Zhang Yimou eyes another suspense comedy
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It appears director Zhang Yimou just can't get enough of his attempt with suspenseful comedy as he is looking to shoot a second film of such style following the success of his 2009 box-office hit "A Simple Noodle Story".
Though its name is as yet unknown, it has been revealed that the new comedy will borrow a similar structure to the 2005 Oscar winner "Crash", thereby telling the story of several unrelated characters, who become entangled in an unlikely event.
With this film in the making, it's going to be a busy year for Zhang Yimou given that he already has two other popular novel adaptations in the pipeline.
The first is "Hawthorn", a romance drama based on a 2007 hit novel of the same name. The love story, which is intriguing for its sad ending, is acclaimed as the "purest love of all time" in Chinese literature. As much anticipated as the casting of previous Zhang Yimou projects, the candidates for Hawthorn's lead roles have set the media abuzz again speculating who will be the next lucky star to front Zhang's movie.
The other film on the way, "Thirteen Women of Jinling", is an adaptation of prolific contemporary writer Yan Geling's "Jinling" (Jinling was the previous name for Nanjing), set during the Nanjing Massacre of World War II. As an international-targeted project, the production team has put big names such as Tom Hanks, Tom Cruise and Brad Pitt on the list of possible male lead candidates.
The most talked about director in China, Zhang has bred controversy since 2002 when he began a streak of big-budget productions, a move labeled as a "commercial turnabout" for the once artistic director.
