As you might expect, we get one or two press releases sent to Empire Towers. Yet few contain such lyrical poetry as the one accompanying these new pictures from John Woo’s latest, The Crossing. As seems fitting for a film about people braving a treacherous journey, the release itself appears to have gone on a risky trip through a mangling translation program.
Woo’s new film, which stars Zhang Ziyi, Huang Xiaoming, Song Hye-kyo, Takeshi Kaneshiro and Masami Nagasawa, is set against the upheavals of revolutionary China in 1949. The plot follows three couples from different backgrounds who make a fateful voyage on a ship fleeing China to Taiwan. It’s all drawn from a script by Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon’s Wang Huiling.
With Zhang picking up a award recently, the production decided to tie the first image release to the happy event, and produced an enthusiastic release that didn’t quite make the trip to English. The highlight? “First release of The Crossing movie stills, we could reveal Zhang Ziyi floating on the water with determinate eyesight showing the strength and inflexible of human being in a nature disaster. She is floating on the water 5 hours everyday for the shooting and continuing for a week.”
The Crossing is being split into two parts and should be out next year.