Asian producer’s ambition is to rival Hollywood.


HUAIROU, China - The movie has ancient Greek warriors, pirates, underwater kingdoms, a villain called the Demon Mage and mermaids that kill men during sex. There is a sultry Bond girl, too, playing the mermaid queen. Many of the actors are American, and the cameras use 3-D technology.

But the movie, “Empires of the Deep,” is not another Hollywood fantasy. It is being conceived and shot here on the world’s largest studio set, north of Beijing.

This mash-up of “Avatar,” “Gladiator” and “Pirates of the Caribbean” is the vision of a film-obsessed real estate magnate, Jon Jiang, who says his life mission now is to make movies, video games and theme parks. It is also the boldest effort yet by businessmen here to establish China as a global moviemaking powerhouse.

So far, China has not made significant inroads into the world’s most glamorous business. If Mr. Jiang, 40, has his way, that will soon change. “Empires of the Deep” could turn out to be a potent demonstration of China’s rising cultural influence and draw international filmmakers here to shoot movies that look and feel like Hollywood projects but that are made with the lower costs of Chinese labor and materials.

The producers say the budget for “Empires” is $100 million, less than Hollywood juggernauts but the biggest ever for a Chinese movie. Its actors come from the United States, Brazil, France, Japan and elsewhere, its directors hail from Canada and the United States, and the script, written by Mr. Jiang, has gone through 40 drafts with the help of 10 Hollywood screenwriters.

Of course, there is a risk that “Empires,” scheduled for a summer 2011 release, could become China’s biggest cinematic flop. Take, for instance, the fact that one French and two North American directors have left the project . And the budget has ballooned from $50 million.

Mr. Jiang shrugged off the project’s tribulations. “My idea is to make movies on the biggest scale there is,” said Mr. Jiang, who was listed by Forbes in 2002 as one of China’s richest men. “I want it to be epic.”

Mr. Jiang has no prior filmmaking experience but said he had watched 4,000 movies and wanted to make “a very serious love tragedy” that “is a combination of something mystical, something that satisfies your bloodlust and something sensual.”

“I’m an international producer,” he said. “ I don’t know how movies are made in China.”

Mr. Jiang said that while Chinese directors make competent movies, they have also limited the industry by using mostly Chinese actors and story lines.

“They’re not qualified to make my movies,” he said. “The movies they make are of no value to me.”

Western brand names are paramount in China . So the makers of “Empires” claim their movie is a co-production with a Hollywood company, E-magine Studios. But the company is owned by Mr. Jiang and his friends.

To help open international markets, the producers are hiring foreign talent. The biggest star, as the mermaid queen, is Olga Kurylenko, the Ukrainian actress who appeared in the last James Bond movie. (Mr. Jiang had originally wanted Monica Bellucci or Sharon Stone, but they said no.)

A real hindrance to the Chinese film industry is the government, which tries to exercise strict censorship control .

On “Empires,” film officials insisted that the movie include more Chinese elements, so the producers had to add a race of dragon people and cast a major Chinese actor, Hu Jun, as a dragon lord. Those scenes are expected to appear only in the version released in China.

Skeptics have zeroed in on other problems : shoddy shooting schedules, late payments to cast and crew members, and a revolving door of disaffected directors.

In late May, Scott Miller, fresh in from Los Angeles as the film’s fourth director, scurried around the set. The shoot was behind schedule. Chinese laborers were frantically building a palace for a banquet scene atop a giant fish.

Several workers began sawing off the top of the palace they had just built. The interior had turned out to be too dark .

“I guess that’s one way to get light,” said Mr. Miller, who has never before directed a big-budget action movie.

In Mr. Jiang’s offices in Beijing, a dry-erase board has an informal schedule for the project. There are three items that are telling of Mr. Jiang’s ambitions: “Days until Monica Bellucci shows up on set. Days until the Cannes Film Festival. Days until the grand premiere.”

All the lines are blank.


By EDWARD WONG