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I usually wouldn’t touch Deng Chao or Yu Baimei directed films (Devil & Angel, Master Healing) with a ten-foot pole, but the trailer for Looking Up 银河补习班 looks very promising. Deng Chao plays a father who deviates from the usual parenting style seen in Asian families, and instead encourages his son, played by Feng Ze’ang and later Bai Yu, to chase his dreams. The film is slated for a July 26th premiere in both China and North America.
Posters, stills, photoshoots, and random photos that caught my eye this week.
Zhang Yimou’s Shadow 影 will get a limited release in North America on May 3rd. Starring Deng Chao, Sun Li, Zheng Kai, Guan Xiaotong, Wang Qianyuan, Hu Jun, and Wu Lei, the film is about a shadow or stand-in whose job is to be killed in place of his master.
With SHADOW, director Zhang Yimou (HERO, HOUSE OF FLYING DAGGERS) once again pushes the boundaries of wuxia action to create a film like no other, masterfully painting a canvas of inky blacks and greys punctuated with bursts of color from the blood of the defeated. In a kingdom ruled by a young and unpredictable king, the military commander has a secret weapon: a “shadow”, a look-alike who can fool both his enemies and the King himself. Now he must use this weapon in an intricate plan that will lead his people to victory in a war that the King does not want.
Below is the North American trailer. See list of theaters screening it here.
Zhang Yimu’s upcoming wuxia film Shadow has confirmed a premiere date of September 30th, and recently released a new trailer that seems to feature a monologue by Deng Chao‘s shadow:
No people. No light. No sound. All alone in the darkness, I moved my hands over every single crevice in the walls. It was proof that I wasn’t crazy. It was proof that I was still alive.
Which poster is your favorite so far?
Zhang Yimou’s Shadow 影 has released three more posters and ton of stills. Some of the images are quite stunning, and Zhang Yimou is a visual master, but If this film doesn’t get some major shadow reduction, no one’s going to see anything that’s going on in a dark movie theater.
Youth and The Liquidator both cancelled their September/October air dates pretty abruptly, and it was reportedly because some of the scenes couldn’t pass by censorship board. Both movies have gotten new premiere dates – Youth will be released in cinemas on December 15th, while The Liquidator will follow on December 22nd.
Shadow 影 will be real-life married couple Deng Chao (The Dead End) and Sun Li’s (Legend of Mi Yue) third film collaboration, after Mural 画壁 and Devil and Angel 恶棍天使. Those movies were quite disastrous, so here’s to hoping Zhang Yimou (The Flowers of War, Coming Home) can work his magic this time round.
