Chinese star Zhang Ziyi begins shooting Banquet this month which, with a cost of $20 million, is already $5 million over budget, a spokeswoman for the film's Beijing-based production company Huayi Brothers said Friday. 

One of China's leading independent film producers -- it made the Hong Kong hit Kung Fu Hustle with Sony Pictures Entertainment -- HB is co-producing Banquet, billed as an Asian version of Hamlet, with Hong Kong's Media Asia.

The film has no distribution guarantor bonding the project.

Helmed by the popular Feng Xiaogang, Banquet will be designed by Oscar-winning art director Tim Yip (Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon), and scored by Tan Dun, who also worked on Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon. The film will be choreographed by Hong Kong martial arts master Yuen Wo-ping, and also star Mainland comic favorite Ge You.

We are over budget already because we have so many good people on this project, the spokeswoman said.

Zhang will next be seen in Princess Raccoon by Japan's Seijun Suzuki and Memoirs of a Geisha, alongside Michelle Yeoh, which was directed by Rob Marshall for Spyglass Entertainment. Leading man Ge is perhaps best known in the West for his role in Zhang Yimou's 1994 classic To Live. He also has appeared in six films by Feng including Big Shot's Funeral, a big hit here, and Cell Phone.

Banquet begins 12 days of shooting on location in Inner Mongolia this month, then will move to Beijing, Zhejiang and Guizhou. It is expected to be released in September of 2006. International sales will be jointly handled by Media Asia and HB, which is trying to develop an overseas distribution business. 

(CRI September 5, 2005)