Zhang Ziyi and Takeshi Kaneshiro last worked together in the blockbuster movie “House of Flying Daggers”. Now, they’ll be collaborating on another film which is also centered on a love story but this time with no kung fu scenes. This film is based on Ha Jin’s award winning novel of the same title translated as “Deng Dai” in Chinese.
It is a love story between two people who have waited for 18 years to be together. Takeshi will play as a doctor in China’s Revolutionary Army who is trapped in an arranged marriage with a country woman because of his dying mother’s will. Not wanting his arranged life, he mostly lived in the Army’s hospital and only sees his wife and family once a year. There, he falls in love with a nurse played by Zhang Ziyi.
The film’s setting was in the 1950’s to 1960’s when they are both bounded by the Communist Law that compels a man to be separated from his wife for 18 years before he can divorce her.
Such a long time of waiting, I doubt if someone can endure that law in this time. But I think that would make the movie compelling aside from the on-screen chemistry of the two leads. Incidentally, Zhang replaced Takeshi as this year’s ambassador for Emporio Armani.
Chow Yun Fat and Maggie Cheung were initially cast to play the roles of Zhang and Takeshi but the producers China Film Group Corporation wanted a younger generation of stars. Hongkong Director Peter Chan is the one working on the film which is currently in production stage and will be shown next year, no definite date yet.
Takeshi seems to be Chan’s favorite as he already worked with him in the romantic musical film “Perhaps Love” and recently in the epic war film “Warlords”.
This film reminded me of the Hollywood film “A Very Long Engagement” starring Audrey Tautou in a fictional romantic film about a woman who had long searched for her missing love who might have been killed in the war.
That loyalty kind of thing is rare nowadays and a movie that speaks about it would be great especially in these times when fidelity is always an issue.
