On August 23, 2021, the well-known Hong Kong screenwriter Szeto An passed away at the age of 95. Situ An, whose original name was Zeng Kun, created more than 800 works in his lifetime, including "Rulai Divine Palm", "Tianya Mingyue Knife", "Ten Thousand People Chop", etc., of which 310 scripts were made into movies, which is the screenwriter who wrote the most scripts in Hong Kong. In 1994, Szeto ann won the Professionalism Award at the Hong Kong Film Awards.
There is also a rumor that Situ An is the screenwriter of Xu Ke's version of "Divine Eagle Man".
Hark
In September 2017, Xu Ke announced that he would prepare for the film "Condor Heroes", and Xu Ke's version of the "Condor Heroes" trilogy was announced for the first time in the film list of One Next Media Group. In June 2018, Lechuang Entertainment held a press conference at the Shanghai International Film Festival, officially announcing the full launch of the "Eagle Hero" project cooperated with One One Media Group, which was once the theme of "Xu Ke and Jin Yong Join hands again after 30 years", which once attracted strong attention, when Lechuang Entertainment revealed that it would also cooperate with One One Media Group in the "Smiling Pride of the Rivers and Lakes" series and the "Wesley" series. In October 2018, a notice of actor recruitment for the crew of "Eagle Hero" was also reported around the world, requiring Chinese actors aged 18 to 25 who could speak fluent Mandarin and "have martial arts, gymnastics, acrobatics, dance and other skills with great bonus points", the recruitment list stated that the director was Xu Ke and the supervising producer was Shi Nansheng, and the shooting time was from June 2019 to February 2020. In November 2018, a month after Jin Yong's death, Time.com also <神雕侠侣>pointed out that "Divine Eagle Hero" was most likely a special "gift" given by Xu Ke to his seventieth birthday under the title of ": Xu Ke Re-enters Jin Yong's Jianghu".
Xu Ke is the best at shooting martial arts themes, and he has directed or supervised such as the "Huang Feihong" series, the "Smiling Pride of Jianghu" series, "New Dragon Gate Inn", "Knife" and so on, which were once the "jianghu memories" of a generation. Xu Ke is very fond of Jin Yong's novels, "Divine Eagle Hero" is the first martial arts novel he watched, which had a far-reaching influence on him, as early as 1977, he wanted to make a movie, but limited to immature technical conditions, he failed to complete it, and since then the copyright of "Divine Eagle Hero" has been in the hands of different people, so Xu Ke has waited for many years.
Huang Xiaoming's version of "Yang Guo"
Xu Ke once revealed in an interview that his filming of "Divine Eagle Hero" will take the divine eagle as the core and tell "how this eagle inspires us to rise up".
Xu Ke and Zhou Xingchi
However, just when Xu Ke was ambitious to shoot the martial arts giant "Divine Eagle Hero", the producer Fang Lechuang Entertainment was judicially auctioned due to a series of problems of the original company LeTV Pictures, and Xu Ke's mythical giant "Journey to the West" and the costume giant "Di Renjie's Four Heavenly Kings" released in January 2017 were successively broken, and a series of accidents led to The delay in filming of Xu Ke's "Archery Hero".
In 2021, the film "Changjin Lake" co-directed by Xu Ke, Chen Kaige and Lin Chaoxian defeated Wu Jing's "Wolf Warrior 2" to the top of the mainland box office list with a box office score of 5.76 billion (as of December 16, 2021), and the sequel "Watergate Bridge of Changjin Lake" was directed by Xu Ke because 90% of the scenes in the film, Chen Kaige and Lin Chaoxian took the initiative to propose not to sign the director, and the current box office has exceeded 3 billion and is continuing to be screened. The total box office of the "Chosin Lake" series also officially surpassed the "Detective Chinatown" series of films, and jumped to the top of the box office of films in the history of mainland films.
Xu Ke directed the "Chosin Lake" series
Driven by this major positive news, it is reported that Xu Ke will be involved in the filming of "Eagle Hero" after the end of the promotional activities of "Chosin Lake Water Gate Bridge", at this time it has been six years since Xu Ke prepared the "Eagle Hero" film project. It is reported that the cast of the new version of "Divine Eagle Hero" includes: Huang Jingyu (as Yang Guo), Zhou Ye (as Xiaolongnü), Chen Kun (as Guo Jing), Zhou Xun (as Huang Rong), Zhang Yuqi (as Li Moxuan), Zhong Hanliang (as Gongsun Zhi), Zhu Yawen (as Yang Kang), Wen Yongshan (as Mu Nianci), Liu Haocun (as Guo Xiang), Shi Yanneng (as The King of the Golden Wheel), Pan Meiye (as Guo Fu), Zhang Hanyu (as Huang Yaoshi), and Liang Jiahui (as Master of One Lamp).
Xu Ke has not returned to the "jianghu" for too long, following his "Great Qing Past" ("Huang Feihong" series), "Daming Past" ("Smiling Proud of the Jianghu" series), "Datang Past" ("Di Renjie" series), this time whether the "Great Song Past" can once again shock the film world, I believe many people are full of expectations.
After all, he was Xu Ke.
Whether this time can really "get the wish", let us wait and see.