Liu Ye with Meryl Streep. (Sina.com)

Sina.com reports Chinese actor Liu Ye has visit the States again to prepare for his role in the American indie project Dark Matter, which would also star Meryl Streep and Val Kilmer. Inspired by a true story, Dark Matter tells a tragic story of Liu Xing (first name: Xing, last name: Liu), a young Chinese studying in America who reacted violently after his chance of winning the Nobel Prize was ruined by the campus politics. To prepare for his role, Liu Ye has taken a series of English lessons and has acquired director Zhang Yimou’s permission to temporarily leave the production of The City of Golden Armor if Liu was ever wanted for Dark Matter on the other side of the Pacific.

 

Related stories:

Liu Ye Said He Is Still Attached to DARK MATTER (MonkeyPeaches Exclusive) April 18, 2006

More On Liu Ye and Meryl Streep's DARK MATTER (Variety / AFP) June 26, 2004

Liu Ye, Meryl Streep and Robert Redford In LIU XING (MonkeyPeaches Exclusive) June 14, 2004

Donnie Yen in Dragon Tiger Gate. (Mandarin Films)

Someone from Donnie Yen’s agent company, Hong Kong-based Mandarin Films, has been talking to the local press lately about a remake of late Japanese master Akira Kurosawa’s Seven Samurais pushed by The Weinsteins Co. During the recently closed Cannes Film Festival, Donnie Yen had a series discussion with Harvey Weinstein, who asked Yen to star in the remake. In addition, the Weinsteins would also invite Zhang Ziyi and George Clooney to join the cast. A Hong Kong newspaper has speculated that Clooney’s role would be Kambei, the leader of the seven samurais and Zhang Ziyi’s role would be Shino the village girl. Reportedly, the remake would tell a somewhat updated version of the original story featuring some CG-enhanced fight scenes and would cost approximately US$100 million to make. Two most well-known Hollywood moguls remaking a Japanese classic is already interestingly odd and how would George Clooney fit into the picture? It may not be a faithful remake of the original, but I still want to say - go ahead to make it and stay away from the classic.

Related story:

Hong Kong action star set to lead in Japanese classic remake, AFP

RottenTomatoes.com just posted a photography of a teaser poster of Jet Li's upcoming Hollywood project Way of the Rat, displayed in Cannes. It is described as "an East-meets-West 'Lord of the Rings' adventure with CGI creatures and set in the olden times." A big name Hollywood star" is expected to star with Li in the movie. Part of an ancient Chinese coin engraved with Chinese zodiac animals and the characters representing these animals. It may or may not be related to the story of the movie.

Click here for the original report by RottenTomatoes.com.

(AFP)

According to several mainland Chinese newspapers, a casting team has visited Beijing and Shanghai to search for the right actress to play the female leading role, a young college student recruited as a secret agent. Reportedly, Ang Lee prefers casting someone with a fresh face and only a handful of relatively well known actresses have been contacted. Another report suggests this role will belong to someone from Taiwan. As for the male leading role, a high ranking puppet government official and the target of an assassination plot, mainland Chinese actor Ge You is currently in talk for the role. Ge You is best known for starring in comedies, especially films by director Feng Xiaogang. His performance in Zhang Yimou's To Live made him the best actor of 1994's Cannes International Film Festival. Most recently, he played an emperor in Feng Xiaogang's The Banquet, a Hamlet inspired drama.

Update: Ge You's manager Zhang Kui told Sina.com that Ge was very interested in starring in a n Ang Lee movie but so far he had not heard anything from Ang Lee.

On the stage designed like the lobby of Oriental Hotel from Jury president Wong Kar-Wai's In the Mood for Love and 2046, winners of the 59th Cannes Film Festival are announced tonight.

The complete winners' list

(AFP)

Mainland Chinese director Wang Chao's Luxury Car (Chinese literal title: Summer Days of a River City) became the winner of the category "Un Certain Regard" last night in Cannes. Luxury Car tells a country schoolteacher traveling to the city of Wuhan to look for his only son. He teams up with an old policeman, who also lost his own son. But the schoolteacher does not that his son is already dead during a carjack and the man being responsible for his death is the boyfriend of the schoolteacher's daughter. Wang said he decided to make the film after feeling sorry for spending too much time on his work and too little time with his family. As the the final installment of Wang's trilogy about life in modern China, Luxury Car has yet been scheduled for a release in Chinas. The first two installments of the trilogy, The Orphan of Anyan (2001) and Night and Day (2006) have never been released in Chinese theaters due to the country's overly small market for artistic films. Chinese filmmakers who are obsessed with making artistic films usually cover the production cost by selling their works in the overseas market.

(Thanks to "Maria")

Page by Cannes Film Festival.

