Wong Kar Wai asks Gianna Jun to star in his next film

Hong Kong auteur Wong Kar Wai has approached South Korean star Gianna Jun to star opposite Tony Leung Chiu Wai in his next movie, Ferryman.

The actress, who was the lead in hit K-drama My Love From The Star, is keen to work with the award-winning Grandmaster director, but is committed to another film project, Apple Daily said. Wong's shoot is set to start in September in Nanjing, whereas Jun has a shoot at the end of the year for the film Assassination. It is directed by Choi Dong Hoon, the director of Jun's 2012 hit crime caper, The Thieves.

Ferryman is a romance based on a Chinese short story by writer Zhang Jiajia.

Jun, who shot to international fame in 2001's My Sassy Girl, could play Ah Yu, a young woman who is in love with painter Ma Li, to be played by Leung.

Wong is planning to cast Lust, Caution actress Tang Wei as Ma Li's unfaithful former wife, and Taiwanese-Japanese actor Takeshi Kaneshiro as Zhang.

A spokesman for Wong's Jet Tone Films said that filming was to begin later this year, but did not name any of the cast.

"I can only say that the actors we are talking to are heavyweights," she said.

Song Hye Kyo, the South Korean actress who played the wife of Ip Man (Leung) in The Grandmaster, had found working with the director difficult.

The film was 10 years in the making, and shooting took three years.

All the actors said the filming was arduous and Song was said to be unhappy with the time-consuming shoot.

The language barrier was also an issue for her, and may surface again should Jun be cast.

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