The shooting in Shanghai of James Ivory's latest period film The White Countess, has been completed, with the next shoot of interior scenes taking place in Rome.

Set in Shanghai from 1936 to 1937, actor Ralph Fiennes plays a blind former American diplomat who dreams of opening a nightclub called The White Countess.

Natasha Richardson plays an exiled white Russian countess, who worked hard to support her late husband's aristocratic family through prostitution and driving a taxi.

The story starts at the dawn of the great world war and ends with the full scale Japanese invasion.

(CRI December 13, 2004)