BEIJING – Nasdaq-listed Chinese film studio the Bona Film Group on Wednesday said it would move forward to a Dec. 22 release Hong Kong director Derek Yee’s $15 million 1920s narrative feature The Great Magician, starring Tony Leung Chiu-wai.

The date change will pit Leung, one of the most award-winning Hong Kong actors of all time, against Hollywood star Christian Bale on Chinese screens during the peak Christmas film season.

“Positive confrontation will be inevitable” Bona said in a statement, noting that audiences may like to compare Leung’s portrayal of a magician with Bale’s from his 2006 role in The Prestige.

Bale, who won the Best Supporting Oscar in March for his role in The Fighter, will star next in the Dec. 16 release of Chinese director Zhang Yimou’s historical drama 13 Flowers of Nanjing.

Leung, who was named Best Actor at the Golden Horse Awards and the Asian Film Awards in 2007 for his role in Ang Lee’s Lust, Caution, will play the powerful prestidigitator Zhang Xian, whose ex-lover (played by Chinese actress Zhou Xun, star of The Message and Painted Skin), gets mixed up with an evil warlord played by Hong Kong actor Sean Lau Ching-wan.

“It’s a love triangle,” a Bona official told The Hollywood Reporter.

Bona, whose financial stability has wavered since it listed its shares in New York in December, earlier had planned to release The Great Magician during the Lunar New Year period in early 2012.

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http://www.hollywoodreporter.com/new...ristmas-180513

film pertama tony leung yang akan dirilis sejak red cliff 2 (the grandmasters masih belum jelas kapan munculnya ), kisahnya Zhang Xian (Tony Leung) seorang pesulap yg baru pulang belajar dari luar negeri mendapati kekasihnya (Zhou Xun) menjadi salah satu istri muda seorang warlord (Lau Ching Wan) (akan saia edit jika ada perubahan ),film ini diadaptasi dari novel karangan zhang haifan,dan disutradarai derek yee (protege & shinjuku incident)

akan terus diupdate