Lost in Beijing	Liu Yuejin	Phoenix	One Foundation	Mad Detective
(Images: Produced by Laurel Films, Polybona Film Distribution Co., Ltd., China Film Group Corp., Chengtian Entertainment, Produced by SunWah Media, Kadokawa Pictures, Tianjin Film Studio, China Film Group Corp., China Mobile, Taihe Media, Phoenix TV, Sina.com, China Star Entertainment, One Hundred Years of Film Company, Milky Way Image Company.)

This week in China, four movies are released to catch the heating up holiday season. Lost in Beijing, censored version, is a look at modern-day life on a m閚age-a-quatre involving a young woman, her boss, her husband and her boss's wife. Liu Yuejin, a comedy tells how a bag, finds by a cook, throws several powerful men into grave danger. Phoenix, a China-Japan co-production, depicts a decades long love story between a Japanese man and a Chinese women inside a prison. One Foundation is a 3-part comedy about how life of many people is changed by their cell phones.

In Hong Kong, the applauded thriller Mad Detective is the only local film being released this week. Directed by Johnnie To and Wai Ka-Fai, it tells a rookie cop is asking for help from a retired ex-detective, claimed mad by many, to crack a series of murder-robberies.

What will Stephen Chow do next? Since his CJ7 has already been in the can, everybody starts asking the same question. How about another wacky adaptation of classic 16th Century fantasy novel Journey to the West. Chow will play Tang Monk, also known as the Tripitaka, who travels to the ancient India for Buddhist texts and along the way, he gets three disciples - first, Sandy, then, Piggy and last, Monkey King. This is, according to the paper, straight from the mouth of Han Sanping, president of China Film Group Corp., the number one state-run studio of the country. Han told the paper he had read the script Chow wrote and Chow would direct it personally next year. In 1994, Stephen Chow played Monkey King in a wacky adaptation of Journey to the West, A Chinese Odyssey dilogy, which has been claimed by many, the best of Stephen Chow抯. A few years back, Jeffrey Lau, the director of the dilogy, made A Chinese Tall Story, another wacky adaptation with a story focusing on the character of Tang Monk, without Stephen Chow. Han also said they would develop an online game based on the project and the story Chow wrote just 搒ounds like something from an online game.?Someone from Stephen Show抯 own company Star Overseas admitted the Journey to the West project (working title) was among several projects they were developing and the Dragonball Z adaptation was the first to be announced. Interesting enough, Goku, the lead character of Dragonball Z, is also a wacky version of Monkey King. Stephen Chow is only on board as a producer. China Film distributed Stephen Chow抯 Kung Fu Hustle and became a major financial backer of his latest CJ7. Some other recent projects the studio involved include Peter Chan抯 The Warlords, John Woo抯 Red Cliff, and Chen Kaige抯 Mei Lanfang.

(Image: Southern Metropolitan Daily / Sina.com)

These pictures, taken secretly by a reporter, show a scene near the very end of the epic film. The subplot is the sister of warlord Sun Quan somehow falls in love with an officer from the enemy camp. During the final battle, Sun Quan's troops broke into the enemy camp and his sister managed to meet her fatally wounded lover. Fans have been criticizing it, which was neither historically accurate nor found in the classic novel Roman of the Three Kingdoms. Principal shooting will end in a few days.

Click here for more spy photos.

Battle of Wits director Cheung Chi-Leung (Jacob) will do a martial-art film titled Tang Ka and he will ask Andy Lau and Tang Wei (Lust, Caution) to play the leads, according to Chinese newspaper Southern Metropolitan Daily. The story is based on the real historical event of Princess Wencheng, a niece of Chinese emperor Li Shimin (Tang Dynasty) traveling to the kingdom of Tubo (now Tibet) to marry King Songtsan Gambo. The role for Andy Lau is unknown and Tang Wei is asked to play the double of the princess. However, neither one of them has confirmed or denied the report. The budget of Tang Ka will be much bigger than Cheng's last film Battle of Wits, which stars Andy Lau and the lead, and the shooting will be carried out in Tibet. Tang Ka is a kind of Buddhist paintings. It was invented due to the difficulty of carrying Buddhist statues in the mountains.

