Edison Chen's canned scenes may still see light of day

Actor-director Stephen Fung Tak-lun jumped at the chance to talk about his long awaited third film, Jump. The movie - conceived three years ago by producer and mega-star Stephen Chow Sing-chi about a farm girl who goes to Shanghai to pursue a dance career - originally featured Edison Chen Koon-hei. Unfortunately, his sex scandal broke just as principal shooting wrapped up and the whole production had to take a wait-and-see approach as its co-star suddenly turned into a local pariah.

'We were totally shocked when [the photo scandal] broke,' Fung (pictured) said. 'The most difficult part was that we were unsure how the audience would respond. What bothered us the most was that we didn't know how to react because nothing like that had ever happened before.'

In the end, the producers decided to cut Chen out and ask Fung to recast and reshoot all his scenes. Singaporean actor Leon Jay Williams was brought in but recreating some of the shots six months later provided another challenge. 'Some of the settings, like restaurants or a car park, had already closed down or been demolished. Shanghai is a fast changing city. I feel really bad for Edison, myself and the film company.'

Jump, which looks like the Chinese version of Fame and Flashdance, will be released in December. However, Fung is holding out hope that some of the Chen footage may see the light of day some day.

'We spent so much effort in filming Edison's part, I really hope his part will remain in the making-of section in the DVD release.'