Gordon Chan expands his wuxia hit ‘The Four’ into a trilogy

"The Four" Character Poster with Collin Chou

The Four is a new wuxia film from director Gordon Chan (Fist of Legend), based on author Wan Ray-an’s famous novels about four detectives in ancient China. The cast includes Deng Chao, Ronald Cheng, Collin Chou, and Crystal Liu.

Gordon Chan and the cast were in Beijing yesterday to promote the film, which is considered one of the most anticipated Chinese films of 2012. They unveiled the trailer, which will hopefully appear online any day now. Says Chan, who co-directed the film with Janet Chun: “I never shoot real wuxia films. In this field, my best teacher was Tsui Hark, and I don’t dare get involved in this casually. I hope my teacher is able to see my efforts in this film.”

It was announced that The Four will open in China on July 12th, 2012, just a week after director Lu Chuan’s historical epic The Last Supper.

Enlight Media is the company behind The Four; CEO Wang Changtian claims that this film is just the first installment of a planned trilogy – and that shooting has already begun on Parts 2 and 3. Wang added, “I’m crazy about wuxia.”

Updates: Here’s the teaser trailer, courtesy of Twitch. Chinese Films has some high resolution stills revealing the four warriors in question. And here’s two conceptual posters. The cast promoted the film in Beijing the other day and unveiled seven new character posters. A brand new trailer and even more character posters over at Chinese Films.

A visually-stunning and action-packed new trailer. You probably figured nothing could top that last trailer, right? And you’d be right. So today we’ve got a trailer of behind-the-scenes footage. Can you really believe there’s yet another trailer? Chinese Films has a Special Trailer now online.

Some new images emphasize the supernatural aspect of the film. Makes sense since the plot has our four detective heroes discovering and battling an army of the undead.

BREAKING NEWS: Gordon Chan’s The Four has grossed 100 million yuan at the Chinese box office, making it a smashing success. Which can only mean one thing: sequel time. The cameras have already started rolling on Chan’s second installment of The Four trilogy, with word that Part Three will begin shooting as soon as Part Two is completed. Both Anthony Wong and Collin Chou are returning for the sequels.