We reportedway back in 2004 about John Woo planning to head back to China to make a period epic with Chow Yun Fat.
He had to finish up work on his planned adaptation of the Spy Hunter video game franchise before what was then called The War Of The Red Cliff could be fought.
But now, with a flashy explosion and a couple of doves lazily flapping across the screen, we bring you to 2006. Woo has dropped Spy Hunter like a bad habit and the slightly renamed The Battle Of Red Cliff is going ahead.
Even better, Chow Yun Fat is still attached, and he’ll be joined by Tony Leung, Ken Watanabe and Taiwanese supermodel Lin Chi-Lung in an epic tale set in the year 208, which chronicles the last days of the Han Dynasty. And with six units filming at once on a battle that, according to history featured one million warriors, expect this to be something truly special.
Adapted from classic novel Romance Of The Three Kingdoms by Crouching Tiger scribe Wang Hui-Ling, it’ll shoot in the Hebei Province in March next year, with a planned release around the 2008 Beijing Olympics. That sound? Every Woo fan’s brain doing the dance of joy at once.