Celluloid Dreams (The French production studio)

Clips from Cannes: Cocktail party  Cocktail party - director Wang Chao

Cocktail party - actress Tian Yuan  The blue carpet

Photos from Cannes

Review:

By Derek Elley (Variety)

By Duane Byrge (The Hollywood Reporter)

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Two Hong Kong films, Election 2 and Re-Cycle, premièred today in Cannes. Johnnie To directed Election 2: Harmony Is Virtue is a more violent follow-up to his violent gang drama Election, premièred at last  year's Cannes Film Festival. Re-Cycle is latest horror flick by the Pang Brothers, Oxide Pang and Danny Pang.

Election 2: Harmony Is Virtue:

Official page by Cannes Film Festival

Interview in Cannes: Clips (click the numbers below the screen to select.)   Photos

Re-Cycle:

Official page by Cannes Film Festival.

Related stories:

(AFP)

Shanghai Youth Daily just had a short conversation with Ang Lee's personal assistant, Lee Liang-Shan about Lust, Caution. He said Ang Lee liked  the original story very much and had been working on the adaptation for many years. The cast would be filled largely with Chinese actors and actresses and it would be Ang Lee's first Chinese language film since Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon. The cast list has not been finalized yet but they have already begun talking to many Chinese actresses and actors. Lee Liang-Shan said they would not rule out casting anyone, including anyone, who had already worked in Ang Lee previous films, for example Zhang Ziyi.  He said much of the film would feature the old Shanghai during the 1920s and 1930s. They have planned to start the production by November this year and Ang Lee have considered to shoot it in Shanghai. The original short story, inspired by a true event, is about a young woman agent seducing a high ranking puppet government official for assassinating him in a trap in the Japanese-occupied Shanghai sometime between 1941 and 1945.

Click here for detail

Chinese director Gu Changwei is getting ready to wrap up the shooting of Li Chun (loosely means "The First Day of Spring"). As a follow-up to his directorial début  Peacock, The First Day of Spring is about three mini-stories in the less developed small northern Chinese city during the whole 1990s. Gu's wife, Jiang Wenli plays an  instructor at a local music academy, who dreams about touring around the world as a famous soprano; Dong Xuan plays a neighbor of the soprano, a young housewife whose rich husband run away with everything she is proud of; and Zhang Yao plays a student of the soprano, who shaves her head to support his boyfriend undergoing cancer treatment and becomes a favorite at singing contest after claiming she herself is a cancer patient.

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Silk (Chinese literal title: "Eerie Silk"), the latest from Taiwan, is premiered today in Cannes Grand Théâtre Lumière. In the horror drama, a scientist, 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, the police officer's girlfriend, and the scientist's three assistants. 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.

Title image: (L to R) Barbie Hsu, director Su Chao-Pin, Chang Chen and Lin Chia-Hsin (Karena Lam).

Page by Cannes Film Festival.

Photos from Cannes More photos from Cannes (updated)

Official site  Stills  Photos from a press conference in Taipei (June 16, 2005)  CMC Entertainment 

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(L to R) Summer Palace poster, Dragon Tiger Gate poster design, Re-Cycle still.
(Laurel Films, Mandarin Films, Universe Films)

CANNES: "Red Road" Is Tense, Fascinating; "Dusk" A Dry Comic Gem; "Palace" Much to Admire; "Princess" Has Agonizing Power, by Tim Ryan

Cannes: Promo Reels for Tony Jaa's "Ong Bak 2" and Donnie Yen "Dragon Tiger Gate" Showcase Hard-Hitting Martial Arts Mayhem, by Senh Duong

Cannes: Pang Brothers' "Re-Cycle" Imaginative, But Exhausting, by Senh Duong

(Thanks to Senh Duong of IGN Entertainment and Rotten Tomatoes.)

(AFP)

Focus Features just announced yesterday that director Ang Lee's next project will Lust, Caution, adapted from the same name short story written by Chinese woman writer Eileen Chang (1921 - 1995) in 1978. Set in the post-1941 Shanghai which was under the Japanese occupation, the story is about a young secret agent affiliated with the Chinese Nationalist government, who seduced a high-ranking official worked for the puppet government and tricked him to an assassination trap. Then she realized the relationship with her target had started growing out of control. The film is produced by Bill Kong, who produced Lee's Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon, Zhang Yimou's Hero and House of Flying Daggers, as well as Ronny Yu's Fearless. Focus Features CEO James Schamus,  who has produced every film Ang Lee directed, returns as the executive producer. The screenplay is penned by Wang Hui-Ling, who wrote the scripts of Eat Drink Man Woman and Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon for Ang Lee. Schamus said, "Ang Lee is going to be making a very exciting film that's unlike anything he's done before" and " 'Lust, Caution' is a uniquely Asian story which, in Ang's hands, will surprise and attract audiences around the world." Shooting is expected to begin this fall at an unannounced location.

Related stories:

Ang Lee spies WWII China pic, by Gregg Goldstein, The Hollywood Reporter