Doug Liman directing film about Two-Gun Cohen

Movie Doug Liman by

Doug Liman (Bourne Identity) and producers Rob Reiner and Alan Greisman have teamed up with Beijing Galloping Horse Film & TV Production for a 1920s drama about Two-Gun Cohen, the British bodyguard to Sun Yat-sen, leader of the overthrow of China’s last imperial dynasty.

The script was written by relative newcomer, Matt Brown, according to the THR. Liman made the decision after recent trips to Eastern Asia. Liman is not only drawn to the region, he's also very intrigued by anti-heroes and plans to focus the story on Morris Abraham "Two Gun" Cohen (1887–1970), "a London-born WWI veteran who moved to China in 1922 and took a job training Sun Yat-sen’s army in boxing and shooting, despite his inability to speak Chinese." 

Cohen soon became one of Sun’s main bodyguards. After Sun’s death in 1925, he went on to fight for China against the invading Japanese and to work for British Intelligence. Liman spoke to THR about the character by saying:

“He’s a thief and a con man who goes to China with visions of self-aggrandizement, but while he’s there he falls for the country and for a woman. The story falls off the shelf without having to twist the facts. It’s almost hard to believe it happened.”

Greisman wrote the script because he grew up obsessed with it. Liman goes on to say: 

“Then, one day, Alan noticed that China was in the film business in a serious way. Since my movies also tend to come from my passion about a subject, I’m not all that different from Greisman. We realized the time was right for this project.”

Galloping Horse is the production company behind director John Woo’s upcoming English-language film Flying Tigers about U.S. Army Air Corps Lt. General Claire Lee Chennault, "another story of a Western military man fighting to aid China in its fight against Japan. Chennault also was courted both by the People’s Republic of China and the Republic of China on Taiwan, which Beijing considers a renegade province to this day."

This sonds like a great story and film that I will be interested in seeing. What are your thoughts on this news?

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