Curtis Lum Leads Zombie Comedy New Diamond Restaurant
Curtis Lum will lead New Diamond Restaurant as Aaron Chan, with the independent horror-comedy now in production in British Columbia, as reported by Deadline.
Lum plays Aaron Chan. He returns home to tell his father he no longer wants to take over the family restaurant. A zombie outbreak strikes before the conversation is finished, trapping the family inside.
The film blends zombie horror, action and family comedy, according to Deadline. It is set in Saint-Legal, a fictional prairie town. That small-town dining room becomes the centre of the fight to survive.
The Chan family around Aaron includes Vincent Cheng, Phoebe Miu, writer-director Milton Ng and Alannah Ong. Aleks Paunovic, Morgan Taylor Campbell and Lochlyn Munro also star, as reported by Deadline.
Ng wrote and directed the film, his first feature as a director. He is producing alongside Mike Morrison, while Lum takes an executive producer credit, a senior role that usually combines creative input with support for the production. Co-producers Jessica Ally, Jared Cheer, Natasha Jung and Paolo Valdes are on board through Dear Hero Studios / New Diamond Film Inc.
The production is backed by Telefilm Canada and Creative BC, the national and provincial screen funders. Photon Films will distribute the film in Canada, meaning it will handle its cinema release there, according to Deadline.
For Lum, the role comes alongside network television work. He has joined ABC's The Rookie: North, as reported by Deadline. That series extends the long-running American police drama to a Canadian setting.
What makes this stand out is the combination. A family argument about inheritance turns into a siege story, with wok kitchens and dining tables as the barricades. The film's own page bills it as "Food Family Survival", and Ng has been documenting the build to the shoot in a vlog series, according to posts on Instagram and Facebook.
