Chinese actress Fan Bingbing has been taking on challenging roles in recent years in order to break into the Asian film market. Recently, foreign media revealed that Fan Bingbing will star in a pirate-themed movie, which is rumored to be the long-planned "Queen of the Sea: Shi Yang" produced by Tsui Hark. The film's female lead lives a legendary life, transforming from a prostitute into a renowned pirate queen—yet another major challenge for Fan Bingbing, who enjoys trying different types of roles!
Last year, Fan Bingbing won Best Actress at the Golden Horse Awards for the Malaysian film "Green Mothers," and now she is set to take on another big challenge. According to foreign media, she will star in a pirate-themed film, "The Pirate Queen," with American screenwriter Jordan Rawlins writing the script, immediately stirring heated discussion. It is rumored that this film is in fact the Tsui Hark-produced "Queen of the Sea: Shi Yang," which began development in 2023. The movie tells the legendary life story of Shi Yang, the first female pirate of the Qing dynasty, who rose from being a prostitute to become the pirate queen. The role offers great depth of character. It was previously reported that Michelle Yeoh and Liu Yifei were both interested in taking on the role, and Shu Qi and Xiao Zhan were set to appear as well. However, due to the extensive CG required for such a large-scale pirate film, at least 300 million RMB (about 170 million MYR) in investment would be needed, so there has not been any further news. Now, it is said that Fan Bingbing will take the lead, and she is definitely up to the task of portraying such a legendary woman. Additionally, reports indicate that Fan Bingbing will also serve as one of the producers, which would help with fundraising and make the process much more efficient.
As the film is still in the planning stage, there has been no official announcement yet. However, when Fan Bingbing attended the "Udine Far East Film Festival" in Italy earlier, she specially took a series of photos at sea, and wrote "Daughter of the Sea..." in her post, possibly hinting at the project. Many netizens have also left comments speculating whether she has accepted a new film.
News Source: On.cc