Harry's adventures continue in Beijing. In the second report, he called The Forbidden City, the imperial palace for emperors of Ming and Qin dynasties, "the set of THE LAST EMPEROR". Harry, have you been forgetting your medication or you really don't know? Anyway, he has written down every bit of detail from his staying on the set built inside Beijing Film Studio. He said the set, a "Beijing Backlot", was used for RAISE THE RED LANTERN (not true), THE TAI CHI MASTER and many more. Harry, you forgot CROUCHING TIGER, HIDDEN DRAGON. He has met truckloads of stars for the first time - Michael Jai White, Dee Dee, Sonny Chiba, and Zhang Ziyi (Don't get excited. She was just dropping by). One more thing - both Quentin Tarantino and Yuen Wo-Ping have denied that they were fighting on the set over the choreography and Harry has found not evidence to prove that they had been fighting.

Click here for day two of Harry's KILL BILL adventures

Thanks to Sebastian Haselbeck, webmaster of The Quentin Tarantino Archives

BTW, New York Times just featured an article on KILL BILL: click here

Thanks to Jean

Steven Seagal is not the only one in Hollywood who is thinking about making a Genghis Khan movie. According to Tyfo.com, producer Bill Badalato is planning his own GENGHIS KHAN with big-name Italian director Bernardo Bertolucci, and this one will also be shot in China.

Meanwhile, Steven Seagal has arrived in Beijing yesterday. (click here for a shot of him at Beijing Capital Airport) President of the movie's Chinese investor, Bian Zushan told Beijing's Star Daily, Seagal's schedule in Beijing included casting eight actors to play Genghis Khan's sons and grandsons, locations scout at places like The Forbidden City and The Great Wall (note: Genghis Khan never reached Beijing and the Forbidden City was built nearly two centuries after his death. In addition, much of The Great Wall we seen today was rebuilt at about the same time), and meeting director Chen Kaige and Chinese Mongolian actors. Bian also said the Mongolian counterpart wanted the cast to be largely filled by people from its country, but Steven Seagal still wanted to work with Chinese actors and shoot the movie in China.

Part one of Harry Knowles' visit to Beijing has been posted. He talked about how different it was between the China he was told and the China he had seen, the endless bar street, the cops who never bothered anyone, how he conquered the gazillion steps up to Pai Mei's temple, and finally how he met Quentin Tarantino and the rest... Click here

According to Beijing Youth, Wu Bin, once Jet Li's master, told the paper that Steven Seagal will arrive in Beijing today to cast eight martial artists for the role of Genghis Ghan's sons and grandsons. The only Mongolian martial art is Mongolian wrestling, which is quite different from the Chinese kung-fu we know. Then what Seagal is planning to make, a historical drama, or a movie just happened to be named GENGHIS KHAN?

The GENGHIS KHAN project has run into trouble when its Chinese investor suddenly discovered, to shoot the film in China,  they need approval from the Chinese Film Bureau. According to Tianjin Daily, the application process will take months to complete and getting the script approved, especially for historical dramas, usually requires two to three months. Furthermore, the Chinese investor, Baobei Group, does not have the license of making movies, therefore a Chinese film studio is needed to take charge of the production. Someone from Chinese Film Bureau has said that an American playing Genghis Khan did not sound very appropriate. Because a few scenes have been scheduled for the coming October, they do not have time to wait for approval and may have to give up making the film in China completely. Now Baobei Group is thinking about withdrawing from the project and is waiting for response from Steven Seagal.

Harry from Aintitcool.com reports Liu Chia-Hui (Gordon) has replaced Quentin Tarantino as Pai Mei (White Eyebrows). The role was originally went to Yuen Wo-Ping, and then Quentin Tarantino. But QT has been overwhelmed by the enormous amount of works and finally decided to pass it to Liu Chia-Hui. As one of the legendary Liu brothers, Liu Chia-Hui has stared in around fifty films by Show Bros. He recently co-produced  DRUNKEN MONKEY with his brother Lau Kar-Leung in attempt to bring back the glory days of Show Bros.

Now Harry should already in Beijing starting his own investigation on the truth of KILL BILL and QT.

Click for the original article by Harry

More: The character Sofie Fatale will be played by Seinfeld star Julia Louis-Dreyfus (Elaine).

Thanks to Sebastian Haselbeck, webmaster of The Quentin Tarantino Archives for the tip

HERO's Beijing production company (New Image ?)'s distribution manager Yu Yuxi has been interviewed by Chinese Business View. He said releasing HERO overseas and bidding for the Oscar required approvals from Chinese Film Bureau and a few other departments.

