Standard Chartered Bank (Hong Kong) has entered a brave new world of financing in what is seen by some as an industry in its death throes: the HK film industry. 

 

Though film financing through banks is well established in overseas film communities, it is relatively new to Hong Kong.

 

Zhang Yimou, who has become the most populist Chinese director in the West following the wide release of Hero and House of Flying Daggers will have his latest epic, The Curse of the Golden Flower, bankrolled by Chartered Bank (HK).

 

 

This, however, isn't the first time that Zhang Yimou's films have been financed through such channels, Hero and House of Flying Daggers had received funding through US and European banks.

 

The film has also gone under the titles of The City of Golden Armor and Autumn Remembrance. It is currently shooting on the Chinese mainland, at the Hengdian World Studios, in the Zhejiang Province.

 

Set in the Tang Dynasty, the film tells the story of a doomed romance between a prince and an imperial bodyguard, and stars Chow Yun-fat, Jay Chow, Liu Ye and Gong Li. All this is set against an epic Kung Fu backdrop of the kind Zhang Yimou is now famous for. The director has already marshaled 20,000 Chinese extras to play troops.

 

The film is being produced by Beijing New Picture Film Co., as well as Hong Kong's Edko Film Ltd. and Elite Group Enterprises.

 

(hkfilmart May 22, 2006)