‘SON OF THE DRAGON’
PRODUCTION BIOS
ROBERT HALMI, SR. (Executive Producer) – Robert Halmi, Sr. is described in his 1999 Peabody Award citation as "perhaps the last of the great network television impresarios." TV Guide calls him "TV's master showman." These and other descriptions sit comfortably on the shoulders of one of the industry's most prolific and respected producers; a man who, in little more than two decades, has created a signature niche in the television business, producing quality, family-friendly long form entertainment.
Halmi has produced nearly 200 television films, miniseries and motion pictures, including five- time Emmy ® Award-winning “The Josephine Baker Story.” Among his other “event” productions include, “Gypsy” (Bette Midler), “Arabian Nights” (John Leguizamo,), “Cleopatra” (Billy Zane, Timothy Dalton), “Dinotopia,” “Dreamkeeper” (August Schellenberg), “Dostoevsky’s Crime & Punishment” (Ben Kingsley, Patrick Dempsey), “Don Quixote” (John Lithgow, Bob Hoskins, Vanessa Williams, Isabella Rossellini), “In Cold Blood” (Anthony Edwards, Eric Roberts), “Merlin” (Sam Neill, Isabella Rossellini, Martin Short, Miranda Richardson), “Moby Dick” (Patrick Stewart, Gregory Peck), “Noah's Ark” (Jon Voight, Mary Steenburgen) “The Odyssey” (Armand Assante, Greta Scaachi), and “Gulliver's Travels” (Ted Danson and Mary Steenburgen), another winner of five Emmy ® Awards.
Most recently Halmi was honored by Reed MIDEM with a Lifetime Achievement Award at the 2004 MIPTV international market in Cannes, France. While there, he received the city of Cannes’ Palme D’Or, from the Mayor of Cannes, Bernard Brochand, at a special event held in his honor at the Villa Domergue. That same week he was also named Chevalier de l’Ordre des Arts et des Letters by the French government, the country’s highest honor in the fields of art and culture.
2004 was truly a benchmark year, ushering in several major Halmi productions including the highly acclaimed “The Lion in Winter” (Glenn Close, Patrick Stewart) for Showtime, a musical version of “A Christmas Carol” (Kelsey Grammer, Jason Alexander, Jesse L. Martin) for NBC, “Mitch Albom’s The Five People You Meet in Heaven” (Jon Voight, Jeff Daniels, Ellen Burstyn, Michael Imperioli) for ABC, and “Legend of Earthsea” (Isabella Rossellini, Danny Glover, Shawn Ashmore, Kristin Kruek) for The Sci Fi Channel. In 2005-06, Halmi continued to churn out epic dramas including “Human Trafficking” (Mira Sorvino, Donald Sutherland) for Lifetime and “The Ten Commandments” (Dougray Scott, Omar Sharif, Naveen Andrews, Mia Maestro) for ABC.
The Hungarian-born Halmi was active in the anti-Nazi underground in World War II, and later was arrested by the Communists when they took over the country. He came to the U.S. in 1950
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and worked for many years as an award-winning photographer for Life Magazine . In 1994, Halmi sold his company, RHI Entertainment, Inc. to Hallmark Cards and in January 2006 Halmi Sr. together with his son, Robert Halmi Jr. and affiliates Kelso & Company, acquired all ownership interest in Hallmark Entertainment LLC and re-launched the company as RHI Entertainment, LLC. # # #
ROBERT HALMI, JR. (Executive Producer) - Emmy ® Award winner Robert Halmi Jr. currently serves as President and CEO of RHI Entertainment, LLC (formerly Hallmark Entertainment, LLC). His career as a film producer began in 1980 with “Wilson's Reward,” which garnered numerous awards, including a gold medal at the Houston Film Festival. He has produced more than 100 movies and miniseries for television, including “Dreamkeeper,” “Dinotopia,” “Arabian Nights,” “The 10 th Kingdom,” “Cleopatra,” “Alice in Wonderland,” “The Baby Dance” and “Lonesome Dove,” which earned seven Emmy ® Awards and a Golden Globe for Best Miniseries. Recent Halmi, Jr. “event” productions include “Earthsea,” “Mitch Albom’s The Five People You Meet in Heaven,” “King Solomon’s Mines,” “La Femme Musketeer,” “Frankenstein,” “Frederick Forsyth’s Icon,” “Supernova” “Mysterious Island” and “The Poseidon Adventure.”
