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February 20, 2006

ZHANG YIMOU'S GOLDEN ARMOR BEGINS MASSIVE SETS

Zhang Yimou's FILL THE CITY WITH GOLDEN ARMORWith the kind of breathless excitement that used to be the province of Hollywood's Biblical epics (1000 Horses! 500 hand-made chariots! 9 million gallons of man sweat!) CriEnglish is reporting that construction on the sets for Zhang Yimou's FILL THE CITY WITH GOLDEN ARMOR aka FILL THE SCREENS WITH STARS WHO HAVEN'T WORKED IN A WHILE (ie, Chow Yun-fat, Gong Li) has begun and it's huge, huge, HUGE! Here's what was on Zhang Yimou's shopping list, found in yesterday's pants pocket that he sent out to the cleaners:

TO GET
- 3,000 poorly paid workers
- 3 million gold chrysanthemums (to be disposed of in environmental manner)
- 20,000 suits of armor
- 4 giant war chariots
- Jay Chou

DON'T FORGET
- start shooting next Monday (Tuesday?)
- remind Chen Kaige that when he cleans house today to make sure to MOVE the furniture when he vaccuums

February 20, 2006 at 09:42 AM in News | Permalink

Comments

Haven't you noticed Gong Li just made 3 movies in Hollywood?

Posted by: Charlotte G. | Feb 21, 2006 7:19:33 AM

Actually, Chow Yun-Fat just finished making The Aunt's Postmodern Life which will probably be out this year, and Pirates of the Caribbean: Uncharted Waters to be released in 2007.

Posted by: Charlotte G. | Feb 21, 2006 7:24:18 AM

Unfortunately, I am a mere mortal who must make do with watching movies in the order in which they're relased, rather than getting to watch tomorrow's movies today. I did notice, as much as I tried not to, that Gong Li had a supporting part in MEMOIRS OF A GEISHA and generally got good reviews for her performance. However, she hasn't had more than a supporting role in anything since 2002's ZHOU YU'S TRAIN and before that it was 1999's EMPEROR AND THE ASSASSIN. It's a far cry from the days when she was China's most famous actress.

As for Chow Yun-fat, I would like to see the movies he's in that haven't been released yet, but the fact remains that he hasn't had a film released since 2003's BULLETPROOF MONK and, although I was tempted, I missed that little cinematic bon bon.

Let's face it: both of these actors were, for a while, the preeminent Chinese actors in the world, along with Jackie Chan and Jet Li. But these days the four of them have seen their fortunes fall a long way. Part of this is natural - young actors are almost always condisered more marketable than old actors - and part of it is a result of having wrecked their career ships on the Hollywood shoals (Jet Li, Jackie Chan and Chow Yun-fat have all been hurt by having their names associated with bad Hollywood movies, Chow in particular).

But maybe you're right...let's go back in time and pretend that what I really said is: FILL THE SCREENS WITH ACTORS WHO ARE DESPERATELY HOPING THAT THEIR CAREERS WILL ONE DAY BE SUCCESSFUL AGAIN, PERHAPS WITH A FUTURE PROJECT.

Posted by: Grady Hendrix | Feb 21, 2006 12:00:46 PM

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