted more extreme violence that was usually reserve for male action leads. In her book Contemporary Action Cinema (2011), Lisa Purse described the media response to female leads in action films reveal a discomfort about their presence and are often described with hesitant terms of women moving into territories that are perceived as masculine. Revealing woman in this form deconstructs

16497-539: The turn of the millennium, Australian genre films have gained increasing acceptance in the Australian feature film industry, while the action genre represented a small percentage of its output in the 21st century. Scholars of Australian genre film generally used the term "action-adventure" which allows them to apply it to various forms of narratives such as tongue in cheek heroic posturing stories like Crocodile Dundee (1986), road movies or bush/outback films. In

16638-422: The use of locations such as Hong Kong. These films often featured one-legged or otherwise handicapped action characters similar to those of Japanese films ( Zatoichi ) and Hong Kong films ( The One-Armed Swordsmen ). These included Im Kwon-taek's Returned Left-Handed Man (1968), Aekkunun Bak's One-Eyd Park (1970) and Lee Doo-yong's Returned One-Legged Man (1974). In the 1990s, the country's national cinema

16779-475: The woman of exploitation films of the 1970s such as Caged Heat (1974) and Big Bad Mama (1974). While characters like Frank in The Transporter series are permitted to visibly sweat, strain and be bloodied, Purse found a reluctance for filmmakers to have their female leads have any appearance warping injuries to ensure a perfectly made-up face. Comedy is often used in films of this period to place

16920-537: Was "looking for love" in a dating ad-style spoof. Kutcher's use of brown face paint and a stereotypical Indian accent received criticism from online viewers and members of the Indian-American community. Kutcher appeared as a guest Shark during the seventh season of reality TV show Shark Tank , which premiered on September 25, 2015. In 2016, he appeared in the " Candy, Quahog Marshmallow " episode of Family Guy . From 2016 to 2020, Kutcher co-starred in

17061-448: Was "only a semantic exercise" as both genres are important in the construction phase of the narrative. Mark Bould in A Companion to Film Noir (2013) said that categorization of multiple generic genre labels was common in film reviews who are rarely concerned with succinct descriptions that evoke elements of the film's form, content and make no claims beyond on how these elements combine. Film Studies began to engage generic hybridity in

17202-428: Was 12 yrs old but enough is enough. I'm a hunter and a sportsman but nobody needs assault rifles. Let's pray. Then let's change the law." He trains in the martial art Brazilian jiu-jitsu , and is a brown belt under Rigan Machado . On September 17, 2008, Kutcher was named the assistant coach for the freshman football team at Harvard-Westlake School in Los Angeles. However, he was unable to return in 2009 because he

17343-408: Was a difficult market for Hong Kong action cinema to break into. Prompted by the success of Enter the Dragon and the popularity of Bruce Lee, Toei made their own Bruce Lee-style martial arts films, with The Street Fighter and its two sequels starring Sonny Chiba as well as a spin-off with a female lead similar to Hong Kong's Angela Mao called Sister Street Fighter . The success of Enter

17484-466: Was aiming for the foreign audience, as he was disappointed with the current state of Japanese films. Kitamura's characters have been described as "a careful combination of the maverick independence of 1980s Hollywood action heroes and the calmness and acceptance of Japanese samurai, a consistent criticism of Japanese people today." Kitamura followed up Versus with two manga-inspired big-budget action films, Azumi and Sky High . Both released in 2003,

17625-668: Was an early investor in the company. In 2018, Kutcher attended the Western Region gala of Friends of the Israeli Defense Forces , which raised over $ 60,000,000 for IDF soldiers. In 2022, Kutcher and his wife Mila Kunis started a gofundme page to help two online companies ( Airbnb and Flexport ) to aid refugees fleeing the violence in Ukraine perpetrated by Russia's military. They raised $ 34 million as of March 2022 . These two organizations are on

17766-467: Was cast as Michael Kelso in the television series That '70s Show , from 1998 to 2006. Kutcher was cast in a series of film roles; although he auditioned but was not cast for the role of Danny Walker in Pearl Harbor (2001) (replaced by Josh Hartnett ), he starred in several comedy films, including Dude, Where's My Car? (2000), Just Married (2003), and Guess Who (2005). He appeared in

17907-428: Was considering jumping from a Cedar Rapids hospital balcony, his father dissuaded him from doing so shortly before doctors announced that a transplant had become available from an accident victim in another state. Kutcher attended Washington High School in Cedar Rapids for his freshman year, before his family moved to Homestead, Iowa , where he attended Clear Creek–Amana High School . During high school, he developed

18048-417: Was displayed in corresponding with corresponded with millennial angst and apocalypticism showcased in films like Independence Day (1996) and Armageddon (1998). Action films of mass destruction began requiring more overtly super heroic characters with further comic book adaptations being made with increased non-realistic settings with films like The Matrix (1999). The fourth phase arrived following

