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Finland's first ever martial arts movie, Jade Warrior, is
set to shoot in China this summer with Chinese actors joining Finland's
Tommi Eronen and Markku Peltola in the cast.
Also the first ever Chinese-Scandinavian co-production, the $3m film
was previously set to shoot in Finland with an all-Finnish cast. It will
now shoot for four weeks outside Hengdian World Studios, in China's
Zhejiang Province, in addition to locations in Finland and Estonia.
Finland's AJ Annila will direct.
Peter Loehr's Beijing-based Ming Productions is co-producing the film
along with Finland's Blind Spot Pictures, Estonia's Film Tower and Fu
Works in the Netherlands. Fu Works' San Fu Maltha will distribute through
his A Films outfit in Benelux. Sandrew Metronome has Scandinavian rights.
Blind Spot's Tero Kaukomaa, who is producing the film with his partner
Petri Jokiranta, says the film mixes Chinese and Hong Kong elements with a
Finnish mentality: "It's basically a kung-fu fantasy combining Finnish and
Chinese mythologies which
makes it something totally new."
Annila is a first-time director but impressed Kaukomaa, who co-produced
Lars von Trier's Dancer In The Dark, with her showreel. Eronen and Peltola
(The Man Without A Past) are training with Stockholm-based "sifu" Yu
Yan-Kai.
The film also has backing from the Finnish Film Foundation, regional Finnish fund Villila, Finnish broadcaster
YLE TV1, the Estonian Film Fund and ZDF/Arte.
(hkfilmart.com) | 
Updated: 2005-06-13 17:04
