The Silent Flute

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China's State-run Film Fund Announces China-U.S. Co-production Slate
7:53 AM PDT 6/18/2012 by Karen Chu

Projects include Stan Lee's Chinese superhero pic "The Annihilator" and project based on Bruce Lee's last script "The Silent Flute."

SHANGHAI – China’s National Film Capital announce a slate of China-U.S. co-production projects with Chinese elements, including Stan Lee’s Chinese superhero project The Annihilator, and a post-apocalyptic scifi epic based on the script co-written by the late action icon Bruce Lee.

The state-run fund management company - which established in February in Los Angeles a Hollywood division, the China Mainstream Media National Film Capital Hollywood Inc - has set up a 360 million yuan ($57 million) fund, backed by the Industrial and Commercial Bank of China, the country’s largest commercial bank.

The slate announced for the fund, National Film Capital II, includes comic book legend Stan Lee’s Chinese superhero flick The Annihilator, with a script by Real Steel writer Dan Gilroy. The project was the first film announced by Magic Storm Entertainment, partly launched by Lee to develop and produce superhero franchises for Asian audiences.

Also backed by the state-run fund is The Magic Scroll, a $47 million 3D big screen adaptation of the CrossGen comics “The Way of the Rat”, with Academy Awards winning visual effects director Charles Gibson (Babe, Pirates of the Caribbean 2) to direct a script by Chuck Russell (The Mask), and Shimon Arama (The Heist) to produce. Set to be a co-production between China, France, Spain, and the U.S., the film will incorporate the natural landscape of China’s East Lake and Guilin.

The Silent Flute, known as martial arts icon Bruce Lee’s lost movie, is also being developed with the backing of the fund. Based on the last and unfinished script co-written by Lee, screen legend James Coburn, and In the Heat of the Night screenwriter Stirling Silliphant – both martial arts students of Lee at the time – the project has been revived with the blessing of Lee’s widow and daughter. A dystopic scifi fantasy set 800 years in the future, the film is casting two male leads from China and Hollywood, and will be co-produced by Beijing-based Heshan Media, with Jay Rifkin, Kyle Jackson, and Heshan CEO Jiang Ping as producers.

Also among the lineup is Genghis Khan, a historical epic with a target budget of $100 million, written and produced by Peter Doyle. Producer and former Merrill Lynch president William Yuan is in negotiation with the National Film Capital to develop 1421, a screen adaptation of the best-selling and controversial book by Gavin Menzies on 15th century Chinese admiral Zheng He.

“National Film Capital’s strategy is to make English-language co-productions with Chinese subjects with Hollywood screenwriters and directors for worldwide distribution,” said National Film Capital president Guowei Wang. The co-productions will by-pass the film import quota for release in China. Next up for fund management company is to set up a US$300 million fund for ten tentpole-size co-productions, Wang said.

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This reporter forgot all about Circle of Iron. We wish we could forget it. :p

Indeed, one wishes to wipe out many memories of David Carradine...

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'Lost' Bruce Lee Script Revived
New version of The Silent Flute planned
20 June 2012 | Written by Owen Williams

The China Film Group Corporation and its movie fund National Film Capital has just announced its upcoming slate at the Shanghai International Film Festival. The biggest financial commitment is to Stan Lee's* Chinese superhero project The Annihilator, but halfway down the list is a pleasant surprise for Bruce Lee fans: his screenplay The Silent Flute, left unmade at the time of his death in 1973, is set to be realised by producer Allan Hatcher.

The film is described as "a $25m action fantasy, including a significant martial arts component, set in a post-apocalyptic future in which a seeker embarks on a hero's journey to a city which may have survived the apocalypse." Hatcher is moving ahead with the full support of Lee's estate.

Lee planned the ambitious film as an introduction to Eastern philosophy and its contrast to Western thinking, as well as a fantastical slice of martial arts kick-assery. In a forward to the script, he explained, "To the Westerner, the finger jabs, the side kicks, the back fist etc. are tools of destruction and violence, which is indeed one of their functions. But the Oriental believes that the primary function of such tools is revealed when they are self-directed, and destroy greed, fear, anger and folly...

