CHINA:HONG KONG film director John Woo has spared no expense on bringing Red Cliff, an epic tale set set during China's Three Kingdoms era when the country had three rulers, to the silver screen, spending €55 million on what he hopes will be Asia's most exciting film yet.
However, the production of Red Cliff has been dogged by a series of major setbacks, even leading some superstitious people to speculate that it is cursed. Last week a stuntman was killed and six other crew members injured while shooting a naval battle scene on a set in Beijing.
The 23-year-old man died when a fire broke out after a small boat rammed into a larger battleship. That came after bad weather and rancorous disputes involving stars that have threatened to derail the picture.
It is Asia's most expensive movie of all time, and one that people at the Shanghai Film Festival, currently taking place in the country's financial capital, hope is a success as it will be a big boost to the domestic film industry.
The movie's path to the cinema has echoes of US director Francis Ford Coppola's tortuous process to make his masterpiece Apocalypse Now. That film was also beset by crises, logistical and financial.
Mr Woo, famed for films such as Broken Arrow, Face Off and Mission Impossible II, was in Hong Kong when the accident happened. He rushed back to the set, saying he would be "responsible to the end".
The film is of particular significance to Woo as it is his first effort in Mandarin after having spent years in the US, and is partly a patriotic exercise and a return to his roots.
But it is, he admits, also the toughest film he has worked on. "Red Cliff is the movie I've spent the most energy on, prepared for the longest, and is the most tiring."
The film has incredible proportions for Asian cinema - a huge budget and fearsome length. But it is taking a long time to reach cinemas. The weather has proved an adversary - torrential rains washed away part of a set in Hebei in northern China. And then there have been the revolving-door cast changes.
In March last year, Tony Leung Chiu Wai, star of Ang Lee's Lust, Caution, dropped out, saying he felt unable to commit to the six-month shoot, and he was replaced by the Japanese-Taiwanese actor Takeshi Kaneshiro. Soon afterwards, Woo's close friend Chow Yun-Fat also quit.
The circumstances of Chow's departure remain mysterious - after all, Mr Woo made Mr Chow a legend through films such as Hard Boiled.
Then, two days after Mr Chow left, Mr Leung was back, replacing him as lead actor.
For Asia, Red Cliff is to be split into two parts, with the first part released in July.
Audiences in Ireland will get a single movie, coinciding with the release of the second part in Asia, probably in January now because of the accident.