Ning tastes success with 'Brotherhood of Blades II'

Director Ning Hao [Photo provided to China Daily]

With the recent success of Brotherhood of Blades II: The Infernal Battlefield, filmmaker Ning Hao may have found a formula for success.

Brotherhood of Blade II, a martial arts tale from the Ming Dynasty (1368-1644), recently topped China's box office charts.

Yang Mi in Brotherhood of Blades II [Photo provided to China Daily]

The sequel,starring Taiwan actor Chang Chen and Chinese mainland actress Yang Mi, took just four days to rake in 160 million yuan ($23.7 million), surpassing the total box office receipts of the first Brotherhood of Blade movie in 2014.

Brotherhood of Blades II is the first movie to be released in a five-title slate unveiled by Ning's Beijing-based studio Dirty Monkey in mid-June.

The other four movies are Wen Muye's comedy Drug Dealer; Liu Xiaoshi's sci-fi movie Beyond Time; Zeng Zeng's art-house romance Yunshui Zhilyu (A Journey to Cross Cloud and Water) and Niu Han's Tianmei Shenghuo (A Sweet Life).

Beyond Time will have most of its special-effects done by the British company Double Negative, which did the visual-effects for Interstellar and Inception.

All of the four movies have no release dates as yet.

Emir Kusturica teams up with Ning Hao's Beijing-based studio Dirty Monkey on producing a new film.[Photo provided to China Daily]

Ning, also known for the hit comedy Breakup Buddies, says his studio aims to support young talent.

Meanwhile, as part of the studio's "Celestial Beings Program", which was released at the 20th Shanghai International Film Festival, Dirty Monkey signed a contract with Serbian director Emir Kusturica to make a movie in China.

The movie is based on the works of 19th-century Russian author Fyodor Dostoyevsky, according to the American magazine, The Hollywood Reporter.