小成本大場面:圍觀英國人拍的中國武打片

Two unknown British filmmakers have captured the imagination of Hollywood with a trailer filmed in Derbyshire for their action war epic The Lost Emperor.

兩位名不見經傳的英國電影製片人，在德比郡爲中國史詩戰爭動作片《英雄帝國》拍了一支預告片，希望能夠成功吸引來好萊塢的注意。

It has all the ingredients of a movie blockbuster: sword-wielding warriors in period costume set against an Ancient China landscape, complete with stunning sunsets, rolling fields and snowcapped mountains. Except this isn't China at all... it's the Peak District, in Derbyshire.

5分鐘的預告片中包含了所有鉅製大片的元素：身着年代服裝揮動刀劍的戰士，背景是中國古代的山水風景，還有絢麗的落日、起伏的稻田和白雪皚皚的山頂。不過這完全不是中國，這是德比郡的山峯區（Peak District）。

John Watts and Thomas Wood had a shoestring budget of £20,000 and needed to call on Chinese waiters in their home town of Sheffield to bulk out the cast in battle scenes.

約翰·瓦特和托馬斯·伍德僅有2萬英鎊不到的預算，爲了湊齊戰鬥場面所需的大批羣衆演員，甚至需要打電話到他們家鄉謝菲爾德，找那裏中國餐館的服務員來參演。

After the trailer drew 80,000 YouTube views in two weeks, however, the pair are in talks about turning their script into an £8million production.

預告片上傳到YouTube兩週之內，點擊率直竄到8萬，於是兩人考慮用這個劇本製成一部約800萬英鎊的電影。

‘Instead of spending our meagre budget trying to make a cheap film, we boiled the script down to just five minutes and made the best trailer we could,’ said Mr Watts, 32.

“與其將我們僅有的預算製成一部廉價電影，我們寧願將劇本濃縮到5分鐘，盡力製成最好的預告片。”32歲的瓦特這樣說道。

The ever-changing English climate worked in the pair’s favour on the three-day shoot, with bright sunshine, rain and fog.

英格蘭天氣的變化莫測，但在他們拍攝的三天裏卻十分配合，出過太陽、下過雨，也起過霧。

‘It helped give the trailer an epic look, like we’d been filming over several months,’ said Mr Watts.

“這使得預告片有了史詩一般的效果，就好像我們已經拍了好幾個月。” 瓦特說。

But if the US-backed production goes ahead, its directors will leave the picturesque landscape of the peaks behind to shoot it in China.

不過如果好萊塢方面能支持拍攝，導演們就會離開這個風景如畫的山區，而轉到中國拍攝。