Genghis Khan movie production starts with ceremony in Mongolia

A Sino-US joint venture to make the movie Genghis Khan begins on Saturday with a signing ceremony in Hohhot, the capital of the Inner Mongolia Autonomous Region where the legendary warrior united the nomadic tribes of the Mongolian plateau.

The story about the life of the founder of the Mongol Empire is scheduled to begin shooting next spring on the grasslands in the northern outskirts of Hohhot. It will be released simultaneously in January 2015 in China, North America, Europe and Southeast Asia, according to Wang Guowei, president of the National Film Capital Co Ltd, one of the film's co-investors. The movie's budget is expected to be $80 million.

"Our group's mission is to shoot movies, release them worldwide, promote the internationalization level of the Chinese movie industry, and expand the elite Chinese culture via our works," Wang said.

Film Development Group (FDG), a Los Angeles-based production company best known for producing a series of super-hero movie sequels, will be involved in making the film about the hero of the Mongolian ethnic group.

"I don't feel risky at all, even though we've never done any work in China," said Anthony Ditton, FDG's CEO. Ditton said he was attracted to the idea of Chinese investors being involved in financing the movie one year ago. "It's a perfect marriage between our desire for the story and their desire to have it told properly," he said.

"This is a wonderful story with a great amount of documentation and history behind it. It's a cultural awareness. People around the world need to understand the other parts of the world," he said. "With such an important person, there are two elements (making the movie): you have to tell about the person, and you also have to tell a compelling story."

"It must be a genuine Chinese story, and the core spirits must be ours," Wang said.

He said that he does not agree with two common ways of adapting Chinese stories for international audiences. One is a 100-percent Hollywood product, like Mulan, he said, and the other is a 100-percent Chinese production that introduces a few Hollywood stars like Keanu Reeves's recent movie Man of Tai Chi, which Wang said he considers a fiasco.

"Many Chinese movies failed when going overseas because they didn't follow the common practice in Hollywood," he said. "It's just like someone who wants to buy a made-in-China car of a foreign brand, who will abandon the product if domestic manufacturers make too many adjustments. We would love to participate in the production on a limited level, which is a balance to keep its original Chinese flavor and simultaneously get accepted by overseas audiences."

Wang's group took a similar approach in April when it worked with Oriental DreamWorks, co-owned by US-based DreamWorks Animation and the state-owned China Film Group, to make The Tibet Code, a Chinese version of the movie Indiana Jones.

Ge Jian, head of Hohhot-based Shiqi Group, the other co-investor in Genghis Khan, had considered making the movie for more than a decade. The group invested in the Chinese television series about the Mongolian warrior, which was immensely popular when it was shown in 2004.

"I once considered transforming it onto the large screen immediately after the TV series was shown, but its premiere was delayed for a few years due to some reasons, so the whole project was postponed," said Ge. "We received more than 10 scripts on Genghis Khan in the past decade, but each one felt imperfect."

Chinese writers will do the movie's original script, and then it will be adapted by Hollywood counterparts. The dialogue will be in English.

"Genghis Khan united many weak Mongolian tribes. The history of the whole ethnic group concentrated on this individual," said Ge, who said he has an extraordinary emotional attachment to the Mongolian ethnic group's culture. "His broad mind, admiration of freedom, and individual heroism, which are also what we want expressed through the movie, can be easily understood by Western audiences."

FDG's Ditton said he is confident the movie will work for an international audience because it will have universal appeal by using elements recognized by every culture and the production will have the very best director and internationally known actors . "We do have some (candidates) in mind, but we would hold that back now," he said.