New 3D Cut Of 'The Grandmaster' Hitting China; US Release Uncertain

Multiple cuts of Wong Kar-Wai's latest film, The Grandmaster, already exist. Primarily, there's the long Chinese cut and the shorter US version, the latter of which excises some characters completely and focuses the story in a slightly different manner. Now there'll be a new version. Wong is prepping a 3D version of The Grandmaster for Chinese release. The 3D conversion isn't the only different in this one, however, as it is also reported to have previously unseen footage. 

The director told Variety,

We had originally planned to film 'The Grandmaster' in 3D not only for the cinematic sensation, but also for the subtlety of the expression of this beautiful story. We now have the opportunity to show the film as it was always intended – searching for a brand new aesthetic or cinematic language in the 3D format.

More important, Jeffrey Chan, the COO of the film's Chinese distributor and co-producer, Bono Film group, said,

This is likely to be a special edition, probably resembling the so called U.S.-cut, but with added unseen footage. Now that many people have seen the film everyone can tell that that there is far more material, and a broken narrative. ... We thought the original release was a bit of a rush, we were under pressure from one of the investors to release at a certain time, and we feel that the marketing was not optimal. Since then, of course, the film has proved its quality and earned huge acclaim, leading us to believe that there is unfulfilled demand.

The 3D conversion and new edit were overseen by Wong.

At this point, the release is planned only for China, but there's a chance it could expand to other countries.

Wong Kar-Wai is also working on a new film, Ferryman, which will reportedly shoot this year scripted by Zhang Jiajia from his own short story.