Scene change thrills Fan

Fan Bingbing says Wheat (Mai Tian), in which she plays the wife of an absent lord in 260 BC, is her favorite work so far.

Known best for her roles as a pretty girl in tragic love stories, Fan says the role was something new for her. Lady Li is a strong woman who survives because of her faith during a time of chaotic wars.

The film opened the 12th Shanghai International Film Festival, which ended in June.

Derek Elley of Variety calls it "a structurally simple but tonally ambitious dramedy that marks a quality return by writer-helmer He Ping six years after the misfire of Col Asia's Warriors of Heaven and Earth."

He spent six years on the film, based on the Battle of Changping, one of the biggest massacres in history. The film does not focus on brave soldiers, however, but on two escapees from the battlefield and their crazy adventures afterwards.

The movie will premiere in China on Sept 28.