Cannes Shopping Spree

From Cannes -- Hollywoodteurs Harvey and Bob Weinstein must have received a grand IRS refund check as The Weinstein Company shopping spree commences with its second acquisition of the 2011 Cannes Official Selection films. This time TWC has acquired distribution rights to the film noir Chinese martial arts, Dragon (Wu Xia), directed by Peter Ho-Sun Chan for most world distribution rights outside of Asia and French speaking Europe. The Cannes red carpet rolls out on May 14th for the Dragon (Wu Xia) premiere at Cannes. In true hollywoodteur behavior, TWC also optioned remake rights to the film - and that's global.

Set in the late Qing Dynasty, Liu (Donnie Yen) is a papermaker, leading a simple life with his wife Ayu (Tang Wei) and their two sons when Detective Xu (Takeshi Kaneshiro) enters their remote village to investigate the deaths of two bandits during a robbery. Xu quickly realizes that the incident in question was no ordinary botched robbery. Xu's probing threatens to dredge up the dark secrets of Liu’s buried past, threatening not only Liu and his family but the entire village.

Harvey Weinstein offered, “Peter Chan is a true artist and with Wu Xia he has created a dream project, combining two of my favorite genres: film noir and martial arts.” Harvey was surely thinking: Now for the hollywoodteur remake starring Blake Lively.