In 1984, at age 26, Halmi Jr. became President of RHI Entertainment Inc. (RHI) a publicly traded entertainment company founded by his father. In 1994, RHI was sold to Hallmark Cards Inc. and Halmi Jr. became President and CEO of Hallmark Entertainment, the successor to RHI. For over the past decade, Hallmark Entertainment has remained the largest supplier of movies and miniseries in the television industry, garnering more Emmy nominations for television movies than any other production company in the history of television. Under Halmi Jr’s guidance, Hallmark Entertainment produced over 2,000 hours of television programming. These shows received 448 Emmy ® nominations and garnered 104 Emmy ® Awards.
From 1994-2005, Hallmark Entertainment provided four of the top five highest rated US miniseries and movies made for television, including 2004’s highest rated original movie, “Mitch Albom’s The Five People You Meet in Heaven.” Hallmark Entertainment productions have also topped the ratings charts of the major basic cable networks, “Earthsea” for SciFI Channel (their highest rated miniseries in 2005), “Single Santa Seeks Mrs. Claus” for Hallmark Channel (highest rated in the history of the network at the time), and most recently Lifetime television with “Human Trafficking,” the highest rated miniseries on basic cable for 2005.
In 1995, Halmi Jr. was instrumental in forming Crown Media Holdings, Inc., which owns and operates pay television channels across the globe dedicated to high quality, broad
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appeal, entertainment programming. In 2000, Crown Media went public on the Nasdaq ® stock exchange. To date, Crown Media has launched channels in more than 122 countries and in 25 languages.
In January 2006, Halmi Jr. along with members of senior management and affiliates Kelso & Company, a private investment firm, acquired all the ownership interest in Hallmark Entertainment, LLC (a wholly owned subsidiary of Hallmark Cards) and re-launched the company as RHI Entertainment, LLC.
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DAVID WU ( Director/Editor) – “Son of the Dragon” marks the latest collaboration with RHI Entertainment for David Wu. Dating back to “Snow Queen,” starring Bridget Fonda and most recently on another fantasy miniseries, “Merlin’s Apprentice,” starring “Dragon’s,” John Reardon, Sam Neill and Miranda Richardson, this new project reunites him with the same producing team for a third time. A prolific director, editor, producer, actor and writer, Wu first established his name as a creative force in his native Hong Kong. He made his move to North America more than a decade ago and has continued to use his impressive talents in the film and television industry. “Son of the Dragon” afforded Wu the opportunity to shoot a project on the Chinese mainland.
Amassing an impressive number of film credits behind and in front of the camera during his Hong Kong years, Wu’s work is well known to Chinese audiences. These projects include the fantasy romance “The Bride with White Hair II” (“Bai Fa Mo Nu Zhuan II”), the drama “Once a Black Sheep” (“Ca Mong Ving Xiong”) and the action comedy caper “Spy Games” (“Shong Ri Nan Bei He”), all of which he directed and co-wrote. Other directing credits include “From Zero to Hero” (“Luan Shi Chao Ren”), about a fighter pilot’s lifetime of war and peace. His projects have featured such internationally-known Chinese cinema stars as Chow Yun-Fat and Maggie Leong, among many others. Wu also has numerous credits as an editor and actor from his years of working in Hong Kong.
