Disney quietly completed the filming of its own Panda movie in China. Touch of the Panda tells a baby panda, separated with the mother panda, is saved by an orphan boy, who helps the baby panda to get home. No animated pandas are involved in the production, and eight real pandas, six infants and two adults, loaned from China Conservation and Research Center for the Giant Panda, are the stars of the movie. An expensive robotic baby panda was built for the project but director Yu Zhong (A Postman in Shangri-La, Far from Home, Roots and Branches) later found out real pandas could not be replaced by a robot and decided to use real pandas for each shot. The orphan boy is played by Japan-born child star Daichi Harashima, who previously starred in several Hong Kong movies, including Lost in Time, Crazy N' the City and An Empress and the Warriors. Sadly, Mao Mao, a female panda played the mother in the film, was killed by a collapsed wall when the earthquake hit. This film is produced by two Chinese studios, Castle Hero Pictures and Ying Dong Media, with Disney handling the international sales. Touch of the Panda is the second movie Disney made specifically for kids in China. This first one is The Secret of the Magic Gourd released in the mainland China, Hong Kong and Singapore two years ago.

Sparrow	City without Baseball
(Images: Milky Way Image Company, Universe Entertainment, Golden Scene Company Ltd.)

In the mainland China, DreamWorks' Kung Fu Panda starts smashing around with no other movie dear to challenge.

A fatal accident, occurred earlier this month on the Beijing set of Red Cliff, which killed one stuntman and injured six others, suddenly put the most expensive Asian movie project into the hot zone. Yesterday during a forum discussion as part of Shanghai International Film Festival activities, producer Terrence Chang talked about how difficult it was to make the period war movie, which was not supposed to be part of the discussion. According to The First, a Beijing-based newspaper, this is what Chang said:

The mainland (China) has the best cinematographers, art directors and action choreographers, but has no good assistant directors, and producers who can handle international finances just don’t exist. (The mainland) is also weak on CG effects. We hired an American company (to do the CG effects). But we had about 1500 CG effects and later two Beijing-based companies got involved. The on-set special effects are even worth. Sigh! We hired so many people we shouldn’t hire. We asked a Hollywood (team) to handle the on-set special effect and they are very good at making effects with water and fire. But once they came to China, we found out the way of Hollywood just didn’t work in China. They told us, to make the water and fire scenes work, they needed to install two underground pines, one for fire and the other one for water. This was so costly, several million dollars (US), and we couldn’t afford it. Later we heard in some Korean movies, the water and fire effects were handled very well, then we just hired a Korean team. But it turned so ridiculously. Because of culture difference, the Korean said they would only set things on fire and would not be responsible for extinguishment. Then we had to hire people from The August 1st Film Studio (note: a Chinese military-owned studio good at making war movies) to help us put out the fire.

John Woo, supposed to attend the forum as well, did not show up. Terrence Chang admitted that Woo was in Beijing to deal with the after mess of the accident. Chang said they would look after people's interest first and would handle the matter properly.

Chang also said the making of Red Cliff was on a bumpy road. He has worked with John Woo in the Hollywood for many years. In 1997, Woo returned to China and made a movie with the subject of sports and felt belonged here in China. In 2004 Woo said he planned to make Red Cliff in China and he was very exiting about the idea. An agreement was reached with China Film Group Corporation the very next year. But due to problems in finance, the script and casting, the production did not start until 2007. The movie is financed by overseas investors (of the US, Japan and South Korea), and 14 Chinese companies, including Shanghai Film Group, Orange Sky and Poly-Bona, headed by China Film. The money are from all over the world, therefore it is made for people of all the whole world and it must let everyone understand. This means Red Cliff may not be very close to the original Three Kingdoms story. Fans of Romance of the Three Kingdoms, the original novel provided the basis for the story of Red Cliff, have already begun firing at John Woo’s adaptation, which includes many plots not found in the novel. Plots like, warlord Cao Cao launching the attack on warlord Sun Quan at Red Cliff, because he is eyeing on Xiao Qiao, the young and pretty wife of Zhou Yu, the chief military commander of Sun Quan.

It was difficult to come out  a story good for everyone, and they had to re-write the script over and over again. Some cast members also had their own demands on the script, which made the process even longer.  Then it was finally done just one month before the start of the principal shooting. Started from February 2006, the production' team and the art department traveled to 13 Chinese provinces to look for the right place to build the set  and finally they decided to pick a reservoir of Hebei Province's Yi  County, about 120 km southwest of Beijing.