The only complain - quality of the video really sucks.

Click here for the trailer.

A remake of The Karate Kid wtih Will Smith, Will's son Jaden and Jackie Chan or Stephan Chow: In the remake, might be titled The Kung Fu Kid, Jaden Smith will play the kid, Jackie Chan (or Stephen Chow?) will play his mentor (Pat Morita's role), and Will Smith will play the main villain.

Tai Chi Tiger (literal title) with Chen Hu and Keanu Reeves: The plot is unknown but it will be the acting debut of Tiger Hu Chen (as a martial-art coordinator working for Yuen Wo-Ping). Keanu Reeves, who learned martial-art from him for his role in The Matrix trilogy will produces the project and will also play a supporting role in it.

Snow and the Seven with Jet Li. Click here for detail.

Stephen Chow just said, during a press meeting for promoting his new film CJ7, that the script of Kung Fu Hustle 2 was done already. Chow said he was about to do a sequel to Kung Fu Hustle but later he felt he should do CJ7 first. He refused to say anything about the story of the Kung Fu Hustle sequel and did not confirm which project he would do next. He only said he "has some new ideas now." These ideas may includes movies he will direct/star in and/or movies he will only produce, like the alleged Hollywood production of Dragon Ball Z. Sony Pictures, one of the major financier of Kung Fu Hustle, has been pushing Chow for a sequel ever the success of the first movie. IMDB has listed Kung Fu Hustle 2 as a movie to be available in 2008 but it may not come out that quick.

Blind Mountain	Lost Soul in the Ancient House	Anna & Anna	In Love with the Dead	Fear Factors
(Images: Shanghai Xiang Sheng Film and TV Production and Distribution Co., Ltd., Shanghai Dang Ling Culture Promoting  Co., Ltd., ?.)

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

This week in China, Blind Mountain, about a kidnapped young woman sold as a bride, is released in the local theaters. Another movie becomes available is Lost Soul in the Ancient House, about a college girl trying to uncover some half century old mysteries about an antique house.

In Hong Kong, three local productions are released. Anna & Anna tells a woman returns to her home town and discovers another one of her, who never leaves her home. In Love with the Dead is about a dying girl, her boyfriend and a girl he was once in love with. Fear Factors is a three-part  horror flick...

Two China-based  websites, NetEase.com and Sina.com lauched their own official sites of Stephen Chow's upcoming sci-fi drama, CJ7 (formerly known as A Hope / Long River 7) this afternoon.

The video of the song, titled "Brothers" contains some "very expensive" war shots, cut from the movie. Assembly, also known as The Assembly, is produced by Beijing-based HY. Brothers, China's biggest private-own movie studio and it's Hong Kong-based strategic partner Media Asia. The story, based on a real story inspired short novel, is set in 1948 during the battle of Huai-Hai, the biggest during the bloody Chinese Civil War (1946 - 1949). The battle involved 600,000 communist-led soldiers versus 800,000 Nationalist government soldiers. The Nationalist lost, never recovered from the defeat and soon retreated to Taiwan. The story starts with a community captain being ordered to command his men to defend a position  until he hear the assembly call. The call never comes and the captain becomes the sole survivor of the bloody fight. He managed to get back to his troops and is told his men are simply labeled missing. He rejoins the force and fights till then end the civil war and then goes to Korea to fight in another war. He fights against red-tapes to ask the army recognize his men died like real soldiers. Even though the main characters are communist soldiers, Assembly is still called the first Chinese-made modern war epic which does not serve any purpose for propaganda. However, in the war movie directed by Feng Xiaogang, one of China's most bankable movie directors, many communist soldiers are no longer brave but rather are scared to dead during battle, and the Liberation Army is no longer right all the time but rather filled with red tapes.

Yesterday morning from 10:50 to 12:20, China's CCTV made a 150-minute live coverage of the filming of John Woo's historical war epic Red Cliff. What was shown in the coverage is the filming of a battle scene of the joint force of warlord Sun Quan and Liu Bei breaking into warlord Cao Cao's camp. Footages of the making of several other battle scenes were also shown during the coverage.