Li Bingbing Becomes “Asian Lara Croft” in Sino-Aussie Film “Nest”
Stills of mainland Chinese actress Li Bingbing (李冰冰) in the upcoming science-fiction action flick Nest <謎巢> recently surfaced, leading many fans to call her the “Asian Lara Croft.” Nest will be shown at this year’s Cannes International Film Festival.
A Chinese-Australian co-production, Nest, or its full title Nest and the Search for the Venom of Eternity, is set in a mysterious and ancient underground tomb, in which lies the mummified remains of a Chinese emperor. Li Bingbing stars as Jia, a female Ph.D who is part of the team that discovers the body and unearths terrible secrets.
For Li Bingbing, Nest took great physical and mental effort to complete. When the movie was being filmed in Australia, she suffered from over-exhaustion due to the difference in weather between Australia and mainland China. However, even when her body temperature soared as high as 104 degrees Fahrenheit, she continued to participate in filming, not wanting to delay the schedule and cause problems for her fellow cast and crew members.
Many fans, upon learning that Bingbing had fallen ill during the filming of Nest, pledged to support the film when it was released and wished the actress well. They also marveled at her dedication to her work.
The newest released stills of Nest show Bingbing in two different outfits: one is a white collared shirt and army-green pants, showing off her beauty and brains as a female Ph.D. The second outfit consists of a tank top and military trousers; many netizens said the dynamic and nimble look reminded them of Lara Croft from Tomb Raider.
Nest is the latest among Li Bingbing’s international movies, which include Resident Evil: Retribution and Transformers: Age of Extinction. She also serves as one of the producers for Nest.
Apart from Li Bingbing, Nest stars Twilight actor Kellan Lutz, who has a romantic storyline with Li Bingbing, veteran actor Kelsey Grammer, and Chinese actor/singer Wu Chun (吳尊). The film is directed by Australian director Kimble Rendall, who previously served as a second unit director for The Matrix series and I, Robot.
Source: Sohu.com
This article is written by Joanna for JayneStars.com.
She is really getting a reputation of becoming the queen of “big budget” B films.
This one sounds like the it belongs to the “straight to DVD” genre.
Asian female with a white male romance link. AGAIN !
Are you people tired of it?
Seems like China is pushing its stars to Hollywood/the West by doing join venture with them. Pali Road, Lost in Pacific, The Forbidden Kingdom, Transformer, and now this movie.
I wonder how successful this plan has been so far? Has the stars that they are pushing gain a foot hold in the Hollywood/Western market yet?
Is Li Bing Bing well known and popular in US? Of all the China actresses, she participated in the most Hollywood production.
@kidd To answer your question; none of the above.
All these joint-ventures has accomplished is merely for Hollywood to getting Chinese funding for these big budget B films while they redirecting their resources on the “high brow” and potentially award winning stuff.
You do notice that all these “joint-ventures” are of the action/comic book genre that very few people take them seriously.
@aiya
Action/comic book genre might be snub by Oscar, but, I personally don’t consider them lower grade or quality than award potential films. So action/comic books movie are very well filmed and acted, like the Avengers, Captain America and Dark Knight movies.
These movies can sometime revive an actor’s career or make him/her more popular.
Anyway, I admire actors who get into Hollywood film on their own merit (be it their popularity or acting skills or fighting prowess) more than those push in by China’s money. Example Jay Chou, Donnie Yen, Gong Li, Michelle Yeoh. They have been casted in non Chinese join venture movies.