Once he moved to North America, Wu’s multiple talents as a filmmaker were quickly recognized and his credit list continued to grow. He teamed with longtime collaborator John Woo on his television series “Once a Thief,” as both director and editor. He directed the television movie/pilot of “Largo Winch,” the pilot/premiere episode of “Adventure Inc.,” working with producer Gale Ann Hurd and “The Shannon Lee Project” pilot for Carsey-Werner Productions. He has directed episodes of such television series as “Missing” (formerly known as “1-800 Missing”), “G-Spot,” “The Coven,” “Tracker,” “The Associates,” “Freedom,” “Relic Hunter” and “Power Play.” He also directed the television movie “Plague City” for Lions Gate/CTV. As he did during his Hong Kong years, Wu has also amassed numerous credits for his editing work on features and television projects. # # #
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MATTHEW O’CONNOR (Producer) - Veteran filmmaker Matthew O’Connor, whose credits include award winning feature films, television movies, miniseries and music videos, marks a decade of association with Robert Halmi, Sr. and RHI Entertainment with his production of “Son of the Dragon.” This latest miniseries began its early pre-production phase while O’Connor and Halmi, Sr. were collaborating on two miniseries shot back-to-back during the summer and fall of 2005 – the fantasy adventure “Merlin’s Apprentice” and the science-fiction thriller “Final Days of Planet Earth.” During his 25 years in the film industry, O’Connor has worked his way through the production ranks to become a leading producer and film executive. He is also a partner in the production and financing company Reunion Pictures.
With early credits as production manager and assistant director to his name, by the mid 1980’s O’Connor had formed Metro Pictures International, which produced music videos for Long John Baldry, Poisoned and numerous others performing artists. Metro won two West Coast music awards for best video and went on to produce a feature presentation for The Canadian Pavilion at Expo ’86 in Vancouver, B.C.
O’Connor later founded Pacific Motion Pictures (PMP), which became one of Canada’s largest and most respected motion pictures companies, producing more than 80 films with combined production budgets of $750 million. PMP later joined forces with other entertainment powerhouses to form Sextant Entertainment Group, a diversified media group in Vancouver B.C., where O’Connor spent two years as president of Sextant before becoming Chairman of the Board of Directors. Having produced more than 100 hours of long form television, O’Connor’s projects have garnered numerous award nominations and wins. He received the prestigious Peabody Award for the television movie “The Baby Dance” (1998), produced in partnership with Jodie Foster’s Egg Pictures. His television movies and miniseries have garnered him nominations for the Emmys ®, Golden Globes ®, Genies ® (Canadian Oscars) and Gemini Awards ® (Canadian Emmys). In 2003, O’Connor won the Gemini for Best Television Movie/Miniseries for the docudrama “100 Days in the Jungle.”
The first collaboration between O’Connor and Hallmark Entertainment was the television movie “Captains Courageous,” starring Robert Urich in 1996. O’Connor was nominated for a Gemini Award ® for producing and the project won in the categories of costume design and photography. “Son of the Dragon” marks the twelfth project O’Connor has produced with Robert Halmi, Sr. and was his first experience of filming in mainland China. Earlier miniseries and television movies collaborations for O’Connor and Halmi, Sr. include ”Earthsea,” “Dreamkeeper,” “The Colt,” “Snow White: The Fairest of Them All,” “Aftershock: Earthquake in New York,” “Voyage of the Unicorn” and “Snow Queen.”
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In the area of theatrical features, O’Connor has produced films for such major studios as Columbia Pictures, Metro Goldwyn Mayer and Tri-Star. “Magic in the Water,” a fantasy adventure starring Mark Harmon and Joshua Jackson won Genie Awards ® in sound and cinematography. Other films include “Kiss the Sky,” starring William Petersen and Gary Cole, the comedy thriller “Masterminds,” with a cast headed by Patrick Stewart, the romantic drama “Bliss,” starring Craig Sheffer, Sheryl Lee and Terence Stamp and “A Boy Called Hate,” starring James Caan and Elliott Gould.
As he did when producing “Merlin’s Apprentice” and “Final Days of Planet Earth” last year, O’Connor again has back-to-back projects with Halmi, Sr. and RHI Entertainment. Another China-based adventure miniseries, “Marco Polo,” began production only weeks after principal photography wrapped on “Son of the Dragon.”
