New Chow film walks the extra mile

Known for always being tight-tipped about his new releases, Stephen Chow released a new poster to unveil E Jingwen as the female lead of his upcoming release The New King of Comedy on Wednesday.

Also, during his promotional tour in Hong Kong, Chow and Hong Kong actress, Cecilia Cheung, performed their two classic sequences from the 1999 hit King of Comedy, which has fascinated a generation of movie fans and inspired the upcoming remake.

The moves are considered an effort to contend for audiences during the fiercely competed Spring Festival holiday, during which 13 new films will debut, the most ever during the period.

Chow and Cheung will not be reprising their roles for the new film, which instead will star E Jingwen alongside A-list actor, Wang Baoqiang, who will depict a struggling film extra.

At a recent promotional event in Beijing, Wang revealed the hardship and tough years he spent as a film extra in the early 2000s.

"I was always motivated by Chow's movies to work hard when I was an extra," Wang says, noting that it was his persistence that brought him the chance to work with Chow.

Born in rural Hebei province in 1984, Wang went to Beijing to seek film extra jobs in 2000. To save money, he rented a shabby residence with other three roommates in a deserted area on outskirts of Beijing. He got up early every day and took the bus to seek out any possible opportunities on film sets.

However, most of the time he was rejected, or even got humiliated for his accent and the way he looked. After years of struggling, Wang finally got a chance to lead the 2003 crime thriller Blind Shaft, which earned him a significant role in Feng Xiaogang's commercial hit A World Without Thieves, which paved his way to stardom.

Wang's experience echoes Chow's core idea of the movie, which is "to fight and to struggle" but never give up.