Tsui Hark Confirms “Return of the Condor Heroes” Film: Lin Gengxin as Yang Guo?
The Jin Yong (金庸) adaptations won’t be stopping anytime soon.
Award-winning Hong Kong director Tsui Hark (徐克) has confirmed that he will be adapting The Return of the Condor Heroes <神鵰俠侶> into a film trilogy. The series will be Tsui Hark’s first Jin Yong adaptation since Swordsman II <笑傲江湖之東方不敗> 25 years earlier.
The Return of the Condor Heroes is the second part of Jing Yong’s impactful Condor Trilogy book series, and follows the journey of the urchin boy Yang Guo and his romance with his sifu, Little Dragon Girl. The book has had 11 television adaptations and three film adaptations since 1960. Some of the book’s more famous adaptations include TVB’s 1983 version (starring Andy Lau 劉德華 and Idy Chan 陳玉蓮), TVB’s 1995 version (starring Louis Koo 古天樂 and Carman Lee 李若彤), and China’s 2006 version (starring Huang Xiaoming 黃曉明 and Crystal Liu Yifei 劉亦菲).
Tsui Hark hasn’t announced his cast yet, but there is a good chance that Lin Gengxin (林更新) will be starring as the male lead, Yang Guo. Lin Gengxin is Tsui Hark’s frequent collaborator, having appeared in four of Tsui Hark’s films since 2013.
There’s been no word as who Tsui Hark wants to play Little Dragon Girl, but netizens are actively pushing Zanilia Zhao Liying (趙麗穎) to play the iconic character. Lin Gengxin and Zanilia are most recently seen starring together in the Chinese drama Princess Agents <楚喬傳>, currently the most-watched Chinese of all-time with over 45 billion views on Chinese streaming sites.
Source: HK01.com
This article is written by Addy for JayneStars.com.
Tsui Hark really likes to use Lin Gengxin. Both ‘Sword Master’ and ‘Journey to the West: The Demons Strike Back’ which was produced and directed by Tsui Hark respectively, stars Lin Gengxin.
Now Tsui Hark plan to cast him as Yang Guo too.
I find Lin Gengxin to be a boring actor. He need a lively character to make his performance interesting. He was ok in ‘Journey to the West’ because Sun Wukong is a lively and colourful character. But, he was super boring in ‘Sword Master’. I watch ‘Death Duel’ and ‘Sword Master’ back to back and Derek Yee was able to hold my attention from start to finish playing the same character. Maybe it’s the charisma. Derek was a newbie actor at that time. So, his acting weren’t actually stellar in the movie.
Dayum, another ROCH? And I do not agree with Lin Gengxin too, nor Zhao li yin. She is rather cute but not pretty. Xiao Long Nu has 2 strict requirements, and nothing else but 2 and only 2 requirements: Pretty, and good Gong Fu. Anybody can act cold without smiling, but the 2 requirements are requirements. The second important point, sadly Zhao also do not have good fighting skills as we have seen in Princess Agents, everything was done through slow motion effect and using doubles. Unless, this is not going to be a good Gong Fu movie but another heavily computer generating magic power.
Not saying Zhang Zhi Yi should do it because she is quite expired now. But I would like somebody who can match up to her standard. She looked pretty, and also have true genuine kick ass skills and acting skills. That’s someone I would prefer for a strong Wuxia character versus somebody who only has lots of fans.