If you guessed California or Florida or Canada or Romania, you'd be off by a few thousand miles. The World's Largest Studio is a new documentary that promises to provide a picturesque view of Hengdian World Studios, located a few hours' drive south from Shanghai in the eastern part of China. Producer Charlie Moretti told Shanghai Daily that the film "looks at the lives of the businessmen who started the studios with just 2,000 yuan (US$261), the gardeners who tend the grounds, the actors and actresses and everyone else in between."

Construction on the gigantic studios, which now cover more than 800 acres, commenced in 1996 when director Xie Jin wanted to recreate 1850s Canton for his film The Opium War. Businessman Xu Wenrong got the job done in just three months and the filmmaker was so impressed he recommended the location to Chen Kaige for his next project, The Emperor and the Assassin. That film required a huge new palace set, and Xu was happy to oblige. "We used up more dynamite than this county had used in its whole history," he later told People's Daily Online. A few years after that, Ang Lee filmed Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon at the studios and Zhang Yimou shot Hero. It's notable that both Chen (The Promise) and Zhang (Curse of the Golden Flower) returned to work at Hengdian with their bigger-budgeted pictures.

The World's Largest Studio screened for the first time in Shanghai this week. According to Moretti, a 27-year-old Frenchman who co-directed with Matthew Clarke, "people should soon be able to watch the documentary on international channels. We are also exploring the possibility of making an extended DVD." A handsome-looking teaser, jammed with clips from films shot at the studio, is available on the production company's web site.

Chinese actress Zhang Ziyi has done a lot since she broke onto the North American scene in Rush Hour 2 -- a role that required Jackie Chan act as a translator for director Brett Ratner. She had a starring role in Jet Li's Hero, time in Wong Kar Wai's world of 2046, turned Japanese for Memoirs of a Geisha and is actually one of the voices in the geek fest, TMNT. Some of those stints are definitely better than the others, but you can't knock her for stretching out and getting some range. Now she's in talks to co-star with Leon Lai in Mei Lan-fang, a biopic about the famous Peking opera singer.

The film is part of an attempt by China Magnetics Corp. Company to revive the local movie industry, and its definitely a good place to start -- notable cinema names mixed with some Chinese history and music. With a budget of $15 million, Chen Kaige will write and direct the film -- he's the man behind Farewell my Concubine, which tied with The Piano for the Cannes Golden Palm in 1993. Lai will star as Lan-fang, but there is no word who Ziyi will play, should the talks go through, of course. The biopic will follow the male singer's history of portraying famous female characters, his role in making Peking opera popular to Japanese and American audiences and the political environment of the time -- including his refusal to perform while Japan occupied China. According to earlier reports, the film was going to shoot this month, although I imagine that the date has been pushed to some time in the future.

Earlier this month, I posted about a secret film debuting at the Cannes Film Festival. All that was known at the time was that it would be a compilation of 30 shorts, each about three minutes long and directed by an internationally respected filmmaker, and that it wouldn't be shown to the public. Now, thanks to an official press release, we learn that there are in fact 33 shorts from 35 filmmakers (including two pairs of brothers) and that the film, titled To Each his Own Cinema, will air on French television on May 20 following its premiere at the festival. So now I don't have to wish I could attend Cannes; I have to wish I got Canal +.

Also revealed are the names of the 35 participants, all of whom were supposed to be kept secret until the film's unveiling, and a few details about the project. Each director was assigned the task of filming, "their current state of mind as inspired by the motion-picture theater." The only individual specifics mentioned in the press release, which was written by festival head Giles Jacob, are that Wim Wenders shot in the Congo, Tsai Ming Liang shot in Kuala Lumpur and David Cronenberg shot "in the ... toilet!" (probably meaning the bathroom, not the bowl). But anyone familiar with the directors involved can imagine the kind of diversity that will be seen in the film.

See the names of the 35 collaborators after the jump.

For its 60th year anniversary, the Cannes Film Festival will premiere new films from many past winners of the Palme d'Or. It isn't known how many of these winners will have new material this year, but apparently festival president Gilles Jacob and artistic director Thierry Frémaux tried to get many of the living "Golden Palm" vets -- winners and nominees, both -- to contribute to a special project.

Each participating filmmaker has directed a short film of 2-3 minutes in length that will be shown together as a feature-length film at a gala event on May 20. Variety reports that those known to be included are Ken Loach ('06: The Wind That Shakes the Barley), Gus Van Sant ('03: Elephant), Lars von Trier ('00: Dancer in the Dark), Theodoros Angelopoulos ('98: Eternity and a Day), Abbas Kiarostami ('97: Taste of Cherry), Chen Kaige ('93: Farewell My Concubine), Wim Wenders ('84: Paris, Texas) and non-winners (though often-nominated) Wong Kar-Wai, Michael Cimino, Amos Gitai, Manoel de Oliveira, Hou Hsiao-hsien and Tsai Ming-liang. There are 30 shorts in all, so obviously a lot of other contributors are as yet unknown. Only Pedro Almodóvar (also a non-winner, and never a nominee) is known to have declined the offer.

