"Kukai"

Chen Kaige's new fantasy film "Kukai" is a Sino-Japanese co-production based on novel "Samon Kukai Tou no Kuni nite Oni to Utagesu" written by Yumemakura Baku and stars Zhang Yuqi, Huang Xuan, Sometani Shota and Keiko Matsuzaka. First published in 2004, the novel tells the story of a young Buddhist monk (played by Sometani) who journeys to China during the Tang Dynasty (AD 618-907) and befriends poet Bai Juyi, known in novel as Rakuten Haku (Huang). Together they try to get to the root of a historical mystery. The film cost 900 million yuan to make, not including the construction of Tang Dynasty-styled film studio city in Xiangyang, Hubei Province. It is reported that the studio city took 6 years and cost 3 billion yuan to build. It will be a tourism spot after the film is completed. In any sense, it is a huge project involving astronomical figures of money while the director elaborately and beautifully shot the film in detail..

The film is set to debut in China on Dec. 22, 2017.