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MICHAEL O’CONNOR (Producer) - Michael O’Connor is a 30-year veteran of the entertainment business, with a wide range of experience that has carried him well into becoming one of Vancouver’s most sought after producers. His collaboration with executive producer Robert Halmi, Sr. and RHI Entertainment on the ”Son of the Dragon” miniseries marks the eighth time they have worked together. The pre-production phase on the project began while O’Connor and Halmi, Sr. were collaborating on two miniseries shot back-to-back during the summer and fall of 2005 -- the fantasy adventure “Merlin’s Apprentice” and the science- fiction thriller “Final Days of Planet Earth.”
O’Connor began his career in the art department of numerous acclaimed theater and film productions and went on to become one of the top set decorators in western Canada. His credits in this area include the Oscar ® winning dramas “The Accused,” starring Jodie Foster and “Children of a Lesser God,” starring Marlee Matlin and William Hurt. He worked on a number of feature films, television series and movies for television, including “Knight Moves,” “Palace Guard,” “Dead Ahead: The Exxon Valdez Disaster,” “Sin and Redemption” and “Don’t Talk to Strangers.” For his work as set decorator on TriStar’s adventure fantasy feature “Magic in the Water,” starring Mark Harmon and Joshua Jackson, O’Connor was nominated for a Genie Award ® (Canadian Oscars).
By the mid 1990’s, O’Connor made the transition into producing, starting as an associate producer on the comedy thriller feature “Masterminds,” with a cast headlined by Patrick Stewart. He began building a reputation for his expertise in post-production, particularly those with complex visual effects. His first project with Robert Halmi, Sr. was serving as post-
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production supervisor on “Snow White: The Fairest of the Them All.” As a producer, O’Connor’s other collaborations with Halmi, Sr. include the miniseries “Earthsea,” “Voyage of the Unicorn,” “Aftershock: Earthquake in New York” and “Snow Queen.” The various projects O’Connor has produced over his 30 years in the industry have garnered numerous Emmy ®, Genie ® and Gemini ® (Canadian Emmys) nominations.
As he did when producing “Merlin’s Apprentice” and “Final Days of Planet Earth” last year, O’Connor is once again producing back-to-back miniseries with Halmi, Sr. and RHI Entertainment. Another China-based adventure, “Marco Polo,” began production only weeks after principal photography wrapped on “Son of the Dragon.”
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SHAN TAM (Producer) - Born in Hong Kong and living in Canada, producer Shan Tam has been active in film and television on both sides of the Pacific for two decades. Her work has earned her multiple awards and numerous nominations. “Son of the Dragon” marks her first collaboration with RHI Entertainment, executive producers Robert Halmi, Sr., Robert Halmi, Jr. and producers Matthew O’Connor and Michael O’Connor.
Tam recently produced Julia Kwan’s inaugural feature, “Eve and the Fire Horse,” which was awarded a Special Jury Prize at the Sundance Film Festival. The film has also appeared at other festivals throughout the world and has won several other awards.
A solid working relationship with Asian producers afforded Tam the opportunity to produce the first feature co-production between Canada and Hong Kong, “Young Offenders,” in 1993. She also produced the second co-production between the two nations with the feature “Lunch With Charles.” The film garnered a Genie Award ® (Canadian Oscars) nomination and won three Leo Awards ® (awarding excellence in film and television for projects produced in British Columbia). For producing the one-hour documentary ”Made In China,” Tam was the recipient of the Canada Award at the 16 th annual Gemini Awards ® (Canadian Emmys). She also recently produced the documentaries “Call It Karma” and “Hong Kong Express,” both shot primarily in Asia.
Tam continues to promote film cultures across the Pacific. She was on the advisory committee for Telefilm Canada and BC Film to develop Canada Asia co-productions. In 1999, she organized a Canadian Film Showcase which sold-out at the Shanghai International Film Festival. Tam co- organized two national tours of the Chinese Film Festival and served as a committee member for the Chinese Cultural Centre organizing their annual film festival.
Over the years, Tam has line produced a number of international film productions, including Uwe Boll’s upcoming epic fantasy “Dungeon Siege,” Jackie Chan’s blockbuster movie “Rumble In The Bronx” and Andy Lau’s “Savior of the Soul II.” She has worked with such acclaimed film
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talent as Michelle Yeoh, Chow Yun-Fat, Yuen Wo-Ping and Cory Yuen. Her projects have taken her to numerous countries in Europe, Asia, North and Central America.
