Bringing 'Shanghai' to Shanghai

Stars flood The Bund for latest film festival.

I'm sure the organisers of the Shanghai International Film Festival do their best, but its a chaotic event at best. This year, I attended with Harvey Weinstein and the rest of the TWC team, initially to promote the release of 'Shanghai'. However, the festival screening proved to be a low key affair, and the focus of the trip became a series of exciting encounters with various Chinese cinema legends, with a view to present and future acquisitions and productions.

We arrived in time for the red carpet opening, which featured our 'Shanghai' stars John Cusack and Gong Li, Adrien Brody, Jet Li and... the great Jack Neo, my son Ryan's favourite Singaporean director.  Jack's had his downs and ups lately, so it was good to get the chance to give him some moral support.

It was quite an opening for the festival (like I say, they try!) Its the day to day organisation that lets them down,

The main hotel of the festival, The Crowne Plaza, remains shabby as ever, but it was very safe.

The best events at the festival tend to be those organised by those other than the organisers. There was a great party for the John Woo-directed Reign of Assassins, which is being distributed in North America by TWC. Its going to be a blast to be working with the US team to bring this sure-fire classic to the audience it deserves...

Stars Michelle Yeoh and Jung Woo-sung were there, as was John himself and his lovely daughter, Angeles , a black belt who kicks her own ind of $#%^. (That's her in blue at the top of the page.) Woo times two: who'd have thunk it? (She should really marry Vanness Wu, they'd almost have their own zip code: Van Ness Blvd, Los Angeles Wu)

I also reminded Jung Woo-sung that I once travelled all the way to Dunhuang to visit the set of The Good, The Bad and The Weird. (He was the 'The Good'.)

Great to see John, as always. Hard to believe this is his first period actioner since Last Hurrah for Chivalry, which we released on Dragon Dynasty some time back. I remember recording a commentary and a weapons demo for that one : go check it out. (Maybe I'll get to do the same for Reign of Assassins...)

At Chen Kaige's party, I met 'True Legend' star Chiu Man-cheuk for the first time. Hard to believe we never ran into each other before! He speaks very good English and Cantonese, his wife is so smart and charming...

This man should be an international star. We talked about kung fu, and I told him I was looking for the common ground between Hung Gar and Chen Tai Chi. He dragged me off into the kitchen to show me some moves. Okay, I admit, we'd raised a glass or two by this point...

The festival only gave us very limited tickets to their 'Shanghai' screening. I had to go to the theatre and hustle my way in so some of our VIP friends could see the movie. Of course, there were loads of empty seats... Why do they play these games? No-one knows...

The following night, our 'Shanghai' producing partners,  Huayi Bros, held a rooftop party. I alwas feel strong drink and heights don't mix, but what the heck... I ran into Wu Jing, who was in good form. I've known him since he very first came to Hong Kong to promote Tai Chi Boxer.

He's great in Benny Chan's upcoming 'Shaolin', for which I'll be working on the forthcoming Cine Asia DVD release in the UK.

And a free Dragon Dynasty DVD to whoever can name the tower behind us in the photo above.

Oh, and also for anyone who can name the two ladies below. (It was that kind of evening...)

Anyway, that was Shanghai, and 'Shanghai', done for at least a little while: back to Hong Kong...