Hengdian World Studios

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Hengdian World Studios is the largest film studio [1] in the world. It is located in Chinese province of Zhejiang in the city of Jinhua and the village of Hengdian. The movie studio is operated by the privately-owned Hengdian Group founded by a farmer turned millionaire Xu Wenrong. Sometimes called "Chinawood", Xu turned acres of farmland in central Zhejiang into one of the largest movie studio in Asia. Construction began in the mid 1990's and have been ongoing ever since with the possible recent addition of the replica of the Old Summer Palace. [2]

[edit] Studio

The studio consists of 13 shooting bases with a total area of up to 330 ha. and building areas of 49,5995 square meters. In addition to its huge scale, the studio also has several records which includes:

  1. Largest Indoor Buddha Figure in China.
  2. Largest Scale Indoor Studio.
  3. Most number of Films and Teleplay Shoots as of 2005.

One of the studio's largest buildings is the Imperial Palace Building built in the Early Chinese Dynasty style to mimic those in the Qin and Han period. That area is still frequently used to shoot movies based on these eras. Internationally acclaimed director Zhang Yimou used this building as the backdrop for the Emperor Qin's palace for his 2002 movie Hero.[3] A Hong Kong TVB drama serial titled A Step into the Past which tells the story of the First Qin Emperor also used the same building as the main backdrop. The studio is currently being used to film The Forbidden Kingdom, the first on-screen collaboration between Hong Kong actors Jackie Chan and Jet Li.[4]

The large number of movies being filmed at Hengdian has supported employment in surrounding villages by employing local villagers as 'extras' in these large movie sets. [5]

Today, Hengdian World Studios consists of a theme park and has attractions such as Guangzhou and Hong Kong Street areas, Emperor Qin Palace, Dazhi Temple and Palace of the Ming and Qing Dynasties.

[edit] Notes

  1. ^ Hollywood-like filming base to join hands with HK firm-浙江在线-English
  2. ^ Remaking China's 'Garden of Perfect Splendor' - World Blog - msnbc.com
  3. ^ Stephen Short and Susan Jakes. "Making of a Hero", TIME Asia. Retrieved on 2007-05-21.
  4. ^ Arthur Jones "Chan, Li's 'Kingdom' coming soon", Variety.com. Retrieved on 2007-07-06
  5. ^ Clifford Coonan. "Hengdian back lot grows to epic proportions", VarietyAsiaOnline.com. Retrieved on 2007-05-21.

[edit] External links

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