Chen Shi-Zheng Tagged Articles at Cinematical

Liu Xing (Ye Liu) has come from Beijing to a nameless American university to pursue a PhD in cosmology; he's done smart, incisive work in the field, and he's being given the chance to work for groundbreaking theorist Dr. Reiser (Aidan Quinn). It's a wonderful moment for Xing; he's found opportunity, and a place that will gratefully take everything he has to offer. The feature-film debut of opera director Chen Shi-Zheng, Dark Matter follows Xing as his dream, slowly and gradually, becomes a curse -- and shows us the desperate, dangerous expression of Xing's sadness and confusion.

Written by Billy Shebar, Dark Matter is inspired by the University of Iowa shootings of November, 1991, where physics post-graduate student Gang Lu killed five people and paralyzed another for life before killing himself. But Dark Matter isn't a ticking-clock thriller; it's a more contemplative film than that. The camera captures big visions and images, and it isn't concerned with the nuts-and-bolts shots of a crime story. Instead, we see Xing, in the rain, transfixed by a statue of famed American astronomer Edwin Hubble. Xing wants to look to the skies. Of course, he still has to live on Earth. ...

Cinematical has just received this exclusive poster for Dark Matter (click on the image above for a larger version), starring Liu Ye, Meryl Streep and Aidan Quinn. The film, which premiered at the Sundance Film Festival two years ago (and came away with the prestigious Alfred P. Sloan Feature Film Prize), is inspired by the actual events surrounding a Chinese student who travels to the United States in search of bright future in American science. However, his hopes are dashed when he's unable to navigate academic politics and, eventually, he loses his way. Dark Matter marks the feature film debut of renowned opera and theater director Chen Shi-Zheng, and it was written by Billy Shebar with a story by Shebar and Chen Shi-Zheng. I've heard some really good things about this film, and so we'll definitely be checking it out when Dark Matter hits theaters on April 11.

For more on Dark Matter, check out a Moviefone Unscripted segment featuring Aidan Quinn, Liu Ye and Chen Shi-Zheng.

Last January, Chen Shi-Zheng's Dark Matter premiered at the Sundance Film Festival, where it won the Alfred P. Sloan Feature Film Prize. But that wasn't enough to get it a sweet deal, or any normal deal for that matter. It took a year, but according to The Hollywood Reporter, the film finally has a North American distributor in First Independent Pictures. Now the award-winner will get an April release, which will be followed by a DVD release, the details of which are currently being finalized.

The film, which stars Liu Ye, Aidan Quinn (who replaced Val Kilmer), and Meryl Streep, is based on a true story of a Chinese student in 1991 whose mental stability unravels when his hopes for scientific greatness are dashed due to his school's internal politics. Ye plays the student, Liu Xing, Quinn plays his cosmology professor who brings the international student onto his research team, and Streep plays Xing's other mentor, a patron of the university. The twist -- his mentally-unraveled state leads him to extreme violence.

If you're curious about the real story, and don't want to be surprised, you can google "Gang Lu" and get the details of his story. Of course, this film is only based on the events, so it's sure to have its own twists, turns, and Dark Matter. (Pun alert!) In the meantime, check out the trailer here.

Both Val Kilmer and Meryl Streep have signed on to appear in the debut feature from Chinese opera director, Chen Shi-Zheng. The film, entitled Dark Matter, tells the story of "a Chinese exchange student [played by heartthrob Liu Ye] who takes revenge after [his] hopes for a Nobel Prize are wrecked by internal school politics." Whoa. I have no idea how this group of people came together to make a movie - and about Nobel Prize bitterness, of all things, but it sounds pretty damn cool. It's always refreshing when mainstream American stars are willing to branch out and take a flyer on a completely unproven director, or a really weird script. Also hoping to take part in the adventure is cinematography's resident mad genius, Christopher Doyle. Since Doyle's presence automatically makes a movie 50% more interesting, this is exciting news indeed.

The film is being produced by Myriad Pictures and the brand new New York production house Saltmill. While Dark Matter is Saltmill's first film, the presence of Van Wilder 2: Rise of the Taj on Myriad's slate is sort of disconcerting - Taj and an untested Chinese director just don't come up together in conversation very often.