(China Daily) As one of the highest-grossing Chinese films this year, the fantasy blockbuster A Writer's Odyssey will have a sequel to continue the protagonist's adventure, director Lu Yang revealed during his recent tours to promote the movie.Adapted from novelist Shuang Xuetao's popular tale of the same title, the film inventively creates two parallel worlds, a realistic society and a fantastic land fictionalized by the titular writer.
In a weird connection, a tycoon feels his life challenged every time when a monstrous, god-like tyrant in the fictional world is in danger. Believing he will die if the tyrant is killed, the tycoon commands his assistant to hire an assassin to murder the writer, but things get complicated.
Director Lu said he spent five years producing the project, which took almost 800 artists about two and a half years to create the special effects.
More than six months ahead of the screening, Lu and his colleagues were only getting about four hours of sleep a night to meet their deadline, he recalled.
Lu also said the film will be followed by a sequel to add new roles, as well as unraveling the past of the tyrant Lord Redmane, also known as Chi Fa Gui (red-hair demon), and how the tyrant was transformed from an ordinary human being to a 15-meter-tall, four-arm monster.
When actor Guo Jingfei and director Lu attended a promotional event for the film in Beijing on Thursday, actress Yang Mi attended a screening in Shanghai at the same time.Yang, one of China's most popular actresses in fantasy and costume dramas, said her character in the movie is a bit special, with a convincing transformation from what seems to be a villain to a person standing for justice.
As of Monday, the film has raked in nearly 900 million yuan ($139 million) at the box office, propelling it to rank as the fourth highest-grossing film in China this year.
Actress Yang Mi discusses the script with director Lu Yang during the shooting of A Writer's Odyssey.
Actress Yang Mi shows up at a promotional event of the fantasy film A Writer's Odyssey in Shanghai.
Actress Yang Mi stars Tu Ling in the blockbuster A Writer's Odyssey.Source: By Xu Fan | chinadaily.com.cn | Updated: 2021-03-01 14:58