Actually, I do not think Mr. Yu quite understand how the Oscar works. The Oscar is not a film festival and a movie will be eligible for competition automatically once certain conditions were met. According to the official Academy Awards (www.oscar.org):

All eligible motion pictures, unless otherwise noted (see Paragraph 9 below), must be:

a) feature length (defined as over 40 minutes),

b) publicly exhibited by means of 35mm or 70mm film, or in a 24-frame progressive scan digital format (minimum native resolution 1280 by 1024 pixels), delivered to the screen by an image and sound file format suitable for exhibition in existing commercial digital cinema sites,

c) for paid admission in a commercial motion picture theater in Los Angeles County,

d) for a run of at least seven consecutive days,

e) advertised and exploited during its Los Angeles run in a manner considered normal and customary to the industry, and

f) within the awards year deadlines specified in Rule Three (Note: December 31st, 2002).

And to be qualified for Best Foreign Film category:

1. The film must be first released in the country of origin between November 1, 2001 and October 31, 2002, and first publicly exhibited by means of 35mm or 70mm film for at least seven consecutive days in a commercial motion picture theater for the profit of the producer and exhibitor, advertised and exploited during its eligibility run in a manner considered normal and customary to the industry. The picture need not have been released in the United States.

2. The dialogue track must be predominantly in a language of the country of origin except when the story mandates that an additional non-English language be predominant. Accurate English subtitles are required.

3. The submitting country must certify that creative talent of that country exercised artistic control of the film.

4. The Academy has the right to make the final determination in questions of eligibility.

To be eligible for all categories of the Academy Awards, HERO must be released in China by October 25th, 2002 and in the United States by December 25th, 2002. Yu said, HERO will be sent to Chinese Film Bureau in early September. Therefore hope is still in the air.

Here is a very interesting article about how foreign studios go to China to shoot stories never set in China. Two-month shoot inside Beijing Film Studios is all for scenes set in Japan; a back lot at Shanghai Film Studios will be used to double 1942's Manila in the WWII flick THE GREAT RAID and "they will also use aerial shots of the city's colonial-era Bund to fill in for wartime Manila"; set inside Hengdian Film & TV City will be leased for a movie set in ancient Korea.

Click here

Thanks to Phil Tong

SHANGHAI KNIGHTS has been pushed back to sometime in 2003, reported Entertainment Weekly magazine in its "Fall Preview". The official site indicates it will be released in February 2003.

Click for Entertainment Weekly's SHANGHAI KNIGHTS preview page (with a new photo of Jackie and Owen)

Thanks to Marie M

Andy Lau and Leung Chiu-Wai have posed in front of cameras to promote their in-production film WU WEN DAO (MOU MAN DOU), formerly know as WU WEN XING ZHE (MOU MAN HANG JE). WU WEN DAO is a crime drama, in which Andy Lau plays a cop under-covered as a gangster and Leung Chiu-Wai plays another cop who is a gangster.

Click here

Hong Kong media report the long-awaited the remake-project of THE THIRD MASTER SWORD will be made to a 3-D animation first. The budget is about US$ 1 million, one tenth of the budget for a live-action version. The third master will be animated based on the face of Leslie Cheung, who has been pre-cast for the live-action version. Tsui Hark was attached to the project a while ago and now it is unknown whether he is still on-board.

Tian Jin Daily reports shooting of PURPLE BUTTERFLY has finally been wrapped up two days ago. Wu Yongli, the film's production manager, said making the movie was quite a miserable experience for everyone. They even set a record of working non-stop for over 27 hours. A press conference schedule for this month was scraped because everyone has already burnt out. He said the film is carefully crafted down to every detail. It cost them 60 rolls of film, which is three times for an average production. He said Zhang Ziyi had many love scenes but she never went over-board. Post-production is expected to complete by February next year.

Francois Tissandier from Cinemasie.com has sit down and talked with Stephen Chow when he was promotin SHAOLIN SOCCER in France. Click here for the exclusive interview

Click here

Thanks to Sebastian Haselbeck, webmaster of The Quentin Tarantino Archives

Click here

Thanks to Alex Ward

Miramax is currently editing HERO, according to the film's Beijing based production company, Nanfang Daily reports.

Stephen Chow in fact contributed his own voice to the Miramax's dubbed version of SHAOLIN SOCCER.

Toronto International Film Festival Group has announced a free screening of CROUCHING TIGER, HIDDEN DRAGON at Toronto' Harbourfront Centre Concert Stage on August 24th at 9 p.m.

