Several Taiwanese studio owners came out  the idea of blending tomb raiding,  sci-fi (i.e., time-traveling), hi-tech, a little bit humors and Chinese martial-art together in one movie, which is called Ci Ling (roughly means: "Prying a Tomb" (The official English title, "The Lost of the Secret Land", is just plain boring) To make the project work, China Film Group, the No. 1 state-owned movie producing giant was brought in, Jay Chou and Lin Chiling, two most known entertainers are cast to play the lead,  Chou Yen-ping from Taiwan, worked with Chou in Kung Fu Dunk, was hired as the director, and Ching Siu-Tung, worked in Zhang Yimou's all three martial-art films, including Curse of the Golden Flower, also co-starring Jay Chou, was invited to handle the action.

The story, according to the Chinese press, tells an adventure novelist (Lin) caught up with a guy (Chou) over a treasure map and later fall into an imperial tomb. Sounds like an inspiration of Indiana Jones, Mummy, Romancing the Stone, Lara Croft: Tomb Raider, National Treasure and A Terra-Cotta Warrior. According to Reuters, which quoted from the Chinese media, that the story will be taking place in the Mongolia desert and the tomb is actually Genghis Khan's mausoleum. No one knows where the great Khan is buried and, would robbing his tomb on the big screen make the Mongolians very angry?

Shooting will start in March and Asian release will be in 2010.

Click here for an article by Reuters.

Jackie Chan's Shinjuku Incident has been thrown back by SARFT, the Chinese film censoring authority. Story of the film involves gangs formed by Chinese leaving in Japan, which is considered politically incorrect by SARFT.  Re-editing and re-shooting the film to satisfy SARFT will "affect the quality of the film and that is unacceptable", according to Henry Fong, one of the film's producers and a longtime producer for Derek Yee, the film's director. This film will not be released in the mainland, the single big market for Chinese languages.  (Click here to read Kaiju Shakedown's report.)

However, people in the mainland never seems to agree with SARFT and even feel careless about what movies are banned. Pirated DVDs and Internet download are the ultimate alternatives for the big screen. When the "clean" version of Ang, Lee's Lust, Caution was released in almost every Chinese theaters, many people simply crossed the boarder to Hong Kong to watch the original. When the legal and censored DVD was out, people simply ignored it and asked street vendors for the illegal and un-censored copy. What's the point of banning it in the first place?!

Back to Jackie Chan. Looks like he has forgot about the film all together, even though he put some of his own money into it. Last week, at a party held in Beijing, he announced three projects he would start working on this year.

The first one is, everybody knew it already, the remake of Karate Kid, as originally reported on this site back in November of 2007. Title of the remake will likely be changed, because the story will be set in Beijing and Karate is a Japanese form of martial-art, and I don't think Chan ever learnt karate. According to Variety, "the new film will borrow elements of the original plot, wherein a bullied youth (Jaden Smith) learns to stand up for himself with the help of an eccentric mentor (Jackie Chan)." The script was drafted by first time writer Chris Murphy and Dutch director Harald Zwart (Agent Cody Banks, One Night at McCool's) will helm the remake. Variety also says "Jerry Weintraub, who launched the original 1984 pic, is producing alongside Overbrook Entertainment's James Lassiter, Will Smith and Ken Stovitz. China Film Group Corp. will co-produce in China." What? Forbidden Kingdom is actually not a remake of Karate Kid? Never mind.

The second project is titled "Da Bing Xiao Jiang", which roughly means "Big Soldier and Little General." It will be a sort of road movie set in China's short-lived Qin Dynasty (221 BC - 206 BC). The main characters would be three humans and a horse. Idea for the story started about 20 years ago and originally Chan wanted to play the Big Soldier. Too old for the role, he has decided to pass the torch to Rochester-born Wang Lee-Hom (the second male lead in Ang Lee's Lust, Caution) and play the Little General instead. By the way, Chan played a Qin Dynasty general in The Myth already. No word yet on who will play the third person  but he or she will be a "big star" according to some report. No words on who will play the horse either. Shooting will start early this year and will be released in Asia starting in October. the director will be Ding Sheng, who only directed one film before, Underdog Knight, released last year. "Big soldier and little general" sounds much interesting  than the "old man and the little kid.", that's what I want to say.

The third one is called "Chu Ba Wang" (literally means: Hegemon-Lord of Chu) and the big budget project will go into production by the end of 2009. That's all we know so far. Hegemon-Lord of Chu is the self-proclaimed titled of Xiang Yu, a rebel leader played the key role in the fall of Qin Dynasty and take his own lifter after losing the war over the control of China. Historically, Xiang Yu is a controversial figure. As a military commander, he was known for launching surprise and decisive attacks on his enemies with a severally outnumbered army. As a war lord, he is handicapped in politics. Frequently ignored advices from others, he made a series of political mistakes, which led to his final defeat. Commonly described as a brave warrior, Xiang is actually very ruthless and showed no mercy to people he captured. Just wait to see how Jackie Chan is going to portray him.