TonyLeung Tagged Articles at Cinematical

The world tragically lost another stuntman Monday morning, in northern Beijing, China. 23-year-old Lu Yanqing was killed in what is being reported as a "bizarre" fire involving two boats, which were being used for John Woo's latest, the historical epic Red Cliff. Woo was actually not around at the time of the accident -- he was in Hong Kong -- and has not yet been quoted with any official statement.

Under the direction of the film's second unit, the scene that resulted in tragedy featured a small, smoking boat that was to crash into a large ancient warship. Upon collision, when machines began emitting more smoke, an unexpected flame shot up, killing the one stuntman and injuring another three (or seven) people. The exact cause of the fire is being investigated, but one report says the current theory is that "the crew might have accidentally ignited a flame that came into contact with inflammable gas on a boat, setting off the fire from which Lu was unable to escape."

Posters for Ang Lee movies are typically unimaginative, so I was pretty shocked when I saw the new one-sheet for Lee's latest, Lust, Caution. It isn't exactly an innovative design, but it is a lot more interesting than his usual head-shot type of poster. I like it even better than the Brokeback Mountain look-away-in-shame artwork. And if we can base the quality of Lee's movies on their posters (just look at the awful designs for Hulk and Ride with the Devil to see how it works), then Lust, Caution could be his best film to date. This poster, with its browning tones and its shadows, make the film look like it's directed by Wong Kar Wai (whose films also didn't have good posters until recently). It could just be because Tony Leung stars, or because of that dress, but for me the poster evokes Wong's In the Mood for Love. I am surprised that Joan Chen isn't featured anywhere, but I guess they preferred to spotlight newcomer Tang Wei, who gets even better exposure here than Leung (though it must be said that Leung's profile is more recognizable than many other stars').

Lust, Caution is Lee's return to Chinese-language filmmaking again following Hulk and Brokeback, and it marks his first film after winning the Oscar for the latter film. He is again working with executive producer James Schamus of Focus Features and he has brought back Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon producer William Kong and screenwriter Wang Hui-Ling. Lee's longtime editor Tim Squyres also returns after not working on Brokeback. It seems the only collaborator that Lee is keeping from his Oscar darling is cinematographer Rodrigo Prieto. Lust, Caution is set in WWII Shanghai and involves a plot to assassinate an intelligence chief in the Japanese-backed Chinese government. Leung plays the intelligence chief, Chen plays his wife and Tang is a student who seduces Leung's the character in order to set up the assassination. Focus will open the film in limited release September 28.

Check out the trailer after the jump.

It isn't uncommon for an actor to drop completely out of a movie, but how often does it happen that an actor drops out and then is later re-cast in a different role? That seems to be what is going on with Tony Leung Chiu-Wai and the Chinese epic The Battle of Red Cliff. Leung left the project a month ago claiming he didn't have time to prepare for his role (though there were other rumors), but now he's returned to the John Woo film, which has already begun shooting. Because his original part ended up going to another actor, Takeshi Kaneshiro, he is now likely attached to a different character than the one he abandoned.

The most simple speculation is that Leung is taking over for Chow Yun-Fat, who this week suddenly departed from the project, similarly claiming an inability to sufficiently prepare. For some reason Red Cliff producer Terence Chang won't specify which character Leung will play nor will he confirm that the actor is replacing Chow. The only things he will say is that all these casting changes are not affecting the shoot and that Chow's absence is not affecting the financing of the film. Hopefully more will be revealed about Leung's involvement when he arrives on set next week -- unless, of course, he drops back out. Maybe the next thing we hear will be that Ken Watanabe is back on the film, too, as a replacement for the replacement.

The last we heard about John Woo's long-simmering The Battle of Red Cliff was back in February, at which point there were rumors that it actually might be moving forward. And now, a mere seven months later, the project finally has financing lined up, a cast in place, and a confirmed start date. Woo (if you will) hoo! For those of you who have forgotten, the movie is based on a classic Chinese novel, and tells the true story of "the final days of the Han Dynasty in the year 208, ... [covering] the war that established the Three Kingdoms period, when China had three rulers." The central battle of that war took place, as you might have guessed, at Red Cliffs, and involved as many as a million soldiers. Damn.

Surprisingly, the mutterings about the cast have turned out to be mostly true: This morning's Variety reports that the film will star frequent Woo collaborator (back in the Hong Kong days) Chow Yun-Fat, as well as Ken Watanabe, Tony Leung and Lin Chi-Ling, who apparently is a Taiwanese model. The IMDb also lists Andy Lau in the cast, but his presence is unconfirmed.

Production is expected to begin next March, with release planned for early 2008.