Beware, there are several mistakes in the original press release article. The movie was adapted from the same-name fourth volume of the Crane-Iron Pentalogy (with five volumes not four) and this specific volume was written in 1941 not early 20th century. Furthermore, in the original novel, the time is set in the mid 18th century and in the movie, the time is set in 1745, therefore it is not early 19th century.
 

Click here for the original press release article

According to Chengdu Evening News, the post-production of HERO is currently being wrapped up in Australia, and on August 22nd, director Zhang Yimou will return to China brining the final print of the film. To prevent any illegal copy from ever happening, he will personally deliver it to the Film Bureau for final approval. The effect house being chosen by Zhang Yimou is Animal Logic from Australia. It is the same company got involved in the production of THE MATRIX trilogy, LORD OF THE RINGS trilogy and MOULIN ROUGE. A two-minute trailer, made for the North American market, has been shown to the top level of China's film circle and Zhang Yimou will edit another one for Chinese audiences.

Warning: horrible dubbing with Chinese accent soundalike, the over used "everybody was kung-fu fighting" song inserted with some rap, big ending giveaway, really bad editing, ... You have been warned!

Trailer: SHAOLIN SOCCER (Miramax Version) (QuickTime, 4MB)

Ching Siu-Tung, the action director of HERO, has received an interview by Nanfang Daily. He said, judging from the actors' performances in the action part, Jet Li is the best and Zhang Ziyi's is the hardest. However, they all did their own fight scenes without doubles. There were even a little bit rivalry among them.

"Jet Li was the national wushu champion. He could master his fights with very little direction. He has shown us his body, strengthen of his moves, and his graces. So we were more emphasizing on showing the character of his role and the strength of his moves."

"(Leung Chiu-Wai), I have worked with him in the past. He has never learned wushu, so we tried to make his more aesthetical and let him show more of his acting. He is smart and learned very fast. (We) used composition and camera to remedy the limit of his fighting capability."

"(Zhang Ziyi) took dance lessons before so we made (her part) in a way of dance. She is skilled and she never used double. She has made a big leap forward from CROUCHING TIGER, HIDDEN DRAGON. This time (we) designed many very difficult moves, but she is smart and she learned very fast. Her part of the action is the hardest."

"(Maggie Cheung)'s character in the movie is very cold. She has never learned wushu either, and we have focused on showing her  beauty, using gaudily colored costumes and landscapes. Really beautiful."

When the reporter mentioned CROUCHING TIGER, HIDDEN DRAGON, Ching said, "CROUCHING TIGER only represents one part of Chinese wuxia. Compared to it, HERO will be a lot different. It is aesthetic, poetic and very romantic. For fighting style, we emphasized on strength as well as elegance. It's the result of a kind of chemical reaction."

When asked about the difference between Zhang Yimou and Tsui Har, Ching said, "Tsui Hark tends more commercialized (movies) and liked to follow the market. Zhang Yimou is more focusing on showing the Chinese culture."

Click the image above to order a VCD

It is the second time Ching Siu-Tung working with director Zhang Yimou. In 1988, Ching Siu-Tung directed a fantasy film QIN YONG (THE TERRACOTTA WARRIOR), starring Zhang Yimou who just stroke his fame with directing début RED SORGHUM and Gong Li, whose acting début is also RED SORGHUM. The story also involves The First Emperor, the same one in HERO, and only set in a decade later when he had already unified China.

Highlight to read the synopsis:

Zhang Yimou played Meng Tianfang, a low-ranking army officer who one day rescued the emperor from a group of assassins and became the ruler's new favor. In the imperial palace, he and court lady Snow (Gong Li) hopelessly fell in love. Meanwhile, one of the emperor's alchemists accidentally invented the immortal pill. Unwilling to see the ruthless ruler to live forever, he gave the pill to Snow. Affair between Meng and Snow finally discovered by the emperor and punishment they were facing was death. During the last kiss, Snow sent the immortal pill into Meng's mouth and run into a sea of fire. The emperor was willing to forgive Meng but Meng volunteered to be sealed as a terra cotta warrior to guard the emperor's gigantic mausoleum. Two millenniums passed by, in the 1930's, a third-class actress Zhu Lili (Gong Li) arrived to play a small role in a movie. In fact, the crew, headed by the movie leading man (Yu Rongguang), were working on robbing The First Emperor's tomb. When Lili accidentally discovered their secret, the leading man attempted to kill her in a plane crash. The small plane crashed into The First Emperor's tomb and woke up the immortal Meng Tianfang. Tianfang found out Lili was his only love from two thousands years ago but she had no memory of her previous life. Lili brought Tianfang to the modern civilization and from him, the tomb robbers discovered the entrance to The First Emperor's mausoleum. Tianfang and Lili returned to the emperor's tomb to stop the tomb robbers. Just when Lili realized she was Tianfang's love in her previous life, she was killed by the leading man. Meanwhile, thousands of terra cotta warriors came alive to fight the tomb robbers. After a fierce battle, everything was buried by earth except Meng Tianfang, who climbed out alone. In the 1980's, the terra cotta warriors had been rediscovered and a giant museum was built on top of the burial pits. Meng Tianfang, who had become an archeologist, was sitting in the pit and quietly brushing away the dirt from a terra cotta figure. A group of Japanese tourists came to visit the museum and among them, there was a very familiar face...

