(Century Hero Film)

"Mighty Ganesha" just came back from the world première of Chinese director Tian Zhuangzhuang's (The Blue Kite, The Horse Thief) biopic of Wu Qingyuan and sent me a very enthusiastic review of this film. Wu Qingyuan is a Chinese master player of Qi or Weiqi (pronounced as "Go" in Japanese.) As a talented player of the ancient Chinese board game, he moved to Japan when he was just a teenager. Wu is now still living in Japan. Here is the review:

The Go Master centers around the life of Wu Qingyuan, a Chinese man, who, as a young boy exhibits a very remarkable talent for playing the game, Go. Wu Qingyuan is persuaded at age 14 to move to Japan, where Go tournaments are more frequent and lucrative, and so he may further study Go while making a living playing competitively. His talent and reputation make him a celebrity all throughout Japan, and he is soon considered the greatest Go player in the world. “The reincarnation of the Saint of Go”

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Stephen Chow plays a semi-homeless man.		This boy is actually played by a girl?	The is where Chow lives in the movie.
(Southern Metropolitan Daily)

Chinese newspaper Southern Metropolitan Daily got four shots taken on the set of Stephen Chow's new production Chang Jiang Qi Hao / Long River 7  (Rumor says this film's English title is "A Hope".) now in production in eastern Chinese city of Ningbo. Chow plays a semi-homeless man lives in a semi-demolished house. He "adopted" a homeless kid, who is really played by a girl. One day, Chow finds a "toy" in the trash and brings it back to his "son", who wishes to own a toy just like other kids. The "toy" is actually an alien device with unlimited power and the aliens are desperately to get it back.

Video reports by CCTV: A B C
 

An unknown source claims that director Peter Chan intends to cast Jet Li, Andy Lau and Takeshi Kaneshiro as the three leads in his remake of Hong Kong master martial-art film director Chang Cheh's Shaw Bros. classic Chi Ma (aka. Blood Brothers /  Chinese Vengeance / Dynasty of Blood / Kung Fu Invaders), released in 1973. Story of the original Chi Ma, which is based on novels inspired by a true event, starts with three bandits, sworn brothers, Zhang Wenxiang, Huang Zong and Ma Xinyi joining the government force to suppress a rebellion.  Three eventually become highly decorated and Ma is promoted to as a governor. Then Ma murders Huang and takes Huang's beautiful wife. Zhang swears to revenge his dead brother and plans to assassinate Governor Ma, against all odds. The original Chinese title, Chi Ma, literally means "The Assassination of Ma." There is no word on whom Peter Chan intends to cast for the role of Huang's wife.

Peter Chan Talks Future Projects - PROTÉGÉ, BLOOD BROTHER Remake and More of THE EYE Series (MonkeyPeaches Exclusive) April 13, 2006

The Chinese press reports that, according to an insider, Zhang Yimou's third period epic Curse of the Golden Flower has been officially selected by the authority to compete for the Best Foreign Language award of next year's Oscar. The anonymous insider claimed that some good words of mouth from people who saw the film actually helped the film to get the nomination. A few other titles were also up to the nomination but were not strong enough to defeat Golden Flower. The Banquet, Feng Xiaogang's Hamlet inspired historically drama, which has a story setup very similar to that of Golden Flower, received mixed/negative reviews both at home and overseas; The Road, Zhang Jiarui's drama about a bus drive and a ticket-seller's friendship / love story in the 1960/70's, also failed to draw a strong support; and the production studio of  Curiosity Kills the Cat, a modern day urban psychological thriller by Zhang Yibao, basically used the bidding for the nomination as a publicity stunt for the low budget flick, which will open next month in China.

Shooting of Feng Xiaogang's war epic Assembly or The Assembly Call is about to start in the Northeast of China (Manchuria) on October 6. The film begins in 1948, at the turning point of the last Chinese civil war and ends in 1956, three years after the end of Korea War. According to several Chinese newspapers and Screen Daily, the story is something like this: a company of soldiers are ordered to fight (probably for defending a position) until they hear the assembly call. But the call never comes and everybody dies, except one. Years later, the lone survivor starts searching for the remains his fallen comrades and trying to prove that they all died like real heroes. The film is inspired by short story "The Law Suit (literal title)", which was written by Yang Jinyuan, based on a true story . The script is written by Zhang Heng (Zhang Side). A cast assembled with a group of relatively unknown young actors are currently receiving training at a boot camp. This US$10 million war picture has been aimed at a theatrical release in China next year. The CG effects will be handled by Technicolor, which also worked for Feng's The Banquet; the sound effects will be done by the people who worked in Saving Private Ryan; and a South Korean team from another Korea War epic Taegukgi Hwinalrimyeo will be in charge of the character makeup.

Feng Xiaogang's The Banquet, despite a mixed review, is going very strong right now in China. The box-office revenue will reach 100 million yuans (US$12.6 million) in a few days. The Banquet, which has been released in the mainland China, Hong Kong and Taiwan for over two weeks, has become the top-seller of Feng Xiaogang. The total revenue may eventually reach 150 million yuans, the record of Zhang Yimou's House of Flying Daggers, but is very unlikely to reach 250 million yuans, the record of Zhang Another film Hero. The number one seller in the mainland China is still Titanic, which collected 360 million yuans from Chinese box-offices.

Chow Yun-Fat, who plays the lead character in Curse of the Golden Flower, has officially denied through a written statement, that he had ever said individuals who gave positive reviews to the film were hired by the studio. According to the statement published on Sina.com.cn, the rumor was actually fabricated by a reporter, who failed to get a ticket to see the film. Chow had demanded the reporter and the organization the report works for to apologize to him and the production company Beijing New Picture Film Co. To be qualified for the Best Foreign Language Film award of next year's Oscar, Curse of the Golden Flower has been going through a week-long qualification run in Beijing, which will end by this weekend. It is only shown once a day and admission tickets are in very high demand. So far, responses from people who have seen this film are surprisingly highly positive.

Here are a trailer, a poster and several production stills from Oxide Pang's Diary (Chinese literal title: Coveting):

Trailer (Thanks to Twich Film.)       Poster and stills by Sina.com.cn.

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Kaiju Shakedown's interview with director Ronny Yu.

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