Warriors Of Heaven And Earth has premièred at Dunen* of Beijing yesterday. Produced by China's HTF (Huayi brothers and Taihe) and Xi'an Film Studio, the film will be released in China October 1. Columbia co-financed the film and will distribute it internationally, though it has yet set any date.

Official site: (US URL: www.warriors-movie.com; Chinese URL: www.tdyx.com.cn)

Sina.com

Full trailer (Windows Media Video):      Teaser trailer (Windows Media Video):

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More features have been added to the official site:

The famous Silk Road, the infamous Gobi Desert...

A fugitive, a Japanese emissary, a general's daughter, and an overlord...

A story about warriors of heaven and earth...

Click here for more exclusive photos.

According to Changjiang Daily, the film will be released in DVD and VCD as early as July, and theatrical  released has been aimed at September and October. In China, video distribution of a film is often handled by a separate company. Threatened by bootlegging, video released usually occur as early as only one week after being released in theaters. To fight piracy, TV productions are often released on video first and then  aired on TV later, a practice video producers have been trying to adopt for distributing movies. As the result of such cannibalization, tension between film industry and video industry has been growing. In January, bootlegged DVD and VCD of Chinese film HERO were released by one of its official video distributors, but were removed from the market by the authority. Financed by Columbia Pictures, Huayi Bros. Taihe and Xi'an Film Studios, WARRIORS OF HEAVEN AND EARTH was shot almost two years ago but the release date have been pushed back again and again.

We know little about the other hero, HEROES OF THE HEAVEN AND EARTH, except a brief description of the plot and a few shots taken on locations. According Business Times, even though it was shot during the same time HERO and THE TOUCH were made, the film is not coming soon to the theaters. Some additional scenes will be shot this month.

The action director of HEROES OF HEAVEN AND EARTH, Leung Siu-Hung, has recently been interviewed by Chinese media. He said, "it is a wuxia film, but director He Ping didn't know how to make action scenes. He often use six cameras to shoot the same fight simultaneously and to catch the right moments from different directions and angles. He basically relies on editing to show each move. He Ping never paid much attention on

Jiang Wen (left) and Kiichi Nakai (right)	Jiang Wen (left) and director He Ping (right)

how to make a fight beautiful. Rather, he emphasized on the whole scene and characters' emotions. He never wanted the  moves to be fancy, but demanded them to be suitable to a person's character and the plot. So we abandoned the traditional fancy moves, and turned our focus on using moves to reflect a character's feeling and also making some new changes among simple fight moves." Unlike many martial-art films like CROUCHING TIGER, HIDDEN DRAGON, this movie never relied on wire-fu and all moves obey the rules of physics. All the characters can do is just jumping onto horseback from the ground and were never able to "fly". He said, "even though it's "real fight", we cannot let someone got killed by just one punch and still made the moves somewhat beautified and exaggerated.

Leung Siu-Hung said Kiichi Nakai (the cop) had played in samurai movies and learned sword fight before. He could master his own moves very fast and could get it just right. In a fight scene with a group of bandits, his moves are very clean and fast. Wang Xueqi (bandit leader) is also very good. Leung said during another fight scene with a group of bandits, he played beautifully and really showed the character of his role. Jiang Wen (Captain Li) is the worst. It is his first action movie and he just couldn't get it right. Jiang's knees have old wounds and he couldn't knee and couldn't make high jump or low jump. Many of his scenes were done by his double. Zhao Wen (the general's daughter) did not have any action scenes.

Leung Siu-Hung is the vice-president of Hong Kong Guild of Stunt Actors. Being an action directors for over two decades, he has left his name in over one hundred movies, like BO HAO (TO BE NO. 1), HUANG FEI HONG XIAO ZHUAN (ONCE UPON A TIME A HERO IN CHINA), and WU YEN. HEROES OF HEAVEN AND EARTH is one of the four Asian productions financed by Columbia  and will have a world-wide release sometime next year.

Photos: SINA.COM

Many people, including Jason Powell, have asked me to comment on the report posted on AICN on July 25. The one wrote the report, only known as "The Devil's Halo", probably works for Columbia Pictures Film Production Asia or knows someone working for Columbia, because all titles being mentions in the report are somehow attached to Columbia Pictures.

KUNG FU COLLEGE - Stephen Chow is working on his next project, which will be another kung-fu plus comedy and will be set in the 1950's. According to his manager Tin Kai-Man, shooting is expect to begin early next year and will be released by the end of that year. They are still working on the script and Tin Kai-Man has refused to say more. No word on the title and if KUNG FU COLLEGE is the English title being pre-picked, I would say: change it!

GOLDEN ZENITH - Zhang Ziyi is currently working on PURPLE BUTTERFLY and as what I know this is the only project she is attached with. However PURPLE BUTTERFLY is only the literal title and possibly GOLDEN ZENITH is the official English title of the film. I am hoping it is not. However GOLDEN ZENITH could be one of so many projects have drown her attention.

SO CLOSE 2 - This is the first report on Columbia Pictures talking about a sequel of SO CLOSE. However, calling back all three female leads and director Corey Yuen could be somewhat difficult because they all have their own busy schedules. SO CLOSE is financed by Columbia Pictures and is scheduled to be released this fall.

WARRIORS OF HEAVEN AND EARTH - Same as HEROES OF HEAVEN AND EARTH. Possibly, Columbia Pictures has replaced "HEROES" with "WARRIORS" to avoid any confusion with Zhang Yimou's HERO. This is another Chinese production financed by Columbia Pictures and the post-production will end in September. A world-wide released will happen sometime next year.

THE MISSING GUN - This mainland Chinese film has already been released in China in May. Columbia Pictures will distribute it in North America with no release date confirmed.

MONKEY KING - Columbia Pictures is planning a big screen adoption of the classic Chinese novel Xi You Ji (Journey to the West) with Hong Kong actor Cheung Wai-Kin (Dicky) attached to play the Monkey King. Cheung said the Columbia Pictures will spend at least HK$60 million (US$7.7 million) on it. An unidentified "well-known" Chinese director is currently in talk to helm the film. Cheung said he wanted the movie being made from Chinese perspective. The Hallmark production THE LOST EMPIRE, which is partially based on the novel, really pissed him off. The TV adoption of the novel staring Cheung Wai-Kin will soon be shown in Hong Kong, mainland China and Taiwan.

NO THIEVES - If I were right, the literal title of the movie is NO THIEVES UNDER HEAVEN. This project, with director Fen Xiaogang and Stephen Chow attached with, is now dead or at least in coma.

UNDERWEAR GODFATHER (YAKUZA SIDE STORY) - Sounds like a Japanese production.

VERY VERY STORY - My guess is this is the English title of STORY OF FIRST LOVE being produced by Hsu Li-kong, one of the producers of CROUCHING TIGER, HIDDEN DRAGON. It is set during the World War 2 and tells a story of a young Chinese girl falling in love with her French music professor. Hsu has been working on the project for two years and when he showed the script to Ang Lee, the answer he got is "Interesting but I don't have time". Then Hsu picked Yin Chi, whom he has worked with on YE BEN, to direct the film. Shooting is expected to begin in Paris and Shanghai this fall. Release date is set in September next year. Ang Lee may be listed as one of the producers, but only in name.