The Shanghai-based Oriental Morning Post has reported today that Hugh Jackman will be playing the male lead in Wayne Wang’s Snow Flower and the Secret Fan. Also joining the cast is Jeon Ji-Hyun and Li Bingbing (The Forbidden Kingdom) who has replaced Zhang Ziyi.
Filming started today at Hengdian, a large film studio near Shanghai. Jackman is expected to join the production in mid-February.
The script is based on the same titled novel by Lisa See. The story is set in 19th century China, when girls had their feet bound, then spent the rest of their lives in seclusion with only a single window from which to see. Illiterate and isolated, they were not expected to think, be creative, or have emotions. But in one remote county, women developed their own secret code, nu shu – “women’s writing” – the only gender-based written language to have been found in the world. Snow Flower and the Secret Fan revolves around the lifelong friendship of Lily and Snow Flower and their imprisonment by rigid cultural codes of conduct for women.
Snow Flower and the Secret Fan is tentatively slated for a release in 2011.
What do you think of Hugh Jackman joining the cast of ‘Secret Fan’?