Hua Kai Ban Xia blossoms in half as production begins

Hua Kai Ban Xia poster

A love half blossomed, a pair never matched, Yang Yang and Li Qin seems to always play one-sided loves, both in Dream of Red Chambers and in here.

Idol drama Hua Kai Ban Xia held its press conference a hour ago.  Starring Dream of Red Chamber’s Li Qin, Yang Yang, and Kan Qingzi as well as Dreams Link’s Zhang Jiani, the drama is directed by the master Li Shaohong (Da Ming Gong Ci, Dream of Red Chambers) and produced by Hunan TV’s Mango Films.  Three of the five leads are born after 1990.

The “pure love” story, based on the popular book of the same name, tells of two orphaned child who grow up to love each other, but gets unfortunately involved in a dangerous gang.  Plot/character intros below the cut.

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Ladies of Dream of the Red Chamber Cover the September Issue of Esquire

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Poor GQ. While it does have the likes of Chang Chen, Ethan Ruan and Han Han, it has to compete with Esquire‘s September issue, featuring the female cast of Li Shaohong’s Dream of the Red Chamber, pillow fighting. The girls in the photoshoot are Jiang Mengjie, Li Qin, Gao Yang, Li Yan, and Ma Xiaocan. After a 3 years in production, Dream of the Red Chamber finally will air this September. Whether it will be successful remains to be seen, but it’s likely that it will give the majority of its large cast, including these girls, an unparalleled boost in stardom, ushering a new wave of young actors.

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The New Dream of the Red Chamber Trailer and Photoshoot

Li Qin (Young Xue Baochai), Jiang Mengjie (Lin Daiyu), and Yang Yang (Older Jia Baoyu) in InStyle

Even though there have been many trailers already for The New Dream of the Red Chamber, the previous ones tried to only convey an moody ambiance. This new trailer actually had dialogue, and shows off the beautiful camerawork and sets. The total costs of production for the 50-episode  series reached 118 million yuan (for comparison, even the elaborate sets of  The Message cost around 50 million yuan), but the producer, sounding much more confident than in previous reports, said that the costs should be definitely recoverable.

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j3As7GrII1k]

Vid thanks to fountainpark723.

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The New "Dream of the Red Chamber" Cast Dances on Water in Shanghai

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As if they haven’t thrown enough money into this project (50,000 yuan per episode, for 50 episodes) the production behind Li Shaohong’s upcoming Dream of the Red Chamber prepared a water and lights ballet version of the drama that was performed October 3-5 to coincide with the mid-autumn moon festival, in Silver Pickax Lake in Changfeng Park, Shanghai. It featured bursts of lights, water and fire surrounding the actors as they danced above the lake. The show will be performed again for the Shanghai World Expo 2010.

Clip of the part where Baoyu realizes he got tricked into marrying the girl that he doesn’t love.  If someone does find the whole thing, please tell me!

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RFJj-7Z49MU]

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