[2009.08.27] JET LI GIVES UP MARTIAL ARTS FOR OCEAN DRAMA

courtesy of singtao.com

Jet Li (Lee Nin Kit), Kwai Lun-Mei, Chen Rui, Wen Zhang
courtesy of takungpao.com

International film star Jet Li (Lee Nin Kit), Kwai Lun-Mei, Wen Zhang, Chen Rui and director Xue Xiaolu yesterday attended the film OCEAN PARADISE (HOI YEUNG TIN TONG) production start ceremony. The film will officially begin production later in Qingdao. This story that takes place in an aquarium receives generous support from the Qingdao city council promotional department and an Qingdao aquarium attraction. The film is slated for a spring 2010 release. After countless action films, Lee Nin Kit this time abandons action for drama. It can be considered the first all new attempt in his 25 year film career. About this tremendous turnaround, he said, "The story of the original screenplay completely touched me because now very few screenplays annotate real love and emotions in the world from a realistic life angle. Yet this screenplay enables every view to experience realistically a little love in the simple and innocent lives so they can be even better."

Director Xue Xiaolu expressed that she originally created the screenplay. The story was mostly based on her personal real life and experience, and years of life experience and accumulation. After learning that Lee Nin Kit agreed to play the role of the father, she truly was very excited and nervous. To turn a gong fu emperor into an ordinary but noble father was truly stressful for her, but at the same time it also became her motivation to make this film well. She said, "With the addition of actors like Kwai Lun-Mei and Wen Zhang, I am even more confident in the film production."

Playing Lee Nin Kit's son, Wen Zhang honestly said that he very much looked forward to working with Lee Nin Kit. Yet he somewhat regretted that he was unable to test his martial art abilities with him on screen. He was already very excited about being able to work with him though. The director asked Wen Zhang to have very superb in water abilities, thus before the shoot Wen Zhang trained very hard in swimming everyday before the shoot. Lead actor Kwai Mei-Lun played a circus clown, which was an enormous challenge to her. She not only had to give a dramatic performance but also some acrobatic performance. Now she has already begun to train to be a real acrobat. She honestly said that she was very excited to be working with Lee Nin Kit because not only his performance professionalism was commendable but also his passion for charity. She hoped to be able to properly learn from him this time.