Filming for Peter Chan’s Wu Xia begins1 min read

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Hong Kong director Peter Chan has begun shooting martial arts film, Wu Xia, in China’s Yunnan province with stars Donnie Yen, Takeshi Kaneshiro and Tang Wei.

The $20 million production is produced and financed by Chan’s We Pictures and represents his first film as a director since action epic The Warlords, also starring Kaneshiro.

Yen stars as a retired swordsman seeking redemption, who takes refuge in a remote village at the end of the world. Tang will act as the swordsman’s wife. Kaneshiro acts as the dedicated detective who is hunting Yen’s character down.

When asked about his new film, Chan, the long-time boyfriend of Hong Kong actress Sandra Ng, seemed very excited.

“Ever since Crouching Tiger and Hidden Dragon, there have been no great wu xia (martial arts chivalry) films for almost a decade, so I wanted to try [making one].”

“I want to combine action, science, medicine and special effects to show just how strong wu xia moves are, to show how different the effect of one strike is on the body of a person who has trained in the martial arts and someone who has not,” Chan told reporters.

Chan states that he hopes to demonstrate the physicality and lethality of the martial arts, and expresses a wish to give the martial arts genre a “reboot”.

The film marks not just the first time collaboration between Peter Chan and Tang Wei – for whom this is her second acting role in China since Lust, Caution – but also a first for Yen and Kaneshiro to appear together on the big screen.

Wu Xia is set for release in the second half of 2011.