Daily News from New York, New York • 194

55 I CKITCDT A I 1 a i r- i- m.M i- i i irv I A I IN VI IN I I ft I ft Rletrj BJaeneetera ft seirce Ufa Isipi 51 FROM HOLLYWOOD MARILYN BECK STACY JENEL SMITH THE GODFATHER'S SOUL CONCERNS ff ODFATHER OF SOUL JAMES BROWN, rn who today celebrates his first birthday since his release from prison, has plans lotsa plans for the immediate future. The 58-year-old, never-so-humble one says he's focusing on "bringing back to show business what it's lost in the last few years." As far as he's concerned, "Music today is going backward. You see people onstage with no (special) costumes, no attitude, not playing instruments not even doing their own singing. You want to see somebody sweat when they do a job! I do. Fans will see Brown do his job June 10, when By HELEN PETERSON ROw ANCETERIA IS BACK.

I 111 After months of rumors Lmr and delays, the club that takes credit for discovering Madonna, Billy Idol, Karen Finley, R.E.M., Cocteau Twins, Sonic Youth and Chris Isaak, among others, starts all over again tonight at 10. There are, however, a few changes. Although, there briefly were a few other locations, the club finally settled in on W. 21st St from 1981 until it closed in 1986. The new Danceteria is in the former ballroom of the Martha Washington Hotel for Women at 29 E.

29th St The old Danceteria had four levels, the new one has four rooms on one level. No more crowded stairwells. "It's a more evolved version of the old one," explained John Ar-gento. He and Jack Crowley own the new club, as well as a Danceteria outpost in East Quogue, LI. Argento was one of the original owners, along with club impresarios Rudolph and Jim Fouratt.

But Rudolph and Fouratt are not part of the new club. Danceteria reached its height in the early '80s at about the time new wave music was peaking. It was always packed, because it offered something the other clubs didn't have. Live music by the newest singers before they got hot, e.g., Madonna and Billy Idol; performance art by Karen Finley, who last year was denied a grant from the National Endowment for the Arts because her act was considered obscene (she got an NEA grant earlier this year); a mix of patrons so that it wasn't unusual to see a couple of businessmen in suits and ties standing at the bar alongside a few skinheads. "We had a perfect balance of exhibitionists and voyeurs," says Argento.

"We also treated celebrities like noncelebrities." The celebs often hung out at the bar, and might have to again: The VIP room is really small, 10 bodies would be a tight squeeze. But that's okay because all the action will be taking place downstairs. Once you pass through the brightly painted, psychedelic en-tryway, check out the Las Vega Lounge. Look closely. You might recognize the pink formica on the bar from your childhood kitchen.

ARGENTO CALLS THE room "splashy" and "angular." The connecting room, El Presidente's Bordello, is a small area with curvy, black banquettes, red satin drapery and a reclining nude. More nudes many, many more, in all sorts of compromising positions are depicted in a faux bronze frieze by artist Norman Gos-ney, in the Kama Sutra Room. The main dance room, finally, is shadowed by a mural of the Earth. "I think nightclubs that are too serious about themselves are kind of boring," says Argento. Nobody ever accused Danceteria of that Doors open Friday and Saturday at 10 p.m., admission is $10.

From 1 1 p.m. on Thursday, $5. Live performances begin May 29. he lenses his "James Brown: Livm in America pay-per-view special. Brown also has plans to "get back into the recording studio soon," has more requests for concert bookings than he could ever hope to fill.

Also, he says, "someone just offered me a TV show." He gives no details, but figures, "In one sense I should do it because I'm a role model, and kids today need role models." Brown, who was released from prison in Feb ruary after serving 26 months of a six-year sen tence for aggravated assault and possession of a deadly weapon, will be on parole and probation until 1998. Now, he gets respect William Sanderson, a.ka. Larry of the former "Newhart" trio of Larry, Darryl and Darryl, has kept plenty busy since the series made its final bow; he plays an air 'China': Onward, Christian sojourn plane mechanic in Disney's "The Rocketeer" summer biggie, and co-stars in CBS' adaptation of Stephen King's "Sometimes They Come Back" Tuesday. But he admits he worried about finding work after eight years on the series. Sanderson still vividly recalls the not- id TjiKEniri'" Sanderson A V.

