Iron Road Film
Tapestry's Dora Award-winning 2001 opera by Chan Ka Nin and Mark Brownell has inspired a film adaptation which will air as a four-part miniseries on CBC television in 2008. Filming is underway in southern China at a magical 200-hectare back lot at Hengdian Film City, nicknamed "Chinawood", and continues in the Okanagan Valley in the British Columbia Rocky Mountains.
Tapestry audiences will remember Iron Road as a love story set against the construction of our national railroad by Chinese workers in the 1880's. A window into the dark and neglected history of thousands of Chinese labourers who helped forge the railroad that held Canada together, Iron Road is a tribute to their efforts.
Iron Road, the film stars: Sun Li (Fearless, Jade Goddess of Mercy) Luke MacFarlane (Brothers and Sisters, Kinsey) Oscar nominee Peter O'Toole (Lawrence of Arabia, My Favourite Year, Venus) Sam Neill (Jurassic Park, The Piano) Tony Leung Ka Fai (Lost in Beijing, The Lover)
Directed and co-produced by David Wu, who began his career as John Woo's editor, Iron Road is produced by Raymond Massey, Anne Tait, Barry Pearson and Zhao Haicheng, with Arnie Zipursky, Han Sanping, Sun Ming and Tiger Hu serving as executive producers, in co-operation with China Film House and Warner China Film. It is distributed worldwide by Alchemy Entertainment and CCI Releasing.
Iron Road is a ground-breaking Canada - China co-production, produced in association with Canadian Broadcasting Corporation, with the financial participation of the Cogeco Program Development Fund, the Shaw Rocket Fund and the Canadian Television Fund created by the Government of Canada and the Canadian Cable Industry.
Iron Road has been developed by Toronto producers Anne Tait and Barry Pearson, working with CCI Entertainment and Massey Productions, supported by Telefilm Canada, CBC, the Harold Greenberg Fund, Cogeco , the Shaw Rocket Fund and the Canadian Television Fund. Tait and Pearson developed the Iron Road screenplay with award-winning writers Pearson & Raymond Storey.
For photos of the stars, and from the set, visit www.ironroadthemovie.com
To learn more about the history of Iron Road the opera, please visit www.ironroadopera.ca