Chow Yun-fat plays Confucius
2009-03-16 13:09
Hong Kong - Denounced as a feudal thinker just decades ago, Confucius is getting the star treatment in communist China, with Chow Yun-fat cast as the ancient philosopher in a $22m government-backed biopic, a production company official said on Monday.
Best known for his iconic gangster roles in Hong Kong movies, Chow will swap his trademark trench coat and pistols for scholarly robes and scrolls in the 150 million Chinese yuan ($21.96m) joint production between Beijing-based Dadi Cinema and the state-run China Film Group, a Dadi Cinema official told The Associated Press.
The official, who declined to be named because of company policy, said shooting is due to start in about three weeks.
The movie is part of a recent revival of Confucius, whom late Chinese leader Mao Zedong denounced because his emphasis on harmony and respect of social hierarchies conflicted with the Marxist ideology of progress through conflict.
During the 1966-1976 ultra-leftist Cultural Revolution under Mao's rule, enforcers known as "red guards" descended on Confucius' family home, family grave plot and a temple honouring the sage in his eastern hometown of Qufu, destroying about 6 600 relics.
Status reaffirmed
But the status of the ancient sage has been reaffirmed in recent years.
Confucian classics were given higher status at universities and even prisons were reportedly teaching Confucian philosophy to prisoners.
The Chinese government started setting up Confucius Institutes abroad in 2004 to promote Chinese language and culture. A female professor's book of reflections on the classic Confucian text Analects became a massive hit.
Top Chinese officials have pointed to the Confucian quality of harmony as a way of addressing the growing gap between the rich and poor amid China's economic boom.
Some local Communist officials are being evaluated based on their level of the Confucian virtues of filial piety and family responsibility.
A quote from Confucius expressing his pleasure of seeing "friends who have come from afar" featured in the lavish opening ceremony for the Beijing Olympics last year designed by famed Chinese director Zhang Yimou.
- AP