According to the Time Asian special report and a few production photos being released so far, there is a dual fight scene with Maggie Cheung and Zhang Ziyi. This scene, in which thousands of fallen leaves flying around them, sounds very familiar to one scene in QIN YONG, in which Zhang Yimou is playing his sword in a courtyard while fallen golden leaves are flying around. One is inspired by the other?

Click here for the official site

The action director of HEROES OF HEAVEN AND EARTH, Leung Siu-Hung, has recently been interviewed by Chinese media. He said, "it is a wuxia film, but director He Ping didn't know how to make action scenes. He often use six cameras to shoot the same fight simultaneously and to catch the right moments from different directions and angles. He basically relies on editing to show each move. He Ping never paid much attention on

Jiang Wen (left) and Kiichi Nakai (right)	Jiang Wen (left) and director He Ping (right)

how to make a fight beautiful. Rather, he emphasized on the whole scene and characters' emotions. He never wanted the  moves to be fancy, but demanded them to be suitable to a person's character and the plot. So we abandoned the traditional fancy moves, and turned our focus on using moves to reflect a character's feeling and also making some new changes among simple fight moves." Unlike many martial-art films like CROUCHING TIGER, HIDDEN DRAGON, this movie never relied on wire-fu and all moves obey the rules of physics. All the characters can do is just jumping onto horseback from the ground and were never able to "fly". He said, "even though it's "real fight", we cannot let someone got killed by just one punch and still made the moves somewhat beautified and exaggerated.

Leung Siu-Hung said Kiichi Nakai (the cop) had played in samurai movies and learned sword fight before. He could master his own moves very fast and could get it just right. In a fight scene with a group of bandits, his moves are very clean and fast. Wang Xueqi (bandit leader) is also very good. Leung said during another fight scene with a group of bandits, he played beautifully and really showed the character of his role. Jiang Wen (Captain Li) is the worst. It is his first action movie and he just couldn't get it right. Jiang's knees have old wounds and he couldn't knee and couldn't make high jump or low jump. Many of his scenes were done by his double. Zhao Wen (the general's daughter) did not have any action scenes.

Leung Siu-Hung is the vice-president of Hong Kong Guild of Stunt Actors. Being an action directors for over two decades, he has left his name in over one hundred movies, like BO HAO (TO BE NO. 1), HUANG FEI HONG XIAO ZHUAN (ONCE UPON A TIME A HERO IN CHINA), and WU YEN. HEROES OF HEAVEN AND EARTH is one of the four Asian productions financed by Columbia  and will have a world-wide release sometime next year.

Photos: SINA.COM

Many readers of this website have sent in letters concerning the possible one-year delay of the release of HERO in North America. I understand your anger and I share your pain.

Now it is time for some action: send messages to Miramax and its parent company Disney through letters, e-mails, petitions and any other mean. Tell more people about it through e-mails, forums, and so on. Send news articles to influential websites, like Aintitcool.com, Darkhorizons.com, MSNBC, etc. Send letters to other media, like newspapers (Variety, The Hollywood Reporter, etc.) and magazines (Entertainment Weekly, Premiere, etc.). Tell your concerns to influential people, especially film critics like Roger Ebert.

We shall have the following messages:

1. Release HERO as early as possible.

2. One screen at one commercial theater in L.A. by December 31, 2002 is more than enough for the Oscar bid.

3. Efforts by many websites have generated lots of publicities among real fans and words-of-mouth from them will push HERO to a very hot spot.

4. Since Miramax is known for scissoring Asian films, fear of a re-assembled Miramax version of HERO alone will force every fan to acquire HERO DVD and VCD from Asia once they become available either online or at local Chinese video stores.

5. Bottom-line, whenever the release date is, do not do anything except adding decent subtitles.

Let's get started!

Photos: SINA.COM

Information Times reports someone from one of HERO's production companies (New Image?), only known as Mr. Qin, has confirmed that the post-production, mainly on the CG effects, will be completed by the end of August. Then it will be sent to the Chinese Film Bureau for approval. If so, HERO will not be shown at either Toronto International Film Festival (submission deadline: June 7th) or Venice International Film Festival (submission deadline: July 31st). 