18189-682: Was filming Spread . In February 2011, Kutcher sold his Hollywood Hills home, which he originally bought in 2004 for $ 1 million. Kutcher grew up as a Catholic . As an adult, he practices Kabbalah , and has visited Israel and studied the Torah ; his wife Mila Kunis stated that he "taught [me] everything I never knew" about her religion, Judaism, though as of 2018, he has not converted. On trips to Israel, Kutcher visited Kabbalah centers in Tel Aviv and in Tsfat . In 2013, Kutcher remarked, "Israel

18330-469: Was in decline by the mid-1970s in Hong Kong in relation to the stock market crash which went from over 150 films in 1972 to just over 80 in 1975, which led to a downfall in martial arts films produced. When the economy became to rebound, a new trend of martial arts films, the Shaolin kung fu films emerged and sparked a revival of the genre. Unlike the wuxia , the kung fu film primarily focuses on fighting on

18471-509: Was in decline leading to Hong Kong gangster films filled in this void leading to large commercial success at the national box office. Early Korean heirs to Hong Kong action films include Rules of The Game (1994), Beat (1997), and Green Fish (1997) involving men who gain confidence and achieve personal growth as they embark on journeys to protect national state and meet devastating ends. South Korean cinema only received international attention in both art film and blockbuster formats towards

18612-623: Was never one for the holidays until now. In addition, some brief appearances include Ashton Kutcher , then starring in the sitcom That '70s Show , as a college student, while porn star Ron Jeremy (credited under his real name, Ron Hyatt) plays a prison inmate. The film was set in the Upper Peninsula of Michigan but was shot in Vancouver and Prince George, British Columbia , Canada. Shooting began on March 15, 1999. Vin Diesel

18753-599: Was not until the base of Chinese commercial filmmaking was relocated from Shanghai to Hong Kong in the late 1940s that martial arts cinema was revived. These films contained much of the characteristics of the previous era. During this period, over 100 films were based on the adventures of real life Cantonese folk hero Wong Fei-hung who first appeared in film in 1949. These films primarily on circuited within Hong Kong and Cantonese-speaking areas with Chinese diaspora . Yip continued that these Hong Kong films were still lagging behind in aesthetic and technical standards that films from

18894-470: Was only hundreds of children. Kutcher claimed the criticism by the Village Voice promoted child prostitution and used Twitter to request that Village Voice advertisers withdraw their advertising from publications owned by its parent company. In August 2022, Kutcher revealed that two years earlier he had been diagnosed with vasculitis , which had impaired his hearing, vision, and mobility during

19035-504: Was only in the mid-20th century when action films developed into their own recognizable genre instead of being a collection of other types of films such as Westerns, swashbucklers or adventure films. Films have been described "action films" or "action-adventure film" as early as the 1910s. Only by the 1980s was the term action as its own unique genre used routinely in terms of promotion and reviewing practices. The first Chinese-language martial arts films can be traced to Shanghai cinema of

19176-520: Was only shown as being applicable to white middle-class women. Purse found that these women were empowered at the price of women of other ethnicities. This is seen in Aeon Flux (2005) where Sithandra dies protecting Aeon and Rain's death to make way for Alice in Resident Evil (2002). Ashton Kutcher Christopher Ashton Kutcher ( / ˈ k ʊ tʃ ər / ; born February 7, 1978)

19317-461: Was originally cast as Pug, but had disagreements with John Frankenheimer in relation to the script and his character that led to him leaving the project before production began. However Diesel and Ben Affleck would star together in Boiler Room . The film was screened to test audiences who had a mixed response. This resulted in additional editing and some scenes being re-shot; the release date

19458-568: Was ostracized at school and in his community. Kutcher enrolled at the University of Iowa in August 1996, where his planned major was biochemical engineering , motivated by the desire to cure his brother's heart ailment. At college, Kutcher was kicked out of his apartment for being too "noisy" and "wild". Kutcher stated, "I thought I knew everything but I didn't have a clue. I was partying, and I woke up many mornings not knowing what I had done

19599-416: Was pushed back from Christmas 1999 to February 2000. The theatrical cut of the film was released on DVD in the US on August 8, 2000, and included an audio commentary by director John Frankenheimer. An extended director's cut, running 124 mins, was released on DVD in the US on March 27, 2001, including a new second audio commentary by Frankenheimer and additional deleted and alternate scenes. The Director's Cut

19740-451: Was released on Blu-Ray on March 6, 2012. There was reportedly a much more explicit version of the sex scene between Ashley and Rudy that was different from the one included in the unrated cut; in the director's commentary, John Frankenheimer explained that he decided to cut it from the theatrical version due to the possibility of receiving an NC-17 rating by the MPAA. On a $ 42 million budget,

19881-509: Was seen by 28.7 million people on September 19, 2011. The Nielsen ratings company reported that figure was more than any episode in the show's first eight seasons, when Sheen starred in it. Kutcher earned $ 750,000 an episode on the show. The show ended with a forty-minute series finale " Of Course He's Dead " on February 19, 2015. Kutcher appeared in a Popchips ad campaign in May 2012. The campaign featured Kutcher as an Indian man named Raj who

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