Peter Chan’s Changin’ Pictures to debut TV projects starring film icons Donnie Yen, Zhang Ziyi

Changin’ Pictures, a production company launched by famed Hong Kong director Peter Chan, is set to debut five TV shows at Busan International Film Festival this week, including two projects starring film icons Donnie Yen and Zhang Ziyi.

The company will first premiere two Korean shows based on popular webtoons in South Korea, according to Variety.

The TV adaptation of “ONE: High School Heroes” will follow the story of a high school student who becomes a hero and fights bullies. Meanwhile, the TV adaptation of “Heesu in Class 2” will feature a romance between two high school boys played by K-pop idols.

Another show that will premiere later this week is “Outright Loser, Hidden Master,” an action series described as “a reinvention of the martial arts genre in a never-before-seen universe.” Yen, 59, will serve as the series’ showrunner and lead actor. He is also reportedly under negotiation to direct some of the show’s episodes.

In “Outright Loser, Hidden Master,” Yen plays an Asian American martial artist who discovers that kung fu masters in Hong Kong are passing down their memories and skills to unsuspecting people.

“Infinite possibilities can be found when filmmakers share the same vision,” Yen said. “I am excited to be partnering with Peter Chan and am confident that together we can elevate materials to the very next level.”

Chan will also direct “The Murderer,” a thriller set in Shanghai in 1944, that stars Zhang as a woman accused of murdering her abusive husband.

“By depicting the vagaries of her various trials, this series exposes the vicissitudes of leadership change in China from Japanese Occupation to the Nationalist government to the birth of new China,” Changin’ Pictures said in a statement.

Completing the list is the reboot of the 2022 Thai horror movie “The Eye,” which will be released in an anthology format.

Several names have been tied to the project, including acclaimed Thai directors Banjong Pisanthanakun, Nattawut “Baz” Poonpiriya and Parkpoom Wongpoom. South Korean directors Kim Jee-Woon and Hur Jin-Ho will also work with Chan on the anthology.

Changin’ Pictures’ new shows, which are set in Hong Kong, Korea, Taiwan, Thailand and Japan, make up only 25% of the company’s 20 planned projects that will roll out in its first four years. Changin’ Pictures plans to expand in the future to other areas across Asia, including Indonesia, Singapore, Malaysia, Vietnam and the Philippines.

Chan noted that Changin’ Pictures, which will focus on creating projects for streaming platforms, is not his own production company.

“I don’t want this to be a Peter Chan’s company,” Chan said. “We are not a director’s production company. It is only filmmaker-backed and filmmaker-driven so that we could raise our level of productivity and efficiency. We aspire to be Asia’s most effective one stop shop for international production partners and streaming platforms.”

Featured Image HKTDC (left), Wingchun Community (right)

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