Andrew Lau to Make 3 Action Movies for the Weinsteins

Following in the footsteps of John Woo, and perhaps even going beyond what Woo and other Hong Kong directors like Ronny Yu have managed to accomplish in their time in Hollywood, “Infernal Affairs” director Andrew Law has struck a deal with the Weinstein Company to produce (and possibly direct) three “plot and character” driven action movies for them. Lau will be working with “24″ producer Tony Krantz under a new banner, Qi, and will shoot the first of three English-language movie that will “redefine the traditional chopsocky movie” and feature “full-contact fighting” instead of the wire-fu stuff usually associated with Hong Kong martial arts movies.

Besides this new deal with the Weinsteins, Andrew Lau’s first English-language film, the crime thriller “The Flock” seems to be stuck in limbo. (“The Flock” details here) Meanwhile, Variety also indicates that Lau has already been attached to direct something called “Gold Bandits” for Fox.

So they’re going to be doing Hong Kong action movies in English that won’t use wires ala “Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon”? Hmm, I could go for that. All the wire-fu stuff has been getting to be old hat anyways.

They’re also going to be looking for the next Chinese action star, what with Jet Li and Jackie Chan getting way too long in the tooth now and all. If they’re smart, they’ll look at that Jacky Wu (aka Jing Wu) kid, whose credits include “Sha Po Lang”, where he went one-on-one with Donnie Yen.

Kid’s got mad skills, and he’s still young enough to grow into a major action star.

(via)