She pips stars from other countries to star opposite
Jason Scott Lee in Dance Of The Dragon
By Boon Chan, MEDIA CORRESPONDENT
FANN Wong will be starring alongside Jason Scott Lee in the
English-language action romance Dance Of The Dragon.
The 36-year-old MediaCorp artiste beat actresses from Japan, South
Korea, China and the United States for the role of Emi, a ballroom
dancer.
Her previous big-screen outing in English was Shanghai Knights
(2002), with action superstar Jackie Chan and comic actor Owen
Wilson.
In Dragon, Fann plays Lee's girlfriend. The actor takes on the role
of Cheng, a martial arts champion.
Lee, 40, is best known for starring in another dragon-titled movie,
Dragon: The Bruce Lee Story (1993).
The character of Kwan, a young aspiring male ballroom dancer from
China who comes between the two of them, has yet to be cast.
Veteran actor Lim Kay Tong will play Kwan's father.
Writer-director Max Mannix tells Life! that they received over 130
resumes for the role of Emi and interviewed a shortlist of 30 to 40
actresses.
'The character's background is dance, and she is someone who has
the tenacity to take it to the top and stay there consistently. You
can see this from Fann's demeanour and how she carries herself,'
adds the 42-year-old Australian.
This is the directorial feature debut for Mannix, who was mentored
by acclaimed Chinese film-maker Chen Kaige on the latter's Together
(2002), about the relationship between a father and his
violin-prodigy son.
Dragon will be shot and produced in Singapore by Easternlight Film
Productions, the Asian production arm of Los Angeles-based Arclight
Films.