TAKESHI KANESHIRO AND ZHANG ZIYI: TOGETHER AGAIN

They wowed you with all that rope bondage, flying, bleeding and crying in HOUSE OF FLYING DAGGERS, and now Takeshi Kaneshiro (the best looking man in showbiz?) and Zhang Ziyi (the tiniest woman in showbiz?) have announced that they're in a new film together: GREEN DRAGON SABER.

Directed by Li Shaohong, GREEN DRAGON SABER will see Takeshi playing General Kwan, one of China's legendary figures from the Three Kingdoms period (he's that red-faced statue you see in a lot of Chinese establishments in a little shrine, and has been played by Anthony Wong in JIANG HU: THE TRIAD ZONE). Zhang Ziyi will play his lover.

The movie is set to start shooting in mid-2006 and the most interesting thing about it is the director. Li Shaohong is the Fifth Generation director you've never heard of, and the only woman in the Fifth Generation crew. She mostly directed television, but her 2004 flick, BAOBER IN LOVE, was a pop explosion that took the standard issue, kooky romantic comedy and turned it into something close to genius, interweaving its by-the-book story with darker threads about mental illness, unrequited love, and the modernization of Beijing (the first five minutes of this movie contains one of the most powerful images about modern life you'll ever see on film).

Li's movie, STOLEN LIFE, was a prize winner at the Tribeca Film Festival last year and Li went on to trumpet that it was "Banned in China!" Then, it turned out that no one had banned anything anywhere, and she had to do some fast and furious apologizing. She's still a good director, however.