The official website of The Banquet been launched today during a press conference in Beijing. Produced by Beijing-based Huayi Brothers and Hong Kong-based Media Asia, The Banquet is a Hamlet inspired story set in the ancient China.

The Banquet official website

The top menu bar: (L to R) News, Story, Characters, Crew, Designs, Message board.

The bottom menu bar: (L to R) English version (coming soon), Special page, Replay the flash movie.

Posters:

The theme poster

Empress Wan (Zhang Ziyi)

Emperor Li (Ge You)

Crown Prince Wu Luan (Daniel Wu)

Minister Yin Taichang (Ma Jingwu)

Yin Zhun (Huang Xiaoming)

Photos from the press conference: A B

Silk, (literal title: Eerie Silk), by Taiwanese screenwriter and second time director Su Chao-Bin, will receive the treatment of screening at midnight during the Cannes Film Festival next month. In the horror drama, a scientist (Yosuke Eguchi), who attempts to achieve immortality through the research of the dead, finds the spirit of a 13 year old boy. His new discovery soon draws the attention of many people, including a police officer (Chang Chen), the police officer's girlfriend (Lin Chia-Hsin), and the scientist's three assistants (Barbie Hsu, Chen Bo-Lin and Chang Chun-Ning). After the police officer discovers a thread of silk, things begin to get out of control. Claimed to be the most expensive film ever made in Taiwan, Silk cost about 200 million Taiwanese dollars (US$6.2 millions) to make. Taiwan's CMC Movie Corporation covered much of the expense and the Taiwan government donated 13 million Taiwanese dollars (US$0.4 millions) to the project. The cast is filled with first-class local talents and popular Japanese actor Yosuke Eguchi. The crew consists many veterans from Hong Kong, Taiwan, Japan and the US, including cinematographer Arthur Wong (Ultraviolet, Iron Monkey, Once Upon a Time in China series), production designer Yohei Taneda (Ghost in the Shell 2: Innocence, Kill Bill: Vol. 1), editor Cheung Ka-Fai (SPL, One Nite in Mongkok, God of Cookery), recent Silver Berlin Bear winner composer Peter Kam (Isabella, Perhaps Love, One Nite in Mongkok), as well as makeup effects artists Paul Katte and Nick Nicolaou (The Matrix trilogy).

Originally worked as an IT engineer, Su Chao-Bin turned his career to film writing in the late 1990s and has written  six film scripts, including Three and Double Vision. in 2001, he wrote his directorial début Better Than Sex, about a web of connected stories on adventure, sex and love in Taiwan.

Chinese director Wang Chao's third film, Luxury Car (literal title: The Summer Days of Hankou) will be shown at the coming Cannes Film Festival in the category of Un Certain Regard. The story of the film begins with Li QIming (Wu Youcai), a village school teacher travels to the city of Wuhan to look for his son Li Xueqin, who run away from home after failing the college entrance exam. In the city of 10 million residents, he teams up with an old policeman (Li Yiqing), who just lost his own son. What they do not know is that, the teacher's son was already killed during a carjacking, carried out by the boyfriend of the teacher's daughter Li Yanhong (Tian Yuan). The film was financed by a Wuhan company and was shot in Wuhan with a full local cast speaking the local dialect. Hankou is one of three towns formed the city of Wuhan and is considered by Wang Chao as the perfect location for showing today's China.

Lou Ye	Hao Lei	Guo Xiaodong
(?)

According to several Chinese newspapers, Lou Ye's Summer Palace, just been picked to compete for this year's Golden Palm, has yet been submitted to the Chinese government for censorships. Showing the film in a foreign country without a certificate for release would make director Lou Ye and the film's producers in big trouble. In the past 20 years, nearly 30 Chinese films, including Lou Ye's Suzhou River, were shown at various international film festivals without being greenlighted by the Chinese government. None of them has been allowed to release in China and  their directors were all punished by the authority.

What has been submitted to Cannes Film Festival is only a video copy of an 140 minute rough cut. Reportedly, director Lou Ye is still working on the final sound mix even though the production wrapped up eight months ago. The final cut is expected to be submitted to Chinese Film Bureau in ten days and failing to pass the censorship may cause the film to be pulled out of Cannes.

Summer Palace, named after the famous former imperial park in Beijing, is about the story of two lovers, played by Hao Lei and Guo Xiaodong. Set in five Chinese cities, Beijing, Chongqing, Wuhan, Beidaihe and Tumen, as well as Berlin, the story begins in mid-1980s and ends in 2000. It features many historical events from the past two decades, like the the fall of the Berlin Wall, the collapse of the Eastern bloc, the breakup of the Soviet Union and Hong Kong's returning to China. The Production and post-production of the film have been kept in low profile and no promotional materials, not even a still, have been released. It is Lou Ye's fifth directorial work and second Cannes contender.  Three year's ago, his Purple Butterfly was selected to compete for the Golden Palm and was on the top spot of my list of best mainland Chinese productions of 2003.

ComingSoon.net just run an exclusive set report about Rogue, an action piece now being shot in Vancouver. It contains a very detail, maybe even spoiling, description of the final showdown. This is a warning. Writer of this report even made Jet Li to confess that he struggle to play a very bad guy and the movie is a big crazy violent revenge, which he hates it personally. The report also reveals that Rogue is set up to be the first of a trilogy, which means Li and Statham may get to play two more together.

Click here for the ComingSoon report (Thanks to "Chris" and Jet Liang.)