Zhang Ziyi, Disney Making Live-Action 3-D 'Mulan'

Disney is revisiting Mulan, this time as a live-action 3-D film starring and co-produced by Zhang Ziyi. Chinese news reports suggest she has been working on the film for a while, but it was temporarily idled while she was involved in "a string of high-profile scandals." OK, so those might be more interesting to me than the movie, but it's still a pretty cool prospect on the surface. Disney, of course, made the animated Mulan, but the story dates back hundreds of years in China, and I'm a tad surprised that this will reportedly be an English-language version. It seems there'd be a bigger audience in China, anyway, and Zhang's foreign language output in the states beats anyone else's; she starred in two of the three biggest foreign films in US history, Ang Lee's Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon, the only one to top $100 million, and Zhang Yimou's Hero. I mention the directors because either one would be a great hire for Disney, particularly Yimou, who shot to international acclaim two years ago with his jaw-dropping Olympic ceremonies in Beijing. And I think, given his unique visual style, the 3-D might even benefit a Zhang Yimou take on this material. Unfortunately, Disney's going with Chuck Russell, who made The Mask and The Scorpion King. Oh. Well, then, I'm suddenly not as interested. It's one thing to Anglicize this movie because foreign language films face obvious obstacles in the US, but to not ask one of China's masters to direct it - or even the Chinese equivalent of Chuck Russell, whoever that would be - is just stupid. How far down the list do you have to go before you get to Chuck Russell? That's a deep Rolodex of mediocrity. You could've had something Disney, or at least something other than my derision.

Comments

[J.Bradley]

That's a great picture of her. I don't think I've ever seen a sexier underarm.

[Get The Big Picture]

It took forever to find a good picture of Zhang Ziyi. So little to work with...

[JNagarya]

The alleged "high-profile scandals" were inventions of media -- Hong Kong's media is mostly tabloid, and have all along been bashing her for FOXian "reasons" -- and "Netizen" juveniles and haters who imagine themselves to be "detectives". One of the "scandals" concerned a fund-raising charity foundation founded in her name. According to the "scandal"-mongering "Netizens," she probably "embezzeled" the money. The reality smacks that fantasy down: she is by now a multi-millionaire; a business partner of hers happens to be the wife of Rpuert Murdoch; and her boyfriend is a multi-billionaire venture capitalist. If she needed money, she needn't embezzle.

The other "scandal" was generated by a paparazzi photographing of her and her boyfriend on a PRIVATE beech with her nominally topless. Whose business is that?

The long and short of it: to have a scandal, one must have EVIDENCE; having no evidence, the "scandals" are reduced to media CONTROVERSIES generated by jerks, juveniles, fools, giullibles, and malevolent haters who have it in for anyone who is in the least successful.
.
There was no embezzlement, and the issue was resolved. The photographer is in the business of making money by invading the privacy of the famous. The "sleaze" is ATTRIBUTED by the sleazy, then used as "morally outraged" excuse to sling mud.

Otherwise, I don't know who the driector is that you ridicule; but the importance of the Mulan story and legend to the Chinese people cannot be overstated. So let's (finally!) have a Mulan with Ziyi starring-- and that it is an action film. (I'll bet there was no big deal made of Zhau Wei starring in the most recent Mulan. Those who have a snide probelm with Ziyi in particular, aside from everyone else, have a problem that belongs not to her but to themselves.)