On the strength of an 11-minute trailer that earned a standing ovation at Cannes, as well as the chaotic story of its distribution here -- rights were snatched up by The Weinstein Company, only to be dropped after a re-edit and re-naming; Warner Independent Pictures ended up with the film -- Chen Kaige's The Promise had developed considerable buzz in the US. Set to open here early next month, it’s now one of the handful of jarringly commercial, big-budget films showing at the Tribeca Film Festival. Unfortunately, however, the movie fails to live up to either its buzz or the visual potential hinted at in that Cannes trailer.

The Promise is set in a fantastic land, in which gods and men live side-by-side, and giant, color-coded armies battle for dominance. The film is dominated by set-piece combat scenes, none of which adhere to normal rules of physics; each features reams and reams of billowing fabric, movements of impossible grace, and long chases across whatever lovely obstacles present themselves, from trees and rooftops to human-sized birdcages and craggy landscapes. The plot, as you might expect, is of little consequence, serving primarily as an excuse for those battles and other CGI-enhanced scenes of dramatic beauty. Such as it is, however, the plot revolves are Quingcheng (Cecilia Cheung), a woman who, as a young girl, made an unfortunate promise to a goddess, accepting endless devotion and wealth in exchange for the inability to find and keep a true love. Inevitably, she falls in love with a man who kills for her, but because of circumstances and the man’s hidden face, she believes her rescuer to be the fabled Master of the Crimson Armor (Hiroyuki Sanada), when in fact it is his slave (Jang Dong-Kun). Needless to say, great dramatic sacrifices are made, loves are lost, and lives are changed, all in gorgeous ways.

If ever a film needed a group hug, it's Chen Kaige's The Promise. The film - China's biggest budget film ever - has really been through the wringer over the past several months. Way back at Cannes last year, the Weinsteins acquired the film.  The poor film was hijacked by pirates, who sold it pay-per-view on a remote television station. Since then it's been re-edited, renamed, and released in a longer version (for the Oscars) and a shorter version (for the Golden Globes), and then subsequently freed up by the Weinsteins, who had a disagreement with Kaige and producer  Etchie Stroh over their handling and distribution plan for the film. Now, at long last, acoording to indieWIRE, the film has found a new home at Warner Independent Pictures, so it can relax, take a hot bath and a nap, and warm its feet up by the cozy fire of better (hopefully more expansive) distribution.

The film which took nearly three years to shoot, has demolished box office records in China. If you can't wait to see the full version, you can watch the smashing 11 minute trailer.

We've posted a lot here about Chen Kaige's new film, The Promise. First the long trailer sent Cannes into an early frenzy, and then the completed film set box office records in China. Now, however, things have started to go a bit south. Recut, retitled, and dumped by the Weinstein Company, the film is suddenly without North American distribution. And, most disappointingly, it might not actually be very good - at least, that is, if today's Hollywood Reporter is anything to go on.

According to Kirk Honeycutt's review, the effects in the film - which is being viewed by its producers as a Hero/ Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon spectacle - are so bad as to be distracting. That's trouble, if it's true. We're so spoiled now by the magicians who can make a giant ape so convincing that people actually think it deserves an acting award that anything less seems "exceptionally fake," which is how Honeycutt describes the CG work in The Promise.

Man. I really, really hope he's wrong - I was really looking forward to this one. Have any of you readers been lucky enough to see the film in LA? Care to share your thoughts?

Just a few days ago, it was announced that the Weinstein Company would release Chen Kaige's massive Chinese hit The Promise with (approved) cuts and a (less approved) name change. Apparently there were a few other disagreements as well, and it's been agreed that, following the one-week academy qualify run in LA, producer Etchie Stroh will begin meeting with other companies to find a new North American distributor.

As previously stated, the cuts made to the film are not a problem - in fact, the shorter version will probably be seen by most of the world, outside of the Asian territories where it has already been released - but the Weinsteins' title (Master of the Crimson Armor) was, as was their general approach to distribution of the film. Firstly, Kaige and others involved in making the film were concerned that the new title "emphasized the movie's male-oriented martial arts aspects at the expense of its other qualities," including lots and lots of romance. Secondly, Kaige and Stroh felt that their film deserved a wide release, much like the one granted Hero, which Miramax opened in over 2000 theaters nationwide in 2004. The Weinsteins, on the other hand, favored a more limited release.

In the end, they were unable to come to an agreement, and the parting seems to have been amicable. As long as the film finds some sort of distribution here, it probably doesn't matter too much who is in charge - realistically, a wide release is probably going to be a reach, no matter who ends up with the rights.

The Promise, Chen Kaige's gorgeous fantasy epic (remember the trailer?) and also China's official Oscar entry, easily broke the Chinese opening weekend records when it was released last week. The film's four-day total of £5.2 million outdistanced the previous record (set by Kung-Fu Hustle) by almost a full £1 million, and the first week total is also expected to set a record.

The film, which took nearly three years to shoot is, with its cost of £24 million, the most expensive Chinese film ever made. It is one of the nominees for the best foreign film Golden Globe Award, and must be considered one of the films with a legitimate shot at an Oscar nom as well, if only because of the status of its director. Unfortunately, the US release is currently slated for some vague time next spring (by which point a region 0 DVD will be widely available), so we won't know for month and months if it actually deserves any of this regard.