Chinese pop singer and actor Jackson Yee, who starred in the Oscar-nominated drama “Better Days,” will anchor a new blockbuster from Chinese director Wen Muye, whose “Dying to Survive” is China’s 12th highest grossing film of all time.
The film, scheduled for a 2022 release, does not yet have an official English title, but its Chinese name translates to “Miracle.” It will be produced by Ning Hao and his Dirty Monkey Films.
The plot is described in current reports: “Twenty-year-old Jing Hao brings his sister with him to go live in Shenzhen, where the siblings lead comfortable but difficult lives. By chance, he gets an opportunity and thinks that a better life is on its way, but then unexpectedly suffered huge losses. Through enormous perseverance, he stubbornly struggles on until he finally succeeds.”
The film will be the second collaboration between Wen and Ning, following their first picture together “Dying to Survive,” Wen’s first full-length feature.
Starring Xu Zheng, that title became an unexpected break-out hit with a $451 million cume, while also garnering critical acclaim: it won the 2018 Golden Horse Awards for best new director, best original screenplay and best leading actor and received four other nominations.
Yee is best known abroad for his role opposite Zhou Dongyu in director Derek Tsang’s romantic thriller “Better Days,” which grossed $223 million in China and earlier this year became Hong Kong’s third entry to the Academy Awards to ever receive the nomination.
Since that film, the former TFBoys boy band member has starred in works such as family drama “A Little Red Flower” and nationalistic opuses like pandemic story “Chinese Doctors” and the upcoming “Changjin Lake,” co-directed by Chen Kaige, Tsui Hark and Dante Lam.
In “Miracle,” Yee will appear alongside Wang Chuanjun (“Dying to Survive”), Mei Yong (“So Long My Son”) and Yao Huang and Zhang Jiayi, who both appear on the hit TV show “Minning Town.”
The film’s script was written by Wen, Xiu Mengdi (“My People, My Country”), Wei Zhong (“Dying to Survive”), Zhou Chucen, and Han Xiaohan.
Yee will also step into the spotlight later this month as the Youth Ambassador for the 11th annual Beijing Intl. Film Festival, set to run in-person from Aug. 14 to 21. This year, it seeks to extend programming to neighboring Tianjin city and Hebei province, but its plans may be upended as new outbreaks of COVID-19 sweep China and cinemas shut around the country.