EXCLUSIVE: Hong Kong-based producer Tsui Hark has boarded the ship as partner and co-producer of the Chinese pirate epic Shih, Queen of the Sea.
Hark will partner with Anthony McCarten, Dakota Group and Facing East. McCarten, whose biopic scripts range from Bohemian Rhapsody to The Theory of Everything, The Two Popes, Darkest Hour and numerous others, has here written the script about Shih Yang, aka Cheng I Sao, who dominated the South China Sea during the Qing Dynasty.
Born into poverty, she worked on a “flower boat” brothel where she met the notorious pirate leader Cheng Yi, joining him at sea.
Upon his death in 1807, she assumed full command of the fearsome Red Flag Fleet, commanding over 1,800 pirate ships and an estimated 80,000 pirates.
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