From left: Korean director Heo Jin-ho, Zonbo CEO Chen Weiming and Korean producer Kwak Chaeyong.

Produced by Zonbo Media, A Chinese film adaptation of the 18th-century French novel Dangerous Liaisons was announced Tuesday during the Shanghai International Film Festival.

With a script authored by well-known Chinese writer Yan Geling, Dangerous Liaisons will be set in 1930s Shanghai and focus on a high-class Shanghainese gentleman engaged in complicated relationships with three different women.

According to Chen Weiming, CEO of Zonbo Media, the film was first planned as early as 2001, with Hong Kong film legend Leslie Cheung in talks to play the lead. Cheung’s tragic suicide in 2003, however, put the project on hold indefinitely.

Hollywood has covered the material a number of times, including in the 1988 eponymous film starring Glenn Close and John Malkovich, and in Cruel Intentions, a high school-set piece starring Reese Witherspoon. With a budget of over 100 million yuan ($15.43 million), the Chinese film will be directed by Korean director Hur Jin-ho and star top actors from China, Korea, Japan and Singapore.

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