The Weinstein Company clearly loves its Chinese source material.
The Brothers W have hatched a major deal to seal Memoirs Of A Geisha star Ziyi Zhang into a three-film agreement that would first see her starring in a live-action version of Mulan, last seen gracing the screen as a Disney film in 1998.
With a new, Chinese-language script by Wang Hui-Liong, who wrote Crouching Tiger, the story is based on a Chinese folk tale which sees a woman disguising herself as her own ailing father in order to take his place in battle. The plan is to shoot the film in February, with a complete lack of dragons voiced by Eddie Murphy.
But the second film the Weinsteins plan to make with Zhang sounds a little more sour than sweet. Yes, they want to slot her in to their remake of Akira Kurosawa’s The Seven Samurai.