Fan Bingbing, Huang Xiaoming’s “White Haired Witch” to Open on April 25
The 3D fantasy wuxia film, The White Haired Witch of Lunar Kingdom <白髮魔女傳之明月天國>, released its first preview after wrapping up filming in April of last year. Starring Fan Bingbing (范冰冰) and Huang Xiaoming (黃曉明), the movie will open in theaters on April 25.
Set in the Ming Dynasty, White Haired Witch tells of the doomed love between Lian Nishang (Fan Bingbing) and Zhuo Yihang (Huang Xiaoming). Yihang, a respected disciple of the Wudang Sect who is poised to become its next leader, is on his way to Beijing to pay tribute to the emperor. On his way, he meets and falls in love with a beautiful woman named Lian Nishang, also known as the Jade Rakshasa.
Unfortunately, his Wudang teachers are against the relationship, as are the government authorities, who believe that the Jade Rakshasa was behind the murder of Zhuo Zhonglian, the former governor and Yihang’s grandfather. After Yihang sets out for Beijing to uncover the truth, Nishang hears that he has sworn allegiance to the imperial court and gotten married. Her grief causes her hair to turn white overnight.
Although the story includes much political sparring and sword-fighting, the crux of White Haired Witch is undeniably its love story. In the first released preview, viewers caught a glimpse of a passionate scene between the two main characters. However, for Xiaoming, who suffered a foot injury during filming and was forced into a wheelchair for weeks, the scene was anything but romantic. “Our love scene…is pretty special,” he shared. “The most important thing was that my foot couldn’t move very much.”
White Haired Witch’s release date was carefully chosen to circumvent the Chinese movie theater off-season, which generally covers the two months after the Lunar New Year holidays. “The line-up for May this year is very lively, but judging from the films already announced, White Haired Witch is no doubt the strongest,” one film analyst said. “This is the only big movie this year after The Monkey King <西遊記之大鬧天宮>.”
White Haired Witch is based on the book, Story of the White Haired Demoness <白髮魔女傳>, by wuxia novelist Liang Yusheng (梁羽生). Often translated as The Bride with White Hair, the story has been adapted many times, including a 1993 film starring Brigitte Lin (林青霞) and Leslie Cheung (張國榮) and, most recently, a 2012 television drama featuring Nicky Wu (吳奇隆) and Ma Su (馬蘇).
“White Haired Witch” Teaser Trailer
[vsw id=”eBv8H6TyzcA” source=”youtube” width=”500″ height=”375″ autoplay=”no”]
Source: QQ.com
This article is written by Joanna for JayneStars.com.
Ehhh, idk. I still haven’t seen a good adaptation of the story. I find Nicky Wu’s version the worst even though I love him. But this one might even beat his for a new low.
should be a hit as its one of the best wuxia novels adaptation after journey to the west
nice and bad movie. nice is sex scenes.
The 1985 version by atv is still my fav adaptation of this novel! I think this movie will do well! It actually looks really good.
Me too and I felt many of the ATV series back then were very good and accurate adaptions of novels and other stories. Many series from TVB back then just could not compare except for s select few.
The only one I saw was with Ada choi, is this tvb or atv? Idk, the story is ok, yet so many adaptation -.- again, china is out of idea and continual with the remakes =_=
LNC character is different in the 85 version compared to all the other versions. She was not ever mean or cold to ZYH in the beginning, she was so flirty with him and always made him blush. As the other version it seems like she is so stuck up in the beginning they try to make her to cold. (this doesn’t include the Ada version since I have not seen it.)
I still prefer Brigitte & Leslie’s version thr best!