China's answer to "Avatar" marred by dangerous working-conditions, incompetent crew...

[DetlefK]

http://io9.com/will-we-ever-get-to-see-chinas-legendary-bomb-empires-1659833746

"Empire of the Deep" was to be a fantastic underwater fantasy-adventure. The trailer is truly impressive. But you might never get to see it. It was scheduled for release in 2011.

Is this movie good? The production was marred by problems such as an ever-changing cast of directors. And the script was revised 40 times by 10 different writers.

And as one extra complained:
- He was used as an extra for four different characters, even though his face is in the foreground in one scene. (Well, they did give him a curly wig.)
- They glued the merman costume to his skin with a glue explicitly labeled "avoid contact with skin".
- The chinese filmcrew was supposed to show up at 9 am. They showed up at 4 pm and then there was only good light until sunset.
- A scene with a rampaging horse was shot with an untrained horse actually rampaging.
- Scenes for a pirates' cave were shot in an old mine. Everybody behind the camera wore hardhats. At one point a rock fell from the ceiling and crushed a floodlight.
- Scenes for a huge battle were shot at a beach. And even though the tide always came at the same time of the day, it was not taken into account and the schedule was interrupted every single day by the flood.