Heart-throb Cecilia Cheung Pak-chi has a new assignment this summer. As one of the next generation of Zu warriors, she will wield virtual weapons against evil in director Tsui Hark's latest project, The Legend Of Zu.
Almost 20 years after 1983's acclaimed cult classic, Zu: Warriors From The Magic Mountain, Tsui has brought the legendary warriors back to the big screen. Although the new Zu is still about martial-arts masters who dwell on Magic Mountain, this film features a whole new breed of warriors. Only Sammo Hung Kam-po returns from the original film as Longbrows, the 1,000-year-old founder of the Zu sect, Omei.
Like its predecessor, The Legend Of Zu brings with it a feast of visual effects. The film cost $90 million to make, three times the average budget for a local film, and $40 million of that was spent on 1,600 computer-generated special effects.
Two Hong Kong companies and four from Hollywood were hired to produce the computer effects for the film. One, Menfond Electronic Art and Computer Design, which also collaborated with Tsui on Master Q 2001, took control of more than two-thirds of the production.
'We started the project in March this year,' says Eddy Wong Wang-hin, director of Menfond. 'We spent one month just having meetings with the director before we actually started.'
Wong and his team then translated Tsui's concepts and sketches into three-dimensional images. Within four months, Wong and 70 co-workers created more than 800 shots, including a stunning opening scene and the design of the warriors' weapons.
Tsui was a hard taskmaster. 'For certain parts we had lots of amendments,' says Wong. 'The worst one was Cecilia Cheung's sword. It just took a lot of time to get it right.'