"'Purposelessness', 'empty-mindedness', or 'no-art' are frequent terms used in the Orient to denote the ultimate achievement of a martial artist. According to Zen, the spirit is by nature formless, and no 'objects' are to be harboured in it..."

Lee actually began the project in collaboration with his "student" James Coburn, but the pair fell out and the film was abandoned. Five years after Lee's death, The Silent Flute was re-written by Stanley Mann as the much-sanitised Circle Of Iron, the only film directed by Richard Moore. It starred David Carradine, Roddy McDowell, Eli Wallach and Christopher Lee*, but toned down the violence, threw in some laughs, and relocated the story from Thailand to a fantasy world that "never was and always is".

Hatcher's specific plans are unknown at this point, but the Lee family's involvement suggests a version truer to Lee's intentions this time around. The producer expects to be in production sometime in 2013.

*No relation to Bruce.

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The footnote kills me, which is the sole reason I'm posting this. :p

i love how they keep saying it was left unmade...lol...when carradine owned the rights to the film and made it...lol...they probably had to pay his estate just to make it.

I love The Silent Flute announcement... but I'm also looking forward to The Magic Scroll in the first post. The Way of the Rat is a great comic and the art really evoked a film, plus I could always see a young Jackie in the role of the main character.

From our friend John Fusco no less...

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Mar 23, 2021 3:54am PT
Jason Kothari and John Fusco to Produce Bruce Lee-Scripted ‘The Silent Flute’

By Patrick Frater

https://variety.com/wp-content/uploa...ruce-lee-3.jpg
Courtesy Everett Collection
Jason Kothari, Hong Kong-born entrepreneur and film producer who was an executive producer on Vin Diesel-starring “Bloodshot,” has acquired all rights to The Silent Flute, the spiritual martial arts project co-written by martial arts icon Bruce Lee in 1970. The project is to be set up as a limited series with John Fusco (“Marco Polo”) as screenwriter and executive producer.

The story of “Silent Flute” is set in a dystopian future after mankind has suffered from pandemics, fires and civil wars, and where all weapons and combat arts are banned. It follows a raw fighter who overcomes grave obstacles and loss to reach enlightenment and become the best fighter in the world.

“The Silent Flute” film script was a five-year collaboration between Lee and his friends and martial arts students, Oscar-winning writer Stirling Silliphant and Oscar-winning actor James Coburn. It encapsulated Lee’s vision for the true essence of martial arts and the meaning of life and was his boldest creative passion project. It remained unfinished after Lee’s death in 1973 cut short his brief film career.

Rights to “The Silent Flute” were purchased from producer Paul Maslansky “Police Academy”), Sasha Maslansky, Kurt Fehtke and Arlene Howard. All be credited as executive producers.

Kothari is the former CEO of Valiant Entertainment, a U.S.-based superhero entertainment firm that secured a five-film deal with Sony Pictures. He is also on the board of India’s Balaji Telefilms.

“Despite it having been untouched for half a century, ‘The Silent Flute’ conveys groundbreaking themes for today, and my ambition is to do justice to the global icon’s powerful and inspiring cinematic vision,” said Kothari. “Having closely studied his life and career, I am committed to bringing together the best talent in the world to make ‘The Silent Flute’ for millions of Lee’s fans and honor him.”

Fusco, who recently delivered “The Highwaymen” for Netflix, is a black belt martial artist in three different disciplines. He studies Lee’s Jeet Kune Do philosophy under several of Lee’s former students.

“What Bruce wrote, along with Sterling Silliphant and my late friend James Coburn, was ahead of its time and transcends action drama in profound and provocative ways. What we hope to do is open up the canvas of his story world and honor his vision in the exciting way that epic long-form narrative can do today,” Fusco said.

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