It will be quite a busy year for Chinese director Jia Zhangke with three movies under way.

Jia won the best director award for the movie Still Life at the first Asian Film Awards in Hong Kong last week.

His three projects are the documentary Useless, or Wu Yong, historical epic The Meeting of Two Heroes, or Shuang Xionghui, and nostalgic drama The Age of Tattoo.

Wu Yong will be a series of stories about humans and their clothes, inspired by famous Chinese designer Ma Ke and her newly released world fashion brand Wu Yong.

Jia said that it was his longtime dream to shoot a movie about humans and clothes.

He revealed he will use a new interactive trial in the documentary. The crew will put letters inside 100 clothes selected from Ma's brand. If customers who buy the clothes containing the letters contact the crew, they will go to wherever the customers are and shoot their stories.

Aimed at reflecting the relationships between the Chinese mainland, Hong Kong and Taiwan since 1949, the movie Shuang Xionghui will be the director's first historic epic with a 50-million-yuan budget.

Jia plans to invite Taiwan musician Lin Qiang, who was the musical director of several of his movies, to be the lead actor in this epic.

The movie The Age of Tattoo was originally planned to begin shooting this month but Taiwan superstar Jay Chou turned down the invitation to play the lead.

Jia said that his assistant director is still selecting a new lead actor. He hoped to find a young actor for the role.

The movie is based on the novel of the same title by Chinese writer Su Tong.

(Shenzhen Daily March 28, 2007)