“Legend of Chu and Han” to be a big budget epic

January 20, 2012 | Posted in Television, Tagged , , , ,

Gao Xixi has found a gorgeous Yu Ji for Peter Ho's Xiang Yu

For the production of this upcoming 80-episode epic, director Gao Xixi has a budget of 1.7 billion yuan. This enormous budget surpasses even the  155 million yuan budget of Gao Xixi’s previous epic Three Kingdoms, and means that the  ”Legend of Chu and Han楚汉传奇” will be more expensive than any other television production to date. Legend of Chu and Han is estimated to be released in 2013. The experienced Chen Daoming stars as future emperor Liu Bang and his rival, Xiang Yu, is played by Peter Ho. Qin Lan plays his wife (Lv Zhi). I’m particularly excited for Li Yixiao’s portrayal of  Yu Ji, as she looks gorgeous thus far in the stills and has a martial arts background to back up  Yu Ji’s combative talents.

Stills from the series can be found below the cut.  (more…)

Sophie's Revenge Cast Promote Website Launch

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L-R Ruby Lin, Yao Chen, Zhang Ziyi, and Peter Ho

The Chinese/Taiwanese cast members of Sophie’s Revenge minus Fan Bingbing who was probably busy with one of her six upcoming movies, helped launch the official site for the movie yesterday.

Included on the websites is Sophie’s Revenge first teaser trailer. This was released at Cannes, and it did a pretty good job because the rights were sold to five countries. Although it’s not featured here, Cao Xuanbin will be writing the theme song. Can’t wait to see how will make it reflect the feel of this film.

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ov7RLAyVtWs]

A few more pictures from the launch and some new HQ stills from the movie below. The latter is my real reason for making this post.

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Sophie's Revenge Reveals Teaser Poster

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This summer, fight for love. This is the tagline issued by the first poster for the romantic-comedy Sophie’s Revenge, officially proclaiming that the movie, even though still in post-production, is already entering into the promotional stage.

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Huang Xiaoming, Barbie Hsu, Peter Ho, and the future of Chinese dramas

Cover art of the book, which is in the process of being made into a manga

Cover art of the book, which is in the process of being made into a manga

In recent news, Huang Xiaoming just replaced Dylan Kuo as Ou Chen in the Summer of Bubbles after investors complained to Peter Ho, the producer and co-star (as Luoxi) of the drama. Huang Xiaoming apparently liked the script so much that he agreed to be paid a fraction of his worth just to be in the drama. Other than the fact this’ll be the first Taiwanese drama starring a mainland actor, it’s also significant as Summer of Bubbles is one of the several mainland books that’s been recently picked up as dramas. A word on the direction of Chinese literature and dramas.

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HQ Stills from The New Three Kingdoms Drama

Despite the economic downturn, it seems that Chinese TV dramas are still plunging ahead with bigger and bigger budgets. Admist a lineup of already opulent productions for 2009 including The Legend of Bruce Lee and Dream of the Red Chamber, a new drama adaptation of the Three Kingdoms has already an estimated 100 million yuan budget (around 14 million USD), the highest budget for any drama ever made in China. Even its fairly famous cast, including Lu Yi, Peter Ho, Chen Hao, Ruby Lin, Victor Huang, and Nie Yuan, and what it must have cost to pay them,  does not seem to have affected the quality of the production.

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This seems to be the scene where Zhao Yun (played by Nie Yuan) retrieves the infant A Dou. More below, along with a little information on who is playing what. Click on each for bigger.

Edit: This seems so out of place next to the happy Alan/Wei Chen picture.

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First Look at the Newest Adaptation of Three Kingdoms

Yesterday, the actors in costume were revealed for their respective roles. The cast list boasts impressive names, that is if you like young hotties. While nobody is quite a teeny-bopper idol (most being in their early thirties), the list still certainly screams “idol series”. Poor sage and master strategist Zhuge liang has been getting younger and younger, having first been played by Takeshi Kaneshiro in the movie Red Cliff and now by baby-faced Lu Yi who’s yet to crack a smile in any of the press photos. Why so glum Lu Yi? This actually marks an improvement from the most recent roles you’ve done.

This marks the second series in production of one of China’s Four Great Novels, the other being Dream of the Red Chamber, who’s reception has been more of a mixed bag, mixed referring to the mix of insults towards not only the horrific outfits but also the young, unknown and unexperienced cast.

From L to R, Lu Yi as Zhu Geliang, Victor Huang as Zhou Yu, Nie Yuan as Zhao Yun, Chen Hao as Diao Chan and Peter Ho with a ‘stache and glare juxtaposed to give quite a ridiculous/endearing look. Take Your pick. Ruby Lin although not pictured, is playing Sun Shangxiang.