mei lan-fang Tagged Articles at Cinematical
Asian Cinema Scene: Zhang Ziyi as Peking Opera Star
Filed under: Drama », Foreign Language », Independent », Music & Musicals », Box Office », Miramax », Cinematical Indie »
Eight years ago, Zhang Ziyi soared into public consciousness as the tempestuous heroine in Ang Lee's Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon. She's continued to score in sumptuous epics like Hero, House of Flying Daggers, and The Banquet, as well as off-beat pleasures such as Seijun Suzuki's Princess Raccoon. (Let's all try to forget Memoirs of a Geisha, shall we?) In her latest film, which opened in China last week, she plays a Peking Opera singer.
Forever Enthralled is the English title of Mei Lanfang; the name of a real-life, internationally-recognized opera star well-known for playing female roles over the course of a career that lasted more than 50 years. Leon Lai, a veteran Hong Kong actor and pop singer, takes on the challenging assignment to play the legendary character, while Zhang plays fellow performer Meng Xiaodong, who was known for playing bearded men (?!). The two singers met, married, became parents, and divorced, all between 1925 and 1931.
At a press conference (pictured above, thanks to Ziyifilms), Zhang said: "The hardest thing is walking, wearing these really tall boots ... I practiced that for a very long time." All that practice paid off. Variety Asia Online reports that the film is "on course to quality for a hit," though it probably won't break any records.
Chen Kaige directed; years ago he made Farewell My Concubine, * also set in the opera world. More recently he ventured into epic action territory with the spectacular misfire The Promise. My friend Todd Brown at Twitch posted the Forever Enthralled trailer, which looks like a great match of stars, director, and material. IMDb lists Miramax as having US theatrical rights, though it's not listed on their site. I hope we get to see this one without having to wait forever.
* UPDATE: Title corrected. Thanks to Larry for pointing out my mistake.
Zhang Ziyi in Talks for Biopic of Chinese Opera Singer
Filed under: Drama », Foreign Language », Independent », Music & Musicals », Casting », Deals », Scripts », Cinematical Indie »
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.
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