Cineclick Asia has announced top-tier casting locked for two of its pre-sales films, Kim Ji-woon's The Good, the Bad, and the Weird and Yim Pil-sung's Hansel and Gretel, both from new production house Barunson.

Cannes director Kim Ji-woon's film has three top-of-the-line stars to play the main heroes in the Sergio Leone-inspired Oriental Western: Song Kang-ho, from blockbuster The Host, Lee Byung-hoon from Kim's previous Cannes entry A Bittersweet Life, and Jung Woo-sung from Musa: The Warrior.

Jung will play the good guy, a bounty hunter; while Lee will take the role of the bad guy, a hired gun- and swordsman; and Song will play the weird guy, a train robber who rides a motorcycle instead of a horse.

The three men are outlaws on the Manchurian plains during the early 20th century - when Korea was occupied by Japan.

The $10m film is set to shoot in China for two months starting in April. Delivery is planned for early 2008.

'These are top Asian stars, and Song and Lee have also had films released widely in Europe. This is definitely not casting limited to an audience in Asia,' says Young-joo Suh, managing director at Cineclick.

The company is handling a second Barunson production, Hansel and Gretel, by Im Pil-sung (Antarctic Journal).

Chun Jung-myung (The Aggressives) has signed on to play an adult kidnapped by a house of children who are cursed never to grow up. They roam the streets looking for appropriate parents, but kill them off whenever they start to dislike them.

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