{"id":101887,"date":"2025-10-28T07:14:13","date_gmt":"2025-10-28T07:14:13","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/101887\/"},"modified":"2025-10-28T07:14:13","modified_gmt":"2025-10-28T07:14:13","slug":"lily-franky-to-star-alongside-fan-bingbing-in-wayne-wang-film","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/101887\/","title":{"rendered":"Lily Franky to Star Alongside Fan Bingbing in Wayne Wang Film"},"content":{"rendered":"

\n\tJapanese actor Lily Franky<\/a> will appear in Wayne Wang\u2019s next film \u201cDiary of a Mad, Old Man,\u201d revealed co-star Fan Bingbing<\/a> at a Q&A session for the film \u201cMother Bhumi<\/a>,\u201d in competition at the Tokyo International Film Festival<\/a>.<\/p>\n

\n\tFranky is best known to international audiences for playing the lead character in Hirokazu Koreeda\u2019s Palme d\u2019Or-winning Shoplifters (2018). He was most recently in Chie Hayakawa\u2019s Cannes competition title \u201cRenoir.\u201d <\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cI\u2019m very happy that both director Wayne Wang and Lily-san have come to see my film [\u201cMother Bhumi\u201d], because we\u2019ve just made a film together here in Japan.\u201d said Fan.<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cDiary\u201d is based on the 1961 hit novel of the same name by Japanese author, Tanizaki Jun\u2019ichir\u014d, about an elderly invalid\u2019s erotic obsession with his daughter-in-law.<\/p>\n

\n\tPreviously announced cast members include Gabriel Byrne. The film is produced by Japan\u2019s Fourier Films, LA\u2019s Friendly Giant Pictures and the U.K.\u2019s Good Chaos, among others.<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cDiary\u201d marks another globe-trotting move by Fan.<\/p>\n

\n\tIn the years since her highly publicised tax problems<\/a>, the actress has been selectively cultivating her career in international indie productions, a far cry from previous appearances in high concept Mainland films.<\/p>\n

\n\tAt the Q&A session, \u201cMother Bhumi\u201d director Cheong Keat Aun revealed the extent to which Fan actively sought out the role in the film. Set in a late-1990s Malaysian rice-farming village, \u201cMother Bhumi,\u201d directed by\u00a0Chong Keat Aun<\/a>, follows Hong Im, a widowed farmer and ritual healer who struggles to protect her family and community amid political unrest and land seizures. By day, she resists developers; by night, she heals and exorcises. As colonial-era conflicts resurface, strange events unfold: spirits return, black magic stirs, and the legacy of empire haunts the land. <\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cThe script was written a while back, and my plan was to make it in 2028 or 2029 as my sixth\u00a0or seventh\u00a0feature. I was planning to use unknown actors for this film,\u201d said Chong. \u201cRound about December 2023, out of the blue, Fan Bingbing reached out to my producer to set up a meeting. When she heard about the script, she asked me to keep the role for her.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cI told her I don\u2019t normally work with well known actors, but she convinced me by telling me I could destroy her looks in the film. So I did,\u201d continued Chong.<\/p>\n

\n\tFan ended off the session by re-emphasizing her roots, while acknowledging the growing reality of pan-Asian filmmaking.<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cFifteen years ago, the Tokyo Film Festival gave me an award. Standing here today to present this film, is very emotional for me,\u201d said Fan. \u201cFurther more, as an actress from China, starring in a Malaysian movie. It is a very, very special sort of serendipity.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Japanese actor Lily Franky will appear in Wayne Wang\u2019s next film \u201cDiary of a Mad, Old Man,\u201d revealed…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":101888,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[146,67191,85,46,67192,67193,1776],"class_list":{"0":"post-101887","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-entertainment","8":"tag-entertainment","9":"tag-fan-bingbing","10":"tag-il","11":"tag-israel","12":"tag-lily-franky","13":"tag-mother-bhumi","14":"tag-tokyo-international-film-festival"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/101887","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=101887"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/101887\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/101888"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=101887"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=101887"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=101887"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}