Xuan Zang

Xuan Zang (2016)

大唐玄奘

Chinese-Indian historical adventure of Xuan Zang's seventeen-year overland journey to India during the Tang dynasty in the seventh century.

Date of release
2016-04-29
TMDB
6.8 / 10 (17)
Runtime
1h 59m
Genres
History, Drama
Director
Huo Jianqi

Casting

Interesting facts

  • Awards: 1 · Nominations: 1. Including: Huabiao Award for Outstanding Film

Xuanzang is a 2016 Chinese-Indian historical adventure film that dramatizes the life of Xuanzang (602–664), a Buddhist monk and scholar. The film depicts his arduous nearly two-decade overland journey to India during the Tang dynasty on a mission to bring Buddhist scriptures to China. The film is directed by Huo Jianqi and produced by Wong Kar-wai. It stars Huang Xiaoming as the titular character, and includes cameo or short performances by other accomplished actors including Kent Tong, Purba Rgyal, Sonu Sood and Tan Kai. It was released in China on 29 April 2016, with distribution in China by China Film Group Corporation.

Production

The film was produced by China's biggest state owned production company China Film Corporation and its Indian partner Eros International. It was a prestige project as the first agreement on joint productions was signed in the presence of Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi and General Secretary of the Chinese Communist Party Xi Jinping in May 2015.

It was filmed on location in Turpan (including the Flaming Mountain Scenic Area), Changji, Altay, Aksu, Kashi all of which are in the Xinjiang province of China, the Gansu province of China, and India. The sets were lavish, hundreds of extras were used and 10 companies from the US and China comprising 200 people were hired for post-production.

In an interview with the Hindustan Times, translated from Chinese, the director noted that most of the shoots were outdoors. "It was physically taxing. In India, we spent 10 days in April and May and another 20 days in September... The heat and the sun were all very challenging."

The primary language spoken in the film is Mandarin. However, an important dialog between Xuanzang and his master, Śīlabhadra, is in Sanskrit. The director noted that "We spent a long time with Sanskrit scholars, both in India and Peking University, to get this right, and we had Huang Xiaoming do the lines himself".

Read on Wikipedia · Text from Wikipedia, CC BY-SA 4.0. Data from Wikidata.

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