Initial D Movie Website

The official website for the live action Initial D movie is now open for business. I originally mentioned this project back in October, so if you haven't seen anything about it since then, here are few extra nuggets of information. The movie will be a Cantonese movie and is produced by Hong Kong studio Media Asia Group. The budget for the movie is $7.7 million US. The filming begun in October 2003 in China and also Japan. Three Toyota AE86 Sprinter Treuno's were specially made by Toyota for this project. [Source: Flora-Fleur.Net] I've read on a few sites that Jackie Chan was originally set to be the director, but it was not to be so they handed over the wheel (heh heh) to Tsui Hark. Then he dropped the job and was replaced by Andrew Lau and Alan Mak. I also read somewhere that they wrecked 8 AE86's during filmmaking. Also: Toyota built three new AE86's for the movie! And they made the AE85 like the 86...With the headlights and such. (I'm assuming they are talking about Itsuki's 85.) The movie is scheduled to be released this summer. Other credits mentioned on the official site: Felix Chong (scriptwriter) Jay Chou (Takumi Fujiwara) Anthony Wong (Bunta Fujiwara) Edison Chen (Ryousuke Takahashi) Anne Suzuki (Natsuki Mogi) Shawn Yue (Takeshi Nakazato) Chapman To (Itsuki Takeuchi) Jordan Chan (Kyouichi Sudou) I'm not really knowledgable about Japanese or Chinese actors, though there are a few movies that I do recognize. For instance, Anne Suzuki was in The Returner and Snow Falling on Cedars (I actually never saw that movie, but I did read the book in highschool...if that counts).