Meanwhile, six production stills appeared on the web on July 31st (Click here) were actually sent to the media illegally. It has been suspected that the six photos, very blur, dark and low in resolution, are scanned from a brochure, which has been distributed to several advertising agencies. Mr. Qin said they might seek legal action against the one being responsible for the leakage.

As you know, Miramax just released its fall schedule and HERO is not on it. Many have speculated it is because there is not enough time for stuffs like promotion and Miramax may have decided to push it back to the fall of next year. Why the fall? Because Oscar voters usually have very short memory and many past winners, especially the non-blockbusters, were released in the fall season. Another possible reason of pushing it back to next year is to avoid GANGS OF NEW YORK being cannibalized by HERO at the coming Oscar. However, HERO will be released in China this December no matter what and by fall next year, the entire world will have already been flooded with HERO DVDs and VCDs. By them, people from core of core of the target market of HERO have already seen it. Further more, a full year will give Miramax a perfect excuse of massing up HERO just like what they did to all other Asian films. If Miramax really want HERO to grab something from the Oscar, all they can do is just release it at just one theater in L.A. Is that something really hard to do? I say: who cares about Oscar? Just show me the movie!

Thanks to Kimi C for bringing up the topic

The 222-page draft of KILL BILL written script by Quentin Tarantino has shown up on the net.

Click here

Thanks to Cass

The trailer of THE TRANSPORTER has been posted on Apple.Com. Harry Knowles from AICN called it "finally a new trailer work saving to your Hard Drive!".

Trailer: THE TRANSPORTER (QuickTime)

Official Site

Thanks to Cass

Yesterday Hong Kong's The Sun reported Columbia Pictures, the international distributor of  Jackie Chan's newest Hong Kong production HIGHBINDERS (except Asia and France), has rejected the delivery of the movie  because some dialogues had been changed without their permission. When being interviewed by Shenzhen's Nanfang Daily, director Gordon Chan tried to set the record straight. He said, "The American are satisfied by the cut we have right now and don't want Jackie Chan and I to alter it any further. To them, the action sequences are good enough, but Jackie and I think the story is still not strong. Columbia won't give us any more time because they has reserved a timeslot for it (May, 2003?). We have been arguing on this for a while. Jackie and I decided, if we can't resolved it, we will make two versions the movie as the last resort, because majority of the audiences is still in Asia." When being asked whether it was because the Americans could not understand the Chinese style funny dialogues, he said "not just that, changing dialogues is not the vital point, it is more about the cultural difference." None of the the screenwriters are Chinese and possibly, some dialogues from the script have been changed to let Jackie Chan talk more like a Chinese. Gordon Chan said they has originally planned to release it in Asia next February (around the coming Chinese New Year), but due to the delay, now he was only hoping the CG effects could be done by the end of this year.

Trailer of NAKED WEAPON is up on Media Asia's site. Unfortunately, it is on very crappy Window Media format. In the trailer, the movie is advertised as "from the action director of HERO." Can you believe that? Anyway, NAKED WEAPON is still in production.

Trailer: NAKED WEAPON (Window Media)

Thanks to François (Cinemasie.Com)

Official Site

Related Report:

NAKED WEAPON Storyline (Media Asia) August 2, 2002

Jackie Chan's diary has wrapped up with 8 new entries. Click here

More exclusive snapshots have been posted. Click here

Thanks to Marie M

Beijing's Star Daily reports a rough cut has been sent to Chinese Film Bureau about a month ago. The "judges" were reportedly deeply touched by the film and one of them even said he hadn't seen a film so moving for decades. According to Tianjin Daily, a 2-minute trailer has been shown to people from China Film Corp. and several from China's film cycle. Someone from China Film Corp. told the paper that just judging from the trailer, he could feel HERO was an epical and carefully crafted romantic wuxia masterpiece, which was filled with breathtaking images. And according to Taiwan's The Star, it is too late for HERO to be shown on this year's Venice International Film Festival, but it  will still be promoted in Venice during the festival.

According to Mei Ri Xin Bao, Steven Seagal has decided to collect only 6 million from the US$ 30 million GENGHIS KHAN project he has been planning for years. Seagal originally signed the contract with the Mongolian Oyuunii Undraa company, but the Mongolian was short on cash. Through the Chinese Embassy in Mongolia, they contacted China's Baobei Group (parent company of the Hong Kong investor mentioned in the Reuters' report?). Bian Hongdeng, president of Baobei Group, told the paper that they have decided to co-finance the film after he  met Seagal in Mongolia.

