The lead role for the upcoming big-budget biopic of Confucius or Kongzi (孔子) has just been announced and (drumroll) Dragonball's Master Roshi a.k.a. Chow Yun Fat has been cast as Confucius! Other cast members (as yet uncomfirmed) include a who's who of Mainland Chinese A-listers like Chen Dao Ming, Zhou Xun and Sun Hong Lei. To be directed by Chinese director Hu Mei, the script has already been revised 25 times since the film was first conceptualised two years ago. In preparation for this role of a lifetime, Chow has reportedly started growing a beard.
And one especially interesting news is that Confucius will not be portrayed as a scholarly, rather bookish elderly gentleman in the film but will instead be a lively, humorous guy who knows kungfu(???) and is an excellent archer and chariot driver. Hmmmm... this is really quite a shock to me as I just can't imagine Confucius as a martial arts expert... But on second thoughts, who's to say ancient thinkers and philosopers can't be fit and athletic?
More interesting details on this film can be found in my earlier post here.
Images from Wikipedia & YesAsia.com
Source: http://ent.sina.com.cn/m/c/2009-03-09/11462407988.shtml, http://022net.com/2009/3-9/444437192458323.html, http://sg.news.yahoo.com/xin/20090305/ten-737-chow-yun-fat-plays-confucius-zho-3c1b9bc.html
Tags: Confucius, Kongzi, Chinese Movie, Chinese Film, Chow Yun Fat, Chen Dao Ming, Zhou Xun, Sun Hong Lei, upcoming movies, Dragonball.
Chow Yun Fat To Play Confucius
Casting Troubles At The Red Cliff
Casting problems on the set of the in-production mega Chinese movie Battle Of The Red Cliff (赤壁) seem almost as exciting and unpredictable as the plot of the film itself.
The latest news is that Tony Leung Chiu Wai has rejoined the cast and may be taking over Chow Yun-Fatt's role of Zhou Yu after Chow left the cast last week. Leung was originally slated to play Zhuge Liang but his role was handed over to Takeshi Kaneshiro when he quit early this year.
The latest cast as per news reports:
Tony Leung as Zhou Yu (?)
Takeshi Kaneshiro as Zhuge Liang
Hu Jun as Zhao Yun
Zhang Fengyi as baddie Cao Cao
You Yong as Liu Bei
Chang Chen as Sun Quan
Chiling Lin as ancient hot babe Xiao Qiao
Vicky Zhao Wei as Sun Shang Xiang
Zhang Jing Chu as Da Qiao
This John Woo film will be divided into two parts, with the first part scheduled to be released before the Beijing Olympics in 2008 and the second part at the end of 2008.
Hmm... hopefully the casting troubles will not affect the film too adversely...
Good luck to John Woo :-)
Also, check out this site below (in Chinese) for some nice pics of the cast and the characters in the movie: http://ent.tom.com/movie/f/chibi.html
And for some background info on the movie, check out my previous blog post here.
[information from articles in the following sites:
http://movies.monstersandcritics.com/news/article_1294807.php/Tony_Leung_rejoins_Woos_The_Battle_of_Red_Cliff’_ http://www.firstshowing.net/2007/04/17/chow-yun-fat-drops-john-woos-battle-of-red-cliff/
http://ent.tom.com/movie/f/chibi.html]
Tags: Battle Of The Red Cliff, Chi Bi, John Woo, Chow Yun Fatt, Tony Leung, Lin Chiling, Takeshi Kaneshiro, Chinese Movie, Chinese Film, Historical Movie.
