Tsui Hark

He also talked about his upcoming New Dragon Gate Inn, a 3D remake of his 1992 Dragon Inn, to be produced by Bona International Film Group and scheduled to start shooting in October.

I always wanted to make a Chinese detective story and I started thinking of making this film since the 1980s.  Looking back my previous works and the different genres I’ve made, people might say that period action film is my specialty. My action films used to have three directions: ones with supernatural and fantasy elements; realistic action dramas and martial arts films with Chinese martial arts features. But in this film we have opened a new direction. We have added scientific explanations and logical reasoning to the plot, apart from the action and fantasy elements in the film.

We have read Robert van Gulik’s novel Judge Dee but the backbone of the story is drawn from Chinese books. We wanted to make the story a Chinese story and make the setting and visual presentation filled with oriental elements. But the genre itself is a detective film. This combination is what we thought something different. At the same time, we tried to make the story simple and interesting that audiences of all ages and all cultures can understand.

Of course we hope that we can always have good communication with the Chinese authority. Bbecause there is no film rating system, when we consider what kind of impact the film may bring to the audience, we need to think about the general public, viewers of all ages. But for the overseas market outside of China, we only need to consider how our films will be rated. The thinking is quite different.

When we sent in the script to the censors, they recruited five history experts to review the script. Because we are dealing with an historical figure, they took it very seriously and have requested that our story be as faithful to the historical reality as possible. They have even questioned that the cast of some character are too young for the historical figures. And we had to communicate with them, made sure they understand our creative ideas for the story and our reasons for the cast.

Our 3D stereography team has gone through a training period and they are more familiar with the technology and operation now.  Avatar visual effects stereography director Chuck Comisky is our stereography consultant.  He had worked with us in the training process and will participate in the shooting too. I think in China or Asia, the potential of 3D is very big and there are a lot of good topics for 3D shooting.

But we face three major challenges. First, new technology and new equipment are still being developed. There are always new things coming out. Filmmakers and crew find it hard to choose the right tool for their projects.  Then, we are extremely in lack of talents handling the technology. Third, there has not been a standard for quality 3D screening facility, especially in China, which may largely affect the viewing experience.