When the filming was about to kick-off, Chow Yun-Fat, who worked with John Woo in such classic movies like Hard Boiled and was the first and the only cast member committed to the project in many years before, quit the project and then Leung Chiu-Wai followed his footsteps. Later Leung was asked back to replace Chow and Takeshi Kaneshiro was called in to replace Leung. Shooting An indoor set built inside the biggest soundstage of Beijing Film Studio remained basically unused and only had to be torn down to make way for another set of Chen Kaige's Mei Lanfang. A set located to the southwest of Beijing City was seriously damaged by flood water last summer. Soon after, a part portion of the script appeared on the Internet which made the studios on high nerve. Production went overtime and over-budgeting forced at least one Chinese studio quit and more money, partially from Woo's own pocket, was pulled in to keep the project running. The fatal accident is the most recent and most tragic setback for the movie. Terrence Chang said filming was halted right after the accident, occurred during a pick-up shooting handled by a Hong Kong team. It will be resumed after the Beijing Olympic and will end by September. The releases will not be re-scheduled.
 

Winds of September	Soul of a Demon
(Images:Ocean Deep Films, Ying Shi Tang Corp., CMC Entertainment, Chang Tso-chi Film Studio)

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(Images: Golden Sun Films, Mediacorp Raintree Pictures, Ningxia Film Studio, Salon Films, Shanghai Film Group.)

Over a hundred of stills, posters and a trailer of Painted Skin were released to the press yesterday during Shanghai International Film Festival The Chinese press, however, only in the mood of showing us a very small percentage of these promotional materials.
 

On the left, Donnie Yen (demon hunter) carrying Zhao Wei (wife of the young scholar), with the demon hunter's sidekick running close behind.

On the right, the demon hunter standing in the street alone.

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Left: Takeshi Kaneshiro as Zhuge Liang, the chief advisor to warlord Liubei.

Top-right: Chang Chen as warlord Sun Quan, allied with Liu Bei.

Bottom-right: Leung Chiu-Wai as Zhou Yu, commander of Sun Quan's troops.

Missing	Old Fish	Milk and Fashion
True Love
(Image: Tianjin Film Studio, Longjiang Film Studio, China Venture Films, Yunnan Ethic Groups Film Studio, Keis' Company Ltd., Shenzhen Media Group, Xin Biao Xin Film and TV Culture Spreading Co., Ltd., Poly-Bona Film Publishing Co. Ltd., Film Workshop Ltd., China Film Group Corp., Guang Xian Film Co., Ltd., Mandarin Films Distribution Co. Ltd.)

This week, Hong Kong director Tsui Hark's Missing is released in Hong Kong and the mainland China. The romantic thriller starts with a young archeologist planning an undersea proposal and it goes horribly wrong - the archeologist vanishes without a trace. His girlfriend then begin tirelessly looking for the answer.

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Click here for some stills.

A stuntman was killed and six others were injured during a fire accident early yesterday morning on a small set of John Woo's historical war drama Red Cliff. John Woo has arrived at Beijing, where the set is located. According to a statement released by the production team, the scene was filmed involved a small fire boat crashing to an enemy battle ship. The shooting itself was running smoothly and then heavy wind suddenly made the fire uncontrollable and both vessels were consumed by flame in just a few seconds. When the fire was extinguished by local fire fighters, remain of a 23 year old stuntman was discovered among the debris. It is suspected that cheap flammable material used during the filming is a major factor of the fatal accident. Yesterday's filming was only a pick-up shoot and was handled by a Hong Kong stunt team rather than the team involved in the principal shooting. Part 1 of the film will be released on July 10 in Asia and these shots will be included in the second part, which will comes out  in Asia in December. A single and short cut of the film will be released outside of Asia. Release in the UK, France, Germany and Italy have been secured during the Cannes Film Festival. Negotiation is currently underway for distribution in North America.

This is a 60-second teaser trailer for the first part of John Woo's historical epic drama Red Cliff and is cut specifically for the mainland Chinese market.

This Friday, Taiwanese director Hou Hsiao-hsien's first French language film Le Voyage du Ballon Rouge is released in Taiwan. The story follows a little boy and his baby-sitter, who inhabit the same imaginary world and through their adventures, they are followed by a strange red balloon. Inspired by French director Albert Lamorisse's short film Le Ballon Rouge, made in 1956, Le Voyage du Ballon Rouge is is Taiwanese director Hou Hsiao-hsien's first French language film. Technically, this is a French film, co-written and directed by Hou.

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