While 2011’s “The Flowers Of War” starred Christian Bale and had 40% of its dialogue in English, Zhang Yimou has mostly stayed away from the Hollywood machine, preferring to continue working in his native county. Universal, however, seems to have found a way to lure the “Hero” director stateside.
Deadline reports that the long-developing Robert Ludlum adaptation “The Parsifal Mosaic” has secured Zhang as its helmer. Originally set as a directorial outing for Ron Howard—he’s instead producing the project with long-time partner Brian Grazer—the film will revolve around a CIA operative who gets back in the game after discovering a lover is still alive despite previously believing her to be a KGB double agent and witnessing her execution. Here’s the Amazon synopsis:
Michael Havelock’s world died on a moonlit beach on the Costa Brava as he watched his partner and lover, double agent Jenna Karas, efficiently gunned down by his own agency. There’s nothing left for him but to quit the game, get out. Then, in one frantic moment on a crowded railroad platform in Rome, Havelock sees Jenna. Racing around the globe in search of his beautiful betrayer, Havelock is now marked for death by both U.S. and Russian assassins, trapped in a massive mosaic of treachery created by a top-level mole with the world in his fist: Parsifal.
“Road To Perdition” screenwriter David Self was the last to take a crack the script but a new “draft will be done under the supervision of Zhang.” Until then, fans of the “House of Flying Daggers” filmmaker will have to make do with his upcoming romance drama “Coming Home” starring Gong Li—telling “the journey of a Chinese dissident from the 1920’s to the 1990’s”—which is being sold by Wild Bunch (via Screen Daily) and has ended up with Sony Picture Classics for its North American distribution, per Variety. “Coming Home” is expected to premiere at Cannes later this year.