A few years ago it seemed as if Zhang Ziyi’s career was poised to break through the Hollywood glass ceiling, but the lackluster results of “Memoirs of a Geisha” sort of damped that somewhat. Now it looks like Ziyi will be giving Hollywood another shot — in a romantic comedy with the king of romcom himself, Hugh Grant (pictured, left). The film is called “Lost for Words”, and Ziyi plays a Chinese director and Grant a British actor whose growing affections for one another gets lost in translation. You know, standard romcom stuff.

Variety has more on the plot:

Grant is in discussions to play a British film star approached to topline a pic by a Chinese femme filmmaker. He falls for the charms of the helmer’s flirtatious translator, but soon sees the object of his true affection is the director (Zhang). Unfortunately, his translator is the only person who can communicate his feelings, and she has her own motives.

After “Memoirs of a Geisha”, Ziyi (pictured, below) returned to China to do “The Banquet” (since re-titled “Legend of the Black Scorpion”, which makes no sense whatsoever), and according to IMDB.com, she provided voice work for the animated “Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles” movie. In 2008, she has “Mei Lanfang” with Chen Kaige and another English-language movie, the horror film “The Horsemen” with Dennis Quaid.

“Lost for Words” was written by Jamie Curtis and Dan Mazer, and Susanne Bier will direct for Universal Pictures. Production is scheduled for September 2008.