Anson Lo, part of Hong Kong pop sensation Mirror, has joined the cast of “Chungking Mansions,” an ambitious zombie film that is currently in advanced preparation.
Alongside Lo, Hong Kong-Canadian actresses Selena Lee and Jeannie Chan, Korean star Choi Si-Hun, and Hong Kong actor Louis Cheung join the previously announced Japanese action star Rina Takeda and Singaporean actors Desmond Tan and Rebecca Lim.
Davika Hoorne, who previously starred in “Pee Mak,” Thailand’s highest grossing film of all time, will also join. She takes over a role previously assigned to Angel Locsin as the assistant to the American protagonist’s pregnant wife.
Directed by banker turned producer and director Bizhan Tong (“The Escort”), the film tracks a diverse group of people who, following a zombie attack, try to break into Chungking Mansions. The labyrinthine building was made famous in Wong Kar-wai’s “Chungking Express” and is arguably the richest cultural melting pot in the predominantly Chinese city.
Sales agent Megaton Entertainment, which launched sales at the AFM in November, has pitched the film as both the biggest zombie film in Hong Kong cinema history and also as ’The Raid’ with zombies.
Production is by Tong’s Phoenix Waters Productions in co-production with AMM Global and Salon Films Japan.
Mirror, a 12-member idol group which emerged from ViuTV’s reality show “King Maker,” has inspired BTS-like fanaticism among large and diverse sections of Hong Kong’s population and within the growing
Cantonese diaspora population. Some commentators have suggested that mania for Mirror is a welcome distraction from Hong Kong’s current political, social and COVID woes.
Several other band members have been quick to take up film and TV offers. Lo, who previously starred in hit BL series “Ossan’s Love,” plays a young professional who is touring Chungking Mansions at the time that an outbreak begins.
Selena Lee has enjoyed a successful career in the East and West, starring in “Barrack O’Karma,” as well as Canadian series “Blood & Water.” Jeannie Chan recently collaborated with Tong in the lead role of crime series “Forensic Psychologist.” Chan and Lee play sisters caught up in the disaster.
Louis Cheung (“G Storm,” “Zero to Hero,”) plays a character who must transport a high value prisoner in the midst of the outbreak. Korea’s Choi Si-Hun (“Singles Inferno,” “Romanced” “I Eat Well Today”) plays the manager of a fashion model attending a campaign launch.