1 -if '4 4 DANCE MASTER John Argento Chairman Mao meant when he repeatedly reminded the Chinese that "revolution is not a dinner party." As a law professor hired to teach the country's top military officers, she's ordered to write her family history the standard exercise in self-criticism. Col. Cheng (Philip Tan), her chief interrogator, badgers Neng Yee with questions about her religious convictions. And despite her condition, she's kicked and beaten. When she defiantly admits to still being a Christian, Neng Yee is dragged in front of a firing squad.

It is then that what would appear to be a miracle takes place; she is saved when a freak thunderstorm suddenly materializes. There's more. The perils of this Chinese Pauline continue as, again nine months' pregnant, Neng Yee is ordered to take her husband's place in a grim labor camp. "I miss intelligent conversations," complains one of the prisoners in this hellhole. So does the viewer, because the insipid dialogue hardly matches the emotionally powerful situations.

Nickson-Soul gives it her all, but there's no real depth to her performance. Wong rsrrains stiff and remote. Still, there are some effective scenes in particular, a poignant sequence showing a clandestine meeting of Chinese Christians in which they silently mouth the words to a reHgious hymn. (PG-13. Contains an attempted execution, a brutal beating and a shooting.) i 1 William so-easy life of the not-so-well-known performer, and notes, "There are evil producers in Hollywood.

I knew one who fired 28 women on one project be cause they 'didn't want their job badly enough, he says, referring to sex-or-unem-ployment threats. He also cites such personal travails as being cheated out of money by producers and being dropped from the cast of the big-screen version of Stephen King's "Cujo" when there was a change of directors: The latter disappointment made working on his new King project all the sweeter. "After so many 'W-''1' J'. 1 years of struggle, it's still almost frightening to me when people show me a lot of respect, he admits. "I get suspicious: 'Why are they being so By KATHLEEN CARROLL Daily News Movie Critic CHINA CRY.

Julia Nickson-Soul. Russell Wong, James Shigeta, France Nuyen. Directed by James F. Collier. At the Chelsea Cinema.

Time: 103 mins. Rated PG-13. 'M GOING TO AMERICA and my life will become a movie," Nora Lam an nounced to her baby-sitter in 1965. Lam, who was then living in Hong Kong, proved to be an accurate fortuneteller. Her amazing life story is now an intriguing, but minor, motion picture.

The story of how Lam, whose Chinese name is Sung Neng Yee, survived the repressive tactics of the Chinese Communists, has everything romance, human suffering and even a possible miracle. Lam's experiences, according to a voice-over narrator, had to be "condensed dramatically" just so they would fit into a regulation-size movie. The film, "China Cry," also has an inspirational message. Neng Yee became a Protestant while studying at a Presbyterian school during her pampered childhood. It, was her renewed faith that presumably gave her the strength to resist the Communist government's efforts to turn her into one of the faceless robots of the "new China" So, it's not surprising that "China Cry" is the first production of a religious broadcasting network.

The movie begins in 1941 as Neng Yee and her parents, played by James Shigeta and France Nuyen, are forced by Jap- A Jane Fonda sighting Jane Fonda still has writers developing sev eral prospective big-screen projects for her, but seems less and less eager to return to work and happier and happier as she travels here, there, and most everywhere with Ted Turner. They still haventsetadate forthe wedding, but friends expect them to tie the knot before the year is out possibly as early as this summer. IN LOVE: Russell Wong Julia Nickson-Soul anese soldiers to flee their home. By 1950, Neng Yee, played by the, perky and pretty Julia Nickson-Soul, is a cheerful and outgoing soul who winds up being a red-flag-waving supporter of the new Communist regime. "I will be a big potato for the Communists," she promises her parents.

She also pursues Lam Cheng Shen (Russell Wong), a fellow law student at the university and even arranges their first date. They soon marry. In the meantime, her father, a once-successful doctor, is publicly humiliated by the Communists, who eventually kill him by giving him an "experimental drug." Neng Yee is nine months' pregnant when she begins to grasp what THIS LARRY MYERS' A VALENTINE FROM CAR- ole Lombard" will play tonight and tomorrow at 8 p.m. at the Theater for the New City, 155 First Ave. Directed by Chris Mealey, this series of monologues about movie extras will feature Brad Friedman, Karen Giordano, Alex Leydenfrost, Paul Lima and Marta VidaL Tickets, $10; proceeds go to the theater's renovation fund.

For tickets, call (212) Wayman Wong.