Following its release in North America last Friday, moviegoers have just a few days left to ring in the Year of the Pig as of today, Tuesday, February 5, with a select theatrical release from myCinema of Chen Kaige’s fantasy adventure, Legend Of The Demon Cat. Celebrated Palme d’Or winning filmmaker Chen Kaige, directs the sweeping historical drama, based on the novel, Gensoshin Kukai, by best-selling Japanese fantasy writer Yumemakura Baku.
LEGEND OF THE DEMON CAT is set over a thousand years ago, during the imperial Tang Dynasty, considered by scholars to be a cosmopolitan period of exceptional cultural and literary flowering. A Chinese poet, Bai Letian (Xuan Huang) and a Japanese monk, Kukai (Shōta Sometani) join forces to investigate the case of a demonic cat who has possessed a general’s wife (Kitty Zhang Yuqi) and wreaked havoc on the imperial court. The investigation takes some gruesome and unexpected twists, leading the monk and the poet to unravel the mystery behind the decades-old death of the legendary, beautiful concubine Yang Guifei (Sandrine Pinna), one of the iconic Four Beauties of ancient China.
The Sino-Japanese co-production was touted something fierce when the campaign kicked off a few years ago, signaling an ensemble cast of top talent from mainland China and Japan, and with a set that included the creation of its own city that cost $250 million to construct over five years.
“I have yet to feel at ease making an entire movie using just a green screen,” said Kaige.
myCinema launched an official website several days ago to promote the film’s release and you can click here to take a gander at the elaborate contents about the film and its production.
Legend Of The Demon Cat joins Kaige with Etchie Stroh, whose Moonstone Entertainment is handling international sales, and who has produced or executive produced several other films directed by Chen, including the emotionally compelling Together, The Promise, and Caught in the Web.
Chen noted, “LEGEND OF THE DEMON CAT shows the cruelty humanity is capable of, and the beauty and hope that such darkness brings out. Despite the different time period, I think such themes resonate today more than ever. I am thrilled to share this film with American audiences.”
“Launching LEGEND OF THE DEMON CAT to start the New Year is truly an honor for the myCinema team,” said Bruce Eisen, Head of Content Acquisition for myCinema. “We are very pleased to partner with Moonstone Entertainment for the distribution and promotion of this exceptional film by Chen Kaige. As movie lovers in the United States will soon understand, the multiple international film awards earned by LEGEND OF THE DEMON CAT are very well deserved.”
