Movies about the evil seems to be a trend now in China. After “Resident Evil: The Final Chapter” topped the country’s box-office weekend with earnings of 636 million yuan ($92.65 million), “Evil Minds: City of Lights” is set to be shown in 2017.
Best-Selling Crime Novel Series
The movie is an adaption of a bestselling crime novel series. To help promote the upcoming film, Henry Lee, a prominent forensic scientist who worked on the O.J. Simpson and Laci Peterson cases and in post-9/11 forensic probe, appeared on Saturday at a press conference to promote the movie, China.org reported.
He said that when he read the script of the film, he loved the story because it touches people’s hearts. Besides Lee, other stars of the movie also showed up at the event such as Deng Chao, Cecilia Liu, Ethan Juan and Karena Lam as well as the movie’s writer, Lei Mi who had a cameo appearance in the film. They played detective games at the press conference.
The movie is directed by Xu Jizhou and produced by Bill Kong and Ren Zhonglun whose last collaboration was the Ang Lee movie “Lust, Caution.” With “Evil Minds: City Light,” Kong said he hoped to raise the bar of Chinese crime genre film to a higher level.
2 Movies Versions, Plus TV Drama
There is another “Evil Minds” movie based on the first volume of the same novel which would also be shown in 2017. It would star Liao Fan and Li Yifeng and the movie is directed by Xie Dongshen.
The two film adaptations of “Evil Minds” are two of the 20 most anticipated movies in China for 2017. The novel, written by Lei Mi, has also led to the creation of an internet drama show, Newsgd reported. There is no definite date of release yet for “Evil Minds: City Lights” and “Evil Minds.”