In October, they may start to shoot a small number of outdoor scenes in Mongolia just before the winter closing in. Seagal will return to Beijing that month for pre-production.

Sina.Com reports two days ago, Zhang Ziyi has finished all her scenes with a 30-hour non-stop shoot. For some reason, production of PURPLE BUTTERFLY is running slower than an average project and to complete  her share on time, Zhang Ziyi has given up much of her sleeping time recently. Rest of the filming will be wrapped up very soon and the movie will be released next year.

THE TRANSPORTER, a new action from director Louis Leterrier and Corey Yuen, will have a wide release in North America starting September 13th.

Synopsis: Dangerous complications ensue when a former U.S. Special Forces soldier-turned expatriate mercenary is hired to kidnap the feisty daughter of a lethal Chinese crime lord who's smuggling his fellow countrymen into France.

Cast: Jason Statham, Shu Qi, Tcheky Karyo, Francois Berleand

Produced by: Luc Besson, Steven Chasman

Written by: Luc Besson, Robert Mark Kamen

Produced by Hong Kong's Applause Pictures, THREE is a supernatural thriller consisted with three mini stories directed by Chan Ho-Sun (Hong Kong), Kim Jee-Woon (Korea) and Nonzee Nimibutr (Thailand). Has been a box-office smash in Thailand, THREE will be released in Hong Kong on August 15th.

The Hong Kong story: A police officer moved in an apartment building and discovered his neighbor was preserving the body of his wife he killed three years ago and believed she would wake up someday...

The Korean Story: A husband haunted by nightmares could not remember why his wife disappeared. After seeing a traffic accident, he started to feel his wife had already die. Meanwhile his wife woke up in the street. Also lost her memory, she made her way home through the clue she found in her wallet, then...

Detail description of THE HULK panel with director Ang Lee at the San Diego Comic Con is up at Comics Continuum. Click here

Looks like yesterday's report is false. According to China's Mei Ri Xin Bao, the wrapping up date of Beijing shoot has been pushed back to September 2nd.

The paper reports Quentin Tarantino and Yuen Wo-Ping have run into argument several times over how to handle the fight scenes. Tarantino is doing the fights scenes in his own way - a kind of "music video" style, i.e. fight moves must follow some sort of "music". Tarantino has "slaughtered" many moves designed by Yuen Wo-Ping  and Yuen thought many moves designed by Tarantino were "ridiculous". Someone working inside told the paper that Tarantino was inexperienced in making martial-art movies and had under-estimated the complexity of big fight scenes. What have been made inside Beijing Film Studios are almost exclusively fight scenes. He said quite often, actors are "wired" to make the same shot over an over again. Miramax has tight control of any expense outside the budget and has asked Tarantino to delete some scenes several time.

In the movie, The Bride is taking on a gang called "Crazy 88" and members of the gang are played by many Hong Kong stuntmen and wushu athletes hired from the mainland. Much of the fight scenes of Uma Thurman are done by two doubles, one male and one female. She only shows up for the close-up scenes. Even though, they have taken a double-day off twice for the last two weeks because Uma Thurman needed some break. Everyday, there are an ambulance, there doctors and one massage therapist are standing by, just in case anyone being injured on the set.

According to China's Southern City, KILL BILL's Beijing shoot is finally over and the production has moved to Japan a few days ago. Shooting in Japan will include the remaining scenes of the now famous "Showdown at House of Blue Leaves" sequence.

It is all real, people! Steven Seagal is indeed taking the leading role in an upcoming biopic of Genghis Khan. Reuters reports he will make this US$30 million film, planned by himself, with the Mongolian Oyuunii Undraa company and Hong Kong Cinema, starting in May 2003.

According to Beijing Youth, Steven Seagal will travel to Beijing tomorrow to do the casting. He is hoping the movie to be directed by a well-known Chinese director, like Ang Lee or Zhang Yimou, and stars like Zhang Ziyi can sign on. Contrary to Reuters' report, this paper said the shooting was expected to begin the coming October.

These two pictures with Zhang Ziyi and co-star Nakamura Tôru appeared on Zhang Ziyi CSC. They look like two scans from an unknown Chinese newspaper.

According to the site, the first one was taken between shots and the second is a still shot taken by a photographer from a ladder. "The purpose of the still shot is so that they'll have a hard copy to see how the camera angle looks, as oppose to the film. When they go back to the story board, they then can replace the hand sketch drawing of the scene with this actual snap shot."

