The movie version of “A dream in Red Mansions” will finally start filming at the end of May after almost 10 years of preparations. The actors for Baoyu, Daiyu, and Baochai were selected from massive auditions, and some actors from the classic 1987 TV version would also be invited to be part of the movie. The whole movie is slated to cost more than two hundred million yuan (31.5 million US dollars).

Production-wise, the film is attempting to break through the parlor story set-up of the original, and will use a combination of fantasy and realistic scenes to represent the splendor of the Red Mansions era. In addition to the three enormous shooting hall inside the Number One Town in Hebei Province, there will also be scenes shot in multiple locations including: Nyingchi Prefecture of Tibet, Shanghai’s Grand View Park, Tongli of Jiangsu Province, Wuzhen of Zhejiang Province, etc. In order to capture crucial scenes such as “Daiyu burying the flower petals,” etc, the production team has arrived in Tibet since April, and is waiting for the Peach Blossom Festival in Nyingchi to shoot.

“A dream in Red Mansions” is the most prominent of China’s four classic novels. It was first made into a TV series in 1987, and the book has been translated into 23 languages.