Daniel Wu Yin-Cho 吳彥祖

After Hong Kong's handover to China in 1997, the Asian financial crisis and rampant piracy, the industry sprang a serious leak and was forced to change, and the troupe of young actors in the empty but stylish and brisk action comedy Gen-X Cops became the first swallows of life "the new way". Nicholas Tse Ting-Fung, who played the central role in that film, did not return for the sequel Gen-Y Cops (so the filmmakers had to introduce a new hero played by Edison Chen Koon-Hei), but everything flows, everything changes, and the other day Tse announced that he would take part in the third film, which is about to get underway — the director of the original, Benny Chan Muk-Sing, is currently busy with the script. Nicholas will be joined by the same Sam Lee Chan-Sam, Stephen Fung Tak-Lun and Daniel Wu Yin-Cho, while as for Edison, there is silence for now. 

Filming has wrapped on the Hong Kong-Chinese action film "Race Against Time," starring Daniel Wu, Wang Qian-Yuan, Michelle Wai and Jessie Li, and directed by Lau Ho-Leung (a former screenwriter who made his directorial debut with the comedy thriller "Two Thumbs Up"). To mark the occasion, the first stills from the film and a poster have appeared online. The shoot lasted more than two months, involved 48 weapons, 6,243 blank rounds fired and 4,312 explosions (that seems like a lot). The film is said to be based on a real story of a police squad's standoff with a group of robbers in the 1980s and 1990s.

We recently reported on the launch of the crime action thriller Time Limit (its English-language title is Penny), and now the filmmakers themselves have announced the start of shooting, unveiling the first teaser poster and a promo photo featuring the main cast. The story centers on a confrontation between a cold-blooded criminal genius played by Daniel Wu and his nemesis, a cop played by Wang Qian-Yuan. The director's chair is occupied by Lau Ho-Leung, known for his work on Two Thumbs Up, and Michelle Wai and Jessie Li will join Wu and Wang. Penny is scheduled to premiere next year.

After appearing in the Lara Croft reboot and the third season of Into the Badlands, Daniel Wu has decided to return to Chinese cinema and star in the crime thriller Time Limit. It was previously thought that Wu would also appear in Dante Lam's The Rescue, but in the end the actor signed on only for Time Limit. The project is being directed by Lau Ho-Leung, best known for his work on Two Thumbs Up. Wu will take on the role of a cold-blooded criminal mastermind, while Wang Qian-Yuan plays his cop nemesis. The cast also includes Michelle Wai, Nicholas Tse Ting-Fung, Charlene Choi Cheuk-Yin and Janice Man Wing-San. Filming is already underway, with a release expected in 2019.

Filming has officially begun on Dante Lam's new picture, the action thriller The Rescue. The project is being billed as "China's first film about maritime rescuers," centering on a squad that comes to the aid of victims of a devastating typhoon. The cast includes Eddie Peng, Daniel Wu, Ian Wang, Xin Zhilei, Lyric Lan and Mario Li. The film has received a hefty budget of 500 million yuan (about 80 million dollars) and, according to Lam, will be several times bigger in scale than Operation Red Sea. Shooting is scheduled to wrap in May 2019, after which The Rescue will undergo eight months of post-production.

The three films in the Overheard series have been among the highest-grossing Hong Kong projects of recent years, and it would be a shame if that were the end of the franchise's story. Fortunately, it isn't — at least, its producer Derek Yee is actively developing the idea for a fourth film. This time, though, he will depart from the rule of giving the three lead roles to Lau Ching-Wan, Louis Koo and Daniel Wu — the new picture will star other actors in the lead. What he has decided regarding the ever-present directors and screenwriters Felix Chong and Alan Mak is also still unclear.

According to Ringo Lam himself, he came out of his self-imposed exile with Wild City because he had run out of money. If that's the case, he needs a lot of it, because he is currently working on another urban action film, Battle of Life. The lead role is played by Daniel Wu, who said he agreed to star without even reading the script — simply because it's Ringo Lam. According to him, the film will be similar to the classic City on Fire, and several first photos have already appeared.

Today's issue of the Hong Kong tabloid Apple Daily brought a sensational piece of news – the paper claims that Donnie Yen has signed a contract to appear in the eighth episode of Star Wars (for those who have lost track, work on the seventh installment isn't even finished yet, but the eighth is already in full planning). Which role the actor will play has not yet been specified, but shooting starts as early as next month. Apple Daily also shared insider info that, before settling on Yen, the Hollywood people had considered Jet Li, Stephen Chow, Tony Leung, Daniel Wu, Wang Lee-Hom and Chang Chen. Whether any of this is true is too early to say, but, frankly, it's hard to believe.

Wong Jing has finally made it to his hundredth film as a director - it will be the action movie The Invincible 12, which the filmmaker wants to turn into a real bombshell in terms of cast, recruiting 12 superstars of Hong Kong cinema for the lead roles (a hearty hello to The Expendables!). Not a single contract has been signed yet, but among the actors Wong has "sent invitations" to are such names as Chow Yun-Fat, Jackie Chan, Andy Lau, Huang Xiao-Ming, Louis Koo, Nick Cheung, Ekin Cheng, Daniel Wu, Shawn Yu, Nicholas Tse and Tony Leung Ka-Fai (why was the other Tony Leung forgotten?). At the moment Wong is writing the script, shooting is planned for the summer of 2016, and the estimated budget is quite hefty - a whopping 300 million Hong Kong dollars (40 million US).

Ringo Lam, once one of the leading figures of Hong Kong action cinema, hasn't made a film in a long time — his last project dates back to 2007, and even that was effectively a third of a movie (the other two thirds of Triangle were directed by Tsui Hark and Johnnie To). Lam's new "solo" project doesn't have a title yet, but it does have a start date for shooting — cameras roll in June, with Daniel Wu and Shawn Yu in the lead roles. The good news doesn't stop there: Lam won't limit himself to just one project — he also has a second film in the works, currently at the script stage.