Alice creator American McGee has enlisted the help of Hong Kong producer, writer and director Tsui Hark to create Alice: Otherlands films, as noted in a project update on Kickstarter.
Hark is known for producing films such as Once Upon a Time in China, The Blade, Seven Swords and Detective Dee and the Mystery of the Phantom Flame. As these films contain some of McGee’s favourite cinematic “skull smacking and butt kicking” moments, McGee hopes Hark’s inclusion would bring about an action focus to Alice: Otherlands. McGee noted within the update such Alice film adaptations—for instance, Tim Burton’s 2010 incarnation—make Alice to be static, almost as if she’s an “empty bag, blowing in the wind”.
“For a character whose main obstacle is indecisiveness, you’d expect her final triumph to materialize in a flurry of blades and blood—a definitive signal that this girl isn’t just along on someone else’s ride,” McGee writes. “But no. It might have been a Burton film—and I’m certain that left to control the enterprise alone he would have delivered—but more than anything it was a Disney film. Can’t be splattering blood all over the place. And god forbid a girl kick someone’s ass.”
Hark adds onto McGee’s comment in a statement, hoping to reveal Alice’s inner turmoil and violence in order to highlight the hypocrisies of the adult villains.
“I can already see the impact of the story as a movie. I’d be more than enthusiastic to participate in any effort to make it possible for Alice to come alive on the big screen. I’d join the team to make this project a wonderful success,” Hark writes.
The campaign for Alice: Otherlands began on July 15, and runs until Aug. 4. Alice: Otherlands will be a series of short films and the final chapter in the Alice trilogy.
