Andy Lau and Maggie Q.’s Five Venoms Remake is a Go?

I know the purists will hate the idea of this remake, but never having seen the original, and kinda liking the idea of remaking old Hong Kong kung fu movies (because, let’s face it, as good as they are, they’re still, well, pretty old schlock, aren’t they?), I’m really looking forward to this remake of “The Five Venoms” (aka “The Five Deadly Venoms”). The names behind it makes me want to see it even more — produced by Andy Lau and starring Maggie Q. in the lead. The news from Wu-Jing.org is that the movie now has a start date (October, 2007), and a location (Shanghai, China). The remake will be directed by Kirk Wong, most known to American film fans as the director of the little-appreciated “The Big Hit”.

More:

Remake of The Five Venoms, directed by Kirk Wong, will begin production at the end of October in Shanghai. Maggie Q, Edison Chen, Wang Lee Hom, Huang Xiao Ming, Wu Jing, RZA, Gordon Liu are being invited to join the production. . In this remake that is set in 21sth century, Edison Chen will play the junior most disciple commissioned by his Master Gordon Liu before his death to deal with five other treacherous disciples. Martial arts director Dion Lam has already entered the production and begun discussing the action scenes with director Kirk Wong, who has been a vegetarian for over 20 years despite being a director of or actor in violent action movies.

(Heh, the mention that Wong is a vegetarian is kinda funny, but anyways…)

According to Variety’s Asian blog, the film will be shot entirely in English.

Knowing how fast the Chinese works, and if this news is true, then expect the film in theaters by early 2008.