According to various Chinese media yesterday, Chow Yun-Fat was
expected to come back to the cast for John Woo's history epic
The Battle of Red Cliff to play a minor part. However, the
latest news suggests that the role that Chow was supposed to play
has already been cast.?
This could have been yet another twist in US$80 million-budget
film, the most expensive ever in Asia. Two major stars, Tony Leung
and Chow Yun-Fat, have already been out and back in several times,
which resulted in big controversy.
Tony Leung finally agreed to star as Zhou Yu, after his former
decision to quit in March from his original role as Zhu Geliang.
The star said he quit because of the six-month-long shoot and his
bad Mandarin.
Yesterday, a publicist for one of the film's investors claims
Chow Yun-Fat has agreed to rejoin his old friend's star-studded
cast. He is likely to play one of the smaller roles and has yet to
sign the contract. The film crew previously alleged that Chow
Yun-Fat put forward "nearly one-hundred unreasonable demands,"
which they said "they are unable to tolerate," so he was fired.
The Hong Kong star generated negative headlines because of this,
but Chow claimed that his pulling-out was because he had received
the script too late for him to prepare for the role. However,
producer Terence Chang said afterwards that he had been unable to
come to terms with Chow because the film's Hollywood investors
opposed 73 clauses that Chow had wanted included in his
contract.
Chow Yun-Fat may not be actually back in the epic's casting.
Rumor strongly has it that he may play a minor part as a character
named Huang Gai in the film. However, mainland actor Zhang Shan has
a signed contract to play that role.
Some observers guessed that it was just a publicity stunt
exploiting Chow's name, while some suggested it was Chow himself
who made up this news to make some good publicity for himself. But
when Information Times contacted Chow, who is now in the
US to promote his latest effort Pirates of the Caribbean: At
World's End, he said via his agent that he didn't know
anything about this.
Many movie fans around China believe Chow was used. They said
Chow has his rights to fight against the outrageous clauses in the
contract.
A famous Chinese film critic Song Ziwen gave out some insights a
month ago, saying that the difference between investors and the
creative team are wide. But most importantly, when the US'
investors' fund didn't arrive, the Chinese investors would have had
no money to pay for Chow's regular demands. The Battle of Red
Cliff was heavily in debt once it eventually rolled its
cameras.
Weng Li, an executive from the China Film Group Corporation,
confirmed Chow had expressed his will to return to Red
Cliff before he left Hong Kong for the US. "But which role he
will play has not been decided yet, nor did we sign the contract.
Director John Woo still treasures his friendship with Chow. If Chow
wants to come back, the possibility of cooperation still
exists."
(China.org.cn by Zhang Rui May 16, 2007)