Tam continued her collaboration with RHI Entertainment and the “Son of the Dragon” producing team on another dramatic adventure miniseries, “Marco Polo.” Principal photography began only weeks after production wrapped on “Dragon.”
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JACQUELINE FEATHER (Writer) - Having compiled a number of television movies and animated feature film credits co-written with partner David Seidler, “Son of the Dragon” marks the first time Jacqueline Feather has worked with RHI Entertainment. The project is also her first television miniseries.
Feather’s credits, all co-written with Seidler, began with the television movie “Malice in Wonderland.” Based on the book by George Eells, the project depicted the famous feud between gossip queens Louella Parsons and Hedda Hopper during Hollywood’s golden era and starred Elizabeth Taylor and Jane Alexander. Her next project was the television biopic “Onassis: The Richest Man in the World,” based on the book by Peter Evans; starring Anthony Quinn in the title role and co-starring Jane Seymour, Raul Julia and Francesca Annis. Among her other television movie projects are the war drama “My Father, My Son,” starring Keith Carradine and Karl Malden, “Who’s Child is This?,” “The War For Baby Jessica,” based on a true story and starring Susan Dey, David Keith and Amanda Plummer, “Dancing in the Dark,” starring Victoria Principal, “Goldrush: A Real Alaskan Adventure,” starring Alyssa Milano and Bruce Campbell, “Time To Say Goodbye,” a family drama starring Eva Marie Saint and Richard Kiley, the military drama “Lies He Told,” starring Gary Cole and “By Dawn’s Early Light,” starring Richard Crenna and David Carradine.
In the area of animated feature films, Feather and Seidler co-wrote “Quest for Camelot” (aka “The Magic Sword: Quest for Camelot”) and “The King and I,” based on the classic musical adaptation by writer Oscar Hammerstein II of the novel Anna and the King of Siam by Margaret Landon. The writing team also wrote the teleplay and story for the Italian television movie “Soraya.”
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DAVID SEIDLER (Writer) - Partnered with co-writer Jacqueline Feather, “Son of the Dragon” marks the first project David Seidler has written for RHI Entertainment. It is also the team’s first miniseries. In addition to a number of television movies and animated feature film credits co-written with Feather, Seidler also collaborated with Arthur Schulman to write the screenplay for the feature film, “Tucker: The Man and His Dreams.” Directed by Francis Ford Coppola and
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starring Jeff Bridges as the title character, the biographical film tells the story of maverick automaker Preston Tucker and his ultimately failed attempt to compete with the major auto companies.
Seidler’s credits, co-written with Feather began with the television movie “Malice in Wonderland.” Based on the book by George Eells, the project depicted the famous feud between gossip queens Louella Parsons and Hedda Hopper during Hollywood’s golden era and starred Elizabeth Taylor and Jane Alexander. His next project was the television biopic “Onassis: The Richest Man in the World,” based on the book by Peter Evans; starring Anthony Quinn in the title role and co-starring Jane Seymour, Raul Julia and Francesca Annis. Among his other television movie projects are the war drama ”My Father, My Son,” starring Keith Carradine and Karl Malden, “Who’s Child is This?,” The War For Baby Jessica,” based on the true story and starring Susan Dey, David Keith and Amanda Plummer, “Dancing in the Dark,” starring Victoria Principal, “Goldrush: A Real Alaskan Adventure, starring Alyssa Milano and Bruce Campbell, “Time To Say Goodbye,” a family drama starring Eva Marie Saint and Richard Kiley, the military drama “Lies He Told,” starring Gary Cole and ”By Dawn’s Early Light,” starring Richard Crenna and David Carradine.
In the area of animated feature films, Feather and Seidler co-wrote “Quest for Camelot” (aka “The Magic Sword: Quest for Camelot”) and “The King and I,” based on the classic musical adaptation by writer Oscar Hammerstein II of the novel Anna and the King of Siam by Margaret Landon. The writing team also wrote the teleplay and story for the Italian television movie “Soraya.”
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