Venice rolls out red carpet with Chinese epic
(Reuters)
Updated: 2005-09-01 08:56

VENICE, Italy (Reuters) - The Venice Film Festival was set to open on Wednesday with Hong Kong martial-arts spectacular "Seven Swords," underlining the prominence given Asian cinema at this year's event.

Chinese actress Charlie Yeung (L), Kim So Yeun (C) and Zhang Jingchu arrive at the Cinema Palace in Venice August 31, 2005. The actresses are starring in Chinese director Tsui Hark's movie 'Seven swords' being shown at the Venice film festival. [Reuters]

 
The line-up at the world's oldest cinema competition was slimmed down to just 56 films after organizers came under fire for overloading the 2004 edition of the festival.

But directors say they have stayed faithful to the festival's tradition of variety, with offerings that include a retrospective to commemorate 100 years of Chinese cinema and a tribute to Venice's legendary lover, Casanova.

Some of Hollywood's biggest stars are expected to grace the Lido's red carpet, including Russell Crowe and Renee Zellweger. George Clooney's black-and-white McCarthy-era film "Goodnight and Good Luck" will lead the line-up of major pictures vying for the Golden Lion with its Thursday premiere.

But the honor of stepping out first on to the pine-fringed, beachside walkway will be granted to the standard bearer of Hong Kong action movies, Tsui Hark, with his out-of-competition adventure extravaganza.

"Seven Swords," part of a revival of the "wuxia" or martial chivalry genre, is an intense, action-packed tale of morality and heroism Chinese-style, full of brutal sword-fights, elaborate acrobatics and improbable weaponry.

"STRONG EMOTION"

"Wuxia culture is like another dimension that provides us with strong emotion, strong passion," Tsui told a news conference, surrounded by a cast that includes heartthrob and action movie star Donnie Yen.

"I have always been a fan of Wuxia movies. They give us a refreshed view of what we had before, of the values and of the way we looked at life," he said.

Based on a popular novel by Liang Yu-Shen, the film tells the story of seven unlikely heroes battling to save a village from a mercenary general in the early 17th century.

More bloodthirsty than Ang Lee's successful "Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon," "Seven Swords" uses sweeping shots of bleak north western China and galloping music to keep pulses racing over two and a half hours.

"It was tough for everyone, but I was the only woman. They were all a lot taller than me," said actress and singer Charlie Young, who plays the only female "sword."

Tsui, describing his movie as an homage to Akira Kurosawa's 1954 classic "Seven Samurai," said the picture was the first in a series of up to six epics.

"Seven Swords" kicks off a series of Asian offerings this year, including Korean director Park Chan-wook's "Sympathy for Lady Vengeance" and Stanley Kwan's "Everlasting Regret," starring pop diva Sammi Cheng. Out of competition, Peter Ho-sun Chan will present "Perhaps Love."

European films featured at the 62nd edition of the festival include the latest film from 96-year-old Portuguese director Manoel de Oliveira and movies starring France's Juliette Binoche and Russia's Nikita Mikhalkov.

Italy's own filmmakers have three films in competition, vying for the country's first top prize on home soil since 1996.

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