Bruce Lee's "lost" screenplay finally being made...

[Drunken Monk]

http://www.empireonline.com/news/story.asp?NID=34327

The China Film Group Corporation and its movie fund National Film Capital has just announced its upcoming slate at the Shanghai International Film Festival. The biggest financial commitment is to Stan Lee's* Chinese superhero project The Annihilator, but halfway down the list is a pleasant surprise for Bruce Lee fans: his screenplay The Silent Flute, left unmade at the time of his death in 1973, is set to be realised by producer Allan Hatcher.

The film is described as "a $25m action fantasy, including a significant martial arts component, set in a post-apocalyptic future in which a seeker embarks on a hero's journey to a city which may have survived the apocalypse." Hatcher is moving ahead with the full support of Lee's estate.

Lee planned the ambitious film as an introduction to Eastern philosophy and its contrast to Western thinking, as well as a fantastical slice of martial arts kick-assery. In a forward to the script, he explained, "To the Westerner, the finger jabs, the side kicks, the back fist etc. are tools of destruction and violence, which is indeed one of their functions. But the Oriental believes that the primary function of such tools is revealed when they are self-directed, and destroy greed, fear, anger and folly...

"'Purposelessness', 'empty-mindedness', or 'no-art' are frequent terms used in the Orient to denote the ultimate achievement of a martial artist. According to Zen, the spirit is by nature formless, and no 'objects' are to be harboured in it..."

Lee actually began the project in collaboration with his "student" James Coburn, but the pair fell out and the film was abandoned. Five years after Lee's death, The Silent Flute was re-written by Stanley Mann as the much-sanitised Circle Of Iron, the only film directed by Richard Moore. It starred David Carradine, Roddy McDowell, Eli Wallach and Christopher Lee*, but toned down the violence, threw in some laughs, and relocated the story from Thailand to a fantasy world that "never was and always is".

Hatcher's specific plans are unknown at this point, but the Lee family's involvement suggests a version truer to Lee's intentions this time around. The producer expects to be in production sometime in 2013.

[ShaOW!linDude]

I ran across this myself. I'm intrigued but wary as to how this will turn out. It would be a nice treat for us fans if it turns out to be a MA smorgasbord.

[OpiumKungFuCracker]

Be even better if Lee was resurrected from the dead to make this film...

[TibetanWhiteCrane]

Everyone who KNOWS this will be a piece of manure, raise your hand......

[trueth]

Everyone who KNOWS this will be a piece of manure, raise your hand......

Consider my hand raised. It was Bruce's work, without his input and creativity, this has FAIL written all over it.

[ShaOW!linDude]

It would've been sweet if Bruce had lived to do this film. I think there are certain philosophical aspects of Circle of Iron that held true to Bruce's ideas but it failed miserably in representing any decent MA. If someone could accomplish both without trying to put their personal spin on it, that'd be wonderful, but we all know that won't happen. I imagine the studios are only envisioning $ signs at attaching Bruce's name to this attempt in some fashion.

[Drunken Monk]

Everyone who KNOWS this will be a piece of manure, raise your hand......

**Raises hand**

[DarthKato]

Sounds like it might be good. The philosophy that will stated in this film reminded me of the whole "Open-Palm, Closed-Fist" philosophy that was in "Jade Empire"( This is probably were Bioware got the idea for that. They did say they used a lot of sources for that game on the disc I got with the Collectors Edition.). I do agree that it would have been better if Bruce Lee had got to make it, but I am willing to give it a chance.

[reason108]

I wonder which teen pop idol is going to get the lead role? And, I think if they just work in some vampires vs werwolves with a love story that should "really" sell tickets. Just a hunch. I feel that those two elements alone will catapult this into instant classic that martial artists around the world will hold in high praise. Of course they need to hire that guy that once talked to that dude that walked past that guy that use to go to school with Yuen Wo Ping to do the fight choreography.

p.s. - my hand is raised also. and i made sure to use under-arm deodorant because my arm plans on being raised for a while. at least until the movie is released and I am proven wrong.

[sifu iron perm]

would rather watch carradine vs the monkey men..

[DarthKato]

I don't know why everyone is hating on a film we don't even know anything about yet. Lets wait for more information before coming to a conclusion about it.