According to various Chinese media yesterday, Chow Yun-Fat was expected to come back to the cast for John Woo's history epic The Battle of Red Cliff to play a minor part. However, the latest news suggests that the role that Chow was supposed to play has already been cast. 

This could have been yet another twist in US$80 million-budget film, the most expensive ever in Asia. Two major stars, Tony Leung and Chow Yun-Fat, have already been out and back in several times, which resulted in big controversy.

Tony Leung finally agreed to star as Zhou Yu, after his former decision to quit in March from his original role as Zhu Geliang. The star said he quit because of the six-month-long shoot and his bad Mandarin.

Yesterday, a publicist for one of the film's investors claims Chow Yun-Fat has agreed to rejoin his old friend's star-studded cast. He is likely to play one of the smaller roles and has yet to sign the contract. The film crew previously alleged that Chow Yun-Fat put forward "nearly one-hundred unreasonable demands," which they said "they are unable to tolerate," so he was fired.

The Hong Kong star generated negative headlines because of this, but Chow claimed that his pulling-out was because he had received the script too late for him to prepare for the role. However, producer Terence Chang said afterwards that he had been unable to come to terms with Chow because the film's Hollywood investors opposed 73 clauses that Chow had wanted included in his contract.

Chow Yun-Fat may not be actually back in the epic's casting. Rumor strongly has it that he may play a minor part as a character named Huang Gai in the film. However, mainland actor Zhang Shan has a signed contract to play that role.

Some observers guessed that it was just a publicity stunt exploiting Chow's name, while some suggested it was Chow himself who made up this news to make some good publicity for himself. But when Information Times contacted Chow, who is now in the US to promote his latest effort Pirates of the Caribbean: At World's End, he said via his agent that he didn't know anything about this.

Many movie fans around China believe Chow was used. They said Chow has his rights to fight against the outrageous clauses in the contract.

A famous Chinese film critic Song Ziwen gave out some insights a month ago, saying that the difference between investors and the creative team are wide. But most importantly, when the US' investors' fund didn't arrive, the Chinese investors would have had no money to pay for Chow's regular demands. The Battle of Red Cliff was heavily in debt once it eventually rolled its cameras.

Weng Li, an executive from the China Film Group Corporation, confirmed Chow had expressed his will to return to Red Cliff before he left Hong Kong for the US. "But which role he will play has not been decided yet, nor did we sign the contract. Director John Woo still treasures his friendship with Chow. If Chow wants to come back, the possibility of cooperation still exists."

(China.org.cn by Zhang Rui May 16, 2007)