• Even though it played on only half as many screens as Steve Martin's latest, it's still disturbing to read that V for Vendetta was beaten to the top of the international box office by the dreadful The Pink Panther. Now showing in countries including Germany, Hong Kong, and Australia, the comedy made a total of $12.3 million for the weekend to only $8.5 million for Vendetta, which nevertheless dominated the charts in the Asian markets in which it opened.
  

• If anyone needed a sign that relations between North and South Korea are thawing, this is it: a South Korean film about a Northern spy is expected to be shot in Pyongyang, the capitol of the North. The movie, tentatively titled Yun Isang, The Wounded Dragon, will be shot in both Pyongyang and Germany, which is where Yun, a well-known composer, both spied and ended up living after he was released from prison.
  

• Hong Kong's Media Asia announced its slate for the next year this weekend, and among the eight-to-ten projects in the works are a pair from Infernal Affairs directors Andrew Lau (the director, not the actor) and Alan Mak. The first, Behind the Sin, stars Tony Leung #1, and is about "a cop and...a private detective - who investigate the murder of the cop's father-in-law." The second, meanwhile, is an untitled period piece set in 1940s Hong Kong which "revolves around a trader from mainland China who moves to Hong Kong, attempts to set up a business and inevitably gets mixed up with local gangsters."

French director Olivier Assayas has an impressive filmmaking pedigree: his father was writer/director Jacques Rémy and, like François Truffaut and Jean-Luc Godard before him, he wrote for Cahiers du cinéma before taking up direction. Irma Vep, his international breakthrough, got a certain degree of exposure in the US, but despite its complexity and relative success, he's be largely overlooked here since then. While it's unlike that anything will change with the release of his next project (which he wrote and will be directing) it nevertheless sounds intriguing.

Entitled Boarding Gate, the movie boasts a multicultural universe of stars, including Michelle Yeoh, Asia Argento, Michael Madsen, and not one but two Tony Leungs. According to early web reports, the film's convoluted plot revolves around "An Italian woman [Argento] who lives in London [and] has a passionate affair with a former financial big gun [Madsen]. She also had a second lover [a Leung], a contract killer who has to kill the big gun. Her second lover's wife [Yeoh] is behind the scenes, pulling the strings."  With Assayas at the helm, the chances that the movie will be the straightforward genre story that summary suggests is pretty much nil, so it'll be exciting to see what approach he takes. No information is yet available about when he might begin shooting, however, and it's likely to be a while before we get to take a look.

Tony Leung Chiu Wai (the one who's been in a bunch of Wong Kar Wai movies, not Tony Leung Ka Fai) is a big fan of American crime writer Lawrence Block. He's been thinking for a decade about taking one of Block's stories, moving it to China, and making a movie of it, much like Akira Kurosawa did with Ed McBain when he set High and Low in Japan. Instead, though, Leung just he asked Block to write him a screenplay - and Block is doing it. Swwwwweeeeet.

According to Leung, the story will be set in the US and, as a result, will be made in English, with an American-born Chinese central character, to be played by Leung himself. Since the actor says his character is being "changed from an American," the suggestion is that Leung's film will be based on one of Blocks existent novels, but there's no indication in the article of which one.

Hopefully this isn't another one of those tantalizing projects about which we'll never hear another peep. Leung is a fantastic actor and, given his success in crime films made in Hong Kong, it's certain that a Block movie would be a hit there. The problem, of course, is making the transition to the US - is Leung's American audience big enough to make the film worth releasing over here, even when he's speaking English? Please?

First reports of John Woo's The Battle of the Red Cliff surfaced as much as 18 months ago, and details have been few and far between since then - in fact, some have wondered if, like a lot other announced Woo projects, this one might never advance beyond the discussion stages.

Based on a portion of a 14th century novel about a real-life battle in 208AD (got that?) involving over a million soldiers, the story of the film is wildly complicated. To sum up, "During the battle the joint force of two warlords Sun Quan and Liu Bei defeated the much stronger invading army led by warlord Cao Cao. Shortly after the battle, the Han dynasty officially ended and China split to three kingdoms." Needless to say, there are a whole lot of details not included there, and Woo claimed from the very beginning that the movie would be sprawling and expensive; current speculation puts the budget at about $50 million, which would make it the most expensive film ever produced on the Chinese mainland.

The fact that the movie was originally slated to shoot last year makes it hard to believe any start dates at this point, but a target of September 2006 has been pretty consistent as of late, so the production just might finally be getting off the ground. There is also a fleet of stars supposedly in negotiations to appear in the film, among them Chow yun-Fat, Tony Leung (the one from Chungking Express and 2046, not the other one), and Ken Watanabe. Man, if this movie ever comes out, I am so there.

[via Twitch]