It's time for Andy Lau whom had more than 100 Hong Kong-produced movies to his name to try new things and accepts new challenges. His first Western movie - Boarding Gate would be directed by Maggie Cheung's ex-husband, French director Olivier Assayas, the female lead would be Italian actress Asia Argento.
Last week, Olivier Assayas specially flew into Hong Kong to meet with Andy and also to find a wife for him in the movie.
It's not easy to find a "wife" for Andy as she must have a good figure and speaks fluent English. On the day of screen test, Tin Yui Lee, Marsha Yuan were among them being screen tested, with the poor English of Tin and stone performance by Yuan, both were dropped and the director decided to use Maggie Q whom had collaborate with Tom Cruise in M:I:3 to be Andy's wife as she has a good figure and talks well.
Olivier and Andy had a meeting at Kwun Tong for 2 hours. Boarding Gate which had been prepared for more than 6 months will have location shooting in Hong Kong and France, Italian female lead Asia Argento will play a scheming woman and have a love relationship with the male lead. Since the beginning, it was decided that a Chinese actor will be used for the male lead.
Andy says: "We met for the first time, we does not know each other before hand. This movie will have location shooting in Hong Kong during July, before moving to France in August." With regards to whether he would accept the offer, Andy exclaimed that it would depend on his schedule as he would be shooting Derek Yee's new movie in July with Louis Koo and Daniel Wu. He added: "Olivier is very nice, he told me that he will try his best to accomodate me, I'm having a headache now."
news from: Next Magazine issue #849
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