According to Chinese Business View, post production of HERO will be wrapped up in about two weeks. Upon a greenlight on the film from Chinese Film Bureau, it will have the first screen test, exclusively to the media, approximately one month from today. Release date in the Mainland China has been set as December 19.

The production companies are expecting HERO to compete at several festivals around the world, but no specific name has been mentioned yet.

According to Hong Kong media, besides the two Hua Mulan projects pulled by Michelle Yeoh and director Stanley Tong, a third one is secretly in planning. This one wants to lure Zhang Ziyi in and Korean star Jang Dong-Gun is also wanted to be the male lead. But according to Information Times, Zhang Ziyi's brother, who is also her manager, said he was not aware of it and he had to read the script first. He also said there were four projects she could pick as her next, including the sequel of HERO (according to Zhang Yimou, the sequel will be a different story in a different time).

Someone from China Film Bureau told the paper that scripts of all three HUA MULAN had got greenlighted from them. Each has a unique storyline, some is very close to the original folklore and some is not. The Bureau had asked all three parties to talk but none of them is willing to give up. Therefore, the race is on.

I say Zhang Ziyi is the best choice for Hua Mulan. After all, it is a story of how a young little girl disguised as a man and jointed the army to fight the intruders. But a Korean actor playing a Chinese warrior? Somehow I got discouraged. Michelle Yeoh might be more appropriate for the role, if she came out the idea ten years ago. She also wish Chow Yun-Fat to play General Li. Well, some wish. About Stanley Tong's MULAN, well, no one has been cast yet but he wants everyone in his movie to speak English. I smell cheesy!

About the directors, Peter Pau, who will work at Michelle Yeoh's camp, is more or less responsible for the sloppiness of THE TOUCH, even though I still believe he is a great cinematographer. Stanley Tong may be an experienced stunt coordinator, but he is not a good director. RUMBLE IN THE BRONX was good only because Jackie Chan was good.

Who will win? It's hard to tell. Each got something what the other two don't have but none of them is THE front running. However, Stanley Tong's version may kick off the first because shooting of his MULAN will likely start by the end of the year.

Another production still with Maggie Cheung has been posted on the website of Hong Kong's Oriental Daily.

SHAOLIN SOCCER

HULK and BULLETPROOF MONK: A B

Others

CountingDown.Com reports the released day has been pushed forward to September 27, 2002.

Here is a video clip of Jennifer Love Hewitt receiving martial-art training for her role: click here (Windows Media)

I haven't seen one review which is positive. This one is no exception.

Review: THE TOUCH (Negative, Major Spoilers) by Beige Babapapa

Just when you think Jet Li joining HERO marked the end of THE FIRST KING, you hear a voice - "no so fast". According to SciFi Wire, John Zinman and Patrick Massett, who just wrote the script of THE FIRST KING, are not worrying about the similarity between THE FIRST KING and THE ONE. However, it looks like they are totally unaware of the existence of HERO, which may just shares a greater similarity with THE FIRST KING.

Zinman said, "It's a reincarnation story about the first emperor of China (played by Jet Li), who is reincarnated in our times. He has to go through the tomb, the temple where his nemesis in ancient times was buried, and they have to fight." "He discovers himself by realizing that he was once somebody greater than who he is now." Then the film "culminates with star Jet Li fighting himself" something he has done in THE ONE.

They said they would not consider rewriting the ending, because they "don't think that THE ONE did well enough for anyone to have a concern necessarily" and Joe Silver, the producer, has not asked then to do so. Oh, well. Just wait until they know about HERO.

Click here for the original report on SciFi.Com

These are the larger version of two production stills we have already seen two days ago. Stay tone for more.

(Left) Jet Li as Wu Ming (No Name)

(Right) Maggie Cheung as Fei Xue (Flying Snow)

According to Beijing Youth, Stephen Chow's long-time partner Lee Lik-Chi has left Stephen Chow. Since 1993, he has directed 11 comedies staring Stephen Chow. Last year, he wrote and directed SHAOLIN SOCCER along with Stephen Chow.

Lee called Stephen Chow a great comedian but he may have conclude that now Stephen Chow is just repeating himself. He said, "he is a star and I am a director. Star is star and director is director. We have different things to pursuit, therefore we have no choice (but to split). We may work together again if we there is an opportunity. But it won't happen soon. I like to create, therefore I am not interest in projects like GOD OF COOKERY 2 and SHAOLIN SOCCER 2." This also means he will not be involved in Stephen Chow's next project.

A four page long review which will be updated with more tidbits of dialogue and critique in the upcoming days.

