Chinese actress Liu Yifei (劉亦菲) will likely be named the lead actress in Ang Lee's (李安) upcoming spy thriller Lust, Caution (色戒) a news report said Thursday.
The Chinese news Web site Sina.com reported people close to the production had said Lee has decided on a female lead, and Shanghai film industry insiders say Liu is the favorite.
Lust, Caution is due to start filming in Shanghai and Hong Kong in the fall.
Sina.com said Liu, whose credits include two TV adaptations of novels by the famed martial arts writer Louis Cha (查良鏞), has visited Hong Kong and Taiwan to lobby filmmakers for the part.
Earlier, Lee's assistant confirmed they had approached Cannes best actor winner Tony Leung (梁朝偉) about a part, but his participation hadn't been finalized.
Lust, Caution, adapted from a short story by famed Chinese writer Eileen Chang (張愛玲), marks Lee's return to Chinese-language cinema for the first time since his box office martial arts hit Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon (臥虎藏龍) in 2000.
Lee has made The Hulk and the gay romance Brokeback Mountain, which won him a best director Oscar earlier this year.
Calls and an e-mail to Lee's assistant Thursday went unanswered. Lee's offices in New York didn't immediately respond to a call.
Observers are closely watching Lee's casting choices to see if he will produce another female star. Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon helped propel Zhang Ziyi (章子怡) to stardom. Zhang went on to star in Hollywood movies such as Rush Hour 2 and Memoirs of a Geisha.
Danny and Oxide Pang's Re-cycle is the latest Chinese-language movie to gravitate toward big-budget films, but like many recent mega productions it suffers from a lack of identity.
Re-cycle offers stylish visuals but lacks an overall coherence and tries to overcome a thin plot with fancy — although impressive — special effects.
Malaysian actress Lee Sin-jie (李心潔) plays romance writer Chu Xun, who starts penning a horror novel. As she begins writing, her apartment becomes haunted and she mysteriously enters a hell-like space.
Rolling Stones guitarist Keith Richards looks set to play Johnny Depp's father in the third Pirates of the Caribbean film, a fitting role for the man upon whom the American actor based his character Jack Sparrow.
"We're all looking forward to the idea of Keith coming in and doing a cameo and it's looking very, very good," Depp told reporters on Tuesday, the day after Pirates of the Caribbean: Dean Man's Chest, the second film in the franchise, had its London premiere.
"The one thing is you just never say it's definite until, for me, the guy steps on the set and the cameras are rolling, but it's certainly something I'd be excited about," the 43-year-old added.
Depp won his first Oscar nomination for his portrayal of Captain Jack in Pirates of the Caribbean: The Curse of the Black Pearl, the first in the lucrative Walt Disney Co series that earned US$654 million in worldwide box office receipts.
The movie database IMDb lists Richards in the cast of the third Pirates film due to be released next year, although the rocker's London publicist could not be reached for comment.
South Korea's biggest movie at the box office, about a tyrannical king and his two court jesters, has been banned from Chinese theaters because it has subtle gay themes, a South Korean movie executive said on Tuesday.
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