matthias hoene

Cockneys V Zombies helmer Matthias Hoene‘s latest China/French co-production, Warrior’s Gate is currently underway with filming as of last Monday. The production was announced a few years ago as part of a newly announced production partnership between Luc Besson and Mark Gao representing EuropaCorp and Fundemental Films, respectively and now that cameras are rolling with three names already cast, more have been added to the roster.

Variety reports that Resident Evil franchise and Eragon co-star, actress Sienna Guillory and The Man With The Iron Fists and recently-cast Kickboxer remake co-star Dave Bautista will join lead actor Uriah Shelton in the film which centers on a young boy who magically travels back in time to ancient China where he learns to use his videogame skills to ultimately become a Kung Fu warrior. I’m sure there’s more to this gist of a plot as its early days with cameras rolling but this does read a lot like a cross between The Forbidden Kingdom and Scott Pilgrim vs. The World, and I like both titles too. I’m not yet sure how I feel about this, but this might turn out to be more original than predicted, so I’ll probably take interest anyway. We’ll see.

Actor Mark Chao and actress Ni Ni round out the current cast with filming expected to move to Canada later on. In the meantime, filmgoers can expect to catch Guillory in Ilyas Kaduji’s Abduct and Ben Wheatley’s High Rise, while Bautista makes way for Martin Owen’s horror romp, L.A. Slasher, Scott Mann’s Bus 657 and Sam Mendes’s latest 007 installment, Spectre, all later this year.

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