Thanks to Sprite

At the press conference, Zhan Yimou has dismissed some report suggesting HERO is catered for the West. He said, "I always put Chinese audiences at the first place when making movies." Zhang Yimou will go to Australia to finish the post-production.

According to Hong Kong's Ming Pao, there is a little twist of Zhang Ziyi's character in how the story of HERO will be unfolded.

WARNING: SPOILERS AHEAD! HIGHLIGHT TO READ!

After Wu Ming (Jet Li) killed the three assassins (Leung Chiu-Wai, Maggie Cheung, Donnie Yen), he told the king (Chen Daoming) that Ru Yue (Zhang Ziyi) was unwillingly used by him to lead to the death of the three. Both Fei Xue (Maggie Cheung) and Ru Yue are in love with Can Jian (Leung Chiu-Wai). Can Jian was probably killed by Fei Xue. We do not know how Fei Xue and Chang Kong died, but in the end Ru Yue is the only one survived and the king eventually unified China.

SPOILERS NED

This review was written by "shirodka" from Singapore and was posted on the forum of Jet Li's Official Website.

Review: THE TOUCH (Negative, Minor Spoilers) by "shirodka"

China's Xin Wen Wan Bo reports internationally acclaimed violinist Itzhak Perlman has performed a solo which will be featured in the HERO soundtrack composed by Tan Dun. Itzhak Perlman is best known for his unforgettable violin solo in SCHINDLER'S LIST. Tan Dun won an Oscar for his music in CROUCHING TIGER, HIDDEN DRAGON. Zhang Yimou has had an eye on Tan Dun since CROUCHING TIGER was out, and Tan has composed a piece of music for a series of short promo films for Beijing's 2008 Olympic bid, written and directed by Zhang Yimou.

Before Tan Dun went to Beijing to meet Zhang Yimou, he has already signed up to composed a new opera The First Emperor for New York based The Metropolitan Opera, scheduled for 2006. While in Beijing, Tan Dun persuaded Zhang Yimou to write and direct the project. This will be the first time Zhang Yimou directing an opera since the live stage performance of Turandot in Beijing three years ago.

In May, when Perlman's solo was recorded, Zhang Yimou was standing outside the recording room. He praised Perlman's music with a very wired review - intriguing and "ununderstandable". Tan Dun composed the solo, with some high tone borrowed from Qinqiang, a local opera originated from Shaanxi Province, where the kingdom of Qin used to be. It will probably be used as the background music of the desert scenes. Also included in the soundtrack, is a young drummer performance with Japanese drum taiko, which has strong Chinese root. Sound from danao, an ancient bronze bell-like music instrument will also be used. Unlike most movies, HERO will not have any song but some human voices performed by male basses and female tenors.

The first news conference of HERO was held this afternoon in Hong Kong. So far I only have four pictures taken by Jie Ge.

Looks like only two people showed up, director Zhang Yimou, of cause, and another gentleman (I suspect he is Bill Kong, producer of both HERO and CROUCHING TIGER, HIDDEN DRAGON).

The room was decorated like the king's palace and 40 oil lamps in the  shape of a kneeing man were put in front of the table.

The official logo with both Chinese and English title has been revealed for the first time.

In the last photo (bottom-right), Zhang Yimou was presenting, according to Sina.Com, a copy of HERO comic book to Bill Kong (?).

The storyline of NAKED WEAPON, a Hong Kong action flick directed by Chiu Siu-Tung, has been posted the producing company Media Asia's website. It tells a story of a cold blood female killer, who uses her body to seduced her victims. One day she has to use her ultimate naked weapon against her boss and to rescue her lover, a fellow female killer, and her long lost mother.

Click here for the full synopsis

Photo: Media Asia

Aintitcool.Com just posted the first known THE TOUCH review written in English. Remember, this is only the first review, which only represent the personal viewpoint of the person who wrote the review.

Review: THE TOUCH (Negative, No Spoilers)

According to China's Information Times, the first press conference of HERO will be held in Hong Kong tomorrow.

(Left) Leung Chiu-wai

China's Information Times just revealed a little bit secret of Stephen Chow's next movie. According to his manager Tin Kai-Man, the outline of the script is completed. The story will take place in the 1950's Hong Kong and the mainland. Stephen Chow will play a young nobody, who was obsessed with martial arts but did not really know how to fight. After he accidentally bumped into several real kung-fu masters, something really funny happened. This untitled movie will follow the same format from SHAOLIN SOCCER - comedy, action and CG effects, but will have more complex plots and a bigger budget. Stephen's character will similar to the one he played in KING OF DESTRUCTION. The writing team of SHAOLIN SOCCER is currently working on the script and it may take about half year to complete.