Tuesday, May 11th, 2010
John Woo’s Asian America
“For a long time I’ve wanted to make a film about the building of the railroad in the United States — it would be about the Chinese and the Irish, who built the railroads, their conflicts and how they learned to become friends.”
– John Woo in Out of the Shadows
The unnamed movie in the above quotation has been alternatively titled Land of Destiny and The Divide at different points in its production. What little about the film that I can glean from the internet suggests that this would have been Woo’s next film after Windtalkers before it eventually descended into development hell as Woo decided to take on other projects and more sizeable paychecks.
In as recent as this interview with Time Magazine, Woo says that he would still work with Chow Yun-Fat, even after the debacle that resulted from Chow’s casting in Red Cliff, and cited this in-development film as evidence of their continued friendship.
As far as I can tell, the setting will be California and involve the building of the Transcontinental Railroad. Chow Yun-Fat would play the Chinese protagonist, while the part of the Irish worker was initially rumored to be played by Nicolas Cage, although Hugh Jackman’s name has been mentioned as well.
