ENTER THE WARRIOR’S DENTIST: A Word With Filmmaker Matthias Hoene
Matthias Hoene: I had a very relaxing start into the year and am excited to share the movie with the world.
Matthias Hoene: I had a very relaxing start into the year and am excited to share the movie with the world.
Epic fantasy-adventure meets martial arts action in this thrilling film written by Luc Besson & Robert Mark Kamen. After a mysterious chest opens a gateway through time, teen gamer Jack (Uriah Shelton) is transported to an ancient empire terrorized by a cruel barbarian king (former WWE superstar Dave Bautista). Jack will need all of his gaming skills as he battles to defeat the barbarian, protect a beautiful princess, and somehow find his way back home.
From the creator of Lucy, Taken Trilogy and Transporter Trilogy. Jack is magically transported into a land of monsters, creatures, magic and evil knights. He must use his video game martial art skills to save the whole kingdom.
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.
Within the last few years following Luc Besson’s co-production partnering of EuropaCorp with Shanghai-based Fundemental Films for a slate of English-language films, its package also included a fantasy martial arts film titled Warrior’s Gate. Scant info has been granted for the latter, but thankfully things are about to change as production finally begins next month in lieu of current events at this year’s Beijing International Film Festival.
THR reports that helmer Matthias Hoene is directing this, his second feature since winning acclaim with the 2012 action horror romp, Cockneys Vs Zombies. Rising star Uriah Shelton, Flowers Of War actress Ni Ni and Taiwanese-Canadian actor Mark Chao (Black And White 1 & 2) are joining the $48 million dollar French-Chinese co-production with a script by Besson and Robert Mark Karmen which centers on teenager who gets magically transported to China where he ultimately trains in kung fu in order to save a princess from danger.
Sure, it’s a plot that sounds awfully familiar for anyone who still feels like The Forbidden Kingdom and Warriors Of Virtue just came out yesterday. Hopefully there’s some redeeming value in this project as new as it is, and who would say no to another kung fu movie at that? I wouldn’t.
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H/T: City On Fire
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