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August 2001
Read up on Ricky Ho, the Singaporean composer who scored the music for Tsui Hark's The Legend Of ZU. Ricky also scored the music for A Chinese Ghost Story: The Tsui Hark Animation.
View the 17 minutes making of Tsui Hark's Legend of ZU in streaming format here. Pretty good quality too.
More pictures from Tsui Hark's The Legend Of ZU just poured in. Thanks to Lance Ho for providing the pictures.
Caught the preview of Tsui Hark's The Legend Of Zu approximately 5 hours back. To be frank, my mind is almost a blank at the moment. Perhaps it's partially due to the fact that I'm still shell-shocked that Star Wars Episode II is titled Attack Of The Clones. Ok, back to business. Many of you must be wondering about the plot right now. I'll share it with you without major spoilers. As in the first movie, the humans are waging war against one another while the celestial beings are engaged in their own. A powerful demon shows up, decimating the Kun-Lun Sect. Ekin Cheng is the only surviving disciple of Kun-Lun and he shadows the demon in its trail of destruction. Fast forward 200 years. The O-Mei sect (remember Sammo Hung's 'Long Brows' character from the first Zu movie? He heads the O-Mei sect.) discovers that the demon which destroyed Kun-Lun is headed their way. Louis Koo plays the senior disciple of O-Mei who teams up with Ekin Cheng (yes, his character is a few hundred years old. I mentioned celestial, didn't I?) to subdue the demon.
With the help Long Brows, the demon's 'shell' is destroyed but its 'essence' escapes into hiding within a mountain. That particular mountain turns out to be the elusive evil 'blood' energy source which O-Mei seeks to destroy. Bigger problems occur when the demon becomes more powerful by tapping on the evil blood energy. To destroy the all-powerful blood demon, the purple and the green swords owned by O-Mei's two guardians (one of which is played by Cecilia Cheung) must be combined (no easy task) and Long Brows must find another weapon from another dimension to boost the power of the combined swords. Will O-Mei succeed? Watch the movie to find out.
Actually, I only scraped the surface of the plot. Watch the movie and all will be revealed. What do I think of the movie? It's definitely worth the wait. It doesn't matter if one hadn't watch the original. There's no continuity at all. The effects were cool on the whole (especially Louis Koo's blade wings with offensive and defensive capabilities) but some were 'crude', didn't look like a full render of the scene. More like a quick render/preview in some 3D software. Enough babbling. It's 1:40am in the morning and my eyes are heavy with sleep. The local TV station will broadcast THE MAKING OF THE LEGEND OF ZU in 11 hours time. Time to catch some sleep and prep the VCR.
Dragon Models Limited scored another cool contract. They'll be producing the Windtalkers action figures in 12 inch, 6 inch and 3 inch. For further info, check out figures.com. Thanks to Dedrick for the info.
I read this in the papers some weeks back but didn't put it up as I got side-tracked once again with a couple of things. Apparently, Tsui Hark is making a movie adaptation of Louis Cha's (aka Jin Yong) swordsfighting novel, Romance Of The Book And Sword. The story is set in the Qing (Manchu) dynasty during the reign of Emperior Chien Lung. The Manchu emperor has a secret which is he's of Han heritage. The emperor has a brother, Chen Jia Luo, who heads the anti-Manchu Red Flower society. Chen threatens to expose the emperor in a bid to get him to aid the anti-Manchu movement. Will the emperor embrace his Han heritage and help his brother overthrow the Qing dynasty?... As a matter of fact, Director Ann Hui had adapted the novel into not one but two movies in the early 80s starring an all-China cast. I remember watching it many moons back and it is a classic. Additionally, Adam Cheng starred as Chen Jia Luo in Hong Kong TVB's Romance Of The Book And Sword TV serial back in the late 1970s. The newspaper also reported that Tsui is hoping to rope in some Chinese Olympic medalists in his cast. Could this propel more atheletes/martial artists into stardom ala Jet Li? Will Tsui Hark be able to outdo Ann Hui? Time will tell.
July 2001
Spotted the url for the Legend Of ZU trailer at Harry Knowles' Aint-It-Cool-News website. Looks great! Zhang Ziyi is given a lot of air-time. There's a cool shot of Louis Koo's character flapping his metallic wings (who his character is I don't know) and some 'feathers' surge forward like darts! Reminds me of Archangel from X-Men with a touch of Angel Tyrael from Diablo II. Enough said, check out the trailer now. >> Legend Of ZU Trailer (Windows ASF format)
Just when you think viewing the trailer for Tsui Hark's Legend Of ZU is going to give you sleepless nights, wait till you see this! Dragon Models Limited (based in Hong Kong) is producing the official 12 inch action figures for Legend Of ZU. Only Cecilia Cheung and Ekin Cheng's characters are given the 12 inch treatment. However, the six main characters are available as 'minis'. Check out some pics below. For further info, surf Dragon's website. Mini Action Figures
12 inch Action Figures (Cecilia Cheung and Ekin Cheng's characters)
All pictures copyright 1998-2001 Dragon Models Limited.
I apologise for the lack of updates. I was down with chicken pox and it kind of 'drained' me. Was out of action for two weeks. Additionally, I got a little side-tracked playing the Diablo 2 Expansion Set as well as Half-Life: Blue-Shift. : ) Anyway, I've been informed that John Woo is producing a CGI Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles movie which promises to be true to the dark and brooding nature of the original comic series. Hard to believe huh? Cow-WOO-bunga!!! In the meantime, an interesting picture from Tsui Hark's Legend Of ZU appeared in the local papers. That's Cecilia Cheung above. Her outfit is similar to the one worn by Lin Ching Hsia in the original 1981 movie. Are they the same character? I don't know but I wonder what's that crescent-like thing around her. |
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