Louis Cha: Last News

Patrick Frater Asia Bureau ChiefNi Kuang, one of Hong Kong’s most distinguished screenwriters and novelists, has died. He was 87.He died on Sunday in Hong Kong, with local media reporting skin cancer as the cause of death.Ni wrote some 300 screenplays, many in the martial arts genre and many for the Shaw Brothers studio with co-writer Chang Chen. He wrote the scripts for classic films “The 36th Chamber of Shaolin” and “One Armed Swordsman” and had a hand in two of Bruce Lee’s six movies “The Big Boss” and “Fist of Fury” though the writing credit went to Wei Lo.As a novelist, Ni wrote the “New Adventures of Wesley” a series of detective stories that often featured aliens and extra-terrestrial creatures.

EXCLUSIVE: Signature Entertainment has snapped up rights for the UK and Ireland to Hong Kong-China action picture Sakra, directed by and starring Donnie Yen, from Well Go USA. 

Actor and martial artist Dannie Yen has big biggest stateside release this weekend when “John Wick: Chapter 4” hits theaters everywhere. But US audiences may not realize just how prolific Yen is in the Chinese film industry.

Patrick Frater Asia Bureau Chief Sakra, a big-budget martial arts fantasy directed and starring Donnie Yen, is heading for a North American theatrical and digital release. Rights to the film were acquired by WellGo USA which is a major stateside purveyor of Chinese and other Asian titles. The company has set dates in April for a theatrical outing, shortly followed by a release to digital platforms, according to an emailed conversation with its president and CEO Doris Pfardrescher. Other details of its release and marketing campaign have yet to be finalized. The film, a mainland China-Hong co-venture, was released in theaters in several territories in Southeast Asia in late January in time for the Lunar New Year holiday peak season. In China, it did not join the New Year scramble for screens and instead was released straight to streaming.

Ng Man-tat, the star Shaolin Soccer and frequent collaborator of Kung Fu Hustle filmmaker Stephen Chow, has died.

Patrick Frater Asia Bureau ChiefChinese streaming giant iQIYI reports that it has started production on “Fox Volant of the Snowy Mountain,” a film adapted from the classic novel of the same name by Louis Cha (aka Jin Yong), a renowned Hong Kong novelist who was one of the most read Chinese-language authors of the 20th century.Cha, who also co-founded the Ming Pao newspaper, and directed two films, is best known for his wuxia (chivalric martial arts) novels that with one exception stretch in time from the 11th to the 18th century.