Eastwood, Streep, Ziyi, Yeoh in talks for Rape of Nanking?
Clint Eastwood doesn't appear to be slowing down with his work, nor does he seem to be wanting to leave the topic of World War II in the Far East with rumour that he's in talks to star in The Rape of Nanking.
I find this rumour surprising as before we'd heard from Eastwood that he wanted only to direct and not to appear in front of the camera, however it does sound like the kind of project that he would want to be involved in.
The story comes from Monkey Peaches through Josh at Cinema Blend and tells us that there's going to be a huge set built that will be around seven and a half football pitches (fields) in size, recreating sections of Nanking (now called Nanjing) City from the 1930's.
The film is adapted from the book The Rape of Nanking: The Forgotten Holocaust of World War II by Iris Chang
I have to say that West is a strange choice for the US$40 million budgeted, joint China-US and UK film about the massacre of hundreds of thousands of Chinese by the invading Japanese during their invasion. The major piece of this true and harrowing story is the fall of the Chinese capital, Nanking City. There followed weeks of atrocities and inhumane acts. See the entry in Wikipedia for more information.
Looking back through the stories, Monkey Peaches has a piece from October that tells us that the President of the Chinese production company behind the film has a wish list for a cast:
...Zhang Ziyi, Michelle Yeoh, Clint Eastwood and Meryl Streep. However, it is confirmed that at least Zhang Ziyi has not been contacted by the production.
The latest story tells us that the producers have hope for these names. So I'm not so sure we will see this full cast making it through. I am very doubtful about Eastwood's involvement in front of the camera, and could see that he would want to direct it, whereas there's more hope for the ladies mentioned signing up.
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