Big goings on . . . Lady White Snake will be the largest budget film in Taiwan cinema history. It is an English-language adaptation of the classic Chinese tale. Filming is a joint effort with the kiwi folks who did the visuals for Lord of the Rings and will be shot in New Zealand.

I would have thought doing at least some of the shooting in Taiwan would make sense . . . what with all the temples and village sets already readily available. Hmm.

According to the folks putting the deal to gether, they’ll have an international cast and are thining perhaps of Ian Mckellen as the monk Fa-hai. While I love McKellen (see previous posts and the sidebar for his site), I would hope they would make the character a bit more endearing than previous variations where he comes off as a self-centered egotistical close-minded dick.

I’m not sure what to expect . . . I hope we don’t get another one of those floaty-flowery-overly-thick-romancy-shmancy-angsty things that have been all the vogue in martial arts pieces of late . . . the ones where they’re more concered about making a film with “pretty pictures” rather than telling a good story, I mean a really good story . . . Hero certainly had a lot of problems on those lines.

Actually, I would hope for something with a little more oomph along the lines of the classic Devil Wives of Li-Feng, a classic retelling of the Chinese tale for Western readers by E. Hoffman Price who also wrote The Jade Enchantress in the same veign . . . something with the spirit of wuxia but sensibilities appropriate to an international audience that doesn’t get bogged down in angst but moves forward with high romance and action.