Several stills have already begun making the rounds for Men Qian Baodi (a.k.a. A Treasure In Front Of The Door), the latest from filmmaker Xu Haofeng and co-director Xu Junfeng. Some of these can be seen with additional stills from the film as well as a bit of dialog from actor Jacky Heung who stars among the line-up, all well-knit in a photo promo which you can view above.
Production wrapped in the first week of March with a cast that also lists Andy On, Bea Hayden, Shiyi Tang and Zhao Zheng. The film itself takes place in 1920 and centers on the aftermath of the death of a Tianjin martial arts museum curator, whose eldest disciple steps up and takes his pre-ordained place. When his controversial practices compel the community to summon the late curator’s son to claim what is his, a new rivalry for a new era in the martial arts world is born.
The film also marks a return to our corner of the internet for the highly-celebrated novelist and screenwriter, and award-winning director of such concentrated, cerebral and intense martial arts period dramas like The Sword Identity (2011), Judge Archer (2012), and The Final Master (2015), and with little to no word on release plans for the other projects he’s directed, namely The Hidden Sword and Shi Yan Juan Tian Ya. With the state of the way things have gone in China in the last few years, there’s still no telling if or when those films will ever see the light of day, so maybe we’ll get a whiff sometime before long.
Here’s to hoping, of course, and the same can absolutely be said for this newest endeavor.